“Check out Ashley,” he said, gesturing with his chin.
In the back corner of the group I spotted Ashley Woodstone between the jumping campers. She sat on the ground, cross-legged, playing with a blade of grass.
“Is she exempt from calisthenics?” I asked.
Win shrugged mid–jumping jack without disturbing his rhythm. “I guess you don’t have to do the exercises when you’ve got someone else to do them for you.”
I looked at Ashley again, and then I looked at her enormous bodyguard, practically shaking the ground with the force of his jumping jacks. The way his arms sliced through the air, you had to wonder if his method of exercising wasn’t also a windmill attack technique, should anyone dare come too close to Ashley. You were definitely taking your life into your own hands if you went anywhere near his flapping wingspan.
“Great workout, everyone!” Jimmy said. We all stopped jumping while he looked down at his watch. I thought he was checking his pulse, but after a moment it was clear that all he was doing was checking the time. He looked up into the sky just as the sound of a helicopter became clear. “I have a surprise for you all before we head out for our first day of camp activities. A special appearance by a very special person …”
Win and I looked at each other, our eyes going big as the same thought crossed our minds.
“Robert Drill!” we both said at the same time.
“Robert Drill!” Jimmy announced.
A buzz filled the air, the sound of our excitement nearly matching the growing roar of the approaching helicopter. It made sense: Robert Drill wouldn’t let camp officially start without making an appearance here first. I wondered if he would rappel down from the helicopter, right into the middle of the playing fields.
“Yes,” Jimmy said. “Look up and you’ll see him!”
We all watched the sky. A lone black helicopter hovered above us. Then the helicopter sped away.
“And there he goes!” Jimmy said. Win and I looked at each other again, only this time with much less excited expressions. “I’m sure if you wave he’ll be able to see it.” Jimmy waved dramatically at the helicopter, which only got smaller as it sped away. None of us waved. “Fun fact about Mr. Drill: He’s got an estate in Upstate New York which is only forty-five minutes away from the city via helicopter and about ten minutes away from here via car. Pretty neat, huh?”
We stared at Jimmy.
“Well,” he said. “Off to your activities!”
* * *
Camp Save the World did things a little differently than other camps. Instead of an individual counselor for every cabin, each bunk was on their own. I guess they thought we were old enough to look after ourselves. Or they wanted us to cultivate our independence. Or something. Instead of bunk counselors, we got activity counselors. So now, the kids of Cabins 7 through 9 stood at the edge of the lake, waiting on instructions from our water sports counselor.
Hakim was a tall guy with a seemingly perpetual bored expression on his face. “Today we’re canoeing.” Exactly what my mother was afraid of. “But first things first,” Hakim said. “Ashley Woodstone will be joining us for this activity!” The bored expression on his face instantly disappeared and was replaced with something more radiant. Ashley strolled up to Hakim and waved as though she were perched atop a parade float, which didn’t seem so out of place since everyone clapped. My hands stayed limp at my sides.
“Thanks for that introduction, Hakim,” Ashley said. “But don’t mind me. I’m not here as a celebrity. I’m just a camper, like everyone else.”
Just like everyone else, except with the type of rabbit-fur hat that old Russian men wore in the dead of winter. Who wore fur to go canoeing? Ashley Woodstone did.
“Let’s have fun out there, guys!” Ashley continued.
Hakim nodded. “Yes, let’s all listen to Ashley. I loved you in Apples to Cantaloupes, by the way. Wasn’t that a great film?” Everyone clapped again. “Now,” Hakim said, “if Ashley doesn’t have any more questions, why don’t we get—”
A girl from Cabin 7 raised her hand and didn’t wait to be called on to speak. “Just a few questions before we begin.” She wore a yellow T-shirt with S.P.E.W. on the front in block letters. It must’ve been an abbreviation for her cause. “Are you proficient in water sports? And do you know CPR?”
“To answer your first question, no, I am not,” Hakim said. “I was the leader of the Minneapolis chapter of Occupy Wall Street. I applied for a job here to help young activists, and I got assigned water sports. So anytime you swim, snorkel, or canoe, you’ll be reporting to me. I know very little about water sports, so don’t ask me about them. I do have a hunch, though, that for canoeing, rowing is likely to propel you along, so my best guess is that you should do that. And to answer your second question: also no.”
It seemed my mother had good reason to worry.
“If anyone else decides that they want to sass me—”
“I wasn’t sassing you,” S.P.E.W. muttered.
“—I will dock you points.”
“Points?” I said. “You can dock points for the internship?”
“I can dock and award points at my discretion,” Hakim said. “We counselors have that power.”
“How are we supposed to get the canoes into the water?” S.P.E.W. asked. The canoes were lying facedown by the water’s edge.
“I don’t know,” Hakim said. “Push them?”
“We carry them,” Rights said. “Two men per canoe.”
“Men?” Feminism said. “You don’t think the women can carry our own canoes?”
“No, I don’t,” Rights said. “But don’t let that stop you from trying.”
Feminism wore a baby-blue T-shirt with the words FEMINISM NOW stretched across her chest. So stretched the letters were warped.
“What are you staring at?” she snapped, and when I looked up I realized she was talking to me.
“Uh. Feminism?”
“Okay, everyone, we don’t want to upset Ashley,” Hakim said. Ashley was staring at the leaves of a tree. “Two people per canoe. Which means two of you will have to sit out.”
S.P.E.W. raised her hand again. “I’d like to protest the unfairness of having someone sit out of an activity just because the camp can’t provide an adequate number of—”
“Great,” Hakim said. “You’ll sit out, then.”
Another kid raised his hand. He was wearing a shirt that read DIABETES AWARENESS. I was beginning to wonder if maybe I should’ve made my own shirts before coming to camp. “Can I protest too?”
“What’s your protest?” Hakim asked.
“I just don’t like water.”
“Fine. You sit out too. Everyone else, find a partner and get in a canoe and … do something. Again, don’t ask me what.”
Instead of immediately finding a partner, I picked out a canoe first. There was only one I wanted. It was red and blue. Superman colors. It practically had my name on it. I looked for Win, thinking we could partner up, but he was already in a canoe with ILP. Rights stood at the other end of my Superman canoe, lifting it up with one hand. “Are you just going to stand there, Superman, or you going to carry your weight around here?”
I wondered if there was room for any more sit-out protests.
* * *
It felt like we were lost at sea, shipwrecked, abandoned on a raft that was taking in water. We’d only been rowing for fifteen minutes, and we were in the middle of a rather small lake. But in an effort to one-up each other, Men’s Rights and I had rowed as hard as we could, circling the lake three times.
I leaned over the side of the canoe, arms aching, the sun in my eyes, and every bit of my exposed skin already tinged pink thanks to the blazing sun.
“What’s the matter, Superman, can’t handle an oar?”
“I can handle an oar!” I panted. “And stop calling me Superman.” My voice sounded foreign, probably because my throat tore to shreds every time I gulped in air. For his part, Rights sounded
slightly out of breath but in obviously better shape than me.
“Nah, bruh,” Rights exhaled. “I don’t think you can handle an oar.”
What did it even mean to handle an oar? I gripped mine again, feeling the weight of it, letting myself imagine me swinging the blunt end of it into Rights’s jaw. Would he think I could handle it then?
I shut my eyes. I couldn’t let the culture of toxic masculinity encourage violence as a means of solving problems. When I opened them, a lone guy on a canoe floated by in front of us. He wasn’t even trying to row, and he’d turned his oar into a picket sign, the words CANOEING IS FOR FASCISTS written neatly on the paddle.
“You’re the guy who’s boycotting camp,” I said. “Why?”
“You think I’m at this camp by choice?” Boycott Camp said. “My parents made me apply because they heard it was free and they’ve been saving for a monthlong summer trip to Italy for the last two years and this killed two birds with one stone.”
“So you applied with a Boycott Camp campaign? Why did they let you in?”
“Your guess is as good as mine,” he said. “I don’t want to be here. But it was either this camp or a summer of forced volunteer work at my church after I had a minor arson incident.”
“Arson?”
“Everyone always focuses on the ‘arson’ part of that sentence instead of the ‘minor’ part.” He shook his head and dipped his oar/protest sign into the water, pushing away from us like he couldn’t waste his time talking to someone who just wasn’t woke enough to understand his plight. I hoped I hadn’t offended him.
“Look on the bright side, Superman, you’re not the biggest weirdo at this camp. Now what do you say we do another few laps?” Rights said. “We’ve still got … ah … forty-five minutes left to this activity.”
Forty-five minutes? I could only lift my arm enough to bring my canteen to my lips. There were a few drops left in it. I was unequivocally doomed. “Absolutely,” I said.
“Hello, Gregor Maravilla.”
I looked up. Ashley Woodstone glided along in her canoe, smiling beneath that ridiculous fur cap. In one hand she held a glass filled with a frothy pink drink—with a red-and-white-striped paper straw poking out of it and a slice of pineapple balancing on the glass’s rim. In her other hand she held a flower. One thing that wasn’t in either hand? An oar. Behind her, her bodyguard gripped both oars in his fists. They may as well have been toothpicks for the lack of exertion on his face.
“You’re not rowing,” I said.
“Oh, I can’t,” Ashley answered. “For insurance purposes the contract for my next film stipulates that I not do any strenuous activity that may be detrimental to my health or cause me any harm.”
“How convenient for you.”
“Hello, Ashley,” Rights said. “I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure of introducing myself yet. Men’s Rights.”
Who introduced themselves using only their campaign?
“Nice to meet you, Men’s,” Ashley said. “You boys look like you’ve been working hard. Can I offer you a virgin daiquiri? They’re Pika’s specialty.”
“That sounds fantastic,” Rights said.
Pika rested the oars across his lap and reached down to grab a pitcher. He poured Rights and me our drinks and handed a glass to each of us, looking none too pleased to be doing it.
The daiquiri wasn’t that bad. Actually, it was pretty great. I swallowed mine in one gulp. Rights took a sip and winced, but quickly covered it with a smile. “My, that’s sweet,” he said. “Do you know the sugar content of this drink, by chance?”
“Hmm,” Ashley said thoughtfully. “Pika?”
Pika shrugged and picked up a carton of sugar. It seemed he made all of his drinks on-site. Between the rowing. He turned over the carton of sugar to show us it was empty.
Rights promptly poured the rest of his drink into the lake, still grinning at Ashley. “Well, thanks anyway, Ashley, but it’s important to watch one’s calories, and I’m afraid I’ve reached my limit for the day. I’m sure you understand.”
“Totally,” Ashley said. “I’m from Los Angeles.”
“Oh, I know,” Rights said. “I’m actually a really big fan of yours. Most men wouldn’t admit that they watched every single episode of Smarty Pants, but I’m not ashamed to say that I have.”
“Thank you,” Ashley said. She looked at me, a curious expression on her face, though I couldn’t tell if it was because she was expecting me to say something similar or because she telepathically agreed with me that Men’s Rights was a douchebag. “Have you seen all of the episodes too, Gregor?”
“Not a single one,” I assured her.
Weirdly, Ashley’s smile turned up to full brightness. The bodyguard started rowing again, apparently bored with the conversation, though Ashley didn’t seem to mind. “Well, it was nice seeing you boys!”
Yet another bizarre encounter with Ashley Woodstone. I was beginning to understand that all encounters with her would probably be strange. But stranger still was the way Rights had spoken to her. He’d smiled and used nice language. It was disconcerting.
“Do you have a thing for Ashley Woodstone or something?”
“Yes.”
I didn’t expect the candor. It was my experience that anytime anybody asked you if you liked someone, your immediate response should be to deny it. But Rights apparently had no qualms about crushing on a girl who wore fur hats on a canoe.
“I am Ashley Woodstone’s type. And by the end of camp, she’ll be mine.”
“How do you know Ashley Woodstone’s type?”
“Have you seen her last boyfriend? He was ripped and good-looking. And so am I.”
“I heard her last boyfriend was unstable. Maybe you do have something in common with him.”
Rights smiled, but there was no mirth behind it. “You’re not still mad about me taking your bed, are you? You need to be a man and get over that.”
“I take offense to your use of the outdated term ‘be a man.’”
Rights looked at me sideways. “You would,” he said. “Anyway, back to the matter at hand: Now that Ashley’s boyfriend is in jail, it’s up to me to make a move.”
“Ashley’s boyfriend’s in jail?”
“What planet do you live on, Superman?”
Not only was I the only person at this camp who didn’t care that Ashley Woodstone was here, I was the only person here who didn’t know anything about her either.
“Well, if it isn’t Feminism,” Rights said.
She was alone in a canoe. It seemed a lot more people had opted out of canoeing today. I was impressed that she’d gotten this far without anyone’s help. And then I wondered if I was only impressed because she was a girl and if I would’ve felt differently if it was a boy who’d been rowing alone.
“Sure you don’t need anyone’s help rowing?” Rights called to her. “I can pull double duty if you like.”
Feminism dug her oar into the water and stopped right beside us. “Does it look like I need help? I got as far as you did, didn’t I?”
“Let’s see how much help you need now,” Rights said. He grabbed hold of the edge of her canoe and moved his hand so sharply I didn’t have time to realize what he was doing. Feminism’s canoe tipped over completely. She was overboard. I jumped up, nearly toppling our canoe over too.
“What the hell’s the matter with you?!” I yelled.
Rights shrugged. “If she really wants to prove that she doesn’t need a man’s help, then let her.”
Feminism’s head broke through the surface of the water and she gasped for air. “You bastard!” she shrieked.
I watched her paddling in the water, and there was only one thing for me to do. “I’m coming, Feminism!”
I dove into the water. I tried putting my arm around her, but as soon as I did she pushed me away. “I said I don’t need anybody’s help!”
“Stop being so stubborn. You’ll drown! Also, me saving you is not the same as me implying
that you need a man to save you. I’m saving you as a person, not a man.”
“What the hell are you talking about?!” she snapped. “I can swim!”
At least, I thought that was what she said. I only got every other syllable, since she was dunking my head underwater every time I surfaced. I was swallowing more water than I was air, and it suddenly occurred to me that in my attempt to save Feminism from drowning I was drowning myself. No, I was being drowned.
Before I could dwell on it too long I felt a tug on my collar. There was an arm around my chest, pulling me up, and then: sweet air. I gulped it in and heard her voice.
“I’ve got you, Gregor Maravilla.”
Ashley freaking Woodstone.
“I’m fine,” I said, though my voice was ragged and waterlogged.
“Don’t fight it,” Ashley Woodstone said. “I played a lifeguard in a music video once. I know exactly what I’m doing.”
There was no point in fighting her off. I held on to Ashley Woodstone, and after a moment I realized she was holding on to her bodyguard. She had an arm around his neck, and he pulled us toward shore at an amazingly quick pace. I’d never ridden on the back of a dolphin before (completely unethical) but it couldn’t have been very different. Not that I was comparing Ashley’s bodyguard to an animal, because that would be wrong too. I tried to avoid everyone’s gaze as we passed by the other canoes on our way back to the dock, but I soon realized that no one was actually looking at me. They were looking at Ashley.
“Ashley’s in the water!” someone shouted.
Others pointed at her.
“Ashley, are you okay?” someone else said.
Then people started to jump in.
Nearly all of the boys in the lake swam to the dock with us.
The bodyguard pulled Ashley up onto the dock first, and then me. I lay on the wood, and Hakim’s head hovered above mine, blocking the sun as he watched me with a horrified expression on his face. “I knew there was a reason for all these life vests!” he said, dumping a bundle of tangled orange floaties beside my head, uselessly. “Do you realize you almost drowned Ashley Woodstone?! Ashley, I’m awarding you ten points for saving a camper’s life.”
No Good Deed Page 5
