For Erica Finkel, my fairy bookmother and bestie.
PUBLISHER’S NOTE: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been applied for and may be obtained from the Library of Congress.
ISBN: 978-1-4197-2873-0
eISBN 978-1-68335-257-0
Text copyright © 2018 Stacy Davidowitz
Illustrations by Melissa Manwill
Book design by Pamela Notarantonio
Inspired by the original musical Camp Rolling Hills
Copyright © 2013 Adam Spiegel, David Spiegel, and Stacy Davidowitz
Music and lyrics by Adam Spiegel
Book and lyrics by David Spiegel & Stacy Davidowitz
Published in 2018 by Amulet Books, an imprint of ABRAMS. All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher.
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THE CAMP ROLLING HILLS SERIES
Book One: Camp Rolling Hills
Book Two: Crossing Over
Book Three: Breakout!
Book Four: Freefall
“The summer of the Meyer brothers is here at last,” Wiener whispered to himself, fidgeting on the porch steps of Bunker Hill Cabin. He was afraid to blink—he didn’t want to miss the moment his nine-year-old brother, Max, burst outside for his big brother–led tour!
Wiener had been looking forward to Max’s first day of camp for five whole summers, ever since he started coming to the Hills. And now, Wiener was in the perfect position to show him around: He was officially a teenager. His biceps were baby boulders. And, most impressive of all, he had a sauce girlfriend! Wiener put his hands on his hips, all superhero, and took a deep breath of mountain air, but—even better—his lungs filled up with his own man-smell: Swagger cologne.
“Hi, Ernie!” Max raced out of the cabin, a huge smile smacked on his face.
“Waz up, Max! How’s the unpacking going?”
“Good! I tried to color constellate—”
“Coordinate.”
“—but I couldn’t remember what colors go where.” “ROY G. BIV, man.”
Max cocked his head.
Kids these days, Wiener thought. So young. So much to learn. “It’s an acronym. Red. Orange. Yellow. Green. Blue. Indigo. Violet.”
“Then where do camp shirts go, and also, what’s indigo?”
“It’s purplish blue, bro. Indigo is a type of plant used to dye jeans. So blue jeans should really be called indigo jeans.” Wiener did not know why he knew stuff like this. Probably because at home he watched reruns of Project Runway for dating research, since women were complicated creatures. “And camp shirts can go in a separate pile,” he added. “Easy access for inter-camp games if you play on sports teams, like me.”
“Cool, yeah, that would be awesome.”
“Sauce,” Wiener corrected him. “That’s what we say here: Awesome-sauce.”
“Awesome-sauce.”
Wiener and Max high-fived, and Wiener couldn’t help but beam. “So,” he said, “ready for the tour of a lifetime?”
“Where’s the golf cart?” Max asked. “You said you’d drive me around in a golf cart.”
Wiener vaguely remembered promising Max a golf cart tour like visiting families get for official Camp Rolling Hills tours, but only TJ and the Captain drove them, so he didn’t really know what he’d been thinking. “Hmm,” he said, like their golf cart had suddenly disappeared, and that sort of thing sometimes happened at camp. “You know what? I’ll take you on a walking tour. With so many steep inclines, it’s important for newbies to build up stamina early. Follow me!”
Wiener led the way down Bunker Hill and up San Juan Hill, pointing out cabins and fields and courts. He was trying not to breathe heavily, especially since Max was climbing with ease—his mouth stayed closed and he wasn’t breathing like a monster through his nose. Wiener guessed that made sense. While his most rigorous cardio was walking the half mile to CVS for more leave-in conditioner, Max played junior lacrosse all spring. Wiener partly wished his asthmatic bunkmate, Steinberg, was on their tour, too, just to make him look better.
At the top of San Juan Hill, Wiener took a casual four-Mississippi pause to catch his breath, then he said, “So, I bet you’ll be insta-cool like me when I started in Bunker Hill.”
“Thanks,” Max said. “It would be fun to have stories like yours.”
Wiener smiled. “Like mine? What makes you say that?” He knew what made Max say that—the dozens of letters Wiener wrote him over the years. But Wiener was eager to hear which of his legendary stories Max was thinking of. It could have been Wiener’s story about how he started the Dandi-Tape Trend, a makeshift boutonniere made out of a dandelion and Scotch tape. It could have been Wiener’s story about how he got his nickname. (Wiener’s real name was Ernest Meyer, which became Ernie, which became Bert from Sesame Street, which became Oscar the Grouch from Sesame Street, which became Oscar Mayer, who is the Hot Dog Guy, which paved the way for the nickname that had stuck: Wiener!) Or, really, it could have been any one of the amazing anecdotes he’d written to his brother back in the day.
“You know, like the ghost story,” Max said.
Wiener racked his brain while they walked, trying to remember that one. He and the guys had told a lot of ghost stories last summer when they’d visited Camp Polio, the abandoned camp across the lake, but in Bunker Hill?
Max elaborated: “You told a scary ghost story and then one kid peed his pants!”
“Oh, yeaaah,” Wiener said, remembering that one a bit differently from how he must have written it. He preferred the Max version. “Totally epic.”
Now at the top of Tennis Hill, Wiener could see the lacrosse field up ahead, where his cabinmates—Totle, Play Dough, and Dover—were hanging out. Totle, the most athletic of the bunch and already tall, must have grown at least three inches taller over the winter, making him look like a ripped exclamation mark. He was playing catch with himself—throwing, sprinting, trapping, scooping, repeat. Play Dough, the hilarious leader of the pack, had maintained his robust figure, probably because he was always eating calories and then burning half of them with laughter. Even now, he was perched over the equipment crate, inhaling a hero sandwich. Dover, the cabin’s resident Eagle Scout, was trying to steal the hero with a lacrosse stick. Also, he was sporting a Jew ’fro that had gotten so much ’fro-ier, Wiener made a mental note to let him sample his best mousses.
“Want to say hi to my friends?” Wiener asked, even though of course Max’s answer would be yes. Wiener’s friends were cool. In fact, they were the coolest.
“Let’s do it!” Max said, right on cue.
As they got closer, Play Dough spotted them and called out, “LI’L WIENER!” He shoved his hero in his cargo-shorts pocket, ran up to them, threw Max over his shoulder, and began to spin. Slowly. “Dude, you’re heavier than your brother! Actually . . .” He dropped Max to his feet and pushed him and Wiener back to back. Then he balanced
a lacrosse stick across the top of their heads.
Uh-oh. Play Dough was doing the same thing Wiener’s gym teacher had done a few years ago when he and his brother were in elementary school together. Except now, the height gap had gotten even smaller. Wiener took a deep breath and let his spine grow like he was a marionette.
“No way,” Play Dough said.
“Holy cannoli,” Dover said.
“Such great heights,” Totle said.
Play Dough threw his hands up and shouted, “LI’L WIENER is BIG WIENER and BIG WIENER is LI’L WIENER!”
No! There was no chance Max was taller than him.
“The field isn’t flat!” Wiener blurted. Everyone knew there were no flat parts of camp, only hills. Plus, Max was wearing basketball sneakers and Wiener was wearing flip-flops. Wiener wished Steinberg were here to help him prove his point with science.
The guys just looked at him funny.
“I’m Big Wiener since I’m older,” he tried instead.
“Wait, I’ve got an even more perfect name!” Play Dough said. He threw his sandwich in the air and Dover caught it with a lacrosse stick. “Max Wiener! Get it? Wiener to the Max!”
Max giggled a yes. Wiener groaned a no.
“Does that make our Wiener ‘Minimum Wiener’?” Totle asked.
Play Dough exploded with laughter. “Okay, okay, never mind!” He pointed at Max. “Li’l Wiener.” He pointed at Wiener. “Big Wiener.”
Phew.
Dover tried to knight Max with a lacrosse stick, since there were no brooms or plungers around, but Play Dough grabbed the stick out of Dover’s hand to take back his hero. He took another bite. “Dude, it’s great you finally made it to Rolling Hills,” he told Max, the crumbs falling into the shirt folds on his belly. “How’s Bunker Hill Cabin?”
“It’s awesome-sauce! I got the bottom bunk by the front door, same as when Ernie was there. I even checked—same mattress! It says ‘Wiener 4 life’ on it.”
“Does it still smell like pee?” Play Dough asked.
“I dunno,” Max said. “Why would it?”
Uh-oh.
“You don’t know this story about your brother?” Play Dough asked. “Oh man, it’s a classic.”
Wiener gave Play Dough desperate Stop it eyes, but Play Dough was too busy flinging tomato slices into the grass to notice.
“What happened was this!” Play Dough began. “One night, I was telling my cabinmates the story of Cropsy, a lake monster who kidnaps the youngest camper he can find—which would have been Wiener cause he’s a year younger than us—and feeds him to his monster mother. The next morning, the lower half of your brother’s bed was soaked.”
Dover and Totle clutched their stomachs, laughing and saying, “Good times! Good times!”
Max’s face fell. “I didn’t know,” he said to Wiener without actually looking him in the eyes.
“The mattress has had five years to disinfect,” Wiener assured him, trying to sound chill. “You put your foam egg crate over it anyway.”
“True,” Max said like a question. “The story’s just different from how you wrote it.”
“Probably you’re thinking of a different story.”
“No, I’m not.”
“Yeah. Well.” Wiener didn’t know what else to say. He’d lied to his li’l bro. Had he lied to him about other stuff? “So, what are you guys doing here anyway?” he asked his cabinmates, eager to change the subject.
“Lacrosse tryouts are tomorrow,” Totle said, rapping his knuckles on the equipment crate. “I came to check out the new sticks.”
“You have to try out?” Max asked.
“Yeah, of course,” Totle said.
“Not you, Ernie,” Max said to Wiener. “Right? The coaches just save you a spot?”
Wiener’s heart started to rise in his chest. But before he could think of a reply, Play Dough scoffed. “Where’d you hear that? Big Wiener doesn’t have to try out because he’s the water boy.”
As Max’s eyes glazed over with disappointment, Wiener bit his tongue. He was afraid he’d accidentally spin another lie or stupidly defend a job any Bunker Hiller could do. “Hydration is key,” he finally muttered, figuring it was safest to stick to facts.
“Here’s hydration,” Play Dough said, emptying his water bottle onto Wiener’s head. In a suspended moment of wet, splashy shock, Wiener felt like he was about to scream. But then Max dumped Dover’s water onto Play Dough—and Totle dumped his water onto himself, Max, and Dover—and Wiener’s frustration blew over. They all ended up soaked and giggling.
Play Dough gave Wiener a whiff. “Honestly, dude, now you smell much better.” He looked at Max. “Li’l Wiener, does your brother reek of cologne at home?”
Reek? Wiener thought. You mean smell like a manly forest?
Max shrugged. “Sometimes. Once he wore cologne to school and—”
“The ladies loved it, challaaaah,” Wiener said, not wanting his brother to share the real story: He was sent home from school for giving his fragrance-allergic classmate inflamed nostrils. But that was one girl, one time!
“What is it this summer?” Dover asked.
Wiener grinned, unleashing his famous swagger as a clue: Right step. Bounce. Left step. Bounce. Always lead with the hips.
Dover followed him. Totle scratched his imaginary mustache. Play Dough bulged his eyes like, You weird species of camper, what are you doing?
Wiener stopped swaggering. “It’s Swagger by Old Spice.”
“You smell like a bunk bed,” Play Dough said.
“You should just rub against a bunk bed,” Dover said. “You’re welcome for the life hack.”
Wiener sighed. Even though he was thirteen and the rest of his cabinmates were fourteen, sometimes he felt like he was twenty and they were ten. “Guys, it’s a nuanced smell of pine and bark.”
“So, a tree!” Dover said, like he’d solved the world’s most difficult puzzle.
“Why would you want to smell like a tree?” Play Dough asked. “It’s not like girls go around macking it with tree trunks.”
“Well, there are tree huggers,” Totle said.
“I once saw Sophie hug a tree for a whole period!” Dover exclaimed.
“See?” Wiener said to the guys, but mostly to Max. “Case in point.”
Just then a bunch of girls passed by. For a split second, Wiener thought he spotted Missi’s wild red curls, but at a closer glance, it was a Faith Hiller in an Annie wig singing “Tomorrow.”
Wiener was excited to see Missi. They’d Snapchatted a lot over the winter, and the bunny ears and vomit-rainbow filters she’d used had made him laugh. On Wiener’s toughest days, Missi would instinctively send him a flute instructional video or a face swap with one of her seven cats, and everything would suddenly get brighter.
“Anyway,” Wiener said, going back to the cologne debate. “Don’t knock it till you’ve tried it. My cloud of spray-on macho is how I stole my girl’s heart.”
Max started to nod. Play Dough held Max’s chin in place, then faced Wiener. “Dude-a-cris, you got with Missi by chance.” He turned back to Max. “It was Spin the Flashlight, which is Spin the Bottle but with a flashlight. Wiener spun and the light beamed on Missi, so they ate each other’s faces while we all barfed in our mouths.”
“C’mon, she totally digs my fragrance,” Wiener said. “Ask her tonight.”
Wiener instantly regretted saying that. Even though he and Missi had been in touch through distorted faces, they hadn’t actually talked about being romantic. They’d only ever kissed once during Spin the Flashlight last summer, and even though Wiener didn’t want to admit it, he wasn’t confident that qualified as dating.
Two taps over the PA pushed Wiener’s worries aside. First announcement of the summer! He swung his arm around Max’s shoulder and the five of them looked up at the sky, where TJ’s voice seemed to be blasting from.
TJ: Good morning, Rrrrrolling Hills! First day of summer, and Mr. Sun could no
t be any shinier! The birds are chirping. The hills are rolling. The trees are treeing.
Captain: However, this summer is special.
TJ [like an echo]: SPECIAL, special, special.
Captain: It’s Camp Rolling Hills’ . . .
TJ / Captain: FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY!
TJ: Some fun trivia in the form of a rap.
Captain: It’s not a—it’s normal talking.
Wiener and the guys laughed as TJ beatboxed and the Captain read the trivia dryly with no rhythm at all.
Captain: The first bit of trivia is—
TJ: Boots ’n’ cats ’n’ boots ’n’ cats.
Captain: Camp Rolling Hills was founded by Cindy and Mark Rollinghillowitz—TJ, this isn’t right.
TJ: Here we roll, here we roll now—POW!
Captain: Correction: Cindy and Mark Finkel-Frankel.
TJ: Give it up for hyphenated names.
Captain: That first summer of Rolling Hills, there were only fifty-four campers. They enjoyed sports like soccer and basketball, and facilities like the Nature Shack, where there were two resident goats named Knish and Rhonda. Special activities included a camp-wide carnival and Square Dancing.
TJ: Dance, dance, dance in a square!
Captain: In celebration of fifty summers of Camp Rolling Hills, we will be documenting a throwback of such activities. This means we will reopen the Nature Shack, put together a carnival, and bring back Fufu and Stu, our Square Dancing experts, for a hoedown.
TJ: Fufu and Stu are nearly ninety now—say whaaaaaa! And Captain, what do you mean by documenting? Sounds invasive.
Captain: What? No. What I mean is that there will be a film crew shooting a new Camp Rolling Hills recruitment video!
TJ: Paparazzi, toot-toot! Who wants to be a celebrity? ME.
Captain: So, get ready for the summer of a lifetime as—
TJ: Hold up, we forgot to tell them about the surprise trips! Wait, what do the surprise trips have to do with the anniversary anyway?
Captain: Oh, um. Well, we need the campers to clear the grounds so the film crew can get their aerial shot.
TJ: Shot dibs on the helicopter ride!
Freefall Page 1
