Capture the Flag. I’d forgotten all about that. The final act of Color War.
“Sorry, guys, I’ve got other things to do.” I grabbed whatever was in my drawer and put it on quick.
“Good luck, buddy,” Win said. “I hope she gives you a break.”
I wasn’t sure how Win knew I was going to talk to Ashley, but then, of course he did. He was Win.
“Whatever,” Rights said. “Like I said, we need manpower, and you clearly don’t have any, Superman.”
“I’d reconsider calling me Superman if I were you.”
“And why would I do that?”
I hadn’t made too big a deal about him calling me Superman before, but I was a different person today, a more confident one. I was a man on a mission. And anyway, he needed to hear this.
“Because we’ve all got real names, Top Gun.”
My smile was directly proportional to Rights’s sudden scowl. Win couldn’t know what I’d just unleashed but he understood it was something big by the way everything suddenly stilled. He pulled his fresh shirt over his head and watched us silently. Rights took a step toward me, his head bowed forward, his voice extra low. “Why did you call me that?”
“What’s the matter, Risky Business? Can’t handle a nickname?”
“I can handle a nickname!” His voice projected the opposite.
“Nah, that’s a Mission: Impossible. I don’t think you can.”
“Wait, why are you calling him a bunch of Tom Cruise movies?” Win said.
“Because that’s his name. Rights here is actually Tom Cruz.”
Admittedly, it wasn’t that funny. But Win still laughed, and I joined him. It helped that Rights still looked so pissed off. Lesson one of doling out obnoxious nicknames: Don’t have a funny name yourself. Guess Rights never got that memo.
“How’d you find out my name?”
“So Ashley Woodstone isn’t the only celebrity at this camp?” Win said.
“How’d you find out my name?!” Rights demanded again.
“Gentlemen, I have places to be.”
“It’s a family name, Gregor!” Rights called after me. “I go by Tomás!”
I left the cabin feeling more confident than ever. It helped that the soundtrack to my parting was Rights’s haunted screams.
* * *
She could’ve been anywhere. Since today was all about Capture the Flag, regular camp activities were suspended. Campers were finishing breakfast and heading to the playing fields to start the official game. And even though Ashley had said that all she wanted was a normal camp experience, something told me to check our clearing first.
She was there. Her back was to me as she sat on the fallen log. I wasn’t dumb enough to think she was waiting for me, though. Seeing her was instant relief, and I held on to that feeling as proof that I needed to make things right with her, no matter the cost. I loved the way I felt when I saw her. Even when she was mad at me. Selfishly, I wanted to keep feeling that way.
I rounded the log so I was standing in front of her. I expected a look of disappointment on her face, but when she looked up at me she wasn’t even surprised. And there was a tiny smile hidden behind her lips.
“You’re wearing it,” she said.
My hands, at my sides, felt for the cape. Red and long enough to reach the backs of my thighs. Easy to grab and spread out behind me. “It is a pretty excellent cape.”
“You don’t have to wear it.”
“I want to,” I said. “No one has ever made me a cape. You’re the only one who’s ever looked at me as … a hero. I don’t deserve it.” I waited for her to say something. This would’ve been the perfect opportunity for her to call me out, tell me she still didn’t want to talk to me, but Ashley only looked at me, waiting. “I was a gigantic asshole to you. I’m sorry. If I could fly around the earth backward to turn back time and erase all the awful things I said, I would. If there’s something I don’t deserve, it’s your friendship. Because you were my best friend at this camp and I treated you like shit.”
“Let’s not say the S word.”
“Okay, I treated you like dirt.”
“But dirt is marvelous.”
I sighed. She was going to make this difficult. But I deserved that. “I treated you like garbage.”
“Compostable garbage … ?”
“Unrecycled, smelly-garbage-juice garbage.”
“Better.”
I sat next to her on the log, not knowing what else to say, but wanting to be nearer to her.
“When you left, there was a rumor that you’d gone to visit your boyfriend in jail.” This was probably not the right thing to bring up, and even if she chose to roll her eyes or stop talking to me, I had to know. “Is it true?”
“Rupert is no longer my boyfriend. He hasn’t been for a long time. And no, I didn’t go see him.”
I let go of the breath I’d been holding.
“I left because I needed to figure some things out. You were right when you told me that in order to make friends I needed to be more open. It made me think about things I wasn’t even telling myself. I needed to figure out why everyone I care about ends up leaving in one way or another. Like my parents. At first I didn’t believe that they just wanted my money. And to prove that they didn’t, I gave away most of it. I gave away all of the money that I didn’t need. I thought, This’ll prove that they love me anyway, despite the money. If they stay with me when I have nothing, this will prove it. But they didn’t. They fought it in court. So I got myself emancipated. You can imagine how much they liked that.”
“I’m sorry, Ashley.”
“It’s okay. It just means no parents at Visit Day for me,” she said, shrugging. “And then Rupert left, but obviously he didn’t have much control over that, being arrested. We weren’t together that long, but he was my first … public boyfriend. I know that probably sounds weird, but when everything happened—and how public it was—it was pretty hard to handle.”
As much as I’d wanted Ashley to open up, it was still hard to hear her this upset and not know what to do to make her feel better. But I knew that being a good friend wasn’t always about trying to make the other person feel good. A wise person once told me that sometimes it is best just to listen and learn.
“And then I made a friend here, and I was so happy about that,” Ashley said. “But you put a stop to that too.”
“I came back,” I said quickly. “I’m here. I’m sorry.”
“I know. And I forgive you, Gregor.”
Relief. I was flooded with it.
“You were right about things,” she said.
“Pretty sure I’ve never been right about anything in my life.”
Ashley laughed and shoved my shoulder with hers. “You were right that if I want to make true, meaningful friendships, I need to open up more. I’m going to work on that. And that if I wanted to be a normal camper like everyone else here, I shouldn’t have brought a bodyguard along. I gave Pika the rest of the summer off.”
No bodyguard to potentially bash my head in? The relief was too much. “This is going to sound totally corny, but … can we be friends again?”
Ashley stuck out her hand, ready for a handshake. I shook it. “Friends.”
She sighed, and I could tell she was relieved too. Her smile came back in full force. It was blinding. Captivating. Hypnotizing. I hadn’t realized how much I missed that smile. I would’ve followed her anywhere so long as she smiled at me like that. I would say and do anything she wanted.
“Now that that’s out of the way, I think it’s finally time for you to go on a spiritual journey, Gregor Maravilla.”
I laughed. “You’re not still on that, are you?”
She was still on that. Since the start of camp, Ashley had been talking a big game when it came to spiritual journeys. And every time she brought it up, I had no clue what she meant. I always turned her down, partly because I had absolutely no desire to go on a spiritual journey, partly because I was p
retty sure it was somehow offensive, but mostly because I didn’t think she was serious about it.
But she was serious about it. I was now discovering just how serious she was as I stood inside her reassembled yurt, watching her stir a brewing pot of murky brown liquid.
“What the hell is that?”
She produced a halved coconut husk and poured the liquid into it. “A vine, a leaf, and a root of plants with names that I can’t pronounce, but don’t worry, they’re totally natural and safe.”
“Usually when someone has to add that something is totally natural and safe, there’s reason to believe that maybe it’s not,” I said. “Where’d you get the plants? Where’d you get a coconut husk?”
“All very good questions,” Ashley said. “Perhaps you’ll find the answers on your spiritual journey.”
She held out the husk, clutched in both of her hands.
“You don’t actually expect me to drink that.”
Her arms fell a little bit but she did not let any of the liquid spill. “You said you’d do it.”
This was true. For reasons I could not explain but that probably had something to do with wanting to make Ashley happy and cementing our new and improved friendship, I had agreed to do the one thing I’d been telling her all summer that I would not do. But I wasn’t just going to go on this journey totally blind. I never did anything without fully knowing what I was getting myself into. Camp Save the World being the only exception. And look how well that turned out.
“Is this, like, even legal?”
“Yes!” Ashley said, laughing. “This tea is legal in some countries.”
I took a step back. “I’m not drinking that.”
Ashley walked over to her bed, a few feet away. She sat and tapped the space next to her. I joined her. The way she sighed, I knew she was about to impart one of her many weird and wise stories.
“Did I ever tell you that I lived in the Peruvian Amazon for a time?”
“Somehow that never came up.”
“I was there to film Today Is Yesterday’s Tomorrow, playing the kidnapped daughter of William Gleeson. It’s a very good action film if you’ve never seen it, by the way, and even though I spend most of the movie tied up in the villain’s lair, I get rescued at the end. Anyway, I was living in the Amazon, with the Amazonian people, eating the local food and playing with the local children, when one day a shaman invited me to a spiritual awakening ritual and told me to drink this very special tea. And what do you do when a shaman invites you on a journey and tells you to drink a very special tea?”
“You absolutely do not drink it.”
“I drank it,” she said, scooting closer to me, her eyes going wide as if she herself were hearing this story for the first time. “And when I drank this tea I basically understood the entire meaning of life.”
“Only that, huh?”
She pushed the tea forward, holding it out enticingly. “I would never make you do anything that you weren’t comfortable with, Gregor. And I wouldn’t have even made this for you if I didn’t think it could help you. But I know you’re looking for something. I know you’re searching for meaning and purpose. You were hoping this camp would provide that, but it didn’t. Don’t you want answers to your questions?”
I stared at the tea. I did want answers. I wanted to know if this whole camp experience was for nothing. I wanted to know if I was ever going to live up to my potential and make anything of myself. I wanted to know if I could save the world—if it was even possible to. I wanted to know if I would go my whole life—or even just this whole summer—without doing anything interesting or daring, or legal only in some countries.
I looked at Ashley. “Doesn’t William Gleeson blow up the Amazon in Today Is Yesterday’s Tomorrow?”
“Yes.”
I drank the tea.
Ashley had some too. We sat on the bed and waited. “So when does this stuff usually kick in?”
“Usually immediately.”
“And how long does it last?”
“Just a few hours or so,” Ashley said. “Your whole life if you’re lucky.”
I nodded. “Wait, what?”
But Ashley pressed her index finger against my lips and shushed me with a whispered, soothing “Just let the tea take you.”
I already regretted swallowing. I tried preparing myself for whatever it was I was about to experience. I’d never done anything so illicit before, and my insides were suddenly swirling in a cocktail of fear and excitement … Or it could’ve just been the tea. It was a pleasant feeling. A buzz that made me instantly giddy. Definitely not the uncontrollable high I had feared. “This is it?” I said. “This is nothing. I don’t feel anyth—”
* * *
I pressed my hand against the yurt’s wall and the wall moved back. “WHOA!” I yelled. “THE WALLS ARE MOVING!”
I turned to Ashley, having never been so amazed in my life, but she simply nodded and smiled, her head lolling from side to side as though she were listening to a song that I could not hear. “They do that sometimes,” she said.
Right. Ashley’s walls were made out of bedsheets or endangered animal hides or leaves or something. Of course they would move if I pressed against them, so that wasn’t so impressive. The fact that the walls were talking to me, however, was.
“What?” I said. They were just whispers at first, and I had to make myself concentrate really hard to understand what they were saying. “You want me to what?”
“Leave,” the walls said.
Now, I was still lucid enough to think that maybe Pika had stuck around and was hiding outside the yurt and pretending to be the walls just to spook me. Because the walls and Pika seemed to agree that they didn’t want me around. But I was already high enough to be thoroughly spooked anyway.
“Ashley, your walls hate me.” I turned to her but she was gone, the space she occupied on the bed suddenly empty.
Ashley wasn’t outside either, or maybe she was and I just couldn’t see her. Didn’t matter, because the trees were calling my name and sparkling in bright neon colors and there was nothing I could do to stop myself from basking in their glory. They wanted me to dance. I’d never had the requisite moves, but now I knew that I not only possessed the moves—I had the right moves. My body was made for dance, and I swayed to the rhythm of the wind, letting it fill my ears in the delicious way that air filled my lungs. Every tree in the forest was my dance partner on our very own dance competition show, and we were all about to win the grand prize.
The idea of time felt suddenly fluid. It was like it lay at my feet one minute, expansive and clear, and then was tugged from under me so I lost whole swaths of it. Life felt like a movie with some of the frames cut out of the reel. Like how I’d just been dancing with the trees but now I stared into space, standing still and feeling the strange and sudden compulsion to create something beautiful. I knew what my subject would be, and I looked around to find the right materials to make it. I only had to look down.
* * *
My Ashley Woodstone statue was now complete. My medium? Dirt. (Plus a couple of sticks and stones that I’d used for her arms and eyes, respectively.) I’d molded her with my own two hands, shaping the mud like clay. It was only in the edges of my mind that I wondered if this was objectifying Ashley. But no, this was art. There was Venus de Milo, and now I’d created Ashley de Woodstone. She was so beautiful. I mean, like, really beautiful. I don’t want to toot my own horn or anything, but I was pretty sure there had never been a more beautiful and lifelike statue of a girl ever created in the history of art. Looking at my artwork I was certain of two things: I was an incredible artist, and my Ashley Woodstone statue was hot.
I caressed her dirt hair. So lifelike.
* * *
“Children?”
I spun around. Jimmy was standing in the woods, staring at me.
“Oh. Jimmy. Hey. I’m not doing anything weird.”
“What are you doing, Children?”
“
Just minding my own business, Jimmy. Hey, check out my amazing Ashley Woodstone statue,” I said, gesturing behind me.
“That’s a pile of dirt.”
I looked at my Ashley statue. Curiously, Jimmy was right. I was looking at a pile of dirt.
“You’re covered in dirt,” he said.
I looked at myself. My palms were filthy. Crusted clumps of mud clung to my knees. And there were dirt stains all over my shorts, mostly in my crotch area. “This isn’t what it looks like.”
“Why are you wearing a cape? And why are you shirtless, Children?”
“WHY AM I SHIRTLESS?” I said. “WHY ARE YOU CRYING?”
Because Jimmy was crying. There were tears on his cheeks, and once I asked him about it the streaming started up again.
“The camp is in utter chaos,” Jimmy said. “I came into the woods to hide. I’m hiding from my own campers! Have you seen what it’s like out there?”
I shook my head.
“It’s horrific. And it’s all my fault. When I had the idea for this camp, all I wanted to do was make my new dad proud, you know?” he blubbered. “I wanted to make a difference in young humanitarians’ lives the way Robert Drill had made a difference in mine. I thought that maybe I could be a sort of Robert Drill for you kids.”
“THAT’S VALID,” I said. “TOTALLY NORMAL.”
“But I’ve failed you. It’s madness out there. Capture the Flag has totally gotten out of hand. And so has this camp.”
It took every ounce of strength I had to concentrate on the words coming out of Jimmy’s mouth. I squinted, zeroing in on his eyes. I bit my lips together and breathed deeply through my nose. I could tell by the expression on his face that he was distressed about something, so I tried to match his face and show some empathy, like any normal human being would. Because I was a normal human being. My hands were on the side of my face, stretching the skin back as far as it would go.
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