That being the case, I walk right over to Corryn. “Is this one yours?”
She gives me a dubious look. “Yeah, but . . .”
I haul it up, throwing the strap over my shoulder. I even manage to counterbalance the weight so I don’t go careening off and fall down. I’m playing this exceptionally cool. “Guess what? You’re going to be in my group now.”
“Yeah?” she says but doesn’t elaborate.
We move out first, hiking up the short trail beneath the cool shade of the trees on either side of us.
It’s really pretty out, kind of like camp decided to give us the perfect first day. Birds call over the lake, and a gentle breeze kisses our skin. When we step into patches of sunlight, it’s instantly warm and the air tastes like summer. This is going to be the best nine weeks ever.
Behind us, I hear Bowl Cut say, “Is that a bug?” and one of the girls shrieks.
Laughing, I say, “I hope she doesn’t do that every time she sees an insect.”
“There are . . . circumstances,” Corryn informs me flatly. “Winchelhauser says there must be a nest under our cabin, because it was full of bugs. Billions of them. Like, ankle deep.”
With a laugh, I start to say she has to be exaggerating. But she gives me the evilest eye in the world, and I realize she means it. Ankle-deep bugs? Gross. I give an involuntary shudder and ask, “What kind?”
“Well, that’s the weird part,” Corryn says, as I lead her to the empty cabin in Group A. She walks up to the door and stares at it hard. Then, like she’s summoning up all her courage, she yanks it open.
When she does, it reveals . . . an empty cabin. The twin of mine, with the same bunks and cubbies, green plastic mattresses and all. Corryn exhales slowly, then holds the door open wider, and I carry her bag in.
As I drop it, I ask, “What was the weird part, exactly?”
Corryn sits on the edge of her new bunk. She doesn’t seem scared. More like disconcerted. Like something is wrong, but she can’t quite put her finger on it. Screwing up her face, she finally says, “It was all different bugs. I counted at least ten kinds. And some of them were the kinds that eat each other. It couldn’t be just one nest.”
My skin crawls. “You’re totally right. That can’t be. But there has to be a logical explanation.”
“I guess,” she says skeptically. At least, those are her words. Her expression says something else entirely. It’s plain as day; it says: You don’t believe me. I get that. But trust me—it wasn’t right.
The pure, clear certainty in her brown eyes makes me doubt. Maybe there wasn’t a rational explanation. Maybe it was a sign. An omen.
A harbinger.
Shaking that thought out of my head, I get out of the way for the rest of my cabinmates. Creepy stories are 100 percent part of camp life, or so I’ve read. Perhaps Corryn’s just getting an early start. A daylight start. Yes. That’s what this is, for sure.
I take one more look at her; her expression hasn’t changed. I rub my arms and step into the sun. This is fine. It’s totally fine, I tell myself.
I really wish I believed me.
3
A Tale of Two Hearts
Corryn
If the bugvasion traumatized Scary Mary, she totally doesn’t show it.
She climbs onto one of the picnic tables, then shouts into her megaphone. She’s like a cheerleader for nightmares. “Listen up, you filthy little pukes! Hope you’ve got your”—I swear she looks at me—“big-kid knickers on, because this is how it’s gonna go!”
We stare up at her as she sweats and smacks at the bugs circling around her. There are mosquitoes the size of hens around here and they are hungry for blood. This is not what my dad meant when he said camp would be an opportunity to get back to nature.
“First, you’re going to stay on the trails or get left behind!” Scary Mary says. “And while you’re out here, get some wood for the fire. We’ll get a proper bonfire going tonight and it will be lovely. Provided that one of you lot knows how to light a fire.
“I personally may have slightly misrepresented my level of outdoorsy experience when I applied for this here position,” she goes on. “I just really wanted to see the US of A. And yes, maybe there was a thing or two back in London I needed to get away from . . . Right. Off you go!”
I’m not worried about getting a fire started. I’ve done it lots of times. My dad and I used to do the kind of camping where you don’t even have a campsite. “Free camping,” he calls it. You just hike around until you find what looks like a decent spot and set up. I loved doing that with him.
“The closer you get to real matter,” he would insist, like he was personally Jack Kerouac instead of just quoting him like his biggest, doofiest fan, “rock air fire and wood, boy, the more spiritual the world is.”
He doesn’t think sleeping in a cabin should even count as camping. Then again, he never met Oak Camp Cabin Group C, girls’ side. There was way too much outdoors in that indoors, even for him.
When my parents are divorced, will camping be how Dad and I spend our one weekend together a month? What’ll that be like?
Anyway.
So, yeah, I know about fire. I know all about how you need bigger logs underneath and smaller dry sticks to start the fire crackling. I know all about stacking them in a way to let the air flow through to feed the flames. I know that tons of smoke will ward off bugs too. Bring on the fire!
“Mush,” Mary says.
Mush? Like we’re dogs?
“Um, quick question,” I say. “How do you want us to carry the wood?”
“In your arms, love. With your hands that God gave you. Like people did for millions of years. Do you think people who used to live here had chainsaws and lorries? Do you think they had golf carts? Is that what you want? You want me to bring you a golf cart, duchess?”
I know enough to say nothing in response.
“A bit of twine might be nice,” Tez says. Yup. He’s the kind of kid who knows everything except when to say nothing.
“Oh, you think Indians had a nice bit of twine when they gathered wood around these parts two hundred years ago?” Scary Mary says with a vicious laugh.
“Sure,” Tez says, unfazed. “There’s no reason to assume the Miami peoples of Ohio wouldn’t have rope. Rope and its usage go back to ancient times.”
“Well, we’re not in bloody ancient times now, are we?”
“I mean, kind of,” he says. “If you consider it, if you consider us, from the perspective of future humans who might dwell here eons hence. To the people thousands of years in the future, it is we who are the ancients.”
Even the mountains around us roll their eyes.
“Ooh,” Tez says. “Can we carry the firewood on our heads like the Luo women do? Lots of people do it, but the Luo are the best. They can carry like seventy percent of their body weight on their heads!”
“You can carry one hundred percent of your body weight atop your bum for all I care. Just get going!”
Scary Mary has a small knife in her hand, and consequently, we do as we are told.
We don’t really have to hike far to find wood. There are fallen limbs all over camp, including across the trails. Did I mention this place barely looks open? But I don’t mind stretching my legs a bit. These paths would be wicked on a bike. I imagine the jumps I could nail. I miss Elliot.