Very Private List for Camp Success

  CONTENTS

  TITLE PAGE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  COPYRIGHT PAGE

  Penelope Kingston knew that you were supposed to feel excited about going on school camp. So Penelope was determined not to feel anxious. But she often found it hard to tell the difference between feeling excited and feeling anxious. In fact, one moment she could feel excited, and then the very next moment, WHAM! She was worried and nervous all over again.

  Penelope had been using some calming techniques in the lead-up to school camp. She reminded herself that she had been on sleepovers before. Not as many as most other girls, but she had slept in Grandpa George’s spare room lots of times. And she had gone to Tilly’s slumber party back in grade one, and been perfectly fine.

  Plus, she had been on camp last year.

  But thinking about last year’s camp was not very helpful. In fact, it made Penelope’s cheeks flush and her heart beat very fast. Unfortunately, last year’s camp had not been perfect. Mr Joseph had made them all climb a very steep and frightening hill.

  She’d also had an outburst when she discovered that Joanna (the naughtiest girl in the class) had put lasagne in the bottom of Penelope’s sleeping bag.

  Penelope stopped that memory.

  This time, things were going to be very different. Completely different. After all, she was a whole year older. Even though (annoyingly) she had only grown two and a half centimetres, and was still the smallest in her class, Penelope was definitely more mature on the inside.

  Penelope was determined not to cry this year. And she was absolutely not going to have an outburst.

  If she had an outburst at Camp Tribute, Penelope would never forgive herself.

  Penelope unzipped the secret pocket of her sausage bag, which she had carefully packed. She pulled out her Very Private List. It was just a short list, and she knew it by heart. But she felt quite sure that having it in her bag, and knowing that she could sneak a look at it whenever she wanted, would be helpful.

  Penelope was quite sure about the first three rules. Since she first wrote the list (six days ago, when she’d packed her bag), she hadn’t changed her mind about them one little bit.

  She was less sure about the fourth rule, however. On last year’s camp, when Penelope had (eventually) reached the top of that very steep hill, the fact that she had cried (only tears, not sobs) on the way up suddenly didn’t seem so terrible. Penelope was just amazed she had actually done it. But this year’s camp was famous for its activities. And they looked way more frightening than climbing up a (ridiculously) steep hill.

  Penelope was just debating whether to erase ‘all’ in rule four of her list (which would leave a funny space), or to simply put a question mark at the end, when her phone rang. It was only 8 pm, but Penelope was already showered and ready for bed. She wanted to have a good pre-camp sleep.

  Since her very own best friend had programmed the ringtone (Boing, which was a very jumpy type of ringtone that Penelope would never have chosen herself), Penelope knew exactly who was on the phone. A bolt of pleasure passed through her.

  She put a (very elegant) question mark next to rule four on the list, erased ‘all’ and wrote (in small letters, so it would fit nicely) ‘most’ between ‘try’ and ‘activities’.

  Then she answered the phone.

  ‘Hi Bob,’ she said to her very best friend.

  ‘I am seriously pumped, Pen!’ Bob squealed.

  Penelope had never much liked having her name shortened. In fact, there were only two people who managed to do it without being annoying. Luckily, Bob (her very best friend) was one of them.

  ‘It’s tomorrow!’ continued Bob. ‘To-morr-ow! Can you even believe it? We’ll be going on the rope course! And we’ll be rock climbing! And the challenge swing! OMG. It’s famous!’

  Penelope felt a frown pulling her eyebrows together. There had been a lot of talk at school about the giant challenge swing. Every time it had been mentioned, Penelope had felt her tummy lurching.

  She had a suspicion that some of the kids were only pretending to be excited about the swing. Although she was very good at deducing things, this kind of pretending was a great mystery to Penelope. For instance, she absolutely could not understand the way Tilly would walk out of every test complaining that she’d failed. Tilly had never failed a test – not one single time. Penelope was always able to judge (within a mark or two) how she’d gone in a test, and she was sure Tilly could do the same.

  And some people were always pretending they hadn’t put in any effort before an event. Her brother, Harry, did this all the time. Penelope had heard him tell his soccer teammates that he hadn’t trained at all, when in fact Penelope had seen him kicking his soccer ball around every single day after school.

  These things were very confusing. Even more confusing was that when Penelope (helpfully) told Tilly and Harry that they didn’t need to pretend, they did not seem happy or relieved.

  Embellishing was another thing Penelope did not understand. If everyone just stuck to FACTS, life would be way less complicated.

  For example, she was absolutely certain that kids were exaggerating when they talked about how high the challenge swing was.

  Felix Unger (who had a habit of exaggerating the truth) had been ridiculous enough to suggest it was fifteen metres high. That absolutely, positively, could not be true!

  Penelope closed her eyes and imagined herself rising into the sky on a giant swing. In fact, she imagined so hard that she felt quite giddy and almost forgot she was on the phone.

  ‘Pen? Are you there?’ Bob prompted.

  ‘Yes,’ Penelope said, glad to be back down on earth. ‘And Bob, don’t forget things like orienteering and bush cooking.’

  Penelope knew she would probably never be excellent at sport, or any kind of physical activity, but she was absolutely sure she would excel at many other things.

  ‘It’s going to be completely crazy-mad,’ Bob squealed.

  Penelope giggled. Though she’d become quite used to the way Bob spoke, it still made her laugh. This, along with the way Bob wore her hair (extremely short with a cocky’s crest at the top) and the way she insisted on being called Bob instead of Brittany O’Brien (which was her real name), was what made Bob a unique and fabulous very best friend.

  ‘I wonder who’ll end up in our hut?’ Penelope said, when she’d stopped giggling.

  The students had each listed the three people they would most like to share a hut with. Penelope and Bob had put each other first. (This had never happened to Penelope before, so she had checked Bob’s list with her own eyes.)

  Ms Pike had already told the class that everyone had got their first choice. But until they got to camp, they wouldn’t know who else they were sharing a hut with.

  ‘I don’t really mind who it is,’ Bob replied. ‘Sarah and Tilly would be good.’

  ‘Or maybe Eliza and Alison,’ Penelope continued.

  ‘Even Joanna could be fun,’ Bob offered.

  After last year’s lasagne incident, Penelope wasn’t sure about sharing a hut with Joanna. Joanna was absolutely the naughtiest girl Penelope had ever met. She also had a terrible habit of sticking her tongue out in very unusual and disagreeable ways.

  Still, she did have some good qualities. For instance, Joanna had been very apologetic after Penelope’s outburst about the lasagne.

  ‘Yep, even Joanna would be OK,’ Penelope replied
.

  The girls were silent for a moment.

  ‘As long as it’s not –’

  ‘Don’t!’ Penelope said urgently. ‘Don’t even say her name, or you’ll jinx us.’

  ‘OK,’ Bob said, ‘I won’t say it starts with an “R”. And I won’t say that the next letter is –’

  ‘I have to go,’ Penelope interrupted. Even though it may have sounded like a lie, and even though Penelope really did want to stop speaking about the person they really, really didn’t want to share a hut with, it was actually true that Penelope needed to go.

  Because just then there was a very loud bang on Penelope’s bedroom wall that needed immediate investigation.

  Although Penelope was usually pretty calm and sensible, sometimes (she had to admit) she could be really bossy and cranky. It was like there were two different Penelopes living inside her. It was the angry, frustrated Penelope who (sometimes) had outbursts. Outbursts were terribly exhausting and embarrassing, so she had been practising how NOT to have one. She was determined to stick to the number-one rule on her list.

  Instead, she started to type ‘Camp Tribute’ into the search engine on her iPhone. She’d looked at the camp’s website before, of course, but suddenly it seemed necessary to confirm the exact height of the challenge swing. She was sure she’d seen the word ‘optional’ somewhere.

  If she wasn’t required to go on the challenge swing, she could put her energy into being excellent at some other activity. (Penelope was very glad she’d changed her list to read ‘try most activities’.) She thought she might be quite good at orienteering. Orienteering was about being careful and thorough, and Penelope was definitely careful and thorough.

  She had typed the first six letters into the search engine when there was another bang on the wall. This time it was followed by a burst of music.

  ‘We will, we will, rock you!’

  Penelope put down her iPhone and crossed her arms. Harry had a basketball ring in his bedroom, and even though the ball was soft, it still made a loud banging sound when it hit the wall. Even worse, the ball was most likely covered with something disgusting. There was always a range of disgusting things to choose from on Harry’s floor. The last time she’d looked under his bed, Penelope had counted three smelly socks, a hairy orange and two ancient, half-eaten pieces of Hawaiian pizza.

  Whenever the ball hit the wall, she imagined it releasing a fungus colony that would multiply and spread into her own (neat and clean) bedroom.

  Penelope opened her middle drawer and sprayed some anti-bacterial spray around the room, just in case. Then she went back to her phone. She had only managed to type in ‘Camp Trib–’ when another bang interrupted her. PENELOPE LOOKED IN THE MIRROR AND SAW THAT HER NOSTRILS WERE FLARED. She concentrated on un-flaring them. She was still determined not to react (even though it was the night before camp, and Harry really should have more consideration).

  The best thing was to stay calm and definitely not have an outburst. In fact, this was Very Good practice. Penelope walked casually towards Harry’s room.

  Her mum was standing in the doorway, cheering Harry on. Penelope was quite sure that most mothers would not do that.

  ‘You need to aim a bit to your right, Haz,’ she was saying.

  Penelope paused in the hallway and watched over her mum’s shoulder as Harry jumped on his bed and threw the ball. Though she couldn’t see the ring, she could tell Harry had got it in. Her mum’s face lit up. She was on her second air punch when she noticed Penelope standing there.

  ‘Oh hello, Poss,’ she said. She hesitated mid-punch, as though she wasn’t entirely sure whether to continue.

  For some reason, that made Penelope a little bit sad. Even though her mum and Harry were quite different to her, and sometimes the things they liked seemed silly to Penelope, she didn’t want to ruin their fun.

  ‘So,’ said her mum, ‘are you all ready? It’s so exciting. Harry loved Camp Tribute.’ She turned to Harry. ‘Didn’t you, Haz? Any advice for your little sister?’

  Harry’s bed squeaked as he jumped onto the floor. His Batman pyjama pants had big holes in the knees, and he was wearing his Space Invaders T-shirt, which was much too small. The combination was quite difficult for Penelope to look at.

  ‘Camp Tribute is awesome,’ Harry said. ‘You’ll love it. You should try to do all the activities.’

  Penelope did not roll her eyes.

  ‘I’m planning to throw myself into bush cooking, and I think I might be quite good at orienteering,’ she said.

  Harry looked a bit confused, as though he had never heard of those activities. Penelope supposed that was because camp was such a long time ago for Harry. He probably couldn’t remember much about it at all.

  ‘Just make sure you go on the challenge swing,’ Harry said. ‘It’s sick! Do you know it’s eighteen and a half metres high?’

  ‘I’m quite sure the challenge swing is optional,’ Penelope said, a little snappily.

  It was a shock to hear that the swing was more than THREE TIMES THE HEIGHT of their house. It was also a shock that Harry remembered the exact height. He wasn’t the type of person who usually paid attention to detail.

  A series of images ran quickly through Penelope’s brain.

  Even though it was just an image, and not real, suddenly the feelings Penelope had been trying to squash down by not reacting rushed past the calm and nice part of her. Penelope felt doomed to have an outburst at camp in front of everyone, no matter how hard she tried not to.

  ‘Hey, remember not to hold your breath, Penelope,’ Harry said.

  Sometimes Penelope would hold her breath without even realising it. This was not a good thing to do, because (as the girl whose name began with R had pointed out) it made her red in the face, and it made her veins pop out.

  ‘There are loads of nerdy activities too,’ Harry said, after Penelope started breathing again. ‘You’ll be fine.’

  ‘Of course you will, Poss,’ her mum joined in. ‘I know you’ll have a great time.’

  Even though Penelope was not keen on Harry describing the kind of activities Penelope liked as ‘nerdy’, and even though her mother couldn’t really know that Penelope would have a great time, Penelope felt a little better.

  But worrying a bit less about camp just opened up some room for worries about her mum and Harry.

  Without Penelope there to organise things, the two of them could definitely run into problems.

  ‘The question is, will you two be OK?’ she asked.

  Although she was quite serious, her mum and Harry were smiling. Penelope sighed. Honestly, Harry and her mum didn’t understand how important she was when it came to keeping their house organised.

  ‘Mum, you’ll need to buy healthy food,’ Penelope reminded her. There was a good chance that Harry and her mum would eat junk food the whole time she was gone if Penelope wasn’t strict with them.

  ‘I will shop as though you’re right there with me,’ her mum promised. Penelope was pleased to see her mum had her hand on her heart as she spoke, which meant it was a core promise. A core promise was one you couldn’t break (no matter what).

  Penelope knew a lot about core promises because her dad was a politician, and politicians made core promises quite a lot.

  ‘Harry, what are the five major groups in the food pyramid?’ she quizzed.

  Now that she had a core promise to reassure her, Penelope felt quite playful. They’d played this game a million times, but there was something about the silly way Harry always answered that Penelope loved.

  ‘You’re impossible, Harry!’ Penelope interrupted, rolling her eyes.

  But it was quite big-brotherly and night-before-camp-ish when Harry ruffled her hair. Penelope rather liked it – even though her hair had been neatly brushed, and would have to be brushed again now.

  When Penelope got back to her room, there was a message from Grandpa George on her iPhone.

  Penelope considered the message. The bus trip t
o Camp Tribute was expected to take two hours and thirty-five minutes. So, the bus ride could not possibly be as important as the destination. She’d be at camp for two whole nights (or approximately forty-eight hours).

  Penelope adored getting messages from Grandpa George but sometimes they didn’t make absolute sense.

  She tucked her iPhone under her pillow, which felt a little bit like having Grandpa close by. Then she pulled Blue Teddy close to her chest, thinking he might need a hug before she went away for approximately forty-eight hours, and fell asleep.

  Before leaving the next morning, Penelope grabbed her phone and snapped some last-minute pictures of herself and her luggage. On the way to school, she added some pictures of the footpath and the sky and labelled them ‘8 am’. She sent them to her dad, along with a link to the Camp Tribute website.

  Each week, Penelope would send her dad a photo of her school timetable so he would know exactly what she was doing at any time. But since Penelope had absolutely no idea of the camp timetable, he would just have to make do with general information about the camp.

  Then she took a selfie of her blowing a kiss to her half-sister, Sienna.

  ‘Goodbye, iPhone,’ she said, reluctantly handing it to her mum, who had come to help Penelope carry all her camp gear, and to say goodbye.

  ‘Don’t worry, Poss,’ said her mum. ‘I’ll put it in your special box with the lock and key.’

  Penelope had a wobbly feeling as she gave up her phone for forty-eight hours. There was another strange feeling when her mum hugged her. It was as though the hug was squishing her excitement and her nerves together in quite a messy way. Penelope was worried she was going to break rule number two on her Very Private List – before they even got on the bus!

  Luckily, right at that moment, Penelope saw over her mum’s shoulder that Oscar Finley needed immediate rescuing.

  A few kids were gathered around Oscar. He had his arm outstretched and was showing something to the others. Even without knowing exactly what Oscar was showing them, Penelope could make an educated guess: some kind of bug or insect. Oscar was a great lover of nature. He knew lots of different types of birds and beetles. He even loved spiders (which Penelope definitely didn’t agree with). He knew many interesting facts about them.