ran through her thoughts. She tried to shrug off the ominous feeling in the pit of her stomach that he could be right. “But no more pillow fights,” she announced to the group. “Something will get broken or somebody will get hurt. Quiet time is to be quiet from now on. Got that?”
The girls nodded glumly as they folded clothes and put things away.
“Okay then, ladies, finish cleaning up this mess and line up so we can go for our geocaching adventure.” The girls stopped what they were doing and looked at her strangely.
“Line up?” Anne voiced the question they obviously were all thinking.
“You sound like Mr. Rick!” Becca laughed.
Oh, no, that was one comparison Summer wouldn’t allow to go any deeper.
Hopscotching her way back toward the door, she made a game of leaping over the items remaining on the floor. “The first person to get her area clean and neat and get in line gets to carry the GPS.” She held up the small, computerized compass containing the coordinates for the treasure they would seek today.
As the girls’ actions became frenzied, she exchanged smiles with Tara.
Even cleaning the dorm and lining up could be made into a fun game with the right incentive.
Rick Warren would never be able to get that through his handsome but thick head.
* * *
WHEN THE CHANGE HAD OCCURRED, Summer wasn’t entirely sure. Had it been subtle, or had she just not been paying close enough attention, too caught up in watching Rick and not paying enough attention to her own charges?
Earlier she’d tried to dismiss the tightening in her gut caused by the pillow fight, telling herself it was leftover anxiety from the scene with Rick and Charlie.
But the feeling had returned at dinner with more intensity. The girls had run into the dining hall, pushing and shoving and jockeying to be in the front of the line. The boys had entered quietly a few minutes later, removing their caps as they entered the building and staying in perfect order as they thanked Ginny.
Throughout dinner, the girls had laughed loudly, even emitting a couple of shrieks just before Tara brought the soon-to-be food fight under control before it started.
A hum of low modulated voices had surrounded the boys’ table—nothing notable that stood out or called attention to their area.
Now, sitting around the fire pit, listening to Rick tell the story of Perseus and Andromeda, she kept telling herself the girls were having fun and the boys were miserable, only the boys didn’t look miserable. The truth be told, everybody else seemed to be having a fantastic time. Why was she feeling so miserable?
“But Queen Cassiopeia—” Rick outlined the W-shaped constellation with his flashlight beam “—had angered the goddesses by bragging about how much more beautiful she was than they were. So as punishment, she spends part of every year sitting in her chair, but turned upside down so she’s on her head.”
The kids laughed and applauded Rick’s story. Teaching them Greek mythology and astronomy at the same time was a great idea. Summer wished she’d thought of it.
“Can we do this every night?” Lucy asked.
“Not every night,” Rick answered. “But we can do it several more times. There are a lot of stories up there in the night sky.”
Reggie raised his hand and Rick pointed to him. “Are we ever gonna get to have a campfire, Mr. Rick?”
Rick laughed and shrugged. “If we ever get a rain, it might cool things off enough to have a campfire. So far, the nights have been too hot and things are too dry to risk it. We’ll have to wait and see.”
“If we do get to have a fire, we’ll make s’mores,” Summer promised.
Ginny showed up with a large tray of the cookies the girls had made and announced, “Snack time.”
Summer watched, horrified, as the girls stampeded Ginny like a herd of wild elephants. They snatched and grabbed at cookies as though they hadn’t had a meal in days.
“Girls!” Summer shouted, but they were too busy shoving to be next in line to pay her much attention. She moved toward the horde. “Girls, mind your manners!”
A cookie got knocked out of someone’s hand, and it came hurtling toward Summer. She instinctively ducked and stumbled backward. Something hard caught her at midcalf, causing her to lose her balance. She fell backward and to the side, landing with a soft thud on her hip, directly in the middle of the cold fire pit.