Page 49 of Give Me a Sign
Isaac laughs—a wonderful, quiet laugh, where his mouth transforms into a smile as his chest rises and falls. “Okay, no bug spray. Are you ready for the break tonight?”
“Yeah, the restaurant.” I make the sign, but I’m unsure if I got it right, so I spell out “R-e-s-t-a-u-r-a-n-t.”
He furrows his eyebrows and shakes his head.
“Wrong sign?” I ask, confused.
Isaac waves his hand to clarify. “That’s the right sign, restaurant. But F-r-e-d-d-y-s is not really a restaurant.” He chuckles.
“Oh,” I say. “What is it?”
Isaac starts to sign an explanation when two girls run off the path and stop directly in front of our tree.
It’s Blake and Honey. They’re shoving each other, but then Honey points at us.
“I found them!” Blake shouts at the top of her lungs.
Honey reads her lips and shoves Blake again. “No, I found them.”
“Hey, everyone, I found Lilah and Isaac!” Blake shouts again. “Points for our cabin!”
“We get points for our cabin!” Honey signs. The two enthusiastically run back together to the rest of the group.
Isaac crawls out of the tree and offers his hand to help me up. I brush off the dirt and notice several red welts on my legs. The bugs got me good.
Isaac notices. “New reason for your sign name.”
“H-a h-a,” I sign as he reaches down to brush some dirt off the backs of my calves. I... have not been shaving my legs while at camp, but he doesn’t seem bothered.
“There, all good,” he signs.
“Thank you.”
After dinner, we’re given time to get ready for the talent show and dance. Our younger girls don’t spend too much timedressing up, so we get to the barn early and hang out on the steps. But then some of them decide they want their hair braided, so Mackenzie and I get to work.
“Have you seen Gary at all today?” Mackenzie asks as I reach out to ask a camper for her hair tie to finish off her braid.
“No, I haven’t. Why?”
“I overheard him telling Ethan something about donations.”
“Huh, we’ll have to ask about that later tonight.”
Twenty minutes later, Bobby’s, Simone’s, and Natasha’s groups all arrive and head into the dance barn, and Bobby gets to work connecting his phone to play his carefully crafted playlist for the dance.
With the campers’ hair done, Mackenzie finishes up her own pigtails. “Want me to do yours, too?”
“Um,” I say. “Maybe a half-up, half-down situation?”
“Sure,” Mackenzie agrees. “That’ll be easy enough.”
Jaden’s and Isaac’s groups are the last to show up. The boys run inside, hoping to influence Bobby’s music selection.
Isaac stops on the way up the stairs, watching Mackenzie playing stylist on me. He takes a step back down. “It looks pretty.”
“Thanks.” I can’t hide my face because Mackenzie still has a tight hold on my head. Bobby starts playing some pre-show tunes, and the wooden planks vibrate beneath me.
Isaac takes a seat on the step below me and flashes a smile over his shoulder. “One, please.”
