Through the fan, Bowl Cut repeats, his voice wavering through the blades. “Thaaaat’s not coooool maaaaan! Thaaat’s disconcerrrrrrted!”
“Okay, one, that should be disconcerting,” I say. “And two, I’m not trying to scare anybody. I’m asking a legitimate question. Did you see it? Or not?”
“Nobody saw anything in the fire, Chickenlips.” Nostrils shakes his head at me. Like he’s disappointed. I wonder for a second if he thought I was cool.
Bowl Cut stands up. “I saw something in the fire!”
Hopeful, I ask, “What?”
Whipping around, Bowl Cut pulls down his tighty-whities and presses his very pale butt to the fan. Then he farts. The fan chops the sound to bits, and Knees and Nostrils scream with laughter. I have a feeling I’m going to be hearing that a lot this summer.
I open our door to let in some air. Across the path, the lights are still on in the girls’ cabin. I wonder if Corryn’s still awake. I think she saw the faces. At least, I hope she did.
Otherwise, I might be going crazy on the first day of camp.
5
A Delicate Condition
June 7, 1983
Corryn
Ew steps up on her bunk and shakes me.
“Breakfast,” she says when I blink at her in confusion.
I have no memory of sleep. I must have drifted off sometime in there, but it feels like I didn’t even close my eyes. The sun is shining like it’s ready to go to war. Settle down, sun.
The first thing I hear is a baffling shoooosh noise. It sounds like a hot air balloon is taking off in our cabin. I look over and see it is actually Hairspray spraying an enormous can of hairspray into her hair. Shoooosh shooosh shoosh. I think she really did bring a case of Aqua Net. To camp.
I yawn and stretch and pretend like it was a normal night. I pretend like I had a quiet night of peaceful slumber and not an awful waking nightmare. I roll over and look at the poster of Danny Stark I tacked up next to my bed. Not even his smile (or the fact that he’s doing a sick power wheelie) can shake the gloom.
“Good morning, You!” Scary Mary says. She’s standing in the middle of the cabin brushing her teeth. I wonder what she’s going to do when it’s time to spit.
“My name is Corryn,” I say.
“And my name is I-DON’T-CARE,” she says. Nice. “In fact, if anyone uses civilian names in this cabin, that will be a one bead deduction. Got it?” Toothpaste foams at the corners of her big old mouth. Rabidly, she rattles a jar with a few purple and orange spheres in it.
I vaguely recall the Camper’s Guidebook mentioning a system of beads but I didn’t think much of it. Are we really supposed to care about this?
“Don’t cost us beads!” Hairspray and Braids say in unison. Then they yell “jinx!” and then fall over dying from laughter.
Oooookay then. Guess some of us care.
I grab my bug spray (things with lots of legs lurk inside camp toilets) and start down the path without a word.
“Bolt down that breakfast, and then arts and crafts straight after, You!” Scary Mary yells. “Don’t be late!”
Breakfast is damp scrambled eggs and sad bacon. It takes a lot of work to ruin bacon, so I’m glad when it’s time to head to arts and crafts. I’m not artistic or anything. I just want to get away from the tragedy on my plate.
Except, it turns out, arts and crafts is held in a rotten building. Literally rotten.
Someone recently painted the walls, but the mottled color doesn’t do much to cover decaying wood. The floor has been patched in a lot of places but it still looks like there is a good chance of falling through if you jump. Maybe just if you walk too heavily. It’s definitely seen better days.
This whole camp looks like it’s seen better days.
Mom and Dad both told me tons of stories about how much they loved their summer camp in New Hampshire when they were little. It’s actually where they met.
They were both counselors there in the sixties too. While they were there, Dad made Mom a macramé pennant with “Friends Forever” spelled out in beads.
Ha. Turns out even stupid fiber crafts lie.
Could I meet my future ex-husband here? It seems unlikely. I look around at the grody boys farting on each other and shouting insulting nicknames. It seems insane. Who will be the future former Mr. Corryn Quinn? Knees? Bowl Cut? (He really does have pretty nice hair.) The Korean guy whose name I don’t know? Or maybe Tez?
You know what? Forget about it. These squabs can’t touch me. I go back to my original summer survival plan: counting the money for Elliot’s mag wheels, five bucks at a time.
Tez is the only one from Oak Camp already working on his lanyard. He didn’t need to wait for instruction. He weaves the plastic laces at an impressive pace. His nimble fingers have turned out two key chains already, before anyone else has even started. He doesn’t look happy though. His bright eyes are encircled by dark rings.
I try to watch his technique, though my heart isn’t really in this. There are lots of other arts and crafts supplies sitting in bins on the tables. I like drawing, so I grab a few markers and a pad of paper. I realize that Scary Mary might yell at me for straying from the assignment. I might even cost our cabin a bead. What a horror!
My favorite thing to draw is Elliot. I can trace the shape of his wheels and the line of his frame from memory. I can draw a pretty good Danny Stark too. I start in, but for some reason, the markers don’t want to move in this way. I guess I’m still thinking about the bonfire last night, because all I can draw is one thing.
Well, three things.
Three faces screaming. Three faces with their eyes, hair, and mouths full of flames. I hate looking at them, but I can’t stop drawing them. The faces fill the page, their eyes boring into me. The fire fills the top half of the sheet and the bottom half of the page fills with the drip, drip, drip of pouring blood.
I feel a scary presence looming behind me. A Scary Mary presence.
“Wotcher doing there, You?” she says. “That’s one dodgy lanyard.”
I quickly fold up the paper and try to hide it in my lap.
“You too, Chickenlips!” Mary says.
You know what? Now that I think about it, I’m lucky I’m just “You.” Chickens don’t even have lips. But then, I don’t think Gavin’s exactly swimming around in extra brains.
But why is Mary scolding Tez? He’s been doing nothing but making lanyard after lanyard like some sort of robot . . . that . . . makes lanyards.
I look over and realize that, at some point, Tez stopped weaving. Like me, he has a piece of paper and a red marker in his hand. There is a far-off look in his eyes. His hand moves automatically, drawing so hard that the markers squeak on the paper.
I can’t see exactly what he’s drawing, but if I had three guesses, all three would be faces in a fire.
He snaps out of his trance when Mary flicks him in the back of the head. Dazed, he crumples up the drawing. He shoves it in his sock.
“Oh, you’re the weird one, then, Chickenlips,” she says. “They told me there’d be one.”
There is something weird here, but it’s not Tez.
And I think we need to figure out exactly what it is.
Tez
After arts and crafts, we split off and head to the sports we signed up for before camp.