Hello again, Story Club members.

I'm Ivy, your ghostly host with the most and keeper of the strangest,

spookiest tales on earth.

Today is another Ivy's chilling tale.

This cautionary tale story club members might make you not want to hang out with the cool kids.

It's one I call blood ritual.

The campfire flickered in the chilly summer night.

The orange flames painted dancing shadows on the surrounding trees.

Maggie Batson was sitting with about 30 other campers and wasn't in a social mood.

She was attending Mellow Wood Summer Camp for two weeks.

Her parents had forced her to attend.

It was only day five out of 14.

Most of the kids were from small towns, or they acted crazy.

She had pretty little in common with them.

And then there were the lame arts and crafts,

campfire, sing-alongs, and activities like sit-up contests. Boring. Maggie was having none of it.

She couldn't do arts and crafts to save her life, wasn't a singer, and she got nauseous whenever

she tried to do even one sit-up. Maggie found three of her fellow campers interesting, though.

For one thing, they weren't running around making fools of themselves like the others.

They seemed to observe everything with detached coolness.

They acted like they were better than everyone else.

Maybe they were.

...