“Look, Matt … You need to take this seriously. There’s a lot on the line.” He turned and looked out the window. “I didn’t exactly get permission to send you to this camp,” he said. “I had to pull some strings.”
Strings? What kind of strings could you pull?
“Just don’t wreck this opportunity, Matt. If you blow this, if they kick you out, or if you run away …”
“Uh-huh, I know. Alaska.” I reached for the handle. “I’ll do my best not to embarrass you.”
I pushed open the door and was about to get out when my dad grabbed my arm.
“Matt,” he said. “I’m not trying to threaten you. You’re just not making good choices. You’re getting involved in things that could send you down a road your mother and I don’t want for you.” He shook his head. “This is your chance, son. Please don’t throw it away.”
I brushed his hand off my arm and got out of the car. “I already said I’d blend in, didn’t I?” I grabbed my bag from the back seat, slammed the door, and started walking toward the buses.
“Matt!” Dad called.
I turned.
“We love you, son.”
“Great. Lucky me.” I turned again and started walking.
“See you in a few weeks!” he called after me.
I didn’t turn back this time. I just kept walking. I hoped ignoring him would make him feel guilty for sending me away for three weeks of summer. But that was dumb. I was going to camp, not prison. I glanced over my shoulder. My dad was still there, watching me. What kind of camp was this going to be? If it was a camp for rich kids, then it wasn’t going to be the military camp I’d imagined. Rich kids got cushy camps, didn’t they? It might be one for future business leaders, though, and the only activities we’d have would involve calculators and discussions on the economy. I shuddered.
That would be worse than military camp.
“Fit in,” I said, repeating my dad’s words. “Fit in or you’re going to Alaska.” I gritted my teeth, took a breath, and forced a smile. This was going to be a long three weeks.
Chapter 4
I headed toward a large man standing in front of the buses. He stood rigid, with that perfect posture you see only in movies about military camps. Beside him stood a very petite woman, or perhaps a woman who only looked petite because she stood beside such a giant. Either way, they both had clipboards, and they scrutinized the kids as they walked by, probably checking off little boxes beside questions like, “Is the camper wearing a sweater vest?” Check. “Does the camper have his pants pulled up to his armpits?” Check.
“Name?” the man asked when I stepped up to them. He was well over six feet tall and as thick as a WWE wrestler. He had a square, clean-shaven face and reddish-blond hair, cropped very short. He wore one of those safari vests, the kind with a thousand pockets; each of his bulged. I wondered if one of the pockets contained a list or maybe a diagram to tell him what was in the other pockets.
“Matt,” I said.
He lowered his clipboard and glared at me as if trying to burn holes in my face. He spoke each word like it was its own sentence. “Matt. What.”
I hadn’t noticed when he first spoke, but he had a slight accent. We had a substitute teacher from South Africa once, and this guy sounded the same. I rolled my eyes at him, and the woman smiled.
“Matt Cambridge,” I said.
The muscles in his jaw clenched, and he turned back to his clipboard. He slid the pencil down the page and stopped, presumably at my name. His brow furrowed, and then he looked back at me. “You’re Matthew Cambridge?”
I put my arms out to the side. “In the flesh. But please, no autographs.”
The woman smiled again and made another note on her clipboard.
Safari Man glanced over my shoulder and looked right, then left. “Where are your parents?”
“My dad just dropped me off.”
“He what?” The man’s face flushed, and his knuckles whitened around his pencil. “He’s gone? Parents are supposed to check their kids in before leaving.”
I shrugged.
The woman made more notes on her clipboard, which seemed to have a calming effect on Safari Man. Another man, this one wearing dress pants and a dress shirt with rolled-up sleeves, strolled over, and Safari Man tapped the clipboard with his pencil.
The man in the dress shirt glanced at him casually and then turned back to me and smiled. “Welcome to camp, Matthew. Is everything okay?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe you should ask the Crocodile Hunter here. Apparently, he thought my dad was coming to camp with me.”
Safari Man’s pencil snapped in his hand, and the woman at his side chuckled.
“Ms. Sani,” the second man said, his tone cool and even. “Most of our campers are … less outspoken than Mr. Cambridge.”
The woman waved her hand. “Save it, Mr. Dalson.” She turned to me. “Matt, is it?”
I nodded.
“Are you looking forward to camp, Matt?”
“Oh yeah.” I rubbed my hands together. “Maybe I’ll get a cabin with a kid who farts too much or maybe I’ll swim in a lake filled with leeches or eat some disgusting food that makes the cafeteria at my old school look like fine dining.”
She laughed some more and then scribbled something at the bottom of the page. Then she pulled the paper from her clipboard and handed it to the man she had called Mr. Dalson.
He took the sheet, but for a moment kept his gaze fixed on me. His eyes were gray, like the sky before a storm. My usual scoff-at-authority attitude shrank.
I could almost hear Dad’s voice in the back of my mind. Way to go, son. Not even at the camp yet and already completely ignoring the one thing I asked of you—blend in. Make sure you pack your parka. Alaska’s cold this time of year.
Dalson’s gaze lowered and settled on the paper. Then he blinked. “I don’t understand.” He turned back to the woman. “We’re approved? You made it seem like it could take a while. Weeks maybe.”
She pointed at the paper. “It’s a preliminary approval. I’ll stop by toward the end of the summer and reassess.” Dalson glanced back at the page, and she added, “Relax. It’s just a formality.” She gestured around the parking lot. “You have dozens of counselors, far more than the minimum requirement. Your campers look happy. The parents I’ve spoken to seem satisfied, and the camp is probably one of the nicest ones on the west coast.”
That was a relief.
“The only thing you were missing,” she continued, “was campers like Matt.”
Dalson looked at me and then back at the woman. Safari Man looked doubly confused.
The woman sighed. “Do you know how many camps I look into, Mr. Dalson?” She tapped her clipboard. “Dozens and dozens every year.” She swept her hand behind her at the kids getting sorted onto buses. “And do you know how many of those have campers as wholeheartedly enthusiastic as yours?”
Dalson shook his head.
“None,” she said. “I was starting to get a very bad feeling about this place until this kid came along.” She smiled at me and then picked up her briefcase. “All camps have kids who don’t want to be there. Kids whose parents make them go.” She pointed at me. “You’re not here because you want to be, are you?”
I shook my head. “Nope.”
“Punishment?” she asked.
I nodded. “Yep.”
“What did you do?”
I shrugged. “I nearly killed a gymnasium full of middle-school kids.”
Her eyebrows rose, and then she smiled and looked at Mr. Dalson. “See? He’s the one I was waiting to see. If you have one, you’ll have more than one.” She nodded at me. “Have fun, Matt Cambridge. Perhaps I’ll see you when I come for the final check.”
“Yeah, sure,” I said.
She smiled, then nodded at Mr. Dalson and Safari Man, walked straight to a white car with a rusted bumper, and drove away.
“Nicely done, Matt. We weren’t sure why she was taking so long wit
h our approval. We’ll have to work on camper appearance.” He extended his hand. “I’m Dalson.” He nodded to Safari Man. “And this is Smith.”
“You will call me sir,” Smith added roughly. He glanced in the direction the woman had driven. “That was pretty gutsy. I thought you were blowing the whole thing. I was this close to throttling you.” He held up his thumb and forefinger an inch apart.
Throttling me? I swallowed. Was he seriously telling me that he had been seconds away from strangling me? I shook my head. It must mean something different in whatever country he was from. The two men stood there staring at me for a moment, so I said, “Um, no problem.”
“We were wondering who you were, Matt,” Dalson said. “We saw your name on the list as a late registration. Your rankings are pretty impressive. I guess after that, I understand why.” He looked at Mr. Smith. “A real outside-the-box thinker, wouldn’t you say?”
Mr. Smith grunted approvingly.
“Well, it took real guts to talk to her like that,” Dalson continued. “And talk to Smith like that.” He frowned and looked me up and down, then said, “You’ll be a Delta, of course. We were going to have five this year anyway.”
I had no idea what they were talking about, but the way they spoke made me think they expected me to understand completely. “Er, thank you.”
Mr. Smith pointed at the buses. “You’re on Bus Two, Matt Cambridge.”
I nodded, then turned and headed for my ride. Dad had said there’d be things I wouldn’t understand, but I was getting the distinct impression he had understated that point considerably. The other kids seemed confident and excited.
No more mouthing off, I decided. I hadn’t even gotten to the camp yet, and I’d already almost been throttled by a counselor. I suddenly realized I didn’t know if they were camp counselors or camp directors—Mr. Smith could be the camp nurse for all I knew. But from now on, I was going to stay in the background. Blend in and just get through these few weeks.
Chapter 5
I slipped into an empty seat toward the middle of the bus. There were about a dozen kids already on board. Some looked like they might be a year or two older than me, and others looked like they might be as young as ten. The first thing I noticed, though, was that they weren’t smiling the way they had been outside. Some scowled, while others wore expressions like blocks of concrete. Even the kids who looked a couple years younger than me looked like they weren’t to be messed with. I wondered if Dad had inadvertently snuck me into a camp for rich kids with bipolar disorder. I’d heard people like that can have unexpectedly drastic mood changes.
I lowered my head and pretended not to notice.
I hadn’t been sitting more than a minute when a kid my age, maybe a year older, marched from somewhere in the back of the bus and stopped in the aisle beside me.
“You’re in my seat, fish.” He was bigger than me, but not by much. His blond hair was cropped short, and he had dark eyes. Brown probably, but they looked almost black.
I’d seen enough prison movies to know that “fish” was something you called the new guy, but I’d never heard another kid use it. I decided to ignore him.
“Hey.” He poked me in the arm. “I’m talking to you, newbie.”
I sighed and stood up. “Your seat?”
He nodded. “Yeah, that’s right.”
“Fine.” I grabbed my bag and heaved it across the aisle.
“That’s my seat too,” he said.
“C’mon, Chase,” a thin but tough-looking boy said from a few seats back. “Leave the new kid alone. We haven’t even gotten to camp yet.”
“Best behavior until we’re on the bus,” Chase said. He spoke like he was reciting a rule. He waved his hand around like a magician who’d just conjured his surroundings. “We’re on the bus now, wouldn’t you say?”
I was getting tired of this kid. I pointed behind him. “What about that seat? Is it yours too?”
He stared at me and nodded with an evil smirk that, combined with his overly dark eyes, made him look like one of those demon-human hybrids you see on late-night TV. I took a slow breath and could feel the collective gaze of everyone on the bus. I wasn’t interested in fighting this kid. He looked tougher than me. But I knew bullies. In elementary school there had been one in my class, Benjamin Bertem. He used to pick on a bunch of us until one day when we waited for him after school and beat him up, five against one. Yeah, yeah, it wasn’t a fair fight. We were all hauled down to the principal’s office and had to write letters of apology to Ben. But after that, he never bothered us again.
Bullies are like hyenas. They pick out the weak one in the group and attack. If you make it known you’re not going to put up with it, they move on.
I rolled my shoulder and thought, Sorry, Dad, then turned and glared at Chase.
“Well if that’s your seat,” I shifted my weight from my heels to the balls of my feet, “maybe you should have a seat.” I lunged at him full force, arms stretched out. I figured I’d probably get a bit of a beating, so I wanted this hit to count.
I’m not entirely sure what happened. He moved, or maybe I slipped, but one second I was rushing into him, and the next I was upside down, my face pressed against the floor between two seats across the aisle. Chase gripped one of my legs, holding it up so I couldn’t right myself, and with his free hand, he pounded me in the ribs over and over. His fist felt like it had been dipped in cement. I yelped and squirmed, thrashing around like a hooked fish.
“C’mon, Chase,” I heard someone say. “Let ’im go.”
Chase laughed and shouted something I couldn’t make out, but as he did, he stopped hitting me long enough for me to twist my hips and place my hands on the floor beside my face. I drew the knee of my free leg up to my chest and lunged back as hard as I could. I hit him, he dropped my leg, and I landed on the floor of the bus. I pulled myself to my feet, spun around, and swung my fist where I imagined Chase’s face would be.
My fist slammed into the palm of a very large hand owned by a guy wearing a safari vest. My mouth and eyes widened in the same instant.
“What are you two doing?” Mr. Smith snapped. He stood between me and Chase, one hand clenched around my fist and the other hand on Chase’s chest, holding him back. Blood trailed from Chase’s nose. “That woman from the accreditation association hasn’t been gone five minutes.” His voice was as rough as sandpaper, and his grip tightened with each syllable. “What if she’d come back? What if she’d seen you two?” He glared murderously at Chase, then me. “You know what’s at stake. This is your future we’re building, and I have no patience for little brats who want to sabotage this organization. Understood?”
Chase sighed. “Yes, sir.”
I blinked. I guessed there was only so much bloodshed allowed before accreditation was rejected. That, or Smith was really worried about lawsuits. It’s a camp for rich punks, I remembered; they’d probably sue for too much pulp in their orange juice.
Smith glared at me, and his grip coiled tighter over my fist. “Well?”
I winced. “Y—yes, sir.”
He gave us both a shove and said, “Sit down and shut up. Unauthorized violence is not permitted. Not here. Not at camp.” He glared at us again, and when he spoke next, it was through clenched teeth. “Break that rule and I’ll see to it you’re both kicked out of the program. Capisce?”
Chase paled, then nodded and sulked back to his seat. Smith turned to me, and I quickly grabbed my bag and slipped back into my original seat. I’d only been part of this camp for ten minutes, and already I had half a dozen questions rattling around my skull. None of them made much sense. No unauthorized violence? Did that mean there would be authorized violence at the camp? I wasn’t looking forward to that. I was never any good at wrestling or boxing. Why had Smith and Dalson seemed so pleased with my sarcastic comments to the lady in the parking lot? Was this some kind of comedy camp? If so, I’d be golden. And what was the deal with these campers? One minute they were prac
tically skipping around the buses holding hands and braiding each other’s hair, and the next they looked like a group therapy session for kids with anger management issues. Probably not a comedy camp, then.
“That was a lucky kick.” The voice came from over my shoulder, and I turned to see a girl staring back at me. She had light blue eyes and dark hair pulled back into a ponytail. Her skin was the color of toffee. “Still,” she added with a grin, “it was nice to see Chase take a shoe to the side of the head.”
I shrugged. “Thanks. I guess.”
“I’m Rylee.” She reached over the seat and held her hand out. “I kind of pride myself on knowing who’s who, and I don’t think we’ve met.”
“I’m Matt,” I said shaking her hand. “And no, we haven’t met. This is my first time.”
She nodded. “That explains it.”
“What?”
“Why you tried to fight Chase.” She glanced over her shoulder. “You didn’t know better.”
I felt my brow furrow.
“He’s a Delta. He’s not going to make things very comfortable for you. My advice?” She leaned closer to my seat. “Either hope another Delta picks you, or make yourself scarce for the next three weeks and hope Chase forgets your name.” She made a face at me. “But if I’m being honest, I think you might be in real trouble.” She smiled again. “Don’t sweat it. Maybe another Delta will pick you.”
“I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about,” I said. I glanced over Rylee’s shoulder. Chase was eyeing me the way a Rottweiler would eye a squirrel. “What’s his problem, anyway?”
“The last three camps, he’s come in second in team challenges.” Her eyes shifted back and forth. “Second. Three times in a row. So he takes that anger out on others. Especially new kids. Plus, he’s a sociopath.” If she was joking, she needed to do some work on her delivery. The way she said it made me think not only that she was serious, but that being a sociopath was entirely normal. “It’s good to have at least one sociopath on each team. You never know when a team challenge might require you to do something someone with a conscience might have a problem with.”
Disruption Page 2
