“Big deal,” Arthur scoffed. “Our whole class is having a free party there in a few weeks, and we even get the park to ourselves for an hour. I bet you can’t beat that.”

           Marianne’s face turned red and she exclaimed, “What?! That’s not fair! I… Ahem. I mean, even if my prize won’t work—as well—on those from your class, I hope you’ll still try your hardest. I really want us to win, okay? Oh, and tomorrow’s the big cornhole game. If it’s like last year, they make everyone play. So you all need to play well.”

           Wessy gagged. “Oh, yuck. I don’t want to play something called cornhole.”

           Arthur laughed as Marianne replied, “Grow up, Wesley. It’s a beanbag toss. You’ve probably already played a dozen times in your life. Honestly.” Before she left, she eyed Jace’s patchwork bird figurine and, surprisingly, said, “Nice work, Jason. Keep it up.”

           She walked off, but not before Kyle—who had overheard her whole “try hard” spiel, smiled and mockingly showed her his lazy effort: a recreation of Nickelodeon’s Stick Stickly, the popsicle-stick summer block host. She groaned and side-stepped him.

           Robby was also nearby, and took a break from his USS Enterprise starship stick replica to audibly mutter, “I can’t believe I sort of liked her in third grade.”

           “Yeah, what happened with that, Romeo?” Wessy chuckled.

           Robby scowled and grumbled, “Shut up, Wesley.”

           Unfortunately for those that had no interest in the topic, talk of possible young like-like situations continued sporadically all day and up to dinner in the mess hall. Once Jace and Wessy had received their Friday night hot dogs and beans from Ms. Marsdale, they brought their metal trays to the table where the gang, plus Millie, were sitting. And it started right up again, this time initiated by Celeste, which was unexpected.

           “Delilah and Hutch I could see, after spending some time with ‘em,” she told the others. “I saw a few possibles among the Millers, but here’s one that’s really obvious.” She eyed Colin, who was looking over at December again. “Colin! Talk to her, bro!”

           Startled, he turned to his friends and replied, “Huh, what?”

           “The smart girl named after the best month—you obviously have feelings for her.”

           “Are we still on this?” Wessy groaned as he ketchupped his hot dog. “Cripes, it never ends. I hope middle school gossip isn’t just lovey-dovey junk.”

           “Aw, Wes,” Celeste leaned back in her chair and spoke coyly, “I bet you’re just jealous that I’m still the only girl who has ever held your hand.”

           Wessy blushed and exclaimed, “I thought we agreed to never talk about that!”

           After Sadie and Arthur let out snickers, Celeste added, “You can be grossed out all you want—and believe me, I don’t like public displays, either. But… you gotta admit, there is something interesting about seeing who’s interested in who.”

           Shipping, Jace thought blankly. We call this shipping in the future.

           “Celly does have a point, though, Colin,” Sadie noted. “December’s feeling down about things. I bet she’d love to talk to you, even just as a friend, you know?”

           “What about Tam and Trudy?” Ash mentioned, leaving Colin thankful that she was sidetracking talk about him. “They must’ve been on the verge of kissing for years.”

           “Ash, girls can’t kiss each other,” Millie replied. “… Um, right?”

           Arthur shrugged and said, “Our mom likes to talk about the 60s sometimes. I guess it was kind of an ‘anything goes’ decade where, maybe, that actually happened?”

           Wessy grumbled again, “Can we talk about anything else right now?”

           They tried to appease him, they really did—but it only took a few minutes for the subject matter to shift from favorite wilderness movies back to the innocent attempts at finding sweethearts in the past. And it led to Celeste talking about the hand-holding she had spotted at Miller over the years, even including a few of those cheek-pecks.

           “Anyway,” Sadie looked over at Bailey, who was struggling to get a TV and VCR on a rolling cart working, “weekends are when we watch movies in the dining hall. We could take bets on what we’re gonna see. They only have six videotapes here total.”

           “And they’re all worn out and from the 80s,” Colin added. “My guess is it’s either Last Starfighter or Willy Wonka, since Bailey seems like the kind of guy that likes ‘em.”

           “Talk to ya for a sec?” Millie said as she stood up and pulled on Jace’s sleeve.

           The others noticed the two walking away together, and given what was fresh in their minds, it was just a race to see who would break out an undesired comment first.

           “Oooh, what do we have goin’ on here?” Ash said, but only half-seriously.

           “Don’t even,” Millie shot her down, and brought Jace near the trash cans.

           “What’s up, Mill?” Jace asked her. “Something about Wes and Sadie?”

           “Nah. I’m watching them, like you asked, but trust me, there’s nothing going on there. Jared always could be a little paranoid. I got something to say to you.” She got in close, making him nervous. “You totally ‘dig’ Ash, don’t you?”

           He instantly went red in the face and sighed, “Is it that obvious…?”

           “I’ve seen how you look at her. All year. But camp is short. You’re running out of time for, ya know…” She smooshed her cheeks together and made smooching noises.

           “Millie, don’t be gross! I’m not going to… I c-can’t even ask. Besides, I won’t be around much longer. I’d just upset her if she thinks we could… be a thing.”

           “True, maybe. But what you probably don’t know is that she’s talked about you. Thinks you’re a nice, smart guy who helped a lot of kids with their problems.”

           “Wait, seriously? She said all that? To who? I’ve never heard…”

           “What, don’t trust me? C’mon, you know my info’s usually solid. She’s mentioned you when chatting with girls from other classes on the old playground. Look, you know I don’t care much about lovey-dovey junk, but if you do want to get a kiss here, then now’s your chance. Just ‘cause it won’t work long term, doesn’t make it pointless.”

           Jace looked at Ash, then back to Millie and replied, “I mean, if she asks, I won’t say no… Um, by the way. Warren’s been creeping around camp, just FYI.”

           “So you’ve seen him, too.” Millie crossed her arms and looked over to see Robby now helping Bailey set up the TV. “Eh, I don’t mind a guardian ninja. I bet he’ll be a match for a certain other Jason when he eventually shows up to wreak havoc.”

           On Fridays and Saturdays, camp went another hour into the night, and it was spent at the sandstone brick amphitheater, lit by a contained fire. Counselors—and kids with written, pre-approved stories—took turns sharing their spooky tales on the center stage as the year’s eighty other campers listened with different degrees of interest.

           Some of the less creative types just gave an abridged version of a classic X-Files, Tales from the Crypt, or Are You Afraid of the Dark? episode. But Felicity, scary as she could naturally be, had brought her own nightly tale of terror that was delivering some frights.

           “So, Suzie, used to being dragged out to the big, bright mall by her friends and surrounded by colorful seasonal tops, looked at her last survive…” she trailed off as Bailey did his ‘tone it down’ hand gesture for the umpteenth time. She groaned and corrected herself, “Her last not-captured friend, Veronica—the cheerleader, if you forgot. Suzie’s house, drenched in the dark of a stormy night during a neighborhood blackout, had never felt so threatening. Since the sleepover of doom started—surely the worst she ever had—all of her friends had been brutally… snatched by the Grabber, who moved in the shadows with his long, flexible arms, his bones creaking every time he reached out and dragged another girl into the depths of the large, and very chic family estate.

           “Amy, who just wanted to be a professional golfer. Nicole, two days away from going to Los Angeles to be a supermodel. And poor Jasmine. Make-up college had lost one of its best and brightest. But Suzie still had a plan, being the intellectual, the one who wrote poetry and thought deeply on the world. As she watched the Grabber’s arms come out and wrap around Veronica, she put it into action. Veronica screamed and begged her best, very-critical-of-the-world friend to help her. That’s when Suzie took out the Necronomicon, which she'd single-handedly deciphered, and cast the banishing spell on the Grabber while it was distracted. A portal to, uh, heck opened up under him, and he was dragged into the underworld by all of his previous victims.” She looked at Bailey and reluctantly added, “Then Suzie found all her friends tied up in the basement and freed them. They were mostly fine and all got really good therapy. The end.”

           “Ooh, spooky, Felicity!” Bailey said as she took her seat and received a smattering of applause. “Okay, my turn! I’ll end things with a bit of a doozy for all of you.”

           “This’ll be a laugh,” Arthur told the guys. “What’s it gonna be? The Scary Puppy?”

           “Heh,” Wessy chuckled, “y-yeah, or he’ll scare himself so bad he can’t finish it.”

           “Now, here’s a story my grandpa used to tell me,” Bailey began. “It’s about not showing respect to the land that we all intrude upon, and the lingering whispers of the ancient deities that first laid their corrupt curses onto the old rock and decay…”

           Min, standing near Bailey, raised an eyebrow, while Millie, a row ahead, leaned in and could be heard saying, “Oh, this could actually be good.”

           “They say that on nights like these, among the old growth forests—like this one—the natural elements all come together to weaken the veil separating our world from the one of chaos and despair, where the spirits of the old ones drift about in malformed, twisted shapes, waiting for a chance to extend one of their impure tendrils into our realm and tear reality asunder. And would you believe that there are people out there foolish or curious enough to summon such a being? Well, someone did try…”

           The campers had fallen into silence as more and more of them listened intently, including Jace. That focus caused him to get startled when he felt a pebble hit his shoulder—though luckily, no one noticed him jumping in his seat. He looked back and saw Warren in the woods, partially behind a tree. He was waving him over.

           Reluctant to leave the glow of the fire and venture into the woods, Jace slowly got up and went over to meet with Warren properly for the first time during camp.

           “Enjoying the stories?” the ninja boy asked him, Bailey’s voice still just barely audible. “None of them compare to what I’ve seen of the Time Daemon…”

           “Please don’t tell me that thing’s lurking around here,” Jace said with a shiver.

           “Nah. It’s been quiet for a while. I’m worried about the time squad. They’ve been getting aggressive in their case against the three of us. But are you doing okay out here?”

           “Yeah… Yeah, it’s fine. Kind of a break from everything. Is Wes all right?”

           “I kept an eye on him all of the two weeks. Saved him a few times from the cops without him noticing. My jammers still work; they haven’t found the cottage yet. Then I went back to watch over you on and off, skipping about to shorten babysitting duty.”

           “You really must put in a lot of hard work to keep us safe, Warren.”

           “About time someone appreciates it. But, I shouldn’t need to do it much longer. Truth is, Jace, I got you to go here just so you guys could be separated for a bit—so the time police can’t do something to both of you at the same time.”

           “Am I safe?” Jace asked and worryingly looked around in the dark woods.

           “Probably. They’re more interested in Wes, for sure. I just wanted to let you know what was going on. The last few weeks of this whole thing might get rough…”

           “You haven’t looked ahead yet?”

           “I think it’d be better if we stuck together towards the end.” His exo-arm-free hand in his pants pocket, Warren took a few steps forward and looked down into the amphitheater from the shadows. With a sigh, he shared a surprising reminiscence. “I went to this camp one year. It was with a… very good friend of mine. It was… fun.”

           “Warren? You holding up okay?”

           He shook his head. “Just tired. That’s all, Jace. You can head back now.”

           Though concerned for his protector, Jace nodded and began his walk back. He soon heard a faint whoosh and turned around to see, in typical ninja fashion, that Warren had vanished. He retook his seat to hear how Bailey’s surprisingly scary tale ended.

           “… It would have been bad enough if Ned and the other frontiersmen had gotten their summoning correct. Even worse to get it wrong. Their attempt to bring about ancient abominations to wipe out the native population turned against them, and yet Ned thought the tendrils’ touch, that had horribly mutated and warped his group, could not follow him out of those old woods. He saw the candlelight of his cabin, ran inside, and shut the door, thinking he was surely safe. That the long, bloody night was over.

           “Little did he know, the monster on the other side was now out, and could follow him anywhere in the world. A dark gulf opened across the cabin floor, pulling him and his entire home into an abyss from which there was no escape. Only endless torment. So, beware the forest at night, and show it respect… The end! Sleep tight, campers!”

           Crickets and glazed-over eyes were the majority reaction to the tale, scary enough for Jace even though he missed much of it, until Hutch let out an audible, “… Jesus.”

           “Definitely Lovecraft-inspired,” Felicity approved. “Not bad.”

           It was then that Jace felt something on his shoulder. Thinking it was Warren at first, he looked over to see a big spider crawling about. He shrieked and batted it away, drawing the attention of many campers. Then the spider came swinging back—because it was really just a rubber arachnid on a string, attached to a stick held by Sadie.

           Ash laughing nearby, Sadie smiled deviously and said, “Told ya I’d get you back.”

           Jace sighed as he composed himself. At least I don’t have to worry about that anymore.