Great: Derek and his crew stroll by.
“Brothers like that Ernest kid should have their Black cards revoked,” he says loudly. Then he turns to me, looking all fake shocked. “How do you not know how to swim?” He laughs.
Charles stops, turns around, and comes back. “His name is Emmett. You know, you should do a little research on the legacy of systematic racism that complicates our community’s relationship to swimming. I have a book you can borrow.” He lifts a fist in my direction. “Do you, E.”
Didn’t expect him to take it there, and it has nothing to do with why I don’t swim, but I guess that’s Charles’ way of having my back? And he called me E, so that was something. Derek is still cracking up.
“Don’t you have somewhere to be?” asks Brant, glaring at Derek. Derek and his friends leave, still laughing. Brant turns to me. “Come on, I don’t want you to lose valuable practice time. You know you can re-test next week, if you want to. Then you’ll still have a whole week to hang out on the Isle with your friends.”
I already know I don’t want to. And I tell Brant that I have a stomachache now.
He looks at me for a minute, then says “Go to the benches over there, take a few minutes, see how you feel, okay?”
I watch the rest of my class practice, and they’re giggling and splashing, and they actually graduate from the kickboards pretty fast. Brant is a good teacher. He looks over my way a few times with a question in his eyes, but I just look down and he doesn’t push it.
Right on cue, there’s Luke walking in my direction, carrying a bunch of blank canvases. I smile.
“Luke!” I call, and wave. He glances behind him, then walks over.
“What are you doing?” he says. “Are you supposed to be in the pool?”
I shrug. “Stomachache.” I waited for him to say something sympathetic, but he just puts his canvases down on the bench next to me so he can wipe the sweat off his forehead.
“It’s not the same kind of heat we have at home,” he says, “but it’s still hot, right?”
I nod. We’re going to talk about the weather? “We saw this amazing movie in Street Style called Beat Street. Uncle Davidson talked about that, and Triple M—well, I have to call him Mr. Micah McDowell, but everyone calls him Triple M—showed us a graffiti movie called Wild Style—”
He takes out his phone and checks the time. “E, I’ve got to get ready for class.”
I pull out the big Little Brother guns and slump down on the bench even more. “I’m having a hard time, Luke … there’s a … Mac-type here too.” I let out a heavy sigh. “He’s making me miserable and I don’t know what to do.” Okay, maybe I’m laying it on a little thick, but sometimes you gotta go the extra mile to get some attention.
“What?!” Luke turns and looks me full in the face. “Why haven’t you said anything? Have you talked to Marcus?” He looks at his phone again though, so I’ve got to talk fast.
I roll my eyes. “Marcus? He’s too busy trying to talk to every female staff member here to pay attention to me.” I look over at Luke. “Plus, he knows you’re my brother, so I guess he figures I’ll have you to talk to, but … you’re always busy.” I just want to hang out for a little while, like we used to. If exaggerating a little means that I can tell him about how good Street Style has been and how I’ve been giving Charles tips straight from the Luke playbook, and maybe get some tips for how to get closer to Natasha, well …” I sigh again. “I get it, though. You’re going off to school in the fall, you gotta do you. I’ll … figure it out.” He looks so worried that I feel more than a tiny twinge of guilt, but I remind myself that this is good for us both. We’re a team, and things work best for both of us when we focus on that.
“Emmett, E, listen, I know that I—Oh, good, here comes my intern. He’s a genius—and he’s into filmmaking, like you. Maybe you guys can talk.” He points to a group of kids. “Do you know him?” He’s pointing toward Derek and his crew, and I want to tell Luke that his intern doesn’t have the best taste in friends, but I don’t want to sound petty.
“D!” calls out Luke. “Can you help me carry some of this stuff?”
My mouth drops open as Derek comes up to us.
“Do you guys know each other?” asks Luke. “D, this is my brother Emmett.” D? And how did he get cooled up to just D while I got demoted back to the full Emmett? Derek and I nod and mumble in each other’s general direction. Derek is almost Luke’s height, and when he puts one leg up on the bench I’m painfully aware that I am sitting here in my swim trunks, in all my forty-second percentile glory. Right then I picture a Dictionary of Humiliation on top of Charles’s stack of books, with a picture of me right at that moment, next to the word puny.
Derek is clearly aware of my size too, because for no particular reason he stretches and stays on his toes like someone had just told him to explore the space, vertically. “Can my boys and I work out with you later?” he asks Luke. “The gyms here are unbelievable.”
Luke smiles and shakes his head. “This whole place is unbelievable. I love it. Sure, I’ll be there during evening rec.” He looks at me. “Want to come, Emmett?” I ignore Derek’s snort-turned-cough.
“Uh, no thanks, I’m busy,” I mutter. You know what’s unbelievable? My brother, consorting with the enemy. I look away.
“Hey, maybe you can help me with some photos and stuff, little guy,” says Derek, glancing at me. “I might make a short film about Luke for my camp project.”
A film? I look at Luke, who’s nodding and smiling. “Yeah, he wants to enter a documentary about me in the Showcase competition! I told him to find a real star.”
What is happening here? I’m the film guy, Luke knows that! If anyone makes a film about my brother, it’s gonna be me!
“Yo, Luke, let me get those too,” says Derek, taking all the canvases. “I’ll see you in a minute.” He glances at me. “Bye, Everett.”
“It’s Emmett,” I say, racking my brain for a good comeback. “Der … Der … Daren’t.”
No. No, Emmett. Just no.
Derek just raises his eyebrows and leaves.
“Thanks, D,” says Luke. He turns to me. “Daren’t? Was that because he got your name wrong?” He chuckles. “You got jokes.” He gives me a punch in the shoulder and runs off.
If this were a movie, I’d be throwing popcorn at the screen and booing because it was so unrealistic. But it’s my life, and I’m gonna have to do something about it.
Chapter Twenty
By the end of the first week, I decide that until I can figure out how to help myself, I can at least help Charles. Well, Luke can, even if it’s indirectly. “You got this, Chuck-dog,” I say. I’ve been trying to figure out a good nickname for Charles, but so far, he’s been stubborn and we don’t have one. It’s funny, we kind of have nothing in common, but we’re simpatico as Charles, (and only Charles), would say.
“It’s Charles,” he says, without even looking up from the book he’s reading. While we walk. He sidesteps a big rock without looking. I’m supposed to be the smooth one between the two of us, but I just tripped over a giant branch on the ground from last night’s rain, and I was paying attention. I’m working out some ideas for street style choreography as we head to Superhero Secrets, so to be honest, we both probably look a little weird. “Not Chuck-dog, not Charlie, nothing but Charles.”
“Not even C?” I try again. We pass the circus class; it’s trapeze day so there’s a lot of screaming and some cursing that I guess the counselors pretend they don’t hear.
“Not even C. Look, I like my name. Now, tell me again.”
“Okay, I think you should just … talk to her, but by talk to her, I mean more … Listen. Like, when my brother’s on the phone with his girlfriend, he barely even talks. He just says ‘uh-huh’ and ‘yeah, I understand’ and ‘you right, you right’ a lot.”
Charles nods. “What about the walk? How am I doing?” He takes a couple of steps like he’s in one of those Blaxploitati
on movies from the seventies that Uncle Davidson showed me. Is that what I look like?
I shake my head. “It’s time to give that up, bruh. I was wrong. Do your thing, and don’t be afraid. Ask her questions, listen to the answers, and follow up.”
“How do you know this stuff, E? Is there a book that I don’t know about?”
Yeah, right. “I just watch my brother. He’s smooth. His girlfriend is always texting red heart emojis, not yellow or pink. You’ll see. I’ve been wanting to introduce you, but he’s … working and stuff.”
We walk past some of the kids from my swimming group, and that snot-filled, “Original Pee Pants” Lance kid says, “Hi, Emmett!” really loud. I think he believes we’re actual buddies, not just forced swim buddies. I nod quickly and keep it moving.
“It must be nice, having an older brother at home. But when he goes to boarding school next year, you’ll have your parents’ full attention,” says Charles. “Take it from personal only child experience. That can be good and bad. Your dad will try all kinds of bonding things.”
“We live with my mother,” I say. “My dad died a long time ago.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t—”
“You didn’t know,” I say. “No worries. Mom says it is what it is.” I pause and say to myself, That doesn’t even make sense.
“How, um, old …”
“I was five when he died,” I say. Charles closes his book, sits down on a rock, and without thinking about it, I join him. “My dad … he never went to camp.” I don’t know what made me say that. Charles just waits. “Well, I think that’s true. I’m not really sure. But I do know he liked cheeseburgers. Or maybe bacon cheeseburgers. And Ma says he liked sweet potato fries.” I swallow hard. I stand up. “Come on, we don’t want to be late.”
“I’m really sorry, E,” says Charles.
“Yeah,” I say, not looking at him. “Thanks for … I don’t … nobody talks about my dad anymore. And I wish they did.”
Charles stands and pats me on the shoulder, then we both clear our throats and look out the window. We walk regular to the main building for our first session of Superhero Secrets, in silence. It’s not a bad silence though.
We pass Marcus, who is leaning against a tree talking to another counselor. She looks bored. I gotta say, he doesn’t seem to do a whole lot of “counseling” beyond banging on the door in the morning to make sure we get up, and again at night after lights out, to remind us to go to sleep. Maybe the junior counselors do all the work? My super-busy brother sure acts like he has a lot of junior counseling to do.
“I wish we had this every day instead of … other stuff,” I say to Charles as we walk into an air-conditioned lounge. No need to bring up swimming, even though I know he won’t be mean about it. “Only three sessions is kind of booty.”
Neither one of us has said it out loud, but we’ve been waiting for Superhero Secrets like little kids waiting for Christmas morning. I’d held the flashlight while Charles pored over his bound comic book collection until late last night. (“But we can leave the graphic novel collection out of this, I feel certain that it’s going to be more of a pure old-school thing.”) Turns out we aren’t the only ones excited. Most of us are here early; even the cool kids are curious to know what this is going to be about. Derek is here, talking loud about how he doesn’t want to be. Whatever.
Charles nods. “I’m hoping we get to learn spy stuff, like how to crack secret codes.”
Class is in a lounge in the main building, and there are plush chairs and couches and small tables around. Since this class meets by age group, I see a lot of familiar faces, and it feels good when a few people from Street Style say hi to me. We see Michelle and Natasha standing next to a couch and head in their direction.
“I wonder if we’re going to get some martial arts training,” says Natasha. There’s space next to her on the couch, but I take the chair nearby. We get quiet as a man wearing a very shiny suit walks into the auditorium.
“How to be the best you you can be,” he says. Then he nods and stares around at all of us, like he just made sense. “Ahem. Welcome to Superhero Secrets,” he goes on, adjusting his bow tie. He looks a little hot and out of place wearing a suit—with a vest—here at DuBois. But I’m thinking maybe he’s going to reveal a super suit underneath?
“Be yourself. Be positive. Never give up. We called this workshop Superhero Secrets because it’s about developing leadership skills—”
There’s a loud collective groan.
Shiny Suit Man holds up his hand. “Sometimes, you feel bad or you feel like you can’t do anything right. Maybe someone else is making you feel that way—”
Murmurs from the audience.
“Or something embarrassing happened to you.”
I keep my eyes down.
“Whenever you feel low,” Shiny Suit Man continues, “you’ve got to remember that no matter what, YOU CAN BE ANYTHING YOU WANT TO BE.” Then he starts a slow clap, and after we look at each other for a while, we join in, but even slower. How corny is this?
“So. Now I’d like you to spend the rest of the class period asking yourself: HOW CAN I BE THE BEST ME I CAN BE?” Then he sits down and takes out his phone.
We’re quiet for a few seconds, but after a while people just start talking. The counselors look at each other and shrug.
“Marcus?” I ask. “So … is that all … is this …”
“Yeah, I guess so,” he says, and he kind of smirks before he realizes that he’s on staff so he should probably act like something awesome just happened. He claps. “All right, people, you got your assignment, get started on those conversations! There’s not much time.”
“Thank goodness,” says Michelle. She takes out a binder. “I need to figure out how to stage the big dance number to end Act One. The two girls playing the Amys are great dancers, so I told them to make up their own dance, but one is all about ballet and the other one is some kind of tap champion.”
“So why not incorporate both into the number?” I ask, looking at her binder. It’s obvious no one’s doing that weak Shiny Suit Man assignment, so we might as well work on a real one.
“Duh, yeah, I’d like to, Emmett. I just have to figure out how.”
She tells me more about her play, and I offer to show her a few examples of moves and sequences. Out of the corner of my eye, I notice Natasha and Derek huddled up, which I guess makes sense because they’re both film students, but I’m a little paranoid. Is he making jokes about me?
Charles sighs. “I can’t believe I was so excited about this.” He takes out a sketchbook. “His suit gives me some ideas for a story, though.”
At the end of the period, Shiny Suit Man hands out a workbook called How to Be the Best YOU You Can Be and tells us to have it filled out by the next session. I flip through and see quotes like “Never let another person’s comments affect your self-esteem. Stay away from negative things” and “Stay focused on your dreams because they DO come true!”
Maybe this is some kind of secret superhero code, I think. Because nothing would be this dumb.
So much for Superhero Secrets. I guess I’m going to have to discover my powers some other way.
Chapter Twenty-One
I’ve gotten into a whole rhythm by the time Week Two gets going. I’ve been sliding away to the dorm room in the evenings while Charles, Michelle, and Natasha go to the game center every night. It hasn’t been as hard as it could be to convince them that I really want to spend that time studying Latin. At a camp like this, it’s normal to meet sixth graders talking about their practice SAT scores.
“See y’all later,” I say. “I’m gonna study a few root words before I join you.”
The things is, at DuBois, that could actually be true. Not that I haven’t been dying to see the game center, but I’m still a little worried that they’re just being nice when they invite me to tag along. I was the one who helped WeeDee and Billy with homework and studying for tests; I had a purpos
e in the friend group. Here, I’m just regular degular shmegular, so I figure they don’t need me. Plus, I’m hiding from Derek. But tonight Charles says he will literally come back and drag me out of the room and since I haven’t been working out like I meant to, and he’s been reading some book called Build Muscles While You Sleep, I’m taking no chances. After dinner, I go back to the room, do a few pushups, then head over to the game center.
And it is FIRE. Tons of video games, including a totally eighties section with pinball and arcade games like Asteroid and Pac-Man, virtual reality … Now I’m really overwhelmed, but in a great way.
“E!” Charles runs over. “You finally came to check it out—isn’t this awesome? Actually—what I mean is …”
I wait for another antiquated etymological term that I’ve never heard before.
“REALLY awesome!” He laughs, and so do I. Even if we’re a crew of two, we’re a crew.
He takes me over to the old-school board game room; I see people playing dominoes, Quoridor, and whoa—Boggle! Haven’t seen that in a minute. Card games everywhere too – counselors are playing Spades and some of the older staff are playing Black Card Revoked. Michelle, Natasha and some other kids are in a corner, playing Taboo.
“I love Taboo!” yells Charles. I’m about to tell him to play it cool, but Michelle scoots over to make room for him right next to her, so what do I know. I look at Natasha, who just looks back at me.
“Uh, can I sit here?” I ask.
“Sure,” she says, sliding over. We play for a while, then we all just watch an epic game of Clue happening a few feet away.
“It’s always Colonel Mustard,” says Michelle, shaking her head. “That man is a serial killer.”
“Yo, Professor Plum is a little suspect,” says a boy nearby, and the two of them laugh.
I laugh too, not because it’s that funny, but because I feel good. I have no idea where Luke is, or if Derek was lurking somewhere, but right then, I don’t care. I listen to some counselors having an impromptu debate on old school hip-hop (“Novelty Songs: Good for the Culture, or White People Food?”), then I get in on a dance battle scene from a Step Up movie three or four, we couldn’t remember), with a couple of people from my Street Style workshop. After that, I sit in a circle with Charles, Natasha, Michelle, basketball star twins named Tony and Todd, and a bunch of other people, reminiscing about our favorite polysyllabic words—it even turns into a contest. We are Blerding out, and I love it. There are bowls of potato chips, popcorn, and pretzels all around the room. Candy sandwiches—gummy bears melted down between two chocolate bars—on bookshelves! Some kids are playing group games, some are reading or doing puzzles and Sudoku, a bunch of people are just hanging out. Nobody getting pantsed or clowned either. One less fun thing about being singularly special at home was that singular part. Sometimes it was lonely.
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