Code Name Cassandra by Meg Cabot

unsuccessfully, to grind Arthur’s face into some tree roots, “is just destined to take an Uzi to his homeroom teacher someday.”’
    “Maybe I should stop this—” Scott started to step off the path.
    I grabbed his arm. “Oh, no,” I said. “Let’s let them get it out of their systems.” Arthur had just gotten the upper hand, and was seated on Shane’s chest.
    “Say you’re sorry,” Arthur commanded Shane, “or I’ll bounce up and down until your ribs break.”
    Scott and Dave and I, impressed by this threat, looked at one another with raised eyebrows.
    “Jess!” Shane wailed.
    “Shane,” I said, “if you’re going to throw rocks, you have to be prepared to pay the consequences.”
    “But he’s going to kill me!”
    “Just like you could have killed him with that rock.”
    “He wouldn’t have died from that rock,” Shane howled. “It was a little itty-bitty rock.”
    “It could have put his eye out,” I said in my prissiest voice. Scott and Dave both had to turn away, lest the boys catch them laughing.
    “When you break a rib,” Arthur informed his quarry, “you can’t breathe from your diaphragm. You know, when you play. Because it hurts so much. Don’t know how you’re going to sustain those whole notes when—”
    “GET OFFA ME!” Shane roared.
    Arthur scooped up a handful of dirt, apparently with the intention of shoveling it into Shane’s mouth.
    “All right, all right,” Shane bellowed. “I’m sorry.”
    Arthur let him up. Shane, following him back to the path, gave me a dirty look and said, “Wait until my dad finds out what a sucky counselor you are. He’ll get you fired for sure.”
    “Gosh,” I said. “You mean I might have to leave here and never listen to your whining voice again? What a punishment.”
    Furious, Shane stormed off toward Birch Tree Cottage. Arthur, chuckling, followed him.
    “Jeez,” Scott said again. “You want help putting those guys to bed?”
    I knit my brow. “What are you talking about? They’re almost twelve years old. They don’t need to be put to bed.”
    He just shook his head.
    About half an hour later, I realized what he’d been talking about. It was close to ten, but none of the residents of Birch Tree Cottage were in bed. None of them were even in their pajamas. In fact, they were doing everything
but
getting ready for bed. Some of them were jumping on the beds. Others were racing around the beds. A few had climbed under their beds, into the cubbies where they were supposed to stash their clothes.
    But none of them were actually in the beds.
    Somehow, I couldn’t see any of this happening in Frangipani Cottage. Karen Sue Hanky, I was willing to bet, was probably braiding somebody’s hair right now, while somebody else told ghost stories and they all enjoyed a big bowl of buttered popcorn from the utility kitchen.
    Popcorn. My stomach rumbled at the thought. I hadn’t had any dinner. I was starving. I was starving, Birch Tree Cottage was out of control, and I still hadn’t had a chance to open that envelope Pamela had given to me to give to Ruth.
    Except, of course, that what was inside the envelope was really for me.
    It was the idea of the ghost stories that did it, I guess. I couldn’t shriek over the screaming, and I couldn’t catch any of the kids who were racing around, but I could make it a lot harder for them to see. I stalked over to the fuse box and, one by one, threw the switches.
    The cottage was plunged into blackness. It’s amazing how dark things can get out in the country. They had switched off the lights along the paths through camp, since everyone was supposed to be in bed, so there wasn’t even any light from outdoors to creep in through the windows—especially since the area we were in was so thickly wooded, not even moonbeams could penetrate the canopy of leaves overhead. I couldn’t see my own hand in front of my face.
    And the other residents of Birch Tree Cottage were suffering from a similar