Shells, Smells, and the Horrible Flip-Flops of Doom

by Rachel Vail

  She looked at me with sad eyes like I was a camp failure, so I went quickly to my room and closed the door until we got told to wash for dinner.

  After dinner nobody came to look at my new collection of knights that I was playing with loudly with my door open just in case anybody was interested in joining in with that fun. Maybe it’s because so far I have only five. Maybe five is not a very impressive strike force of knights. But still, they have powerful weapons, and there’s also a dragon with fire painted many colors coming out of its mouth if people are so interested in paint.

  These knights could attack if they came to life. They would attack people who bother me. They’d protect me. That is why they are all set up with their weapons pointed out my door at night, instead of at me in my bed—just in case any bad guys or bad girls come over to my house for dinner or anything and try to get into my room, which I do not want them to get into even if they wanted to come in.

  It’s not just because if the knights face me when I am trying to go to sleep in my bed for goodness’ sake it freaks me out.

  Elizabeth is not even in the grades yet. She doesn’t know everything.

  July 19, Monday

  Olympics training week is this week. I have to find a way to get out of going to this horrible camp. I can’t do it, and I am falling into a million pieces.

  Cash was the winner of Obstacle Course. He won a gold medal.

  Second place, silver, was Montana C., and the bronze medal went to a kid named Koji. He does not speak a whole lot of English because his family normally lives in Japan, except for this summer. But you don’t have to know English or any math facts or how to do any video games, which I am good at, or be a nice kid like Mom says I am to do Obstacle Course.

  All you have to do is not let go of the metal bars and not fall in the mud.

  Those are two of the skills I apparently do not have. Add them to the list.

  Mud makes a sucking sound every time you fall in it, like it might pull you in and never let you out again.

  On the bus ride home, I sat alone to think of what to say to Mom and Dad that would make them let me switch back to Science Camp and not be disappointed too much in me.

  But then Montana C. plopped down next to me so I couldn’t think of a plan or even just be alone. We didn’t talk to each other until she asked what was in my hand, and I said nothing.

  I thought, Well that was a great conversation. Maybe I could win the gold medal in having conversations.

  A few minutes later, she said she would trade me her silver medal if she could see what I held in my hand. I didn’t want her medal (well I did but not as a trade), but her voice was getting loud, and it would be bad for people to hear a girl talking to me. Also I was tired.

  So I opened my hand and let her see my shell.

  “Wow,” she said.

  “Shhhh,” I said.

  “That is the most perfect-looking shell I’ve ever seen,” she whispered.

  That is why I let her hold it. Because she knew on first sight that it was perfect. She held it gently and looked at all the sides of it, then gave it back.

  “It’s my good-luck charm,” I whispered.

  She nodded and took off her silver medal.

  “No thanks,” I said.

  “A deal’s a deal,” she argued.

  “You won it,” I said.

  “Still.”

  I shook my head and looked out the window, holding my shell. If the only way I can ever get a silver medal is for somebody to owe it to me because I showed her my shell, forget it.

  I didn’t even say good-bye to Montana C. when I got off the bus, just “Excuse me” to get past her. Maybe that is rude, but we can’t all be medal winners in life, even in manners competitions.

  And that, I thought, was the end of that.

  July 20, Tuesday

  Wrong.

  “Justin!” Mom yelled from down in the basement last night, so I knew I was in trouble.

  I just didn’t realize how much.

  I walked down the stairs to the main floor wondering what I had done wrong, then spent a few minutes looking at my knights, which I had left on the living room floor, thinking maybe Mom would forget about putting me in trouble if I didn’t go down to the basement, until she called my name again.

  So I went down to the basement to see what I had done wrong.

  Mom was in front of the washing machine, with my wet suits dripping out of the washer, my wet towel on the floor, and Montana C.’s silver medal hanging on its red-white-and-blue ribbon from Mom’s hand. Montana C. must have slipped it into my backpack when I wasn’t looking.

  “What is this for, Justin?”

  I swallowed hard and thought about how to answer. “It is for coming in second in Obstacle Course in camp,” I said.

  Mom hugged me.

  She told me how proud she was of me.

  “No,” I said. “It’s not…”

  “It’s not gold?” Mom interrupted. “Oh, Justin, you don’t have to come in first in everything! Silver is fantastic!”

  At dinner, she and Dad both said I sure had made them proud and surprised them and that I was growing up so nicely.

  “I know why you’re surprised,” I said to my salad. “Because you thought I was a loser.”

  “Justin!” said Dad.

  “We don’t use that word, Justin,” Mom said. “And anyway it’s not true.”

  “Yes, it is,” I mumbled.

  “We just thought you were more of a…” Dad said, and couldn’t think of a word besides loser, so he looked at Mom. I looked at her, too.

  “More of a sweetie,” she said.

  So in our family that is what we call a loser, I guess. A sweetie. It’s almost worse.

  When I went to bed last night, Montana C.’s medal was hanging from the post of the top bunk, staring at me like an all-knowing Cyclops. And all my stuffties stayed at the foot of my bed, turned away from the boy who did not admit the truth.

  I stayed away from Montana C. all day today because now I can never return the silver medal she won and then slipped into my camp bag. I guess because she thought that was the only way I could ever get a medal.

  I guess she thought I was a sweetie, too.

  Maybe the one Olympics Training thing I am finally getting good at is hating girls.

  July 21, Wednesday

  Relay Races is Camp GoldenBrook for you thought you were swimming a lot before? Hahahahahaha.

  Relay Races means the same as it means in school, except at camp there’s the twist of the relay races being in the pool.

  While Mike the swim counselor was explaining about Relay Races, I was not paying attention because I was busy thinking about how to get out of relay races, like, maybe by a sore throat or broken arm, and also about what Cash had said.

  Cash thinks maybe the space between my big toe and my second toe is so large because when I was born, I had six toes on each foot and one was amputated and my parents just never told me because they didn’t want to scar me for life. And that would explain why I hate the horrible flip-flops of doom so much—because there is soreness where my extra toes aren’t.

  I was busy thinking about whether that might be true, and that is the reason I didn’t know why Mike was calling my name. Instead of standing up and saying YES! like I should have, I sat there confused and said, “What?” which was funny, apparently.

  It turns out Mike was calling my name because he wanted me to be Captain for one of the Relay Teams.

  If you are Captain, you choose which kids you want on your team. While you stand in front, thinking about who is good and who is bad and how much you like or no thank you them, the other kids sit pulling up hunks of grass and pretending they don’t really care if you pick them or if they are still sitting there still picking grass when most kids are already lined up behind somebody.

  When you are Captain, nobody has a chance to either cheer or groan when your name is yelled out.

  When you are Cap
tain, you can’t be one of the kids still pulling up hunks of grass trying to look like you aren’t wishing to die because it is just you and Bartholomew Wiggins and Penelope Ann Murphy left sitting, and if you get chosen after Bartholomew Wiggins or Penelope Ann Murphy, you might actually cry in camp.

  When you are Captain, you get to stand up in front of all the other kids (except the other three Captains) and think to yourself, which of these kids do I want?

  It is half great and half terrible, having that kind of power.

  July 22, Thursday

  Dad said I never got any toes amputated don’t be ridiculous.

  Cash said, “Of course he would say that, he’s your dad. He doesn’t want you to feel bad. You think Pudding’s dad tells her she’s a loser?”

  That made Xavier and Gianni laugh, but not me so much. I guess I was thinking about my feet. I never realized how strange my feet were before this, with the huge empty-toe space. But I have to wear the horrible flip-flops of doom down to swim anyway, despite my possible postamputation problems.

  Also in my family, we don’t use the word loser, so I am not allowed to answer about whether Pudding’s father calls her a … thing that I am not allowed to say.

  Probably if my parents knew a kid was being called Pudding in a not nice way, I would find out there is a rule against saying the word pudding, too, and then what would happen when my grandmother makes her special dessert? Would we say, Wow, Gingy this is delicious … goo?

  So that is another reason why I can never tell my parents that kids are calling Penelope Ann Murphy the name of Pudding and that it’s my fault. Because I don’t think that would be fair to Gingy.

  Actually, there might already be that rule in my family. Mom has a lot of rules I am not aware of ahead of time.

  Though if Cash had said, You think Pudding’s dad tells her she’s a sweetie, I would not have known how to answer that either. Maybe he does call her a sweetie. Other people’s parents can be completely unpredictable.

  Because of my sore feet and general slowness and lack of wanting to get down to the pool, I walked with Bartholomew Wiggins. He is in Shallow, too. But Bartholomew Wiggins doesn’t even care that he is the worst Hawk except for Penelope Ann Murphy.

  I don’t know how he does that, how he can smile like he is listening to a happy song even when he misses the ball that came right at him and makes us lose, and then Cash and Xavier and Gianni (and in the background Koji and me, but we don’t say anything just stand there with our arms crossed) all get mad at him because our archenemies, the Ravens, won at softball again.

  The Ravens are only going into third grade, not fourth like us. They are practically in diapers, and they beat us, all because of Bartholomew Wiggins and his butterfingers.

  While we played Knuckles I kept thinking butterfingers butterfingers and imagining if my fingers were made out of butter what would happen to them on a hot day like today.

  Me and Koji and Cash and Xavier and Gianni are the ones who play Knuckles every day now. Girls and kids like Bartholomew Wiggins are not invited to play. We are the cool kids.

  Being a cool kid kind of gives me a stomachache, but it is better than if people groan when they hear your name. I am the worst at sports of all the cool kids, so it is a very risky thing. Today Cash told Gianni to get out.

  “Get out!” Cash yelled. It was with a quiet volume, but it sounded loud like trumpets anyway. Like fire alarms. Even though he said it with a quieter-than-indoor voice.

  It was because Gianni said he didn’t lose a round of Knuckles when he actually did. Gianni always cheats. He hates to lose is why. We go to school with him, but Cash just moved here from Tennessee, so he’s not used to Gianni Schicci and his cheating ways. Last year, I used to wish somebody would say Gianni Schicci, you are cheating and that is not allowed or you are out of the game.

  Well, today somebody did.

  Gianni kicked rocks the rest of the day and squinted his eyes away from everybody. But it did not make me as happy that he finally got in trouble for cheating as I thought it would.

  What it made me feel instead of happy was that I could get kicked out of being a cool kid very easily, too. So I have to just hold tight to my perfect shell and keep quiet and pretend I get the rules and also that it doesn’t hurt when I get hit with the cards in Knuckles.

  This is more like Acting Camp than even Sports Camp.

  Unlike Bartholomew Wiggins and Gianni Schicci and me, Penelope Ann Murphy cries at what happens to her. A lot. Today after nobody wanted her as a tennis partner, she cried so hard her nose bled.

  July 23, Friday

  Some kids did Swim a Mile today. You have to be in Blue to try for it. If you finish the Swim a Mile, you get a silver swim cap and you rule camp.

  Gianni Schicci is in Yellow. He swam underwater when he was supposed to be doing freestyle and had to get out and be yelled at by James/Jay.

  After our lesson finished, we were not allowed to just relax. We had to go pick up the pennies that the counselors had sprinkled into the pool. I don’t know how people get down that deep—all the way down to the way bottom of the pool—but in my opinion, the counselors should not throw their money away like that anyway. Another thing I don’t know is if it’s their own money, or the camp supplies the pennies. I kept popping up with empty hands and lungs. I was the only kid besides Bartholomew Wiggins to be floating moneyless and giving up again. The lifeguards blew their whistles and pointed to me and Bartholomew Wiggins and then at the side of the pool. The lifeguards don’t talk. They just wear sunglasses and blow whistles. Sometimes they point. The regular counselors and the swim counselors tell us what the different whistle sounds mean. This one meant that Bartholomew Wiggins and I had to keep our feet in, but we were allowed to wrap our towels around us. We just sat there with cold wet feet and dry hot heads.

  “You still best friends with Noah?” he asked me after a while.

  I shrugged. Noah is my second-best friend, but my best friend Daisy and I don’t really play together or talk to each other anymore, so maybe Noah moved up a slot when I wasn’t paying attention.

  I was going to ask Bartholomew who he’s best friends with, but then I thought what if he doesn’t have any friends? Then he’d feel terrible. Or what if he wants to be my best friend? Then maybe I would have to say okay to that.

  So I just splashed him with my foot instead of talking.

  At arts and crafts, I made a bracelet for my mother for her birthday, which is this Sunday. Now that I’m going into fourth grade, I tend to think ahead more. Probably Elizabeth isn’t making her anything.

  It is made out of a lanyard with barrel stitch, which is harder to do than the regular stitch. Bartholomew Wiggins is very good at barrel stitch, so he helped me. That was nice of him, especially when I hadn’t picked him for my relay team or asked him who his best friend is or included him in Knuckles.

  Though maybe that last thing was more kind than mean.

  July 24, Saturday

  Tonight I am having a sleepover at Noah’s house.

  When I was younger, I was not allowed to go on sleepovers, but apparently I am old enough now. Xavier Schwartz and Gianni Schicci have them all the time. But I am not a big fan of sleepovers. I’ve had sleepovers of course but that was at my cousins’ or grandparents’ houses, and my parents were usually there with me. This would be without anybody who is normally in charge of me.

  Other people’s houses smell different, which is okay during the day but maybe not so good at night. Then when you are supposed to be sleeping, you can’t, and you aren’t playing anyway so really there is not a great reason not to be home safe in your own bed.

  Also those noises could be bad guys.

  And my stuffties would all be in my bed wondering, Where is Justin? Where is he? When is he ever coming to bed? How can we sleep without Justin here with us? They get very worried when I am not with them. They act all tough, but really they are small and soft and a little bit high-strung. And I would
not be there. The whole night. When I am away for the night, my stuffties feel very unsturdy.

  But most people do not understand about stressed-out stuffties, especially after their person already graduated from third grade.

  Mom called Noah’s mom to discuss privately her opinion that it would be a little hard for me to fall asleep over there without some of my stuffties, even though I am going into fourth grade and not a worried kid anymore.

  “Oh, no problem,” Noah’s mom told my mom. “Noah sleeps with a bat.”

  So now what I am worried about is Noah sleeps with a bat.

  I have seen Noah swing a bat—it is dangerous even if you are wearing a helmet and standing way across the diamond from him, like, at short center field. Just ask Robbie Cantrello. You could get hit in the stomach by Noah’s flying bat when he swings.

  Noah may be my second-best friend, but the boy does not have a firm grip.

  Also, why does Noah sleep with a bat?

  And another worry I have now is maybe Noah’s house is in a Bad Neighborhood is why.

  July 25, Sunday

  It is a bat stuffty that Noah sleeps with. A bat that is like a mouse with wings, not like a wood stick to miss hitting a baseball with—a soft stuffty bat with sweet eyes and a small bashful smile. So even if Noah did for some reason swing it, that bat would not have hurt me too much.

  He didn’t swing it at all. He just secretly hugged it when he thought I wasn’t seeing him.

  But his house is very cold in the night.

  So I might have developed a cold and won’t be able to participate in camp this coming week.

  Especially in either Obstacle Course or in the Horrible Game whose name I am trying not to even think because of the risk I might say the word knuckles out loud if I think it too much or look up injuries to them on the Internet again.

  As we ate pancakes for breakfast, Noah asked me, “How is Camp GoldenBrook?”

  “So far, so good,” I said. “How’s Science Camp?”

  He said it is awesome.