"There be monsters."
Tabitha stood over the map, a wild look in her eyes as her fingers drummed on that purple splotch just north of Lake Anatoga.
Rufus was frozen, his fork halfway between his plate and his open mouth.
"I told you that's what it said," Tabitha crowed, her voice wavering between a shout and a whisper. "And as sure as Cassandra's broccoli tastes like last week's dog food, that's what it says."
Fres was smiling. We looked at each other and started laughing. That was how Tabitha talked, and Tabitha was the only one who talked like that.
We were at Camp Winnatuka, and in two days we had to go home.
It was my first year at summer camp. Same for Fres. But Tabitha and Rufus had been coming here since they were in kindergarten.
Tabitha told us about the monsters on the very first day in the arts and crafts room, but nobody really believed her.
"There's a map to them," she promised us while she slopped bright purple paint on papier mache. "Evil seaweed, leaping sea bass and the biggest, meanest jelly fish you've ever seen. Sailors made the map, like infinity years ago."
"There's no such thing as monsters," Rufus said, carefully applying a coat of grey paint to his piñata.
"Then how come you wouldn't sleep in Cabin 17?" Tabitha asked.
"Ghosts are different," he snapped.
"No they aren't!"
"Yes they are!"
I tried to make my piñata look like a guitar, but no matter what I did it just kept looking like a big nose.
I asked to go to the bathroom and thought about how I got stuck in this place with no TV. I'd had all my video games packed when my mom told me to take them out.
"I don't mind carrying them, Mom," I said.
She told me not to worry because they had every single game at camp, including Spacewave 3 and Rover Explorer.
It turned out someone had taken Mom for a ride. Forget Spacewave 3, they didn't even have Spacewave 1 on this rock.
I didn't want to talk to anybody that first day, but when I came back from the bathroom to the arts and crafts room I saw Fres sitting in my chair.
"What are you doing?" I asked.
She jumped up and went back to her own chair.
"I just thought if you put strings there it would look more like a guitar," she said quietly.
I sat down and looked at my piece. It didn't look so much like a nose anymore.
"Thanks," I said.
Fres smiled.
On the other side of the table Tabitha and Rufus were still arguing.
"You're just mad because I saw the spectre in Cabin 17."
"You said it was a ghost," Tabitha accused.
"Same thing!"
"No it isn't!"
Tabitha looked at me. There was purple paint on her nose and one of her pigtails was undone.
"Your name's Henry, right?"
I nodded.
"Ghosts and spectres are the same thing, right?"
"Spectres have slime, ghosts don't," I told her.
Tabitha and Rufus went quiet for the first time all day and Fres smiled at me just a little bit.
From then on, I was part of the gang.
