Ashley shrugged and fixed a smile on her face. “Wouldn’t you rather talk about happier things? Tell me about your family.”
From this high up I could see into the playing fields, between the leaves. I had a clear view of all the families and campers spread out among the tables. Lunch was being served, and while most families shared tables with each other, my family took up one entire table. “That’s my family at the second table from the left.”
“The Family Maravilla,” Ashley said through a grin. “What a delight.”
“There’s my parents; and then the old man in the wheelchair is my grandpa; the lady in the blue scrubs next to him is his nurse; the big guy is my brother, Anton; the girl next to him with the stack of books is his girlfriend, Darcy; and the twelve-year-old girl is my sister, Katrina. She’s a big fan of yours.”
“You have a wonderful family.”
“You say that because you haven’t met them.”
“And still, I know it to be true.”
She was so sure, I almost believed her. I scooted closer. “So why are you here, in the trees, and not out there?”
“I love seeing all of this,” Ashley said. “So often, because of who I am, I can’t observe these things, you know? I can’t sit in a crowd and watch normal people interact with each other. So when I find a way to do it, even if it means sitting in a tree—well, especially if it means sitting in a tree—I jump on it.”
We were high up and I was still terrified, but I was getting more used to being up in a tree. It was nice and quiet up here, the only sound coming from the chirping birds around us. Ashley turned to me. “Do you think I’m weird, Gregor?” she asked suddenly. “I mean, I know I’m a little weird and I’m fine with that, but do you think I’m too weird?”
I didn’t know what she was getting at or what this had to do with anything. And I especially didn’t know how to answer her question. She was sitting in a tree, wearing a navy-blue mechanic’s jumpsuit rolled up to just over her ankles. Her hair was sprinkled with gold confetti stars. Of course I thought she was weird. But in the time I’d gotten to know her, that word had taken on a new meaning. “Why are you asking me that?”
She shrugged and I held on to the tree more strongly. “I see all those people out there and … sometimes I wonder if I’m really different than them. My job creates this big divide. I wonder if I’m so different that … I alienate some people.”
“You don’t alienate me,” I said. “I’m in a tree with you.”
She laughed.
“Aren’t your parents coming?” I asked.
She was still smiling, but it was different this time. “Don’t be silly.”
I hadn’t realized I was. Even though I felt like I was dangerously close to stepping on a land mine, I pressed on. “Do you not want to talk about them either? Because you can tell me anything. We can gripe about our weird parents together.”
“That’s okay, Gregor.” She was still smiling, and yet the smile filled me with the overwhelming need to hug her. I would let go of this tree and risk falling to the ground, right at Pika’s uncaring feet, just to put my arms around her, comfort her somehow. I didn’t know anything about her family or home life, but Ashley could so easily telegraph everything she was thinking just by the expression on her face. And that smile was sadness. I never knew a smile could break my heart. I wanted to hug her, but I couldn’t even move my hand on top of hers. And not all of it was because I was afraid I might fall.
“Do you want to meet my family?”
Her smiled flickered into something brighter. “Really?”
* * *
Ashley and I walked out of the woods together, but I slowed down. I had to tell her something before we reached the rest of the Maravillas. “I told them we were friends. They don’t believe me.”
“Then we’ll make them believe,” Ashley said. She looped her arm through mine, which instantly and irrationally made the back of my throat dry up. When we marched up to my family they froze at the sight of us.
“Hi, Gregor’s family!” Ashley said. She gave everyone their own individual hug. Even Grandpa Maravilla, whom she had to bend down to hug in his wheelchair. She talked to them like they were old friends. She even signed Katrina’s forehead. We all sat down together to eat. During a rare quiet moment, when my family wasn’t barraging Ashley with questions, I leaned over, close to her neck.
“Thank you,” I whispered.
“For what?”
“For showing up. Showing them that we’re, you know, friends.”
“But we are,” she said, her grin as big as ever. Mine was much smaller, but it was there.
Jimmy finally came out. He stood before a curtain that was set up earlier in the day, just for Visit Day.
“Welcome, family, friends, and campers, to the first-ever Visit Day at Camp Save the World!” he said into his microphone. Parents and campers clapped. “I think we can all agree that today was a rousing success! And that Camp Save the World is the most normal camp in America!”
He tried to get the clapping going again, but people were mostly too busy eating their hot dogs.
“Now, I promised the kids that Mr. Robert Drill himself would be here to show his appreciation. Unfortunately he can’t stay too long, but he did want to wave! So here is Mr. Robert Drill, waving hello!”
Jimmy pulled the curtain back from its frame and there he was: my (former) hero. Robert Drill. He waved and smiled, and despite everything, I was excited for a second. Until I realized that something seemed off. His waving seemed mechanical somehow. Like his elbow wasn’t just an elbow but a point of articulation, like my Superman action figure. I could see Anti-Robotics stand up slowly. I could hear his shrill old-lady-like scream before he even opened his mouth.
“That is not Robert Drill!” Anti-Robotics yelled. Everyone turned to look at him. “That is Robot Drill!”
Robot? I turned to look at Robert Drill again. It couldn’t be … but he hadn’t even stopped waving.
Anti-Robotics ran straight to the stage and charged. With a big warrior yell, he pulled his arm back, formed a fist, and came with all his weight at Robert Drill, socking him in the chin.
Robot Drill’s mechanical head snapped off.
There was a moment of awed silence. Some people stood up in shock. Diabetes passed out. And then the screaming began.
“I knew I never should’ve let you come to this camp,” my mother said.
Robert Drill sat at his desk in his Palo Alto office, the sun bright and shining through his floor-to-ceiling windows, when his secretary knocked on his door and popped her head in.
“Mr. Drill, there’s been an incident that needs your attention.”
Robert Drill looked up from his computer screen and lifted his glasses to the top of his forehead. “Yes?”
“A camel broke its back at your sleepaway camp, sir.”
“Excuse me?”
“One of the campers decided to ride a camel at the camp. He apparently rode it too long, sir. Also, there is a slight international kidnapping situation. Apparently the camp has been holding a young man from Croatia captive. He goes by the name of ‘I Like Paint’—also known as ILP—and was meant to go to an art camp in California but was somehow diverted to your camp earlier in the summer, sir. We only found out after a parent at Visit Day who spoke Croatian was able to communicate with him. Plus, your top secret robot design prototype had his head torn off by one of the campers in front of every parent and child at the camp.”
Robert Drill slowly put his glasses down on his desk. “What?”
Hello, Mother, hello, Father, here I
am at Camp Save the World.
I know that Visit Day may have
seemed very strange to you guys and
the rest of the family, but trust me—
that’s just how this camp works. There
is no need for alarm. You probably
want to pull me out of camp, and
while I wouldn’t arg
ue with you if you
did, I think you should reconsider.
You saw that I made a friend. Also,
after everything that happened at Visit
Day, Robert Drill is finally going to
come to the camp. And I actually kind
of want to see him.
P.S. Ashley Woodstone says hello.
She didn’t find you guys strange at all.
Robert Drill was going to come to camp tomorrow. For real this time. And to think all it took to get him here was an injured camel, a kidnapped Croatian minor, and the decapitated head of the cyborg that bore his likeness.
Robert Drill wasn’t just coming alone—he’d invited numerous media outlets and scheduled a press conference in order to spin the bad press the camp had gotten these last few days. I wasn’t sure how he was going to pull that off, though. If things continued to go the way they were going, chances were good the camp would explode as soon as Robert Drill set foot in it.
I couldn’t stop thinking about the fact that he was going to be here. And that I was finally going to see him. After the disaster that was Visit Day, my parents actually contemplated making me leave the camp. A lot of parents must’ve felt like that as they witnessed Anti-Robotics tackle a beheaded Robert Drill robot to the ground. But then Ashley stood before the crowd and gleefully said, “What an amazing performance!”
I have no idea if she thought it was really a performance or if she was just quick on her feet, saving the camp’s ass, but everyone started following her lead. She clapped enthusiastically, and then campers started to clap. Then parents. After a moment of recovering his wits, even Anti-Robotics began to clap, confused but also happy that he’d destroyed one of his mortal enemies.
Whether or not the parents bought it, Robert Drill certainly knew it wasn’t planned. And now he was on his way. The man I’d once idolized for so long. In the flesh.
“Other people idolize athletes or musicians or actors, you know?”
“I know,” Ashley said.
“But I idolized him. He’s just a regular guy, but he’s using everything he has to make the world a better place. He’s making an impact.”
We were in the clearing again. Ashley had managed to weave two wreaths from twigs and leaves. She called them our enchanted forest crowns as she put one on my head. I’d promptly taken it off and looped it over a tree branch. Ashley didn’t mind, though. She said it made our clearing look more welcoming. An evening of working on the Superman script and recounting Chasing Amy (which was starting to sound like a really problematic movie) had been sidelined in favor of doing absolutely nothing.
The two of us lay on blankets and pillows on the ground, eating from the same tub of Twizzlers and staring up into the trees.
“Do you know what my biggest fear is?”
Ashley shook her head.
“It’s not making an impact,” I said. “Time is just passing by, and if I don’t figure out how to make a difference right now, then before I know it I’ll be old. I’ll have done nothing of any worth.”
“Dreams take time.”
“Not for you. You’re already leaving a legacy. And not for Robert Drill either. He was my age when he started his company. He knew exactly what he wanted to do.” I fished around absently for a Twizzler, but I was too distracted to actually pick one up. My mind was swimming with too many thoughts. “I just want to live a life that’s of use to others. And I don’t know how to do that.”
Ashley found a Twizzler on my behalf and threaded it between my thumb and forefinger. “Gregor, you are going to make a big impact. You’re already making one. Every day.”
Maybe she was like this with everybody, but Ashley always made me feel like a hero when I was with her. And I didn’t even need to be saving anyone’s life to feel that way. We could just be lying here in the grass—lazy, doing nothing, talking about big or stupid things—and she could so easily make me feel that way. It was in how she listened, I think. It felt like I could tell her anything. I hoped I could make her feel like that too.
“You’re obviously conflicted about Robert Drill coming to camp,” Ashley said.
A Twizzler drooped from the corner of my mouth like the suction at the dentist. “On the one hand, Robert Drill was my hero and I modeled my life after him. On the other hand, he’s a liar who’s deceiving everyone at this camp.”
I thought of the injustice of false promises. It was wrong to manipulate young people. Just because we were young and adults thought we had “lessons” to learn didn’t mean it was right to toy with our emotions. That was bullshit.
Ashley turned onto her stomach, lying perpendicular to me so that our bodies formed the letter T. There were a few leaves embedded in the strands of her hair. I gingerly plucked one out, but she looked all wrong suddenly. I stuck it back in its place. Better.
“You’ll do something to make this right,” Ashley said.
I bit off the end of my Twizzler, my forehead scrunching as I fixed her with a questioning look. “How do you know?”
“Because I know you. I know you want to make a difference in this world. This is your time, Gregor! You can be the hero this camp needs.”
That sounded a lot like what people told the hero in superhero movies. It was so trite and so Ashley. She had a way of talking in inspirational posterspeak, but she infused it with so much sincerity that you believed her. You had to believe, because you could tell she believed it wholeheartedly herself.
I took the Twizzler out of my mouth and pointed it limply at her. “Or maybe I should just stop trying to be a superhero because I’m not eight years old and probably should’ve grown out of my obsession with Superman a long time ago.”
“But …” Her fingertips dipped into the strands of hair that had fallen over my forehead. She brushed them back. “That’s what I like about you.”
No one had ever played with my hair before. It felt nice. Soothing. I could feel what her fingers were doing; she was giving me the Superman S. I watched her lips stretch slowly into that familiar smile. I wondered what her smile tasted like. Would her mouth taste like mud? Where once that thought would’ve totally grossed me out, now it just sparked curiosity in me. I leaned in.
And then I froze, suddenly realizing that I was alone with Ashley with blankets and pillows and her hand casually in my hair as if it’d been there many times before. I didn’t know what was weirder: the fact that I was fantasizing about kissing Ashley or the fact that I was fantasizing about tasting mud. “I have to go,” I said, standing.
Ashley sat up. “Are you going to stand up to Drill tomorrow?”
“I don’t know.” I seriously didn’t know anything anymore.
“I think you should, Gregor. If anyone’s going to save this camp, it’s you.”
The press conference would be taking place on the basketball court, the clubhouse apparently too small to accommodate all the journalists and campers who’d be attending. Rows of folding chairs had been set up in the morning, facing a podium where Robert Drill would presumably address the crowd.
The camp was still pressing on with its normal routine of activities for the morning, but only just barely. Everyone’s mind was on the impending press conference and Robert Drill. I skipped the activities altogether. Instead, I went to the basketball court early and made sure I got myself a good seat.
I thought about what Ashley said, about being the hero this camp needed. What if she was right? The camp needed to know that the internship wasn’t real. If I told them about it, they’d just laugh at me, but if I confronted Robert Drill in front of everyone, then he’d have no choice but to respond. The truth would be out. People could stop being horrible to each other.
In that sense, this press conference could turn out to be the most important event in my life thus far. If I made a change—if I took down my idol and showed the world who was really behind the mask—this could very well be the moment I’d been waiting for my whole life. My moment of real impact.
&
nbsp; “Earth to Gregor.” Win was in the chair to my right. I hadn’t even noticed him sit down. Actually, I hadn’t noticed that other campers had trickled in and the seats were filling up. I didn’t see Ashley anywhere, but that didn’t matter. Her words still rang in my ears. Be the hero.
“Your hero’s about to show up and you look totally lost in space,” Win said.
“He’s not my hero anymore.”
“You think he’s not gonna show? Another robot? Because it’d be pretty hard to fool the press.” Win gestured toward the men and women in the front row, busy with recorders and phones. “But also pretty funny.”
“I think maybe I was wrong about him,” I said. “I’m going to do something about it.”
Win stared at me for a long moment. I was looking straight ahead, so I couldn’t actually see him staring, but I could feel the force of his stare hit the side of my face. “What are you going to do?” he asked.
“I’m going to get up there and tell the whole camp that he’s up to something.”
“Gregor, I wouldn’t ever tell you not to do something you have your heart set on, but I think on this occasion it might be necessary. I want you to listen to me carefully, buddy. Don’t sabotage the press conference.”
Sabotage. It was funny he used that word. This whole summer I’d been trying to take a stand against all the acts of sabotage happening around camp, but now I was about to commit the biggest act of sabotage of all.
“Look, I’m upset with the stuff that’s been happening too. The whole situation with ILP? That was bogus. And the way he left?” Win took a moment to take a deep breath. “I didn’t even get to say a proper goodbye. He was—”
“I’m sad about our bunkmate too. But this is bigger than what happened with ILP.”
“Am I getting through to you at all?” Win said. “Look, Poe’s sitting over there. Do you really want to do something potentially humiliating in front of her?”
I watched Poe, sitting a few rows farther up, her hair split down the middle, straight and shiny, as always. I’d been humiliated in front of her before, but this time would be different. This time I was standing up for something that would make a difference and impact all of us, and that couldn’t be wrong. But Poe wasn’t who I really wanted to see anyway. I looked around for Ashley. She wasn’t in any of the seats. Or in any of the trees, from what I could tell. I turned back to Win. “I have to make things right.”
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