Camp Confidential 03 - Grace's Twist by Melissa J. Morgan Page A

question had stumped her. She read over her answers anyway, just to double-check. Then she crossed her fingers and hit Send.
    “Well?” Kathleen asked. “How did you do?”
    “I think I aced it,” Grace reported. “My whole bunk helped me study all weekend.”
    “And they’re going to help you celebrate if you pass,” Kathleen said, gesturing out the office window. “They’ve been lined up out there for ten minutes.”
    “Really?” Grace ran over to the window and peered out. Her bunkmates sat in a row in front of the office shack. Nat and Alyssa were playing cat’s cradle with some string. Chelsea was sunbathing. Candace, Karen, Jessie, and Sarah were all reading books. Valerie was asleep with her baseball cap over her face. Jenna and Alex tossed a mini soccer ball back and forth. And Brynn was talking to herself. Grace smiled. Obviously Brynn was practicing her lines for the play audition.
    “You can head over to dinner now,” Kathleen said. “Afterward, come back here to call your folks and see how you did.”
    “Okay,” Grace said.
    Kathleen tugged lightly on Grace’s ponytail. “I’m proud of you, kiddo,” she said. “A week ago, you couldn’t have even finished half of those questions.”
    Grace nodded. “But I have to get them all right or else I can’t go on the field trip.”
    “Try to relax and have fun at dinner,” Kathleen said. “There’s no point in worrying now.”
    But it was impossible to relax during dinner. All of Grace’s bunkmates kept chattering about the trip to WetWorld. Grace knew they were trying to keep her mind off the quiz, but it wasn’t working. The pork chops tasted even more like sawdust than usual. She could hardly wait for dinner to end. Her whole future at camp this summer depended on the results of this quiz. Would she get to go on the field trip? Would she have to start rehearsing an audition piece, too?
    As soon as dinner was over, she sprinted back to the office and dialed her home number. “Mom?” she said as soon as she heard someone pick up.
    “Hi, honey!” her mother replied. “I’m so proud of you!”
    Grace took a huge gulp of air. She hadn’t even realized she’d been holding her breath. “You are?” she asked. “Did I do okay?”
    “Is that our brilliant daughter?” Her dad’s voice came on the line. He must’ve picked up the phone in the den, Grace thought.
    “Hi, Daddy!” she said. “How did I do? Did I get them all right?”
    “What do you think?” he asked.
    Grace considered. All the questions had seemed pretty straightforward. None of them had given her any reason to doubt her answers. “I think I got them all,” she said slowly. “They weren’t hard.”
    “That’s because you really read the book,” her mother replied. “The questions would have seemed hard if you had just skimmed through the chapters without paying attention to what you were reading.”
    “You mean the way I usually do,” Grace said.
    “Well . . . yes. You’re always more interested in whatever else is going on around you,” her father answered. “But this time you obviously focused on what you were reading and took it in.”
    “Yeah, I did,” Grace said. “I just tuned out everything else and read for hours.”
    “How did you like that?” her mom asked.
    “Not as much as I like hanging out with my friends,” Grace admitted. “But I did like the story. By the time I got halfway through, I really wanted to know what happened to Buck.”
    “That’s good enough for now,” her father said. “You got every question right, and we’re happy.”
    “Does this mean I can go to WetWorld?” Grace asked. “And audition for the play?”
    “Yes and yes,” her mother replied. “As long as you start reading The Jungle Book right away.”
    “I will! I totally will this time,” Grace promised. “I let you guys down once, and you gave me a second chance. I’m not going to let you down again.”
    “That’s what I like to hear,” her