Free Patiently Alice by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor Page A

were brought to our table with a big bowl of peanuts. The band was playing a country song, and couples in western dress were already whirling around out on the floor.
    “So how goes it?” Phil asked us over the music. “Think you can stick it out for two more weeks?”
    “As long as we get Fridays off,” Ross said.
    “Can the kids hold out? That’s the question,” said Tommie.
    “I think only a couple of kids have been sent home in the past couple of years,” said Sue. “Most kids are pretty tough.”
    “Besides, they’ll all want to go on the Kelpie Hunt,” said Phil, grinning mysteriously.
    “Yeah, what is that?” I asked. “I’ve seen it on the schedule.”
    “The Kelpie Hunt,” Phil said, “is what we do on the last night. It’s like a ghost walk. We’ll get them psyched up for this two weeks in advance, so they can work up their nerve. Nobody wants to admit he’s scared, so they all stick it out.”
    “What’s a kelpie?” I asked.
    Richard faked surprise. “You never heard of a kelpie?” I saw him wink at Phil. “Well,” he said. “I guess you’ll have to stick around and find out.”
    “Yeah,” said Craig. “We’ll give the girls a sneak preview.”
    Sue laughed. “They always do this,” she told us. “A camp tradition.”
    Something else to look forward to. I was really beginning to like Camp Overlook. I liked sitting here at a table with a bunch of new friends—old friends, too.
    When the music stopped, we saw people getting into position for line dancing. I’d never done any—I don’t know that Elizabeth or Pamela had either—but Elizabeth’s taken all kinds of dance lessons, and she can pick up almost any step. So there we were in three rows in the middle of the floor, sidestepping along and tapping our heels on the beat.
    To tell the truth, I never did figure out for sure what we were doing. I managed to pick up a simple step, which I repeated over and over as we moved across the floor. But half the fun was coming in a second late on the scuff or the stomp or the hop or the jump and laughing along with the others. When we finished one sequence, I found we’d turned and were facing a different direction.
    The seasoned line dancers put up with us good-naturedly, and when one of the fiddle players called out to me that I was doing fine, I knew immediately that I wasn’t. But I didn’t care, because some of the guys weren’t doing so hot either, and we cast each other funny, sympathetic glances. As the music went from “Whatcha Gonna Do with a Cowboy” to “I Feel Lucky,” and the dance changed from Cowboy Motion to the Freeze, I discovered that it didn’t much matter what I did as long as I could keep from bumping into someone. I was having a great time.
    G. E. had positioned himself next to Elizabeth, I noticed, and kept giving her a special smile whenever she looked in his direction. When the music stopped a second time and we took a break, he put one hand on her waist as they left the floor, guiding her back to our table, and I almost laughed out loud.
    All us girls trooped to the rest room then, and assoon as we got inside, Elizabeth said, “Somebody else has to dance next to Gerald next time.”
    “What’d he do? Paw you?” asked Doris.
    “No. He’s a clinger. Pamela, you dance next to him. He’ll be scared of you.”
    “Why?”
    “Just act normal. Make a pass at him. I’ll bet he’ll run for his life,” Elizabeth said.
    “I’ll bet he won’t.”
    “Extra-large Coke?” said Tommie. “I’m betting he will too. I’ll bet he’s the kind of guy who would be scared to death if a girl made the first move.”
    “Okay. If he doesn’t, what do I do?” said Pamela. “Who can I pass him off on?”
    “We’ll think of something,” said Doris.
    I began to feel sorry for G. E. Did guys think the same thing about girls who seemed as desperate? I wondered how I’d feel if a guy made a pass at me and I found out later it was on a dare. Still, Gerald