I thought about Spirit Ranch. How it was supposed to be some kind of utopia, but actually Chloe’s prison call was closer to the mark. We had our name tags, our privileges removed, and too many boundaries. I took the thought down a dark alley: if this was a prison, then who was top dog? And just as I was thinking this, Fleur came in with fucky hair and her blouse buttoned up the wrong way. I looked at her. She stared back accusingly. She shook her head and let out an explosive, “Slut!”
I just laughed. “Careful,” I said under my breath. “Don’t get me started.”
19
In the Thick
At eleven thirty p.m. I lay in bed, fully dressed, listening to Fleur and Sarita’s sleep-harmony and staring at a crack in the curtain. Outside, the plain looked like a CCTV crime scene waiting to happen. I had watched the cabin lights expire until all that remained were two flickering bars—one outside the shower block, the other outside the counselors’ annex.
Fleur snored. I shined the flashlight on her sleeping form. She looked like a model in a sleepwear catalog, she had the whole getup: sleep mask, earplugs, Country Road pajamas, and her long hair cascading down her notangles satin pillow. The only dent in her perfection was the soundtrack. Fleur’s snoring was not the soft purr of a Rolls-Royce; it was more like the cheap outburst of a two-stroke engine. I liked thinking that there was something she couldn’t control. It felt like ammunition.
Suddenly Sarita spoke. Or rather, she snapped. She didn’t sound like herself. Her sleep-talking voice had big balls.
“No … Because. God! Just shut up, Mom. Shut. Up. You don’t know anything.”
I trailed her with the flashlight. Sarita was frowning and her hand was curled around her prayer rock. I liked Sarita. I felt a little guilty that I was about to get off with her crush. I didn’t feel bad for Fleur’s sake—just Sarita’s. But she was dreaming if she thought she had a chance with Craig, and hadn’t I just that morning vowed to live adventurously and fling my whole soul into everything I did? I had. I would. Nothing could stop me.
I left at five minutes to midnight. In my bag I had lip gloss, ciggies, breath mints, a sarong, and an emergency condom—brand: Gigantor. (Chloe and I had purchased a box of them online using Norma’s credit card. We laughed, we mimed, we imagined the worst. Gigantors! Not for the Easily Intimidated! Actually, they were gherkin-sized and oily besides …)
Outside, the air was crisp and smelled like smoked sap. There were so many stars that the sky looked like a fabulous sequined quilt. I rubbed my goose-bumpy arms as I ran through the plain, past the showers, down the path. There was a light glowing from the garage, and I crept in. “Hellooo,” I whispered, scanning for Craig. “Hey, Youth Leader. Hey, Loverboy!”
Nothing. Just the hissing of the kerosene lamp.
I went out to the merry-go-round, sarong-ed my shoulders, smoked a cigarette or three, and waited.
Waiting is an art form at which I excel. The trick of it is to keep your mind occupied. I thought about sex—or tumbling, as Chloe and I called it. I thought about how once you start you can’t go back. How sometimes—most of the time, if I was honest—I wished I could go back. I liked the idea that each new encounter effaced the last one. But if this were really true, then my memory of said tumbles would be gone, too. The first guy I ever slept with was Aaron Becker. His dad had a motor home dealership, and we did it in a different one every day of the Easter break. Foreplay was if he folded the bed down. During the act, Aaron would stare above my head, and I’d stare at his mouth moving. After a while I figured out he was counting. Counting! Like I was exercise.
“What did you get?” I once asked him.
“What?”
“How many reps? I counted eleven.”
He looked at me like he hated me. He said, “You’re really weird, you know that?” And he tied a knot in the condom and tucked it behind the mini fire extinguisher, where it wouldn’t be found until Darwin or never.
Craig appeared in front of me. He was silent and smiling like an apparition, a bush ghost I’d dreamed into existence. I felt that if I touched him my hand would go right through his skin and all I’d get was air. He took two cans of beer from his backpack, cracked one, and passed it to me. I took a sip. “This is real,” I thought. And, “Yuck. Stolen beer is warm beer.”
“Where did you score these?”
“Storeroom.”
“Youth Leader privilege?”
He laughed shortly. “Yeah.”
Without preamble, Craig lunged. It was a sloppy kiss, but not without promise. I lay back. He kissed me harder, and moved over me until his chest was firm against mine. One hand was on the back of my head, the other was working my button fly. The merry-go-round shifted east and my top half went with it. The rest of me was pinned down by Craig’s thigh. He stopped. He grabbed the waist of my jeans and yanked them down. He always had a hand on me, and I almost made a joke about him being used to girls trying to bolt—but in the thick is no place for jokes, so I just concentrated on his perfect face.
Craig pulled his jeans down with his other hand.
“Wait,” I said. “Aren’t you going to use something?”
“Yeah, whatever.”
I reached behind for my bag. “I’ve got one. Hold on.” Craig’s breath was hot on my face. “I don’t do condoms.”
“Then stop,” I said.
He stopped. “Why?” he said, irritated.
“You have to do condoms.”
“I’m clean.” I could hear him smiling. “I’ll pull out.”
I sat up. “No you won’t, because you’re not even getting in.”
Craig sighed. He heaved off me and kicked his feet in the sand. He seemed to be brooding. Finally he turned to me. “You could—”
“What?” I hissed.
“Finish me off with your hand?” And then when it was obvious that that wasn’t going to happen, he shrugged. “Your loss.”
I stared at him. I hated him! He wasn’t worth my emergency condom. He wasn’t worth spit. My top was up, my jeans were down, all my necessaries trembled under the stars. I started the awkward process of getting back into my clothes while he tapped his finger on his beer can. He took a sip and burped.
“Nice,” I said.
“What’s wrong with you?”
“If you don’t know, I’m not going to tell you.”
“You have the best tits.” Craig went for them, but I moved away.
“Creep.”
20
Wildlife
I didn’t feel like going back to camp. I guess Craig didn’t either—tumble or no tumble, he had a six-pack to finish. I sat, smoked, and stared up. Now the sky looked like a colossal bruise. I watched the clouds roll across it, migrating at first in tight huddles, then breaking up, stretching out.
“Look at the clouds …,” I said, mostly to myself.
Craig cracked a dent in his beer can.
“They look like renegades. They’re moving so fast.”
Craig looked up. His features twisted into a question mark. It seemed like he was searching for something. “It’s going to rain,” he said finally.
There was a rustle in the nearby bushes.
“What was that?”
“Wildlife,” Craig said. “It’s probably a wombat.” His hands were hovering above my stomach. He poked it and made blubbery noises.
“Hey!” I smacked his hand away. “Don’t be mean.”
He laughed. From the bushes someone laughed back.
Craig stood up. “Who’s that?”
“Who’s that?” the voice echoed. And I only had to hear it once to know it was Bird. He laughed again, a dumb honking sound, and then he came forward. “I saw you,” he said. His eyebrows bounced up and up and up.
“What did you see?” Craig’s tone was murderous, but Bird didn’t get it. He covered his eyes with his hands.
“I saw SEX.”
Craig shoved him. The action was so swift that if it hadn’t been for the thud of Bir
d hitting the bar and falling to the ground, I would have missed it. I watched, stunned, as Bird curled into a ball. He looked like he was trying to compress himself. He opened his mouth and—
He sounded like windshield wipers when there’s no water.
He sounded like a sword coming out of a wound.
Craig stood over him. “You didn’t see anything. ” He picked up his beer. His face was fixed between a grimace and a smile.
“What’s wrong with you?” I shouted at him. “Are you a caveman?”
“He’s a little perv.”
“He’s … Look at him!” I crouched down next to Bird and put my hands on his shoulders. I pressed softly, said, “Shhh, shhh,” until his shriek dissolved into a broken croaky hum.
“You’d better get someone,” I told Craig.
“He’s all right. He always has these fit things. Give him five.”
“I thought you were the Youth Leader,” I muttered. “He needs help.”
Craig stared from Bird to me, to the horizon. Then he drained his beer and tossed the can. “You help him.” He walked off with his hands in his pockets, not quite whistling, but almost.
I sat with Bird until his “fit thing” was over. But we didn’t go back right away. For a long time, maybe half an hour, we watched a spider spin its web. Spiders usually make me shriek and flap, but seeing this one silently work its silver threads seemed like a privilege. I’d never really given nature much thought, but at that moment I wondered how human beings and all their dumb lumbering could have any place in the world.
“People are idiots,” I said to Bird.
A strange, sad sound surfaced.
Bird sat up straight. “That’s the Southern Boobook Owl.” He turned on the twitch. “Ninox novaeseelandiae. The smallest and most common owl in Australia. Breeds in October—”
I put my hand on his arm. “Owls are sad.” And then I told him the fable about the owls of Athens. The owls used to sing beautifully, so beautifully that they deemed themselves kings and decided that all the other animals should lay treasures and riches at their feet. One night the moon asked them, “Why do you think you deserve this?” and the owls said, “Because we have the loveliest song.” So the moon used her magic to give the owls’ voices to the nightingales—and all the owls had left was a haunted, Whoo whoo.
Bird said, “Actually it’s more like a mo-poke. ” Bird called—his voice was high and distinctive, and the Boo-book echoed him. He nodded and continued, “Or more-pork. Some clowns call them the more-pork owl.”
“I like my story better,” I said. “My story has pathos.”
The Boobook’s song of regret followed us back to camp. The night was getting fierce. The sky was dark and the air felt heavier. We walked faster as thunder clapped above our heads. At good-bye Bird grabbed my hand and squeezed it. I understood that I had him for life.
21
It Is All Good
“Riley!” Sarita whispered, not two seconds after I’d crept in the door.
She was smiling at me, as excited as a kid at Christmas.
“You really do sleepwalk! Quick, check your feet,” she said.
“Why?”
“There might be clues as to where you wandered.”
“I’m not asleep,” I told her. “I haven’t been … I’m awake.”
Sarita studied my face. “Did you go to see Dylan?”
“No. Why would I see Dylan?”
“Isn’t he your intended?”
“My intended?”
“You know, romance?”
“Sarita. You’re very weird. And I’m tired.”
Fleur let out a titanic snore. Sarita ducked her head under her covers and came up smiling. “I saw once in an American movie they replaced a girl’s hair gel with a depilatory cream. It’s a good one, no? But I think perhaps the smell would give it away.”
“I thought Fleur was your friend.”
“Fleur is not my friend. You know that Poppy, the girl whose bed you took. Last year, she and Fleur put shit in my bed.”
“What kind of shit?”
“Shit shit.” Sarita nodded solemnly. “It is all good. You cannot scare a shrewd person with small provocation.”
I smiled. I liked the way Sarita screwed up common slang. It’s all good. People said that all the time. They said it when they’d spilled their drink, or when their parents got divorced. They said it like nothing bad was ever supposed to happen. Like being upset was inhuman or something.
I suddenly noticed Sarita’s hair. In the lamplight, free from its braids, it looked lustrous, even glamorous.
“Your hair looks good like that,” I told her.
She patted her head self-consciously. “There’s too much of it.”
“You just need to rein it in.” I yawned. “We’ll work on it tomorrow. Right now, I need to sleep.”
“You are a true friend, Riley.”
Sarita’s words floated down from the bunk and pressed into me.
“Not,” I said in my head. “You wouldn’t say that if you knew where I’d been for the last two hours.” I felt hot with guilt again. Then I reasoned that Craig turned out to be a pig’s ear—so really, I’d done her a favor.
Did that make me a true friend?
Can you even be a true friend after two days?
It was too hot. I ditched my sheet and rolled onto my other side and tried to push the lumps out of my pillow. I remembered where I was. I remembered Wednesday. I remembered that I didn’t need creepy Christian camp friends and I stopped thinking about it. The rain hammered down. To get myself to sleep I thought about the crater. How much rain would it take to fill it? I imagined that when it was full the water would be red and thick with stuff. All of the crater’s secrets would come to the surface, ancient bones floating on their backs like a pregnant woman in a saltwater pool.
On the Third Day
22
Spiritual Development
In my dream Craig had killed Bird. Bird was sprawled on the merry-go-round with a dumbfuck expression on his face, going around and around and around. I told Craig we should take his sneakers off—because dead boys don’t need shoes. But when I touched Bird’s foot the lights on his shoes started flashing, and his eyes went ping —open.
As did mine. On cue, the PA started its squeal and clank. Roslyn boomed into space like a big friendly giant.
“Attention, campers. This is your morning thought: let us cleanse ourselves of everything that contaminates either flesh or spirit. ”
Yes, let’s. I groaned, rolled over, and promptly went back to sleep.
When I woke again the cabin was empty. It was raining outside and the humidity made the air smell sour. I stretched my arms and said, “Wednesday!” I reached for Utopia. My bus ticket peeked between the pages, a seemingly innocuous bookmark that said in fourteen hours I would be on my way to Chloe and Ben Seb’s party; to fun and freedom and other good things that start with F. But right now it was 8:22 and I had eight minutes left to shower. I gathered my stuff and bolted across the rain-drenched plain.
The water pressure was nonexistent. I stood under the lame dribble for longer than my allotted three minutes. I was thinking about Craig, replaying The Arrival: his sleepy smile, his eyes staying on me as he handed me a beer. We both knew what was about to happen. There was the crackle of electricity, the pop of the beer can—my stomach lurching like oil in a lava lamp—but I couldn’t hide from the bitter end: Craig the cad laughing at me, Bird whimpering on the merry-go-round floor. I wondered if Craig was going to acknowledge me, if Bird had blurted anything. I wanted to scoop them up: what say the three of us just call last night a bad dream?
I stepped out of the shower, but when I went to get dressed I realized my towel and clothes had disappeared. It didn’t take long for the ramifications of this to sink in. I heard somebody walk into the block. I stood on the bench and peered over the door. It was Janey, Olive’s psycho-tweenie enemy. “Hey—” I tried not to smile too desperately.
“Someone’s nicked my clothes—can you … ?” But the little shit just ran out laughing. I could hear the sound of activity outside. Campers were jumping puddles and shrieking and getting loose. I climbed back on the bench and scouted for lost property, but all I could see was a sodden scrunchie. I sat. I thought about how to approach this. I figured I had two options—wait or bolt. What would Chloe do?
Chloe would go frisking out into the open. I was not Chloe. I gave pretty good about owning my fatness, I could dress provocatively, and I only sucked my stomach in when I was squeezing past someone, but for all my boldness I’d never actually showed myself to anyone, not completely. And I wasn’t going to do it now.
So I waited. When all was quiet outside, and I’d determined that the campers had gone in for grub, I opened the shower door. I tiptoed over the cold floor and attached myself to the breezeway entrance. I peered through one of the holes. It looked all clear. I took a deep breath. Just as I was about to run I saw something in the corner of my eye. It was Dylan. He was heading for his cabin. I decided to chance it.
“Hey!” I yelled.
He stopped. I saw his elbows working. He wheeled around slowly.
Dylan could only see my head, but he quickly figured out what was going on.
“Nudie run?” he inquired.
“Someone stole my clothes.”
He nodded and looked at me with a half smile, a look that said I know.
“Could you get me a towel or something?”
Dylan looked around. He shot over to the flagpole. He used his crutches to get to the rope and then he pulled the camp flag down. He came back to me and held it out with his eyes closed. I snatched the flag and ran back into the shower block, where I arranged it like a sarong. When I went back to say thank you Dylan had already gone. Damn! He was fast!
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