Ashley floated closer to me and caught my gaze. As a French woman sang a slow jam, Ashley’s eyebrows did their thing again, asking me a silent question.
But I shook my head. I don’t dance.
She came to me and pulled me up. You will dance.
She twisted on the balls of her feet and I looked down at her, trying to emulate her. No one would consider my shifty steps dancing, and yet somehow we moved in sync.
Ashley laid her temple against my chest, leaving me with little more to look at than the top of her head. It was a good view. I held her hand the way you’re supposed to when you dance slow with somebody. Ashley used my palm as a sketch pad for her thumb. She drew her finger lazily over my hand, and my mind was laser focused on deciphering the invisible pictures she scratched. A star? A flower? An A? I hadn’t even noticed that the CD had stopped. The only music came from Ashley’s humming, though soon that stopped too. She looked up at me. Her smile was close-lipped, serene.
This had to be what Ashley had talked to me about that night in the clearing before the rain came down. How to be close to a girl, how to be comfortable. Because this was the most comfortable I’d ever been with a girl, or anybody. My heart beat at a steady rhythm, even as Ashley continued to look at me. Even as her thumb grazed the soft part of my hand.
And then she let go of me and made her way over to the door.
“Where are you going?”
She knocked on the glass. “Pika’s never too far.”
A moment later he was there, Ashley’s enormous bodyguard, pulling the pipe out to open the door. I shouldn’t have been happy to see him, not at this very moment when I could still feel a tickle in my palm where Ashley had touched it. But I was happy to see him, not because he’d saved us but because Ashley, knowing that he’d been right outside this whole time, had waited so long before getting him.
Amazingly, Men’s Rights did win the petition relay. It put him in second place on the scoreboard, behind Win. And since she didn’t collect any signatures, Ashley fell to fourth place. But more surprisingly, Boycott Camp rocketed into the top ten after getting the residents of Swan Lake to sign a petition in support of closing down Camp Save the World so they could get their peaceful town back. I was still in last place with negative four points. Not that it mattered to me. There were more pressing things on the horizon.
“Tomorrow is Visit Day,” Jimmy said. Calisthenics were over, but instead of letting us get to our activities, Jimmy wanted to have a short chat with us. He invited Diabetes Awareness to come stand next to him. The two stood before us, matching dour expressions on their faces. “I thought that yesterday we had finally come together as a camp, but I know that there have been some—let’s call them shenanigans—happening here. Diabetes, why don’t you tell the campers what happened to you last night.”
“I almost died,” Diabetes said.
“And why did you almost die?”
Diabetes didn’t look up from the floor, but his voice was loud enough for all of us to hear. “Because War on Drugs took away my insulin.”
War on Drugs was standing right next to me. His plump face reddened and his eyes narrowed to slits. “I saw contraband in a camper’s pack and acted accordingly,” he said in his slow, Southern drawl. “I was only trying to save him from a lifetime of drug dependency.”
I had assumed taking Diabetes’s insulin was an honest mix-up, but now I wondered if War on Drugs wasn’t the type of antidrug protestor that detested Tylenol as much as cocaine.
“I appreciate your determination to rid the world of drugs,” Jimmy said, “but the fact remains that Diabetes here is near death daily from the shenanigans some campers are pulling under the guise of protest. Now, parents and family are coming tomorrow, and it’s important that we cool it a little bit, okay, guys?” Jimmy’s short chat was turning into a full-fledged speech, and he went on and on about the importance of “respect” and “common sense” and “not killing your fellow campers.” I tuned out at the obvious stuff.
“So let’s be kind to each other,” Jimmy concluded. “Let’s be cool. And when your families come tomorrow, let’s show them that Camp Save the World is the most normal camp in America! And I wasn’t supposed to say anything, but there might be an extra-special visitor here tomorrow. I’ll give you one hint: His name rhymes with Crawbert Shrill.”
* * *
You know how you can sometimes wake up and not know where you are or what day it is? That wasn’t the case today. I woke up with the instant realization that today would be the day that my family would come to camp and see my total failure at it. And it filled me with dread.
I tried to convince myself that today was just a normal day, that everything would go fine. And that was when I heard the unmistakable sound of an elephant blowing his trunk.
I hopped off the top bunk, suddenly very awake. Everyone was still asleep: Rights snoring lightly, Win peacefully snuggled in his sheet, ILP fitfully kicking at his. It must’ve been early, because it was still gray and chilly when I ran outside.
In front of me, on the path that stretched before the row of boys’ cabins, was a veritable parade of wagons being led across the camp. Through the open windows of every car, I could see the animals being kept inside. One car had ostriches, another camels, and another had the aforementioned elephant I’d heard through my window.
There were rumors about this yesterday. That Jimmy was planning on bringing a petting zoo to the camp so that the campers and their families could enjoy a special treat only five-year-olds would appreciate. But now, as the parade passed me by, I couldn’t help but think that Jimmy hadn’t commissioned a petting zoo for the day but instead had bribed a traveling circus to come to the camp for a pit stop.
I half expected a troupe of clowns to spill clumsily out of one of the cars. But all I saw was Jimmy hanging off the back of the last car, waving wildly at me.
“Good morning, Children! We’ve got an exciting day ahead of us!”
“This is a very bad idea,” I said. I tried to say it loud enough for Jimmy to hear, but my voice was drowned out by the yawp of a goose.
“I know!” Jimmy said, bright, happy, obviously mishearing me. “Isn’t it great?!”
“So great it’s ridiculous.”
“Remember, Children: This is the most normal camp in America!”
He stretched the word “America” out so that it sounded like “AMERICAAAAAA!” and I wasn’t sure if it was because he really was that enthusiastic about this or because the screech of the llamas was overpowering his voice.
Win, Rights, and ILP finally joined me outside. “Did I just hear an elephant?” Win said groggily.
“It was the petting zoo. I think.”
“Fantastic,” Rights said. “I want to ride a horse.”
“I didn’t see any horses. You’ll have to settle for a camel.”
“Horse, camel, whatever. No one is going to stop me from being a cowboy today.” He turned to me, angry, accusatory. “No one.”
It was too early in the morning for this fuckery.
* * *
Before I came to this camp, I went on about it for a long time. I couldn’t stop talking about it when I’d first heard of its inception. I couldn’t stop talking about it when I was trying to convince my parents to let me go to it. I couldn’t stop talking about it when I found out that I’d been accepted. I talked a big game about how instrumental this camp would be for setting me on the course to acquiring the necessary skills to be a better leader—heck, a better human being. I said this camp would set me on my way to achieving all of my dreams to save the world.
And what had been my biggest achievement so far?
“It’s a lanyard,” I said. I held up my most recent arts and crafts project to my parents, who looked at it with the right amount of skepticism.
“Three weeks at this camp and all you have to show us is a friendship bracelet?”
My family had been here for half an hour. I’d taken them on a tou
r of my cabin, the clubhouse, the mess hall. It was all pretty uneventful except when we stopped by the rec room. ILP was there with a family that wasn’t his own, showing off his mural to them. He was speaking very passionately about it too, gesticulating wildly at the arrows that spanned the painted globe and rambling in his native tongue. I wondered if the family he was talking to even understood him or if he was just caught up in the moment. I pointed him out to my family as one of the more passionate examples of a camper at Camp Save the World.
Now I stood with my family in the playing fields, where picnic tables had been set up for the impending Family Fun Lunch. So far, shockingly, things at the camp were running smoothly. None of the campers had pulled any pranks or tried to kill each other. Actually, the only moment thus far to really give my family pause was the tiny spate of protesting at the petting zoo. The petting zoo had been kind of a success; nobody seemed to be wondering why they were petting a seal instead of a goat. Jimmy put the animals in the all-purpose sports rink so they’d have a natural enclosure, or as natural as traveling-circus-animals-at-a-sleepaway-camp could get. My family didn’t find this circus attraction strange—it was the campers marching in front of the enclosure, brandishing picket signs, that caught their attention. “Why are those kids protesting the petting zoo?” my father asked.
I shrugged. I wasn’t too surprised by the kids protesting (circus animals kept in captivity were always controversial), but what was normal for Camp Save the World was new to my family. “We protest things here. A lot.”
Despite the day going well (or maybe because it was going too well), I was constantly on the lookout for sudden calamity at every corner. Anytime someone ran someplace, I thought for sure the zebras must have escaped or that Boycott Camp had set something on fire. But so far so good.
“I think I’m getting better at becoming a leader,” I lied to my parents.
“Leaders make friendship bracelets?” my mother said.
“Yes, Mom.”
“I think your friendship bracelet is beautiful,” my father said.
I wouldn’t have called it a friendship bracelet. Most of the friendships around here were actually more like alliances. But “alliance bracelet” didn’t exactly have the right ring to it.
“That bracelet would make a great gift for a girlfriend,” Anton said. He put his arm around Darcy, who did not look up from the thick notebook she was scribbling in. “Oh, wait, you still don’t have one.” Talking to my brother was a lot like talking to a garbage disposal. I had no idea why he was here.
“How do you know I don’t have a girlfriend? Maybe I met a girl here.”
“Who are you kidding, Gregor?” Katrina said. “You don’t have a girlfriend. You don’t even have a single friend here, do you?”
“Leave your brother alone,” my mom said. “I’m sure he has friends at this camp. He’s a leader with a friendship bracelet— of course he has friends! You have friends here, don’t you, sweetie?”
“Of course I do.”
“Any friends you want to introduce us to, son?” my dad said.
I looked around, trying to spot someone who I could feasibly call a friend. Win wasn’t around, probably being carted around on his family’s shoulders, in celebration of his perfectness. I saw Poe, standing with a pair of smartly dressed adults who must have been her parents, but there was no way I could introduce her to my family. I wouldn’t even know what to say. Unity was busy talking to World Peace’s parents, though I had no idea if that was by invitation or not. Out of the corner of my eye I spotted Rights walking toward us as if he could read my thoughts and was about to answer them with a cruel joke.
“You can’t ride a camel!” PETA was saying, chasing after him. “It’s unethical! And potentially harmful!”
But Rights just shrugged and kept walking, passing me and my family by. He was wearing a cowboy hat and had a piece of straw dangling between his lips like a lit cigarette. “I’m ridin’ that camel and there ain’t nothin’ you can do about it.”
I saw Diabetes close by out of the corner of my eye and grabbed him. “This is my friend Diabetes.”
“Is that your name?” my mom asked, slightly horrified.
“It is here, ma’am.” He swayed. Diabetes was a small guy, but there was no way the force of my mom’s handshake was strong enough to sway him like that. I pulled him back out of earshot.
“You okay, man?”
“I’m great,” he said. “I’m on a cleanse.”
“You’re on a what?”
“I haven’t eaten anything in the last twelve hours.”
“Why?”
“I wanted to get rid of my diabetes before my parents show up. Surprise them. Rights thinks I can do it.”
I pulled Diabetes even farther away from my family. “Rights doesn’t know what he’s talking about,” I hissed. “As much as he likes to say he does, he doesn’t have the answer for everything. He doesn’t care about you—he only cares about The Prize. This isn’t safe, man.”
“I have guns now, Children,” he said, showing me his pathetically small flexed biceps. “Rights and I have been working out. I’ve been getting stronger. So yeah, he does know what he’s talking about.”
“You’re talking like the disciple of a cult leader, dude.”
“Men’s Rights is a leader I can believe in!” Diabetes said. He squirmed out of my grasp. “You’re just sticking the word ‘cult’ in there to be controversial. But buzzwords don’t work at this camp, Children.”
“Our names are literally buzzwords,” I said. “Men’s Rights is brainwashing you.”
“There you go with your buzzwords again. Rights is helping me. You aren’t.” He stormed off, leaving me alone and friendless in front of my family again.
“Nice friends,” Katrina said when I went to rejoin them.
I had no choice but to pull out the big guns. “I’m friends with Ashley Woodstone.”
My entire family stared at me. Even Darcy looked up from her notebook.
“¡Mentiroso!” Abuelo Maravilla said. He sat in his wheelchair. I didn’t think he’d been listening to anything that we were saying, but apparently he had and he had something to say about it.
Great. Even my grandfather didn’t believe that I could feasibly be friends with a megastar like Ashley Woodstone.
“It’s just that you’ve been giving us conflicting reports about Ashley in your letters home,” my father said. “How can we be sure what to believe?”
“There’s no way you’re friends with Ashley Woodstone,” Katrina said. “Ashley Woodstone is rainbows and Dipsy Doodles, and you’re lame. Dad, can we go to the petting zoo already? I want to see the flamingos.”
“Why would I lie about that?” I said.
“Because she’s not here to deny it,” Anton said. “Classic move. Before Darcy, I called a lot of girls my girlfriend when they weren’t there to deny it.”
“Well, you are an awful human being,” I said to Anton. “Ashley Woodstone is my friend. I’m as surprised as the rest of you, believe me. And I don’t have to prove it.”
“Prove it,” Anton said.
“Yeah, prove it!” Katrina said.
My father squeezed my shoulder and looked at me pitifully. “Perhaps you should prove it, son.”
I often wondered if I was a hard person to be friends with, and if it was because of the family I came from. Because no matter how much I loved them, I really wanted to dig a hole in the ground right now and stick my head in it, much like the ostrich at the petting zoo. “She’s probably in her yurt,” I said, sighing. “Why don’t you guys get us seats for lunch while I go find her.”
* * *
There was no answer at her yurt, but when I turned around I found Pika, back against a tree, arms crossed over his chest, watching me. He startled me, like always.
“Pika. Hi. Is Ashley around?” I waited but he didn’t say anything. It was a long moment of him staring me down and me trying not to wither under his glare. Th
en he looked up into the trees, and I followed his gaze. It definitely wasn’t a bird or a plane. Ashley sat on a thick branch, one foot flat on it, the other dangling off.
“Hey!” I said. Her head swiveled around, and she looked down at me from over her shoulder.
“Gregor Maravilla! What a wonderful surprise!”
“What are you doing up there?” I said, my head craned back to look at her. “You could fall.”
“But what if I fly?”
The last thing I needed right now was Ashley Woodstone’s dime-store pearls of wisdom: the Tumblr edition. I looked at the tree. It was long and high and did not have a lot of protruding parts that would make it easy to climb. But I couldn’t just stay down here either. Damn Ashley Woodstone.
I couldn’t ask Pika for a boost because he would very likely catapult me into the sky. I climbed on my own. My shirt kept getting caught on the rough bark and my knees got scratched every time I took a step. I also realized I had no upper body strength at all, but I made it. Scratched and out of breath. I sat on a branch next to Ashley’s, not wanting to add my weight to her already slim-looking tree limb.
“Gregor. You made it!” Relief and happiness flooded her face. Yes, I made it. But I didn’t dare let go of the tree. I wrapped both my arms and legs around the trunk. Ashley looked so at ease, like she belonged in trees. Like, unlike the rest of us humans, she didn’t have to worry about falling out of them. Though I guess having a bodyguard down below to catch you if you fell let you live life a little more recklessly.
“I don’t think your bodyguard likes me.” I looked down and caught the glare off Pika’s shiny bald head. He was too far below to hear us.
“Pika? He’s a teddy bear.”
“You know, you keep saying that, but all I see is grizzly. Like, if I make any sudden movements he’ll pounce on me.”
“He doesn’t trust boys. Not after my last boyfriend.”
I nodded. The boyfriend. The more he came up, the more it nagged on me. “Are you ever going to tell me what happened with him?”
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