Back in cabin three I slipped out of the flag and into my good-bye dress—a goth Lolita number with snake-y sleeves. I put on black lace leggings and ankle boots so pointy they should have come with a license. I looked in the mirror. “Wednesday, you big, gorgeous, beautiful thing. I never thought we’d make it.” I put on too much dead-red lipstick, used it to draw a satanic star on Fleur’s pillow, and then I walked through the drizzle to breakfast, undaunted.
23
A Pig’s Ear
I knew Fleur was the clothing thief. And the look on her face when I walked into the mess hall confirmed it. She was smirking. And she’d obviously told. The Honey-eaters were all staring at me. Staring and whispering, the creeps. I hovered in front of the food counter, shaking the rain out of my violet hair. I wrung out my sleeves and bent over like Chloe doing the downward dog. Raindrops whitened the muddy tiles. I saw an upside-down Olive backing into the kitchen, loaded up with trays. A minute later she was standing in front of me, wiping her hands on her apron.
“There’s only cereal left,” she said. “It’s gone all crumby.”
“Bring it on.” I held up my bowl. “How are the psycho-tweenies?”
“They leave me alone now. They think you’re scary.”
“Me?” I laughed. I turned around. “Janey and them” were watching me with their mouths agape. I laughed again, this time evilly. I winked at Olive. “Tell them in my spare time I bite the heads off chickens.”
She nodded and said in a rush, “There’re cookies in the back—do you want some? I think you’re an angel sent here by God for me and Bird. He told me what you did. No one’s ever looked out for us before. Bird used to cop it heaps bad. One year they scratched up his binoculars. That was the pair he got from Dad. They don’t make them like that anymore. That’s what Mom said.” She smiled anxiously. “I’ll get the cookies.”
I tried to imagine “Janey and them” as the camp threat but couldn’t see it.
I took my tray over to the Honeyeaters’ table. The twins gave me bright, fake smiles.
“Don’t get up,” I said.
“Long shower?” Fleur inquired.
“Don’t,” I warned her.
The seat next to Sarita—my seat—was laden with dirty plates, burned bits of toast, eggshells, and soggy cereal. Sarita made no effort to move the mess.
“Hello?” I nudged her. “What’s up with you?”
She didn’t respond. I panned the table. Fleur was smiling superciliously and buttering her toast with jaunty, dash-like strokes. Bird was easier to read; he had his head low, but his eyes were racing. Something was up.
“What have I done?” I asked in a bored tone. I hoped it sounded like I was joking.
“So,” Fleur announced. “Craig told us that you tried to make him … you know.”
“What?”
“Have sex with him.”
I took a step back, incredulous. “What?”
She shrugged and took a bite of toast. I rankled from top to toe. First of all it was bullshit, and secondly, it was stupid and insulting, and so not worth it. Craig was at the counselors’ table. His eyes met mine for a millisecond. A smirk started to form but then he must have reconsidered, because his face snapped back to being beautifully blank.
I scratched my arm and looked back to the table. “Yeah, that’s right. I attacked him in a fit of lust.” I fluttered my eyes accordingly. “It was … unbelievable.”
Bird spluttered—more of a spasm than a laugh—and a fine spray of yogurt landed on the table in front of him. He wiped the smeary table with a hanky.
Fleur said, “It’s a common fact that girls with overeating issues become sexually active earlier than their slimmer counterparts.”
“Fuck off.”
“Just because you think you’re special doesn’t mean anyone else does.”
Bird suddenly stood up and stuttered, “L-l-leave her alone!”
“Thank you.” I shook my hair. But I was feeling less brave than I looked. My knees had given a little. I had to get out of there. I looked at Sarita—why didn’t she defend me?
Fleur persisted with her character assassination. “I suppose you slutted onto Bird, too?” She shook her head. “What a sicko.”
“She boob-boozled him,” Richard cackled. Ethan cracked up with him, and even the twins were giggling. Then Sarita stood up and walked away, and I was startled at how much that felt like a hit. I wanted to run after her. “He was a pig’s ear,” I wanted to shout, “a pig’s ear!” Instead, I said, “I didn’t make Craig do anything. I wouldn’t touch him with a crane. ”
Fleur looked around the table, blinking. “Did you hear something?”
“A lost soul,” Ethan said solemnly.
Richard nodded. “A dead person.”
I threw my tray down and stormed out.
24
Wheelchair 101
Outside it was Niagara-ish. I hadn’t realized I was going to see Dylan until I was standing by his door, at the end of the pine ramp. I knocked. He opened the door and silently let me in. Inside, the furniture was fixed low. When I sat on the bed, I misjudged the distance and nearly smashed my chin to my knee. I tried to save face by pointing to the barbells. “Neville?”
Dylan rolled his eyes. There was a hoist above the bed. I resisted the urge to pull on it. I could see his bathroom through the open door. There was a chair in the shower, and rails, lots of rails. I felt a bit queasy looking at Dylan’s “conveniences,” so I fixed my gaze on his mud flaps.
“Did you make those?”
“Yeah. I was trying to be offensive. But most people don’t look down that far.” Dylan brought a jar full of dead cigarettes out of his top drawer. Then he offered me his pack.
“It’s okay,” he said. “They won’t come in here.”
“I don’t care if they do.” I turned to him and stole his line. “Match me.” He smiled and I tried to smile back, but I wasn’t convincing.
Dylan said, “It’s no use crying over Youth Counselor Craig.”
“How do you know?” I asked in surprise.
Dylan held his cigarette between his thumb and forefinger like a WWII fighter pilot and took a neat puff. “I’m observant. I don’t have as many distractions as you able-bodied folk.”
“Is that what you call us?” I was happy to change the subject. “No, I’m serious. Is there like, a group name?”
“Mostly normal.”
“What do you call yourselves?” I blushed. I felt like I was saying wrong thing after wrong thing, but it was better than talking about Craig.
“Crips. I believe the collective is ‘a chaos of crips.’ But you can’t call me that. That’d be like a white guy calling a black guy nigga. Not cool.”
“Seriously?”
“No.” Dylan made a face. “There was this guy at the rehab—Ross. He called us mutards, a cross between mutants and retards. He used to do comics, like Zombie Mutards from Hell Will Rise Again and Steal Your Limbs. ”
I laughed. “Cool.”
Dylan went on, “Ross was dead from the waist down. That’s the charm of rehab—there’s always someone worse off than you. Except maybe Alice. She couldn’t move anything. Well, her head. She had a sign on the back of her chair that said My mind is a castle. She did paintings by holding a brush in her mouth. Portraits. Only you could never tell who the subject was.” He chuckled and gave me a reconstruction of events. “She’d go, ‘It’s Don.’ ‘Who?’ ‘Don!’ ‘I don’t see it.’ ‘You’re all Philistines! Philistines!’ “
“What’s it like—” I stopped, mesmerized by the notches on Dylan’s chair.
Dylan studied me. “You want to ask me what it’s like to have all this”—he looked down at his legs—“useless beauty.”
“Forget it,” I said. “It’s a stupid question.”
“Go ahead.”
I took a breath. “Okay. What’s it like being in a wheelchair?”
“It’s kind of like being invisible. But it has i
ts perks.” Dylan reached behind his back and pulled out a hip flask. He took a sip and then passed it to me. “The chair hides a multitude of sins.”
I sipped from the flask. The whiskey burned my throat.
Dylan was drunk! It had happened quickly. I’d heard more out of him in twenty minutes than the whole time I’d been at camp. He was leaning forward in his chair and waving his hands about. “Wheelchair 101. This is what you learn: people are either starers or avoiders, and your body always betrays you.” He hunched down and fixed me with a firm gaze. “I’ll tell you a story: the first time I went out-out the leisure officer arranged for a group of us mutards to go see a movie. It was Discount Tuesday, so the place was packed. We had to use an elevator to get to the theater, but it could only fit us one at a time. It was like being in a dunk box. Like, don’t look down unless you want to see pity-city. I fucking hate that. We wheeled in single file and there was this kid eating his popcorn and watching us like we were the movie. Duncan was in front of me. He’s C6 complete—when he was twelve he fell under the train he was tagging. Anyway, he’s twentysomething now, and he’s hard, plays wheelchair rugby, has a neck like a bull’s, but under that kid’s stare his neck went brick red.” Dylan shrugged. “In the end it doesn’t matter what front you present. The body betrays you and people are either starers or avoiders.”
We were quiet. I didn’t dare look at Dylan in case my face betrayed what I was thinking.
“Are you feeling sorry for me?” Dylan asked.
I shook my head and I forced myself to look at him. But I was.
“You want me to give you another observation?”
“Okay.”
“Fleur doesn’t wear underpants.”
“Fleur goes commando,” I stated.
“Yes indeedy.” Dylan smiled.
“How do you know?”
“Let’s just say I have a vantage point.”
“That’s gross.”
I felt annoyed that Dylan was so schooled on Fleur’s pink bits.
“Fleur snores,” I told him.
He stopped smiling. “Really?”
“Like a diesel in distress. And she farts in her sleep.” He looked so dashed by this that I forgot all about pity and ripped into him. “What is it with you guys? She’s so boring. She’s not that hot. She looks like a prototype. And she’s a bitch.”
Dylan mumbled, “Well, I don’t know about that.”
“Has she even talked to you?” He blushed and I realized what I’d said. Things had gotten too personal. I backpedaled. “It’s none of my business. I just hate the way girls like her get away with shit and still get adored. It’s just … wrong. The world is wrong.”
“Gee, you think?” Dylan scowled. He was looking at me differently now, like he hated me a little, and all because I’d told a truth. I pictured us butting heads—loser to loser—tragic to tragic—mutard to mutard.
“Funny,” I said. “We’re sort of in the same boat.”
“It’s not funny,” Dylan said. “It’s pathetic.”
His face went chokelike. “I have to change my bag.” Then he laughed. “I’m joking. You should have seen the look on your face. It’s okay, Riley, I don’t have a shit bag. I can wipe my own ass and everything.”
He started trying to get out of his chair. He was using his crutches but floundering. “What are you doing?” I asked. “Do you need—”
He cut me off with his hand. “No.”
“Why are you mad at me?” I muttered, just loud enough for him to hear.
Dylan rubbed the heel of his hand on his forehead. “Because. Because you don’t know what I’m capable of. You all think I’m … Forget it.”
I stood up. “I’m going to go.”
“Good. Go back to … wherever.”
I left, feeling a kind of wrenching in my stomach. I was at the end of the ramp when I heard a crash. I raced back. Dylan was on the floor and his chair was on its side.
It was awful. His face was aflame and he wouldn’t look up and I didn’t know what to do. I righted his chair; it was lighter than I thought it would be. I found his crutches and held them up. He shook me away. He put his palms down flat and scuttled backward until his back was against his bed. He pulled himself up onto the bed. And then just sat staring at the chair, puffing.
He pushed the hoist and we watched it swing back and forth like a pendulum. Dylan started slowly. “My therapist wasn’t sure about my coming back here. He’s cool. I’ve had him since the hospital. He said, ‘I’m not going to feed you shit and call it chocolate cake. … Nothing’s ever going to be the same again.’ I told him the doctors hadn’t ruled out that I might walk again and he goes, ‘Meanwhile there’s the chair, you have to learn to work it, baby. Because the chair can be your best friend or your worst enemy.’ ”
Dylan smiled. It was the first time I’d noticed his teeth. They were small and white and neat, like baby teeth. “He seriously called me baby, like some kind of Hollywood producer, while everyone else was just tiptoeing around me asking what I wanted from the vending machine.” He looked at me, his face full of lost-ness. “I don’t know what I’m doing here.”
“Me either,” I said.
Dylan looked away. “It’s shit.”
“I know.”
25
Period of Adjustment
I decided to try and phone Chloe. I wanted something normal. I wanted her to remind me that as soon as I was out of here, none of this would mean anything. Through the rec room windows I could see the teeming mass of campers. They had energy to burn and nowhere to burn it. They looked like a rodeo. Roslyn was calling a vote. Who wanted indoor Nerfball? Who wanted Statues? Who wanted Trust Fall? Hands shot up at the last suggestion. The rules of Trust Fall had been imparted to me via Sarita during one of her early information floods: campers gather in two lines facing each other. They then lift a member of the group and pass him or her above their heads all the way down the line. Campers are supposed to come out of Trust Fall with a renewed sense of trust for their compatriots. I couldn’t see myself coming out of it with anything but a concussion.
I watched for a while and then I walked around the building to Counselor Neville’s office. His door was half-open. The smell of fresh-brewed coffee wafted out. I could hear mumbles and movement. Then silence. He called out, “Is someone there?”
I made my appearance.
Counselor Neville looked relaxed. He wasn’t sitting behind his desk; he was resting his butt on the edge. He was tie-less and his shirt was unbuttoned to reveal a few ginger hairs fighting for his throat.
“Riley Rose,” he announced.
There was a man standing with his back to us, studying the camp photos. He was wearing the traditional khaki ranger’s garb, rain-spattered. He turned around and smiled broadly. His teeth were blindingly white against his dark skin. He said, “G’day.”
“Hi.”
“This is Trevor Green,” Neville said. “Trevor works with Parks and Wildlife. His great-grandfather was a Wotjobaluk elder. He knows the desert like the back of his hand. We’ve brought Trevor in to enlighten you all about natural history. Did you bring your slides, Trev?”
Trevor nodded. “Heaps.” He jerked his head. “In the you-beaut.”
Even though I was in the room, it didn’t feel like this conversation was happening for my benefit. Trevor was smiling at Neville in a steady, unnerving manner—and it seemed like Neville was tasting his words before he spoke. The good counselor kept looking like he was about to smile, but then he’d frown at the carpet. I studied the photos again. Neville moved to the business side of his desk and shuffled some papers. Trevor put his hat back on. “Righto. I’ll get those slides.”
“What can I do for you, Riley?” Neville asked.
“Can I make a phone call? It’s important.”
“What’s the emergency?”
“It’s not an emergency, it’s just—” I was tired. My mind was mush. All I could come up with was: “It’s my
best friend’s birthday.”
“If I let you make a phone call, then everyone else will want to make a phone call.” He shook his head. “Sorry, Riley, I can’t allow it.”
“What’s so wrong with people wanting to communicate?”
Neville laughed. “There’s nothing wrong with wanting to communicate. I think you’ll find we encourage it. We’re all about being open, Riley.” He stood and straightened one of the pictures on the wall. “How are you doing here, Riley? How are you finding camp?”
“It’s okay.” I hated the way he kept saying my name.
“Because unlike God, I can’t be everywhere at once, but I’m hearing things. You had some trouble on the canoe trip. There was an incident this morning. Riley?”
Neville was waiting for an explanation. I had nothing rehearsed, but I felt that if I didn’t say something he wouldn’t let me leave.
“I just … I don’t fit in here. Everyone hates me,” I finished lamely.
“Riley. We all have to go through a period of adjustment.”
“Well, I’d rather just go home.”
“Do you want to talk about it?”
I shook my head.
Neville leaned over his desk. “Look. You’re almost at the halfway mark. I’ll make you a deal. Just for today, try and participate. I mean really participate. If you still feel like this tomorrow—well, we’ll call your father and see if we can’t sort something out.”
Trevor returned carrying a slide tray and an overhead projector.
Neville lit up at the sight of him. “Anyway, you don’t want to miss Trevor’s talk. The domestic life of the malleefowl is a revelation.”
Trevor grinned. Neville grinned. I understood I was being dismissed. I walked out, and just as I was about to hit the rain again I remembered about Dad being away. I went back to remind Neville. I paused outside his door. It was slightly ajar. I stepped silently across and peeked inside—I was a spy at Christian camp! Christian camp confidential!
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