She shrugged and picked up her pack. Now SHE was getting paranoid. It was that easy. It didn't take much. She started walking down on the road and soon she had put Enos and crazy Ralph and their ghost stories out of her mind. It was going to be a good summer. The peaceful quiet and beauty of the country. A placid lake. Camp fires and songs. And who knew? Maybe even a sweet, foxy hunk thrown in and she'd be getting paid for it. Nothing like a couple of months in the woods to get your head straight before you went back to the city and to school, to noise, cold and pollution and too many people in too small a place. One of these days, she would find out just the right place to settle down, but for now, she had nothing more complicated to look foreword to than cooking a few meals and kicking back at night to watch the stars or go skinny dipping in the lake.

She had walked perhaps two or three miles when she heard the sound of a car coming up behind her. She turned and smiled and stuck out her thumb. It was a Jeep, moving quickly down the road. It passed her without slowing down and she made a wry face. But then the driver hit the breaks and pulled to the side of the road. She hitched up her pack and ran to the Jeep. Things were looking up already! She'd probably catch a ride all the way up to the camp. She opened the door, shrugged out of her pack and tossed it in the back.

"Hi!" she said, smiling at the driver as she got in. "I'm going to Camp Crystal Lake."

The driver shifted into first and the wheels spun for a moment int the loose dirt on the shoulder, then found traction and the Jeep shot forward.

"I'm going to be on the staff up at the camp," she said, trying to make pleasant conversation. The driver remained silent. Annie shrugged. She knew that small town people didn't talk as much as city people but there was no harm in trying to be friendly.

"I guess I always wanted to work with children," she continued, "I hate it when people call them kids. Sounds like little goats," she grinned. No reaction from the driver.