Chapter 1: A Little Fresh Air Never Hurt Anybody 1 A Little Fresh Air Never Hurt Anybody
A dozen kids in matching T-shirts smiled up at Naomi from the front of the brochure she held. They were stacked on top of one another like Legos, balancing to form a pyramid that didn’t quite look like it could have a peak without an extra person.

Join us, the kids said with their smiles, as if flashing teeth and the promise of pyramid building would be enough to convince her if the information inside couldn’t.

Naomi frowned down at them. She did very few things without researching them first, but this time her dad had done the research for her. Supposedly.

“It’ll be great, Nomi!” he said, apparently in league with the pyramid-building kids.

He was waving his own brochure around in that excitable, wiggly way he got that always reminded her of the twins, and flipped through the laminated pages, obviously not reading so much as remembering. “It’s quiet out there and they have all kinds of new things for you to try: swimming, archery, even pottery, I think. And the hikes are supposed to be pretty good! The group leaders tell you all about the ecosystem up there, the trees and insects you’re seeing, all of it. Besides, a little fresh air never hurt anybody.”

“Have you been there?”

He blinked. “What?”

“Have you been there?” She held up her brochure, watching the way CAMP TWISTED PINE, raised to the touch and written in bright yellow, reflected her overhead light. The camp name didn’t inspire much confidence or excitement.

“Well, no, but—”

“So how do you know it will be great?”

Naomi—not Nomi, thank you very much, though no one in her house listened to her about that, her dad least of all—liked facts. Things that were real and true and provable. Liking something was not a fact. It was an opinion. Worse, in her dad’s case it was a guess.

Dad sighed, reining himself in. He placed the brochure neatly in his lap before twisting to face her from his seat on the edge of her bed. “It’s called being optimistic. It sounds like it will be great, so I’m assuming it will be. Go’head, take a peek.”

She squinted at the booklet in front of her before flipping it open. “?‘Camp Twisted Pine, named after our favorite three-hundred-year-old tree nearby, offers you the chance to get out of the city, take in some fresh air, and explore someplace much greener than the concrete jungle,’?” she read aloud. “?‘Come experience bonfires, sunsets, and more at our sleepaway camp tucked into the heart of the Pine Barrens.’?”

Inside there were more pictures and more smiling kids. Kids playing volleyball. Kids swimming in a lake too blue to actually be in New Jersey. Kids in a line, surrounded by trees on all sides as they crested the top of a hill. They all had matching temporary tattoos, a half circle with lines coming out of it that looked like a sunrise. Did the smiling mean they were actually having fun? Or were they all just being optimistic too?

Naomi shut the brochure. “No, thank you.”

Her dad sighed again. He did that a lot lately. Heavy, shoulder-melting exhales that always made her feel a little guilty somehow. “What don’t you like about it?”

What did she like about it?

Staying in a cramped cabin, swimming in a probably polluted lake, and eating burnt marshmallows off of sticks they’d found on the ground didn’t sound like fun. It sounded like the opposite of fun. If there was a monster, assuming that monsters were real in some world or another, that devoured everything fun, it would probably skip right over this camp.

“I just want to stay here,” she said instead, “like we always do.”

It was finally summertime, which meant it was time for Dad-ventures where Naomi, her dad, and the twins, Aman and Omar, wrote down all the places they wanted to go and the things they wanted to do and threw all the suggestions into an old Phillies hat. Every Monday, someone picked two things and those were their activities for the week. Sometimes it meant eating ice cream until their stomachs hurt, like Aman loved putting in. Other times it was trips to the library or the butterfly garden or lunch on top of one of the skyscrapers in the city that were so high up, Naomi had to keep her eyes shut as she ate, feeling around on her plate for the roundness of blueberries or the ridges of potato chips.

“This summer’s different, kiddo,” her dad said softly.

Naomi knew that. And she hated it.

She looked around her room that was half normal mess, half organized one. Dad had come to help her clear it of the last bits of elementary school but so far all he’d done was tell her about camp and all she’d done was conjure up memories for everything she touched, like the first science quiz she’d ever gotten extra credit on or the mushroom-shaped eraser she’d gotten from a book fair back in first grade.

Dad was wrong. This summer wasn’t just different—it was the start of a different life, one where she didn’t see her dad every day. How could she explain to him that if everything else had to change, she needed this summer to stay the same as it had always been?

She couldn’t.

Science was her thing. Explaining herself to her parents? Not so much.

So, she did what she always did when it felt like things were overwhelming for everyone around her. She shoved her own worry deep down inside and reached for the soft smile that almost always got her one in return.

“You’re so easy compared to the boys, baby,” Mom had told her once, a long time ago. “It’s such a relief.”

It had made her feel good then. Proud. And she’d settled into the role as best she could since. Easy Naomi. Quiet Naomi. Responsible Naomi. After a little while, it just became part of who she was. She liked making things easier for other people. Especially if it meant focusing on her own feelings a little less.

“I’ll think about it,” she promised.

Her dad perked up. “Good. Good! Your brothers are on board, so it’s just up to you, Nomi.” He stood, the bed squeaking as he did so. “It’s a good place, baby girl. You’ll see.”

He kissed the top of her head and strode out of the room. Naomi turned her attention back to the brochure. Kids still smiled up at her. The forest stood tall and proud in the background, behind a handful of colorful buildings and log cabins. She didn’t see a twisted pine tree anywhere.

She flipped the page.

“?‘The Pinelands,’?” she read aloud.

She reached for her backpack, digging out the observation journal safely tucked inside. This was her second one. The first was on her bookshelf, full of sketches of plants and small creatures she’d seen on previous field trips or in the nature books she checked out from the library. She could learn so much more about things online or in books than she could by just staring at them, she was sure, but she still liked seeing things, she supposed. And the brochure was right about something—there was probably more to see up there than in her city. Here, there wasn’t even a park close enough to walk to, and she knew how much the twins liked being outside.

Naomi sighed, tucking the brochure into her journal. She’d do what she promised her dad she would.

She’d think about it.