by Anne Kalicky
Anyway, things calmed down once we heard the lunch bell.
Let’s just say the new guy isn’t going to win any popularity contests anytime soon. While waiting for their food, everyone started chanting for the talking stick so he could introduce himself. His name is Killian, he’s thirteen and seems like he’s permanently asleep. Aldo was yelling at him: “Coo coo? Signore Killian! Anyone home?” He didn’t get any dessert.
That meant an extra bowl of ice cream for us!
And believe it or not, but the empty bed in MY room is now occupied by Killian. Figures! I should have known. So long comfort, luxury, and privacy. Then I remembered that I’d shaken out my glitter-covered clothes over his bed, which I wasn’t too proud of now.
Since participating in anything at this camp was still
I snuck away to my cabin after lunch. But after fifteen minutes, Mehdi, one of my roommates, came to tell me that the leaders were looking for me everywhere. . . . It was time for board games. I told him I didn’t feel like it and wanted to be left alone.
I guess I came off a little strong, but this guy seemed pretty nice and funny after all. Then Anthony himself came to find out what was wrong. He’d noticed since this morning that I’d been VOLUNTARILY keeping to myself.
He gave this long speech about the joys of community, sharing, friendship, team spirit, and the wonderful memories that I would have from my time here —even if it was tough to fit in at the beginning.
“All this is normal,” and blah blah and blah blah blah. I say it’s baloney! I wondered for a second if he might’ve written that little book my mom has, Children Soft as Pandas, because his tone and style were the exact same. He reminded me that I have FIFTEEN DAYS and that I won’t be able to stay cooped up the whole time. I already knew all that. Why hit me right where it hurts, huh? To make him go away, I told him I needed “some time to think about it.” It worked, because he ended up leaving. But he added one final guilt trip: “As you wish.”
After a while, the silence and solitude started getting to me, and all of a sudden I felt a huge void. Nothingness, black holes, eternity, infinity . . . it was the astronaut fear! I felt a tear run down my cheek. I was breaking down inside. Then I thought about things for a while and took a nap. When I woke up, I had a brilliant idea:
That was the solution!!! Pretend to participate, pretend to eat, pretend to talk—maybe even pretend to have fun.
We’ll see. May as well take advantage of these two weeks to develop my skills as an actor. So I pretended to join everyone in the dining hall for dinner. Aldo opened his mouth to make one of his lousy jokes, but Samuel flicked him on the nose. I pretended to sit down at the table with my roomies, and I swallowed an enormous piece of chocolate cake . . . uhh, that part wasn’t pretending.
Today it rained cats and dogs. That makes TWO DAYS we’ve been cooped up inside. I’m wondering if my parents might be better off just picking me up and getting their money back. I figured we’d at least have free time or something, and I’d be able to get some rest. After:
I could at least allow myself the luxury of another nap—but ABSOLUTELY NOT. As it happens, Anthony and Caroline organized some matches of Werewolf. Everyone had to participate, and I wound up on a team AGAINST MY WILL, once again!
The game went like this: each player got the role of either a villager or a werewolf. The goal was for the villagers to find and kill all of the werewolves, and the monsters had to eliminate all of the villagers. When the leaders explained the rules, deep down I was actually kind of excited. It sounded totally scary, and you know how I love spooky stuff! But you can bet I didn’t show one bit of enthusiasm. I just . . . pretended!
The counselors
dimmed the lights, and we started the round. I got the role of the witch: she had control over the life and death of the other players, which suited me just fine.
The game was really cool, but I saw Aldo cheat by opening his eyes to see who was a werewolf and who was a villager, even though that’s AGAINST THE RULES.
Afterward, we played a round of Champ Camp bowling. It’s just like regular bowling—except the only equipment is people. And guess what, I was immediately chosen as a “pin” along with Nathan, Jules, Mehdi, and Lola. Aldo was thrown at us, and we all ended up on the ground . . . strike. After ten minutes, the game of Champ Camp bowling turned into heavy-metal mosh pit. Gerald had to step in before half of the campers ended up with missing teeth or broken limbs.
After dinner, we regrouped in the activity room for the camp song. Oh yeah! I forgot to mention that Anthony and Caroline taught us the camp’s tune last night—which is way less rock ’n’ roll than a chaotic game of Champ Camp bowling, if you ask me. I get the feeling we’ll be singing it every night, and I’m not exactly excited about that. I plugged my ears, pretended to sing, but there was no hope. . . . The tune was still stuck in my head!
I still think they’re trying to make us believe camp is great, but I’m not convinced yet.
Later on in our room, I have to admit I had a lot of fun with Mehdi, Maxence, Yanis, and Killian. Mehdi started a burping contest to “lighten the mood.” Believe it or not, but he burped the ENTIRE alphabet! We were laughing so hard my sides hurt! Then we just chatted for a while. Right off the bat, we talked about middle school, teachers, friends, girls . . . and we all agreed that camp is totally dumb!
I had trouble sleeping again because of Yanis: he flips around like a pancake EVERY night, and it sounds like he’s chanting some kind of spell for rain and bad weather.
Want to know why? Because the leaders want to take us HIKING! I think Yanis is like me: he was hoping for a much cushier summer. His trick seemed to be working though, because since we arrived the weather has been lousy. . . . I’m secretly thanking him for it, by the way.
But this morning our luck ran out: a blindingly bright sun shone through the window! Luckily for me, Tom and I had become interested in environmental protection, survival skills, and all that stuff several years ago. It’s all because of the TV show The Lone Survivor. We learned how to cook grasshoppers and boil water in a tree stump with hot stones. We even started a club called Extreme Explorers. At the time, we made our classmates who wanted to join pass “initiation” trials. But besides a few sunburns and stiches, the results weren’t very conclusive.
In fact, except for Tom and me, no one ever succeeded in getting into our club. Back then my dad also loaned me his book, The Resourceful Ranger’s Handbook. And believe me, ever since then I’ve known a thing or two about how to survive all alone in “a hostile environment.” All that’s to say that I tried to reassure Yanis about the hike, but he wasn’t the least bit thrilled by the thought of having to trudge through the woods.
Then we went to get breakfast. That’s when I discovered with HORROR that the waffles we’d been gulping down since Sunday were made from a plastic container full of a suspicious yellowish liquid. Dear future human , I should tell you that I CAN’T HANDLE plastic containers ever since the day we visited Aunty Pom-Pom on vacation.
As a snack, she offered me some cookies that she’d been keeping in a big beige/ murky yellow plastic box . . . the kind of containers she bought in sets of twenty from infomercials. But after eating a few, I watched her offer the exact same box to Sassy, her dog—who shoved her slobbery snout inside. And so I never knew if Sassy had eaten the same cookies as me . . . or if I’d eaten her dog treats!
Long story short, we got ready and left for Montlardons BY FOOT! What they didn’t tell us was that we had to travel almost ten miles there and back. It was a good thing we didn’t know that ahead of time, because otherwise I think there might have been a spontaneous outbreak of bubonic plague in the camp to avoid going.
After about fifteen minutes, Valentin started complaining that his feet hurt, and then it was Lola’s tur
n. Then again, she’d worn pink glittery tennis shoes that were apparently two sizes too small for her. Thankfully, the counselors had made sure to bring the first-aid kit.
At one point, we wound up on top of a huge hill. That’s when Aldo suggested we do a “shoe race.” This is originally an English game. Conrad evidently forgot to mention this tradition, but the idea is to roll a large wheel of cheese down a hill and sprint down to catch it. Since Aldo didn’t have any cheese on hand, he used his shoes instead. Before the leaders could say anything, he threw them. The whole group shouted and hurled themselves down the slope. . . .
I admit that in the midst of all the excitement, I didn’t have much of a choice. I closed my eyes and took off too. And believe me—this time it was impossible to pretend. But what no one had really anticipated was that, since it had rained a ton yesterday, the ground was like an ice rink. We all slid and rolled all the way down.
I had no clue what was happening since I kept my eyes shut the whole time. I swear! I totally ate it! I really regretted acting before thinking it through, because once I rolled to a stop, I was covered in grass and mud! But all of a sudden, I saw Clara heading straight for me. Instinctively—and because I’m so classy —I caught her in my arms, and her face stopped about two inches from mine . . . maybe even less.
Aldo was worse off: he managed to lose his shorts as he was hurtling down the hill! Mehdi put them on top of his head and imitated Aldo: “Hey-a! Look at my-a crown! I’m-a the Prankmaster!”
I couldn’t stop myself from laughing with everyone else . . . unlike the counselors. When they caught up to us, they REALLY scolded us. They said what we had done was incredibly dangerous and we were lucky no one got hurt. Then we spent a good fifteen minutes looking for Aldo’s shoes before we got on our way again—in total silence.
Around noon, we reached a river where we stopped for a picnic. That’s when Anthony and Caroline split us up into “patrols.”
I thought I’d be able to catch my breath a bit, but I was wrong again. I wound up preparing wood-fired pizzas for TWENTY-SEVEN PEOPLE! Other patrols were responsible for starting the fire, setting the table, cleaning our dishes, and “supervising” us. Valentin seemed completely relieved to not be in Aldo’s patrol, but he came back from the woods with splinters all over his hands.
Dear future human, I’ll confess to you that the pizzas, even though a little burned, were seriously delicious. We even made chocolate dessert pizzas. A delicacy! I’d never eaten anything like that before. It really cheered me up!
After the meal, the leaders suggested some “discussion time” all about our “dreams.” We were asked to imagine what we’d be like in twenty years.
Salomé wants to become a pilot. Fanny’s gonna be a billionaire. Samuel is going to become a professional kite surfer. Hugo said he’ll have at least three Niphon 92s, and he’ll be a professional video game player. Nathan wants to win the Nobel Prize, but he doesn’t know what for yet. Lola is going to be Miss Universe and a camp director—at the same time! And Aldo predicted, in all “modeesty,” that he’ll be “president-ay!”
I thought about everything I could tell them. I’d live on Eratosthenes, a new planet, because we will all have had to evacuate an uninhabitable Earth by then. I’d live in a 3D-printed house with ultra–high speed internet and a whole pile of remotes. I’d work from my bed, thanks to the holograms and robots that would do everything for me. I’d have tons of salt and vinegar chips delivered to me by drones.
I’d be super healthy because of antimicrobial cells placed all over me. I’d fly my own spaceship, and—above all—I’d be famous thanks to my notebook.
But instead I just told them I actually don’t daydream that much. I just live life as it comes. Obviously that didn’t really sweep them off their feet! Well I won’t score any points with that response, especially with the girls. It was at that exact moment that we heard strange noises, like snorts. . . . Aldo jumped to his feet in a single leap and yelled:
In the chaos that followed, Valentin put a pan over his head to protect himself, and everyone jumped into the river. A bath was kind of overdue, in my opinion, because we were still totally dirty from the shoe race earlier. Even Anthony and Caroline jumped in. But once in the water, we scanned between the trees and didn’t see a single boar charging at us. It turns out Samuel had pranked us! Believe me, he really got us with that one!
So then I had an idea that I whispered to Mehdi, Maxence, Killian, and Yanis—my bunkmates. We dove under the water and acted like crocodiles. We tickled Samuel’s legs, and he totally freaked out! He jumped around in all directions and everyone burst out laughing, most of all the girls.
By the way, I noticed Clara looking at me again. I get the feeling she likes me, but I may just be imagining things. And besides, ♡Naïs is waiting for me back in Brittany. . . . In short, we had a GREAT TIME! We splashed around for at least two hours, until Aldo started shouting that the current was taking him away. He had started to drift a bit, but he wasn’t actually in trouble since he could still touch the bottom! Once he realized this, he turned bright red.
The counselors whistled for us all to come back. We gathered up our stuff and headed back to Champ Camp. The hike back didn’t feel as long to me. Once we got back, we quickly showered, got ready for bed, and then went down to the dining hall to gulp down something that reminded me of my dad’s “mixed salads”—but in a soup version.
I’m journaling early tonight, because there’s no evening activity. It goes without saying that we’re too tired. . . .
I have absolutely no idea how I fell asleep last night. The last thing I remember was hearing Mehdi imitating a boar . . . or maybe he was already snoring. After that I had a crazy dream. I was on board a spaceship. My copilots were Tom and Nico, but they had antennae on their heads. We were going through multiple dimensions to escape the camp. . . . It was one creepy dream!
But this morning I almost had a panic attack, because guess what: I couldn’t find the key to my secret pillow! It bothered me all breakfast long. Afterward, I said I needed to go to the bathroom, so I’d have an excuse to run back to my cabin while everyone met for activities.
I slipped away and took advantage of the opportunity to search everywhere. I found things under the beds that must’ve been forgotten from years past.
Then I noticed something shiny way in the back, near the wall. Since my arms weren’t long enough to reach it, I went to look for a broom. I pulled the thingamajig out with the handle. You aren’t going to believe me: it wasn’t my key, but an ANONYMOUS notebook with a silver padlock!
I tried to open it, and the lock jumped . . . as if by magic. But the only thing inside was disappointment! The pages were absolutely blank!
All of a sudden I heard footsteps in the hallway, and I stashed the journal under my pillow. It was just Anthony coming to look for me, and I had to follow him. What was I going to do with this diary? I needed some time to think it over.
Today Caroline and Anthony organized a scavenger hunt. I didn’t like the sound of it, because I remembered one time, when I was younger, my mom had organized an Easter egg hunt with the parent–teacher organization. At the time, she’d taken a break from work to focus on raising us and helping out with school events.
About fifty people were supposed to participate, but my mom ended up overdoing it on the whole door-to-door promotion thing. Result: way more people showed up than expected. And they all showed up at eight in the morning, when the hunt was supposed to begin at two. The crowd started losing their patience, and after a while people totally flipped out and knocked over the fences. It turned into a mad rush to collect as many eggs as possible.
And on that very same day, my mom decided to go back to work.
Anyway, we had to organize into five teams, but Valentin ended up all alone. So I kindly offered I p
retended to tell him to join our team.
Caroline and Anthony passed out the list of things to look for all around Montlardons. Finally some good news! We could expand our boundaries! Freedom!
I was starting to feel pretty cooped up in this camp.
We figured out the riddle right away—did you? The answer is only one drop, because after that the glass isn’t empty! But the rest of the game took all day, because Aldo’s team was the first to find the paperclip necklace. It was on the fridge in the dining hall, and this moron wore it around his neck for the entire scavenger hunt!
Since we spent practically the whole day looking for the necklace, we at least had a chance to find out more about Montlardons and the butcher’s dog (his name is Roast).
Then we bumped into the mayor, who gave us some free candy. What a guy! Clara, Valentin, Mehdi, a few others, and I took our bag of treats to the local park. Believe me—after these last few days of hardship, I would have gladly eaten even moldy candy! But I’d never tasted anything so sweet in my entire life. Life was worth living again!