“Please?” I said.
“Five minutes. I’ll go for five minutes and that’s it.”
We hurried to Cabin 2 and grabbed our shovels. Then we slowly, carefully crept behind all the boys’ cabins, looking over our shoulders every two seconds.
As soon as we reached the hammock, we started digging frantically. As if every second counted. Which it did.
After a few minutes, I leaned toward Vinny. “I know this is hard. And scary. But let’s look on the bright side: Since Scot and Perth are out, we’re back to splitting the treasure fifty–fifty.”
“Sixty–forty.”
“Right. Luckily those pearls will be worth a lot.”
“Pearls?” A deep, low voice came from behind a pine tree near the hammock.
And then Ryan and Billy stepped out.
“What pearls?” said Ryan.
“D-did I say pearls?” I said. “Ha! I was just telling Vinny about my grandmother’s pearls. She sold them at a garage sale. Made four bucks!”
Ryan stepped right up to my face. “So that’s what all these holes are for. You guys are digging for a buried treasure.”
Vinny and I tried to take off. To get out of there before there were any more questions. But Ryan and Billy blocked us like a couple of linebackers for the 49ers.
“Oh, don’t stop digging, you two,” said Ryan. “Please, carry on. And when you do find those pearls, there are two special people you’re going to give them to: us.”
“W-what if we don’t find them before Pioneer Day?” I asked.
“You’ll just have to find a way. Won’t you?”
The Best Pioneer
Dear Reader Who I Hope Is Still with Me:
Pioneer Day started out just like every day at Camp Jamestown. I woke up at 5:45 A.M. to a sound that was bone-shattering. Head-splitting. And dangerously close to my ear.
My whole family piled out of the car and charged into my cabin like they hadn’t seen me in fourteen years. They were shouting and screaming so much, you could barely make out a word they said.
I hadn’t even gotten out of bed yet.
“How did you get here so early?” I asked my dad.
“We stayed at a nearby motel.”
“You sprang for a motel?”
“Well, okay, we slept in the car. But it was in a motel parking lot.”
I hugged the twins, gave Grampa Janson a low five, and introduced everyone to my bunkmates and Theo.
“You are all invited to breakfast!” Theo said.
We walked to the dining hall and went inside. It was busting at the seams with campers, moms, dads, cousins—you name it.
Seeing as how most of the families had traveled far, and seemed hungry, I thought breakfast would be something special.
But nope. It was the same as always.
The parents all looked pretty horrified when they tasted the breakfast gruel. But there was one person it didn’t bother: my dad. He took a double helping and started wolfing it down.
“Incredible!” he said. “It’s like we’ve gone back ’n tme. ’Nd we’re livng jst lke th frst sttlrs.”
I figured he had trouble getting the vowels out on account of the fact his tongue was stuck to the roof of his mouth.
He didn’t even stop chewing when he looked up and saw someone he knew. “Ryn Hrnr!”
“Oh. Um. Hey, Mr. Rifkind.”
My dad pointed to the seat right next to mine. “Wld you lk t join us?”
“Yes, I would.” Ryan plunked his blimpy frame down an inch away from me. And then he whispered in my ear. “You better find those pearls for me, Cartboy. Today.”
“But … we’ve dug up every inch of ground by your hammock. They’re not there.”
“Then look somewhere else. I don’t care where. Just find them—”
DOO DOO LOOT!
Ryan quit talking, and everyone turned to see Mr. Prentice standing at the door.
“Welcome, boys, girls, counselors, parents, and history lovers!” he said. “Today, thy campers shall demonstrate everything they have learned over the past two weeks!”
We all followed Mr. Prentice to the middle of the clearing. Once everyone had gathered around him, he pulled out a special Pioneer Day scroll.
“Now,” he said. “Each activity shall be awarded up to six points, or pioneer hats. And each shall be judged based on very specific criteria.”
“Ye can choose any order ye like to do your activities!” said Mr. Prentice. “I shall walk around and award the scores throughout the day. Begin!”
The campers and their parents scattered like cockroaches in the sun. But I just stood there, frozen, not sure what to do first.
“Why don’t you start with bow-and-arrow hunting, Hal?” said my dad. “I’m sure you’re good at it.”
“Uh…”
“That was my specialty when I was here!”
My mom, dad, Grampa Janson, and the twins all followed me to the bow-and-arrow area by the pond. I picked up a bow and thought maybe I’d get lucky. Maybe some of those Rifkind hunting genes would kick in. Right when I needed them most.
I grabbed an arrow, aimed, and started shooting at the target in front of me. It was a silhouette of a squirrel.
My first twelve arrows missed the squirrel completely. Then by some miracle, I got a bull’s-eye.
It wasn’t until one of my arrows nearly took out Grampa Janson’s hearing aid that my dad said, “Let’s move on.”
He looked around at all the colonial activities. “Ooh, how about butter churning, son? I was the fastest at that!”
We all headed to the butter-churning station. When we got there, it turns out Ryan Horner was just finishing up. It also turns out he left a little present for me on the butter churner handle: about a pound of greasy butter.
“Try this,” said my dad. “It’s a churning technique I invented when I was here.”
He put both hands in front of him, and pretended they were wrapped around a butter churner handle. “You grab the handle with your thumbs ten inches apart, squeeze hard, and go up and down every three seconds. I even had a name for it: the ‘Rifkind Rip.’”
I tried the Rifkind Rip for a good ten minutes. I figured it would help me get at least a couple of hats on my score. But thanks to Ryan’s little “gift,” all it did was make hands slip off the handle twice as fast.
“Okay, shake it off,” said my dad.
He spotted the pile of wood in the clearing. “Let’s see you do some wattle and daub, Hal! I bet you’re great at that.”
A bunch of girls from Cora’s cabin had gathered with their families at one end of the woodpile. So my family and I walked to the other end. I grabbed a log off the pile, picked up an ax, and gave it my hardest chop.
“I’ve got it.” Cora came over, pulled my ax out of the log, and handed it to me.
“Thanks.” I tried to give Cora the “you can go now” look, but she wasn’t paying attention. She walked straight up to my mom and dad.
“I’m Cora,” she said. “Hal and I are going to the dance together!”
“Oh! Oh my, that’s wonderful. Just terrific. Stupendous.” My mom practically fell on herself trying to get the compliments out fast enough. She reached out and hugged me like I was three years old. “My big boy!”
My dad, on the other hand, was not shouting any compliments. Or hugging me at all.
He was examining the morning score sheet, which Mr. Prentice had posted on a tree near the woodpile.
“Hmph,” was all he said.
My mom and Cora said good-bye and “nice to meet you” for about a hundred years—then my family and I went to lunch.
All through the beans and corn, my dad was pretty quiet. His face looked the same as it does when I get a D on one of Mr. Tupkin’s history tests.
I racked my brain to think of some way to improve the situation.
“Let’s head to the museum, Dad. I’ll show you my leather beading!”
The minute we got to the mus
eum, I took my design off the shelf.
“I made the letter P.”
For the first time since Pioneer Day started, my dad actually smiled.
“Check it out,” I said. I unfolded the fabric to show him the rest of the design. Underneath the letter P, I had beaded a picture of a hot dog and some Cracker Jacks.
My dad’s smile disappeared.
“Go Phillies?” I tried.
“Hal. This beadwork has nothing to do with Jamestown settlers. Or Powhatan Indians. Or colonial history of any kind.”
“I know, but … the Phillies are 15 and 4…”
“And your score on every other activity is zero.”
“Yes, well, the thing is—”
“What exactly have you been doing for the past two weeks? Have you not taken history camp seriously for a single minute?”
I could tell my dad was going to launch into one of his speeches about why history is so important. And how history explains who we are and why. Or something like that. So I put my beading on the shelf and headed toward the door.
“Sorry, Dad,” I said. “I have to get ready for the tug-of-war.”
Tug-of-War
Dear Commander of the Hal Rifkind Rescue Mission:
Inside Cabin 2, things were even worse than the museum.
I had never seen my bunkmates so depressed. We were in last place. And it was my fault. It was my score that had really brought the team down.
“Let’s just get the tug-of-war over with,” I said.
“What if they put us against Ryan Horner? What if I have diarrhea? What if my gas acts up?” Perth was lying on his bed, rubbing his stomach. “I’m scared,” he said.
“Tell me about it,” said Scot. “Everyone here is going to put their grubby paws on that rope. It’ll be covered in germs. Rotavirus. Norovirus. Influenza. Staphylococcus aureus. Candida. E. coli…”
Vinny sat on the floor and started to stretch his legs. “It won’t be that bad, guys.” His back made a loud crack and he got kind of stuck in the bending position. “Okay, it will. I agree with Hal. Let’s get it over with. Let’s be prepared to lose.”
I sat down and leaned against my dad’s duffel bag. Something rock-hard dug into my back. “Ow,” I said. “Stupid flashlight.”
I shoved my hand inside the bag and tried to push the flashlight out of the way. While I was digging around in my camp pack, I thought about how mad my dad was about my score.
And how much madder he was going to be after I lost the tug-of-war.
And that’s what gave me the idea.
“How about this, guys? How about we don’t lose the tug-of-war.”
“That’s pretty funny, Hal,” said Vinny.
“Hear me out. Maybe all we need to win is something … extra.”
“Extra what?”
“Extra weight. To make the teams more even. We can each take something from my duffel bag and put it inside our clothes.”
I pulled the gear out of my giant bag and laid some of it on the floor.
1940s flashlight:
20 pounds
1930s canteen:
20 pounds
Shovel from Stone Age:
40 pounds
1930s chisel:
15 pounds
“That is the stupidest idea ever,” Vinny said. “Even if we could carry all that stuff, how would we hide it?”
“What if we wear long pants and shirts? And put everything underneath?”
The guys just sat there and stared at me.
“Here, let me try,” I said, pulling some pants and shirts out of the bottom of my pack.
The flashlight slid inside one of the pants legs pretty easily. But I had to really cram the shovel into the other leg.
“It looks lumpy,” said Scot. “How are you going to bend your legs? How are you going to keep that stuff from falling out?”
“I happen to have just the thing.”
I reached around in my bag until my hand landed on something small and tight. With an elastic waistband.
“I have a whole pack of these underwear,” I said. “They’ll fit like the skin on a grape.”
I could tell the guys were not convinced. But we had no other ideas. And it was time to go.
DOO DOO LOOT!
Vinny sighed. “Okay, let’s do it,” he said.
The tug-of-war was going to be held in the middle of the clearing. Which wasn’t too far from our cabin. But still, the trip felt pretty long.
The whole way there, I was sweating buckets because of the long sleeves and pants. Not to mention the thirty pounds of metal objects an inch from my kiwis.
But for the first time since we got to camp, I felt something I hadn’t felt before. I think Vinny, Scot, and Perth felt it too.
Confidence.
We reached the clearing just as Theo and some of the other counselors finished spreading out the rope.
Half of it was on one side of a line. Half of it on the other.
“Whoever goes over the line first loses,” said one of the counselors. He straightened out the rest of the rope, then stood to the side, next to the families and the other campers who had gathered in the clearing.
“Good luck, Hal.”
I turned to see Cora standing next to me.
“I really hope you win.”
CLANK!
“What was that noise?” she asked.
“Nothing.”
CLANK CLANK
She looked down at my shirt and pants. “It sounded like metal…”
“Oh, um, that’s my belt. Buckle. Yeah, it’s pretty loose. Gotta go fix it. See ya!”
I walked through the crowd of kids and families and ended up right next to Mr. Prentice.
He was getting ready to announce the tug-of-war. And figure out which cabins would compete against each other.
“Hear ye. Hear ye,” he said. “As many of ye know, the game tug-of-war was very special to the Jamestown settlers. Why? Well, times were tough. Tug-of-war was a way to let off steam.”
He lifted one end of the rope. “The settlers played tug-of-war because they had plenty of rope from the ships. Anyone could participate. And of course, the zip line had not yet been invented.”
Mr. Prentice chuckled at his joke for a good five minutes before he pulled himself together. He picked up a Pilgrim hat and held it up for everyone to see.
“Each cabin shall pick a colored piece of paper from this hat. Matching colors will compete against each other. Cabin One, please step up.”
Ryan Horner stepped forward, reached into the hat, and pulled out a piece of paper.
“Green!” Mr. Prentice shouted. “Cabin two, ye shall pick next.”
Mr. Prentice held the hat toward me. I reached in, grabbed a piece of the paper, and held it up for him to see.
“Green!”
“It is decided, then. Cabin One against Cabin Two. Ye shall go first!”
“But, Mr. Prentice,” I said. “Ryan and Billy and their bunkmates are huge. Way huger than us. It’s unfair!”
“’Tis no more unfair, Mr. Rifkind, than having to harvest nonexistent crops during a bitter cold winter.” He took a step toward me. “Achhh. In these dang shoes.”
Vinny, Scot, Perth, and I took our places on the rope across from Ryan, Billy, and the other two gigantors from Cabin 1.
On the sidelines, my mom was waving like crazy, and Grampa Janson gave me two thumbs up. “Go Cabin Two!” they yelled.
Mr. Prentice lifted the gourd high in the air. “On your mark…”
I looked at the gourd, then turned to face Ryan, who was staring daggers right through me. “Where are my pearls, Cartboy?” he said. And then, before I could answer, “You are going down.”
Mr. Prentice lifted the gourd higher. “Get set!”
I quickly reached in my underwear to secure the shovel and the flashlight. Then I steeled myself on the rope.
And then came Mr. Prentice’s last command. “Goeth!”
Right away, Vinny
, Scot, Perth, and I started pulling. And pulling. And grunting. And sweating. And clanging.
While we were pulling, the strangest thing happened: We were actually holding our own.
Ryan and Billy and their bunkmates were holding on to their side of the rope. But they weren’t pulling hard. In fact, they didn’t seem to be pulling at all.
What were they doing? Was Ryan going to let us win? Did he feel guilty about the desserts? Had seeing my family changed his mind about being so mean to me?
That must be it!
“Okay, guys,” I said to my team. “Hang in there and pull. We have this in the bag—”
That’s when I saw Ryan turn to his bunkmates, move his lips, and form one tiny little word: “HEAVE!”
And then, before we could do anything, another:
“HO!”
They yanked the rope with everything they had. A second later, Scot, Perth, Vinny, and I were way up in the air. Heading straight over the line in the middle.
The funny thing is, I always wondered what it would be like to fly. And today, I got to find out. It’s kind of fun. Being high in the air.
Until you crash to the ground with a rib-crushing BONK!
When I came to, Vinny, Scot, Perth, and I were tangled in the rope. Our pants and shirts had pretty much popped completely open.
Vinny had a chisel, a mess kit, and a flashlight on his chest. My dad’s canteen conveniently landed near Scot’s mouth. And a shovel ended up right on Perth’s stomach.
FAARRT!
“Ha ha. Ho ho.” Ryan and Billy fell on the ground, laughing.
I squinted toward the sidelines and saw Cora, Theo, and a bunch of kids staring at me. Some of them were pointing toward my pants. Which made sense. Seeing as how they had slipped down and my dinosaur underwear was in plain view for all the world to see.
Cartboy Goes to Camp Page 5
