Free The Moon by Night by Madeleine L'Engle

year.”
    â€œHold it,” John said. “Let’s have no quibbling, sibling. You’re a cute kid, and the trouble is I was just feeling protective about you.” He got up, yawned, and stretched. “Before I get into any more trouble around here I’d better hit the hay.”
    â€œLet Vicky go first,” Mother said. “Suzy’s waiting for her to go up to the lavatory.”
    Even with our flashlights it was dark on the path when Suzy
and I went up to wash, and Suzy was sleepy, and cross because I’d gone off with Zachary and kept her waiting for so long. The lav itself was pretty well lit, not like the other camps where there hadn’t been any lights at all, and we stood side by side brushing our teeth.
    â€œFor heaven’s sake, Vicky,” Suzy growled, “what were you doing all the time with that spazz. Making out?”
    â€œWe were talking,” I said, stiffly.
    â€œI bet,” Suzy said, and spat. She was using chlorophyl toothpaste, so she spat green.
    â€œWhen you’re old enough to know what you’re talking about you’ll have more right to shoot your mouth off,” I said.
    Suzy spat greener and bigger.
    I finished brushing my teeth, washed my face, and stared in the mirror. I contemplated putting my hair up, but I’d just washed and set it for the wedding, and it keeps its set pretty well between washings, so I was afraid I’d get too many comments.
    â€œQuit staring at yourself and come along,” Suzy said.
    â€œI’m not ready yet.”
    â€œThen I’m going without you.”
    â€œOkay, go ahead.” I didn’t really think she’d go into that dark without me, but she swished on out in a huff, and left me there. I looked at myself in the mirror for a while longer, longer than I really felt like it, because I didn’t want Suzy to think I was running after her. Then I left the bright wash-room and went out into the night. The path was tree-hooded and dark, and the trees still dripped when the wind blew them. The tent seemed much further off than it had when I’d walked up the path with
Suzy, and all my flashlight did was make the shadows move, and they were moving enough anyhow in the wind.
    Suddenly, out of the corner of my eye, sort of beyond my left shoulder, I saw something dark moving towards me.

Six
    A t first I thought it was one of the hoods, but then I realized that it was an animal, and I wasn’t sure which was worse. I stood still in a panic, then made myself swing around and turn my flashlight in the direction of whatever it was. Whatever it was hadn’t waited for me, but was disappearing into the darkness of the woods. I pelted the rest of the way down the leafy path to the tent.
    â€œVicky, what on earth’s the matter?” Mother asked as I plunged in and went sprawling onto John’s sleeping bag.
    â€œI saw a bear!”
    â€œNonsense,” Daddy said.
    â€œBut I did!”
    â€œIt might have been a woodchuck or a raccoon.” Daddy spoke in his most reasonable voice. “Not a bear.”
    â€œWoodchucks and raccoons don’t stand on two legs, and they aren’t as big as people. I thought it was one of those JDs at first, but it wasn’t, it was an animal.”

    Rob sat up in his sleeping bag excitedly. “I want to see the bear! Where was it, Vicky?”
    â€œNear the lavatories.”
    â€œIt was not a bear,” Daddy repeated. “Let’s read our chapter and get to sleep, kids. Tomorrow we cross Tennessee.”
    Mother read to us, and then we said prayers. I kept my voice very low. I could imagine Zachary laughing.
    Suzy and Rob went right to sleep as usual, but I was wide awake. I lay rolled up in my sleeping bag and thought about Zachary and the strange way he’d talked. He wasn’t a bit like any of the boys I knew in Thornhill. In the first place he was older than the kids in my grade, the ones I knew really