Dot smiled, wider than Muffin thought possible. “Oh, good! Well, I’m glad you’re okay!” She threw an arm around Muffin and began practically dragging her down the hill, toward the dining hall. It was made more awkward by their notable height difference-Muffin was at least half a foot taller than Dot. It was quite weird, how Dot was so insistent on befriending her.

Once they’d gotten to the dining hall, Muffin managed to detach herself from Dot. She found a seat next to Cricket-which she was quite thankful for, out of all of the CITs, Cricket was the quietest and least stressful to talk to. She seemed to go into conversations with no expectations or unspoken rules for the other person to follow. and that was oddly helpful for Muffin.

Cricket looked up, her eyes fixed on Muffin behind her hexagonal, wire-frame glasses. They were brown and owl-like, with dark circles that made her look constantly sleep-deprived. “Hi?”

Muffin tried not to shrink away. Cricket did have this intensity about her that was admittedly kind of intimidating. “Sorry-do you want to be left alone?

Not looking away, Cricket responded, “No, you can sit here. How are you doing?” It sounded stilted.

“I’m-“ She hesitated. Normally she’d lie, say she was fine, but she knew Cricket wouldn’t buy that. “Not doing the greatest. I’m all anxious, and I feel bad about it, like my stupid feelings are wasting the counselors’ time.”

Cricket narrowed her eyes. “What do you think their job is?”

“To-help us? Keep us safe? Make sure we have fun?”

Nodding, Cricket said, “Dealing with your ‘stupid feelings’ is their job. Don’t feel bad about it. And besides, the counselors have dealt with far worse. Like younger me. I used to bite people. They’d rather deal with a kid having a panic attack than that.”

“Huh. That’s…I guess you’re right, huh?”

For the rest of lunch, Muffin and Cricket were awkwardly silent-well, awkward on Muffin’s part. Cricket didn’t seem to mind. Oddly, Cricket’s apparent indifference made the awkwardness easier to bear, and Muffin found herself content to listen to Flapjack ramble on to Zero about their favorite national parks and Dot excitedly regale Socks with stories from the many theatre shows she’d done. 

Rex did her “clap her hands to get their attention” thing. “CITs! We’re going to the pool and then to showers after this, and tonight, cookout!”

Several CITs cheered, and Muffin gave a weak “yay”. She liked cookout-baking was her main (and kind of only) hobby, and cookout was the closest thing she could get to that at camp. 

Having heard her tiny attempt at expressing excitement, Dot cheered at a volume at least ten times that of Muffin’s. “We’ve finally found something Muffin gets excited about!” 

Muffin blushed, looking down. “I like cookout a lot, I guess.”

Dot did a fist pump. “You bake, right? Maybe we’ll finally get a dessert that isn’t burned!” 

Laughing, Muffin responded, “Well, I think there’s-kind of a difference between baking with an oven and baking over a campfire-but I’ll try!” She understood Dot’s complaint quite well-every single time, cookout dessert (usually doughboys-a blob of pie crust, marshmallows, and cinnamon sugar) ended up half charred, half undercooked. While that was an inherently hard thing to get right, Muffin could manage to make them edible at the least. That was apparently quite a rare skill. 

Muffin sat on the side of the pool, drawing on the ground with chalk. The other CITs splashed around in the pool, Flapjack and Avocado engaging in some sort of pool noodle joust that was admittedly pretty entertaining to watch. 

Rex came and sat beside her. “Hey, Muffin, how are you feeling?”

“Um-better, I guess?” She barely managed to stop herself from apologizing. Cricket’s words from earlier were still stuck in her head.

“That’s good. Are you excited for cookout tonight?”

Muffin nodded shakily. “Yeah-I like cookout, it’s-my favorite part of camp. And-I’ve been told I can make doughboys that are actually edible, so that’s-good!” She gave an awkward thumbs up and her best attempt at a smile. 

“Finally! You have no idea how many of those things I’ve had to eat that were either burnt or raw! I’ve worked here for, like, four years, and nobody can get them right!” Rex called up to the lifeguard on duty, “PIRATE! You hearing this? We’re gonna have good doughboys for once!” 

Pirate snorted. “That’s possible?” 

Rex pointed at Muffin, grinning. “Yeah, apparently the kid can do ‘em right!” 

After giving Muffin a rather critical look, Pirate shrugged. “If you say so.”

Giving a rather exaggerated eyeroll, Rex nudged Muffin’s shoulder. “Aw, don’t listen to her. You’ll do great.”

Muffin smiled and returned to her chalk drawing. 

After several quiet moments, Rex spoke again. “Are you sure you’re doing okay?”

Almost dropping her chalk, Muffin froze. She knew she wasn’t doing alright-far from it. But how much of that should she admit to? She didn’t want anyone worrying over her any more than they already were. 

“I’m-the best I can be, I guess.” Not entirely a lie. Usually, panic attacks would take her out for the rest of the day, but she was sort of functional right now, so that was…good? “And I’m still-sorry about earlier. I know it’s your job to deal with-me-but still-it can’t be easy.”

Rex shrugged. “You have nothing to worry about. I’ve dealt with far worse. Some weird stuff happens around this camp.” She sounded much more casual than earlier, oddly. Maybe it was because she wasn’t actively dealing with a crisis, but still, it was kind of weird. 

“What-what happens?”

“Uh-”

Rex went quiet, beginning to fiddle with her walkie-talkie. Muffin’s shoulders tensed up more with every second of silence. She wished she’d kept her mouth shut. It was just her luck, that the rare time she’d speak up, something bad happened.

Realizing she had to say something, Rex cleared her throat. “Nothing. Just the kind of stories older campers tell kids to scare ‘em. Happened to me as a kid, and I guess I snap back into thinking like that sometimes. People used to try and convince me the camp was haunted.” She checked her watch. “Oh, it’s time for y’all to go shower.” The two of them stood up, the other CITs getting out of the pool. “I’ll see you at cookout!” Rex sent Muffin off with Socks to go to the shower house-but before she walked away, she overheard Pirate call down to Rex from her lifeguard chair.

“Wow, Rex, slipping up in front of a kid?”

“Don’t worry about it! It’s not like she’ll-”

Muffin couldn’t hear the end of that sentence-Dot had run up to her, shouting, “Hey, Muffin!” and got started on one of her rambles. By the time Dot had stopped talking, she was too far away to hear anything else, and Rex had already walked away from the pool. 

Muffin sat on one of the benches around the campfire, which Artemis had built, actually well (Flapjack and Sprite had both insisted they should be the one to build it, and while the two were arguing, Artemis had gotten the fire started) Flapjack now looked rather sulky, sitting with their arms crossed while Avocado tried to cheer them up with terrible puns. Sprite, on the other hand, had completely brushed off the argument and was setting up the ingredients for dinner (tacos) with Lilypad.

dot hopped over the bench and sat down next to Muffin, bouncing in her seat. “How has everyone’s week been so far?” 

Artemis looked up from the fire. “It’s been great! You all are awesome, and I’ve had a great time. I’m excited for the rest of the summer!”

Avocado nodded. She sat with her legs thrown over Flapjack’s lap, who, surprisingly, didn’t look as irritated as Muffin would’ve expected. “Yeah, what she said.” 

Socks joined them around the fire. Socks spoke up. “If I can say something-you all have been a super sweet and fun group so far, and I’m really thankful to have gotten you as my first group working here. I’m gonna be honest, the first day or two, I had no idea what I was doing here. And I kinda expected y’all to be mean about it-but that…didn’t happen?” 

Dot got up to hug her. “Aww, we could never be mean to you!”

In the brief silence that followed, Muffin managed to get out a “I-really like you guys, you’ve been-very patient and kind with me, and I-appreciate you all.” 

Dot grinned even wider, and before she knew it, Muffin was being hugged within an inch of her life.

Though it was rather muffled by Dot, she could hear Sprite’s voice calling out, “Dot, let Muffin breathe, please.” 

“Oh right, sorry!” The second Dot let her go, Muffin already found herself missing how warm Dot was.

Lilypad called over from the table, “Come make your tacos!” 

After all the CITs had finished their dinner, Rex–who’d shown up halfway through dinner with Koala, having been meeting with Magpie–looked to Muffin. “Ready to make dessert?”

Muffin nodded, silent for a moment before realizing everyone expected her to tell them what to do. “Uh-you all can make your doughboys, and then I’ll cook them and we’ll-hope they turn out okay?” 

“Alright, you heard her. Supplies are on the table!” Rex patted her on the shoulder and said softly, “Good job, I’m proud of you.”

Muffin smiled, her face heating up slightly.

Once the other CITs had made their doughboys and she’d made her own, Muffin crouched next to the fire, trying not to shrink away under the gaze of (almost) everybody. (Cricket had her face in her journal, as usual) Don’t worry. This is literally the one thing you are good at. You are not going to mess this up. 

Taking a deep breath, she put the first few doughboys on the grate over the fire. The only sound she heard was the crackling of the campfire and the river–the other CITs had gone almost dramatically silent, like this was a moment that’d change the course of their lives. It didn’t help her anxiety much. 

Sprite cleared her throat. “Rex, what are we doing tomorrow?”

Paper rustled, probably Rex looking through her binder for her schedule. “In the morning, we’ll do climbing tower, and then after lunch we’ll talk about the schedule for the rest of the summer, and you’ll have closing campfire that night. Oh-you guys should figure out a skit or song you want to do!”

Almost all the CITs froze. They had completely forgotten about the closing campfire tradition of singing a song or performing a skit. And it was tomorrow night. Great.

Dot quickly said, “No problem, let’s just do some version of the boogiebear skit! Like-hm, that only takes five people, so let’s have someone come in at the end and ask how it goes, that’s six, and then-two people at the start warning about the boogiebears! I’m smart.”

Sprite said, “That sounds fine. We should’ve thought about that sooner though. Does anyone have anything specific they want to be?”

“Sprite, I think you should be the experienced camper. It’s literally you.” Lilypad giggled.

Sprite huffed. “I’m not that mean! And you should be the one who gets boogie-beared, then.”

“Oh, you’re not mean! You’re just good at everything! And sure!”

Though she couldn’t see either of their faces, Muffin got the feeling Sprite was making kind of a funny, half-defeated, half-irritated expression. She’d probably meant it as a friendly insult toward Lilypad, but Lilypad was impossible to insult. She just agreed with everything. 

Dot spoke up again. “Alright! Who wants to be a boogiebear? And can someone write this stuff down?”

“Yeah, I’ll write it! And can I be one?” Artemis asked. 

“Sure! Avocado too-you’re raising your hand-and then I’ll be the last one. Flapjack and Cricket, y’all can warn Sprite and Lilypad about the boogiebears before they go camping, and then-Muffin?” Muffin looked up. “At the end, you can ask the two of them how it went. Okay, cool! See, that wasn’t so bad.” 

“Dot, I’m sure the lesson you’re gonna learn from this is that procrastination works out for you, and, uh, no?” Sprite said.

Lilypad giggled. “No, I think what she’s gonna learn is that everything works out as long as you’ve got Dot to do it for you.”

“Exactly! You’re so smart, Lilypad.” Behind her, Muffin heard Dot get up to give Lilypad a high-five.

Muffin looked up from the campfire. “The first doughboys are ready-be careful, they’re hot.”

Dot cheered, holding out her plate. Muffin set it on her plate with the tongs, and once a couple other people had gotten theirs, she set the next couple doughboys on the grate to cook. She went on cooking doughboys for the next ten or so minutes, and by the time she’d taken the last doughboys off the fire, the first few had cooled down enough to eat.

Dot excitedly dug into hers. Muffin watched anxiously, hoping it was at least decent. 

After a moment, Dot made a face comparable to that of a cartoon character-a very, very happy cartoon character. She swallowed, took an even more cartoonishly deep breath, and shouted, “OHMYGODthatwasreallygood!”

“...thanks?”

Sprite added, “No, thank you. You’ve done the impossible and made an edible doughboy!”

There was a collective cheer from the CITs and Rex and Koala. 

Socks added, “I haven’t had one of these before, but from what I’ve heard, you’ve got to be pretty talented to get them right-so-great job, Muffin!” She gave a thumbs-up and grinned.

Muffin smiled, wider than before. Her head felt kind of floaty, but in a good way this time. Like she was proud of herself for once. She sat there for a while, slowly eating her own doughboy, letting all the happy energy wash over her. It was pretty nice.

She was brought out of that content haze by Flapjack’s voice, looking up to see them wiping crumbs and cinnamon off their mouth. “Hey, why aren’t Zero and Sharky here? They should get in on this!”

“It’s Zero’s night off, and I think Sharky’s meeting with the rest of the challenge course team. But you’re right, they should at least know they’ll get a good doughboy at the next cookout. I’ll walkie them.” She grabbed the end of her lanyard, where her walkie-talkie normally was clipped. Muffin hadn’t seen her without it all week-she’d had it just a few hours before, at the pool. But now, it was, well…not there.

Rex’s brow furrowed in confusion. “That’s…weird, I could’ve sworn I had it earlier. Ah well, I probably left it charging or something. Don’t worry, I’ll make sure Zero and Sharky hear about this.” 

Though the rest of the CITs brushed it off, Cricket looked up, eyes fixed on the spot where Rex’s walkie-talkie would be before she scribbled something in her notebook, shut it, and began picking off her already chipped black nail polish. It was oddly intimidating. 

As Muffin lay in her bed, her mind raced more than usual. But for once, it wasn’t entirely from anxiety-there was a good amount of curiosity, and the unfamiliar but not unpleasant feeling of…contentment? Safety? Something like that. Maybe it was new, and honestly pretty scary. Yet maybe this time she could handle it instead of running away. 

Her life felt like a series of one “maybe” after another, and most of them were pretty miserable. But this “maybe”? That she might find people who accepted and cared about her for once?

It might be a good one.