The Order of the Poison Oak

by Brent Hartinger

  What gave here? This wasn’t what I’d expected at all. These kids were burn survivors, so I guess I’d expected them to be all nervous and noble and shy, like disabled kids always are in TV movies. I hadn’t counted on the ten-year-old boy thing.

  As I stood there, helplessly watching my kids go berserk, I realized two things. The first was that Trevor (whose name, at this point, I still couldn’t remember) wasn’t really joining in. He was just watching the other kids, looking nervous and noble and shy, like all these kids were supposed to look. The second thing I realized was that out-of-focus Ian (whose name I also couldn’t remember) was egging the other kids on. Somehow, he was in the center of all this mayhem, controlling the other kids like a cop directing traffic. If this really had been a hurricane, he would have been the eye—the dead calm at the center of the storm. Which was funny, because I figured if anyone had a reason to be antisocial, it was Zach, the kid with the pressure garment and face mask (oops—pity alert!).

  I decided that if I was ever going to get my kids in order again, I’d need to go to the root of the problem—namely, Ian. But how? I didn’t feel right about just reaching out and grabbing him. And I didn’t want to embarrass him in front of his new friends—hadn’t he been embarrassed enough already? So I said, as calmly as possible, “Ian? Can I see you outside for a second?”

  He was just pulling a can of shaving cream out of his duffel bag (and I was pretty sure he wasn’t going to use it to shave). He also completely ignored me.

  Screw this, I thought. What was I doing there? Why in the world had I thought that being a camp counselor was a good way to spend my summer? R&R? Ha! I saw now that being a camp counselor was just another form of baby-sitting, but without the fresh DVDs and well-stocked refrigerator.

  I didn’t need this. I could walk away right then and there. I could say I wasn’t feeling well, that I was homesick, that I wasn’t comfortable working with burn survivors. True, I’d signed a contract with Mr. Whittle saving I’d work the whole summer, but it wasn’t legally binding (the one good thing about being sixteen years old!). True, I wouldn’t see Gunnar and Min all summer long, but it wasn’t like I had no other friends.

  I turned to look out the open door, to a world of freedom without shrieking kids.

  And at that exact moment, Web walked by outside, leading his kids on the way to their cabin. He had the eleven-year-old boys, and they were all walking in single file, like they were thrilled just to be following in his footsteps.

  Web looked over at me and nodded. I nodded back—pretty damn confidently, if I do say so myself. From where he was, he couldn’t see the chaos inside my cabin—which was a good thing, because I sure didn’t want him thinking I couldn’t handle eight ten-year-old boys.

  I can’t leave camp, I thought to myself. True, my contract with Mr. Whittle wasn’t legally binding, but there was no way he was going to let me just walk away, especially after five full days of training. Besides, I’d made a commitment—to Gunnar, to Ryan and Jean, even to Mr. Whittle. Plus I had no ride home.

  Oh, hell, I admit it. I was completely infatuated with Web. He was the reason I couldn’t leave.

  I took a deep breath, steeling myself for another skirmish with my charges.

  And at that exact moment, Ian came up behind me and jerked down my shorts, exposing my white briefs for the whole world to see—including Web, who was still looking right at me.

  * * * * *

  I somehow managed to get my kids through dinner (which was slightly less insane, if only because adults were around), and then through lights-out (don’t get me started). Once I was sure all the kids were asleep, I left to meet Min and Gunnar. We’d agreed to rendezvous that night at this sheltered little cove a few minutes’ walk north of camp. We’d accidentally discovered it when we were out exploring the week before. Eventually, the other counselors would probably discover it too, but for the time being it was our own secret hideaway.

  “Oh. My. God.” This was me. It was the first thing I said to my two friends. They were lounging on this big granite boulder that extended from the beach out into the water. I have no idea what the Rock of Gibraltar looks like, but let’s say it looked like that.

  “What?” Gunnar said to me.

  “Are you kidding?” I said, climbing up onto the rock to join them. “They’re a bunch of brats! And when they’re not running around shrieking, they’re puking!” I wasn’t exaggerating. Immediately after arriving back at the cabin after dinner, Willy had thrown up, probably as a result of all the excitement of the day. The smell had resulted in a vomit chain reaction in which Julian and Kwame had proceeded to throw up too. No one—I repeat, no one!—had managed to make it ten feet to the outside of the cabin.

  “Your kids?” Gunnar asked.

  “Yes, my kids! They are out of control! Aren’t yours?”

  “Not really. I guess I got lucky. I think I got the nerds.”

  “And mine are nine-year-old girls,” Min said. “In two years, they’ll be all snooty and premenstrual, but for the time being, they’re just sparkle nail polish and Bratz Slumber Party.”

  All my life, I’d thought that when a class was out of control, it was all the teacher’s fault. I remembered so many teachers snidely saving how this class or that one was just so “difficult,” and I’d always chalked it up to their making excuses for their own pathetic teaching. But now I saw that they weren’t just making excuses, that there really was something to the idea that not every group of kids is the same.

  “So,” Gunnar said to me, “you probably regret coming here, huh? You wanna go home?”

  Now I’d done it. I’d made Gunnar feel bad. After all, this whole camp thing had been his idea. One more reason I couldn’t just vacate in disgust.

  “Oh, it’s not that bad,” I said, backpedaling. “I just need to get a grip.” I was still trying to find a place to sit on the rock. The top was uneven, and Min and Gunnar had taken the only two flat spots.

  “What about the other counselors?” Min said, sipping on a Diet Coke. “What do we think about them by now?”

  “I like Em,” I said. “I think she’s great.”

  “Oh, yeah,” Min said. “Em’s great.”

  “And Otto,” I said. “He seems nice.

  “I like Otto too,” Min said. “Anyone else?”

  “Well,” I said, finally finding a decent place to sit, “there’s always Web.”

  “What about him?” Gunnar asked. My straight best friend—clueless to the end.

  I decided to spell it all out for Gunnar. “I like him,” I said.

  “Web?” Min said dubiously. “Really?”

  “Are you kidding?” I said. “Have you seen him?”

  “Huh,” Gunnar said. “I wouldn’t figure you’d go for the ‘bad boy’ type”

  “‘Bad boy’!” I said. “Web’s not a ‘bad boy’!” Gunnar rolled his eves. “Are you kidding? He definitely is.”

  As much as I hated to admit it, my straight best friend wasn’t quite as clueless as I’d thought. Did I go for the “bad boy” type? The only other guy I’d ever been hot for was this baseball player from our school, and he’d been dark and butch and kind of cocky. In short, a “bad boy” (but a nice “bad boy”!).

  I looked over at Mm. “What do you know about him?”

  Min was staring out at the darkening lake. “Web?” she said. “Not much.”

  “Come on! You were his partner the whole last week. Thanks a lot for that, by the way.”

  “I do know one thing,” Min said. “He’s not gay.”

  This wasn’t what I was wanting to hear.

  “How do you know?” I asked Mm.

  “He had a girlfriend,” she said.

  “That doesn’t mean anything,” I said. “Maybe he’s just not out. Maybe he hasn’t figured it out yet. Or maybe he’s bisexual. You of all people should know that just because he has a girlfriend, that doesn’t mean he’s not gay!”

  “It’s a feeling, then,�
�� Min said. “He’s not gay, I can tell. Gaydar.”

  “You can’t have gaydar!” I said. “You’re bi!” Yes, I know this was a dumb thing to say, but I was desperate. I really wanted there to be some way for me to hook up with Web.

  “Russel,” Min said evenly. “Trust me. He’s not gay.”

  * * * * *

  I wasn’t sure why Min was pissing me off—she was just giving her opinion, right? But she was really making me mad.

  “He might be gay,” I said, barely able to keep my balance on the rock.

  “He’s not!” Min said, so loudly that it echoed in the little cove.

  In the silence that followed, waves lapped against the rock, which was weird because the water had been calm before and I hadn’t heard any boats go by.

  “So what’s up with Mr. Whittle’s nose hair?” Gunnar said, obviously changing the subject on purpose. “Does it drive you guys as crazy as it does me?”

  I didn’t say anything, and Min didn’t either. She shifted uncomfortably, but I don’t think it had anything to do with the uneven surface of the rock.

  “Min,“ I said softly, “it doesn’t matter what Web is. I just think he’s cute.”

  She looked over at me. “He’s not gay.”

  Okay, now I was annoyed. Here I’d been all mature, trying to move on and everything, and she wouldn’t let it rest.

  “You don’t know that!” I said. “There’s no way you can possibly know if he’s gay or not!”

  “Who cares?” Gunnar said. “What difference does it make who’s gay?”

  This was a good question. Why did Min care so much? She had always had a competitive streak, especially with me. And a few months before, we’d both broken up with people at almost the same time. Did she not want me finding someone new before she did?

  Suddenly, Min stood up. “I need to go check on my kids.”

  She hopped back down to the beach, but before she disappeared into the darkness, I couldn’t resist saying, “He could be gay!” I know it was snotty, but Min had been being bitchy, and she’d been bitchy before I’d been snotty. Besides, I was only sixteen years old.

  She turned around to face me.

  “He’s not gay,” she said, neither bitchy nor snotty, but like she was just stating a scientific fact.

  Frankly, it sounded to me like a dare.

  Chapter Four

  The next day, the real camp schedule began. In the morning, the kids all got to pick an “individual activity” for the week, like woodworking or kayaking. For this they divided up into activity groups, each of which was led by a team of two counselors, and sometimes an adult. For the first week, I had arts and crafts (how gay is that?). It went okay, probably because it was twelve girls and Blake, the least monster-y of my kids, after Trevor. Unfortunately, then I had to meet up with all my kids together, first for lunch, then for our daily “all-camp activity” (that day, it was sack races and tug-of-war on the marching field). As expected, my kids were little hurricane-monsters again, and there didn’t seem to be anything I could do to control them.

  After that, the kids had a couple of hours of free time until dinner, but we counselors didn’t get a break, because we still had to supervise them. I had lifeguard duty with Em down at the swimming area.

  “Hey,” I said, joining her on the beach. Neither of us bothered sitting in the actual lifeguard’s chair, which was unbelievably uncomfortable. “How are the allergies?”

  “I’m fine with the tree pollen,” she said. “I just didn’t know I’m also allergic to eleven-year-old girls.”

  “What do you mean?” It sounded like Em was having a hard time with her campers too, but I wasn’t about to come right out and say what I really thought, not after the lackluster response from Min and Gunnar the night before.

  She looked at me, sitting next to her on the sand. “They’re little shits.”

  “Your kids?”

  “Really?”

  “Oh, please. I never would’ve gotten them to sleep last night if I hadn’t put valerian root in their hot chocolate.” Valerian root is this herbal supplement that puts people out.

  “You didn’t really!” I said. “Did you?”

  “Yeah, I did.”

  “Really?”

  “No, not really. I’m lying.”

  “Oh. Wait. Which is it?”

  “I did it. I was telling the truth the first time. I was lying when I said I didn’t do it.”

  My head was swimming—which I now realized was pretty typical when you were talking to Em.

  I laughed. “So you really think your kids are ...

  “Little shits?” Em said. “Abso-frickin’-lutely. Aren’t yours? They sure looked like it at lunch.”

  “Well, yeah, but . . .“ But what? My campers were little shits. It just felt funny saying that out loud. Them being burn survivors and all.

  “So say it,” Em said.

  “What?”

  “Say your kids are little shits!”

  I laughed again. That’s when I realized something about Em. She reminded me of Gunnar. She had the same kind of quirky nature where you were never quite sure what she was going to say next. Plus they both knew the scientific names of things.

  Suddenly, Ian stepped up next to me on the beach. He jammed his foot down into the sand, which happened to be right where my tube of sunblock was sitting. It was uncapped, so white sunblock squirted out, gooping up my leg.

  “Oops,” he said. “Sorry” He wasn’t sorry at all. He’d done it on purpose. But I would have felt weird yelling at him. What exactly was I going to say?

  But Em didn’t hesitate. As Ian was turning away, she stuck her foot out right in front of him. He tripped and went sprawling over the sand.

  “Oops!” she said to him. “Sorry.”

  I admit it. Now I really liked Em.

  * * * * *

  For one hour every afternoon, we counselors were supposed to take turns operating the camp store, located in a tiny room in the lodge, just off the cafeteria. Basically, it sold candy, soda pop, a few toys, some clothing, and toiletries like toothpaste that eighty percent of the kids had left at home. I knew Gunnar was in the camp store that first week, so I visited him on a break from lifeguarding.

  “Hey,” I said.

  “Huh? Oh, hey, Russ.” He’d been reading a paperback, and even though he tried to hide the cover with his arm, I caught a glimpse of a bare-chested man embracing a woman in a frilly dress. Strange, I thought: Gunnar was reading a romance novel. But I decided not to embarrass him by pointing that out.

  Instead, I put a dollar on the counter and reached for a candy bar. But Gunnar said, “You don’t want that.”

  “Why not?” I said.

  “Because it’s not fit for human consumption.”

  “Why not?”

  “Four words: hydrogenated palm kernel oil.”

  “Hydrogenated what?”

  “It’s real nasty stuff,” Gunnar said. “They take this cheap vegetable oil and add an extra hydrogen atom to make it stiff. It sticks right to your arteries. It’s even worse than hardened bacon grease.”

  “Fine,” I said. “I’ll have one of these.” I reached for a different candy bar.

  Gunnar still wouldn’t take my money. “Oh, no, there’s palm kernel oil in almost everything these days. At least all the cheap stuff.”

  “Whatever,” I said. “Just give me a can of pop.”

  He stared at me with a disgusted look on his face.

  “Now what?” I said.

  “You know they don’t even use sugar in pop anymore? They use this stuff called high-fructose corn syrup. It’s made out of corn, but it’s completely unnatural. Our bodies have no way to handle it. It’s one of the reasons why Americans have gotten so fat.”

  “Uh-huh,” I said. “You know, your salesmanship skills leave something to be desired.”

  “Hey, I’m only looking out for your health.”

  I decided to change the subject. “I wanted
to ask you something. What do you think of Em?” The wheels in my head had been turning. I figured Gunnar wanted a girlfriend and Em reminded me of him, so why not try to hook the two of them up?

  But Gunnar wasn’t ready to switch topics. “If you’re hungry and you want my advice, go get an apple from the kitchen. The corporations still haven’t figured out a way to screw up a piece of fruit. Well, except for the pesticides. Be sure and wash it good.”

  “Fine,” I said. “But I still want to know what you think of Em.”

  “The counselor? She’s okay.”

  “I really like her.”

  “Do you realize there’s not a single healthy food item in the whole camp store?” Gunnar said. “I mean, would you look at the ingredients in these Doritos?”

  “I think you’d like her too,” I said.

  I had Gunnar’s attention at last. “Wait a minute. I know what you’re doing.”

  “What am I doing?”

  “You’re doing the matchmaker thing!”

  “What? No, I’m not.”

  “Yes, you are! Why else would you care what I thought of Em?”

  Gunnar had me. I figured I might as well come clean. “Well, so what if I am?”

  “So I already told you! I’m giving up girls!”

  “You were serious about that?”

  “Darn right. Russ, you’ve been there all these years. You know how I am around girls. I always screw it up. It’s humiliating.”

  “Well, yeah, but—”

  “There is no ‘but.”’ He thought for a second, then said, “Do you remember when I asked my parents for that theremin for Christmas?”

  A theremin is an electronic instrument that you play by moving your hands around these two metal antennas. It makes the weird woo-woo sound you hear in old science fiction movies.

  “I remember,” I said.

  “I’d never wanted anything so much as I wanted that theremin. And do you remember what happened that Christmas?”

  “You didn’t get it.”

  He nodded. “My parents got me a synthesizer instead. They said the music shop said that a synthesizer could do everything that a theremin could do, plus other stuff. I’d never been so disappointed in my entire life.”