Everyone Dies Famous in a Small Town, Bonnie-Sue Hitchcock [the mitten read aloud TXT] 📗

had been just a muddy brown that she hated. She’d dipped them into the toilet and pretended to cry. When the teachers tried to console her, she’d pointed at Amy’s tights and said, “I wish I had those.”

Amy took off her polka-dotted tights and handed them over, right then and there.

“My Momo put extras in my cubby anyway,” she said. Fiona had been baffled, but also pleased. She’d looked into Amy’s wide green eyes, searching for some hidden motive beyond kindness, which in her four short years she had not seen a whole lot of. When you are raised by alcoholics, you learn quickly how to get things in a slanted sort of way but are leery when you succeed.

The day Amy had simply blinked knowingly at Fiona and given her the tights, as if to say “I don’t know why you have to do it this way, but okay,” became something of a pattern as the years went by.

Everything about Amy’s life was the opposite of Fiona’s. She had a nice Momo who lived with her family and made Amy interesting lunches. Her parents didn’t drink too much, and they gave Fiona a curfew if she slept over, just like Amy’s. “We care about you,” Amy’s father said. “We don’t want you out wandering the streets at night. We’d never get any sleep.”

Fiona’s own family rarely lost any sleep worrying about her. The only person who’s even sent her a card here at camp is Amy’s Momo. It’s in her back pocket now as she makes her way down to the waterfront with Nick’s pants. Amy is supposed to be waiting by the bear container with all their campers. The counselors work in pairs, two for twenty kids, switching every week so nobody is always stuck with the six-year-olds. Fiona is relieved that she didn’t get paired up with a counselor from Outside.

She passes a group of older kids, who appear to be writing letters in the arts and crafts tent. Scattered among them are pictures of bunnies and razors and some other disturbing images that look like indistinguishable bloody blobs. One of the girls is crying; her friend is patting her gently on the shoulders.

“I know it’s hard to see,” their counselor, Maggie, from Pennsylvania, is saying, “but that’s why we have to write and let these companies know we want them to stop testing their products on animals.”

“Hi,” says Fiona. “What’re you guys doing?”

“Letter-writing campaign to razor companies,” Maggie says without looking up.

“Razor companies?”

“Yes. They use bunnies to test their products, and sometimes the animals die in the process.”

“Oh. Wow.”

“My dad hunts rabbits,” says Evan, one of the few kids who are at camp because their parents thought it might actually be fun.

Fiona remembers Amy trying to tell Maggie at orientation that there might be a different standard here, regarding animals and, um, hunting and…But she’d trailed off when Maggie gave her a bony stare and informed Amy that she was also vegan.

“I like that black lipstick,” Amy had said. “The color really suits you.”

“What’s a vegan?” Fiona had whispered later as they walked to their cabins.

“No idea,” said Amy, “but I don’t think they eat real food.”

Fiona smiled at Evan now, willing him with her eyes to stop talking.

“And how do you think rabbits feel about being hunted?” Maggie asked him.

Evan looked confused.

“I guess I never thought about it.” He looked at Fiona for help. “They’re kind of overpopulating and they taste good?”

“How would you like it if someone talked about you that way?” Maggie snapped.

Evan blinked and looked even more confused by the idea that he might overpopulate and taste good boiled in a pot.

“That’s what we’re doing here. We’re thinking about poor, defenseless animals and how they feel.”

Fiona gave Evan what she hoped was an encouraging smile. Time to get going.

Fireweed lines the trail, but it hasn’t yet begun to bloom. Camp won’t be over until it’s topped off, when the pink flowers turn to white cottony puffs and blow away. Fiona wonders if her energy for this job will top off before the fireweed does, or before the mosquitoes have sucked all the blood from her body.

She stares out at the ice-cold turquoise lake fed by a glacier that hangs between two mountains overlooking camp. From here, the small bodies of the campers look even smaller, splashing around in the blue-green water as if it’s a heated pool. One thing about Alaska kids, they are pretty tough. Or maybe they have no idea that not everyone swims in frigid water.

At orientation the counselors were told to watch the younger swimmers closely and throw them into the sauna to warm up when they start turning blue. She can see that a couple of boys are butt naked, waggling their rear ends at each other and then diving into the freezing lake. Whoever is supposed to be watching them is nowhere around.

A little girl is sitting alone near the water, animatedly clapping and smiling, but not at the boys. She seems to be in her own little world. Every once in a while she jumps up, arms in the air, like a cheerleader. Fiona shields her eyes from the sun, trying to see better. The lake is glassy calm; there’s nothing out there. Yet the girl springs into the air again, erupting in applause.

Kids are so weird sometimes.

A quarter mile down the trail, Fiona smells cigarette smoke. Smoking is prohibited in camp, and there’s a burn ban in effect. She knows one person who smokes when she’s stressed.

“Amy?”

Amy’s frizzy blond mop pops up immediately to Fiona’s left.

“Oh no. You smelled it?”

“Are you okay?”

“Our campers are having a boating lesson, not that you asked,” says Amy. “I needed a break. And I did bring my water bottle to put it out with. I’m not a total idiot.”

Finn has been making everyone fire aware by updating them every day about the wildfire burning near his hometown in Colorado. Fiona was hoping maybe he’d leave early if he