Elephants, monkeys, and snakes. Oh my.

When Christy turned around, she discovered Jeanine had taken her place next to Jessica on the couch. Jessica, the experienced counselor, was stroking the young girl's hair out of her face and speaking to her softly. Jeanine drank in every word.

"Okay, I'll try it." Jeanine hopped up and gave Jessica a look she never would have given to Christy. A look of true admiration and appreciation. Then she rushed out of the lodge.

"What did you tell her?" Christy asked, retrieving her seat On the couch.

"I told her that instead of taking things away from Nick, maybe she should try giving something to him to get his attention. She's off to make a friendship bracelet at the craft center."

"That was brilliant. How did you think of that?"

"It's what I was about to tell you before she burst in here. The one thing you can never do is love too much."

"Never love too much?" Christy repeated.

"When I left camp last year, I realized I had done a lot of the 'right' things as a counselor, but I hadn't loved the girls in my cabin as much as I could have. Do you know what I mean?"

Christy flashed back to when she had caught the girls going through her clothes. Yes, she did know what Jessica meant.

"You see," Jessica said, "you can't argue with love. When this week is over, what will the girls remember? The squabbles? The team races on the last day? What the speaker said?"

"I'm sure they'll remember some of that," Christy said. "I remember some of that from my days as a camper."

"But what do you remember the most?" Jessica asked. "Not just about camp, but about your whole life? I think we remember the people who loved us."

Christy took Jessica's advice to heart. She knew her new friend was right. Eagerly making her way to the craft barn after their meeting, Christy wondered how that advice might apply to Jaeson. What would he remember about her when camp was over?

More and more thoughts collided in her head as if all her emotions had gathered and were holding court in her brain. She was the one on trial. The prosecuting attorney's voice said she was silly and immature to chase after a guy at summer camp when she had Todd waiting for her at home. Another emotion stepped up as her defense witness and claimed that she had the right to build relationships with any guy she wanted to, and this was all part of camp.

Just as she was about to enter the craft barn, Christy imagined all the girls in her cabin as the jury. Their squeaky voices were raised in a loud "Not guilty" inside her head. She felt free to take that step into the craft barn and see what happened next.

She noticed Jaeson right away. He looked up and saw her at the same time.

"Christy," he greeted her. "Just the person I wanted to see. Can you help these girls with their bracelets? I'm supposed to meet my guys at the pool in five minutes."

Sara, Amy, and Jocelyn beamed their approval at her and started to talk all at once. Christy stepped over to the side of the table where the three of them were nearly finished braiding their friendship bracelets.

"Can you tie mine?" Sara asked. "I'm all done. Do you like it? Does it look right?"

"Yes, it's very nice." Christy tied the two leather straps around Sara's thin wrist. "You did a nice job."

Jaeson squeezed Christy's shoulder, "Thanks a million for helping me out here. I'll see you later. At the pool, maybe?"

"Sure, we'll come to the pool," Amy answered for her. "Won't we, Teach? We're really done, aren't we, you guys?"

"I'll see you," Jaeson called over his shoulder as he took off for the pool.

The minute Jaeson was out the door, Sara smiled at Christy and said, "Jaeson asked if you had a boyfriend, and we told him no because you never told us if you really had one or not. We told him you liked him, and he said he liked you."

The three girls gathered around Christy with their eyes twinkling.

"So? Do you like him?" Amy asked.

Christy wasn't sure how much of all of this she should believe. She decided a strong, direct answer might work best. "I think Jaeson is a really nice guy. He's a strong Christian, and that's a very important quality to look for in a guy."

'We knew it!" Sara squealed. "We knew you liked him! Come on. Let's go to the pool."

Jocelyn and Amy held out their arms for Christy to tie their bracelets and then joined Sara, racing up the hill to their cabin to put on their bathing suits.

Christy realized Jeanine must have gotten sidetracked because she wasn't busily making her bracelet for Nick. Either that or she had been so enthusiastic that she had already finished it and rushed off to present it to her "boyfriend."

Taking a few minutes to close up the craft barn, Christy headed up the hill. The girls met her halfway, already suited and with towels under their arms.

"We'll see you there!" they shouted and scampered on down the hill to the pool.

When Christy met them a short time later, they were having a water war with Jaeson and his guys. She wasn't sure she wanted to step into the middle of their combat. To her relief, the lifeguard blew his whistle and said they were getting too rowdy and had to get out of the pool. She put down her towel on the warm cement.

Her three little drowned rats were the first ones out, complaining and arguing about how the boys weren't playing fair. They wrapped themselves in their towels and sat down right next to Christy, hurling rude comments at the boys.

Jaeson planted himself in the middle of his guys and tried to calm them down. He glanced over at Christy, smiled, and shrugged as if to say, "What am I supposed to do with these clowns?"

Christy smiled back.

"He likes you," Sara said, lifting Christy's left hand and pressing down on Christy's fingernails. "Are these real? I mean, are they yours?"

"Yes, they're mine and they're real."

"They're so long!" Sara exclaimed as Amy and Jocelyn crowded in to feel Christy's nails.

"Not really," Christy said.

"They're longer than mine," Amy said. "How do you make them grow?"

"First of all, try to stop biting them," Christy suggested.

"I bite mine all the time," Jocelyn confessed.

The girls continued to compare their nails with Christy's and each other's. Christy peered over their heads and noticed Jaeson talking with the lifeguard. The lifeguard blew his whistle, signaling for everyone in the pool to stop where they were.

"We're going to put up the volleyball net in the shallow end," the lifeguard announced. "Everyone who wants to play volleyball go in the shallow end. Everyone else stay in the deep end."

Apparently volleyball was Jaeson's idea, because he had already pulled the net from the storage cupboard, and his boys were helping him to set it up.

"I don't want to play with them," Amy said. "They always cheat. We'll stay here with you."

Christy's fan club positioned their towels closer to her, overlapping her towel and dripping all over her.

"You want to play?" Jaeson called out to Christy from the shallow end as soon as he had the net in place.

"No!" Sara answered, grabbing Christy by the arm.

The other girls followed her lead. "She's staying here with us."

Christy felt a strong urge to break free from these wet, clinging urchins, but Jessica's advice prompted her to stay. This was a chance for her to show these girls she loved them. Besides, she wasn't much of a volleyball player on land. She had a feeling the water wouldn't improve her skills.

Now it was Christy's turn to smile and shrug back at Jaeson. He gave her one of his thumbs-up signs and tossed the ball into the water. For the rest of free time, Christy hung around the pool, watching Jaeson, talking to her girls, and wondering if Jaeson would come over and talk to her. He never did, but he looked at her a lot.

At dinner, Christy arrived in the mess hall before Jaeson and took a seat at an empty table, watching the door. He soon came in and headed right for Christy.

"There you are," he said, taking the seat that backed up to hers at the next table. "Your girls told me you didn't have one of these yet."

Jaeson used his teeth to remove one of the leather friendship bracelets from his wrist and offered it to Christy. "You're not an official Camp Wildwood counselor unless you have one."

"Thanks." Christy held out her left wrist for Jaeson to tie on the bracelet. Her "Forever" ID bracelet circled her right wrist, and she didn't think the two bracelets mixed.

While Jaeson tied the thin leather straps, the doors opened and the campers ran in. Christy's girls flocked to her table in time to see him finish tying on the bracelet and give Christy a big smile, which she returned. That's all it took for them to all start whispering about how Jaeson and Christy were now going together.

The eager group of matchmakers made sure that Christy sat near Jaeson in the evening meeting and that they walked to the mess hall together for evening snack.

Christy had to admit that it was fun playing the role of heroine. Six of her girls had now permanently attached themselves to her and led her by the arms wherever they wanted her to go, telling her how pretty she looked or how much Jaeson liked her.

Jaeson seemed to enjoy being a hero too. Christy could tell he had been through this kind of treatment many times before because of all his years as a counselor. She knew it must be like this for him every week of camp. She also figured she was one in a long line of girl counselors who were destined to be Jaeson's girlfriend for the week.

It didn't matter. Christy was having too much fun to think of why this game should end.

The next morning she found it hard to wake up. It was Wednesday, halfway through the week. They had been warned in a counselors meeting that this was when it would all begin to catch up with them.

The girls seemed to have no problem bouncing out of bed though. Christy pulled her sleeping bag over her head and tried to catch a few more Zs.

"Aren't you going to take a shower?" Sara asked, rocking Christy by the shoulder. "You always get up and take a shower."

"Just let me sleep five more minutes," Christy pleaded. "Five more minutes."

"But it's almost six-thirty," one of the girls said. "You have to get to the mess hall before seven so you can get a table next to Jaeson's."

"Oh, I do, do I?" Christy asked, throwing back the sleeping tag and facing seven curious faces peering at her.

"Yes," they all agreed. "He really likes you, and he would be mad at you if you didn't get there in time."

"Oh, he would, would he?" Christy pulled her legs from her snug coc.o.o.n and forced them into the cool morning air and onto the cluttered wood floor.

"You guys, this place is a mess," Christy scolded. "We only received five points yesterday for cabin cleanup. Today I want us to get all ten points. That means everyone has to pick up her junk and put it away."

"Here, wear this," Amy said, pulling a T-shirt from Christy's bag, laying it on her sleeping bag, and smoothing out the wrinkles with her hand.

"And your jeans shorts," Jo celyn advised.

"Okay, okay! You girls get yourselves dressed. And don't forget to pick up all your junk." Christy was beginning to dislike this part of the day when she couldn't go to the bathroom or wash her face without bracing herself against the morning chill on the hike to the restrooms. Throwing on her clothes and grabbing her towel and makeup bag, she headed out the door.

"We'll go with you," four of the girls echoed. "Wait for us."

Christy stood outside the cabin door, shivering and waiting for her entourage to get its act together. The girls joined her, all chattering brightly as they trudged through the dirt.

When Christy arrived in the bathroom, Jessica was already there with her fan club. She looked fresh and pretty and ready to start the day.

"How do you do that?"

'What?"

"How do you manage to look so awake? I'm exhausted."

"We got to bed on time last night, finally," Jessica said. "I cut my devos short. How did yours work out last night?"

Christy plunged her washcloth into the cold water and washed her face as quickly as she could. "Brrr!" she patted dry with her musty-smelling towel. "Devos went well, I think."

The campers were all scurrying around the bathroom.

A few huddled around the sink next to Jessica and Christy and imitated the older girls' wake-up routine by splashing cold water on their faces and responding with the same brrr!

"They were great!" Jocelyn answered for Christy. "We talked all night."

"I tried your idea of getting acquainted by each girl telling about her family. We went too long, but they all had lots to say. I think I know them a lot better now."

"And she likes us more too," Amy added. "Don't you, Teach?"

Jessica and Christy exchanged smiles.

"You can never love too much," Jessica whispered in Christy's ear. Then gathering her things, she said, "You're doing a great job, Christy. I'll see you at breakfast."

Christy felt warmed inside and encouraged. Maybe she was going to make it through this week after all.

with the usual routine of the counselors meeting, morning Bible study, and the whole afternoon free. Christy planned to spend the afternoon at the pool with her girls since Jaeson said he was going to be there. But when she went up to the cabin to put on her bathing suit, she found Ruthie on her bunk bed crying.

Christy sat on the edge of Ruthie's bed, ducking her head to fit under the top bunk. She placed her hand on Ruthie's back and slowly rubbed it. "Are you okay?"

Ruthie's sobbing slowed to a sniffle. "n.o.body here likes me.

"Yes, they do. Everyone likes you. I like you very much," Christy said.

"Everybody has her own friends here. I don't have anybody. n.o.body asked me to go with them. They all took off without me."

Christy kept rubbing Ruthie's back and stroked her light brown hair back from her peaches-and-cream face. "I'm sorry," was all Christy said.

She thought of plenty of advice to give Ruthie about how she should be the friendly one who pursues the other girls and how it wouldn't do any good to lie here feeling sorry for herself when there was so much outside for her to do. But Christy remembered the times she had felt left out, lonely, and sad. It had always helped to throw herself on her bed and have a good cry.

What she didn't like was when her mom had come in and told her how she should act or what she should be feeling. Christy always wished her mother would just let her cry and feel sad with her for a few minutes.

Christy sat silently rubbing Ruthie's back as she finished getting out all her tears. Eventually the only sound was a few sniffs from Ruthie into her damp pillow.