The summer we turned thirteen (Re-releasing 2025)

The summer we met: Sweet revenge

Harlee

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"Hally, this way," I whispered as I led my friends in the direction of Jasper, Mike, Evan, and James' cabin.

It was the morning after James had lost his stuffed animal to the murky depths of Lake O'ryan. Unbeknownst to him, though, his precious possession was no longer lost. It was now safely tucked away in my knapsack.

Shortly after the lost bunny was retrieved, I finished convincing Hally and Polly to help me exact some revenge on Jasper. Not only for the previous night's incident but for every other undeserved thing he had done to James and any other kids. We'd spent hours planning and gathering supplies for the feat, but what took the longest was actually assigning roles to my two accomplices. Because like all siblings do, Hally and Polly argued over a lot of stupid things. Every time I explained a clever prank idea to them, both of them ended up debating over which of one them would get to do what. When I had become fed up with their bickering, I threatened just to do the whole thing myself since I was the mastermind of it all.

The threat finally shut them up enough to get along.

Four hours later, the time was now six in the morning, and none of us had gotten a wink of sleep. But that was just fine with the three of us because the adrenaline for what we were about to pull off was more than enough to keep our eyes open.

"Should we take the window or the door?" Hally asked me once we'd reached the outside of our destination.

"Window, of course," I replied.

"But remember, I want honey on the knob of the door, only the inside doorknob, though," I instructed before climbing in through the window. My friends followed behind quietly.

Once all inside, we went through with our assigned tasks. Polly headed towards the bathroom, holding a bag of hi-jinks while Hally moved in the direction of the entrance to coat the doorknob as I had asked.

As they got to work, I went over to James' bed and pulled a spare blanket out of my bag. I hung the blanket up like a curtain by tucking it underneath the mattress to the bed above him. Evan, who was sleeping in the bed above James' shifted in his sleep.

I took a step back cautiously. My breath caught in my throat when one of Evan's eyes peeked open.

"What's going on?" he asked sleepily.

"Uh, nothing," I said quickly.

"You're just having a really weird dream."

"Why's there a girl in our cabin?" he said questioningly.

"There's not. I told you, it's just a dream now; GO back to sleep," I said, trying not to raise my voice as to wake the others. I looked around for the help of my friends. Hally caught my eye. She must have overheard our conversation from her position because a look of panic was spreading over her face. I felt as panicked as she looked.

Was our plan foiled before it had even begun?

Luckily for us, Evan sleepily obeyed my command and drifted back off. He mumbled something inaudible before he started snoring again.

As I finished putting up the makeshift shield for James, I heard Polly come out of the bathroom.

"What was that?" she asked worriedly.

"Nothing; it's all good. Just finish your job," I whispered in reply.

"I'm already finished," she told me simply.

"Did you make sure it worked?" I asked, turning to face her.

"We'll know if it works tomorrow, won't we? I mean, if we try it out now, it might wake them up," she pointed out.