Nell trailed Sybil around the pool. "So, since you've been coming to work here so long, maybe you know if there are any ghost stories about the lake?"
Sybil barked a laugh. "I did not expect that question."
"I aim to be unpredictable. In a good way."
"Bless you for that." Sybil was finished hosing down the whole deck. She had also managed to hose Nell's feet but that was fine—she was wearing Tevas. Sybil turned off the hose and reeled it back onto its holder. Nell helped to guide it without Sybil asking.
"Well," Sybil said after they were done. "There is one story that I know about the lake."
Nell nodded. Yes! She knew there had to be something.
"You know the Loch Ness monster?"
"Not personally, but yes."
Sybil narrowed her eyes but smiled. "Haha, smart aleck. Anyway, there is supposed to be something like it that lives in Granite Lake. People call it Granty."
"Clever."
"I think so. They say one night, these two counselors had the hots for each other. So they snuck away from their cabins—they should have been staying with their campers, of course. But hormonal teenagers will be hormonal teenagers. Well...you know."
Nell gave her best mock offended look. "I speak for all teenagers when I say, you are so right. I do know."
"So, there they were, this boy and girl...they were giving each other the time on a blanket or some such, and this thing crawls out of the lake. It had glowing red eyes, sharp teeth, and smelled like the worst kind of gnarly, sulfurous mud. Both kids screamed. The boy up and ran. He full out ran. Left the girl. And Granty got her. Dragged her on into that lake. And ever since then, late at night—or heck, not even that late, just after sundown—you can see the glowing red eyes of Granty and the girl. Sometimes in the water and sometimes on the other side."
Nell felt both excited and disappointed. She was jumping up and down, full to bursting. "We have that exact same story at Fields Creek!"
Sybil put her hands on her hips. "What did you just say? That exact same story?"
"Yes! That is such a bummer. I was really hoping that story wasn't, like, some nationwide camp myth for camps with lakes, but I guess it is!"
"Why? Have you asked for ghost stories at other camps with lakes?"
"No. But that is an excellent idea." Over the years, the Hartes had visited other camps, but usually Nell was too busy feeling cheated about not going on a real vacation to Disneyland or Hawaii or Paris.
Well, I tell you what, Nell, I am full of them."
"I believe you." She really did.
"There just aren't many original ghost stories out there, I reckon."
Nell thought for a moment as they made their way over to the pool shed.
"What if we changed it?" Nell said.
"How do you mean?"
"I mean, what if we said it was the boy who got dragged away by the Granite Lake monster? And the girl fought valiantly to save him, but because they had been taken by surprise, she just wasn't quick enough to drag him back in time?"
Sybil nodded. "That would certainly upend the cliched narrative."
Nell felt all kinds of pleased.
==
Wattpad friends: If you attended or worked at a summer camp with a large body of water, does a monster live in it?
YOU ARE READING
Family + Camp (working title)
Novela JuvenilIt's 1990, and Penelope Annabelle Min-Yi Harte, known to her friends and family as Nell, is not at all thrilled to be starting over. It's the summer before her senior year-at a new camp. That's right: nearly all of her life, Nell's dad has run a sum...
