Rain pounded Beaver Cabin with all the untamed ferocity of a rabid animal. Wood creaked against the watery onslaught as the flickering lights illuminated the art supplies strewn across the floor.

Four girls sat huddled around Amy, sharing a mountain of blankets and a bowl of Cheetos. "This is so lame," Maggie said. At twelve years old, she was the oldest kid in Beaver Cabin. Unfortunately for everyone else, her attitude had aged like a peach left to rot on the branch. "Arts and crafts are for babies."

"She says that about everything," Gwen stage whispered. She tightened her blanket cocoon as thunder roared outside.

"I do not."

"Do too!"

"At least I didn't hook a tree. How can you miss a lake?"

Amy held up her hands in a calming gesture. "You don't have to make anything if you don't want to. Everybody comfy?"

Beverly scooted closer to Amy, her thin frame shaking with chills. "I'm cold."

"You can have my pillow." Nina shifted under her share of the blankets, squirming futilely until she gave her friend a sheepish grin. "I'm stuck."

"Hang on, I've got some hot chocolate for all of us." After Amy helped Nina disentangle herself, she passed each of the girls a small thermos. "Careful, it's hot."

"Can I have Maggie's?" Gwen asked.

Her sister shot her a look that could fell a moose. "No way!" She took a big gulp to prove her point, only to cough as the scalding liquid burned her tongue.

Amy wished she could go back to the days when the extent of her worries had been the kids teasing each other or burning their tongues. At least while they were cooped up in the cabin she could keep an eye on them and make sure they stayed safe.

She emptied a jumbo bag of pipe cleaners onto the floor and spread them out so the kids could see all the colors at their disposal. "What should we make first?"

"Kittens!" Beverly shouted.

"A giraffe," Nina said quietly.

"I think I'll make a lion," Gwen said.

Maggie snorted. "Yeah, right. You couldn't even make a snake."

Gwen bent a pipe cleaner into a crooked loop around her finger. Before she could toss the 'snake' at her sister, a claw of lightning slashed through the sky.

"A monster!" Beverly screamed.

"It's just a thunderstorm," Maggie deadpanned. Still, she turned her gaze to the sky, wincing at the muddy river winding its way through the center of camp. "A nasty thunderstorm."

"That's why we've gotta make animals," Amy said. "I bet they'll scare the rain in no time."

Maggie rolled her eyes. "Sure." Still, she joined the other girls as they set to work twisting the fuzzy fragments into shapes vaguely resembling wildlife.

A menagerie soon covered the floor of the cabin. Pink kittens climbed atop green giraffes, hitching rides to see lions with tangled rainbow manes. Amy sat making misshapen flowers for their animals to frolic in. She squinted with frustration at their drooping petals and crooked stems. Try as she might, her fingers just wouldn't follow her brain's blueprints with the same precision as the kids could.

The girls didn't seem to mind. Beverly beamed at her as she twined one of the daisies around her wrist. "I look like a fairy princess!"

"Would you like a butterfly, your highness?" Nina asked.

Beverly tried and failed to make her voice sound regal as she said, "That would be most lovely, Princess Nina."

"I'll make your crown," Gwen said. She impaled multicolored puffballs onto pipe cleaners before picking up a shaker full of glitter.

"Careful with that," Amy said. "That fairy dust is super rare. We need to make sure we have enough to last the whole summer." And to avoid spilling so much that it looked like someone had murdered Tinker Bell.

Gwen nodded solemnly and carefully positioned the shaker over the crown.

Thunder shook the cabin. The kids screamed as the lights flickered out. All was dark until a burst of lightning illuminated a bulky shape standing in front of the moose statue.

The power returned as quickly as it had left. Maggie's arms were wrapped protectively around Gwen, and Nina trembled beneath her blanket. Beverly sobbed and clung to Amy as if she was a raft in the middle of a raging ocean. "It's the killer moose!"

"Moose wouldn't really attack people, would they?" Nina bit her lip, inching toward the window to try and catch a glimpse of what was outside. The pounding rain revealed nothing but dark silhouettes as the sound of antlers knocking against metal echoed through the camp.

"No way," Amy said. "They eat plants."

"But Carson said—"

"Carson was just trying to mess with everyone," Amy said firmly. "I bet that's my dad getting supplies or something."

"Maybe he's wearing that smelly old costume," Maggie said, wrinkling her nose. "That thing's huge."

"And scary," Beverly whispered.

"Just like my uncle's wolfhound," Nina said.

"Do you guys hear that?" Maggie asked.

They all fell silent. A low, steady thumping filled the room.

Amy narrowed her eyes. The sound was definitely coming from inside the cabin. "That's just—"

"A moose!" Maggie raised a set of pipe cleaners she'd fashioned into antlers to the sides of her head and charged.

The other girls scrambled away. "Not funny!" Gwen screamed from atop one of the bunk beds. She hurled a pillow at her sister, only to smack Nina square in the face as she fled.

Beverly bolted, her amber hair flying behind her like a flag as her crown fell from her head. "Don't let her get me!"

"Okay, that's enough!" Amy struggled to make herself heard over the cacophony of screaming children and art supplies clattering against the old floorboards.

That was hardly a surprise. Even when people actually heard her, they seldom bothered to listen.

With a bang and a flash as blinding as the midday sun, lightning illuminated the cabin before plunging it into complete darkness.

Amy didn't see who stepped on the back of her shoe. All she knew was that one moment she was standing firmly amidst the chaos, and the next her orthotic was flying out like a bird zooming through a cage that had been left unlocked.

Her hands made a wild grab for one of the bunk beds, clinging to the frame so tightly splinters dug into her palms.

Just when Amy thought her heart couldn't hammer any harder, the lights flickered back on again.

The expressions on the girls' faces were all different yet familiar all the same. Shock. Horror. Concern.

Pity.

"Oh my God, I'm so sorry!" The sight of the plastic encasing Amy's foot had transformed Maggie into a complete wreck. "I couldn't see and—"

"It's fine." Amy stepped down firmly, barely stopping herself from swearing as her foot smacked against the lip of the shoe on the way back inside. "It happens."

"Is that why you walk funny?" Gwen asked.

Maggie thumped her sister on the arm. "Rude!"

"But she does," Gwen grumbled as she massaged her arm.

At least she was honest. Amy had heard worse things about the way she walked. Back in elementary school, the other kids had mimicked her slow, deliberate gait, calling her a tortoise when the teachers had their backs turned, and sometimes when they didn't. Some of the adults had been just as bad, giving her a look that said they thought her mind was as slow as her legs.

"They're why I don't walk worse, actually," Amy said. "They help me balance."

"What happened?" Beverly asked in a hushed whisper.

Amy shrugged. There was no way she was going to turn herself into a walking presentation on the many nuisances of cerebral palsy. "I was born like this."

"Oh." Beverly stared down at her hands for a moment, then nodded. "Like how Mom's autistic."

"Yes, like that."

Nina's eyebrows crinkled together as she stared at Amy's feet. "Do you need me to get Mr. Sterling?"

"Nah, I just need to sit down a minute. Who wants to help me build blanket forts?"

As the girls gathered all of their pillows and blankets, Amy sank to the floor and rubbed her aching foot. The dull throbbing from when her foot had hit the edge of the shoe would fade soon enough. The worry that these girls would see her as little more than her disability from now on would not.