Camp Cannibal
Page 21
Peashooter’s mother didn’t say anything. Only listened.
“The only thing you need to know about Jason is,” Peashooter continued, “he loved to read. Whenever he was done with one novel, his mother always brought him another. Until Henry. Whenever Jason accidentally left his books out where Henry believed they didn’t belong, Henry would punish him. But he wouldn’t just beat him. Henry would let Jason choose his fate: ‘Punishment A’ or ‘Punishment B.’ Punishment A would be something like—No books for a week. While Punishment B was always Henry’s fist. No reading or a black eye. The choice was always his.”
His mother reached out for him again, but he pushed her hand away.
“Jason would rather be bruised black and blue than lose his books. But the more spirited Jason was, the angrier Henry got. So he’d only hit harder. And harder.”
Peashooter’s mother was trembling. Her own eyes were wet now.
“Do you know what the worst part was?” Peashooter asked.
“What?” Her voice cracked.
“Jason’s mom.”
“What did she do?” The words were barely there.
“She didn’t do anything,” Peashooter snapped. “While Henry was disciplining Jason, his mom stood to the side and acted as if nothing was wrong.”
His mother took hold of his arm. He tried to pull away, but she held on.
“I’m sorry, Jason….”
“You don’t get to say you’re sorry!”
His mother refused to let go. “I’m so sorry for what I’ve done.”
“You don’t get to…”
Peashooter struggled against her grip. “You don’t…”
“Forgive me.”
“You…”
He fell against his mother and she wrapped her arms around him. The sobbing that seeped out from her shoulder wasn’t of Peashooter, but of a boy, a little child, hurt and frightened. He pressed his face against her shoulder, burying it as deep into her coat as he could, the sound of his crying drifting into the amphitheater.
Camp Cannibal had fallen. The Tribe had disintegrated.
Time to go home.
Now if I could just find my own mom and dad…
All the kids had been reunited with their parents, except for me. I couldn’t seem to find either of them anywhere. I felt my heart pound against my ribs as I watched the crowd thin.
Where are they?
They weren’t waiting for me in the amphitheater.
They weren’t waiting for me in the parking lot.
They weren’t waiting for me in my cabin.
They weren’t waiting for me in the main office.
I spotted a father who looked like he was on his own, his back facing me.
“There you are,” I said as I rushed up and tapped him on the shoulder. “I was beginning to get worried you hadn’t—”
The man turned around and regarded me with a puzzled expression.
He wasn’t my father.
“Sorry, I thought…” I took a step back. “Thought you were my…”
“Have you seen my son?” The man asked. “I’m looking for Salvatore.”
“Sal…?” I should’ve recognized the resemblance. “You mean Capone?”
“Do you know where he is? I can’t find him anywhere.”
The counselors! Somebody should probably let them out….
“Follow me.” I took him to the brig.
Capone shuffled out into the bright sun, wincing like a mole. His father rushed up and pulled him away from the dazed counselors, a million and one questions instantly flooding out from his mouth—“Did you have anything to do with this? Is this your fault? What happened to your braces? Where’s the administrator? Just what kind of summer camp do they think they’re running here…?”
George was the last to wander out from the cabin. Loose bits of his ponytail-free hair straggled in the wind. “Please tell me the nightmare’s over….”
“Looks that way,” I said. “Most moms and dads made it up for Parents’ Day. Can’t seem to find mine, though….”
“Pendleton, right…? You’re Spencer?”
“That’s me.”
George blinked, processing a distant scrap of information buried in the far recesses of his memory. “Your father phoned before this—this campers’ coup d’état.”
“What did he say?”
“He wanted us to know that he wouldn’t be able to make it to Parents’ Day.”
My chest tightened. “Why…?”
“Some last-minute business-related thing, I believe he mentioned. If we ran into any trouble, he suggested we try calling your mother.”
Lights fade on the Spotlight Dad’s exit once again. Cue the strings.
I took a step back.
“What about my mom?”
“We really didn’t have much time to discuss it.” George swallowed, his voice raspy. “But she seemed pretty insistent that it was your father’s responsibility.”
A tiny voice piped up in the rear of my brain, quietly informing me what I already knew but refused to believe until that very moment….
Your parents aren’t here, Spencer.
They hadn’t come for me.
Neither of them.
No matter how hard I tried not to listen, the voice grew louder.
You’re all alone.
I looked over at Firefly’s mom and dad struggling to understand how things had got to this point. He bowed his head, tears rinsing the ash away from his cheeks. They both clung to him.
“How could this happen?” they asked. “Is it something we did?”
It wasn’t going to be easy to understand. But at least they were trying.
Nobody wanted to try and understand me.
Not anymore.
Peashooter had been right.
I found Sully in the crowd. Her feet hadn’t touched the ground ever since her father first took her into his arms and lifted her up.
“I’m taking you to the hospital,” I heard him say.
Sully shook her head. “But, Dad—”
“You’re hurt,” he insisted. “We have to get your shoulder looked at.”
“Just one second.”
Sully slid out from her father’s grip and forced her way through the crowd. As soon as she saw me by myself, a look of relief washed over her face.
I didn’t move.
We remained at opposite ends of the amphitheater, separated by everybody else’s families.
Sully could sense something was wrong.
“What is it?” she mouthed from across the crowd.
I tried to answer, but my voice was gone. My lips moved without any sound.
Sully looked confused.
“…Elephant juice?” she asked.
We held each other’s stare for a moment before I broke away and faced the woods.
“Spencer?”
I heard the call of the wild, more luringly and compelling than ever before. And as never before, I was ready to obey.
Dad’s off somewhere. Mom needs a break. They wouldn’t miss me.
“Spencer—!”
A breeze blew through, swishing within the woods—and for a moment, the rustling leaves sounded like a thousand pom-poms bristling together at a pep rally.
The pines were towering cheerleaders swaying in the wind.
“Spencer—wait!” Sully tried one last time.
The trees cheered as I entered the woods.
Go, Spencer, go! Go, Spencer, go!
I heard them chanting all around me as I picked up the pace.
Go, Spencer, go!
I was sprinting now, faster with each footstep, the chanting growing louder and louder the deeper into the woods I went.
Thanks to Kyle Jarrow,
Chris Steib, Erik German, Isaac Butler, “Uncle” Rick Mullins, and Liz Deibel for braving those messy first and second drafts. To Rob Moor, Leiko Coyle, and everyone else who kindly shared their summer camp stories with me.
Eddie Gamarra deserves a parade in his honor. I am constantly striving to be the kind of writer an agent of his magnitude deserves. To Ellen Goldsmith-Vein and everyone at the Gotham Group, thank you for believing in me and these books.
Kevin Lewis never told me to hold back. He always told me to find the envelope, but instead of merely pushing it, he told me to rip it to pieces—and for that I am forever in his debt. Thank you for being the kind of editor writers only dream about. To Ricardo Mejias and everyone at Disney • Hyperion, thank you for putting up with me.
To Indrani, who gave birth to our son while I gave birth to this book—you inspire me each and every day. Thank you for being there for me through everything.
And thanks to the amazing books that inspired this one—Walden and Other Writings by Henry David Thoreau, Animal Farm by George Orwell, The Call of the Wild and White Fang by Jack London, Peter and Wendy by J. M. Barrie, The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood by Howard Pyle, Lord of the Flies by William Golding, The War Between the Pitiful Teachers and the Splendid Kids by Stanley Kiesel, The Boxcar Children by Gertrude Chandler Warner, The Butterfly Revolution by William Butler, Bless the Beasts & Children by Glendon Swarthout, and Children’s Nature by Leslie Paris.
Acclaimed playwright and author CLAY MCLEOD CHAPMAN is the creator of the relentless storytelling sessions The Pumpkin Pie Show. He has contributed to several anthologies and is the author of The Tribe: Homeroom Headhunters. He teaches writing at the Actors Studio MFA Program at Pace University in New York City.
Visit him at
www.claymcleodchapman.com