This book is dedicated with love to my two daughters, Wendy and Crystal, who taught me to appreciate the power of wheels, the beauty of dance, and the giggles of little girls.

                     -Sharon M. Draper

Hi! I am Melody. I am 11 years old, going into 6th grade. I have a condition called cerebral palsy. I cannot walk. I cannot talk. And my body will tend to move, flail, and kick around whenever it pleases.

Elvira

How do I talk to people, you may be wondering? I have a special device called a Medi-Talker. It is like an iPad. I tap out what I want to say, and it says it for me! I named my Medi-Talker Elvira.

Do you know what I've always dreamed of? Going to CAMP. But how could a kid like me ever go?

Well, I was searching up camps for kids like me on Elvira, and I found one! It was called Camp Green Glades.

When my mom got home, I showed her the camp I had found. "Camp?!" Mom said, surprised. "I don't know, Mel...." I made Elvira shout, "Please! If other kids go to camps all the time, can't I go to one FOR me?" I showed Mom the website.

Mom did a lot of thinking and talked to dad, but eventually the final decision was YES! YIPEE! So we signed up, but unfortunately there were no spots open. They said they would call us if a cancellation occurred, but that was highly unlikely. 

I. Was. DEVASTATED.

Eventually a couple of days later, Mom had gotten a call from Camp Green Glades. "Apparently, there was a cancellation!" Mom said with excitement. I sat there in shock. I started to kick in my seat. YAY!! 

    We had to grab all of our last minute supplies for camp, but after those were gathered, we were locked and loaded for the big day (and drive!) tomorrow. Time for a goodnight's beauty sleep!

After we said our long goodbyes, my personal counselor showed up. Her name is Trinity. She is very pretty. She let me try on some cute butterfly earrings. 

Wake up! Time for camp! The whole family rushed into the car and we started driving right away. Finally, we had arrived! My dad got me out of the car and into my wheelchair. 

Just then, my cabin mates showed up with their personal counselors. 

      Jocelyn

Karyn (she was in a wheelchair like me, just without cerebral palsy)

Athena (clearly pink was her favorite color.)

"Today," Trinity said, "We are going to go swimming!" I gulped. Yeah, I was scared. I have never swam before. But when we dipped into the water, it wasn't scary at all! Trinity held onto me the whole way, the whole time.

Then, I got to paint (with my fingers, of course. I can't hold a paintbrush). While painting, we wore garbage bags so we did not get dirty. 

After dinner, we got to gather around the fire to hang out and sing songs with the other cabins. Of course, I can't sing, so I just hummed along to the tune.

There were a ton of fireflies tonight! A kid my age with a purple shirt on and a walker came over and caught a lot of them. It reminded me of when my sister, Penny caught fireflies and never wanted to let them go.

Monday

AH! Today we are going to go zip lining! Of course, I had never done this before. But today, when I finally did..... WHOA! It felt like flying! It made me forget about everything else in the world. I was a kid in a wheelchair, but I. Was. FLYING!

After swimming again, we had Mac and cheese for lunch. Trinity told us we were going on a boat. "Cool!" I made Elvira squeak. But what if it sunk, just like in my favorite movie Titanic?

Apparently this boat is called a pontoon. It will hold all of the cabins. When we went on it, I felt like a swan, gliding across a pond. (this boat was BIG!)

On the boat, the kid (the one who was catching fireflies yesterday) asked me my name. Today, instead of a walker, he was in a wheelchair, too. "My name is Melody" I said through Elvira. "Cool!" he said, happily and cheerfully. "I'm Noah." 

After dinner, we had another campfire. We tossed pine cones into it. The pine cones made the fire crackle, and blue-green flames rose into the night sky.

Noah

Tuesday

We woke up this morning and right away found a snake in our cabin! "AAAAAAHH!" Karyn shrieked. But instead of getting scared, Jocelyn went over to the snake and let it wrap around her arm. "Your new name is Cleopatra", Jocelyn said calmly. We all watched in shock.

Jocelyn then went out of the cabin and released the snake, ever-so calmly. "My brother has a couple of snakes like that. They are called corn snakes. They are not scary, scary, scary at all."

    "That's right!" Kim, one of our counselors said. "They are non-venomous, and completely harmless." We decided to go on a hike with the other cabins. Noah and his cabinmates got sprayed by a skunk on the hike!

Jocelyn liked to talk in threes.

Luckily, we ran (and rolled!) away, just in time. Just in case, we spent most of the afternoon showering and looking up facts about skunks. I sent an email to my family-

Dear Mom, Dad, Mrs. V-

Today's science lesson was on skunks! You think the trash bags left in the hot garage are stinky? That's sweet perfume compared to the funk of a skunk! Thanks for packing the peppermint soap! Bye for now! (sent from Elvira)

Noah and I talked a BUNCH at the fire tonight. Turns out, we have a lot in common! I have only known him for a couple of days, but I strongly value him as a friend. I truly wonder what he thinks of me!

Wednesday

At art, we made footprints with paint. I used orange and purple. 

We went to a music room next, and my arms flailed around, banging on drums. We all had fun, but this was NOT Jocelyn's cup of tea. She went outside with her counselor, Lulu instead.

We then asked our counselors if we could have a picnic. Just the four of us: me, Jocelyn, Karyn, and Athena. "Sure!" Lulu said. "We haven't done that in years." Karyn and I looked at each other, confused and angry.

As the counselors walked off to get our food, we all stood there, shocked. Jocelyn then broke the silence and said, "We never, never, never get time by ourselves. I thought we'd have a picnic just us, us, us!" We all agreed. "Have you ever broken a rule, rule, rule?"

"Never", Karyn said. True that! We then decided to break a rule: go hiking on a path nearby with NO counselors. We hiked. We eventually stumbled upon a gross, mucky puddle.

My tires rode over the puddle with ease. But Karyn's? Not so much..... she was stuck in the muck! We all tried to get her out the best way we could. Eventually, we freed her! But we had to get back to our counselors. We were probably in trouble.

We got back, and our counselors were MAD.

We all argued. "What were you thinking?" "We didn't do anything!" "We were TERRIFIED!" "We weren't lost!" An eerie silence fell over us. Karyn then said, "We all had fun. Nobody got hurt." We then explained that we were tired of having someone watch us 24/7. We wanted time alone, and they understood.

TOTAL

  FURY!