by Jeff Strand
But Max smiled. “Good to meet both of you. We discourage long good-byes here—they make you weak—so if you boys want to take your stuff into the barracks, we’ll send your parents on their way.”
Henry’s dad popped open the lid of the trunk and Henry and Randy each took out their backpacks and duffel bags. Max had a sour expression on his face as Henry received a hug from his mom and Henry suspected that if a crowbar had been lying around, Max would have used it to pry them apart.
“Say good-bye to the old Henry and Randy,” Max said. “The next time you see these fine young men, you’ll barely recognize them.”
Henry didn’t like the sound of that. It could mean that they’d leave survival camp with a bold new attitude, but it could also mean that his face was about to be grotesquely disfigured.
Henry’s dad shook his hand, hopefully not for the last time, and then his parents got back into the car and drove away. Soon, they were far enough away that even if Henry wanted to run after them, waving his arms and screaming “Don’t leeeeeeeave me heeeeeeere!” he couldn’t catch up.
Max pointed to the second brown building. “Take your stuff in there and pick a cot.”
Henry and Randy nodded and went into the building. Inside, there were about twenty non-comfy-looking cots, ten against each wall. Only three of them appeared to have been claimed so far by three boys who all looked up as they entered.
“Hi!” said Randy.
Henry was immediately relieved to see that two of the three boys were unimpressive physical specimens like himself. In fact, one of them, a kid with short spiky hair that was dyed green, was only about thirteen. The other one was tall and gawky, with limbs that looked easily snappable. The third kid—and the only one who seemed remotely athletic—was probably a year older than Henry. He had the lean, muscular physique of the kids on the swim team and looked like he spent as much time on his hair as Henry spent helping Mario save the princess.
“Are we that early?” asked Henry, tossing his stuff on the nearest cot. They were supposed to be here by noon and it was only a few minutes before that.
The tall/gawky kid shook his head. “Nah. It’s just the five of us.”
“Are you kidding me?”
“Nope.”
Only five people? You couldn’t hide in the background if there were only five people! Five people meant plenty of individual attention! Twenty percent of Max’s focus would be on him! He was doomed.
Henry wanted to vomit right onto his new cot, but he thought the others might take that as a sign of weakness.
The door opened and Max entered the barracks, scowling. “Everybody line up!” he shouted.
The five of them lined up.
“As you know, my name is Max, but if you call me Max, I’ll pop your head like a ripe zit. During your time here, I am sir. Got it?”
“Yes, sir!” said Randy.
“Everybody!”
“Yes, sir!” said everybody. Henry was glad that it was the green-haired kid and not him who was a beat behind.
“The instructions clearly said that you were to bring no cell phones or other portable electronic devices to camp. But somebody always brings a cell phone or other portable electronic device to camp. Every single time. Now I am going to offer you an extremely brief grace period in which you can hand over this contraband because if I discover it, it will not merely be confiscated. It will be destroyed. Ten…nine…eight—”
Henry rushed over to his cot and hurriedly unzipped his duffel bag. The other four boys did the same. Henry removed his cell phone from the hidden pocket, his iPod from another hidden pocket, and his portable gaming device from the pocket of a folded-up shirt.
After he had collected five cell phones, four iPods, six gaming devices, and a laptop computer, Max lined the boys back up again. “Thank you for your cooperation. Now everybody pour the contents of your bags onto your cots.”
They each went to their cots and emptied out their bags. Henry wanted to debate the constitutionality of this search, but he also didn’t want to get on Max’s radar any more than absolutely necessary.
Max went over to the green-haired kid’s cot and looked at his things. He picked up a pair of socks that was folded into a ball.
“Jackie!”
“Yes, sir?”
“Why are these socks heavier than I would expect a ball of socks this size to be?”
“They’re thick socks, sir.”
“If I unfold these socks, will I discover more than just sock?”
“No, sir. The socks are also dirty, which might account for the added weight, sir.”
“You brought dirty socks?”
“Yes, sir. I waited until the last minute to pack and didn’t realize I didn’t have any clean socks, sir. And I get rocks in my shoes sometimes, which might have gotten into my socks, which could also explain why they’re so heavy, sir.”
“Since these are socks, only socks, and nothing but socks, would you mind if I threw them on the floor and stomped on them?”
“I’d rather you didn’t, sir.”
Max handed the socks to Jackie. “Unfold them.”
“This is kind of unsanitary, sir.”
“Do it.”
Jackie’s shoulders slumped as he unfolded the socks, revealing an iPhone.
“My, my, my, my, my, my, my, what do we have here?” asked Max.
“Please don’t harm it, sir.”
“Would you mind telling me what you were thinking?”
“Sir, I was thinking that I lack confidence in my social skills and I felt that sneaking in an iPhone would help me bond with my fellow campers, sir.”
Max snatched the phone out of his hand. “Well, Jackie, you’re in luck because it’s against camp policy to destroy private property. But it’s not against camp policy to make you do push-ups until you puke. Down on the floor. Now!”
Jackie dropped to the floor and began to do push-ups.
“You think that’s funny?” Max asked Randy for no reason that Henry could explain since Randy’s mouth had been completely horizontal the entire time.
“No, sir.”
“You want to get down there with him?”
“No, sir.”
“On the floor, Randy! Show me what you’ve got!”
Randy hesitated.
“I said…on the floor!”
“He can’t make you do that,” Henry said. “This isn’t the military.”
The words were out before Henry realized what he was saying. This was when he decided to have a surprising moment of courage? Seriously?
As Max stepped in front of Henry and fixed his steel-eyed gaze upon him, Henry knew that the next two weeks of his life were going to really, truly suck.
WILDERNESS SURVIVAL TIP!
An empty shampoo bottle can be used to make about one-eightieth of a raft. So when you go hiking, be sure to bring eighty empty shampoo bottles.
Chapter Three
“What did you say?” asked Max.
“Nothing.” Henry desperately tried to think of something that rhymed with “He can’t make you do that. This isn’t the military” so that he could pretend he’d said that instead, but nothing came to mind.
“No, no, please, satisfy my curiosity. What did you say to your buddy?”
“All I said was that, you know, we’re not in the army. This is survival camp. We’re paying you, right? To teach us skills and stuff? So the drill sergeant thing is fun and all—I’m not saying you should quit doing it—but you can’t really force us to do push-ups until we puke.”
Max’s gaze did not waver. Henry suspected that the thought process going through his mind was not “Gosh, perhaps this youngster is right.”
“Tell me, son,” said Max, “how far away are we from the rest of civilization right now?”
; “Very.”
“So what makes you think I won’t just kill you where you stand?”
“Well…I mean…we all know that you’re not actually going to kill me, right? I have a lot of dumb fears—you can ask anybody—and I’m not trying to say that you couldn’t kill me if you tried. I’m sure you could. But it would never occur to me to worry that you were going to take an actual human life. That doesn’t make any sense, not when you’re trying to run a business. I totally understand that you were exaggerating, but even if you just threatened to beat me up, you wouldn’t do that. You’d lose your license, right?”
Henry was sort of impressed by his own bravery. He was a completely new person. Maybe survival camp had done its job already and he could go home.
He glanced over at Randy, who didn’t look like he agreed that there wouldn’t be a murder today.
Max cracked his knuckles. Each crack sounded like a cannon going off. Henry suddenly felt significantly less courageous.
Crap! He was going to freaking die. Why didn’t real life have a restore function so he could take back the last thirty seconds?
“I’m sorry,” Henry said.
“No, no, don’t apologize,” said Max. “You’re right. I can’t kill you or hit you. All I can do is make your accommodations less comfortable. That’s all. Nothing more. Less comfortable accommodations.”
“Really, I’m sorry. I don’t know what happened. I think your testosterone level is contagious.”
“Less comfortable accommodations,” Max repeated. “Not a big deal. You’ll barely notice the difference. It’s not something to worry about. Please don’t let your stress over what I mean by ‘less comfortable accommodations’ ruin such a lovely day.”
Henry felt sick to his stomach. He definitely preferred the noisy Max to the sinister one.
“I’m really—”
“Do not apologize again. Apologies are for the weak. When the power finally goes out for good and the looters have broken through your front door and you’re out of bullets, saying you’re sorry is a good way to get a machete in the face. Jackie, you may stand back up now.”
Jackie, who had only done half a push-up, stood up and returned to his place in line. Max picked up Jackie’s sock, dropped it onto the wooden floor, and then stomped on it several times with his heavy boots. Jackie let out a progressively more pained whimper with each stomp. Wham! Eep! Wham! Eeep! Wham! Eeeep! Wham! Eeeeep!
Max picked up the sock and shook the iPhone pieces out onto Jackie’s cot. Then he folded his arms over his chest. “Here’s what you wormy maggoty slugs need to understand: I have to reimburse Jackie for that stupid phone now. I knew that while I was breaking it and I have a very limited income. But I don’t care. Those few seconds of destruction were worth it to me. And I may just decide that the crunch of a bone is worth having your parents file a lawsuit. So when I tell you to do something, you do it! Do you understand?”
“Yes, sir!” said everybody, especially including Henry.
“Do not expect luxury during your stay. The showers will be cold. The food will be disgusting. There is only one thing in the entire world that I truly fear, and that is the outhouse you will be using. Don’t expect to find the bunny-soft, fluffy toilet paper that you get at home; this stuff hurts. Are there any questions?”
“No, sir!” said the boys.
“Good! Now I will give you two minutes—that is one hundred and twenty seconds, exactly half of four minutes—to finish getting yourselves settled in. When you hear the bell, report to the other building for lunch. Got it?”
“Yes, sir!”
“But first, Henry, drop to the floor and give me push-ups until you puke.”
It only took nine.
***
“This isn’t so bad,” said Randy, chewing on a carrot that had the texture of a gummy worm.
“Yeah,” said Jackie, taking a bite of his crunchy bologna sandwich. “From the way he was talking, I thought it would be a lot worse.”
The tall and gawky kid, Stu, took a drink. Nobody could quite tell if it was regular milk or chocolate milk, but the general consensus was that it was probably milk. “I’ve had worse.”
Erik poked at his cherry cobbler. It had been sizzling when it was put on his tray five minutes ago and it hadn’t stopped yet. The tip of his fork was starting to melt, but it was plastic, not metal, so they weren’t too concerned.
Henry had not yet worked up the nerve or the appetite to unwrap the three foil-covered items on his plate. Strongwoods Survival Camp did not have a chef. Max had made their lunch, though he explained that they would be dividing up those duties for future meals. The other four boys had gone down the line with their trays and received their food, but Max had calmly said, “Here’s something special for you,” when it was Henry’s turn.
“Just open them,” Randy urged.
“Do it,” said Erik. “It’s not like he’s going to poison you. If he wanted to kill you, he’d just rip your neck open.”
Henry sighed. One of the items was vaguely circular. One was vaguely cylindrical and the other might have been a foil-wrapped starfish. Fortunately, none of them were moving.
“You’ll be sorry if you don’t,” said Jackie. “You barfed up all your nutrition.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“What you should do is you think of all the most horrible things they could be and then when you open them, they won’t seem so bad.”
“Okay,” said Randy, playing along. “That long one could be a tongue with hair on it.”
“Do you really think that helps?” asked Henry.
“Unwrap it.”
Henry pulled away enough of the foil to reveal that whatever was inside had at least one eye. He closed the foil and pushed back his chair. “I’m done.”
“What was it?” asked Stu.
“You can have it.”
“Thanks.” Stu picked up the object and unwrapped the foil. “It’s a fish head, like in that song about fish heads. Here, catch.” He tossed it to Henry, who missed on purpose but probably would have missed on accident too. The fish head landed on the floor, and an alarming number of ants were swarming on it before Henry could blink.
Stu grabbed the other two items off Henry’s plate. “Let’s see what the other ones are.” He unwrapped the star-shaped one. Each point contained a dead beetle and the middle contained a bigger dead beetle.
“That’s pretty gross,” said Stu. “Though not as gross as the head. We should have opened the beetles first so there was an escalation in grossness.”
Henry shrugged. “I’m kind of disappointed, to tell the truth. Beetles? Really? He thinks he’s going to break my spirit by serving me beetles for lunch? I watch Survivor every week. Dead beetles aren’t going to freak me out. I’m honestly offended by that. Max acts like he’s so big and tough, but this is something that I’d expect from a third-grader. What did he think I was going to do? Run out of here screaming? ‘Ew! Ew! Beetles! Poor me!’ If you want to know the truth, the guy is pathetic. Flat-out pathetic. If he was here, I’d laugh right in his big ugly face.” Henry paused. “He’s behind me, isn’t he?”
“Nope,” said Randy. “He’s still in the back.”
“Thank God. So anyway, like I was saying…beetles? That’s weak. I think he’s all talk.”
“He smashed my phone,” said Jackie.
“I think he’s all talk except for that one time when he smashed your phone.”
The back door opened. Max walked into the room and over to their table. “Your lunch is on the floor,” he said to Henry.
“I wasn’t hungry,” Henry informed him.
“In a survival situation, you maximize your food resources. If you were trapped on a desert island, starving to death, ribs about to pop through your skin, do you think you would throw a perfectly good fish head on the flo
or?”
“The head isn’t edible.”
“Is that so?”
“I don’t really know,” Henry admitted. “Literally zero percent of my life has been spent researching that.”
Max glared at him. “Sir.”
“I don’t really know. Literally zero percent of my life has been spent researching that, sir.”
“You can boil a fish head and make a perfectly fine soup. Or you can use it to attract ants, which as we all know are a good source of protein. Was your intention to attract ants to use as a good source of protein?”
“No, sir.” Henry was not opposed to telling a lie, but he thought it was best if he didn’t tell a completely transparent one.
“Beetles are also a good source of protein. In a survival situation, the man who eats beetles lives and the man who says that they’re icky dies. If you were lying in the middle of the forest, both legs broken, vocal cords shredded from screams that nobody answered, seconds away from death via starvation, are you telling me you wouldn’t eat a beetle?”
“Under those circumstances, I would gobble down beetles left and right,” Henry said.
Max plucked one of the beetles out of the tinfoil and popped it into his mouth. He chewed noisily. “Does that disgust you?” he asked.
“No, I mean, it’s not something I’d watch on purpose, but I’ve seen way worse on TV. I’ve seen people eat baby turtles.”
“Baby turtles?”
“Yeah.”
Max frowned. “That’s not right.”
“I’ll eat a beetle,” said Jackie. He popped one into his mouth and smiled happily as he chewed. He swallowed and then ate the remaining two small ones. “Steamed perfectly. Thank you, sir.”
Max pointed at Henry, getting his index finger a sixteenth of an inch from Henry’s nose. “I am not impressed with you so far. Not at all. You need to step up your game if you want to make it through these next two weeks. And I hope you realize that I’m just trying to make you into a better, stronger person, and I’m not a complete monster.” He tapped the last remaining foil-covered item on Henry’s plate. “Now, eat your hot dog so we can start our first training session.”
