The sound was relentless that night over Camp Artime. A howling wind swept through the pine trees. The crickets that were constantly chirping seemed louder than ever. Thunder boomed in the distance. Even a lightning strike streaked across the sky every now and then. All of this didn't help the two young men as they entered the admissions office: Mr. Today's office.

And by entered, they were trespassing. Something they could be kicked out for. Samheed Burkesh knew this, of course. And he knew he should've ditched his peer-pressuring friend, Will, ages ago. He didn't want to be kicked out of camp, but he didn't fully have a choice when it came to Will. It was a complicated friendship…if they even were 'friends.'

But even if he wanted to stop him, he knew part of him couldn't do it. In all truth, he was much more curious to see the secrets Mr. Today hid in his life. The old man never told anyone anything. He more or less hid in his office all day. It pressed a lot of burning questions into Samheed's mind. Like why did their camp loose every year to Camp Quill? And why was Camp Artime even proud of their creativity after all these losses? Being creative had never gotten him anywhere. He was seen as the 'strange' kid. The weird, creative one who never got good grades in school. This part of him was more resentful. He respected Mr. Today, he really did, but he was bitter towards a lot of things. Sometimes, he hated being at Camp Artime.

And it was all because of one boy. One stupid, arrogant, tattletale boy, with the name of Aaron Stowe. He had ruined everything. All the chances of being praised and winning were thrown in the trash. It all started three months before, when the sign-up applications were given out. To get into Camp Quill, everyone needed to fill out a form of their best accomplishments, along with how they felt on the topic of creativity. If they mentioned anything about it, they wouldn't get in. Naturally, Samheed wanted to sign up for Camp Quill. It sounded way cooler than Camp Artime, anyways. Who wouldn't want to be among the smartest, strongest kids?

He was just submitting his form into the bin when he noticed Aaron, his classmate, slipping his hand into it. He knew he should've been suspicious, but it only looked like Aaron was re-writing his answers. He walked away and thought nothing of it. Huge mistake.

The next day, when the camp counselors had read all the submissions, they went through who would be attending their camp. Everyone got in…. except one person. Him. After the announcement, he went up to the counselors, asking why he didn't get in. They simply replied he was creative. That was enough to make him incredibly furious. And he knew exactly who had sabotaged his admissions form: Aaron Stowe. His chances of being seen as great by his family were demolished.

So when he found out Aaron's twin brother, Alex, was coming to Camp Artime too, that anger returned. He only felt a little bad for being so rude to Alex. Alex seemed like a nice person, unlike Aaron, but that still didn't help. He probably was just as backstabbing as his brother. He blamed them for everything.

He told Will this, too. Will had wanted to go to Camp Quill as well, which was mainly the reason they become friends. He just didn't think Will could be such a bad influence on him. As of now, he was going to get caught and it would be all his fault for tagging along. Once again, he was in a bad situation.

He swung open the front door as quietly as he could, wincing a little as it creaked. He walked inside and held up his flashlight, shining it around the room. It hardly looked different than the last time he'd seen it. Random art supplies were scattered on the floor. Paintings and posters of every kind hung on the walls. From what he could see, Mr. Today was in his bedroom, sleeping no doubt.

Will started forward, opening one of the drawers to the cabinets. Samheed chewed on his nails with his free hand. This was a bad idea, he thought over and over. He should've never become Will's friend. He should've let go of his bitterness. He should've become friends with Alex, Lani, and Meghan the first day of camp, which is what he wanted to do all along. Even if they seemed annoying, they still seemed like good friends to have. He should've…

"Burkesh!" Will hissed. "Come here!"

Samheed hurried to his side. "What is it?"

"Shine your flashlight on this pamphlet!"

He proceeded to do that and gasped. It read:

Camp Quill vs. Camp Artime: what went wrong?

"Will," he said. "This sounds interesting but we really shouldn't be here-"

"What, are you gonna try to stop me from reading it?" Will pushed, sending a glare his way.

"Why do you want do read this so badly?" Samheed shot back, his voice raising. "What's so important about this pamphlet?"

Will didn't reply, simply shoving it in his hands. He began walking out the door. "Where are you going?" Samheed called.

"The bathroom. Stay here."

He was suspicious, but he didn't move. This wasn't a good sign. He had a feeling Will was lying. And he also had a feeling he knew what Will was intending to do. If Camp Artime lost the competition again at the end of the year, they might shut down. All due to Will's plan that even Samheed didn't know fully. At that moment, he heard a loud bang echo through the room. He whipped around, shining his flashlight in the direction of the noise. "Who's there?" he called.

He walked forward a few steps, fear enveloping him. He was right all along. This had been a very, very bad idea.

"Seriously?" Lani asked, glaring at Meghan. "We were trying to stay hidden. You just had to bang your head on the table?"

"Maybe he didn't hear…" Alex whispered hopefully.

Meghan stared at them with wide eyes, rubbing her sore head. "He probably did if he said 'who's there'!"

The three of them were huddled under a table in Mr. Today's office. Earlier, Lani and Meghan had found Alex behind the bushes of the admissions office. They had snuck inside right after Will and Samheed, trying to eavesdrop on what was going on. Lani had always known Samheed hated Camp Artime. It was obvious. He was trying to steal something! Even if it seemed like Will was influencing him, she knew what they meant to do. They were going to sabotage the whole contest at the end of the year and blackmail Mr. Today. And she was going to make sure that never happened, ever.

Ten minutes before…

Lani couldn't sleep. Between the howling wind, the loud chirping of the crickets, and the occasional thunderclap, it was practically impossible. She also had some weird hunch something big was about to happen. She climbed down the ladder, still in her pajamas and fuzzy blue slippers, and tapped Meghan roughly on the shoulder.

"Wake up!" she whispered, shaking her harder until she opened her eyes.

"Ugh…" Meghan groaned. "Let me sleep."

Lani shook her harder. "No, I can't sleep. I wanna go for a walk outside and get some fresh air."

"A walk outside?" Meghan asked, more interested now. She fully sat up and pulled her messy red locks into a ponytail. "Isn't it storming?"

Lani shook her head. "It's not even that bad."

A loud clap of thunder shook their cabin. Meghan raised an eyebrow and started to laugh. "You were saying?"

Lani rolled her eyes. "Okay, okay. It's bad, but I still want fresh air. Come on, I'm not walking alone."

Meghan nodded and put on a jacket over her pajamas. Lani put on rainboots and they stepped outside. "See?" Lani said, gesturing to the trees violently being blown in the opposite directon. "Not too bad."

They walked around the camp until they reached the admissions office. Peering through the darkness, Lani noticed a figure crouching behind a bush. "Hey, do you see that?" she asked her friend, pointing towards the person.

"What are they doing?" Meghan asked. "No one hides behind a bush in the middle of the night…"

They advanced towards the figure slowly. It was only until they get close that Lani realized who it was: Alex.

"Alex?" she asked in shock. "What are you doing here?"

Alex jumped, which would've been funny if not the strange situation. "Guys?! What are you doing here?"

Meghan stared at him. "We were taking a walk until we saw you….what's going on?"

Alex took a deep breath and looked at each of them. "We have a problem. You know Samheed and Will? Will convinced him to go into Mr. Today's office. He said he wants to learn 'secrets', but I didn't think this place had any secrets, can it? It doesn't make any sense what they'd be doing."

Lani shrugged. "It makes sense to me. Any place can have it's secrets."

She looked at the admissions office. "C'mon, lets go see what they're up to. Maybe we can stop them."

"Lani!" Meghan hissed. "Isn't that dangerous?"

"Probably," Alex said, already running towards the entrance.

"Alex!" Meghan shouted. "Come back here!"

Alex shook his head as he slipped inside the door, into the darkness of the building. Lani grinned despite the situation. Despite how dangerous this could be, it sounded like an adventure. She grabbed Meghan's arm, dragging her along.

"Let's go see what they're up to."

Present time.

Lani stared at the advancing Samheed and knew what she had to do. She needed to get that pamphlet before Will did. She loved Camp Artime. It was probably the best experience so far in her life, which was saying a lot. Here, she had met her two bestest friends in the world. She had the oppurtuity to learn how to be creative, and she learned how to write, something she found she was very good at. She loved it here, and she was not going to let Samheed sabotage Mr. Today, whatever that pamphlet said anyway. She slowly rose from underneath the table, ignoring her friends.

She crept towards the boy as quiet as possible. That all failed when she tripped over a pile of cut-out paper designs. At lightning speed, Samheed turned his flashlight towards her, shining it in her eyes. He held up the pamphlet and waved it in her face.

"Looking for this?" he asked.

Lani lunged at him with speed at surprised her, grabbing at the pamphlet with both hands. Meghan ran from her hiding spot and joined in the fight. She attempted grabbing the pamphlet from Samheed's hand but pushed him backwards instead. Their momentum sent them sprawling onto the floor, the pamphlet falling out of Samheed's grip. Lani grabbed for it, but a hand shot out a picked it up before she could.

The three of them stared at the floor in shock. Then they looked up and saw Alex, the flashlight in his hand and the pamphlet in the other. He stared at Samheed and back at Lani and Meghan, an unreadable expression on his face. His eyes were red, his friendly smile nowhere to be found. She also noticed he was shaking, which made her feel even worse about the situation. "Would someone tell me what's going on?"

"Yeah," Meghan said, turning from Lani to Samheed and back again. "What's going on?"

Samheed's face fell, not meeting any of their eyes. "I—um…"

Lani had never seen him look so disorderly. He glanced at her and she looked away. They all stared at their shoes for a full minute before Meghan broke the silence.

"Hey…do you guys want to talk this over somewhere else?" she asked, standing up and brushing herself off.

They nodded. Lani picked herself off the ground. She looked down at Samheed and held her hand out to him. He stared at her hand for a moment before taking it wordlessly letting her help him up. A weird tingly feeling went through her as their hands touched, but she didn't say anything of it.

The four of them trudged out the door together, all silently agreeing to walk towards the woods. Once there, they sat around one of the small campfires. The storm had gone away, and any remains of it were short gusts of wind. They sat in silence for a moment.

"I'd like to know-" Samheed began, but Alex cut him off. "You'd like to know? If I knew better, it looked like you were stealing from Mr. Today! I have a lot of questions, probably more than any of you."

Samheed nodded and said the nicest thing Lani had ever heard him say. "You're right. You deserve to go first."

Alex clenched his jaw. "What I want to know," he said, his voice cracking a little. "Is were you trying to steal that pamphlet from Mr. Today to make Camp Artime shut down somehow?"

Samheed's eyes widened. "No! I wouldn't want that. And I wasn't stealing it-Will was."

"Oh, so now Will was stealing it?" Lani demanded.

"You tried stealing it too!" Samheed shot back.

"I was taking it from you," Lani explained, pointing a finger at him. "Not stealing, but I was going to return it!"

"Okay, okay!" Meghan said, raising her hands. "Why were you stealing that?"

"I wasn't stealing it, for the last time," Samheed said with a groan. "I was just…"

He held all of their gazes for the first time, and Lani noticed his eyes softened with a hint of something surprising: respect. "It's just-Will made me come with him to steal something. I was trying to stop him!"

"Ha!" Alex said, crossing his arms. "And why is that so hard to believe?"

Samheed stared at him. "Well you guys tried to get the pamphlet from me to save the camp, right?"

"Right," Lani said. "What's your point?"

"My point is, I had the same reason as you guys: to save the camp," he replied. "Why would that be so hard to believe?

"Because you hate this place," Meghan pointed out. "You've been mean to everyone here, especially Alex."

Samheed scratched the back of his head and looked at the earthen ground. "I don't hate this place…and I don't hate any of you…"

They stayed silent for a few minutes. Alex sighed and rubbed his eyes. "So…why did Will want to steal this pamphlet so bad?"

Samheed shrugged. "Something to do with that contest at the end of the year."

Lani looked up, suddenly feeling intrigued. "The one where Camp Quill always wins and our camp always looses every year?"

He frowned. "That's the one. I remember I used to want to be in Camp Quill. That's…that's partly why I went along with Will. But I never got in."

"Why not?" Alex asked.

Samheed's eyes grew cold as he looked at Alex. "It was your twin brother. I found out he sabotaged my admissions form so I couldn't get in. I was always bitter about it…and that's why I treated you so badly. I'm sorry."

To Lani's surprise, Alex simply smiled and held his hand out. "That's my brother's fault, not mine. He's always been weird like that. It's okay…thanks for apologizing. Friends?"

Samheed smiled the first time that day. He shook his hand. "Friends."

Meghan looked at the pamphlet in Alex's lap. "So, what do we do? Give it to Mr. Today?"

"We should read it," Lani said, scooting closer to Alex. "I'm actually curious now."

"Wait guys," Samheed stopped them. "We have to stop Will from sabotaging this. And I know how we can stop him."

"What?" the three of them asked.

Samheed took a deep breath. "We need to win the competition."