Camp Dork

by Beth Vrabel

  “Well, whoever SSCPB is, she’s a girl.” Sheldon held his nose and swallowed a mouthful of watery orange juice stuff. A printed copy of the SSCPB’s blog post was posted at our eating area so we didn’t have to wait until that night’s screen time to see what the mystery blogger had written. I took a sip of the juice. I’m not sure any actual oranges were squeezed in the making of it. I grimaced. It tasted like lake water with a faint orangey aftertaste.

  “What makes you say SSCPB is a girl?” Amanda crossed her arms and glared at Sheldon.

  He shrugged. “The ex-o-ex-o. Guys don’t do that.”

  Amanda pushed out her bottom lip while she thought about whether that made her angry. Eventually she shrugged and scooped up some mushy greenish-yellow lumps that Mr. Bosserman, our elderly camp director, called “eggs.” Around a full mouthful of “eggs,” she shrugged again and said, “Kumbaya.” We kicked off our days here at Camp Paleo with meditation, which Amanda took very seriously. The yoga instructor told her that anytime she’d ordinarily grouch about something, she should chant kumbaya instead. Already, she must’ve said it a thousand times and it was barely eight in the morning.

  “Some guys do!” April broke in. She took a deep breath and smoothed her hands along her legs. “What I mean is, sometimes guys do sign off messages with hugs and kisses. I think my dad might to my mom. It’s not enough evidence to conclude that the blogger is a girl.”

  Amanda, Sheldon, and I glanced at each other under our lashes. We still were getting used to April’s new way of talking. I know that sounds strange. I mean, it’s not like she was suddenly using sign language or speaking Japanese. She was just talking normal. Only, not normal for April.

  Since we got to Camp Paleo two days ago, April has been different. When I asked her about it, she said she was “reinventing” herself. I figured it’d wear off soon, like when Dad was going to reinvent himself by getting up early each morning and exercising like a madman. (Seriously, he said it was called the Lunatic workout.) That lasted three whole days. He went back to sleeping in and grabbing a doughnut on the way to work. But so far, April was sticking to her reinvention. I wanted to talk to Sam about it, but he was still practicing last night when our hour of screen time ended. The gymnastics camp was in California, with a three-hour time difference. I crumbled up my napkin and threw it on my still-full plate.

  “I don’t like the way you talk now,” Amanda snapped at April.

  I shuddered, watching Amanda scoop up another forkful of “eggs.” I never thought I’d yearn for Autumn Grove Intermediate School’s turkey-ham. Or even Dad’s maraschino cherry–glazed salmon. A cracker. Anything. But Mr. Bosserman insisted that part of Camp Paleo was making our own grub. So each day began with dunking our stainless steel cups into a vat of what was called juice. Then each campsite had to alternate making the meals. Today was the group of boys across from us. The boys had poured the liquid egg mixture out of a gallon jug onto a grill. They pushed the pieces around with a spatula until it was solidly mushy and then dumped it onto our plates.

  Last night, we had hamburgers thin as pancakes served on wilted lettuce and a few carrot sticks. I don’t know what kept me up so late last night—the rumbling in my stomach or Amanda’s snoring from the bunk next to me. Or the fact that spiders lived right over my head.

  “Okay, camper wampers!” Jessica bounced up to our picnic table, clapping her hands and sending her ponytail bouncing. I hate Jessica. I know, I know. Hate is a mean word. Fine. I strongly dislike Jessica. A lot. “Who’s ready for a super-fun day, living it up like a caveman?” She did this strange little jig when she said caveman, widening her arms like a gorilla and stomping from foot to foot.

  You know how perky Jessica was when I arrived at camp? She’s like that all the time. Most of the camp counselors spent last night looking bored and playing with their smartphones. Not Jessica. She bounced around the A-frame adding “homey” touches, like posters of kittens and a braided rug. Then she made us sit in a circle and sing songs about paving paradise to put up a shopping mall.

  At least I’m not alone in not liking Jessica. I’m pretty sure Mr. Bosserman would like to pave her mouth shut. He now stood over us, his arms crossed, scowling at Jessica. Mr. Bosserman’s arms were almost as hairy as his ears. Maybe he took personal offense to the gorilla act.

  “Where’s the toast?” I asked.

  “Cavemen didn’t eat bread,” he grumped, not even looking at me.

  “I don’t think they ate pourable eggs, either. Or had this orangey-juice-stuff-that-is-definitely-not-actually-o-j.”

  Mr. Bosserman has a scary glare face. I swear, his gray eyes vibrated at me.

  “Ha!” Jessica giggled. “Such a kidder, this one!”

  Mr. Bosserman switched his scary eyes to her, not that she noticed. “Eat up,” he snarled. “We’re hiking to the archeological site today.” His eyes widened at Sheldon’s fervent, “Yesss!” and then he continued, “The hike’s going to take a couple hours.”

  “Hours?” I glared up at the sky. Clouds trapped the hot, heavy air like a wet blanket pressing against us. It had to be a hundred degrees. Both of my cheeks were sweating and it wasn’t even nine o’clock yet. “We’re going to melt!”

  “Fossils! Fossils! Fossils!” Sheldon cheered. I guess he was taking over for April’s old way of talking in loud, one-word bursts.

  “Come on! Quiet your brutzing.” Mr. Bosserman clapped. “We’ve got to get there before it makes wet.”

  Our heads swiveled toward him. “Before what makes wet?” Sheldon whispered. His eyes fluttered down to Mr. Bosserman’s pants.

  “Silly Mr. Bosserman!” Jessica bounced. She went to pat the old man on his shoulder, but he sprang out of reach with surprising old-man speed. “He means before it rains! He’s speaking Dutch again. Mr. Bosserman,” she sing-songed, “if you want the children to understand, you can’t use words like brutz. Say ‘stop complaining.’”

  Jessica’s perky smile wilted under Mr. Bosserman’s poisonous glare. Finally he turned toward us. “Put on some sunscreen,” he said and slapped a mosquito on his arm. “And some bug spray.”

  “Fossils! Fossils! Fossils!”

  “Cavemen didn’t wear sunscreen or bug spray,” I pointed out.

  Mr. Bosserman ignored us all.

  “Have you noticed how grumpy Mr. Bosserman is all the time?” April asked as we kicked off our hike down a stone and dirt path through the woods. At least it was shady.

  I laughed. “Kind of hard not to.”

  April giggled, too. “Like your grandma!” She paused. “I mean—”

  “Yeah, I know,” I interrupted before she could start over in her reinvented way of talking, which, seriously, makes every conversation with her last three times as long. “Maybe we’ll see Grandma on the hike! Jessica said we’ll pass through Camp eMagine on the way to the dig.”

  I stepped a little faster, thinking of Grandma. She had promised to check on me soon, but I guess she’s been busy being eMagine’s lunch lady. My throat suddenly felt a little smaller, like I was trying to choke down a rock. I imagined her heavy hand on my shoulder. I know it had only been two days—less than that, really—but I missed her. Maybe having her close by but not there made it harder, because no one else seemed homesick. I shook my head, as much to push away thoughts of Mom and Dad and my werebaby sister along with the mosquito nibbling on my neck.

  “She and Mr. Bosserman should get together. Can you imagine?” April giggled again.

  “All new levels of grouchiness!” I laughed. “I’m having a hard time imagining her cooking for those poor eMagine kids. Once she convinced me she made fried farts and onions for dinner.”

  April and I turned to the snorting sound behind us. Megan, the skinny silent girl from our cabin, covered her mouth with her hand. So she does speak English—or at least understands it. Megan’s face flushed, and she stared off into the woods around us.

  April caught my eye and smiled. Maybe she, like me, was th
inking of Sam, who had spent years barely saying a word. Maybe Megan was only shy until she had a friend. We slowed down a little so Megan would be more with us than behind us.

  “Maybe we should introduce them,” I said. “Mr. Bosserman and Grandma, I mean.”

  “Fried farts and onions would be an improvement over what we had for breakfast,” Megan whispered just loud enough to hear. All three of us laughed at that.

  Kira, who’d been walking behind us, bumped into my shoulder accidentally-on-purpose. “Ew, dork germs!” She rubbed at her arm, then flashed me a huge grin. Or, rather, smiled at April. “Just kidding, of course.” She straightened her bandana-style headband and kept walking.

  “We happen to like being dorks!” I called to Kira’s back.

  “Sure you do,” her voice floated back.

  I went to roll my eyes at April when I noticed she had her bangs pulled back under a bandana headband like Kira’s. Her face flushed.

  “What’s with the hair?” I asked.

  “What?” she stammered. “I always wear it like this.”

  “Since when?”

  She shrugged, then purposefully walked forward, shoulders pulled back like Kira’s in the distance.

  Maybe it wasn’t just her way of talking that April was trying to reinvent.

  I stepped a little faster, trying to keep up with April’s long legs. Soon the path smoothed out. The rocks and dirt gave way to blacktopped walkway. The trees thinned.

  Sheldon pushed ahead of us. “Fossils! Foss—oh, man! It’s just the other camp.” He jerked his thumb toward a carved wooden sign: WELCOME TO CAMP EMAGINE.

  Amanda let out a low whistle. She started chanting kumbaya under her breath and flexing her fists to stay calm.

  If I weren’t convinced a thousand mosquitos would fly into my mouth, I’m sure my jaw would’ve dropped as I looked around. Camp eMagine? It was everything Camp Paleo wasn’t.

  We walked through double metal gates onto a brick paved road. Adorable log cabins lined the sides of the drive. Each had flowerboxes attached to its windows with blue and yellow pansies waving happily to our starved, Camp Paleo–deprived souls. The lawns around the little cabins were emerald green. Trees taller than any I’d ever seen flanked the background. At the center, we passed a huge log cabin—more of a mansion, really. As we reached the back of the building, I spotted an enormous, crystal-clear pool, complete with sparkling waterfall and Jacuzzi.

  “Kumbaya! Kumbaya!” Amanda’s meditation sounded more like a growl as she hissed through closed teeth. “They. Have. A. Pool.”

  Suddenly my T-shirt wasn’t just sweaty—it was plastered to me with the weight of my body’s tears. I didn’t want to swim in cool, clean water. I had to. I didn’t even realize that my arms were rising, hands outstretched like I already was splashing in that gorgeous oasis.

  “Do you mind?” Kira asked, sidestepping away from my fingers. “Besides, it looks like the pool is being used for whale training at the moment.” She tilted her chin toward the pool and laughed.

  There, floating in the middle of that little slice of heaven, was Grandma.

  Grandma’s bathing suit was this two-piece combo of orange and blue tie-dyed top and skirt bottom. Grandma floated with her toes and nose sticking up from the surface of the water. Her damp hair flounced around in the water around her head, not in its usual wild, kinky curls. Huge, round sunglasses covered her eyes.

  “Grandma?” I gasped.

  Even with her ears underwater, she somehow heard me and righted herself. Her tan arms sliced through the water as she swam to the edge of the pool. I rushed forward.

  “Hey, Toots,” she said, like all of this—me, roasting like a marshmallow on a stick while she floated in a pool when she was supposed to be lunch-ladying—was somehow, in any universe, okay.

  “Aren’t you supposed to be making some tater tots?” I snapped.

  “Aren’t you supposed to be digging up fossils?” Grandma hoisted herself up the side of the pool and swung her legs around. “Lunch crowd doesn’t start until noon. I’ve got the mornings to myself.” She wrapped a towel around her body, tucking it in like a toga. Something about how she said “to myself” lingered in the air a little. She had used the same tone to complain about Molly going to day care.

  “Where are the other lunch ladies?” I asked.

  Grandma shrugged. “Turns out, they’ve been here every summer for the past half-decade. They don’t need another old fart like me hanging around.”

  I moved in and gave Grandma a quick squeeze, and only partly to get some of her cool sogginess on me. I squeezed harder when Kira snickered behind me.

  “How’s it going, kid?” Grandma asked.

  I shrugged. “Food’s gross.”

  Grandma started to reply but was cut off by Mr. Bosserman. “Ah, come on! Get moving, get moving, onest.”

  “Onest?” Grandma repeated slowly. It was like “one” and “first” mushed together. “Are you Dutch? Or Amish?” Her eyes were wide, like she had seen—or heard—a ghost.

  Mr. Bosserman crossed his hairy arms. “What’s it to you? Grew up outside Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.”

  “I went to Penn State,” Grandma said. “Ended up marrying a Pennsylvania Dutch boy.” April widened her eyes at me, and I shrugged. This was the first I’d ever heard Grandma talk about my long-gone grandpa. He and Grandma divorced before Mom was born.

  Mr. Bosserman narrowed his eyes and stared at Grandma like he was sizing her up. “Ever had shoo-fly pie?”

  “Sweetest stuff in the world.” Grandma scrunched her nose like that was a bad thing. “Made me want to kutz.”

  Mr. Bosserman’s lips twitched. “How do you like your pot pie?”

  “Slippery. Of course.”

  Now, miracle of miracles, Mr. Bosserman grinned, wrinkles popping up around his eyes like cracks in concrete.

  Grandma put her hands on her hips. “Know what I think I miss the most? Chow chow.”

  “Is she talking about a dog? Is this even English?” Amanda whispered to me.

  I shrugged.

  Mr. Bosserman shifted on his feet. “I got some canned, I think, if it isn’t all gone. Maybe I’ll root it up for you.”

  “I’d like that.” Grandma smiled. “If you’d share it with me.”

  Wait a sec—was Grandma flirting? With Mr. Bosserman?

  Grandma tightened the hold on her towel and looked Mr. Bosserman up and down, from his wide-brimmed safari-style hat to the short-sleeved shirt and the way its buttons pulled around his waist, then down to his heavy black shoes. She looked at him the way Mom looks at the poster of Indiana Jones hanging in her closet. Yup. Definitely flirting.

  “Well, we’ve got get moving. I’ll see you soon …”

  “Ich bin die Irene,” Grandma introduced herself.

  “Harold,” Mr. Bosserman said. He turned and clapped his hands together. “Get a move on, campers. We’ve got a lot more hiking ahead of us.” And then, he whistled.

  “Grandma?” I hissed.

  But she ignored me, lowering herself back in the pool and floating backward with a little smile breaking up her pruney face.

  “Do I even want to know what chow chow is?”

  I could still hear her laughing as we trudged back down the trail.

  Chapter Five

  Each evening, we went for an hour to the computer lab just outside the eMagine camp entrance. Usually this was awesome—a chance to sit in real air conditioning with electricity!—but since we had seen the gloriousness of eMagine’s camp earlier that day on the way to the fossil dig, I think I wasn’t alone in feeling a little bitter. Sure, electricity was nice. So was not feeling a river of sweat run down my back for the first time all day. But it didn’t compare to that swimming pool!

  We found spots in cubicles behind PCs, except for the lucky few who had brought laptops. They got to sit at a long table. April, who had gotten a laptop before camp, was sitting next to Kira. Kira’s laptop was pink. Gross! />
  “So, what am I missing?” Sam’s face blurred for a second on the screen as he leaned forward.

  I tried to ignore my sweaty, poofy-haired, bug-bitten mess of a face in the bottom right corner of our Skype connection. The only consolation was that his face also looked flushed and sweaty. I guess hours of gymnastics does that to a person.

  “Not much,” I said. “We looked for fossils today.”

  “I bet Sheldon was in heaven.” Sam smiled.

  I shrugged. “He sort of freaked out. You know that huge vein in his neck? It had a heartbeat.”

  Sam’s laugh always comes in bursts, like he’s shocked to find something funny. “What happened?”

  I closed my eyes for a second, remembering. The dig area was just a dirty patch of ground on the side of a small mountain. A ring of yellow tape marked off the excavation site. We broke up into partners and used little hand shovels and garden rakes to look for fossils, except for Sheldon, who had brought his own geological tools along. Amanda and Sheldon paired right away. Somehow April ended up with Kira, and I was stuck with Megan. I tried to scoot closer to the rest of my pack, but Mr. Bosserman snapped at us not to rutch so much, which Jessica cheerfully interrupted, saying it meant “don’t bounce around.”

  Mr. Bosserman crossed his arms. “Chances are you aren’t going to find much. And if you do, it’ll be damaged. So don’t get your hopes up.”

  All of us sighed except for Sheldon, who nodded and hunched over his patch of dirt with such intensity I could see his shoulder blades popping out against his T-shirt (which also happened to have a dinosaur fossil on it). “Fossils. Fossils. Fossils,” he muttered.

  I smiled, thinking about the squeal Sheldon would make when he finally found one.

  “Well,” I told Sam, “Sheldon found the first fossil, this little piece of rock with part of a leaf stuck in it. Anyway, he held it up, and everyone rushed him like he was an ice cream truck or something. Then he went crazy, screaming at people not to ‘disturb the excavation.’ Amanda lunged in front of him and made this little barricade.”