All thoughts of Ashley Woodstone left me and I got caught up in cheering along with everyone else.
“That’s what I’m talking about!” Jimmy said. “You’re all very special campers, and you’ll be getting to know each other throughout the day, but before we get to that, I have a special surprise for you.”
His hand was on the curtain. Suddenly I was convinced Robert Drill was behind there. He had to be here somewhere. I knew he had a business to run, but this was his camp. There was no way he was going to miss the first day without making an appearance.
“Did somebody say Ashley Woodstone?”
Literally no one had said Ashley Woodstone, and yet I’d never seen a crowd grow suddenly so alert so quickly before. Everybody turned toward the door at the sound of her voice, and there she stood. Movie star Ashley Woodstone, in the flesh. The first thing I noticed about her—and there was a lot to notice—was her smile. It was the biggest thing she was wearing.
And then I noticed what she was actually wearing. It was a ridiculous outfit. By my count she was offending at least three different people in the audience. She wore a gigantic fur coat, lederhosen, and a Tupac Shakur T-shirt. I wasn’t sure how the Tupac shirt was offensive, but since she was a white girl born way after his death, surely it had to be.
She walked down the center aisle, trailed by an entourage of three people: a gawky man sweating in a three-piece suit, a woman with big hair, and a huge man who looked like he was maybe chiseled out of stone.
Ashley stood before the curtain, her three companions standing aside. Jimmy stepped off the stage like he didn’t want to get in the way. This was definitely not the surprise he had in mind for us.
“Hello, new friends!” Ashley said. “I know what you all must be thinking. ‘How does she get her hair like that?’ Well, that would be the work of my fabulous hairstylist, Angela, over there.”
Angela, the woman with the big hair, waved, and Ashley clapped. “Give it up for Angela!” The campers followed her instruction and clapped. “Standing next to her is Harold Barbowitz, lawyer extraordinaire.” More scattered applause. “And there’s Pika, my bodyguard. Unfortunately, Harold and Angela can’t be here all summer long, but they have graciously agreed to help me demonstrate just what my cause is all about.”
“This should be interesting,” Win whispered.
“My campaign is called Eat Dirt. I know what you’re asking yourselves. ‘Does Ashley Woodstone actually want us to eat dirt? Is that what she’s saying? That sounds kinda kooky.’ Well, friends … that’s exactly what I’m saying!”
Ashley paused here, clearly for effect, which was good because I needed a moment to wrap my mind around what she’d just said. Ashley Woodstone wanted us to eat dirt. She was not joking. I looked around to see if the rest of the campers were just as dumbfounded as I was, but everyone stared at Ashley with rapt attention. Even Win, who clearly wasn’t expecting Ashley’s presentation to be this interesting.
“Not only is dirt kind of secretly delicious, it’s also incredibly good for you,” Ashley said. “Studies conducted by independent researchers have concluded that the kind of dirt on which this very camp stands is rich with organic minerals and life-sustaining properties that are good for your skin, hair, and nails, not to mention it’s a great way to cleanse your arteries. I truly believe that the only reason eating dirt—or any naturally growing thing in nature—isn’t as popular as it should be is because people are just uninformed on the matter. That’s why I’m ready to be a spokesperson for dirt. Think of all the hungry people we could serve if they only knew the benefits of eating dirt.”
If I was hearing Ashley correctly, my campaign was completely useless, apparently.
“And now,” Ashley went on, “my assistants will demonstrate how easy and delicious eating dirt can be. Harold, Angela …”
The big bodyguard took two earthenware pots out of a bag and handed them to Harold and Angela. They looked into their pots warily. Because of course they would. Because they were about to eat dirt. Was anyone else seeing this? Was this actually happening? I looked around, searching for hidden cameras. Surely this was all part of a movie she was filming. At the very least, this had to be a kind of performance art. I scooted closer to the edge of my seat. Harold and Angela each dug their hands into their pots and came back with a handful of loose soil. Angela went first. She brought the dirt to her mouth, made some closed-mouth munching noises and movements, and let the dirt fall back into the pot. “Mmmm,” she said. “So good.” She was pretending to eat the dirt. Like when a toddler makes you a special dish from his play kitchen using plastic food and you have to pretend to eat and love it for his benefit.
“No, Angela, eat it for real,” Ashley said. “The campers are ready to see it. They need to see regular people eating it. You too, Harold.”
Harold and Angela looked at each other and seemed to speak telepathically. Then they looked at Ashley. Her grin never wavered, clearly trying to reassure them. They both brought a handful of dirt to their mouths and munched at the same time. All any of us could do was watch and wait as two adults dutifully and painfully slowly ate dirt at the request of their teenage boss.
“Holy shit,” Win said.
We waited for them to swallow. Neither of them had made the requisite gulping motion yet. But then Harold gagged and ran to stage right to bend over and cough out all of the mud clogging his throat. Angela spit it out.
For the first time since I’d seen it, the smile on Ashley’s face began to fade. But as soon as it did, her bodyguard took the stage, grabbed the pot out of Harold the lawyer’s hands, craned his neck back, opened his mouth wide, and poured the dirt into it. He munched and swallowed and never took his eyes off of us. I can honestly say I’ve never been more frightened of someone in my life.
Ashley’s smile was back in place as she turned to us again. “See? Easy. Thanks for your time!”
Was she kidding with this? Was this some sort of—
All of the campers jumped to their feet, cheering and hollering and clapping so loud I wasn’t sure we’d seen the same presentation. Even Win was clapping. “Are you serious?” I said.
“It was a little strange, but she was earnest. And if the science is sound, then how bad could it be?”
Ashley left the stage and was replaced by Jimmy once again, who clapped and smiled, seemingly awed by her display.
“Well, wasn’t that something?” he said. “A wonderful surprise. And I’ve got another one for you. A lot of you have been asking me about him …”
A few people in the audience gasped. I was one of them. Was I right? Was Robert Drill himself going to come out from behind those curtains?
“Yes,” Jimmy said. “Mr. Robert Drill himself would like to tell you all something …” He grabbed the cord to pull the curtain back. I leaned closer in my seat. “… via prerecorded video!”
Jimmy pulled back the curtain to reveal a huge screen with Robert Drill’s smiling face on it.
Oh. I slumped back in my seat.
“Hello there, campers,” Drill said, “and welcome … to Camp Save the World!” The music that started playing must’ve been straight out of a Spielberg movie, it was so epic. And even though I was disappointed that we were only seeing Robert Drill via video instead of in real life, the music was already lifting my spirits. It was the perfect soundtrack for kids ready to save the world. “When I created this camp I had these founding principles in mind: All ideas are valid. All campers are to be respected. And have fun! Speaking of fun, I’ve got a surprise for you. I was so astounded by the projects that you kids are working on that I thought to myself, well, camp just isn’t enough. You need a prize.”
If he didn’t have our attention before, he definitely had it now.
“Yes, a prize. At the end of your five weeks here, I will award a special prize to the camper who shows the most enterprise in getting their cause off the ground, be it through action, example, or just sheer devotion. A special point sys
tem will be implemented, awarding points to the campers who demonstrate quantifiable growth in their activism duties. At the end of the summer, the camper with the most points will win an internship with the Robert Drill Foundation, where they will spend next summer in our Florida offices, side by side with me, making a real change in the world. So good luck, campers. Get creative! Start saving the world! And may the best man—or person!—win.”
Like Win had said. Holy shit.
I don’t want to say that Robert Drill’s announcement of the internship irrevocably changed things at camp, but there was no denying that things were different now. A few people were still talking about Ashley Woodstone’s bizarre Eat Dirt presentation: “I think it’s symbolic for the mistreatment of women throughout history,” one girl within earshot said. “I think it’s a protest against a capitalist society,” another guy said. (Was I the only one paying attention? The girl was advocating eating dirt.) But mostly people were talking about what had already come to be known as “The Prize.”
An internship with Robert Drill himself—in the paradise land that was Florida—helping to change people’s lives. Truth is, it was all I could think about too. Working closely together with my hero? I had come to this camp for a reason, but now I had a purpose. All thoughts of the innocence of camp and working together with new friends were now totally eclipsed by the promise of The Prize. Winning the internship could change my life. But I had no idea how to do it.
We knew very little about The Prize or how to win it. Robert Drill’s video had been vague: Show your true activism spirit and you’ll get points. All any of us could do was guess how.
I think the bonfire dinner was meant to be a sort of mixer for us to get to know one another. Instead, it turned into a platform for us to show off how good we were at protesting. Since there were no instructions on how to win points for The Prize, it was up to every camper to be creative. We had to prove that we weren’t only great activists but the best activist here. To that end, people were already starting to flex their activism muscles.
There was a girl circling the fire with a picket sign that read SAVE THE TREES. She was trailed on her march by a girl with a picket sign that read SMOKE KILLS! (It originally read SMOKING KILLS, but she’d crossed out the NG and turned the I into an E.) And behind them was yet another protester. His sign said JUST SAY NO TO DRUGS. I wasn’t entirely sure what his protest had to do with the bonfire.
Meanwhile, the only thing I was showing off was how good I was at eating. I sat on a log, balancing a plate of potato salad on my knees. I could probably figure out a way to make this whole bonfire play into my Feed the Children campaign somehow. I could stand up and make a speech to anyone who’d listen about all the food that would probably go to waste tonight. But any efforts at all to form a coherent string of words on the subject were squashed anytime I caught a glimpse of Poe.
She sat on a log on the other side of the fire, the orange firelight dancing across her smiling face, making her look otherworldly. Well, more otherworldly than she already was. She was talking to some people, Win among them. They were laughing. Sharing jokes. Too comfortable to bother with protesting, and knowing that one of them would probably win the internship anyway. I could be one of those people. I could just get up, walk over there, and start a conversation. Pick up where we left off, tell her how much I enjoy the works of Edgar Allan Poe.
“Are you reciting ‘The Raven’ to yourself?”
I turned to my left. Sitting on the other end of the log was a girl I hadn’t noticed before.
“Nope.” Was I?
“Are you sure? Because it sounded like you were. And it also sounded like you didn’t know it very well.”
“I’m absolutely sure I wasn’t reciting poetry to myself,” I lied. “Thanks for asking.”
She scooted over until she was right next to me and stuck out her hand. “Feminism,” she said.
“Excuse me?”
“My campaign is Feminism. What’s yours?”
“Oh. Feed the Children.”
“Hi, Feed the Children.”
“Uh, that’s not my na—”
“I’m glad to see I’m not the only one not protesting right now.”
I nodded. “People are really getting into it.”
“It’s like, I get it, we’ve all got a mission, but we should be using this time to network.”
Another reminder that I should have been mingling instead of sitting by myself and stuffing my face with potato salad. I suddenly wondered if I was late to the game, if I should have been forming strategies or alliances or something weird like that. “For the record, I consider myself a feminist,” I said.
Someone snickered beside me and then said, “But do you consider yourself a masculist?” He was wearing a sleeveless shirt, so I could tell that he was ripped. Every time he plucked a baby carrot off his plate the muscles beneath his olive-toned skin seemed to pop in exclamation.
“What?” I said.
“I couldn’t help overhearing your discussion,” he said. “It’s a simple question, Feed the Children. Do you support the masculism movement like you support the feminism one?”
“You’re gross,” Feminism told him.
“Not surprised you feel that way about a man,” he said.
“I don’t see a man here,” she said.
The guy turned to me and smirked. “Women, am I right?”
This whole conversation was increasingly weird, but more than anything I was just confused. “Who are you?”
“Men’s Rights,” he said.
“That’s a cause?”
“Not only is it a cause, it’s the cause that’s going to win me a trip to Florida next summer. But good luck winning The Prize, Feed the Children. That is, unless Win Cassidy manages to beat you to it.”
“Win?” I said, looking over to see my bunkmate still talking to Poe. “What’s his campaign?”
* * *
“End Hunger,” Win said. I’d left Men’s Rights behind to interrupt Win and Poe’s little party, curiosity getting the better of me.
“End H-hunger?” I stammered. My efforts to feed children had never felt so useless.
“Hey, G,” Poe said. G. Nobody had ever called me G before. I kind of liked it. “Aren’t you gonna ask what my campaign is?”
“Of course, yeah.”
“My cause is QUILTBAG.”
Quiltbag. I wasn’t sure of the details, but it sounded like a sweet campaign. My mind automatically went to Poe knitting a quilt, warm and cozy under the weight of it. Did she deliver the quilts to homeless people? In bags, perhaps?
I was about to ask her when Win leaned over to say, “QUILTBAG stands for Queer or Questioning, Undecided, Intersex, Lesbian, Transgender, Bisexual, Asexual, and Gay.”
The quilt disappeared from my daydream, and all that was left was the pointy knitting needle. “Gay?”
“Or genderqueer,” Poe said. “I’m the head of the Gay-Straight Alliance at my school. I also started a support group and hotline outside of school.”
“Cool!” I said. I nodded and smiled. “Really cool.”
I don’t know why I kept saying “cool.” I was a broken record, and my mind kept skipping on the possibility that this meant that Poe was probably gay. I know I’d only been crushing on her for a few hours, but still, the crushing was all-consuming. And now I was just crushed. But then I immediately kicked myself for dwelling on that, because I seriously should not have been thinking of Poe’s sexuality in terms of my crush on her. Poe’s sexuality was absolutely none of my business.
“I consider myself an ally,” I said.
Poe smirked and seemed to share a subtle look with Win. “Cool.”
Her “cool” was punctuated by a speeding football that came out of nowhere and soared right onto my plate. It splattered potato salad on my shirt. Yes, I was still holding my plate of potatoes. I jumped up, dropping my plate to the ground, while a few people around me moved away, laughing. Why was someone at
this camp even playing football?
“Damn,” Poe said. “You better go change.”
“Yeah!” I said, trying to laugh it off. I needed to disappear. The closest exit seemed to be the woods.
* * *
All the socializing and protesting and networking from the bonfire was a distant noise as I stood in the dark woods, but the humiliation of what had just happened had followed me here. My favorite shirt was ruined. I’d worn this Superman shirt so much that the red of the S was faded, but it made it look gritty, which I appreciated. I flicked some of the potato salad off. And then an index finger that didn’t belong to me appeared out of nowhere to swipe at the potatoes too.
I shrieked and jumped back, tripping over my feet and falling on my ass. I looked up and saw that the finger belonged to none other than Ashley Woodstone. It was now in her mouth, sampling the potato grease off my shirt as if she’d just snuck chocolate frosting off a birthday cake.
“Not GMO-free,” she said. “You did the right thing, smearing it on your shirt like that.”
“You can taste GMOs?”
“Can’t you?”
I was still breathing hard from the shock, my mouth hanging open, my eyes squinting up at her, trying to adjust to the dark and make out her silhouette. She blended into the woods seamlessly, even with the giant fur coat. Or maybe because of it. The fur seemed to snag any leaf it came into contact with, so that Ashley Woodstone resembled a small, leafy hill on two legs. The full camouflage was probably why I hadn’t seen her before. There were even leaves in her hair, a light-brown cape of tangled, twiggy tendrils. And the side of her forehead was dirty and smeared with what I could only assume was mud. The whole look gave off the impression that Ashley Woodstone’s favorite pastime was very possibly gathering leaves into a pile and diving headfirst into them. Not how I envisioned most celebrities.
“What are you doing here?” I meant in the woods, but I guess I also meant here, at camp, with the rest of us. I worked hard to win a spot at this camp, and all Ashley Woodstone seemed to do was come up with a ridiculous campaign and flex her Hollywood connections to get here. She was just a distraction for what this camp was really about.
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