Camp So-And-So

by Mary McCoy

  “Because this is where they hold most of the events in the All-Camp Sport & Follies.”

  “All-Camp Sport & Follies?” Dora asked.

  A Note from the Narrator: Dora was an easygoing girl who did her chores and homework without being asked, accepted every babysitting job she was offered, and would rather have thrust a sharpened stick through her own foot than tell anyone “no.” She had neither wanted nor not wanted to come to camp, but when told she had been registered, she cheerfully packed her bags.

  In truth, Dora’s mother had begun to worry that Dora was a bit too pliant and accommodating. Dora’s friends borrowed her sweaters and hair products and never returned them. The people she babysat for always came home late and underpaid her. Her classmates were always leaving messages, asking, “Dora, do you have a partner for the Spanish project yet?” “Dora, have you written your civics paper yet?”

  No good would come of it. And so, Dora’s mother researched places where she could send the girl for the summer in the hopes that she might develop a less selfless and eager-to-please spirit. Unfortunately, most summer activities for people Dora’s age existed for the sole purpose of cultivating these characteristics. There were many summer opportunities for Dora to help and serve others. She could build schools or volunteer at a medical clinic or teach Shakespeare to underprivileged youth or dig wells in malarial villages, but Dora’s mother wanted her daughter to do something for herself for a change.

  The colorful camp brochure caught her eye immediately, but it was the tanned, youthful face of Inge F. Yancey IV smiling from the sidebar, and his inspiring words, that drew her in:

  Welcome to Camp So-and-So! For over 75 years, the Yancey family has been proud to provide young people with opportunities for physical, mental, and social growth through independently directed study, wilderness activities, and cultural enrichment. My great-grandfather believed in giving campers the freedom to discover themselves—and our amazing grounds—at their own pace, and that’s a promise we continue to this day. Whether your passion is horsemanship, archery, rowing, fine art, or outdoor adventures on our high ropes course, there’s something for everyone to explore at Camp So-and-So!

  It sounded like the very thing for Dora, a place where nothing was demanded of her, where all she had to do was open herself up to the possibilities of her own likes and preferences and interests. Dora’s mother signed her daughter up immediately.

  “What,” Cressida asked, “is the All-Camp Sport & Follies, and why on earth would anyone want to do it?”

  Vivian and Kimber shuddered at the earnestness of the name, while Cressida broke out in tiny red spider veins across her cheeks just from speaking the word sport aloud.

  A Note from the Narrator: Or at least that’s what everybody thought. The other girls in Cabin 1 assumed that Cressida, frail and pasty as she was, had a horror of sports, and Cressida was more than happy to give them this impression. In fact, she was trained in tai chi, karate, and ballet, and had been a backstroke champion at one time before her other pursuits put such a strain on her time that she had no choice but to drop it. It was one of those other pursuits that brought Cressida to Camp So-and-So. She didn’t know what the All-Camp Sport & Follies were, but she had an idea that they were incompatible with her current mission. She had to shut down Kadie’s idea before it gathered any momentum with the others.

  “It’s really fun!” Kadie said.

  “It doesn’t sound fun,” Vivian said.

  “What is it?” Dora asked, which was all the encouragement Kadie required to elaborate.

  “One day, five events, dawn ’til dusk,” she said, the excitement building in her voice as she listed them off one by one. “Archery. Camp craft. Rowing. Horsemanship. Song and dance number. We compete against the other campers, and whoever wins the most events is crowned champion! There’s a trophy and everything.”

  Kimber brushed her long bangs off her eyes. “Do we have to do it?”

  “They’ve done it for seventy-five years,” Kadie insisted. “It’s a camp tradition.”

  “But do we have to do it?”

  Kadie sighed. “No.”

  “I guess not then,” Kimber said with a shrug.

  At the boat house, Kadie showed them the tiny crawl space with the broken lock along the building’s north wall where the counselors stashed their junk food and the occasional wine cooler. However, her heart wasn’t in it. Besides, the counselors had spent last night consuming their stores. The girls found a few empty bottles and cellophane wrappers, but nothing more interesting than a few granola bars, which they took partly out of spite and partly because they’d missed dinner.

  “I hope the boys are better than this,” Vivian said.

  Kadie said nothing, but doubled back and led them down the beach along the tree-lined shores of Lake So-and-So. They were the kind of boggy, algae- and rock-covered beaches that attracted leeches, snapping turtles, and, of course, swarms of mosquitos. Not a place one wanted to linger in a bikini for any length of time.

  As they walked further down the beach, though, things improved somewhat. The clouds had turned cotton-candy pink as the sun began to set over the hilltops. The insect-clogged thickets and slimy rock shores gave way to sand, even if it was only a thin strip, hardly wide enough to lay down a towel.

  “Isn’t there a better beach than this?” Vivian asked.

  Kadie, who had hardly spoken a word since the boat house, said, “Yes, but we’re not allowed to use it.”

  The girls made a grumbling show of outrage that surprised and touched Kadie deeply. Even Cressida, who looked as though she’d burst into flame in direct sunlight, seemed deeply concerned about beach access once she learned that it was denied to her.

  “Why not?” Dora asked.

  Kadie’s eyes flashed with pure hatred, and she pointed across the lake. “Because of that.”

  The girls squinted, then wondered how they hadn’t seen it right away. A hill rose up on the far shore of Lake So-and-So, and built into it was terrace upon canopied terrace, edifice after shimmering glass edifice. It was crisp and modern-looking, yet festooned with rustic touches—wooden latticework, heavy oak beams—as though Frank Lloyd Wright and J.R.R. Tolkien had teamed up for one grand, strange experiment.

  “What is that place?” Kimber asked, her mouth agape.

  “That is our competition in the All-Camp Sport & Follies,” Kadie said, then spat in the dirt. “The Inge F. Yancey Young Executives Leadership Camp.”

  When Vivian stifled a giggle with the back of her hand, Kadie spun around and her voice got scarily quiet and intense.

  “It’s a rich kid camp,” she said. “Any one of their parents is worth more than all of ours put together. Just wait. I’m sure when we meet them, they’ll tell you all about it.”

  “So, they’re rich. So what?” said Vivian, taking a step back from Kadie.

  “Every year for seventy-five years, they’ve competed against Camp So-and-So in the All-Camp Sport & Follies. And every year for seventy-five years, the Inge F. Yancey Young Executives Leadership Camp has beaten us.”

  Cressida rolled her eyes. “Didn’t anybody ever tell you winning isn’t everything? Besides, I thought you loved it here. I thought this camp was your awesome, super-special place.”

  Kadie wasn’t about to spend the week letting these girls talk to her like she was some kind of loser just because she’d had the audacity to be friendly to them. She wasn’t a loser, and besides, she wasn’t finished talking yet.

  “You’ve seen our camp,” she said.

  Cressida nodded.

  “You’ve seen theirs.”

  Cressida nodded again.

  “The winner of the All-Camp Sport & Follies gets to pick which camp they want.”

  All five campers gazed across the lake at the luxurious terraces, the tangle of rose gardens, the princess gazebos, then thought about their cinder block art barn and the boat dock, slick with algae and slime.

  “When does it st
art?” Kimber asked.

  Kadie smiled. “Archery is tomorrow morning in the meadow, just after sunrise. Then camp craft at the art barn, and then rowing. Starting line is our boat dock, finish line at Most Excellent Beach.”

  “The beach we’re not allowed to go to?” Cressida said.

  “The very same.”

  “Can we at least go look at it?” Kimber asked.

  They continued south, the shores of Lake So-and-So to their left, and to their right a sprawling green meadow. In the distance, they recognized the girls from Cabin 2 talking to a spindly-jointed man in coveralls who sat on a riding mower in the middle of the meadow. They seemed to be hanging on his every word, but whatever they were discussing was of no interest to the girls from Cabin 1, who kept their sights fixed on the southernmost tip of the lake, where Camp So-and-So ended and the Inge F. Yancey Young Executives Leadership Camp began.

  “There it is,” Kadie said, pointing toward a vast expanse of sugary, white sand scattered with towels and beach chairs, upon which rested the most relaxed, contented-looking souls any of them had ever laid eyes on. A giant tower spoked with diving boards rose up near the shore, and happy swimmers leapt off of it at regular intervals. Two girls in bikinis sat on boys’ shoulders and tried to shove one another into the water. Their laughter pealed all the way across the meadow.

  More of them clustered around a picnic table laden with the kind of dinner the campers at Camp So-and-So could only dream about: deviled eggs, fried chicken, corn on the cob. There were bowls of watermelon and cantaloupe slices, and crystal pitchers of lemonade, and trays piled high with brownies and macaroons.

  The whole scene was so inviting that Dora strayed from her cabinmates, wandering toward this idyllic beach scene. The remaining daylight shone brighter over there. The water seemed bluer. There did not appear to be a single mosquito.

  “Dora!” Kadie called after her, but it was too late. Only a handful of yards remained between her and Most Excellent Beach, and she was practically running toward it.

  Just when her toes were about to sink into the soft, white sand, there was a bright flash, and Dora was blown off her feet and thrown backwards. When she opened her eyes, the girls of Cabin 1 were all standing over her, anxious looks on their faces.

  “Didn’t you hear me yelling at you?” Kadie asked. “It’s electrified.”

  “Oh no,” said Vivian. “They’re coming over here.”

  The bug-zapper sound Dora had made when she hit the force field had drawn a few Inge F. Yancey campers from their beach blankets. They sauntered up to the invisible electric fence, a chorus line of expensive haircuts and swimwear, and smiled as if on cue.

  “Oh, hi!” One of the girls stepped forward and waved. She wore a gleaming white bathing suit that exactly matched her teeth and the tips of her French manicure. “I hope you didn’t hurt yourself there.”

  Dora pulled herself up on her elbows and shook her head. One of the other Inge F. Yancey campers whispered something to her friend, and they both giggled. Kimber shook her hair so it fell over her eyes and hid her face, while Vivian looked away, pretending she had never seen any of the girls from Cabin 1 before in her life.

  A sandy-haired boy, tan of chest and aquiline of nose, stepped forward, too, taking his place beside the girl in the white bathing suit.

  “My name’s Ron. You’ll forgive me if I don’t shake hands,” he said with a sterile chuckle. “I hope you’re all enjoying yourselves so far.”

  Kadie stood there quaking with rage, her arms pulled tight across her chest.

  “Everything’s fine,” she said.

  “Good, good, glad to hear it,” he said. “Kadie, I hope you’re showing your friends the ropes around here. We don’t want any accidents this year.”

  Had there been accidents last year? Kadie couldn’t remember any, and even though this boy knew Kadie’s name and talked to her like there was some history between them, Kadie didn’t remember him either.

  “A little after-the-fact to be worrying about accidents,” Cressida said, looking at Dora, who was still sitting somewhat dazed on the ground.

  The girl in the white bathing suit turned her attention to Cressida, her head tilting in a mechanical facsimile of friendliness. “Do I know you from somewhere? What’s your name?”

  “What’s yours?” Cressida asked, her chainsaw voice even less endearing than usual.

  The girl looked down her nose at Cressida. “It’s Tania. What’s wrong with your skin? Is it always like that?”

  Ron gave her a pat on the shoulder that seemed like a warning, and she turned to Kadie instead.

  “I hope we’ll be seeing all of you in the All-Camp Sport & Follies, Kadie. I know how much you enjoyed them last year.”

  Cressida turned to Kadie, her pale eyebrows furrowed. “Why are they talking to you like that? Like we’re their guests or something?”

  Tania looked as though she’d swallowed an egg, but Ron laughed his politician laugh again and said, “We were looking forward to a little bit of healthy competition this summer. Maybe this is your year, Kadie.”

  “Although judging by the looks of it . . .” Tania trailed off as though the rest was so self-evident it did not bear mentioning aloud.

  “Who says we’re even going to do the All-Camp Sport & Follies?” Cressida said.

  Tania took one step forward, then another, drawing closer and closer to the force field. First, the hairs on the back of her arms began to stand on end, then her figure was silhouetted in a halo of light. She looked down at Dora, who still sat on the ground in a half-stupor.

  “Get up,” she said, her voice crackling with electrical current. She took another step, and the force field hummed around her, radiating heat. Then she stepped through it, as though it were no stronger than a stiff breeze.

  As she crooked her finger, Dora’s body rose from the ground, her legs suspended out in front of her like a magician’s assistant. When she was floating three feet in the air, Tania snapped her fingers, and suddenly, Dora tilted forward, her heels scuffing in the dirt as she rotated into a standing position, feet firmly planted.

  “Hope to see you at archery tomorrow,” Tania said with a smirk. “Arrows at dawn.”

  She stepped back through the force field, and the humming stopped.

  “Come on,” she said, and her clique turned around in almost perfect unison while the girls from Cabin 1 stared after them.

  Halfway back to their towels, Tania looked over her shoulder and blew them a kiss. “Can’t wait, ladies.”

  As soon as her back was turned again, Kadie ran over to check on Dora, who was shaky, crackling with static electricity, and missing all the hair on her arms, but ultimately unharmed.

  It was odd, Kadie thought, that she hadn’t remembered this part of camp. When she combed her memories, she couldn’t dredge up Tania or Ron. She couldn’t dredge up a single supernatural thing. Last year, they rode horses and made crafts and choreographed dance numbers. Nobody had walked through a force field or levitated anybody.

  “Should we tell somebody what happened?” Dora asked, reaching into her pocket and giving her grandfather’s watch a squeeze. The heft of it, the coolness of the metal against her fingers, felt reassuring.

  Kadie tried to imagine their counselor, Sharon, believing them, or—an even greater stretch—caring.

  “Who would we tell?” she asked.

  Cressida put a hand on her bony hip as she walked over to join them. “You saw what just happened, right?”

  “I don’t know,” Kadie mumbled, staring after the Inge F. Yancey campers as they settled back down to their picnic.

  “You don’t know what you saw?”

  “No. I mean, yes,” Kadie said, fumbling for words. “I mean, I saw the same thing we all did.”

  “We should call our parents and ask them to come back here and pick us up,” Dora said with more conviction than usual.

  “There’s definitely something wrong with this place,” Cressida
added.

  “Maybe Tania was just playing a trick on us,” Kadie said, scanning the ground for fishline or hidden wires or anything the other campers might have used to create the illusion.

  “Like, maybe it didn’t happen the way we think it did?” Dora asked.

  “Doesn’t that seem more likely?” Kadie asked.

  Dora, who had been growing more and more concerned, seemed somewhat placated by this. It made more sense to decide they were being messed with than to leap to the conclusion that the other campers could levitate them at will.

  Cressida, however, was harder to convince. “Even if you’re right, why on earth would you want to compete against them in the All-Camp Sport & Follies? Doesn’t it seem to you like they might have an unfair advantage?”

  At Cressida’s words, Kadie suddenly felt less sure of herself and her reasons for wanting to do the All-Camp Sport & Follies so badly. It wasn’t that she fed off competition for its own sake. She knew people back home who didn’t know what they thought of themselves unless they could hold themselves up to someone else, and some of them were so desperate to call themselves winners that they never tried doing anything they might lose. They took easy classes so they could be the smartest, surrounded themselves with boring people so they could feel interesting.

  What Kadie loved was a challenge. She’d faced off against the Inge F. Yancey campers before, and lost, and knew there was almost no hope of winning, and yet she still came back ready to try again. Even when she knew the game was fixed, she still wanted to play it.

  “It’s what I came here to do,” Kadie said. “I’ve been planning it all year.”

  “But you’re just doing what they want you to do,” Cressida said. “Even if you beat them, how is that winning? You don’t have to play their games. Our counselor doesn’t care what we do. Nobody’s making us do the All-Camp Sport & Follies.”

  Cressida was right, Kadie realized, and she hadn’t even been mean about it. Nobody was making them do this, and what’s more, nobody except her even wanted to. Her cabinmates weren’t like the competitive overachievers she usually hung out with, and it wasn’t fair to drag them into the All-Camp Sport & Follies. If the rest of them wanted nothing to do with Tania and the Inge F. Yancey Young Executives Leadership Camp, Kadie decided, she would do something else. She would lie out on Mosquito Beach and work on her tan, or explore a cave, or go rock climbing. Maybe she’d finally learn how to ride a horse.