Read Online Church Camp Chaos by Annie Tipton - Free Book Online Page A

invent that made enough money to build this house?”
    The boy holds up his juice box and pulls the straw out. “Bendy straws,” he says. “Just think about how much better they make our lives. Kids love ’em. Adults love ’em. There’s all kinds of money to be made in bendy straws.”
    “Oh Isaac, I never know what you’re going to come up with when someone asks you a question.” Mom laughed as she used a power screwdriver to finish putting up the last curtain rod.
    “My genius brain surprises me sometimes,” Isaac said, sitting in his beanbag chair and slurping the remaining juice.
    A few minutes later, EJ and Dad were hanging shutters—EJ in the tree house, with her head and arms sticking out the window, Dad standing on a plank of wood that was lying across the rungs of two stepladders. They were halfway done when Dad’s cell phone rang in his pocket.
    “Hi, Steve!” Dad held the phone to his ear with his right shoulder while he checked to make sure the shutter was level. “Right now? Yes, I know it’s hard to get everyone together. Sure, that’s no problem. Give me ten minutes and I’ll be there.”
    EJ’s heart sank. As a pastor, Dad sometimes got phone calls at home that meant he had to leave quickly—an accident or a sudden sickness of someone in the church and he’d need to rush to the hospital. Sometimes he could just be a calming person in a situation, and he loved people so much that he was happy to do it; he said it was part of his calling. And EJ loved that Dad loved people so much. But that didn’t make it any easier when he had to leave in the middle of something fun like finishing the tree house.
    “Hey, hon?” Dad called up to Mom, who was painting the railing on the front porch with Isaac. “The guys on the church board want to meet to talk about some stuff … about the thing. Shouldn’t be long.”
    Stuff … about the thing?
EJ’s mind immediately went back to the teary prayer circle between Mom, Dad, Nana, and Pops. All this secretive talk reminded EJ of when she was four and her parents would spell things in front of her so she didn’t know what they were
actually
talking about, which would sometimes result in confusing conversations:
    Dad: Tab, I’m thinking we should get some I-C-E C-R-E-A-M tonight.
    Mom: But I have C-O-O-K-I-E-S for tonight, dear.
    Four-year-old EJ: No! I don’t want to take a nap!
    “Dad, why are you meeting with the church board?” EJ asked, trying to sound casual. “Aren’t your normal meetings the first Tuesday of the month?”
    “Nothing you need to worry about, EJ,” Dad said, hopping off the makeshift scaffolding to the ground. “Adult stuff. Boring.”
    Dad’s answer didn’t satisfy EJ’s curiosity. If anything, it made her wonder even more.
    “Be back in a jiffy, and we’ll fire up the grill for hamburgers for supper.”
    “We’ll finish up that last set of shutters,” Mom said. “EJ, can you show me the ropes once I finish this coat of paint?”
    “Yeah,” EJ said absentmindedly as she watched Dad walk to the garage. She made a mental note similar to the ones she made in her notebook as EJ Holmes:
    1. Mom crying
    2. Unscheduled meeting with church board: stuff … about the thing.
    What was going on?

Chapter 7
T HE B AD W INNER L OSER
     
    July 11
Dear Diary,
    Macy and her mom are coming to our house this morning. Our moms have started clipping coupons together, and they seem to think it’ll be good mother-daughter time if Mace and I help them. Cutting and organizing coupons sounds like the number one most boring thing I could possibly be forced to do. But I figure once Macy and I help for a while, they’ll let us go play outside, and I can show her the tree house!

    Tonight after supper we have a family game night planned, with all of our favorites: Chickenfoot (a game played with dominoes where the pieces are arranged in a way that looks like a bird’s talons), Uno (the best card game there is), and Mouse Trap (a crazy