“Hear that?” Peashooter laughed. “Mommy and Daddy want to know what’s going on here!”
The Tribe’s snickering filled the amphitheater like a pack of hyenas howling over carrion. Peashooter lifted his skull quarterstaff into the air, silencing the Tribe.
“All men recognize the right of revolution,” Peashooter pronounced, personalizing Thoreau. “That is, the right to refuse allegiance to, and to resist our parents when their tyranny or their inefficiency are great and unendurable.”
A chorus of shouts rose up.
Most moms and dads stepped back. As I watched their faces, I could see it dawn on some of them just how dire their situation was, while others stubbornly refused to believe their eyes.
“What is this?” the oblivious father kept persisting. He scanned the crowd until he locked onto Klepto. “Thomas—just what do you think you’re doing?”
Klepto didn’t say a word. He held up his chin and clenched his bow.
“Thomas, please,” his mother started. “Just tell us where the adults are?”
Ever watch a clueless grown-up attempt to regain control of a group of wild children? They always try reason. They hide behind a protective blanket of their own logic. They demand explanations, insisting that they are right, that they deserve respect—that just because they’re older, they’re in control.
I couldn’t help but cringe.
“No adults here,” Peashooter said. “We are the ones in control now.”
“Mason.” Another dad took a step forward, hands planted on his hips. “You want to explain to me what this is all about?”
“Keep the fire burning at all times!” Firefly shouted. “Gotta feed the flames!”
“We don’t have to explain anything to you anymore.” Peashooter spoke on Firefly’s behalf, and for all the members of Camp Cannibal.
“Is that so?” Firefly’s father huffed. “And who are you supposed to be, kid?”
Peashooter remained calm. “I am everything you prayed would never come to pass. I am the inevitable. I am the future. I am…”
Peashooter paused.
“I am the father of these kids now.”
Peashooter swept his deer-skulled quarterstaff across the back of the man’s leg, striking him in the soft of his knee joint.
Firefly’s father folded over on his knees.
Two other fathers stepped forward, ready to come to this man’s aid—but before they could reach him, the Tribe readied their weapons. Both men froze.
“You all must be parched from such a long journey,” Peashooter said. “We thought we might offer you some refreshments to quench your thirst.”
Sporkboy entered the amphitheater holding a tray full of paper cups. Each miniature paper cup was full of bright-orange liquid.
“Line up,” Sporkboy announced. “Time to drink the Kool-Aid.”
I scanned the crowd and found Klepto. His tackle box was by his feet. If I were a betting boy, I had a pretty good guess at the cocktail of prescription meds in those refreshments.
Peashooter turned to Firefly’s father. “You first, sir.”
It didn’t sound like he had much choice in the matter.
Firefly’s father picked up a cup from the tray. He brought it up to his mouth, then hesitated. He looked to his son. “Mason…?” The name died as it left his mouth.
“My name is Firefly now.”
Firefly’s father looked down at the cup in his hand.
“Down the hatch,” Peashooter said.
Do something, Spencer. Stop this.
Firefly’s father brought the cup to his lips.
Now!
I closed my eyes. And let go of the branch.
I felt like I was flying.
Until I landed on top of Firefly’s dad. The paper cup tumbled out from his hand as we both splatted on the ground.
“Sorry to drop in like this,” I said, struggling to stand.
Klepto was quick to hit me upside the head with his tackle box. A hailstorm of pills showered over the ground.
Peashooter snatched a cup from Sporkboy’s tray. With his free hand, he clutched my lower jaw and squeezed until my lips puckered.
“Don’t worry, Rat,” he muttered, fuming. “You’re just in time.”
Peashooter raised the cup over his head.
“A toast! To Spencer Pendleton.” Peashooter brought the cup to my mouth. “May you rest in peace….”
I tried to wriggle my lips free from his fingers and seal them shut, but his grip around my jaw was too tight.
“Bottoms up.”
Kool-Aid suddenly exploded everywhere. The cup seemed to burst all on its own. My face was dripping wet while Peashooter held the shreds of a paper cup.
“Hey, Peashooter!” A lone voice cut through the amphitheater.
All heads turned.
Sully?
She stood at the rear with her slingshot pulled taut, aiming right at Peashooter. Her hair, her never-ending hair, was now braided into tight cornrows that wove around her scalp in a spiral pattern, like a conch shell.
“Can the boys come out and play?”
She pivoted on her heels and fired. Rather than hit Peashooter, Sporkboy got a rock right in the wrist. His hand slackened and dropped the tray.
Paper cups crashed at his feet. A wave of florescent-orange Kool-Aid washed over the ground before soaking into the soil.
Sully cricked her neck back until she was facing the sky. Taking in a deep breath, she let out a high-pitched ululation:
“Lalalalalalalala!”
One second, they weren’t there. The next, they leapt out from perched positions over our heads.
They must have been hiding in the trees all along. Now, like ripe fruit falling from a branch, they dropped into the amphitheater.
How could I not have noticed them?
Each girl had their hair done up in a different style. Spirals of black cornrows, a brown ponytail halo braided around the scalp, blond Bantu knots, red Celtic lassos, all swirled around their heads in order to keep their hair out of their fiercely ornamented faces. Red stripes lined their noses. Blue dots freckled their cheeks. Yellow swirls surrounded their eyes. Green bolts lashed over their foreheads.
Before one boy could raise his weapon, the horizon was eclipsed with a circle of girls, their tongues lashing at the roofs of their mouths, echoing Sully’s battle cry.
“Lalalalalalalalala!”
DAY EIGHT: 1100 HOURS
et it be known that on this sunny morning, on the eighth day of summer camp, at eleven a.m., Camp Cannibal became a battlefield.
There will come a day when kids all across the country will turn to one another in the cafeteria and ask—Where were you on that fateful summer morning?
A select few will roll up their sleeves and show channels of raised flesh as living proof of who fought on that fated day.
I was there, they will say. It was one for the history books.
•••
Just across Lake Wendigo, the female faction of Camp New Leaf had been keeping themselves very, very busy.
While the boys had been occupying their time by torturning me, Sully had trained her fellow campers in marksmanship and military tactics.
Not to mention battlefield accessorizing.
Each girl wielded her own handmade slingshot, plus a fanny pack loaded with rocks and a florescent-yellow jump rope coiled at her waist.
Klepto was the first to break from the front line. There were only three steps between him and the amphitheater’s entrance when Sully grabbed the rope at her hip. The yellow spool unraveled as she spun it over her head and released.
The loop twirled through the air before swallowing Klepto at his shoulders.
“Where are you going?” She gave a yank, sending him to the g
round. “The fun’s just started.”
I spotted the blonde from the other night, her hair still braided to the side of her head. She looked up to the sky with the rest and flicked her tongue across her teeth.
“Lalalalalalalalala!”
They wore the same red shorts and white T-shirts. In puffy red iron-on letters, it read NEW LEAF across the front, along with the maple-leafed moose head. The seams along their shoulders were lined in white goose feathers, like wings. Strapped to their chests were two Popsicle sticks glued into an X, wrapped in multicolored yarn.
The Tribe had their insignia, and Sully’s crew had their crest.
She had struck out on her own.
This was her Tribe.
Not Peashooter’s.
“Take them down!” he shouted as he scaled his lifeguard chair. He hovered above the skirmish, calling out orders. “Don’t be afraid of fighting back because they’re girls! This is the fight we’ve been preparing for all summer! This is your—”
He raised a fist into the air, a breath away from sounding his own battle cry.
As soon as his mouth opened, he choked.
Clutching his throat, Peashooter spat out a rock with a couple teeth.
I spun back to Sully to see her slingshot still held up in the air. She spotted me from across the amphitheater and winked.
Compass rushed up to the choking Peashooter and helped him down from the lifeguard chair, yelling—“Attaaaaaaaack!”
The command was given.
Time to fight.
But instead of the boys going after their parents, they charged the girls.
Sully sounded her battle cry. “Lalalalalalala!”
The ululation passed from mouth to mouth.
“Lalalalalalalalala!”
Each girl pinpointed a target, and together they released a hailstorm of rocks.
“Aim for the soft spots,” Sully ordered. “Incapacitate and disarm!”
They targeted wrists.
Ankles.
Knees.
Even the groin. Anything to relieve these boys of their weaponized gardening tools and get them down on the ground.
I seized the moment to usher panicking parents away from the crossfire. It must’ve looked like the most brutal game of capture the flag ever.
Husbands hugged their wives and crouched down low to avoid the firefight between these two warring tribes.
“Stay down,” I shouted over the commotion.
Thomas’s father absentmindedly nodded, shell-shocked. “What is this?”
“This? Just our annual Camp New Leaf Olympiad. You know—egg tosses, three-legged races, head-hunting. Standard summer stuff. Very therapeutic.”
I looked up and realized Peashooter was no longer in his high chair. Compass was attempting to pull him out of the amphitheater, but Peashooter refused to abandon their cannibalistic comrades as they rolled around the ground, clutching their knees.
“We need to evacuate,” Compass shouted.
Peashooter pulled free from his grip. “Don’t tell me to give up!”
“We’ve already lost!”
Compass was right. The girls had laid down a steady bombardment of slingshot fire, taking the bulk of the boys to the ground. Once they were down, the girls pounced and tethered them up with their jump ropes so no one could run.
Incapacitate.
Detain.
Repeat.
Suddenly there were more boys rocking and moaning on the ground than on their feet.
When the remaining cannibals realized they were outnumbered, that they couldn’t win against the girls—the strangest thing happened. Something neither myself nor Peashooter or anyone else could ever have anticipated.
The boys turned against the camp.
Taking whatever they could grab off the ground—whether it was their handmade weapon or a rock or a branch—the pack of feral campers rushed through New Leaf to wreak whatever destruction they were still capable of.
Cabin windows shattered.
The lifeguard chair was pushed over into the fire pit.
A hay bale from the archery range was lit on fire. I jumped out of the way just in time to dodge the flaming bundle as it smashed into the lifeguard chair, sending burning bits of hay into the air.
Parents screamed, running in every direction.
“What’s wrong with you?” Peashooter shouted. “What are you doing? This is your home! You’re destroying your own home!”
Peashooter couldn’t stop them. He’d lost control of his own Tribe. I watched him search the crowd. When he spotted Sully, he summoned all the bilious spite he could muster and pointed—“You.”
He charged. Sully lifted her slingshot, ready to reload, but Peashooter was upon her before she could fire, knocking it out of her hand.
“Sully!” I was halfway to the rescue when a fibrously fluffy tennis ball consumed with flame crashed at my feet.
Then another.
Looking up, I saw Firefly now perched on the roof to cabin four. He had a tennis racket and over a dozen tennis balls. Using a pair of tongs from the mess hall, he dipped each ball into a bucket of gasoline, lit it on fire—and served.
Blazing tennis balls volleyed through the air.
“Feed the flames,” Firefly screeched as he wantonly lobbed balls into the sky with no regard to where they landed. He could care less what his target was. “Feed the flames, feed the flames!”
“The fires,” I shouted, stomping on a burning ball. “Put out the fires!”
Sporkboy popped up out of nowhere and pushed me to the ground.
“Stop being such a spoilsport,” he said as he reeled back, ready to belly flop.
I shrank into myself as Sporkboy closed in. His feet were about to leap off the ground—when, right over his shoulder, I sighted Charles barreling down the amphitheater’s path in his wheelbarrow, Yardstick steering straight for us.
“Incoming!” Charles yelled.
Sporkboy turned just in time to see Yardstick dig his heels in. The sudden halt propelled Charles from the wheelbarrow arcing through the air.
A cannibal catapult.
Charles unlocked his mandibles.
The steel trap of his lower jaw swung open.
The second Charles pounced upon Sporkboy, his teeth sank into the soft flesh of Sporkboy’s throat and clamped down.
The two hit the ground, rolling over each other. Their bodies eventually stopped with Charles on top, pinning Sporkboy to the ground by his mouth.
Charles growled, keeping his teeth clamped onto Sporkboy’s neck flesh.
Sporkboy’s eyes lolled over to one side and settled upon Yardstick, while the rest of his body remained extremely still.
“You’re picking Spencer over us?” he asked. “Your own family?”
“My family wouldn’t do this.”
I stepped over Sporkboy and stood next to Yardstick. “I thought you bolted.”
“Just doing a little improvising.”
“You okay down there?” I asked Charles.
“Na pwowem. Ah gaht wis cwovured.”
Most girls watched on in bewilderment as the remaining cannibals ransacked their own camp. Rather than fight, they dismantled the cabin doors and flung them through the windows. They ripped shingles off rooftops with their bare hands.
“Claw and Fang!”
“Claw and Fang!”
“Claw and Fang!”
Flaming tennis balls continued to rain down. One landed on the roof of cabin three and rolled into the gutter. Before long, smoke spirited into the air.
“Let me deal with Firefly,” Yardstick said. “You take care of Peashooter.”
Where was he?
I scanned the chaos but couldn’t find him or Sully anywhere.
They had just been here a second ago….
Compass wandered aimlessly through the amphitheater. “Stop,” he implored. “All of you—stop!”
Several cannibals pushed the logs out from their original position within the amphitheater’s circle and watched them barrel down the slope. Several parents had to leap out of the way before the tumbling tree trunks crashed into the fire pit.
“Claw and Fang!”
“Claw and Fang!”
“Claw and Fang!”
“Peashooter gave you your freedom,” Compass continued, his pleas falling on deaf ears. “He gave you everything you ever—”
A blur of tiny limbs quickly enveloped him.
The Piranhas!
The pack of hyperactive campers latched on to his legs and arms, then sank their teeth into whatever piece of Compass was closest—his thigh, his bicep, his shoulder.
“Timetoeattimetoeatdinnerbellisringingyumyummyinourtummy…”
One Piranha climbed onto his back and wrapped his hands around Compass’s eyes. Before he could yank the hands away, that Piranha sank his teeth into his ear.
“Get off of me!” Compass shrieked. “Get off—”
“Rubadubdubthanksforthegrubrubadubdubthanksforthegrub…”
The Piranhas wrapped around his legs, grabbed one another and pulled, cinching Compass at the knees. He toppled to the ground, howling from underneath the pile of tiny bodies. He lashed frantically—but it was useless.
A Piranha looked up at me and grinned, blood smeared across his teeth.
“Bon appétit,” I said and stepped back. I could hear Compass from below, screaming—“Get them off, get them off, get them ooooooff.”
I raced out from the amphitheater, surveying the mayhem for Peashooter and Sully.
The cabins had been scavenged, and windows smashed. Farther down the path, several cannibals took to the parking lot. They hopped onto their parents’ cars and a cacophony of car alarms and shattered glass rang out into the air.
“Claw and Fang!”
“Claw and Fang!”
“Claw and Fang!”
But this wasn’t the Law of Claw and Fang. Not the way Peashooter had imagined.
This was chaos.
Utter anarchy.
Smoke was rising up from the roofs of several cabins now, growing thicker and highlighted by flashes of yellow.
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