So when they broke the news that we were all going to a wellness retreat in Arkansas, I was expecting a real Camp Starvation—as in all my parents’ crash diets put together, times fifty.
Is the Oasis as bad as that? Well, yes and no. It’s vegetarian, which isn’t my favorite thing. Even Mom and Dad would occasionally go on a protein kick, and we would live on nothing but steak, barbecued chicken, and pork chops for a couple of months. No chance of that at the Oasis. Here it’s all veggies, 24-7. If you want protein, it usually comes from soy. Unless soy gives you a rash—that would be me. A lot of the vegetables give me a rash too. The only time I don’t feel itchy is when I’m doubled over with gas pains from all those greens. Don’t mock—it’s a real thing. It happens to everybody when they first get here. For most people, it goes away. Turns out I’m not most people.
But besides that, the Oasis isn’t really a weight-loss place. The big thing here is wellness for your body and mind. “Be whole—” You hear it till it echoes in your brain. You keep your body healthy by eating right and through physical activity—sports, hiking, swimming, biking, zip-lining, kayaking, that kind of stuff. You keep your mind healthy by meditating and steering clear of anything that has a screen—no phones, no electronics, no video games, no TV.
At first, I was hoping that my parents would give up on the place when they found out it wasn’t weight-lossy enough. No such luck. They love it ten times more than a real weight-loss place. That’s even scarier. Mom and Dad give up on diets all the time. But a whole wellness lifestyle—they’re totally hooked. They love Magnus, the founder, who dreamed all this up. They love Ivory, the meditation pathfinder. We all do meditation, but the adults get these special one-on-one sessions that are supposedly super intense.
The first time my father has a personal session with Ivory, he comes back to our cottage and says, “I feel like my eyes are fully open for the first time in my entire life!”
“What did she do—body-slam you?” asks my sister, Sarah.
I have to laugh. Ivory may be built like a wrestler, but for some reason, I can’t imagine her ever having to lift a finger to get what she wants.
“She’s the best,” Dad insists. To Mom, he adds, “You’ll see.”
Sure enough, the next day, my mother comes back from Ivory with her eyes open for the first time too. Which begs the question: If both their eyes are so open, how come they don’t notice that the leek soup they served at lunch made my ears swell up to the size of cabbages?
We’re about a week into our time at the center when Sarah pulls me aside and hisses, “What’s the deal with Mom and Dad? They love it here!”
“Yeah,” I agree. “I figured they’d lose interest, but I don’t think that’s happening anytime soon. They’re talking about extending our stay an extra month.”
“An extra month?” Her eyes bulge and she grabs me by the fabric of my BE WHOLE T-shirt. “No! Landon is all alone at home and I can’t even call.”
I shrug. “So?”
Sarah presses her sneaker onto my bare foot and grinds it into the floor.
“It’s not like you guys are ever out of touch,” I add painfully. “You write each other a million letters.”
“Letters!” She leans harder into my foot. “Letters aren’t enough!”
“Then why do you write so many?” That turns out to be the wrong thing to say. “Ow! Okay, stop! What can I do? I’m not in charge! Mom and Dad are!”
You can’t use logic with Sarah. It’s not that she doesn’t understand it. She just doesn’t care. Maybe she can’t do anything about her own suffering, but she’s great at making sure she doesn’t suffer alone. When she’s miserable, she’s got a knack for sharing the misery. Usually with me.
I wonder if Landon knows he’s dating Lady Voldemort.
To be honest, I’ve got no more complaints than everybody else. None of the kids at the Oasis come here by choice. They get dragged by their parents, the same as Sarah and me. Like Grace—her mom is a total health nut who visits every summer. Actually, Grace might not be the best example. She’s the only kid who loves the Oasis almost as much as the adults do.
There’s Brandon Bucholz, all six foot two of him at age thirteen. The word is that his dad used to be a big-time college football star who even played a few NFL seasons. That’s not hard to believe—the guy makes his gigantic son look normal size. The Bucholzes have been coming ever since Brandon’s dad hung up his cleats a few years ago to open a car dealership. Ivory’s meditation is the only thing that works on curbing the aggressive tendencies Mr. Bucholz developed during his football career. Never mind that Brandon—who’s headed for high school in September and hopes to make the football team—wants to get more aggressive, not less.
Twins Alex and Amelia Azuma are eleven—a year younger than me. The Azumas have come all the way from Canada. The only time I’ve ever seen the parents is in the dining hall. You can’t really miss them. They’re always going up for seconds and thirds and raving about how great the food is. Spoiler alert: it really isn’t, but I suppose it’s better if you’re not allergic to it.
I have no idea what Mom and Dad Azuma do when they’re not eating. They’re either the busiest people at the whole Oasis or maybe they sleep between meals. The only parents that are scarcer than the Azumas belong to this girl Brooklynne Feldman. The number of times I’ve seen them: zero. I don’t even know what cottage the Feldmans live in, so there’s no way I can spy on them and catch a glimpse. Brooklynne is tall, thin, and kind of angular—tomboyish. She shows up for the kid activities around here even less than Jett. So maybe a better description would be that she’s super independent. Come to think of it, I do know one thing about the Feldmans: they must be pretty easygoing to be okay with letting their daughter be on her own so much. How do you get that lucky? My folks would send out a search party if I so much as showed up five minutes late to Awakening or tried to skip a single meditation class with Ivory.
That’s it for the middle schoolers, except the new guy, Jett. It blows my mind that Vladimir Baranov sent his son to the Oasis of Mind and Body Wellness. Don’t get me wrong. The creator of Fuego has enough money to buy the Oasis and kick Magnus and the pathfinders out, and still have plenty left to take over Arkansas and install Jett as governor. But Vladimir Baranov is more than just rich and famous. He’s a legend—the greatest innovator in the history of Silicon Valley. That means Jett is like royalty—tech royalty, anyway. Who expects to run into someone like that in a place like this?
Of all the kids who are at the Oasis under protest, Jett is at the top of the list. Why else would Jett’s dad send a full-blown Fuego executive clear across the continent to make sure his son gets here and stays here? Oh, sure, that guy Matt uses the term companion, but anyone can see that his real job description is guard. Bodyguard, probably, but at least a little bit the prison kind too. Matt’s the only reason Jett shows up for anything at the Oasis. And when he does come, he’s not the nicest guy in the world to be around. He seems pretty angry about having to be here.
“So who sent for him?” Grace demands.
Grace has been my best friend in the nine days we’ve been here. She’s really nice. It’s just that she’s such a big fan of this place that she can’t handle any criticism of it. To her, a guy who oozes attitude like Jett is the equivalent of waving a red flag in front of a bull.
We’re standing on the dock with the rest of the kids, watching Matt march Jett along the pathway to join us. It reminds me of those old-time war movies where an escaped prisoner is being prodded back behind barbed wire at the barrel of a gun.
I raise a hand in greeting. “Over here, Jett.”
I feel pretty stupid when he ignores me.
“What are you doing?” Grace hisses. “You’ll make him think he’s welcome—which he’s not.”
“Give him a chance,” I plead.
“Why should we?” she demands. “So he can be as rude to us as he is to Magnus?”
“He’s
probably not used to people saying no to him,” I reason. “This must be a huge shock to his system. He’s rebelling. What would you do in his place?”
“I would be the exact opposite of him,” she says with absolute certainty. “In other words, I wouldn’t be a jerk.”
Janelle, the water sports pathfinder, announces that we’re going to be taking out the pedal boats today. The Oasis is located on the Saline River, right at the inlet lake that we use for boating and kayaking. As we all start pairing up for the two-person pedal boats, Jett reaches into his pocket as if searching for his phone, which obviously isn’t there. It’s a common rookie mistake at the center—we’re so used to having our devices right at hand.
Am I crazy to think that Jett and I could be friends? We’re both kind of misfits here. Neither of us loves the Oasis. Okay, him more than me, but that might be just because I’m way better at letting myself be pushed around. Whatever the reason, Jett has a zero percent chance of ever getting picked to be somebody’s partner for pedal boats. And that’s going to make him hate it here even more than he does now.
So I step forward. “I’ll go with Jett.”
This is news to Grace, who is always my pedal-boating partner. Her eyes shoot sparks at me.
“All right.” Janelle beams. “Jett, you’re with Tyrell.”
Jett’s half-closed eyes open maybe an extra millimeter, but that’s his only reaction.
Janelle rattles off the rules, which the rest of us have heard before: bathing suits only; baling buckets handy in the back; keep hands and feet inside the boat; pedal in unison; and most important, don’t get too close to the river, where the current can catch you. “Not unless you speak Creole,” the pathfinder concludes. “The Saline will take you all the way down to Louisiana. Any questions?”
Jett raises his hand. “Do we have to do it?”
“Can it, smart guy,” Matt puts in wearily. “Yes, you have to do it.”
And the next thing I know, I’m climbing into the boat next to Vladimir Baranov’s son.
“My family are big Fuego fans,” I tell him as we pedal out onto the lake. “We use ByteBolt on our computers and do most of our shopping through Fuego Prime.”
“Yeah?” he replies in a bored tone. “I’ll be sure to tell Vlad. Oh, wait. No phone. Sorry.”
“I mean, he obviously doesn’t have to know about every customer,” I say hastily. “Fuego has, what, two billion users?”
“Two-point-five,” Jett corrects me. “And my dad cares about every single one of them—more than he cares about his own son.”
“Uh, I’m sure that’s not true—”
He shoots me a sideways glance. “Did he send any of them to this hippy-dippy wellness Podunk?”
“Well, I’m sure he has his reasons—” I risk a glance at his bland features. “Come to think of it, why did your father send you here?”
“Because Pluto was already booked.”
I’m about to ask what he could possibly have done to tick his father off so badly, but I catch a glimpse of Grace. She’s in the blue boat with Stuart, one of the high school guys. She’s making an O motion with her finger, and I realize what she’s trying to tell me. We’re going around in circles. A quick check reveals that this is because I’m pedaling and Jett isn’t.
“Hey, you have to pedal too,” I urge.
“Why? I don’t want to go anywhere.”
“Because if you don’t, we’ll—”
There’s a scraping sound as our boat runs aground in the reeds.
Jett sits up and looks around. When he sees Matt scowling at us, he breaks into a happy smile.
“Back up, Einstein!” Matt hollers from the opposite shore.
Violating the rules, I reach my foot out of the boat and jam it into the silty bottom in an attempt to pry us loose. The mud is really soft, so I can’t get any leverage.
Jett isn’t helping. For the first time since I laid eyes on him, he actually seems to be enjoying himself.
Lazily, he plucks a bulrush out of the water and examines it with interest. “I wonder how these things would fly.” He scrambles up, and with the boat rocking beneath him, he rears back and launches the rush like a spear. It soars high in the air and lands with a small splash near the cluster of boats pedaling around.
“Wow,” I can’t help commenting. “I didn’t think it would go so far.”
“I know, right?” He’s impressed. “The fat part gives it weight and the stalk adds stability.” He pulls out another rush and cocks back his arm like a pitcher. “Watch this one.”
“Careful you don’t hit anybody,” I put in.
Jett’s second throw is much harder, the action of his body jarring our boat free of the mud and sending us back into open water. The projectile sails halfway across the lake and, as if aimed by an evil spirit, comes down into the lead boat.
“Yeow!” comes a deep-throated cry of outrage.
Jett is still on his feet, arms spread wide in triumph when Brandon peers over to investigate the source of the missile that clobbered him.
“What’d you do that for?”
I grab Jett’s arm and pull him back down to the seat. “Aw, jeez! You just nailed the biggest, meanest kid in the whole center!”
Jett is serene. “Be whole, man.”
He’s not nearly so calm a few seconds later when Brandon and his partner, Armando, pedal out of the group, kicking up a pretty good spray. There’s no question that they’re coming straight for us. Jett finds his pedals at last and we’re headed at them on a collision course.
“You don’t want to mess with Brandon,” I plead. “His dad used to play for the 49ers!”
“My dad used to own the 49ers,” he shoots back.
The transformation in Jett when he isn’t half asleep is amazing. His eyes are wide and bright blue. His cheeks flame. The grin is practically ear to ear, revealing a mouth full of gleaming white teeth. Compare that to Brandon, whose expression is like a line of thunderheads as he closes in on us. Maybe Mr. Bucholz came here to get less aggressive, but it’s not affecting Junior very much.
I catch a fleeting glimpse of Grace in the blue boat. She was annoyed at me a few minutes ago, but now she’s all sympathy. Or maybe she’s distracted because she’s wondering what to wear to my funeral.
“I want to talk to you, rich boy!” Brandon roars.
We’re seconds away from a painful head-on collision when Jett reaches over and heaves the tiller as far as it will go in the opposite direction. Our boat pivots suddenly and swerves out of the path of the oncoming Brandon and Armando. They miss us completely. Brandon lunges for Jett and belly flops into the water.
“We’re dead,” I predict mournfully as we pedal away. “We’re so dead.”
“Try a little meditation,” Jett advises.
By the time the dripping Brandon climbs back into his boat, we’ve got a solid head start and we’re moving even faster than before. The other kids and the people onshore are all yelling at us. What are they saying?
“Turn back!” Janelle’s frantic voice rises above the others.
It hits me—we’re on the far side of the lake, heading out into the river. That’s why we’re moving so fast—the current is taking us. This crazy Californian is going to get himself killed—and me with him!
I’m not sure exactly when we stop pedaling. It doesn’t matter, because at this point, the Saline River is in charge. Anyway, the agony doesn’t last long. We’re picked up by the downstream flow, which directs us into a huge slanted rock. The slope acts as a ramp, and we’re catapulted onto the far riverbank and deposited into a giant, scratchy bramble bush. There we hang, imprisoned by the branches, unable to move.
“You okay?” I ask Jett when the thumping of my heart slows enough for speech.
He just laughs. I guess that means yes.
Here I am, terrified that we broke the rules, the boat, and almost ourselves. We made an enemy out of Brandon, ticked off the pathfinders, and maybe my family will be
kicked out of the Oasis and blame it on me. But there’s something about Jett’s cackle of pure unholy glee that makes it seem like everything’s going to be fine. I spend my whole life stressing out about what could happen and what might happen. And here’s this guy who not only doesn’t care; he acts like consequences are something that couldn’t apply to him in a million years. It makes no sense, but at that moment, I love the kid!
Besides, my arms are so badly scratched that I can’t even feel my latest rash.
4
Jett Baranov
Question: How many pathfinders does it take to rescue a treed pedal boat?
Answer: All of them.
Even the great Nimbus himself joins the team to come and pull me and the itchy kid out of that bush. The Oasis has a motorized launch that they have to use to get to us on the opposite bank—not that we made it very far.
Considering how ticked off everybody should be, the pathfinders are being surprisingly cool about it. They’re even making excuses for us, saying the current is extra strong today and blah, blah, blah. Janelle actually apologizes for putting me at risk.
I tell them outright, “You didn’t put me at risk. I did it on purpose.”
Tyrell snickers a little at that one. The kid is growing on me. He’s one of the few people around here with a sense of humor. Too bad I’m not joking. Getting myself bounced from the Swamp Gas Hilton isn’t a joke; it’s a sacred quest.
“Look, this is a hundred percent on me. What can I say? I’m a bad person. I do this kind of thing all the time. I totally understand if you have to kick me out.”
“The blame is ours,” Nimbus insists. “We’re pathfinders. If you haven’t found a place for wellness within you, it’s because we have not yet shown you the path.”
I may be Silicon Valley’s Number One Spoiled Brat, but I know right then and there that I’m out of my league. I could build an atomic bomb and blow the Oasis off the face of the Earth, and Nimbus would find a way to pin it on the plutonium and give me a free pass. I’m never going to get myself booted out of here. It’s just not possible. The fix is in. The more awful you behave, the more it proves you need wellness. And if you’re good, they can just claim the wellness is working. It’s a lose-lose.
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