by D. G. Driver
“We’ll all meet up at ten tomorrow and head out.”
Okay. One of them had a kayak. They were all meeting somewhere at ten to do something that had them super pumped up. My curiosity was piqued. It got pretty hard to concentrate on the game. I was slowing down. Pac-Man was in serious peril.
“Is the camp set up already?” the young one asked.
“Yeah,” a different voice said. Sounded like Buzz Cut. “My brother and his friends are there right now putting up the tents.”
A campout? That did sound fun. It also sounded like a whole bunch of people were involved. Scouts maybe? If it were Scouts, shouldn’t it be dads setting up the camp? I thought I heard that the dude’s brother was doing it. Did that mean no grown-ups?
I felt myself leaning toward them to hear more, my hands not as quick with the joystick, my eyes not centered on the game like they should be.
“What’s the camp like?” the kid with the new kayak asked. I wanted to know also.
One of the other boys spoke up then. “It’s rugged. No grills, no cars, no bathrooms.”
“Not even an outhouse,” another boy said.
“You have to go in the bushes,” the first boy added. “But you gotta watch out for the copperheads and moccasins.”
“Snakes!” the youngest one shrieked.
“Don’t be such a girl!” That was definitely Buzz Cut again. I heard a slap and figured he smacked the younger one on the head.
Snakes! Involuntarily, I shivered. Little P missed a few dots and then got eaten by a monster.
Whier whier whier whier whier, the sound effect played.
The guys looked up from the table, and the one who said I sucked earlier laughed. At me.
Crap! I knew they’d hear if I messed up. I knew they were paying attention a little bit.
Still, I’d scored well enough to plug in my initials. Not at the top—just fourth place. That wasn’t bad. First through third place ahead of me contained the same initials: CDH. I wondered whose initials those were and how long it had been since that record had been reached.
As I clicked my letters into place, the front door of the restaurant opened again. Another teenage boy walked in, an African American kid with cool shoulder-length dreadlocks, probably about sixteen or seventeen. His shoulders and upper arms were those of a guy who lifts weights, and the thin blue cotton of his T-shirt accented them.
The guys at the table shouted his name, “Lamont!”
Lamont nodded at them and started toward their table. “Hey!”
Another of my Southern stereotypes was erased. Looked like the four boys at the table were friends with Lamont, not racist or prejudiced at all. I felt like a jerk for assuming they would be.
Passing behind me, Lamont paused and glanced over my shoulder. “Nice job, man. That’s a good score.” The skin on his hand was dry, but his fingers were long. I imagined hands like that could toss a football pretty well.
A hand like that would feel good holding mine.
I watched him go over and pull up a chair to sit at the end of the table with his friends. Before any of them noticed, I snapped my head back to look at the screen in front of me. I was breathing too fast, and I felt a little dizzy. What was going on? I’d never felt like that about a boy before.
“He new?” Lamont asked the other guys, apparently referring to me.
“We don’t know him,” the young one said.
“Looks like a city kid,” the jerky one added.
Oh, well, let me correct myself. They were prejudiced against city kids. And apparently, they thought I was a guy. No biggie. It wasn’t like they needed to know I was a girl for any particular reason. It’s not like I had big plans of going up and talking to them.
I glanced down at my oversized T-shirt and baggy jeans with the rip in the cuffs and shook my head a little. People often mistook me for a boy. The first time it happened was a year or so ago. I was with my mom at the grocery store, and she was getting me a candy bar as a reward for shopping with her. I thought she was going to launch herself at the clerk after she asked, “Does your son want this now or should I put it in the bag?” I heard about it all the way home and had to wear a dress to church the next day—one of hers because I didn’t own one.
Now, for the first time in years, I wished I owned a dress, and I wished I had it on right at that moment.
Clearly Lamont wasn’t thinking about how my hand would fit in his. He wasn’t feeling flushed or had a dry mouth all of a sudden after seeing me. He didn’t feel his heart rate rise. Unless he was gay. And I didn’t suspect he was gay.
It didn’t matter. I was only going to be in town a couple weeks. I didn’t need Lamont or anyone to think I was worth looking at. I just wanted to do my time here with Grandma and get back home where I belonged.
I fished in my pocket for another quarter, trying to decide if I still wanted to get the top score or just move on. Maybe I’d go back to Grandma’s and just play my DS while I sat by the lake. That wouldn’t be a bad way to spend the afternoon. While I deliberated on what to do, I pretended to count the change in my hand, so they wouldn’t notice me eavesdropping on them.
Lamont grabbed a piece of pizza and took a big bite. With his mouth full, he said, “Any of you talk to him? See who he’s visiting? How long he’s here for?” They all shook their heads. “Maybe he’d like to come to the campout tomorrow night. Looks like he’s the right age.”
“We don’t even know him,” the one who clearly hated me said.
“It’s a small town, Chris,” Lamont said. “We could always use more guys.”
So, the jerk’s name was Chris.
I decided not to play again. Squeezing the quarters back into my pocket, I used my other hand to throw my soda cup in the trash. Reaching out to push open the door, I looked back over at them. It seemed like I should say something, like I’d been a part of their lunch group and shouldn’t just take off without a word. Even though that didn’t make sense, because they weren’t talking to me, just about me, I still felt obliged to say, “Bye, guys. Have fun tomorrow.” Then I was out the door.
I’d barely taken four steps before I heard the jingle of the bell on the pizza restaurant’s door. All five guys burst through it and rushed toward me, led by Lamont. Except for the youngest one, they were all considerably taller than me, and I felt myself shrinking as they got closer.
“Where ya going?” Lamont asked as they surrounded me.
Humidity and summer temperature aside, I suddenly felt excruciatingly hot. My cheeks flushed, and I started to sweat. What did they want? Were they really going to bully me right here in the middle of downtown Smithville on a Monday afternoon? I tried not to let on that I was anxious, but I think I failed.
“Nowhere,” I said, struggling for volume and hearing my voice crack. “Just to get my bike.”
“What’s your name?” Lamont asked. He smiled, but he was really too close to me. That might not have been totally his fault though, because the other guys were crowding him.
“Everyone calls me Dannie,” I answered carefully. It was true. Everyone called me Dannie. It was also true that I didn’t need them to know I was really Danielle. Not right at that moment. I did wonder which would be better at this juncture. If they thought I was a boy, would they beat me up as the skinny, weak-looking kid? If they knew I was a girl, would they back off? On the other hand, thinking I was a boy, would they welcome me into their group as a new friend? If they knew I was a girl, would they send me on my way? Maybe chased with an insult or two about how ugly I was.
Lamont seemed friendly enough when he asked, “You just move here, Danny?”
“Staying with my grandma.”
“What’s her name?” he asked.
“Oleta Garrison.”
Lamont was quiet for a second, and the other guys slowly dropped their heads and stared at their feet. After a moment he muttered, “Sorry about your pops, man. He was a nice old man.”
I stared at the top
of Lamont’s head. This was unreal.
“You knew my grandpa?” I asked.
“Well, yeah,” the younger one said. “He owned the pharmacy over there. Didn’t you know that? Everyone knew him. Biggest funeral the town’s seen in years. School got cancelled and everything.”
Chris didn’t look up, but he added his two cents. “Don’t recall seeing you there.”
“My parents left me at home,” I told them. “They thought it would be too hard on me to come all the way out here for it.” Sensing they were waiting for me to say more, I explained, “I didn’t know my grandparents very well, ’cause they only came out to visit once a year. If that.”
“Well, Mr. Garrison was a neat guy,” Lamont said. “Knew everyone’s name in town.”
One of the other guys added, “He kept the most stellar collection of old-time candies in the store: candy sticks, honey spoons, stuff like that. He had an antique Coke machine with the glass bottles.”
The younger one said, “He also knew how to flavor our medicine to taste like bubblegum or grape soda.”
Chris rolled his eyes. “They can do that at Target too, Alex.”
Alex shrugged. “Danny’s pop did it first.”
I smiled at Alex. “That sounds pretty neat.”
“You wanna come back in and have some pizza?” Lamont asked. “We’ve got a few slices left.”
“I am kind of hungry,” I admitted. With that, I followed them back inside.
They talked for a bit about my grandpa, telling me about all the stuff he used to do for the town. Lots of help with building people’s houses, dog yards, and stuff for the church. It was a little surreal for me, because I couldn’t remember any of my friends back home talking about their grandparents. Ever. I don’t think I’d ever talked about mine, unless I was complaining about them coming to visit or bragging about what they had bought me for Christmas. While the guys talked, I felt this mixture of guilt for not knowing all this stuff about my grandpa and frustration that they did.
Finally, I switched the topic. “What’s this campout I heard you guys talking about earlier?”
“It’s going to be awesome!” Alex shouted. “It’s my first year going, but I’ve been desperate to go since I was born. Everyone talks about how much fun it is. I’m so excited.”
“I don’t know what you’re excited about,” Chris said. “Freshmen have to do all the chores like burying the poop in the woods.”
“Stop lying to him,” the younger brother said. He winked at me. “Chris is still sore because his brother made us do a bunch of stuff like that last year. Jared graduated in June, so he’s not allowed to come anymore.”
“I’m still gonna double-check for booby traps first thing when I get there,” Chris said. “I don’t trust him.”
Lamont added, “And we all promised our parents not to do any tricks on the freshmen this year. Not any mean ones anyway.” A sly grin spread across his lips.
Over the course of the earlier conversation, I’d learned everyone’s names. The other two guys were Brian and Jasper, brothers about a year apart. Jasper, the older of the two, said, “It’s a tradition around here. Every summer right after the Fourth of July, all the boys in town over fourteen meet to kayak across the lake to this island in the middle of the lake. We camp out there overnight and kayak back the next day.”
“Only boys? No girls at all?”
Chris sneered. “Girls would mess it up. All they’d want to do is play house, make s’mores, and complain about spiders and mosquitoes.”
I raised my shoulders, feeling defensive and wanting to say something like, Not all girls are like that. But not wanting to make them wonder why I cared, all I said was, “Who doesn’t complain about spiders and mosquitoes?” Which was true.
Lamont laughed, showing a brilliant set of straight teeth. Another myth debunked. Southerners do take care of their teeth. “I agree, Danny. I hate the suckers. I go through at least two cans of bug spray every year.” The brothers nodded and chuckled.
“And s’mores are delicious!” Alex shouted.
All this chummy stuff just seemed to get on Chris’s nerves. “Girls can’t come. That’s all I’m saying. It’s a guy thing. Girls can have their own thing somewhere else.”
Jasper winked at me and said behind his hand, “I wouldn’t mind having a couple girls there. There aren’t any chaperones—”
“Shut up, Jasper,” Chris said.
“Yeah, Vivian will just have to live without you for a night. Poor thing,” Lamont teased. “Will she survive?”
“Will Jasper?” Brian added. He made a bunch of smoochie noises at his brother. Jasper pushed him away and pulled out his cell phone.
Jasper showed me a picture of his girlfriend. “Wouldn’t you want a night out in the woods with something like this, Danny?”
“Uh…” Vivian was all the things I was not—curvy, pretty, dainty, long lush hair, all made-up. She looked like someone I might hate. I turned to Lamont, trying to get back on subject. “You mean there aren’t any adults there? No supervision?”
“Every man who grew up here has done this,” Brian said. “Our dads, their dads. It’s a rite of passage. They all know exactly where we’ll be, because they did it once upon a time too.”
Lamont shrugged and raised an eyebrow. “Well, to be fair, not all the dads did it once upon a time. I’m only second generation. My pop didn’t or his dad before that.”
Brian’s face turned bright red. “I’m sorry, Lamont. I didn’t mean to…”
“S’okay,” Lamont said. “Things are different now, right?”
I was a little confused. “How come your pop… That’s your grandpa, right? How come he couldn’t go?”
Lamont stared at me for a second. “You do know your history, don’t you? Where do you think you are?”
That kind of confused me more.
Chris shifted in his seat to face away from me. “He’s from California, Lamont. They don’t study that stuff.”
“My grandpa turned fourteen in nineteen sixty-one. His whole teenage life was in the sixties,” Lamont said. “The South? The sixties? Ring a bell?”
Aw jeez. I felt so stupid. “Before civil rights,” I muttered. “I got it.” To Chris I said, “We do study that in California, by the way.”
“Not a problem,” Lamont said. His bright smile returned. “How old are you anyway, Danny?”
“Fifteen,” I answered. “Or I will be next month, anyway.”
“You look younger than that,” Jasper said. He tapped me on my head. “You’re so scrawny. Eat some Wheaties, kid.”
“Wanna come with us?” Lamont asked.
I choked on a swig of soda to try to keep from spraying all over them. “Me?” This was probably the point in the conversation when I should have told them I wasn’t a boy. I didn’t. I chose to keep my lips tight on that little fact.
“All you need is a boat. You got one?”
“No,” I said. “I mean, yes, I want to go. No, I don’t think I have a boat. My grandma might have a boat, and I don’t know about it. Probably not a kayak, though.” I knew I was rambling. I just really wanted to be part of this group. Except for Chris, they seemed like really great guys. Good friends. Solid people.
“Hold it,” Chris said. “The campout is for locals. Guys who live here. He don’t live here.”
Alex piped in. “His grandma does. She and her old man have been here forever. That counts.”
Chris smacked Alex on the head. “No, it don’t count, Alex. That is especially why I don’t think he should come.”
Jasper and Brian looked at each other and grimaced. Brian said quietly, “Jeez, Chris.”
“Okay, okay,” Chris responded defensively. He waved his hands as if erasing his comment and replaced it with, “But here’s this, none of the other guys know him. It’s not right to bring him along without everyone agreeing.”
Lamont frowned. “That’s rude, man.”
“So?” Chris challeng
ed.
I put up a hand. “I really appreciate you guys inviting me, but I don’t want to be a problem.” And I had a feeling I would be a problem. Didn’t they say there weren’t any outhouses? That alone was a big problem.
“You’re not a problem,” Lamont said. “Chris is.”
Chris got in Lamont’s face. “Why do you think you have to be in charge all the time?”
“Why do you have to be such a butthead all the time?”
Alex got up on his knees on his chair, so he was higher than everyone else. “I have an idea!” he shouted, stopping the older boys from arguing. “What if we have a contest? Danny against Chris. If Danny wins, he gets to go. If Chris wins, Danny stays out of it. What do you think?”
“What kind of contest?” Brian asked. One of his eyebrows shot up with wicked curiosity.
Jasper nodded and rubbed his hands together. “What is something you’re both good at?”
“It could be an eating contest,” Alex suggested. “Whoever can eat the most pizza?”
We all groaned.
“We just finished eating,” I said. “I don’t think I could eat any more right now.”
“How about a bike race?” Alex suggested. “You said you had a bike.”
I shuddered a tiny bit, remembering how I nearly got run over on the way into town. I clearly didn’t ride well enough on that tall ten-speed to race anybody. Now, if one of them had a skateboard, I could shred any of them.
Lamont didn’t like that idea. “That’s not fair. Danny doesn’t know the layout of the area, and Chris does.”
“What else do we know about our new friend Danny?” Chris asked.
Nothing, I thought. All they knew about me was that my grandpa was dead and that I played a mean game of Pac-Man. Suddenly, a thought occurred to me.
