Surviving Summer Vacation by Willo Davis Roberts

not far away, and it has better facilities than the park,” she said. “We’ll have a store and a laundry and a playground for the little kids and an indoor heated pool. Besides, the campgrounds inside the park were all full by the time I called.”
    The campground turned out to be neat. We went to the swimming pool first thing. It was surprising how fast Billy and Ariadne were catching on to swimming. They weren’t especially graceful, but they could keep themselves afloat all right.
    Harry was the kind of guy who liked to sneak up behind you and jerk you under. He even did it to Alison, who didn’t care for it much when she didn’t have a chance to get a good breath of air first. There were some otherkids there, though, and they invited us to a water volleyball game with a big ball, and that distracted Harry from any more dunking.
    The RV park was full, and after a while so many people came in the pool that we decided to get out. “Hey,” Harry said, “let’s go play video games. There’s an arcade right off the laundry room.”
    I knew Harry had more spending money than I did, and I wasn’t sure how much I wanted to spend on video games, so I was glad when Alison came to call us to supper.
    We walked back to our campsite, smelling everybody else’s hamburgers and hot dogs being grilled. People were sitting around their picnic tables or eating in their rigs with the doors open, so we could tell what most of them were having. I hadn’t eaten any junk all afternoon, so I was hungry. I hoped we weren’t having more chips, at least for tonight.
    We were, though. With grilled cheese sandwiches. Mr. and Mrs. Rupe had been invited over to the Nabakowskis—in the mini motor home from the last campground—for steaks.
    â€œYou kids can toast your sandwiches allright, can’t you?” Mrs. Rupe asked cheerfully. Without waiting for a reply, the Rupes were out the door and gone.
    I looked at the refrigerator. “Is there anything green in there?”
    â€œA head of lettuce. There was a cucumber, but I think it got slimy already. Listen, I’ll fix hot sandwiches and make a salad if you’ll take Billy and Ariadne outside and watch them. I can’t do this and keep track of them, too. Make them sit at the picnic bench.”
    So I tried. Harry could have helped, but he didn’t. He was talking to a girl in red shorts from the trailer two spaces down.
    I sighed. “Sit right here,” I told the little kids, “while I bring out the paper plates and stuff, okay?”
    When I came back, fifteen seconds later, Ariadne was gone. Billy was watching a column of ants cross the table to a spot of what might have been jam left by the last users.
    â€œWhere’s your sister?” I demanded.
    Billy looked up vaguely. “I don’t know.”
    I cursed under my breath. “I’ll have to go look for her. You stay put. On second thought,you’d better come with me so I can watch you.”
    Reluctantly, Billy left the ants. “She went to see the bears, maybe.”
    â€œShe can’t see the bears. They’re in the park, and we aren’t there yet.”
    There were people all over the place, cooking, eating, heading for the pool or back from it, crowding into the store. Ariadne had been wearing a red swimsuit, but half the kids out running around had red somethings on. We passed Harry, and I called, “Come help us look for your little sister.”
    He waved, but the girl was smiling at him, and he didn’t come with us. “Nothing will happen to her with all these people around,” he said and kept on talking to the girl in red shorts.
    I snorted. Did he really think all these strangers were going to look out for Ariadne?
    We walked from one end of the camp to the other and didn’t see her. We met Alison, with an anxious look on her face, when we were almost back to our motor home.
    â€œI