Camp So-And-So

by Mary McCoy

Tania clapped her hands, and in almost perfect unison, the others turned on their heels. They followed her back the way they’d come, past the stables, and through a gap in the hedgerow. There lay a stone-cobbled terrace, tastefully appointed with long, low tables made from redwood slabs and wicker chairs.

  Tania indicated the table at the center of the terrace and invited them to sit. It was the largest and most lavish, laid with silver-rimmed china, ivory linen napkins folded in the shape of swans, and an arrangement of foxtails and calla lilies in the center. Tania snapped her fingers, and at once, five Inge F. Yancey Young Executive Leaders stepped up to pull out their chairs, snap their napkins out of the swan fold, and smooth them across the girls’ laps.

  Once Tania had left them and taken a seat at the next table with Ron and a few of her preferred followers, a squadron of blandly attractive servers clad in identical black trousers and oxford shirts appeared, each holding a silver pitcher, each with a crisp tea towel folded over his arm. They began to fill water goblets, starting with the girls from Cabin 1 before moving on to the other tables. No sooner had they finished when another wave of servers swooped in, and a basket of rolls, a tureen of gazpacho, and a tray of petit fours were laid before them.

  Kadie’s mouth watered as she started to reach for a roll. It seemed like ages since the last time they’d eaten a proper meal.

  “Please,” Tania insisted, “don’t wait for us. Enjoy your lunch.”

  Vivian and Kimber had the petit fours nearly to their lips when Cressida stood up, lifted her water goblet, and cleared her throat.

  “If I may have your attention,” she said, casting a pointed look in Vivian and Kimber’s direction until they took the hint and put the petit fours back on their plates, “I’d like to thank our gracious hosts for this splendid lunch and their hospitality. They are the very model of sportsmanship, and it is an honor to compete against them in the All-Camp Sport & Follies.”

  Something was wrong, Kadie thought. Cressida didn’t sound at all like herself. She sounded pleasant and proper and sincere. For a moment, Kadie’s suspicion that Cressida was some kind of double agent reared its head. But as it did, she felt a tap on the back of her hand, and looked down to see that Cressida was trying to pass her a note underneath the table. Kadie took it, and opened it underneath the table. It read:

  Don’t eat anything. Don’t take anything from them. That’s how they get you.

  “And so, let us raise our glasses high in honor of our hosts, and in honor of the Inge F. Yancey Young Executives Leadership Camp,” Cressida said, with a smile that brightened her pinched and homely features considerably. “Hear, hear!”

  The other girls recovered from their surprise in time to raise their glasses and murmured, “Hear, hear.”

  Under the table, Kadie tapped Kimber’s leg and tried to press the note into her hand, but Kimber was more interested in food. She and Vivian were about to pick up their petit fours, but no sooner had their fingers grazed the plate when Cressida tipped the tureen of gazpacho over so it drenched the sweets, the rolls, the table, and the fronts of Vivian and Kimber’s shirts. They squealed and frantically blotted at the stains.

  “Oh no!” Cressida wailed, and began trying to help them clean up. When an irritated Kimber recoiled from her touch and brushed her off, Kadie saw Cressida whisper something in her ear.

  At the next table, Tania raised a single finger and Vivian and Kimber were flanked by two of her minions, each bearing a look of grave concern that was entirely disproportionate to the scale of the crisis.

  “I do apologize about this,” said one.

  “Come with us,” said the other. “We’ll launder these things for you and get you some fresh clothes to wear in the meantime.”

  “It won’t take but a minute,” said the first minion, offering his arm to Vivian, which, after a moment, she took.

  “Right this way,” said the second.

  Cressida stood up, a desperate look on her face.

  “You don’t have to go. You look fine. You shouldn’t miss lunch.”

  Vivian and Kimber stared daggers at Cressida.

  “Don’t tell us what to do,” Kimber said.

  “You’ve done enough,” Vivian agreed.

  “I am so, so sorry,” Cressida said to Kimber.

  “Whatever,” Kimber said, and allowed Tania’s minion to help her to her feet.

  As Vivian and Kimber disappeared through the hedgerow, Kadie gazed longingly at the overturned tureen. Oddly, though their servers cleaned up the mess, they did not offer to bring another.

  Looking to Kadie and Cressida with her wide, docile eyes, Dora started to reach for a relatively unsoggy roll in the bread basket and asked, “Can I eat now?”

  Kadie and Cressida exchanged glances that were filled with equal parts pity and contempt. Dora may have been a natural at steeplechase, but she still couldn’t have made a decision for herself if her life depended on it.

  A Note from the Narrator: Of course, if either of them had asked, Dora would have explained that she was asking if it was all right to eat because she suspected that it wasn’t. It was very clear to her that something was wrong with the whole camp, and that Kadie and Cressida had a far better idea what it was than she did. Dora didn’t think of herself as a follower so much as a noticer. Watching the things that other people did and said was far more interesting than thinking about what she thought. She knew what she thought.

  So, while Vivian and Kimber knew no more about Dora than they had on the first day of camp, Dora knew that the two girls had stopped having much in common with one another months ago. She also knew that Kimber was just beginning to realize how bored she was with her own boredom, but that Vivian wasn’t. Dora knew that Kadie sometimes pretended to know things she really didn’t, and she knew that Cressida had tipped over the gazpacho on purpose.

  Knowing all these things, Dora felt absolutely no shame in asking if it was all right to eat.

  Kadie shook her head almost imperceptibly, and Dora put the soggy roll down. Kadie didn’t understand everything Cressida had said back at the windmill about her friend Erin, who’d come back from camp the same but different, or the letter she’d sent a month later claiming to be held prisoner here. Yet somehow, she felt in her bones that Cressida was right about the food. The question now was, why?

  Kadie looked at their hosts. It was not the first time that she’d wondered if they might be dangerous, but now she found herself wondering if they might be something other than human as well. They were all terribly tall and thin, not identical exactly, but they shared a bone structure that announced itself loudly in the girls’ cheeks and the boys’ jawlines. All of them had the same dewy, burnished complexion, not a freckle or a pimple to be seen. They didn’t walk so much as they glided—almost floated, really—with an impossible grace and fluidity, and was it her imagination, or did they shimmer just a little bit? She hadn’t seen any of them after nightfall, but wouldn’t have been surprised to learn that they glowed in the dark.

  She thought back to the first day of camp, when Tania strolled right through the force field that had blown Dora off her feet. At the time, she thought it was some sort of invisible security fence, the kind that people use on their dogs. But if she and her cabinmates were the dogs in that scenario, what did that make Ron and Tania?

  The force field, their perfect faces, and the way that none of the staff seemed to be any older than the campers—in fact, if you looked closely, none of them seemed to be any age at all. It reminded Kadie of television shows where people in their twenties were cast as high school students, and while they were youthful, occasionally someone would smile or raise an eyebrow in a way that broke the spell.

  At that moment, Vivian and Kimber came through the hedgerow dressed in silk robes with hems that brushed along on the grass and made it look as though they were floating toward the table. The heavy eyeliner and false eyelashes were gone, and in each of their hands was a tall glass filled with ice and something
pink and fizzy, and—judging by the enthusiastically large sips they drew through their straws—intoxicating. Their cheeks were flushed, their smiles merry. The other girls had seen Vivian smirk once or twice, but now she let loose a pretty laugh that trilled up like a set of wind chimes. They had never even seen Kimber’s teeth, as she had a tendency to look at the ground and mumble when she spoke, but now she threw her mouth open wide and grinned with gleeful enthusiasm.

  When they reached the table, they glided past it without giving Kadie, Cressida, and Dora so much as a glance. They were being waved over by a trio of Inge F. Yancey campers. Whatever they were, each camper was deeply tanned with straight white teeth, and each had eyes more smoldering and dreamy than the last.

  “What happened to them?” Kadie asked.

  Cressida groaned. “I told them not to eat or drink anything. But they didn’t listen. ”

  At the next table, Kimber giggled and clapped as two campers competing for her attention began to arm wrestle.

  “Is there anything we can do for them now?” Dora asked.

  “I’m not sure,” Cressida said.

  Kadie balled a corner of the tablecloth in her fist and squeezed it until her knuckles turned white. “If you’d told us sooner that this was dangerous, we could have stopped them.”

  Cressida narrowed her eyes. “I didn’t know they were going to bring us here. Anyway, when was I supposed to tell you? On the ride over? Because when someone stuffs you in the backseat of a car and puts a bag over your head, that’s usually a pretty good sign not to go around accepting food and drinks from them.”

  “At the beginning,” Kadie shot back. “You should have told us everything at the beginning.”

  “Like you would have believed me then.”

  “Um, guys,” Dora said, tapping insistently at the tabletop. She nodded to her right.

  From her table, Tania was staring at them intently. “Is everything all right?” she asked.

  “Fine, thank you,” Dora said with a smile that seemed, despite everything, sincere.

  At this, Tania stood up and clapped her hands. A fleet of servers descended upon the tables, clearing away plates and whisking away crumbs. After they had gone back to the kitchens, Tania clapped her hands again, and all her minions went quiet and stared up at her expectantly.

  “And now it is my turn to say a few words about our guests today. They have proven to be worthy competitors, and it is, as ever, an honor to face them in the All-Camp Sport & Follies.”

  Though her words were gracious enough, like Kadie’s had been, she spoke them in a sneering monotone that made it clear exactly how little she meant them. But with her next words, a cruel smile spread across her face even though her voice retained its even, honeyed timbre.

  “The final portion of the Follies will be held here, tonight. You will have the rest of the afternoon to prepare your song and dance number. Our staff will show you the theater and the props and costumes available to you.”

  Just like that, their escorts appeared, arms outstretched to help them up from their chairs. Kadie, Cressida, and Dora stood, but declined to take an elbow.

  “The performance will start promptly at dusk. As our guests, you may choose whether you perform first or second. As I’m sure you know, if you win the song and dance competition, you will secure a victory for Camp So-and-So in the All-Camp Sport & Follies, but if you lose, the victory will be ours. Best of luck to you.”

  Vivian and Kimber made no motion to join them. They sat with the Inge F. Yancey campers, giggling and sipping their beverages.

  “Come on,” Kadie called to them. “We have to rehearse.”

  Tania smirked, but Kadie caught a glimpse of her teeth, and could have sworn they’d been filed to points.

  “I think you’ll find your friends have renounced their former allegiances,” Tania said. “You’ll have to go on without them.”

  One Inge F. Yancey camper draped his arm around Vivian’s shoulder, and Kimber leaned her head onto the shoulder of another. In their silken robes, their faces scrubbed clean until they glowed, they hardly looked like themselves. Every so often, the air around them would pulse, and Kadie could have sworn that a mirror image of each girl fluttered alongside her, pale and translucent. Then, just as quickly as the second figures had appeared, they vanished.

  Then with a sickening flip of her stomach, Kadie knew. She knew the thing that had lingered at the edge of her thoughts since she and Cressida left the windmill, the thing that she’d known all along but had refused to take seriously. This wasn’t about Vivian and Kimber throwing them over for the cool kids the first chance they got. It wasn’t about sneaking drinks and boys with dreamy eyes and pillow lips. It wasn’t about loyalty, it wasn’t about winning, and it certainly wasn’t about the All-Camp Sport & Follies.

  It was about Cressida’s friend, Erin.

  It was about how she’d gone away to camp last year and something else had come back in her place.

  It was about whatever forces had tampered with Kadie’s memory, filling her head with a summerful of things that had never happened.

  It was about magic.

  She turned to Dora and whispered, “We have to get out of here.”

  Dora said, “I know.”

  A NOTE FROM THE NARRATOR

  I feel I should explain a little more about how I came to have this information, how I came to have this job as narrator in the first place.

  It began twelve years ago when I was brought here. I believe it was meant to be a special treat for that summer’s guest of honor. I do not think they intended to keep me around such a long time, especially not when I’d failed to do what they’d brought me here to do in the first place. Tania always was a bit careless about reuniting the souls she’d split in half, though.

  I was here, and there were stories to tell, and even if they stopped letting me make them up after what happened twelve years ago, they couldn’t stop me from narrating them. Robin does all the inventing of stories now, but the thing she’s never understood, even after all these years, is how stories tend to take on a life of their own.

  That was what happened to me.

  I want you to understand how simple my intentions were, how completely they went off the rails. And if you can think of aany way I might’ve prevented it, I’d appreciate it if you kept it to yourself.

  TWELVE YEARS AGO . . .

  No one could remember who had announced the treehouse-building contest or the prize trophy that would go to the winner, but all of the campers were wholly committed to the idea.

  A Note from the Narrator: It was me, of course, but moving on . . .

  Somewhere around the second day of camp, they began to ignore their counselors’ pleas to join them on nature hikes or boat rides across Lake So-and-So, and instead devoted all of their time to the task of building, stopping only to sleep and take their meals.

  In Cabin 1, the unofficial leader was a lantern-jawed youth named Beau Krest. Beau Krest was big for his age and good with his hands. He knew how to operate a circular saw without killing anyone, and had helped his father build a deck the previous summer. At his right hand was Inge F. Yancey IV, though no one called him that. He was known to his cabinmates as Iffy, which suited him, for he was not a boy of great certainty. His shaggy hair was neither blond nor brown. He was neither short nor tall, neither nice nor not nice. And even with his famous name, he might have been ignored by his cabinmates had he not shared his architectural plans for the treehouse with Beau.

  Beau knew a good design when he saw it, knew how to build what Iffy described, and in giving his stamp of approval, rescued poor, overlooked Iffy from obscurity. Soon the other boys sought his counsel as they constructed the treehouse, courting his favor, and in no time, it had gone to Iffy’s head.

  His father had insisted on sending him to Camp So-and-So, not the much posher Inge F. Yancey Young Executives Leadership Camp on the other side of the lake. He said this would build character. He told his so
n that it would do him good to work and play alongside young people who did not have all the advantages he’d had.

  What Iffy quickly came to believe, though, was that he was superior to them all. He began to view himself as the brains of the operation, Beau as nothing more than manual labor. He began to contradict Beau’s orders in front of the others and talk down to him.

  Beau was confused and a little annoyed at the sudden change. He spoke to Iffy in private, said there’d be no hard feelings if he’d lay off the power trips. But Iffy believed that support for him within the cabin exceeded that for Beau. He believed himself surrounded by loyal friends. What’s more, he believed that Beau’s interpretation of his plan for the treehouse was pedestrian, that his genius vision was being hampered by Beau’s workmanlike execution.

  Among his cabinmates, he found a willing accomplice who would follow his plans as he had written them, without compromise or question. Another agreed to spy on Beau and his followers, to sabotage their tools, loosen their nails and screws, steal their timber. The gradual shift in power soon left Beau the odd man out. At first, he spoke up, but as his words were neither heeded nor appreciated, he began to spend his days playing guitar back at the cabin or swimming in Lake So-and-So.

  Construction continued under Iffy’s watch, and soon, a remarkable treehouse rose from the branches of the old oak they’d selected. A spiral staircase wound around the trunk, leading to a grand entryway. The design from there was a series of individual pods connected by rope bridges. There was one for each boy, a solitary place for the hatching of plans, as well as a small common area, for the rare occasions when they might want each other’s company. Some of the pods balanced in the crooks of branches, while others were suspended by cords from sturdy boughs like oversized Christmas ornaments. It was striking and odd and imaginative, and it was the proudest accomplishment of Iffy’s thus far short and uneventful life.

  The other Camp So-and-So cabins had produced treehouses that looked like the products of a first-grader’s imagination. Platforms, rope ladders. Iffy was embarrassed for them. Their competitors at the Inge F. Yancey Young Executives Leadership Camp had produced work that was little better, and Iffy felt superior to them as well, and realized that it was no coincidence, no fluke that it was his name on the camp and not any of theirs.