We were all busy, after that, stuffing our things into our backpacks and rolling up the sleeping bags. Laura finished before any of us, and she started to sweep the cabin. Raising a real cloud of dust. Sweeping pine needles and gummy bits of leaves, and all kinds of mysterious looking things that didn’t look all too appealing. We hardly realized we were living in such a mess. On the other hand, I guess we didn’t really care.
“Hey!”, Diane yelled at her. “Can’t you wait until we get out?”
And as Laura was sweeping under Sally’s bunk, the broom pulled a bright yellow cardigan out from under the bed. There was Sally’s missing sweater. Didn’t look like she’d be too anxious to claim ownership of it, from the gunky condition it was in, either. We all looked at one another, and laughed.
Diane ran over to it and picked it up in a little pinch between two fingers, like she didn’t want to touch it in case she’d catch something truly dreadful from full contact. It was all dripping with dust-balls and spiders’ webs, and there was even a spider hanging from a thread.
“Well, well”, she said. And carefully draped it over the edge of the mattress, so it lay full out, and you could see the dirt all over it.
“I better take it outside and shake the dirt out of it”, Laura said, the good little housekeeper.
“You dare, and I’ll bean you”, Diane warned her. “Just leave it where it is, thank you very much.”
So, when Sally came huffing and puffing back into the cabin a little while later, it was there, laying on the bed. But she didn’t notice it, at first.
“Okay, now you’re in for it”, she said, looking straight at me.
“Who, me?”
“That’s right, Jenny-bean. I told Mr. Henderson - and Mr. Farraday was there, and I told them just about how you’ve all been behaving to me, and especially you, stealing my sweater and all. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if they called your mother into the office and let her know you’ll be expelled…?
She looked like a stupid frog out of water, with her mouth hanging open, like she was trying to catch mosquitoes or something, when she turned and saw the sweater on the mattress. If I’d had some mosquitoes or even mud-balls, I’d have let her have it.
“My sweater!”, she screeched, just like the witch she is. “What did you do to it? Why, you must’ve buried it outside, or something! That’s it, isn’t it? You threw it away somewhere in the bush, and went to get it now, because you were ‘scared. Well, it won’t help you any. It’s even worse, if anything. First you steal my property, then you try to destroy it!”
“Sure, like I’ve got nothing better to do?” I told her.
“Look, Sally”, Laura cut in. And she started to explain, a little nervously, that she had found the sweater herself, sweeping under Sally’s bed.
“Well!” Sally snarled, looking at Laura like she was a bug or something. “So your true colours finally show. You’ve joined your true friends, have you?”
She asked a question, but she didn’t wait for the answer. She turned her back on us and got busy stuffing the remainder of her things into her pack, and just turned for long enough to shake the dirt out of her sweater, right in our direction. And then she grabbed her bedroll, and the backpack, and stomped out. Made off up the hill with her stuff, her sleeping bag bumping on the ground behind her.
“Thumpety-thump, Sally, bye-bye”, Donna called after her.
We were kind of mad at first, but then we decided that having her with us for the past couple of days kind of enlivened the atmosphere a little. We talked about her a bit, and came to the conclusion that she had to be mad at someone all the time, to be happy. Like, maybe she likes the excitement?
Anyway, we all stuffed ourselves onto the bus after our gear got crammed aboard, and this time the drive back wasn’t as long because the driver remembered the way back. We sang again, but not as enthusiastically, as before. Maybe it was because we'd had so much fun and didn’t want to leave, and maybe it was because we were kind of tired, like some of us maybe didn’t sleep too good there.
I sure felt tired, and kind of dirty, come to think of it. I wanted to go home, and I wanted a bath, and to just lay around the house and read. I wasn’t even going to look at my music, or anything.
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