“Yes, before Sam,” I said. Then I sat up and looked at Jasper. “I wonder if the neighbors still get together, once a month, but nobody calls us anymore.”

“That would be really unfair,” said Jasper. “But sometimes things are unfair.”

“Yeah. Yeah, they are. . . .”

I lay there for a minute and thought about that—about unfairness. And Sam. After a minute I said “Hey, Jasper? I think I’m ready.”

“For what?” said Jasper.

“To tell you about Sam. I think I want to tell you about it. About him. What happened. I haven’t told anybody. Not even my parents. I mean, they know what happened, but they don’t know the whole story. What I was thinking when . . . But I want to tell you. If you don’t mind. If you want to hear it?”

She swallowed. “Are you sure you want to tell it?” she asked.

Suddenly I was sure. Suddenly, it was like some aching hole was in me, like the damp dark night or the fires in the sky had changed everything. I wanted to tell Jasper what had happened. In fact, I didn’t think I could stop myself.

“Yes.”

“Okay,” she said in a whisper that told me she was ready. Or was trying to be. So I lay back down again on the other side of the lantern. I faced Jasper, took a deep breath.

“We were at camp,” I said. “It was the very last week of camp.”

The Whole Story

“We both started going to camp when we were eight,” I said. “Me first, and then Sam. It was a family tradition. My mom had gone to Camp Whippoorwill too, when she was eight, and her mom before her. So it was the fourth year for me, and only Sam’s second year.”

“What’s it like?” asked Jasper. “Camp, I mean.”

“Camp Whippoorwill is . . . good. Or it was for me, anyway. It was like I got to go there each year, for a whole month, and I wasn’t the regular version of Leah Davidson anymore. Like my camp friends knew this other version of me. Camp Leah was louder and more fun and she laughed more. Camp Leah would do things that Regular Leah wouldn’t, like water ski. I don’t know why. Camp Leah wore her hair in pigtails.”

“You’d look cute in pigtails,” said Jasper.

“Every year, I’d promise myself that when I got back home, I’d try to keep being Camp Leah. But it never worked. I’d walk into school that first day and turn back into Regular Leah. I’d put my hair in pigtails but then take them out again. And just be my usual self, trailing after Tess and trying not to be left out of things.”

“I think I get it,” said Jasper.