The Order of the Poison Oak

by Brent Hartinger

  I wasn’t about to hug Ian, because I knew that was the last thing he wanted, even now. But I figured I should do or say something that showed him everything was all right. “I’ll get you another leaf,” I said. “I promise.”

  “Leaf?” Em said.

  “Poison oak,” I said. “It’s a long story.” I looked at Ian and winked. “It’s kind of private, anyway.”

  Em glanced around. “Well, if you’re looking for a leaf from a poison oak plant, you won’t have to go far.”

  “What do you mean?” Gunnar said.

  “We’re sitting in it.”

  “In what?”

  “Um, poison oak.”

  Em was right. Gunnar and I had escaped the fire, carried Em and Ian out into the woods, and dropped them right into a patch of poisonous plants.

  “Oh, God!” Gunnar moaned. “I can’t believe it! I actually save someone’s life, and what do I do? I carry them into a patch of poison oak. That so figures!” I thought this was ironic. Gunnar had just saved all our lives, and now he was embarrassed that he’d led us into some mildly poisonous plants. I guess this was like my not being scared of running into a forest fire to rescue someone, but being terrified of wearing the wrong brand of underwear in P.E. class.

  But Em wasn’t having any of it. “No!” she said to Gunnar, sharply. “Don’t do that! What you did today was brave and great. Don’t ruin it by talking like you did something dumb. The poison oak isn’t important. It doesn’t matter at all.”

  It did matter a little, of course. When we finally got to the high school gymnasium later that night, the four of us all took long soapy showers, trying to wash off the poison oak resin. But it was too late for Em and Gunnar. By the next morning, their skin had already begun to blister. According to Gunnar, the itching was incredible, and it was weeks before they were finally fully healed.

  Interestingly, both Ian and I were completely unaffected by the poison of the plant.

  Epilogue

  For me, this was the point when the summer finally started to get good. But while everything that happened after that was very exciting for me, it probably wouldn’t be all that exciting to read about, because it was mostly happy stuff. And no matter what anyone says, happy stuff is really pretty boring for everyone except the people involved (this is the reason why graduation ceremonies are boring but car crashes aren’t, and why newspapers write about floods and robberies, but not sunsets and birthday parties).

  Still, there are a few things that happened over the rest of the summer that aren’t boring, and I figure I should mention them here.

  First of all, it finally rained a couple of days after Gunnar, Em, Otto, and I rescued Ian. That put out all the nearby fires, so Camp Serenity was able to go on as if nothing had happened. The four of us were heroes for saving Ian’s life, but only for about two days. Then the kids from session one went home (tearful goodbyes, etc.) and the next session of kids arrived, and they couldn’t have cared less about something that had happened two days before they got there. Mr. Whittle and the other adults and counselors remembered, of course, but they were so busy with the next session of kids that no one ever really mentioned it.

  Speaking of the next session of kids, I got a cabin full of little monsters again (and they weren’t burn survivors, so they had no excuse). The kids from session three were even worse. My fourth-session kids were fantastic, but the fifth-session ones were little monsters again. In every case (except with my fantastic fourth-session kids), I had to somehow (a) establish myself as an authority figure, and (b) quickly earn their respect. Sometimes I was more successful than other times, and sometimes I’d pull it off only to screw it up a few days later, just like during the first session with Ian, Trevor, and the others. But except for the third session (which was apparently reserved for Rosemary’s Baby, Damien, and other spawn of Satan), I always ended up bonding with my kids. In other words, I think I did a pretty damn good job as a summer-camp counselor.

  Incidentally, my experience over the rest of the summer made me rethink my opinion of teachers yet again: I was back to thinking that teachers whose classrooms are out of control really are, for the most part, crappy teachers.

  * * * * *

  As for Gunnar and Em, they finally got together. It helped that they were both in misery from the poison oak, because that meant they spent a lot of time together commiserating, and they ended up bonding over that. Gunnar’s rescue of Em helped too. She kept jokingly referring to him as “my hero” for saving her from the flames. At first, this embarrassed Gunnar. But then he started going with the flow, calling her “milady” and “my fair maiden.” She responded in kind, calling him “my noble rescuer” and “my fair knight.” Before long, they were bowing and curtseying, and tossing flowers and making garlands for each other, and just generally laying it on pretty thick. This went on all summer, and I found it either kind of cute or really sickening, depending on my mood.

  Mostly, of course, I was just thrilled that good ol’ Gunnar had finally found himself a girlfriend, and a really cool one at that.

  * * * * *

  It took a while for Min and me to completely make up. Part of the problem was that neither of us really felt like we’d done anything all that wrong, so neither of us wanted to be the one to come out and apologize. All Min had done was go after a guy she was hot for, even though she had known I was hot for him too. And while I’d let myself be seduced by Web, he’d come after me, not the other way around. And he had said at the time that he and Min were just friends. True, I had spied on Min and Web that one night in the Cove of the Ever-Changing Rock Formation, and that was outright, no-excuses wrong on my part, but Min didn’t know about that. Besides, Min had also told Web I was gay, and that was wrong too.

  One afternoon during the second session, we finally had it out. Ironically enough, we were playing tug-of-war: my cabin against hers. She was the anchor for her kids on one end of the rope, and I was the anchor for my kids on the other end.

  We were out on the marching field, tugging each other back and forth, but neither side was managing to pull the other across either of the two chalk lines that marked defeat.

  Then, suddenly, Min started shouting out commands, and like little soldiers in pink friendship bracelets, her campers started a steady march backward. Slowly but surely, my side slipped forward toward the dreaded chalk line.

  A second later, my side completely crumpled (my second-session kids always were a bunch of pansies). Min’s kids fell backward onto the grass, and my kids and I went thundering forward across both chalk lines, falling onto Min’s kids, creating one big pile of flailing campers. Somehow, I managed to land right on top of Min.

  A few days earlier, I would have immediately rolled away from her, and she would have pulled away from me.

  But not then. For some reason, we just lay there laughing. I looked down at her, and she looked up at me, and we smiled. It felt so good to be touching each other that we stayed like that until long after our kids were up on their feet again and moaning at us to get moving.

  It may not sound like much, but I knew right then that Min and I were back to being best friends. And sure enough, I was right.

  * * * * *

  What about Web? Min and I both avoided him like the plague (which, for all we knew, he actually had, the disgusting sleazebag). By the last session, he’d worked his way through most of the counselors (including straight-guy Bill, or so the rumor went). Incredibly, it wasn’t until the start of that last session that someone—Lorna, one of his earlier conquests—accused him of sexual harassment. He didn’t get sent home or anything, but he did get reprimanded and everyone started avoiding him, and it was all very embarrassing for him and wonderfully gratifying to Min and me. In fact, when the shit started hitting the fan for Web, I don’t think Min and I had ever been so close.

  * * * * *

  Finally, there was Otto and me. That was the best thing about the rest of the summer, because we got together too. (
See? I didn’t just like “bad boys”!)

  What surprised me the most about him was how much we had in common. We liked all the same books and movies and music. More than anything, we thought about things the same way, and we spent hours walking along the beach, talking about everything under the moon. I know that opposites attract, but who the hell wants to spend time with an opposite? What in the world would you talk about?

  Some of my best moments from that summer were sitting around the campfire listening to Otto sing. Once he even wrote a song called “Russel’s Song,” especially about me (this is just about the most flattering thing imaginable). And yes, once or twice we may have gone skinny-dipping ourselves in the Cove of the Ever-Changing Rock Formation.

  Eventually, of course, summer came to an end. Alt that last week, I felt absolutely shitty.

  The Friday night before the Saturday we were supposed to leave, Otto and I went for a midnight row out on the lake. He rowed, and I sat in the back, facing him. But tonight, unlike most of our nights together, we barely spoke at all. Now I know what they mean when people talk about unsaid words hanging in the air. It was almost like you could hear the word “goodbye” in the splash of his oars, and echoing off the lake around us. But neither one of us wanted to be the one to say it out loud.

  Finally, Otto stopped rowing, and we drifted on the silent water.

  “I’ll understand if you don’t want to see me,” he said at last.

  “What?” I said.

  “Well, camp is ending, and we’ll be going home.” Otto had come a long way to be a camp counselor for burn survivors. He lived something like eight hundred miles away.

  “I know we live far apart,” I said. “But we can make it work.”

  Otto looked out over the water. “Well, yeah, there’s that. But the other thing too.”

  “What other thing?”

  “Come on, Russel,” he said. “You know.”

  “No, I don’t.” For the first time in weeks, I had no idea what he was talking about.

  “My scar.”

  “What scar?”

  “Russel .“

  “You mean the burn scar?”

  He nodded in the moonlight.

  “What about it?”

  “It’s just that I know things are different out in the real world.”

  Even now, it took me a second to understand what he was saying. Remember that first time I listened to Otto play that song around the campfire and suddenly his whole face seemed to change? Well, that’s the way he now looked to me all the time. It wasn’t that I didn’t see the scar. It’s just that I thought of it as part of him, as something beautiful. (I’m not mentioning this to make myself seem noble or compassionate. It’s just the way it was.)

  “You think I won’t want to be seen with you in public because you have a scar?” I said.

  “It’s not like that,” Otto said. “I know you wouldn’t act embarrassed or anything. But camp is different. Everyone knows everyone here. It’s not like that in the real world. When it comes to boyfriends, I’d understand if you’d rather be with your own kind.”

  Was he kidding? But even in the dark, I saw on his face that he wasn't. “Otto,” I said, “you are my own kind! Remember? Order of the Poison Oak?” It made me sad to think that even now, he wasn’t sure where I was coming from. But I’d talked with him enough to know that he knew for a fact that pity can make people do amazing things—maybe even spend time with someone for two months when they’re not really in love.

  For a second, I wasn’t sure what else to say. I wanted to stand up in that rowboat and shout that we’d be together forever, because I thought it might make him feel better, and also because that’s the way I felt. But that seemed wrong somehow. Promising him my undying love because I thought it would make him feel better was just a variation on the whole dating-him-out-of-pity thing. It was the exact opposite of what he was asking me for. Plus you’re never supposed to stand up in a rowboat.

  “Otto,” I said at last. “I don’t know what’s going to happen to us as a couple, hut I know what I hope will happen. I hope we keep seeing each other, maybe even forever. But no matter what does happen, I know I will always be your friend. And that I will always love you.”

  There, I thought. That was what I wanted to say to him. It wasn’t completely pretty, but it was the absolute truth. That was what Otto needed— for me to treat him like anyone else I would love. It had taken me a long time to learn that lesson, but eventually I had gotten it through my thick skull.

  Otto stared at me with tears streaking his face. At some point during my little speech, he had started to cry. If the scars on his face made his skin extra thick, it didn’t seem that way now. Now it was like there was no skin at all, like I could see right into his very soul. I saw that he was looking at me the way Peppermint Patty had looked at the Little Red-Haired Girl—and the way I had looked at Web that night in the cove. In his eyes, I was perfect.

  Sure enough, he said, “Russel! I love you so much!”

  Now I was crying, because Otto looked perfect to me too. There are tears of sorrow and tears of joy, but these were some weird new kind of tear—tears of sorrow and joy. I felt like I was feeling every emotion I’d ever experienced, all at once. If I had been a fuse box, I so would have blown myself out.

  Then I was on the seat next to him, holding him and kissing him.

  “I’m so glad I met you, Russel Middlebrook,” Otto said. “I think I must be the luckiest guy in the world.”

  “Second luckiest,” I said, kissing him again.

  You’re not supposed to stand in a rowboat, and we didn’t. But there are other things you can do, and Otto and I definitely did plenty of those.

  * * * * *

  The next day, Gunnar, Min, and I drove home. I felt sad and tired, but also oddly relaxed.

  “So!” Min said to Gunnar and me. “What was the best part of the summer? And don’t say Em or Otto, because my love life sucked this summer, so that would just be mean.”

  “The chocolate chip pancakes,” Gunnar said. “Em was right. They’re great.”

  I thought about what I was going to say. I knew the real answer. It was that night with my kids and Otto when we’d created the Order of the Poison Oak. I never had told Gunnar and Min about that. And I’d never repeated the induction ceremony with kids from later sessions, no matter how out of control my cabin got. It just didn’t seem right.

  “Russel?” Min said. “What’d you like best?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I guess it’s a feeling.”

  “Oh, God,” Gunnar said. “Not a feeling.”

  “Here we go,” Min said, rolling her eyes. “Russel’s going to get all philosophical on us.”

  I ignored the fact that I was pouring my heart out and my two best friends were mocking me mercilessly. “It’s something I’ve never felt before,” I said. “It started with my kids from that first session—how I kind of won them over. Then there was when we rescued Ian from the fire. And there were my other kids—well, except for the third session. And, well, my whole relationship with Otto—sorry, Min .“

  “’Sokay,” she said.

  “What feeling?” Gunnar asked.

  I thought for a second, then said, “Invulnerability. Like I’m Superman. Like there’s absolutely nothing that can affect me. Not knives, not bullets, maybe not even Kryptonite.”

  “I think that’s true,” Gunnar said. “If that camp food didn’t kill you, nothing will.”

  “Think the feeling’ll last?” Min asked me. “I mean do you think you’ll still feel that way this fall at school?”

  I shrugged. “Oh, I don’t know. Probably not.” But that’s just what I said out loud. To myself, I was thinking, Well, maybe a little.

 

 

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