The Marshmallow Map Secret — Inside the tent, Tessa unfolded the empty marshmallow bag for the seventh time. Read the full story →
Inside the tent, Tessa unfolded the empty marshmallow bag for the seventh time. Its crinkly silver inside held three pencil marks, a crescent, and one tiny X that her big brother, Rowan, had made last summer. “Best moon spot,” he had whispered, like the trees might steal it. Tessa wanted to reach that X before the fire burned low, so she tucked one marshmallow in her pocket and slipped past the warm canvas smell into the piney dark.
The trail was only a deer path, soft with needles and sneaky roots. Tessa paid for her secret trip with one wet sock in the creek and a scratchy pinecone stuck in her cuff. Then a puff of smoke curled through the bushes—camp smoke, not wild smoke—and she followed it back by accident, straight to Rowan, who was laughing beside the fire.
At first Tessa squeezed the crinkled bag tight. Then the clouds moved. The crescent moon hung exactly over their tent flap, bright as the mark on the bag. Tessa handed Rowan the pocket marshmallow. “Secret’s too big,” she said. If you peek at the campfire scene, you’ll know why the crinkly silver map came back with something better than an X.
