The Order of the Poison Oak

by Brent Hartinger

  As I was talking, I looked around at the kids again. They weren’t just listening: now they were hanging on my every word—even Ian, who had stopped kicking the stones. I knew that it wasn’t because I was such a great storyteller. No, it was because they were scared and they wanted something from me and my story, even if I still wasn’t quite sure what that was.

  “So Rainbow Crow took the Creator’s flaming stick in his beak,” I said, “and started flying the three-day journey home. But as he flew, ashes from the fire blew back into his feathers, turning them black with soot. And as the fire burned, the smoke blew into his mouth, and his voice became cracked and hoarse.

  “Eventually, Rainbow Crow made it back to Earth, and he shared the fire with the other animals. With it, they melted the snow and became warm and happy. But Rainbow Crow was sad, because by now his fantastic rainbow-colored feathers had turned black and his beautiful singing voice was gone. He wasn’t Rainbow Crow anymore. Now he was just Crow. So he flew to the top of a tree where he could be alone and cry.

  “Now, up in the heavens, the Creator heard Crow crying and felt his great despair, and so he came down to the bird. ‘Why are you so sad?’ the Creator asked.

  “‘I’m sad,’ Crow said, ‘because I was once beautiful, but I’m not anymore. I once had a great singing voice, but now I don’t. I am no longer Rainbow Crow, but just Crow.’

  “‘What you did for your people took great courage,’ the Creator said. ‘And as a reward, I have given you those blackened feathers, and a different kind of singing voice. They are my gift to you—the gift of freedom.’

  “‘Freedom?’ Crow said. ‘How are these things the gift of freedom?’

  “‘You have saved your people from the cold,’ the Creator said. ‘But soon there will be a new threat facing the animals. Soon humans will come to Earth, and they will take your fire and try to be master of everything. But they will never master you. Humans won’t hunt you for food or feathers, because now your meat tastes of smoke and your feathers are black. And they won’t capture and cage you, because now your voice is coarse. You will always be Rainbow Crow, and you will still be beautiful, but it will be a secret beauty, one that others will not see unless they look very carefully.’ And sure enough, when Crow looked down at his black feathers, he saw that, in a certain light, they still shone with all the colors of the rainbow.

  “And so Crow returned to the other animals. And to this day, only a very few humans can see the secret beauty of the freest of all the animals, Rainbow Crow.”

  When I finished, I looked around at the kids again. Those distant helicopters still sputtered and the lake still gurgled, but the kids themselves were absolutely quiet.

  It was funny. When I’d started the story, I’d just been thinking it was a nice, distracting little story about fire. But now that I’d finished, I saw that it was the perfect story for these burn survivor kids, about how they were all Rainbow Crows too, with hidden beauty. For a second, I thought of saying something about this. But I didn’t know how to express it without sounding stupid. So instead, I said, very quietly, “Let’s get moving, okay?”

  Still without a word, we started down the trail again. And then—and this couldn’t have gone better if I’d planned it!—the crow began to caw. Every kid stared up at that bird, no longer hypnotized by the distant forest fire but by the crow, and by my story.

  Finally, Otto said to me, “Is that a real Indian legend?”

  “I think so,” I said.

  “Where did you hear it?”

  “In this novel about the American frontier. It really stuck with me.”

  “It’s beautiful.” Was it my imagination, or was Otto a little choked up? I looked over at him, but I was seeing the scarred side of his face, so I couldn’t tell what his expression was, what he was thinking.

  “I liked your music,” I said. “The other night around the campfire? That was beautiful too.”

  “Oh,” Otto said, and he looked down at the ground. “Thanks.”

  Now I did know what he was thinking, because scarred face or not, Otto Digmore was blushing.

  Chapter Eight

  I am not one to blow my own horn, but let’s get one thing straight here and now: as a camp counselor for burn survivors, I rocked.

  No, I didn’t just rock. By telling that story about Rainbow Crow when the kids had been so freaked by that forest fire, I had proven once and for all that I was the mighty God of Camp Counselors, sipping from a golden Camp Counselor Goblet and dwelling on the top of Mount Camp Counselor Olympus!

  Let’s just say I felt pretty damn good about myself. And I was thinking about all this that night after lights out as I made my way back to my cabin after hanging out down at the campfire with the other counselors.

  Almost home, I heard the sound of laughter.

  Web’s laughter.

  I also heard the sound of splashing, and it was coming from the direction of that secluded little cove with the rock, the place where I’d been meeting Min and Gunnar at night. So another counselor—Web—had found our secret cove at last. He hadn’t been down at the campfire with the rest of us, and I couldn’t help but wonder what he had to be laughing about. Except Min hadn’t been at the campfire either, so I already had a pretty good idea.

  Sure enough, a second later, I heard more laughing—a girl’s laughter.

  Min’s laughter.

  Whatever was happening between the two of them, I suddenly had to see it for myself. I turned and started down the trail toward the secret cove. At the same time—and this is where things start to get a little dubious—I took that trail slowly, being careful not to step on any branches or twigs, basically trying not to make any noise. I wasn’t sneaking up on Web and Min exactly, but let’s just say I didn’t necessarily want to announce my presence to the world.

  As I neared the beach, I turned onto a different trail, one that led up to a little rocky ledge that looked down into the cove from one side. That way, I’d be able to see into the cove, but Web and Min wouldn’t be able to see me.

  Out on the ledge, I worked my way through the undergrowth until I had a clear view of the water below. The first thing I noticed was the big granite rock—that it looked different from this angle. It didn’t look like a wedding cake or the Rock of Gibraltar (whatever that looked like). From where I was, it looked like a sinking ship.

  There were two people in the water below that rock, swimming and talking and laughing. Sure enough, one of them was Web. And the other was Mm. It was dark and I couldn’t see anything clearly, but somehow I just knew that they were skinny-dipping.

  Web hadn’t “found” our secret little cove—Min had shown it to him! The nerve!

  Anyway, I’d seen what I’d come to see, so I’d like to be able to say I turned around and went back to my cabin.

  I’d like to be able to say that, but I can’t, because that’s not what happened.

  No, what happened was that I crouched down into the undergrowth and watched the two of them frolic in the moonlit water. I know this makes me sound like some pervert voyeur (especially after I eavesdropped on Gunnar and Em in the boathouse!). And I am also completely aware that this was a total invasion of their privacy or whatever. But somehow I just couldn’t help myself.

  As I crouched there in the bushes, Web suddenly swam toward the big rock and climbed up onto it. It was almost as if I was controlling him with my mind, because this is just what I would have commanded him to do.

  As he stood up tall on that rock, I saw I had been right. They were skinny-dipping. Web was completely naked. And he was standing right in the moonlight, so I could see everything.

  I had seen Web naked before—that night in the shower house. But that had just been a quick look while his head was covered. This was different. Now I could stare. He didn’t know I was there. It was completely wrong of me, I knew that, and I knew I’d probably have to pay for it after I died, in purgatory or whatever (if such a place really exists).


  But I didn’t care. Because it was worth it. Standing there glistening in the light of the silver moon, Web was beautiful.

  My dad collects books of Peanuts comic strips—the ones with Charlie Brown and Lucy and Snoopy? And my watching Web like that reminded me of one series of those Peanuts strips. In the comic, Peppermint Patty, who is in love with Charlie Brown, sees the Little Red-Haired Girl, the girl Charlie Brown is in love with, for the very first time. Peppermint Patty wants to talk to her, but the only thing she can do is cry. She sees just how beautiful the Little Red-Haired Girl is, and why Charlie Brown is so in love with her. “She just sort of sparkles,” Peppermint Patty says. And Peppermint Patty realizes that she’ll never be that beautiful, and that no one will ever look at her the way Charlie Brown looks at the Little Red-Haired Girl.

  Standing on that rock, Web was sparkling too, and not just because of the water and the moonlight. His body was perfect, and I wanted to cry because I knew I would never look like that, and that no one could ever look at me the way I was looking at him.

  Only with me, it was more than that. I wanted to cry not just because Web was so beautiful. It was also because I now knew he was straight and he’d chosen Min for a girlfriend, and I would never know that beauty, and probably wouldn’t even be able to ever look at it again. (Who knows? Maybe Peppermint Patty was crying over the Little Red-Haired Girl for exactly the same reason. She always did strike me as a baby dyke.)

  And before I could stop myself, I really did choke up a bit. Because of the acoustics of the bay and the fact that the night was so still, my little cough echoed down into the cove.

  Web looked up toward the ledge. “Hello?” he said. “Is someone there?”

  I froze. It was one of those situations where I just could not be caught, because there was nothing short of the truth that could explain why I was where I was. And the truth was just so beyond embarrassing.

  “It’s nothing,” Min called. “Come on—jump!”

  He did. And with the splash of the water, I was able to creep from that ledge to the trail, where I could then carefully make my way back to my cabin.

  I can honestly say I felt horribly guilty about spying on them and violating their privacy like that. Unfortunately, if I’m going to be completely honest, I also have to admit that if I had that evening to live one more time, I would do the exact same thing all over again.

  * * * * *

  The next day, Saturday, the whole camp went on a field trip to a nearby logging camp. More specifically, an old logging camp that had since been turned into an open-air museum.

  If I were to describe the whole field trip, you’d be as bored as the kids (pretty darn bored). So I’ll try and stick to the non-boring parts, which, rest assured, have nothing whatsoever to do with logging.

  The first interesting thing happened on the bus on the way there. Em sat next to me, and at one point she leaned close to me and said, “I like him.”

  I sat back from her a little, mostly because I was worried about my breath. “What?” I said.

  “Your friend Gunnar. He’s cute.”

  I could only stare. “Are you kidding?”

  She laughed. “Why would I be kidding?”

  I glanced at the kids and counselors sitting around us. Gunnar was on the other bus, but I couldn’t be sure someone wouldn’t overhear us and tell him what we’d been talking about. Bad breath or not, I leaned in toward Em. “What about what happened at the boathouse?” I whispered. I didn’t want her knowing I’d eavesdropped on them, so I added, “Gunnar told me what happened.”

  She shrugged. “It wasn’t anything.”

  “What about how he fell in?”

  “He just slipped. It could’ve happened to anyone.”

  “You really believe that?”

  She was looking at me like I was bonkers. “Uh, yeah.”

  Em liked Gunnar. How was this possible? For her to like him after he’d made such a fool of

  himself, she had to he in violation of at least several laws of physics.

  Em twiddled with her hair. “Does he like me?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “It never really came up.”

  “Do you think maybe you could...

  “What?”

  “You know. Get us together again?”

  Em wanted me to set her up with Gunnar again? This was incredible! All his life, he’d wanted a girlfriend, and now one was falling right into his lap! And a great girlfriend, no less.

  “Wait,” I said, remembering. There was no way Gunnar would let me set him up with her again. He’d been absolutely clear about that. “No,” I said.

  “No what?”

  “Em, Gunnar’s barely even talking to me now. Because of the first time I tried to set you guys up.”

  “Well, when he does talk to you again, would you tell him I like him? I’d do it myself, but I think he’s avoiding me.”

  “He is avoiding you. He’s avoiding all girls. He thinks he’s cursed or something.”

  “Come on, Russel. I really like the guy!”

  “But—”

  “Will you at least talk to him? How could that possibly hurt?”

  I thought about this. She had a point. It couldn’t hurt to at least talk to him.

  * * * * *

  I didn’t have to wait long for a chance to have that chat. It happened at the logging camp. It was the second interesting thing that happened on that field trip.

  I was watching my kids as they climbed around on one of the abandoned locomotives on the museum grounds.

  Gunnar sidled up next to me. “Your kids have been great today,” he said.

  “Oh!” I said. “Thanks!” It was the first real sentence he’d spoken to me since the incident in the boathouse.

  “For the record, I’m done being mad at you.”

  “Really? That’s great. Thanks! Thanks for forgiving me.”

  We didn’t say anything for a second. Then he said, “So what’s going on?”

  “Oh. Nothing much.”

  “What?” Gunnar said. “You look like you want to say something.”

  I did want to say something (the thing about Em), but I hated the fact that my face was so easy to read. Did that mean Web could see my feelings so clearly?

  “Yeah?” I said casually. “No. It’s nothing.”

  “Russ.”

  “Oh, God. Okay. But don’t talk for a second, okay? Just listen.” I turned to face him. “I rode here on the bus with Em. She told me she still likes you. She even asked me to set you guys up again.”

  I stared at him. He didn’t say anything.

  “Okay,” I said. “You can talk now.”

  “You’re kidding,” he said. “Right?”

  “No! She just told me.”

  “Not about that. About the fact that you’re still trying to set me up with a girl! And not even thirty seconds after I decide to start talking to you again! Have you even been listening to the things I’ve been telling you?”

  “No, I’ve been listening. But this is different, because—”

  “Russ? I know you mean well. But stop it. It’s over. I don’t want a girlfriend. Not Em, not anyone. Okay?”

  What could I do? I looked at him and nodded.

  “Do you promise?”

  “What?”

  “I want you to promise me you won’t try to hook me up with Em or any other girl.”

  I sighed and nodded. “Okay.”

  “Say it,” he said. “Say it out loud.”

  “Gunnar!” Now he was rubbing it in.

  But just as I’d done with Ian in that patch of poison oak, Gunnar kept glaring at me until I finally said my promise out loud. And I wasn’t even crossing my fingers at the time.

  * * * * *

  The last thing that happened on that field trip was the most interesting of all. Unfortunately, it’s also pretty embarrassing to me. But it’s kind of important to the story, so I have to include it anyway.

  My kids wanted to g
o into the gift shop. This was a bad idea for a lot of reasons, like the fact that they’d probably buy lots of candy to make themselves even more hyperactive, and that the store would probably be full of delicate glass trinkets for them to knock over and break. But after my Rainbow Crow story, I felt like I was on a Camp Counselor Roll, and I was convinced I could handle my kids under almost any circumstances.

  Sure enough, there were lots of fragile things in that gift shop—plates and porcelain collectibles and crystal figurines. There were also four other people— two guys and two girls, all teenagers. I noticed them immediately (all right, I noticed the guys immediately because, well, they were both totally hot). They were older than me, probably seniors. And they were the worst kind of cute—trim and cocky and rich, with their flashy hoard shorts and Versace sunglasses. In fact, they looked like the kind of totally cool jock guys who had given me so much grief back at my school. (The bane of almost every gay boy’s existence: sometimes the biggest high school jerks are also the hunkiest.)

  I tried my best to ignore those teenage guys. They had no way of knowing I was gay—not as long as I kept myself from drooling (difficult, but doable). So they had no reason to bother me. Since they were obviously straight, they probably wouldn’t even notice I was there.

  Then I remembered that I hadn’t come into that gift shop alone. I had come in with my kids.

  My burned and scarred and disfigured kids.

  By this point in the camp session, I’d mostly forgotten that my kids even had scars. But suddenly, I saw my kids through the eyes of those two hunky-but-probably-jerky senior dudes. It wasn’t hard to imagine what they’d think of Zach (Phantom of the Opera, here we come!).

  Sure enough, they immediately looked over at my kids.

  No, they didn’t just look. They stared. The girlfriends were being a little more circumspect, but they were basically staring too.

  Suddenly, I had a very bad feeling about this.

  My kids noticed the stares. There hadn’t been anyone else out in the logging camp open-air museum, so this was the first time any of them had been stared at since the start of camp a week before.