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circles like drunk lightning bugs. It took me a second to realize—as the muffled conversation became clearer and unraveled into individual voices, male and female— that the dancing red lightning bugs were cigarette butts. If Fred caught us sneaking out and smoking, he’d surely have no choice but to kick us out. The risk was both nauseatingly scary and electrifying.
    â€œHey,” a low male voice said as we approached. In the watery moonlight I could make out the owner of the voice as Buzz. It wasn’t his real name, obviously, just a nickname, and the only one he used at camp. He was one of the waterfront counselors who came to South-point to take the girls out on the motorboats. He was short and muscley with cropped brown hair, close-set eyes, and a square jaw that reminded me of a bulldog.
    He was sitting on the dusty riflery hut floor next to Ransome. My eyes rested on Ransome and then quickly darted away.
    â€œWhat took y’all so long?” Ransome asked us.
    The self-assurance behind his question—the implication that Ransome knew what it took to sneak out of camp late at night, having done it so many times himself he could calculate how long it should take and how easy it should be—kind of thrilled me.
    Winn and Sarah settled into spaces left between the guys and the handful of older girl counselors who’d gotten there before us. I suddenly felt like the last one standing in Musical Chairs, turning around and around in my little spot as I hunted for a place to sit. Seeing me spinning like a top, Ransome slid over on one of the rotting, water-stained mattresses we used for campers who had to lie down to shoot the heavy guns.
    â€œHere ya go, Helena,” he said as he readjusted, leaving a tight wedge where I could just barely fit my butt.
    I froze, my cheeks burning at the discovery that Ransome knew my name. Was I still wearing my name tag from opening day? I panicked and looked down. I wasn’t.
    â€œThanks,” I stammered, and smiled sheepishly as I squeezed myself onto the mattress. I pulled my knees in tight to keep from crowding him.
    â€œWelcome to the range. It’s kinda tight, but we manage.”
    I’d seen Ransome a thousand times before, but I realized I could count on two hands the number of times I had heard him speak. His voice was deeper than I’d remembered. He smelled like sweat, but the good kind of sweat—the kind you work up from being outside in the sun all day carrying little girls’ trunks for them. There was another smell mingling in there too, and I realized it was dip. A wad of the pungent black stuff, which had always reminded me of mulch, protruded from his bottom lip. As I watched him out of the corner of my eye, he raised an empty Gatorade bottle to his mouth and spit, the brown juice oozing down the side of the bottle. It was gross, but I ignored it. There was not much Ransome Knowles could do that would turn me off. Possibly farting the “Star Spangled Banner” while kicking puppies. Possibly.
    I think it was Winn who had the idea to play “Never Have I Ever.” I hadn’t played before, so Sarah filled me in. We’d go around the circle, each person saying something he or she had never done, and those who had done it had to raise their hands. Normally, Winn explained, it was a drinking game, the purpose of which was to get the “worst” players drunk.
    Half an hour later, an older counselor named Marge cocked her head as she tried to think of one no one had said yet. “Never, never have I ever . . . made out in the Craft Shop.”
    Since we didn’t have alcohol, the purpose of our game was apparently just to call each other out on embarrassing stuff we’d done. Not all of us at the riflery range, however, were so easily embarrassed. A Brownie named Will threw up his hand, followed by Buzz and, grudgingly, Sarah. Winn and a few of the other counselors busted out laughing. I