by Pam Withers
Camp Wild
Pam Withers
orca currents
Copyright © 2005 Pam Withers
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without permission in writing from the publisher.
National Library of Canada Cataloguing in Publication Data
Withers, Pam
Camp Wild / Pam Withers.
(Orca currents)
ISBN 1-55143-361-3
I. Title. II. Series.
PS8595.I8453C34 2005 jC813’.6 C2005-900787-7
Summary: Wilf figures he’s too old for summer camp
but has just what it takes to plot his escape from one.
First published in the United States, 2005
Library of Congress Control Number: 2005921298
Orca Book Publishers gratefully acknowledges the support for its publishing programs provided by the following agencies: the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program (BPIDP), the Canada Council for the Arts, and the British Columbia Arts Council.
Cover design: Lynn O’Rourke
Cover photography: Getty Images
Orca Book Publishers Orca Book Publishers
PO Box 5626, Stn. B PO Box 468
Victoria, BC Canada Custer, WA USA
V8R 6S4 98240-0468
Printed and bound in Canada.
Printed on 30% post-consumer recycled paper,
processed chlorine-free using vegetable, low VOC inks.
08 07 06 05 • 5 4 3 2 1
For Lucille Dougherty
chapter one
“Summer camp!” I roar at my startled parents. Anger surges through my cracked voice with such electricity that I don’t even blush about the vocal-chord break. “Why don’t you just send me to Siberia? If you’re so set on always getting rid of me, why did you even have a kid?”
That is going too far, I know the instant I’ve said it. But I’m livid they’d dare to mess with my summer plans without even asking me. A moment ago, they looked so pleased with themselves for having arranged it all. Then they looked surprised at my ungratefulness. And now they are both wearing a wounded expression.
“But you’ve always enjoyed Camp Wild,” my mother protests.
I groan. How clued out can she be?
“Yeah, when I was eight,” I blast back. “I’m fourteen now. Way too old for that crap. I told you last year I’d had it with that place.”
My parents exchange a look. That is never a good sign.
“Wilf,” my dad begins sternly, rubbing his freshly trimmed sideburns and tugging on his tie, which he hasn’t removed even though he has been home from work for an hour. “You know as well as I do that we can’t let you spend the entire summer on your own. You know your mother and I work long hours. You’ll appreciate the structure and opportunities. You may be among the oldest campers this year, but that can’t be all bad. Next year you can apply to be a junior camp counselor.”
“Oh, that’s rich, Dad,” I explode back.“My dream job, looking after a bunch of brats. That would be even worse than being the only fourteen-year-old at a little-kids’ summer camp. Don’t do this, Mom and Dad. You can’t make me go when you didn’t even ask me first.”
I shoot a sideways glance at my mother, at the beads of sweat beneath her pearl necklace. This exchange is getting to her, but Dad has that set jaw that makes me fear they really are going to go through with this.
“After what happened last month, son, we felt we didn’t have a choice,” he declares in his bank-executive voice, as though he is talking to a failed business owner looking for a loan. “You’re too old for a baby-sitter and clearly not responsible enough to be unsupervised. We felt this was the best option. The subject is now closed.” He loosens his tie as if that will force me to cave in.
I jump up and run out the door, my temper about to explode. I know what Dad is referring to, all right, but he never sees the whole picture. So I held a party at our house when he and Mom were working late one night. So what? A guy has to do something when left alone day and night by parents who are addicted to insane workloads. It wasn’t my fault that a few uninvited thugs showed up and trashed the place a little. But I cleaned up the house. I endured the lectures. I even put up with being grounded for a month. Not that being grounded was much different from not being grounded. It’s not like either of my parents cut back on their work to do stuff with me then. No, they just phoned me to make sure I was in my prison alone. They had clients to tend to, important clients. Always more important than me.
“Clients pay the bills,” Dad is always saying cheerfully. Like my parents aren’t so loaded that they can’t pay for anything they want, including a little unexpected house-party damage, after-school lessons or summer camps to get rid of me so they can tend to more clients. Getting rid of me is always the point. Well, they are going too far this time. I am going to have a good summer, and it won’t affect their clients one bit. They’ll see me getting on the camp bus, all right, if that’s all they care about. But the minute I get to Camp Wild, I’ll be plotting my escape. I’ll design my own summer adventure. I’ll do an instant graduation from Camp Wild to Camp Wilf.
chapter two
The stupid bus ride was three hours long. And that was just the first bus ride. I was never so bored in my life. I had nothing to stare at but my new compass, because books and me and moving vehicles don’t exactly go together. And Camp Wild, being a Nazi type of establishment, bans CD players, handheld video games and anything else that would’ve made the bus ride tolerable. I have to admit that the new compass is cool, though. A present from Mom and Dad just before my bus pulled up. They were obviously feeling guilty about forcing me to go to camp, but they couldn’t exactly admit that at such a late stage, could they? So they gave me a compass. Yeah, guilt is good. Very good if it gets you something slick. I said all the right thank-yous and I’ll-miss-you stuff, of course. Played the obedient, appreciative son to the hilt; I ought to be in the movies, in fact. Wouldn’t they like to know what I’m really going to use this compass for? Won’t they think twice about dumping me off next summer after they get a phone call from Camp Wild next week?
Anyway, here I am, standing where I was dropped off, thinking, after three hours on a bus, who needs a second bus ride? Okay, so it’s a 4x4, not a bus, and it has “Camp Wild” marked on the side, and it’s coming toward me across the parking lot this very minute. But in the end, it’s another boring ride to take me to a boring camp.
“Hi! It’s Wilf, right?” The muscle-bound guy driving puts the truck in neutral and jumps out to shake my hand. “I’m Patrick. Remember me?”
Yeah, I remember him from last year, sort of. Even though he mostly looked after the little kids.
“Yup,” I say aloud, but I’m busy sneaking a peek at the girl getting out of the front passenger seat. Okay, so “peek” isn’t the right word. I kind of have to force my eyes to the ground so as not to burn holes in her pretty body. I feel like a stick of butter melting in the sunshine.
“Hi, Wilf. I’m Claire,” she says, walking toward us. She is smiling and holding out her hand. Like an idiot, I hand her my bag instead of squeezing that delicate palm and meeting her hazel eyes.
She giggles and tosses the bag into the truck as if its sixty pounds is no more than ten.
I cough. “Sorry, I could’ve... Um, are you a camper?”
It’s not what I meant to say, but she does a tinkling laugh and moves away from Patrick, whose eyes are roaming the parking lot in search of more Camp Wild victims.
“I was last year but not during the sam
e part of the summer as you, I guess. This year I’m a junior counselor. You can make that switch next year if you want. This is your last year as a camper, right?”
“Uh huh.” Suddenly I feel like a little kid.
“That has to be Herb,” Patrick shouts as he gallops over to a couple hugging a boy goodbye.
“Herb Green,” Claire says, nodding toward the trio. “A first-timer at Camp Wild and a senior camper like you. In fact, the two of you are the only seniors this year. You are also cabin mates, so we’d better go meet him.”
I pull my eyes off Claire long enough to survey a totally geeky boy wriggling away from his parents’ smothering hugs. Poor kid. His parents are sniffling and making a scene. You’d think they were sending him off to the army during wartime. But he manages to escape them and walk hesitantly toward Claire and me as Patrick steps in to do the parental-reassurance thing.
“Hi, I’m Herb. A pleasure to meet you,” Herb addresses us, blinking stupidly and shuffling his brand-new white tennis shoes, complete with Velcro tabs. His round face and innocent expression make him a candidate for a Boy Scouts poster. He holds his slightly lumpy body as awkwardly as a heron emerging from an oil slick. Adventurous this guy is definitely not, I decide.
“Hey, Herb,” Claire addresses him. “I’m Claire, a junior counselor, and this is your cabin mate, Wilf, who has been attending Camp Wild since he was seven years old.”
Great, she knows my whole life’s story, and now Herb thinks I’m a Camp Wild groupie or something.
“Really?” Herb’s eyes light up, and he looks me over like a little kid who has just met his hero. I avert my eyes from his Mickey Mouse watch. “You’re so lucky. It’s taken me a couple of years to get my parents to believe I can handle being away from them for two weeks.” Then he blushes and drops his gear bag, which reads “City Bowling League.” Eight (I repeat, eight) books spill out. War and Peace is on top. Is this guy for real?
“I’m so glad there’s another camper my age,” he rambles on. “And someone to share a cabin with.” He’s blinking again. “I’ve never camped before, so I kind of need someone to show me the ropes.”
Ropes, eh? I picture myself handing him a rope shaped like a noose. I’m really not that nasty; I swear. I can’t help it if a picture like that drops into my mind from out of nowhere. But how did I get the King of Nerds as a cabin mate? And we’re the only seniors. Oh well. All the more reason to exit stage left as soon as I can. Let the little kids show Herb Green the ropes. He’ll fit right in with them.
Claire leans down to pick up Herb’s bowling bag and hoists it into the truck, then gives Patrick a thumbs-up. Unbelievable. She’s strong, she’s cute and she’s only a year older. Too bad I’ll be outta here before she can decide if she likes younger guys. Dream on, Wilf. She’s a baby-sitter. And you’re one of the babies.
“Two to pick up, and two now collected,” Patrick announces. “Jump in, Herb and Wilf. We’re off to do wild things at Camp Wild.”
My sarcasm detector detects none. My respect for Patrick drops like a boulder off a cliff. Is Claire in training to become a brainwashed tool of the regime too? Maybe I can save her from her fate, whisk her off the grounds before it’s too late. I flash my best bus-station grin at my three truck mates. Then I sigh and nod graciously at Herb the Greenie, my soon-to-be ex-cabin mate.
chapter three
The kids press around me wide-eyed as I strike the match. Slowly, carefully, I bring the flame close to my upper left leg, just below my shorts. I smile as I apply it to the black backside of the tick that has dared to bury its head in my leg. The kids “ooh” and “ahh” as some leg hairs singe. I’m concentrating so hard that I barely notice the obnoxious smell of burning hair.
“Look! It’s working!” shouts a little brat called Charlie Carson.
“Of course it’s working,” I pronounce as the tick withdraws its head in a hurry. “They don’t like lit matches on their butts while they’re feeding. You either smother ‘em with Vaseline or touch ‘em with a match to get ‘em to back out.”
“Why not just pull them out?” Charlie asks.
“Because the head usually breaks off and stays in,” Claire begins.
“And then you might get an infection,” Patrick finishes.
I pick up my half-fried assailant, show him around the little crowd as they chant “yuck,” then toss him at Charlie.
“Hey,” Claire chastises me as the other kids giggle and clear away, but Charlie, scoundrel that he is, catches the little bug and starts chasing some girls with it. He holds the tick high above his spikes of dirty red hair and waves it like a trophy.
There’s no putting off that little horror, who has been following me around every moment he can. He’s like an embedded tick himself, I reflect, but seniors aren’t allowed to apply matches to the behinds of first-year harassers.
I sneak a smile at Claire and retreat toward my cabin. Claire and Patrick round everyone back to their cabins for “quiet time.”
“Can’t believe we’ve been here only two days,” I say to Herb as I leap up the steps to our cabin just ahead of him. I throw myself down on my narrow lower bunk, which I claimed the first day. “Feels like two weeks already.”
“Nah, feels like two days,” he replies, scraping his shoes on the doormat outside for a full two minutes before opening the screen door. “That was really brave of you,” he adds. “I’d freak if I got a tick.”
“Yeah? Well you probably will, and it’s no biggie.”
“Well, other than ticks, isn’t this place the greatest?” he says. “Everyone is so nice. I’m having a great time. I even like the food. What’s your favorite activity, Wilf? Mine’s canoeing.”
“My favorite activity is quiet time,” I declare, hoping he’ll take the hint. I pull the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue from under my pillow and turn toward the wall, willing him to find another victim for his happy-talk. To my amazement, he crawls up the bunk ladder in his unsteady way and tucks into War and Peace.
My little notebook falls out from the pages of my magazine. I study it carefully. It holds my top-secret strategies in code. Looking it over, I figure just two more days before I pull off my sneak departure. I’ve been plotting like crazy. By day I go through the motions of a good camper; by night I polish my plans. My days go something like this: First, breakfast in the log dining lodge under the mounted moose antlers, where my motor-mouth cabin mate follows me around like a boom box that I’ve forgotten to unstrap from my shoulder. Next, archery class, where I am useless. Then, arts and crafts (give me a break), wilderness survival, first aid (I’m all ears in those sessions), sailing (maybe the knot-tying stuff will come in handy), and canoeing and kayaking. Now, canoeing and kayaking is where I’ve always excelled and where I’m hoping to put the finishing touches on my plot. Somehow, I have to find out what’s downstream. Downstream, I’m hoping, is my ticket out of this fun-park.
The biggest surprise about our canoeing and kayaking class is that Herb has actually been in canoes before. In fact, I’d say he’s been in them a lot. I guess his overprotective parents must have decided at some point that he was okay in canoes if he was within arm’s reach. Like a sea lion, he’s awkward as heck on land but astonishingly strong and smooth the minute he hits water.
After canoeing and kayaking class comes lunch, where my main project is spiriting away as many cans of food as will fit up my sleeves, down my shorts or under my baseball cap. The trick is getting stuff out without a soul seeing me. This, as it turns out, is where I truly excel. Although I don’t expect to be around for Camp Wild’s last-day awards ceremony, I reckon I’d ace the blue ribbon for food-supplies diversion if I were.
Afternoons mean tennis (yawn), swimming (Claire in a bikini: wow!), and free time (during which I stash stolen food beneath the cabin’s floorboards while Herb is out). Then there’s supper (more supplies to collect), campfire singing, and “lights out.” (I did mention that Nazis run this camp, didn’t I?)
A loud crunching noise above me interrupts my thoughts.
“Hey, we’re not supposed to eat in the cabin. It attracts rodents,” I quote Patrick as I watch pieces of potato chip fall past me.
“Oh, you want some?” Herb’s ugly, upside-down face appears above me.
When I don’t reply, he says, “Wilf, what are you writing in that little notebook of yours? How come you won’t tell me? You’re always writing stuff down.”
“I’m recording everything you eat, Herb. I’m an undercover junk-food policeman.”
“Hey, I need the energy for afternoon classes. And for getting away from Charlie. He follows you around too, doesn’t he? Is he really only ten?”
“So they say. I consider him the king of hyperactivity and the prince of deviousness. But he can paddle a kayak like a demon.”
“That’s ‘cause his dad taught him. And he likes you, Wilf. You have noticed he likes you, right?”
“Herb, I’m only going to say this once. I hate kids. And on the brat scale of one to ten, Charlie rates an eleven.”
Herb laughs. “Yeah? Well he worships the ground you walk on.”
And sticks to me worse than you, I think. Did I ask for two demented shadows?
“I’m going for a walk,” I say aloud.
“But it’s quiet time.”
“Exactly.” I heave myself up, tuck my notebook into my back pocket and stride out the door. I let the screen door slam. I walk briskly to the canoe house and step inside. The moldy smell of drying lifejackets assaults my nose. I scan the racks and stick my head inside the shortest aluminum canoe to inspect it. Too long. Good thing I know where the shorter, solo canoes are stored. I select two paddles (one as a spare), a lifejacket and wetsuit just my size, a helmet, flotation bags, waterproof gear bags and a bailer. I glance around to make sure I’m alone, then stash them in a cobwebby corner beneath a tarp. I pull out my notebook and start checking things off.
