Two Maryland siblings tried summer camp. It wasn’t what they expected.

Iatie Garcia couldn’t believe it. Five nights in the woods, And no cell phone? How would she stay in touch with her boyfriend? And what about her TikTok streak? Plus, it would be hot and there would be bugs.

Her mother, Jessica, had just dropped off Katie, 13, and her brother Johann, 12, at Camp Letts in Edgewater, Maryland. It was an hour’s drive from their home in Silver Spring, but it might as well have been five. The kids had never been to sleepaway camp before, and they weren’t exactly thrilled about being there — especially after learning about the camp’s no-phone policy.

Jessica pulled her two children into her arms.

“This is going to be so much fun,” she assured them.

As they said goodbye, Katie looked at her mother with wide eyes. Please, Mom? she seemed to say.

“Come on, Katie,” he said. “It’s been a week.”

Katie and Johann weren’t convinced it would be fun. When they sat together at check-in on the first day, they both agreed that they weren’t really interested in making friends.

They already knew how hard it was to say goodbye. The children had changed schools so many times that they had to count on their fingers how many they had had.

“I’m not going to cry like I did this school year,” Johann said.

Iation lugged Her suitcase climbed the stairs to a cabin tucked away in the woods. She stretched a navy sheet over the thin mattress on the last available bottom bunk. Then she realized she hadn’t packed a pillow.

She didn’t know she would need one.

An advisor assured her that they would find one.

Sticky summer air and an awkward silence filled the cabin as five 13-year-old girls sat in a circle, making name tags for their bunk beds. Aside from the best-friend duo who came to camp together, they were all strangers to each other.

There were first-time campers, like Katie, and others who had been coming for years.

“Wear lots of sunscreen,” said one camp veteran advised. “And do all the activities on the water.”

Katie listened as a counselor listed the activities: kayaking, archery, ziplining, paddle boarding, paintballing, rope courses.

“High ropes?!” Katie’s face lit up. “Oh, that’s cool.”

Maybe, just maybe, that one part of camp could be fun.

That night, Katie and her cabinmates sat around an unlit fire pit as counselors taught them team songs they would use the rest of the week. The girls hesitantly joined in.

Iatie and Johann had never been away from home for more than a few days. Camp Letts is run by the YMCA of Metropolitan Washington and offers scholarships through the “Send a Kid to Camp” program, which funded their trip.

Despite their hesitation, Garcia thought it would be good for the kids to connect with nature and get out of the house for a while. She wanted her children to experience a cornerstone of American childhood: canoeing on the lake, singing around the campfire, making friends quickly, making bracelets.

Katie and Johann started each morning with paddleboarding, then swam in the pool, then went back to the waterfront to kayak. They ate lunch, then played tennis and volleyball and other activities in the afternoon. At each meal, the cabin groups would break out into loud songs about the best team in camp, banging on tables and stomping so hard the whole floor shook.

By midweek, Katie was beginning to adjust. She bragged that she was the only girl in her cabin who hadn’t fallen off the Banana Boat, a rubber raft pulled by a motorboat. Her nails were stained purple from tie-dying T-shirts. As she walked to the pool, she rehearsed the camp songs she’d learned.

She had even made friends, a lot of them. They bought matching bandanas at the camp store and planned to exchange phone numbers.

Oon the last day, Tears streamed down Johann’s cheeks as he said goodbye to his counselors and new friends. He and Katie wore matching Camp Letts T-shirts with the word “campsick” on them — a play on “homesick” — as they boarded the bus back to Silver Spring, where their mother was waiting for them.

Katie didn’t cry. But she said the week had surprised her.

Maybe she’ll even go back next year for another five nights in the woods.