Packing
As a seasoned camper,
I know exactly what to pack
for eight weeks away:
shampoo,
conditioner,
toothbrush,
toothpaste,
plus flip-flops for the shower
(mostly because
Mom made me google
“plantar warts”),
T-shirts,
shorts,
tons of underwear,
packs of Skittles
rolled up in my socks,
pajamas,
and a dress
(Amaya saw Camp Chester announced a dance
for the first time ever,
planned for the end of the summer;
the thought makes my palms sweat
a little),
photos for our wall,
phone and charger,
plenty of books
for rainy days
and right before lights-out
(this year,
Speak, by Laurie Halse Anderson,
Dry, about California running out of water,
Fahrenheit 451, and a book of poetry
Ms. Zhang gave me,
plus
The Penderwicks, for old times’ sake),
and whatever this notebook poem journal
is.
Ms. Zhang
told me I need
to keep writing
over the summer.
“Like . . . for homework?” I asked
on our last day of school,
nose wrinkled.
She snorted.
“Not homework.
Grow work, Anna-Jane.
Or not even ‘work’ at all.
You’re nourishing your artistic soul!”
She makes everything
sound like
poetry.
I rolled my eyes,
but here I am,
adding “grow work”
to my trunk
for a teacher I don’t even have anymore.
In a few months,
I’ll be an eighth grader
on the third floor.
It sounds too grown-up
for me,
but Ms. Zhang says I have “tremendous potential”
because I’m a “keen observer,”
and my mom says I have her “natural resilience”
and “staggering intellect”
and other beautiful words
that feel too big,
too shiny,
to describe
me.
Three Hours and a Mountain
I got bottom bunk
like I wanted,
and piled a bunch of stuff
on the top bunk
to save it for Amaya,
who’s still on her way.
The cabin smells musty
but nice,
like a shirt you wore to a campfire
and forgot to wash.
I miss my mom a little already,
her cheering and beeping the horn
as we crept up the mountain to camp.
I cringed and hid my face
so she couldn’t see me also
smiling.
She checked me in,
and we dragged my trunk
into empty Cabin 22.
I hung the picture of us
Mrs. Finkle next door took
the day we moved in.
Mom’s hand is on my five-year-old head,
and her mouth looks funny
because she’s in the middle
of saying something.
On the porch,
my mom hugged me close
and said,
“I love you, honeybee.
I’m so proud of you.
Hope you have the best time.”
I hugged her tight around the waist,
tried to swallow
the stone of sorrow
lodged in my throat.
“Wait, don’t go,” I said.
“I’m not ready for you to leave.”
She tightened her arms
around me
and whispered
into my hair,
“You’re ready.
You and Amaya will take care of each other,
like always.”
She smiled down at me.
“And the other kids who are on their way.
Soon they’ll feel like family, too.
A second family.”
I breathed in her coconut shampoo
and nodded.
Mom saves the entire year
to send me to camp,
and even then,
a scholarship
makes up the difference.
I didn’t want her to think
I’d changed my mind.
Then she was gone.
I wonder if she’ll be lonely
in our house on South Pine Street,
three hours
and a mountain
away.
I wonder if tonight
she’ll listen to the creaks and groans
of our old, old house
and miss me
in my room
at the end of the hall.
Amaya
Amaya bursts into the cabin,
followed by Z, her little sister,
who’s at camp with us
for the first time.
She looks like
a miniature Amaya
beaming at me:
same dark eyes,
dimples,
and the buzzing energy
of a bumblebee.
“You got us bunks together!”
Amaya squeals.
We hug in our jumping
I haven’t seen you in almost a whole year hug,
then head outside
to wait for her parents.
“Well, well, well,
if it isn’t Anna-Jane Thompson!”
bellows Amaya’s dad
as he and Mrs. D. drop a trunk
and two giant duffel bags
on the porch.
“Hi, Mr. D.! Mrs. D.”
Mrs. D. side-hugs me,
exclaims, “You got so tall, Miss Anna-Jane!
How are you? Everything good?”
I shrug.
“No twins this year?”
Amaya’s older brothers
are leaving for college
at the end of the summer.
They were counselors-in-training last year.
“No, they’re at home for two more months,
coming in at all times of night,
leaving me no gas in the morning,
giving me gray hair,” Mrs. D. chuckles.
I smile and struggle to
lift one of Amaya’s bags.
Z trips over Amaya’s other duffel,
then whines when Amaya cackles at her.
Mr. D. scolds her
for teasing her sister,
while Mrs. D. prays aloud
for strength.
I realize in that moment
how much
I’ve missed the Drakes.
Sometimes
Sometimes I wish
Amaya went to my school.
I imagine sitting with her at lunch
and in language arts.
She would lock eyes with me the second
the teacher mentioned “partners.”
She would glare at anyone
Copyright © 2026 by Paige Classey. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
