Lights Out! by Laura Dower Read Free Book Online Page B

like she’s queen of the wilderness.
    Madison stopped writing. Her eyes were getting heavy.
    She dozed off about two minutes later.
    The camp staff canceled the bird walk for the next morning, just like Mrs. Wing said, so everyone woke up early, dressed, and headed directly to the snack shack for breakfast. Madison and her friends pulled on their fleece jackets. The air was nippy. The ground was still a little wet, too, from the rain the night before.
    “How did you guys sleep?” Madison asked.
    “My sleeping bag smells,” Aimee complained. “It’s Billy’s and it stinks like feet. Sick, huh?”
    “I kept dreaming about that spider,” Fiona said, shuddering.
    “That was scary,” Madison said. “But the look on Ivy’s face was worth it.”
    “I think Ivy snores,” Aimee joked. “Or one of the drones does. I heard them in the middle of the night.”
    Fiona and Madison giggled.
    Farther along the path to breakfast, they ran into the boys. Fiona lit up when she saw Egg. Everyone walked into the snack shack together.
    The room was like a school cafeteria but with different decor: wood beams, screened-in windows, long wooden tables. There was no orange table like at FHJH, but the group found a place to sit. There were no chairs, either, just benches, which meant squeezing together.
    Madison jockeyed for position so she’d be near her crush. But Hart sat with Dan and Chet, not Madison. She was stuck between Aimee and Drew.
    “My brother Doug was here just two years ago and he said the food is gross,” Aimee said.
    “Everything is gross to you,” Madison teased.
    On the table was a stack of bowls and little mini-boxes of cereal like Chex and Special K. There were also pitchers of orange juice and water, and assorted fresh fruit.
    “What’s gross about cereal?” Madison asked. “Although I wish they had Honey Loops.”
    “Or Frosted Mini-Wheats,” Drew said, chomping on an apple.
    “Well, all of this doesn’t really matter anyhow,” Aimee went on. “Doug and Dean both told me that the activities they have us do are really fun. It’s like this total bonding experience for the seventh grade, especially climbing the Tower.”
    “The Tower scares me,” Madison admitted.
    “It’s not scary! Doug says we’ll all have a good time. Try it before you say anything bad,” Aimee said.
    “You sound like Mrs. Goode,” Drew said.
    “I do not ,” Aimee protested. “I’m only saying it because it’s true and it’s what my brothers said and they should know. I mean, what do YOU know about this place, Drew? Have you ever been here before?”
    “No,” Drew said simply. “I’ve been to camp, though, and this is just like camp everywhere. Don’t you think so, Maddie?”
    Madison smiled. “Sure,” she said.
    “But you’ve never been to camp, Maddie,” Aimee said.
    “Technically, no,” Madison said. She started to explain how she wished she had been to camp, but then the conversation took a left turn. Drew and Aimee got into an argument about what the K stood for in Special K.
    Madison glanced across the table at Hart, Dan, and Lindsay, who were having a three-way bubble-blowing contest in their small cups of milk. Chet looked like he was asleep; he was leaning on his hand to keep his head up. Egg and Fiona were talking. They looked like a couple, Madison thought. Or at least they looked like what Madison thought a couple should look like.
    “ATTENTION!” Mrs. Goode stood up at the front of the room, coffee cup in hand. “Good morning, boys and girls. Welcome to your first morning at Jasper Lodge. How did everyone sleep?”
    Half the kids cheered. The other half groaned.
    Madison whirled around to find Ivy and her drones. They were sitting a table away but at the other end of the room. Ivy saw Madison look and made a sour face. She was probably still fuming about the spider-in-the-bathroom incident.
    “Should we start the morning with a little stretch?” Coach Hammond asked. He was the FHJH gym