Sammy Keyes and the Wild Things Read Online Free Page A

merit badge in sight. And their uniform? T-shirts, hiking boots, jeans, ball caps . . . no sashes or vests or, you know,
neckerchiefs
.
    Also, when you think of a Girl Scout troop, you think of a big
group
. But this troop consisted of Robin’s daughter, Bella—who speaks with very precise diction and has dark curly hair that springs out in all directions—Bella’s best friend, Gabby—who has big ears and a little mouth—and Cricket, and me. That was it. I was one-fourth of a “troop,” and I wasn’t even officially in the group!
    We all piled into a well-worn van and were on the road by six-forty-five, with Robin driving, Cricket and me in the seats behind Robin, and Gabby and Bella in the seats behind us. And by the time we’d been on the road about an hour, I knew exactly why Cricket was so excited to have me come along. In this troop of three, she was odd girl out. See, Bella and Gabby are best-friends-forever kind of friends. Bella leads, and Gabby’s the adoring copycatter, agreeing with Bella about everything, sticking up for her about anything.
    It got old in a hurry.
    And the
trouble
is, Cricket was trying to act like best-friends-forever with
me,
which became really embarrassing. She wasn’t being an adoring copycatter, but it was almost worse—she kept telling Gabby and Bella stories about things I’d done to Heather during the year. At first Bella laughed, but then she started getting annoyed, and before long she was rolling her eyes and pulling faces like she flat-out disliked me. Which of course made Gabby do the same.
    â€œStop it!” I whispered to Cricket for about the fiftieth time. “Don’t say another word!”
    If I could have turned around and gone back to the boredom of living in an apartment building with a bunch of old people, believe me, I would have. But I was stuck. And by the time we were bumping along the potholes of a narrow mountain road, I was in a serious frump. How had I let myself get suckered into this?
    It wasn’t just that the people were driving me crazy. It was the scenery. Everything was so brown. So dry. There were no pine trees, no picturesque mountain streams, no twittering wildlife. And the farther up the mountain we climbed, the more it seemed that this “forest” we were in was really just a wasteland of rejects. Like all the plants and animals that hadn’t made the cut for
real
forests were collected and put into this place. Crows and flies, scrub oaks and dusty dirt, dried grass and tumbleweeds . . . who wants those in their forest?
    Not me.
    Robin seemed to pick up on my mood because I caught her watching me in the rearview mirror. “So, Sammy,” she called. “Has Cricket told you about the Vista Ridge Lookout project?”
    â€œA little . . .”
    â€œA
little
? Cricket . . . !” Robin scolded, but she was grinning. “Whatever you’ve been bending her ear about couldn’t have been as important as the Lookout project!”
    Cricket blushed.
    Robin made a careful turn of the wheel as she negotiated a switchback in the road. “We’ve been helping with the Lookout project for”—she glanced back at Bella and Gabby in the mirror—“how many years, girls?”
    â€œSince fourth grade!” they answered in harmony.
    â€œSince sixth for me,” Cricket said quietly.
    Like I cared? I didn’t want to hear about condors or some goody-goody Lookout project. I’d been promised camping, but instead I was trapped with a bunch of condor fanatics who’d probably spend the whole time talking about “environmental issues.”
    And any secret hope of running into Casey and Billy was gone. Why would they waste their vacation in this desert of a forest? They were probably someplace with
real
trees, having a great time actually
camping
.
    â€œAre you okay, Sammy?” Robin asked. “You look a little green.”
    If