I decided to make the best of it. On the sidewalk, Jake climbed up on the bench, and I did, too. Since we were basically at the corner of the giant rectangle of people that was the fair, we had a decent aerial view. Jake and I both took a few pictures before I hopped down, randomly shooting into the crowd from a different angle, like Karly had told us to.

“Make sure your subject is in focus,” Karly said, appearing behind me, startling me. “And, Jake?” she said. “Are you doing okay?”

“I’m fine,” Jake said flatly before gesturing in my direction. “This girl is my partner.”

I wasn’t offended that Jake hadn’t remembered my name. My sister sometimes didn’t remember people’s names either, people she’d been in class with all year or seen regularly.

Karly smiled at me. “It’s nice that you two are working together.”

“Thanks,” I said. She left to check on other campers.

“Can I take a picture of you?” I asked.

“Yes,” Jake said, jumping down from the bench with a thunk and standing in front of me so the empty part of the street was behind him.

“Will you move over here, actually?” I asked, half expecting him to say no, but he moved so the crowd was behind him.

I looked through the viewfinder and pictured the invisible gridlines, then positioned Jake’s right eye where I imagined the upper right intersection would be. I twisted the lens back and forth until Jake’s face seemed to be in focus. The crowd behind him was a blur of shapes and colors, just what Karly might consider “visual interest.”

I took a few shots of Jake standing there, not looking at me, probably thinking of mountain men and Native Americans or taking pictures of stars at night, seeming comfortable being just as he was.

With the camera in front of my face, adjusting dials I knew nothing about, snapping pictures I was sure would be blurry and unusable, I smiled even though Jake didn’t.

I wished I were a little more like him.

A little more comfortable as I was.

Back at camp, after lunch under the trees outside the library, we returned to the meeting room with the labyrinth floor. Karly explained that we’d go in three groups of eight to the library computers and look through our pictures, then choose one we liked the best to edit and have printed for our portfolios. The people who weren’t on the computers were supposed to start thinking about their “special projects.”