Morgan Chonce and Felix Dalen walked down the old path together under Morgan's guidance. Felix had been out several times before of course, but Morgan knew the way much better from the countless days last summer when the treehouse had been in construction.

"There it is," Morgan said. "Feels like this path gets longer every time."

"Someone's here already," said Felix, pointing. "Look up in the window, you can see a light on."

"Probably Sasha," Morgan replied. "Come on, let's go up."

The guys laid all their supplies - backpacks, sleeping bags, pillows - into the large basket at the treehouse's base. It was rigged to a pulley system on the deck so that they wouldn't have to worry about physically carrying things up the nailed-board ladder.

The door to the treehouse opened when Morgan and Felix were halfway up. Jake McBride stepped out and peered down the trap hole at his friends. "Hey. Thought ah heard someone."

"Hi Jake," Morgan answered. "Bring the basket up."

The three guys had Morgan and Felix's things situated in minutes. "Sasha went back to get some more ice fur the coolers," Jake said, trying not to let his Texan twang stand out too much. "He'll be back soon."

"Cool stuff." Felix gave Jake a thumb-up, looked around, and marveled as he always did at the handiwork of the treehouse. The house had been completed a mere two weeks before Felix had moved to Tooler and joined The Gang. It was hard to image that a group of teenagers had pulled it off.

"Any word on when Garland's coming?" Morgan asked Jake. "We didn't call him . . . . I feel rude turning down rides from Garland . . . But . . . "

Jake grinned, understanding completely. Garland Eastwood was a really scary driver.

"He'll be here soon." It was Sasha's voice as he walked through the treehouse door. "He was just parking at my house when I left. Ducked inside to use the bathroom." Sasha was carrying two bags of ice, which had undoubtedly rode up the basket as well. "Me and Jake were in and out of here all day long setting up. We've got enough soda to last us until graduation."

Morgan snickered. "Like that's really what we need: to stay up all night bouncing off the walls, full of sugar."

A little bit of sugar was in everybody soon though, because when Garland made it into the treehouse, it was with a bag of Snickers miniatures. "Your mom told me to bring these," Garland told Sasha. "Chocolate for everyone!"

Jake downed a couple Snickers and grinned. "This is gonna be so much fun! Havin' a guy's-night slumber party up here in the tree!"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa." Garland grabbed his arm. "This is not, I repeat, *not* a 'slumber party'. We are CAMPING OUT. Girls have slumber parties, guys have campouts. Got it?"

Jake frowned. "It's the same thing though, right?"

Felix and Morgan both offered a shrug to him. Sasha, who'd grown up with both an older and younger sister, had a little more insight.

"At a girl's slumber party, they don't do too much more than talk all night. And do each others' hair and stuff." Sasha pointed to Jake. "At a guy's party, we don't touch hair. We look at comic books, we play poker, that kind of thing."

Felix laughed. "Cool, you brought some cards to play poker?"

"And finally," finished Garland, pulling his red hair back into a ponytail, "An advantage of being a guy: we can pee outside, instead of having to run all the way back to Sasha's house to do it."

The other four nodded their agreement, and with that, soda cans clinked in cheers.