Camp Cannibal

by Clay McLeod Chapman

  There was no return address on the manila envelope. Just a dozen mismatched stamps stuck to the front. I greedily tore it open and pulled out…

  A book?

  It was a well-worn copy of J. M. Barrie’s Peter Pan. There was no note, no inscription inside. Just a ratty paperback that must’ve been read a hundred times.

  But who sent it?

  You know who, the mailbox said, reading my thoughts.

  Flipping through, I came upon a single underlined sentence:

  Never say good-bye because saying good-bye means going away and going away means forgetting.

  I quickly closed the book and scanned our block.

  “This is a practical joke, isn’t it?” I asked. “You’re messing with my head.”

  No response. Of course. What did I think it would say?

  It’s just a mailbox.

  There’s only one person I know who knows I know they’ve read Peter Pan. And that certain person just might know that I’d know that they’d know I knew.

  This was the best birthday present a guy could get.

  Hope.

  lame Martin Luther King.

  Mom had to arrange my homeschooling when she realized Dad had forgotten to. I still had a semester’s worth of seventh grade to survive, and she wasn’t about to let me slip through the academic cracks. That meant tackling the Age of Enlightenment, square roots, and sentence structure all on my own—not to mention a whole bunch of other subjects that blurred into a chemically induced stew of misplaced integers and grammatical mistakes.

  You try studying on this prescription. Class might as well have been underwater. There was a thickness to my thoughts after I popped one of these pills, slowing my synapses down. My brain had to push through sludge to reach the answers.

  Fight the fog fight the fog fight the fog fight the fog…

  But then I met Dr. King.

  He was waiting for me in my history lesson. I read about how he fought for his beliefs in a nonviolent manner.

  “You’re telling me you stood up against injustice peacefully?” I asked. “Protest with a smile? That sort of thing?”

  “Nonviolence is a powerful and just weapon,” he answered back from the cozy confines of my history book. “Indeed, it is a weapon unique in history, which cuts without wounding and ennobles the man who wields it.”

  This is what happens when I study.

  My books start talking back to me.

  All Dad had to do was make sure I kept up with my class assignments. That usually amounted to him peeking his head into my room for a quick scan. As long as he saw a book in my hands, open and right-side up, he didn’t look much further.

  One night, he poked his head into my room for a quick look-see. Just as he was about to slip back out, I felt compelled to ask him—“Did you know Martin Luther King once said, ‘A man who won’t die for something is not fit to live’?”

  “Sure thing.”

  “So what are you willing to die for, Dad?”

  “What’s that?”

  “Nothing. Just thinking out loud.”

  “Okeydoke!”

  He closed the door behind him, sealing me in with Martin. I wanted to make my room even smaller, encasing myself within my history book. Let the pages become my walls.

  What was I willing to die for?

  How about who?

  I’ll give you one guess.

  •••

  Fifteen breakouts in the last three months alone.

  Not a bad personal record, huh? When you’re under house arrest, you have to find ways to stretch the ol’ legs.

  Of course I’d get caught. I never tampered with my ankle monitor. I kept it on, leading the police right to me.

  Here are my top three breakouts of all time.

  So far.

  GREAT ESCAPE HALL OF FAME

  ESCAPE #3: APRIL twentieth

  The Local Library

  I had some overdue books, so I decided to hand-deliver them.

  All I had was a thirty-second head start. Thirty seconds before my ankle monitor would break out into a hissy fit.

  Let’s break this down:

  •If I ran fast enough, I could reach the end of the block in thirteen seconds.

  •The next block in twenty-eight.

  •The local branch of our public library was five blocks away.

  •I’d have three blocks to go by the time the cops knew I was officially off the reservation.

  •If we estimate that each block takes roughly twelve seconds to span, that planted me at the library’s front entrance thirty-three seconds after my ankle monitor tipped Big Brother off to my whereabouts.

  •Standard police response time: Two minutes, twenty-seven seconds.

  My math was feeling a little fuzzy, but if my calculations were correct—I would have somewhere between one minute and fifty-seven seconds to two minutes all to myself before the authorities rolled in and dragged me away.

  A bookworm can do a lot of damage with two minutes in the library.

  Why not take the opportunity to peruse the newspaper archives on the Internet for sightings of feral teenagers?

  Anything that might help me figure out where the Tribe had run off to.

  Sully had to be out there, somewhere.

  I just had to find her.

  I kneeled down next to the mailbox at the edge of our yard, assuming my best sprint starting position.

  Remember My Little Friend? You’d hardly even recognize my inhaler anymore. I’ve “pimped my ride” since you last saw him. He now has red-and-yellow flames wrapping around the mouthpiece.

  I brought him up to my lips and pumped my chest full of medicated air. Feeling my bronchioles embrace the aerosolized dose of corticosteroids, I waited for the starting pistol to fire off in my imagination and make a break for it.

  On your mark…

  Get set…

  Go!

  I’d like to go on record stating that I personally have nothing against the Greenfield County Police Department or any of its employees, particularly Officers Winston Sellars and James Cassidy. These gentlemen were only doing their job, and I have nothing but the utmost respect for them and their tireless work ethic. I wholeheartedly apologize for repeatedly putting them in the position of breaking a sweat.

  You know I love you guys…Right?

  Sellars was a squat, pug-faced patrolman, whose head barely reached his partner’s shoulder. The handles on his horseshoe mustache got lost somewhere within the creases of his double chin.

  Cassidy had more height and less weight. His gangly limbs left him looking like the dancing windsock you’d find outside a used-car dealership.

  As soon as I saw them stumble into the library, a bit winded from their run, I flashed them a grin.

  “Officers! I didn’t know you had a membership to this branch. We should start our own book group.”

  “Time to go, Pendleton,” Sellars said. “Put the book down slowly, slowly.”

  “Don’t you two ever get tired of the roles society has assigned us?” I asked. “I mean, you’re both Authority figures with a capital A. I get that. You’ve got this part to play, just like I do. You look at me and all you see is a Delinquent with a capital D, a natural born absconder—and in all fairness, I was born for the role. But don’t you think maybe, just maybe, we can put down these clichéd designations that destiny has doomed us to fulfill and see each other not for our differences, but for our commonalities? Can’t we, you know…just get along?”

  Sellars side-glanced Cassidy.

  Cassidy cleared his throat. “Let’s try not to make a scene, okay?”

  “Of course,” I complied. “But before we go, can I recommend some reading material for your next stakeout? I just finished this book that
I think you two’ll love.”

  “What book?” Sellars asked. Cassidy elbowed him in the ribs.

  “It’s called I Know Why the Caged Jailbird’s Ankle Monitor Sings,” I said. “I think it’s somewhere in the romance section.”

  Thinking quick, I tipped over a stack of romance novels waiting to be reshelved and booked it down the aisle. Sellars planted his foot on a bodice ripper, slipping on the paperback like it was a banana peel.

  Cassidy was right behind me. I jumped up onto the reference desk, leaping over a few readers’ heads as I scurried across the tabletop.

  Undeterred, Cassidy grabbed at my knees. I avoided his clasping hands by hopping onto the next table, making sure not to step on anybody’s reading material, like some kind of clumsy ballerina dancing en pointe.

  Cassidy sped to the end of the table, cutting me off, and I froze with one foot still hovering through the air.

  Perfect arabesque.

  “Get down from there, Pendleton. Now.”

  Cassidy was coming up fast. No more tables for me to scale.

  The bookshelf just next to me suddenly looked a lot like a ladder.

  So I started climbing.

  Sellars picked himself up and followed Cassidy through the rows just below me—two mice maneuvering about a maze—as I leapt from one bookcase to the next.

  “You are not lab rats,” I belted out with each leap. “There is no cheese waiting at the end of this labyrinth! You’re all free! Free to think for yourselves! Free to live your lives the way you want to! Freedom! Freeeeeeedom!”

  I was running out of bookshelves. Only one more to go before I hit the wall.

  But I was going for the gold here.

  Or a window. Whichever came first.

  I launched off the shelf with enough force to inadvertently send the bookcase beneath me tipping over in the opposite direction.

  I went one way, the shelf went another.

  Once I landed on the last bookcase, I quickly spun around to behold the horrifying sight of the ledge I’d just left toppling into the neighboring case.

  And the next.

  Books slid off their shelves, their covers flapping haplessly through the air like flightless chickens falling to the floor as the chain reaction gained momentum.

  All I could do was watch in shock as each shelf collided with the case beside it, one after another, sending patrons and police officers clearing the aisles.

  I had unintentionally invented a new sporting event:

  Library dominoes.

  GREAT ESCAPE HALL OF FAME

  ESCAPE #2: APRIL thirtieth

  Greenfield Middle School

  Is it my fault Doc Lobotomy never asked which bathroom I planned on using?

  So what if I’d picked one from my old alma mater?

  I knew it was a big no-no, coming back to Greenfield ­Middle—but I needed to see someone.

  Mr. Simms’s face blanched as soon as he opened the janitor’s closet and discovered me inside, waiting among the shelves of cleaning fluids.

  “Good lord, son,” he said. “How long have you been in here?”

  I knew my police escorts were on their way, so I didn’t waste any time with chitchat. “Have you heard from them?”

  “Who?”

  Nobody knew Mr. Simms had been the Tribe’s elder statesman but me. I had kept his secret, which meant he kept his job.

  “You know who.”

  Simms scanned the hall to make sure we were alone.

  “They could be anywhere by now,” he said, shaking his head. “Hopefully far away from here.”

  “But they must’ve told you something.”

  “I told them not to.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I knew you’d come for me and try to find out.”

  I couldn’t help but wince. “You’re protecting them from me?”

  Mr. Simms reached into his pocket. “I did get this….”

  A postcard.

  There was nothing written on the back, save for the school’s address, care of Mr. Simms. It could have been from anybody.

  But I knew who. “It’s Sully, isn’t it?”

  “Your guess is as good as mine,” Simms shrugged.

  I flipped it over and found a faded photograph of a lake on the front. A crew-cutted kid straight out of the nineteen sixties was squatting in a canoe, waving at the camera.

  At the top, it read:

  GREETINGS FROM LAKE WENDIGO!

  Sellars and Cassidy stepped up behind Simms, looking none too happy.

  “Officers!” I beamed, stuffing the postcard into my back pocket. “So glad you could make it.”

  “You gonna come peacefully this time,” Cassidy asked, “or are we gonna have to use handcuffs?”

  “Don’t you two ever get tired of this routine? Don’t you ever imagine there’s more to life than this cat-and-mousing we find ourselves locked in, day after day?”

  “Not again, kid,” Sellars sighed. “Either do as we tell you, or we use force.”

  “I love it when you go all authoritarian, Officer Sellars….”

  “Count of three, Pendleton,” Cassidy intoned. “One.”

  I turned to Mr. Simms. “What period are we in?”

  “Third.”

  “Two.”

  “That means you just mopped the halls in the cafeteria, didn’t you?”

  “Just finished,” he said.

  “Right on schedule.” I nodded. “Good to see you, Mr. Simms.”

  “Three.”

  I plowed past Sellars and Cassidy.

  “Come back here!” Cassidy shouted.

  “But you haven’t gotten a tour of the school yet,” I called over my shoulder. “Follow me!”

  Sellars and Cassidy were on my heels. Sellars was slowing down but Cassidy kept right on me.

  “If you’re feeling peckish,” I called, entering the cafeteria, “might I recommend the mashed potatoes and a dash of pepper spray. Simply divine!”

  The floor shone like a fresh ice-skating rink. If I had the time to stop, I could have marveled at my own reflection.

  Cassidy was only a few steps behind. Just when he reached out to grab my shoulder, I dropped into a perfect slider. By the time Cassidy caught on, he was already heading on a crash course for the hot-food steam tables.

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa—” Cassidy skidded his heels into the linoleum, only to slip. Arms flailing, he tried to correct his balance as best he could, flinging one foot into the air as if he were a lumbering figure skater performing a camel spin.

  Cassidy made impact with the steam table—THWACK—sending a hailstorm of chicken nuggets into the air and showering back down upon him.

  “Whenever you’re ready for round two, just let me know,” I said, picking up a nugget and taking a bite. “No rush. Take your time. Rest a sec.”

  Cassidy rolled over the floor, covered in nuggets, moaning low.

  I held out my inhaler to him. “Here. Let me freshen you up.”

  Sellars ran into the cafeteria, hyperventilating, blocking my exit.

  So this was where I’d take my last stand.

  Showdown at the OK Cafeteria.

  I clambered behind the steam tables, quickly presented with a vast array of dining choices.

  What do we have on the menu today?

  From the looks of it, we had a wide selection of foods to choose from—green peas and cubed carrots, baked beans with bacon bits drifting in bubbling brown sauce, a washed-out fruit salad, mac n’ cheese, along with our aforementioned arsenal of chicken nuggets—­each sitting in its own stainless steel heating tray.

  A plastic-handled serving scoop pierced the surface of each grub tub.

  I grabbed for the nearest ladle and served Sellars a hearty doll
op of baked beans, splattered across the front of his uniform.

  I seized a second scoop, double-fisting now, brandishing both like a pair of six shooters.

  “Make sure you get a bit of all four food groups,” I shouted as I fired off a scoop of mac n’ cheese with my left hand, and peas with my right.

  I’d become a culinary quick-draw.

  Cassidy clamored up from the floor just in time to receive a face full of fruit salad. I was rapid-firing now, ladling up and hurling away.

  “Eat melon balls, coppers!”

  Both officers shielded their faces and stormed the steam tables.

  That left the kitchen. I rushed into the back area, quickly met by a posse of hairnetted lunch ladies prepping for today’s meal.

  “Surprise health inspection!” I shouted before bolting for the storage freezer.

  A bean-battered Sellars took the left while a mac-n’-cheesed Cassidy took the right, cornering me and closing in.

  I tried sidestepping them, but they pounced before I could push through.

  “I’m getting really tired of your routine, kid,” Sellars said as he dragged me out of the kitchen, my heels squealing over the linoleum.

  “That’s what I’ve been saying all this time! But what else am I supposed to do with myself, locked up all day? The only way I can get you guys to come visit is when I break out from house arrest.”

  “Try and get some friends your own age.”

  Mr. Simms had entered the cafeteria, wheeling in his mop and bucket.

  “My friends broke out a long time ago,” I said. “I’m trying to find them.”

  “If you do, tell them I said hello,” Simms said.

  I could tell he missed them.

  He wasn’t the only one.

  GREAT ESCAPE HALL OF FAME

  ESCAPE #1: MAY twentieth

  The Tulliver Residence

  I’ve had to time my breakouts between my med intake. It’s easier to escape on a clear head.

  Dinner wasn’t for another hour. The fog was only one pill away—but for now, my mind felt free and clear. Nothing but blue skies in my brain.

  Perfect for a little evening run.

  “I think I’m gonna go for a stroll around the block, Dad,” I called upstairs.

  “Sure thing,” Dad shouted back from his office.