Free Hailey Twitch and the Campground Itch by Lauren Barnholdt

Bounce, bounce, bounce. That is the sound of me, Hailey Twitch, bouncing all around. And I am bouncing all around because it is a long weekend. Hello, long weekend! A long weekend is something that only comes along once in a while. It is when you get a Friday and a Monday off from school. It is like four whole days for the price of two. And that is some very good math.
    This long weekend is going to be the best long weekend ever invented. And that is because we are going to Lake Missoni! Lake Missoni is very fun. These are the reasons:
1.
We will sleep in a camper with a bed that pulls right out from the wall.
2.
There is a swimming pool and a beach. That is two kinds of swimming!
3.
There is a rec hall there with an ice-cream stand and an arcade and a basketball hoop.
4.
My friend Addie Jokobeck is getting special permission from her parents to go with me.
    Right now I am supposed to be packing up my clothes. I am supposed to be packing two swimming suits, two sweatshirts, three pairs of pajamas, and lots and lots of underwear. Plus, some socks and some shorts and some long pants. My magic sprite, Maybelle, is helping me.
    â€œNow, Maybelle,” I say. “Please go over there and bring me a pair of jeans out of my dresser.”
    Maybelle goes over to my dresser and tries to pull out those jeans. But it is very hard for her. That is because she is very small, about one foot tall! That is only the size of one ruler. Also, she has beautiful long blond hair and gorgeous sparkly wings, and I am the only one who can see her.

    Maybelle used to live in my dollhouse. She got sent to live there because she was not a very good sprite. She was not fun like sprites should be. So Mr. Tuttle, who is in charge of the Department of Magic, made her live in there as a punishment. But she got to come out! And that is not even the best part! The best part is that Mr. Tuttle gave Maybelle her magic back. And now she gets to try it out for two whole weeks. That is called getting a new responsibility to see if you are ready for it.
    So far I do not think Maybelle is ready for it. Yesterday we did a school play of The Gingerbread Princess, and Maybelle accidentally knocked over the whole gingerbread house. But that does not mean she should not keep trying. Practice makes perfect!
    But before Maybelle can try some magic on packing my suitcase, there is a knock on my bedroom door. And it is my mom.
    â€œOh, hello,” I say. “I am packing up just like you said.” I run and get those jeans right out of my dresser. Then I roll, roll, roll them up and then stuff, stuff, stuff them into my suitcase.
    â€œHailey, you cannot stuff your jeans into a ball.” She pulls them out of my suitcase and folds them nice and neat. And then my mom decides to tell me about something horrible. “Also, Maya Greenbert is coming to camp with us.”
    â€œI do not like this piece of news,” I tell her. “And I am maybe about to have a good tantrum about it.”
    â€œMaya is Kaitlyn’s friend,” my mom says, “and so she is welcome to come camping with us. You are bringing a friend. You are bringing Addie Jokobeck.” Kaitlyn is my sister. She is fourteen and thinks she is the boss of me.
    â€œYes,” I say. “But Addie Jokobeck is nice and smart and has wonderful smooth hair, andshe is not mean like Maya Greenbert.” I think about maybe telling my mom about how one time Maya Greenbert would not let me share her bubblegum lip gloss. Maya Greenbert said that I would have too many germs on my lips since I am only in the second grade. But my lips were clean as a whistle!
    â€œHailey,” my mom says. “Maya is not mean.”
    â€œYes, she is,” I whisper to Maybelle.
    â€œWhat’s so mean about her?” Maybelle whispers back real soft.
    â€œI will tell you a story about some lip gloss later.” I cannot tell her right now because my mom will hear me.

    â€œOkay, Hailey,”