"I have, too!" Roxanne insisted. Then, as though it were something she was proud and anxious to have the others standing around her in the group know, she added, "My parents are divorced. I spend half the year with my mother and half with my father, but they both let me do whatever I want to when I'm with them."

"But you're not with them now," Pat seethed. "You're with me. And I'm being paid by the owners of this camp to see that all of you girls obey my instructions for the summer. I don't mean some of you, either. I mean all. If that's not perfectly understood by you, Roxanne – as well as anyone else here who thinks they know more about camp life than I do – then perhaps you'd better speak to Mrs. Marchant about getting a train home in the morning."

With satisfaction, she noticed the others shift ever so slightly away from Roxanne and lower their heads in obedience. At least the first round was hers, she thought.

"Is that understood?" she asked the girl.

"Oh, I guess so," Roxanne sighed heavily. "I find authority such a bore, though."

"Well, then, my girl," Pat thought grimly, "you're going to have a helluva boring summer with me!"

"What if one Big Sister tells us to do something and you tell us to do something different?" another girl in the group asked, but her question was genuine and held none of the cockiness of Roxanne's.

Pat turned her head and stared at the pretty little blonde who'd spoken up. She looked about the same age as Roxanne, and Pat had noticed her, too, at the train station in town, although for an entirely different reason. She felt a little flutter race through her pulse as she met the girl's eyes. The stare she found in them was bold, but not challenging.