Camp Rolling Hills

by Stacy Davidowitz

  Below was a bed with a basketball and tennis racket on top of a sports-themed comforter. Most boys were into sports, but in San Juan Hill Cabin it could’ve only been Totle’s, or maybe Bobby’s. But Bobby didn’t love all sports, just baseball.

  She took three giant steps toward the bunk-bed closest to the bathroom. The bottom bunk was freakishly neat compared to the disastrous state of the rest of the cabin. It was black and red, and the clothes in the cubbies nearby were color-coordinated. Is Bobby that clean? Slimey wondered. She doubted it and figured it was Wiener’s. Up top was a blue comforter with orange pillows and a poster of a Mets baseball player swinging a bat. Yes! That’s it!

  Melman interrupted Slimey’s investigation with the blow of a whistle. Slimey swiveled on her heels to see her bunkmates hopping around the cabin, avoiding the guys’ mess like the plague. “Time out, ladies! Time out,” Melman called. The girls turned her way. “Observation period is up. What’s the set play?” The girls answered with blank stares. “Remember, this is our counterattack. Nothing too precious is out of bounds. There are no penalties. There are no fouls.”

  “Um, it actually smells really foul in here,” Jamie said, as if that hadn’t already been established.

  “Look, it’s time to get real! How can we win this?”

  “Omigod, we should totally steal something,” Jenny said.

  “Yes! A steal!” Melman cried.

  “Well, I know what I’m taking,” Slimey said, her hand already in Bobby’s stuff.

  Melman blew her whistle. “All right, play on!”

  Slimey rummaged through Bobby’s cubbies and shelves and found postcards, envelopes, a baseball uniform, camp gear, sweatshirts, cologne, Surf Hair, and a torn picture of him when he was little—smiling wide on his dad’s shoulders with his mom by their side. A piece of Scotch tape held it together. The last time Slimey saw Bobby smiling that wide was when they were dancing together. But he’d torn them apart, too, and something told her Scotch tape wasn’t going to do the trick. She put the picture back where she’d found it and continued her search.

  “Ew, ew, ew! Boy boxers!” Jenny clung to Dover’s top bunk and pointed to a pile of underwear.

  “That’s it! Boxers!” Melman exclaimed. “Jenny for the golden goal! Round up all the underwear you can find . . .”

  “Got it!” Slimey yelped, finally finding what she was looking for in Bobby’s backpack—the one with his initials embroidered on it: R.E.B.

  “You’re taking his iPod?” Sophie asked.

  “We are here to get revenge, right?” she asked the girls.

  “RIGHT!” they shouted back.

  Melman grabbed Wiener’s pillow.

  “What are you doing?” Missi asked.

  “Watch and learn.” Melman removed the pillow and stuffed the boys’ underwear into the empty pillowcase.

  “I can’t believe you’re touching their boxers with your bare hands,” Jamie said.

  “Do it like this,” Missi advised, sticking her hand inside Totle’s basketball-designed pillowcase, picking up a handful of underwear, and then turning the pillowcase inside out. “Like you’re scooping up dog poop!” She swung it over her back.

  “They’re gonna beg, whine, and cry,” Melman mumbled as she tried Missi’s method. “It’s gonna be glorious.”

  “Ew, what are you doing, Sophie?” Jamie asked.

  Slimey turned toward Totle’s bed to find Sophie sprawled across it on her stomach, her face in his sheets.

  “I’m looking for paper.”

  “No, you’re not. You’re inhaling Totle’s pillow.”

  “A human wouldn’t understand.” After a big whiff, Sophie picked up Totle’s notebook from his top cubby. “All his dreams and thoughts about me must be inside of you,” she whispered, bringing the cover to her lips. “I’ll read you later in the dark.”

  Slimey had a feeling Sophie was going to be disappointed tonight.

  Sophie ripped out a blank page, found a pen, and started writing.

  “Nice one, Sophie!” Melman stood over her. “Tell the boys there’s no limit to how far we’ll go, and we’re not backing down without a fight!”

  “Wait, where’s a good spot to leave the note?” Slimey asked, hopelessly scanning for an open area or at least a place the boys couldn’t miss. Their cabin was so cluttered with junk, it could’ve been in an I SPY book.

  “There isn’t one,” Jenny whined. “I doubt they’d find a note in here even if we told them where it was.”

  “I can write it with this.” Sophie whipped out shiny red lipstick from the chest of her swimsuit.

  “Did you just take lipstick out from your boobs?” Jenny asked with disgust.

  “I thought that bump was your EpiPen,” Slimey said.

  “No, that’s under my other boob.”

  “The mirror!” Melman yelled out. Inspired, she pulled Sophie up from Totle’s bed. With lipstick in hand, they headed to the bathroom, kicking away whatever was in their way. Together, they stopped in front of the bathroom door and cried, “One, two, three!” Inhaling deeply to hold their breath, they lunged inside.

  The rest of the girls waited so silently, they could hear the flies buzzing around Play Dough’s bed. A few seconds of itchy anticipation passed, and then Melman and Sophie emerged from the bathroom, gasping for air.

  “It doesn’t smell better out here! It doesn’t smell better out here!” Sophie cried.

  Melman pulled her in for a hug. “This girl here just wrote the sickest ransom note on the full-length mirror,” she announced, smirking. “The San Juan Hill boys are gonna have to hunt their brains out to find their underwear!”

  The girls jumped up and down in a loose huddle and let out a communal “WOOOO!” At Melman’s short-short-long whistle blow, they sprang back into their warrior yoga poses.

  “Where are we gonna hide their underwear?” Slimey asked Melman excitedly. She’d been thinking they were just going to store the boxers in the back of Anita Hill Cabin. Melman always made things more fun.

  “Well . . . how do you ladies feel about—?”

  Sara whistled her warning from the porch.

  “Let’s go! Let’s go! Let’s go!” the girls cried, frantically grabbing the pillowcases of dirty underwear. On the way out, they dumped whatever clothes were still in cubbies (and not already on the floor) to the floor.

  As they sprinted and ducked behind Wawel Hill, Slimey turned to Melman with a grin. “So . . . where are we hiding their underwear?”

  Melman leaned in and whispered the best hiding spot Slimey could NEVER think of. Slimey put her hand over her mouth and shook her head with glee. “You’re good!” she whispered back, all smiles.

  “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned,” Melman said. She crossed her arms over her chest and rolled down the hill in celebration. The girls followed suit, even Sara. “We did it, ladies. And this war has just begun!”

  “Hey, guys . . . I know I had more underwear than this,” Play Dough said thoughtfully, standing by his bottom bunk.

  “How much do you have?” Rick asked.

  Play Dough picked up a heap of clothes from the floor and laid it on his bed. “One . . . One. I have one.”

  “Are you sure?” Steinberg asked. “That’s a sock.”

  “I counted the ones I’m wearing.”

  Rick filled his cheeks with air and sighed it out loudly. “All right, boys, I’m pretty sure the girls have raided us back. Look through your stuff. See what’s missing or messed up.”

  Please tell me no one touched my things, Bobby prayed. Filled with dread, he walked toward his cubbies.

  Totle rummaged through his stuff. “Oh no! My underwear’s gone, too!”

  Bobby’s clothes had been dumped from his cubbies to the floor, and, like the other guys, he couldn’t find any underwear. He frantically searched through his remaining stuff.

  “I think the girls took my high-thread-count Egyptian-cotton pillowcase,” Wiener panicked. “Melman
probably took it so she can smell me at night.”

  “Then Melman also loves me,” Totle said. “My pillowcase is gone, too.”

  “Impossible.”

  “Possible. Plus my journal,” Totle said.

  Wiener rolled his eyes and headed toward the bathroom. For a split second Bobby was thankful he’d failed with Slimey so early on. Had they kissed, Totle would have written all about it in that same journal now in the girls’ possession.

  Bobby dumped whatever was inside his backpack onto the floor alongside his clothes. Out came six opened letters from his mom and dad, a picture of Clark Kent, two half-filled Gatorade bottles, an empty potato chip bag, a backup baseball mitt, a gray hoodie, a Rolling Hills T-shirt, and his headphones. His chest tightened. He knew exactly what was missing. “Where’s my iPod? Did they steal my iPod, too?”

  “Who would want your caveman iPod?” Play Dough asked.

  Bobby didn’t know. Who would want an old iPod? The battery ran out after forty-five minutes, and there was nothing on there that anyone but he or his dad listened to. Then again, maybe it was stolen for another reason. Maybe it was stolen because a certain someone who was mad at him knew how much it meant to him. How much it reminded him of his dad. How much he needed it when he was feeling sad. “Slimey, that’s who.”

  “Heeeeeeeelp!” Wiener screamed bloody murder from the bathroom. Bobby dropped his empty backpack to the floor and raced inside. His cabinmates were right behind him. “It’s written in blood!” Wiener stood in front of the full-length mirror, staring at a poem in big red letters.

  Steinberg fastened his lab goggles over his face, smudged a letter with his thumb, and licked it. “Lipstick, not blood,” he confirmed.

  Play Dough pushed his way to the front and read it aloud.

  Dear San Juan Hill Boys,

  We had to raid you

  It was only fair

  Now we have your underwear.

  If you want ’em back

  You’ll do what we say

  Your boxers are hidden, like, real far away.

  Your first clue

  We have a hunch

  Is where we eat our picnic lunch.

  “Sounds like a treasure hunt,” Steinberg said.

  “Adventure-sauce!” Dover cried.

  “It’s not any ‘sauce,’ ” Play Dough objected. “They stole our underwear. Any idea where we start, Steinberg?”

  “Uh . . . yeah. It’s in the riddle you just read.”

  “I can’t believe Sara let this happen,” Rick said. “She wants to fight dirty, let’s fight dirty. Wiener, are the girls in their cabin?”

  “Nope. Arts and Crafts.”

  “Perfect,” Rick said ominously.

  “Retaliation?” Play Dough asked.

  “RETALIATION!” the other boys shouted, falling into a huddle. Bobby’s arm made it in, but the rest of his body was stuck on the outside until Steinberg and Totle pulled him fully in.

  As mad as Bobby was about his missing iPod, he was glad to be included with the guys. He was starting to see where Steinberg was coming from. Who cared about being cool? These guys might not have known everything about him, but they definitely knew something was up, and they hadn’t teased or judged him for it. Meanwhile, judging them and judging himself had gotten Bobby nowhere. He supposed it was time to let go and be half as weird as everyone around him.

  “They steal our stuff, we steal more of their stuff,” said Play Dough.

  “An eye for an eye,” said Totle.

  “A tooth for a tooth,” said Dover and Steinberg.

  “A spleen for a spleen,” said Wiener.

  “An iPod for a . . . something,” Bobby stuttered. I’ll work on it, he thought.

  “Break out on three,” Rick commanded. “One, two, three . . .”

  “SAUCE!”

  The guys formed a straight line and marched with determination out the front door of San Juan Hill Cabin, ready for Raid Number Two. And this time, Bobby didn’t care what anyone said. He wasn’t going to be lookout.

  • • •

  Ten minutes later, each of the guys was digging through a different cubby inside Anita Hill Cabin. Well, except for Totle, who was head-butting Melman’s soccer ball against the back wall.

  “Focus!” Play Dough warned. “We’re running out of time!”

  Totle put the ball down and dizzily stumbled into a bunk-bed post. “Time? It’s definitely in the afternoon.”

  Play Dough shook his head. “Guys, just grab all their toiletries. If we’re gonna stink wearing the same underwear over and over, then they deserve to stink, too!”

  “See? I told you that taking their deodorant was a good idea,” Wiener boasted.

  Bobby fumbled through Slimey’s stuff: hair ties, a brush, a handheld mirror, a squishy stress ball, flowery stationery, a half-made hemp bracelet. He’d been pumped for revenge back at San Juan Hill, but actually doing it felt wrong.

  “What have you got, Smelly?” Play Dough asked.

  “I mean, there’s her roller-hockey knee pads . . . or I could take her stamps?”

  “Dude, something she’ll actually miss.”

  “What’s that?” Dover asked.

  Bobby did a one-eighty. “What?”

  Dover pointed. “Dangling in front of your face?”

  The swinging locket above Slimey’s bed. Bobby didn’t care if she’d stolen a hundred iPods, he would never take something that important to her. He would have to be the biggest, meanest bully in the world. “It looks like a plain old locket.”

  “It looks like revenge for your plain old iPod,” Play Dough said, raising his eyebrows mischievously.

  “Nah. I’ll take something else.”

  “Fine, then, I’ll take it.”

  Great, Bobby thought. If Play Dough took the locket, it would surely get lost in his mess of fly traps and candy wrappers. But if he took it, he’d look like the bad guy.

  “They’re coming back, boys!” Rick shouted from the porch.

  What should I do, what should I do, what should I do? Bobby panicked.

  “Let’s move!” Rick yelled.

  Bobby made his decision. “Forget it. I’ll take it. My battle to fight—my locket to steal.” Play Dough gave him an encouraging nod. Since Bobby’s mesh shorts had no pockets, he slipped the locket around his neck. It felt cool against his skin. He untucked it and held it out from his chest.

  “You OK, dude?” Play Dough asked, cracking his neck.

  “Oh. Yeah. I’m fine.” Bobby shuffled past him. You have no choice. You’re doing the right thing, he told himself. Keep the locket safe for Slimey.

  Steinberg removed the used garbage bag from the front of the cabin, dumped its contents onto the floor, and refilled it as fast as he could with the girls’ soap, shampoo, and conditioner. Totle rushed out from the bathroom with a skinny cotton thing up his left nostril and knocked into Bobby.

  “What happened to you?” Play Dough asked him.

  “My nose started bleeding.”

  “Why is there a stringy thing on the gauze?” Dover asked.

  “Because it’s a tampon,” Wiener said, grinning madly.

  “Ewwwww!” the guys moaned as Totle ripped it from his nose. Bobby was too nervous about the locket to get involved.

  “Boys!” Rick threw open the front door. “It’s go time. For real, they’re coming!”

  Steinberg and Totle carried the toiletries, Play Dough wrapped himself in a boy-band poster from the wall, Wiener tooted Missi’s flute, and Dover carried a box of tampons. He caught Bobby looking.

  “Free gauze, dude.”

  “Yeah, I know,” Bobby said.

  As the guys climbed up Anita Hill, they saw the girls at the top, explosively chanting like lunatics. “Anita Hill! Anita Hill! Anita Hill!”

  The guys chanted back even louder. “San Juan Hill! San Juan Hill! San Juan Hill!”

  Bobby couldn’t help but look at Slimey, sandwiched between Melman and Jenny. Her eyes
were focused on Play Dough and Totle, Dover and Steinberg, Wiener, even. But not him. She was deliberately avoiding him. Still.

  “Anita, Anita, Anita!”

  “SJH, SJH, SJH!”

  Bobby kicked at the grass. You know what, Slimey? he thought. You stole my dad’s iPod, and all I did was keep watch, hoping like an idiot no one touched your stuff. He wiped the sweat from his eyes in case anyone mistook it for tears.

  “We’ve got all your toiletries!” Steinberg boasted.

  “Now you’ll know what it feels like to be dirty!” Totle shouted.

  “Yeah, well, we’ve got all your underwear!” Melman taunted back, inching closer.

  The boys marched past the screaming girls. Bobby swung the locket around his neck, so it dangled down his back, and averted his eyes. He was over this dumb raid war.

  As he passed Melman, he heard her say, “Slimey, check out what Smelly has hanging down his back.” Without even looking, he could feel a furious Slimey storming toward him. Her hair smelled like roses and chlorine.

  “You took my dad’s locket?! How could you?”

  Play Dough fought back. “You took his iPod! What did you expect?”

  “Again, this is between me and Bobby and no one else,” Slimey snapped. She finally looked at him, right in the eye. “Now give it back!”

  Because she was angry, Bobby was angry, and now he didn’t want to give back her locket at all. He knew how it looked, but was she forgetting who he was? Forgetting all the time they’d spent together? Did she really think he’d take it without a good reason? “No!” Bobby shouted back, the sweat really pouring from his eyes.

  “Are you crying?” Play Dough asked. “Rick!”

  Rick rushed over. “What’s going on?”

  “Make him give back my dad’s locket!” Slimey yelled.

  “Make her give back my dad’s iPod!” Bobby shouted over her.

  “Whoa, whoa, chill.” Rick put a hand on each of their backs and walked them a few feet from their cabinmates. “Keep walking, guys,” Rick said to the rest of the San Juan Hillers. “We’ll catch up in a minute.”

  “All right, girls, you, too,” Sara called out over her shoulder as she headed toward Bobby and Slimey. “Inside Anita Hill while I talk to these two.”