Of course, Toby loved being a Cub Scout. He loved wearing his blue-and-gold uniform to the after-school meetings every Wednesday. He was doggedly working his way through the wolf book, bringing it to her to sign after he finished each task and proudly supervising the addition to his uniform of each bead and patch that he earned. Toby was the ideal scout, and Lucy felt guilty that she couldn’t be the ideal den mother.

She did help out from time to time, and when she did she always took two aspirins before the meeting. No matter how much time she spent planning activities and projects, it never took the boys more than five or ten minutes to lose interest. Then came the choruses of “We’re bored” and “What’s next?” As far as Lucy could tell, all the boys really wanted to do was wrestle with each other and pick on Stubby Phipps, who, they all agreed, was a nerd. Oh, well, she sighed, maybe today would be different.

Leaving her mother in charge of Sara and Elizabeth, Lucy was waiting in the elementary school cafeteria at two-thirty for den five to assemble.

“Where are we going today?” asked the boys.

“We’re going to hike up to Indian Rock,” she announced enthusiastically.

“A hike. . . .”

“I’m too tired.”

“We’ll never make it, it’s too far.” They groaned in protest.

“You sound more like Girl Scouts than Cub Scouts,” Lucy teased.

“But what about a snack?” demanded Stubby. “Aren’t we going to have a snack?”

“No snack!” Den five was dismayed.

“I’ve heard a rumor that an old Indian, the last of the Sockatumee tribe, may have left a peace offering at Indian Rock.”

“What? What tribe?”

“Haven’t you heard of the Sockatumees?” Lucy asked incredulously. “Don’t you know their secret word?”

“What secret word?” Toby was suspicious.

“I’ll teach it to you. Repeat after me. Oh!”

“Oh.”

“Oh-wa.” Lucy waited.

“Oh-wa,” repeated the boys reluctantly.

“Oh-wa-ta,” said Lucy, drawing out each syllable.

“Oh-wa-ta,” the boys intoned.

“Oh-wa-ta-foo.” Lucy smiled.

“Oh-wa-ta-foo,” repeated the boys.

“Oh-wa-ta-foo-lie.” Lucy restrained the urge to giggle and kept her voice low, stretching each syllable out as long as she could.

The boys repeated after her, “Oh-wa-ta-foo-lie,” really beginning to get in the spirit of magic Indian words.

“Oh-wa-ta-foo-lie-yam,” droned Lucy, and the boys shouted back:

“Oh-wa-ta-foo-lie yam!”

Lucy beamed at them. “Now, say it faster.”

“Oh, what a fool I am!” they screamed.

“Gotcha!” said Lucy.

“You tricked us,” Toby reproached her.

“I didn’t spend five summers at Camp Wah-wah-tay-see for nothing,” Lucy confided, leading the boys out the door and across the baseball field, where the trail to Indian Rock began. “Now, let’s see who’ll be the first to reach Indian Rock.”