The Life of Corinne P. : Chapter 6

Corinne P was being led through a forest.

It wasn't a particularly nice forest. It was the usual kind of forest, with knotted trees and a cold wind. Corinne shivered.
"We're almost there," the counselor said to Corinne. The counselor was tall and athletic, with black hair pulled back into a braid and sunglasses on her head. "So, you're Corinne Packel, right?"
Corinne nodded. She wished for her clarinet, which she'd left behind. The clarinet was beautiful. "I play the clarinet," she announced to the counselor.
"I'm Lisa," the counselor told Corinne. "I used to play the trumpet."
"Why did you stop?" Corinne asked, eager to hear the rest of the story.
"I had to practice too much," the counselor explained. "I bet you do, too."
Corinne had to practice a lot. She liked it, though. "I do," she admitted. "But it was fun."
They had come to a point where the trees made a kind of arch, which lead outside of the forest. Corinne raced up ahead. She burst out of the forest and stared at the group of cabins in front of her. 
"Cabin 14," Lisa said. "It's waiting for you."
Corinne ventured inside. She set down her bags and looked at Cabin 14.

The Life of Corinne P. : Chapter 5

Corinne clutched her stuff. Taking a deep breath, as if she was going to play one long note on the clarinet, she looked out the door.
There was too much to see. There was a lake, cabins, a big green field of grass, a building with seats outside it that Corinne assumed was the dining hall, and much, much, more.
A counselor who was standing outside of the bus, just beyond Kenna and Corinne looked at Kenna. "Six?" she asked. "Cabin 7." 
"But I'm not six!" Kenna protested.
The counselor sighed. "Seven? With me." She eyed Corinne and Nory, who had just come out of the bus. "Wait for your turn," she said strictly, and Corinne was reminded of Lora. 
As the strict counselor walked away, another took her place. "How old are you?" she asked Nory.

"Eleven," Nory answered. The counselor pointed her towards a clutch of green cabins in the distance and said,"Cabin 11."
"That's her age!" Corinne exclaimed, but the counselors took no notice. Nory walked toward her cabin.
"What about me?!" Corinne screamed. No one looked at her. No one checked to make sure she was still there.
Corinne felt sad. Everyone was going off to their cabins without her. What could she do?
Just then, a counselor noticed Corinne. "Cabin 14," she said to Corinne. "If you're 10."
Corinne nodded. She was ready.

The Life of Corinne P. : Chapter 4

Corinne Packel had her bags packed. Standing beside her were Nory and Kenna. Behind them stood Jesse, smelling fresh from the shower he'd just taken. In supervising position, a.k.a. the front step, sat Lora, criticizing every move. "That's dangerous, Kenna," she'd said sharply the second Kenna put her foot on the knotted tree, ready to climb. Now she was watching Jesse closely in case he would kick up a cloud of dry summer dust. She claimed it would ruin his freshly washed hair when the dust, having been kicked up, barely reached up to his knees. 
Corinne hummed a few notes from Tepre Aupre, a song she'd recently learned to play on the clarinet, her chosen instrument. She suddenly remembered something. "Can you go get my clarinet?" she asked Lora, as horrified as if it had already been lost. As Lora rushed inside, the buses pulled up, with Camp Rhiswile printed on their sides. Corinne chose the closest one and stepped inside as the doors closed around Corinne and the others. "Goodbye, home," she whispered. "I'll remember to write you letters."

*  *  *

Only as Corinne stepped  into the waiting bus did she realize how hot it had been outside. They'd been playing and hadn't much considered the heat. The bus had fans blowing soft, sweet air into the atmosphere. Corinne sighed. Her eight years in Philadelphia had taught her to handle the "slightly warm" air. They hadn't owned a fan since Corinne was a baby.

"Should we sit together?" Nory asked Corinne, bringing her back to the present time. Corinne nodded, uncertain. Kenna had already found a seat next to a boy who was making toot noises with his lips that Corinne found rude. Nory, though, did not seem to agree. "That's how you play a trumpet," she informed the boy. Nory played the horn and had tried the trumpet. She should know, thought Corinne.
Nory motioned to a seat near the back of the bus. "Too bad we can't sit with Kenna," she said unhappily. "She tells the funniest stories."
"Now look who gets to enjoy them," Corinne said. She pointed to the boy Kenna had decided to sit with, who was laughing at something she'd said.
The ride was uneventful. When the bus stopped, everyone got up, trying to beat each other to the door. Kenna was one of the first to make it to the door. When she did, she turned back. "Come and see our new camp," she whispered to Corinne.

The Life of Corinne P. : Chapter 3

"What in the world," said Corinne Packel. She was sitting on her bed, in the dark, with Kenna and Nory beside her. They were looking over the edge, onto the trundle bed, where Jesse was lying, tangled, in a pile of blankets. He was still active: Writhing all around in such a way that you'd think he'd hit his head on something, but he never did.

"Jesse, stop that and get some sleep," said Nory seriously. For once, Jesse lay still, covering himself with the knotted blanket as best as he could. The pillow had flown off the edge when he was still in motion, so he didn't use that. But Corinne wasn't fooled. "Jesssssssse," she warned.

"Sleepyhead," Jesse mumbled. Then: "Helpi'msleepingwanttohearideawhatisitwanttohearsecrethelpme."

"Nonsense," grumbled Kenna. She leaned down to the lower level of the trundle bed and slapped Jesse on the back. "See? You're awake. Now close your eyes and go to sleep." She sat back up proudly.
"Like Jesse would ever listen," Corinne grumbled to Nory. Nory whispered something to Kenna, who slumped down. "The meeting's started," she said, without much enthusiasum.
"Kenna and I found something," Nory announced. She grabbed something--in the dim light, no one could see it, they just heard crinkling noises. A flashlight was turned on--by Kenna, no doubt--and bright light illuminated the wrinkled paper. Corinne scanned it, looking for key words like she'd been taught to in second--or was it third?--grade. "Does it mean what I think it means? she asked.
"Yes," Nory said. "We're going to camp."

The Life of Corinne P. : Chapter 2

Corinne was bored. She was sitting on the couch with her legs propped up against the armrests.
"I don't know what to do," she moaned to Jesse.
"Play trucks with me?" Jesse suggested. Since a few days ago, Jesse had been going through what Lora referred to as a "transportation phase." Cars, trucks, airplanes, boats, even his Transformer toys had started to fascinate him more than ever. When they saw a bus passing one day, he'd delightfully asked, "How does it work?" When the members of the family had failed to give an explanation, he'd stomped his foot in frustration.
"Sorry, Jesse. Not right now, " apologized Corinne. And really, she was sorry, even though she didn't like the game of trucks. Jesse would be sad. He'd always said that trucks was a two person game: "So we can race the trucks!"
"I have an idea," offered Lora, coming into the room holding a bowl full of blueberries in one hand and one of Jesse's Transformer toys in the other. "Jesse, you need to clean this up, " she said, addressing Jesse. "And Corinne, it would be a good opportunity for you to visit your friends."
Corinne groaned. Lora, though always insisting she'd visited her friends in her childhood, couldn't seem to understand that Samantha was in Australia, or Mia was in Mendocino, or Kiren was at summer camp.
"Mom, all my friends are away!" whined Corinne. "Why can't we go somewhere too?"
Suddenly Kenna appeared in the room, standing next to Corinne as if she was attending to Corinne. "I have an idea," she breathed in Corinne's ear, eyes glowing green. "At night, you'll see."

Missed the first in the series? Click here to read it.

The Life of Corinne P. : Chapter 1

Corinne Packel was in the living room of her house, trying to recruit more people for a game of Musical Chairs.
It was late afternoon. The morning had been filled with thunder and lightning, so no one dared to go outside. Now, even though it had stopped raining, her previous attempts to persuade her mom to go to the bowling alley had failed. Corinne sighed, and dragged over a chair: Both herself and her cousin, Nory, were playing already. Nory didn't seem to be helping, though: She was listening to Robin's music, coming from a laptop computer.
Since her mom had politely refused a minute before, Corinne began to work on her dad. "Can you play Musical Chairs with me?" she pleaded.
Andy, her dad, shrugged his shoulders.
"Pleeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaase?" Corinne begged. Her comment made beautiful harmony with the music.
Just then, Kenna, Nory's little sister, burst in, with Jesse, Corinne's little brother, trailing behind her. "Can we play?" Jesse asked.
Corinne sighed. "Kenna, get some more chairs."
Soon, a game of Musical Chairs was in progress. Robin's music played while Corinne, Jesse, Nory,
and Kenna walked around and around the set of chairs.
Robin's hand slid across the keyboard. The music stopped. Everyone scrambled for a seat. Corinne found that she had no trouble getting a seat. This round, Jesse was out...
Then Nory...
Until Kenna got out. It took a minute for Corinne to realize what had happened. Then she cheered, along with everyone else.

Excerpt

COMING SOON…
And then we saw it.
“It” was a piece of paper, folded in two like a card. The front displayed an old math worksheet. But the other side? I was curious to find out.
“Let’s read it,” Rhia said, bending down to pick it up. She read it, her eyes darting so quickly from left to right they appeared to be black slits in her face. Then she handed it to me.

I am hidden. Come to find me. Bring a long, sharp thing.
I will give you one clue:

Your Friend,

I recognized Shila’s handwriting almost instantly. But I also recognized the special symbol Shila had chosen about a year ago. I had chosen one too: . If I remember correctly, we made lots of stickers showing our symbols. Maybe the symbol on the letter was a sticker.
“Press the PRESS,” Rhia reminded me.
I did, and at once sound rose up from the letter. It sounded like a song I had heard in Dance, but with the words removed. “What’s the clue?” I asked Rhia.
“I don’t know. That’s a new song to me. What’s the name of the song?”
Suddenly, I knew it. “Rhia, go get the Award-Winning Pencil and come right back. Fast! “


--- Excerpt from “Baby School” by Nory Klop- Packel
Copyright 3/24/09
Note: Sorry about the blank spots. They include things that I cannot type on a computer.

Leaf Explorations: The Sequel to Leaf Days

That time when, before going to bed, Leaf had sneaked into her room and whispered,"Tomorrow we will be adventurers," before shutting the door, was one of the most puzzling times of Maya's life.
It was a Friday night, and Maya was exhausted from school. She fell asleep right away, not giving much thought to what Leaf had said.
The next morning they packed. Along with clothes and a few packets of food, they brought along a tent. "We might need to camp out," Leaf told Maya as she stuffed the now compacted tent into her own, bigger bag.
They seemed to fly out the window, it was all in a blur from excitement. She ran, following Leaf as well as she could. Soon they came to a large patch of grass surrounded by woods. There they explored and played until noon, when they ate peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches, along with a banana each.
Then, suddenly, hurriedly, Leaf jumped to her feet. "I have to go, sorry," she shouted from a few yards away. She was running, her medium-long hair trailing behind her.
Maya worried. What if Leaf never came back? No, that's silly, she told herself. But she still worried.
Maya started to cry. Her tears streamed down her cheeks and into the wind. At this time of day, the woods got windy. Maya shivered. "I wish I had a jacket," she said aloud.
I could live here, Maya realized. I could set up the tent as a house, and catch fish from the stream for meals... She pulled the tent out of Leaf's bag, starting to carry out the first part of her plan, when Leaf came rushing along, crunching fallen leaves all the way. "What, you think you're going to stay that way?" She stuffed the tent into the bag, picked up Maya, and began to walk.
Getting home was all blurry now, whenever Maya thought about it. Leaf had carried her all through the field, and when they finally got home, it was night time. Maya fell asleep the instant she touched the bed, like on Friday night.
Asleep or not, this story remained in Maya's head the rest of her life.

It was recess time, and the yard was noisy from all the yelling. To Ella, it seemed like everyone was yelling, the girls especially: their chants of "Go, Ella, go," drowned out the rest.
She was standing in front of a ledge made of play structure. A wide gap separated this ledge from another one, maybe one or two yards away. A rope was tied from a bar on this ledge to a bar on the ledge Ella was standing on. She was supposed to walk on it like a tightrope; she knew it.
Ella's big brother came over to her. "You can do it, El," he told her. "Remember gymnastics lessons?"
Ella ignored him. Shaking from fear, she carefully moved one foot forward, closer to the rope.To small a distance,she decided, then moved it a little further. This time, it landed on the rope. Carefully, step by step, Ella made her way a small distance across the rope. The girls' cheers were louder now.
All the cheering must have motivated a teacher to come out, because there one was suddenly one there: the science teacher for the fourth and fifth grades. "What's going on here?" she asked, and then, seeing Ella, exclaimed, "Oh, you poor girl! Forced to walk a tightrope!" And, right then and there, she scooped Ella up and put her down on the woodpiece-covered ground. Luckily for the boys, she had not seemed to notice that the "tightrope" was actually stolen rope from the P.E. cabinet.
And the surprising thing was, though Ella had expected the boys to remember the contest and schedule it for another time, the contest was never finished. All the rest of her first-grade life, and all the other grades too, and the after-grades, too, she remembered the contest.
And that is the end.