“This is so cool,” Allison giggled. “I’ve always wanted to visit Disney World.”

“God, me too,” I answered. “I’m like the biggest Disney freak ever.”

“Yeah, but I love you anyway,” Nicole teased.

---

We had a larger turnout than we were expecting that afternoon. It turned out the younger girls had recruited some of their friends to come and help as well, and Sarah and Katelyn of course. We sat around and talked for a good while about design and planning, as we had a surplus of materials to work with in exchange for the recycled wood and metal scrap that Kris and Merry had generously allowed us to sell.

Sunday afternoon was our first monthly meeting since school started, and we had a great deal to talk about, not the least of which being our new members.

“I really want to get more involved,” I said as we sat around, waiting for Coach Greer. Jennifer and Allison sat on the edge of the auditorium stage, Allison lazily kicking her feet back and forth as Jennifer lay back with her hands under her head.

“I know what you mean,” Allison added. “Doing the haunted house is great and a lot of fun, but it feels like as senior scouts we could be doing a lot more.”

Suddenly a pair of hands covered my eyes, and I heard an unfamiliar giggle as Sarah whispered, “Guess who?”

“Moira,” I teased, causing her to laugh as she hugged me from behind.

“Nikki you know Trina’s sister right?”

“Sharon, hey,” Nicole answered cheerfully. “Robin you haven’t met Sharon yet have you?”

I shook my head as I offered my hand to the girl. She definitely bore a strong family resemblance, and she even seemed as outgoing and cheerful as Trina.

“Sharon just joined the Scouts last week,” Sarah continued.

“Yeah, my friend Julie talked me into it. It’s great to finally meet ‘Spirit’,” she bubbled. “By the way have you guys talked to Angela yet? She said she had a big surprise for this week’s meeting.”

We all shook our heads. “I tried to get her to spill,” Jennifer added, “But she said she had to wait until she was absolutely sure about it. It’s probably something about the Girl Scouts 100th anniversary beginning this year.”

As if on cue Angela appeared in the doorway off to our right a moment later carrying a load of papers. “Sorry girls,” she said as she came closer, “I had to make some copies. Now as most of you probably know, I’ve been organizing details on a little surprise for our girl scout field trip.”

“The ski trip last year was epic,” Tracy replied, and giggled, “Even though Nikki got her skis up a tree.”

“Ski POLE thank you very much,” Nicole teased. “Are we doing that again this year?”

Every set of eyes watched Coach Greer, waiting expectantly for an answer. She shook her head.

“No, but the place we’re going does have a surfing wave simulator,” she replied, as she began to hand out stacks of papers in transparent binder folders. Girls began to gasp, whisper, and even squeal as they saw the top page - ‘Girl Scouts of Alpine Springs Disney World Resort Guide’

“Now, before we get too excited, you’ll have to do all the fundraising yourselves. There’s not enough in the treasury to cover airfare and park expenses,” she began, and waited for the chorus of groans to die down, “However! I’ve been in contact with the people at the resort, and they’ve given me some information about special group discounts that we qualify for.”

“So when is this going to happen?” I asked. “Because this is going to cost a lot more than the ski trip did even with discounts.”

“Will we have time to raise the money?” Sarah added.

“We’ll have plenty of time. The trip’s going to be in the second week of February during winter break. You can raise the money however you’d like, but I want to go ahead and mention that a local business owner who wishes to remain anonymous, as generously donated two iPads for raffle.

“I have some permission slips ready now, if anyone wants to get their parents’ permission early. Please show these booklets to them as soon as possible as well. Any questions?”

Amanda raised her hand. “Can non-scouts come too?”

Angela shook her head. “I’m sorry sweetie, but this is officially a Girl Scout event. If you have someone you want to come on the trip they need to join by December 1st. That’s the deadline for confirmation on arrangements. If any of your parents or other adults are interested in chaperoning the trip, please have them contact me. The information is on the last page.”

“This is so cool,” Allison giggled. “I’ve always wanted to visit Disney World.”

“God, me too,” I answered. “I’m like the biggest Disney freak ever.”

“Yeah, but I love you anyway,” Nicole teased.

“So, if there are no other questions, I’m going to go ahead and let you go here in just a second. First I want to give everyone a quick update on the Haunted House project. Robin?” she asked, glancing at me. “You’re up.”

“Sure sure, pick on the girl who hates public speaking,” I teased, causing everyone to giggle as I stood.

“Okay, so as you know we’ve been breaking our backs to get the old asylum cleaned up. We’ve had a lot of outside help too, and I’m really proud of the way everyone’s come together to make this happen. Phase 1 is finished, and the place is practically like new. Construction crews are ready for Phase 2. The owners have basically given us permission to do whatever we want here.”

“Why are they letting us have so much freedom with the place?” Sharon asked. “Aren’t they planning on renovating it themselves?”

I nodded. “Well, that’s actually why we get so much freedom. They’ve decided that the easiest way to renovate it, is to just knock it down and build a brand new facility on the foundation. Our Haunted House will be the last event held in the original building, sort of a fond farewell to those that died there.”

Julie shivered. “That’s morbid. But that’s kind of the point, so... I like it!”

“One last thing,” I continued. I was actually getting a lot better with public speaking ever since I performed “The Raven” for my AP English class last year. I found that if I approached it from the perspective of a performer - just like I did with Cheer, that it became much easier to focus.

“As you guys know, October 30th Heedless Despair will be performing their final Halloween Fright Fest concert in New Haven-”

“Say no more,” Tracy interrupted with a giggle. “I’m going to that concert. I know most of the older girls here are too. The concert starts at 8pm, which means we need to be in New Haven by 7. The Double-H is going to take a lot of work to run especially with school to think about too, so I say we do it two hours a night, from 7 to 9 during the week leading up to it with alternating shifts of volunteers, four hours on Saturday - 5 to 9 with two hour shifts, and then 4 to 6 on Sunday.”

Angela nodded. “We’ll meet again to discuss who can work when, once we’ve worked out how many people we actually need. We can even alternate ‘scares’ so it’s a different experience each night, with different girls, so you can attend as a visitor and scare your friends,” Angela added. She was clearly enjoying this as much as we were.

As we left, Tracy walked up behind us and put her hands on Jennifer’s and my shoulders. “So, cheer tryouts are in two weeks. You two ready?”

“Jenn is,” I answered with a laugh. “Me, not so much.”

Tracy laughed as she patted my shoulder. “You’ll do fine. I thought about not trying out, but Chelsea talked me into it. I swear she’s about to crack though,” she added quietly.

Sarah nodded as she spoke up. “I can’t blame her honestly. I mean I’ve just got school and ballet, and scouting, and I’m stretched pretty thin. Chelsea has, what, cheer, basketball, volleyball, and AP courses?”

“Don’t forget she’s the captain of the debate team,” Nicole chimed in. “She’s dropping out of basketball completely I heard.”

I had to sigh at that. I had hoped she would stay on the team. “We’re losing her as cheer captain too. If you guys see her, just give her a friendly hug. I know she’ll appreciate it.”

“See you guys at the asylum tonight,” Tracy said. As we parted ways I looked back over at Sarah and Sharon.

“You guys need a ride? I’m staying with my sister this weekend so it’s on the way.”

Sarah smiled brightly as she shook her head. “No thank you. Sharon’s Mom is picking us up. We’ll def be at the, what did Tracy call it?” she giggled. “Double-H? This evening.”

As Allison and I sat down in my car, we waited for Jennifer, Shelly, and Nicole to get into her Mustang and pull away before we pulled into traffic to follow them. Allison glanced at me with an amused grin.

“You know it’s funny, hearing you talk about Chelsea trying to do too much.”

I had to laugh, and stuck my tongue out at her playfully before answering, “Yeah, yeah. I almost dropped cheer you know. Tracy and Laura have me really interested in theater, but I just don’t have the time to commit to it. I love playing basketball too much.”

“I know what you mean,” Ally answered. “For me basketball is like, my thing. I’m not as pretty as Jenn or as outgoing as you. I’m not good at music like Nikki, but on the court I can shine.”

“What are you talking about? You’re beautiful. I mean sure, you’re taller than me, but so is Chelsea. I mean, don’t take this the wrong way, but you’re very well-proportioned.”

Ally blushed brightly as she slowly glanced back at me. “You really think so?”

“God, yes. I know you think they’re small, but you have a slender frame so they look natural on you.”

“We are talking about my feet right?” Ally teased, causing me to giggle.

“Um, sure, your feet, yeah,” I teased, pulling into the parking lot of Tony’s Pizzeria.

Admittedly I had a lot on my mind. Our cheer tryouts were coming up in just two weeks, and not only did we have to be prepared, but Coach Greer had just asked us last Friday if the current, existing squad would come to a special weekend cheer camp next week, being held at the old private school across town.

On top of that, the haunted house, and gearing up for the upcoming basketball season, I suddenly found myself extremely thankful to have friends like Ally and the girls. I truly felt blessed, as I sat down at our regular booth. Here, I could forget about things for awhile, and just enjoy being an ordinary non-overachieving teenager.

For awhile, anyway.