“The boys’ rooms,” Angeline said. “They’re not allowed to come in ours, and we’re not allowed to go in theirs, but honestly, who’d want to?”
As if on cue, one of the math nerds tumbled out the door marked CABIN GAMMA, a candy wrapper stuck to his shoe. He must have snuck in for a snack while Director Verity’s back was turned.
Angeline arched an eyebrow. See what I mean? it seemed to ask.
I covered my mouth to hide my grin. Maybe these math nerds weren’t so awful after all.
When we reached the last two doors (CABIN EPSILON and CABIN ZETA), Director Verity finally stopped. “Welcome to your home away from home, Esther!”
I shook my head ferociously. “I don’t need a home away from home. Only until the storm dies down, remember?”
The director forced a nervous chuckle. “Oh, yes, until the rain subsides.” But she wouldn’t meet my eyes. “We should let you get settled in. Number crunchers, back downstairs! I think I feel a game of Math Genius coming on.”
I forced myself not to shiver. Why did I get the impression she was lying to my face?
Angeline hopped forward a step. “Is it all right if I keep Esther company?”
Director Verity pursed her lips. “If it’s all right with Esther,” she replied.
I considered that, then shrugged. “I guess it’s okay with me.” It wasn’t like I needed help unpacking, but after everything she’d done, I owed her an excuse to get out of playing Math Genius.
Angeline smiled. “You’re welcome!”
“Thank you,” I mumbled as she skipped into the room.
I waited for the math nerds to disappear, then reluctantly trudged after Angeline. Cabin Epsilon didn’t smell like tuna, but it was almost as depressing. Shadows clung like cobwebs to the corners of the room, and though it could have slept an army, it only had three lousy bunks. That meant the room had six beds total, all of which were a boring brown. The floorboards were brown, too, as were the walls and ceiling. It was like I’d moved into a chocolate factory—minus the chocolate. There was a sliding door that led onto a balcony, but the view was dreary: rain, rain, and more rain.
Two of the six beds had already been claimed by other campers, and it wasn’t hard to tell whose bed was whose. The one closest to the door was covered in a puffy pink blanket while the one closest to the wall sported the standard-issue green. I tried not to hold Angeline’s awful tastes against her.
Angeline spread out her arms. “What do you think?” she asked.
I took another look around. She obviously loved this place, and I didn’t want to make her feel bad. “I think it’s brown,” I said.
If she picked up on my indifference, she didn’t bother to show it. “Which bed do you want?” she asked, motioning vaguely toward the other bunk. Before I had a chance to answer, she whirled around, her blue eyes wide. “Unless you want to share with me? I’ve heard the top is extra comfy.”
I couldn’t hold my hands up fast enough. “Oh, no, that’s all right.” I racked my brains for an excuse. “I have a fear of … ladders.”
Angeline looked down at her toes. “Oh, okay. I understand.” She must have known that I was lying, but she didn’t call my bluff, just gestured toward the empty bunk. “Sheets and blankets on the beds.”
Guilt squirmed in my stomach like an old bologna sandwich, but I pretended not to notice. I wasn’t here to make best friends; I was here to get a good night’s sleep and go. Camp Vermeer was calling, and I intended to answer.
CHAPTER 4
The rain didn’t let up as the afternoon wore on. The world beyond my window looked like a Monet in black and white, with fuzzy lines and shapes melting from one gray into another. Every once in a while, a lightning bolt would split the sky, illuminating a collage of trees, and I would race to snap a picture. You couldn’t get these kinds of shots down in the valley where I lived.
I tucked my hands behind my head and lay back on my lumpy mattress. Angeline kept trying to get me to go downstairs, but I kept ignoring her. There were only so many ways you could say you didn’t want to play Math Genius.
Finally, she gave up and left. I wasn’t sad to see her go. The peace and quiet was refreshing, but as the minutes stretched to more minutes, I had to admit that I was bored.
I groped under my bed for the corner of my sketchbook, but my fingers came up empty. It took me a few moments to remember where it was. Sighing, I flopped back on the bunk and tried to let myself drift off. But I was too wound up to sleep.
Just because I wasn’t staying didn’t mean that I couldn’t explore.
I poked my head out into the hall, an excuse dancing on my tongue in case they tried to rope me into doing something with someone, but happily, the hall was empty. Voices were drifting up from somewhere, but no one was in sight, so I eased the door shut behind me. The sparkly pants wouldn’t make great camouflage, but they would have to do.
No one was in the sitting room below our room, so I skulked across that bridge without running into trouble, but the closer I got to the next bridge, the louder the voices became. When I peeked over the railing, I easily spotted the math nerds in the afternoon’s gray light. Armed with compasses and protractors, they were huddled around the pool table while the female counselor prattled on about angles of reflection and Mr. Sharp polished his cue. It looked like they were measuring the angles at which the balls bounced off the rails.
Honestly, they were in a game room, surrounded by every waste of time anyone had ever invented, and they were measuring angles? It was like they’d spent their whole lives locked up in some scientist’s lab, and now that they’d finally broken out, they’d fallen back into another. Someone really needed to teach them how summer camps were supposed to be.
But it wasn’t going to be me.
While Mr. Sharp lined up his shot, I snapped a picture of the scene. As soon as his elbow jerked forward, I raced across the exposed bridge, using the chimney as a shield. I’d almost made it to the other side when I glanced over my shoulder and noticed Brooklyn watching me. Or it looked like she was watching me. But she didn’t rat me out, just went back to her measurements. She must have disliked my company as much as I disliked hers.
When I got to Toby’s room, I almost knocked twice on the door, then changed my mind at the last second. Mr. Pearson might be in there, and I wasn’t in the mood to explain what I was up to.
The stairwell was also empty, but that wasn’t much of a surprise. In a lodge this big—and with a group of kids this small—most of the living spaces were bound to be unoccupied. Still, I hugged the walls so the stairs wouldn’t be tempted to creak. Director Verity hadn’t said that I couldn’t leave my room, but I didn’t want to push her.
The mess hall sounded empty, too, but when I rounded the next corner, I nearly crashed into Mr. Pearson. We both leaped out of the way, but he was the one who lost his grip on the stewed tomatoes he’d been stirring. The bowl hit the floorboards with a clang, splattering the tomatoes and their juices all over the floor and the bottoms of his slacks.
“I’m so sorry,” I mumbled, getting down to clean it up. I couldn’t do much without a rag, but I could scoop the stewed tomatoes back into their silver bowl. “I didn’t see you there.”
“It was my fault,” he mumbled back (though he didn’t help with the tomatoes). “I shouldn’t have been sneaking.”
“You were sneaking?” I replied as I glanced around the kitchen. Cutting boards and mixing bowls were haphazardly spread out on the counter. Either he was making dinner, or I was missing something crucial.
“Never mind,” Mr. Pearson said, jerking the bowl out of my hands.
I couldn’t help but notice his nails, which were dotted with red flecks. “You’re a painter!” I replied. I sounded like a hopeless groupie.
Mr. Pearson glanced down at his hands, then shook his head and wiped them on his apron. “It must be the tomato,” he mumbled.
I felt my shoulders fall. “Oh, right.” I felt extra bad
for bumping into him—and for accusing him of being a painter. He’d probably assumed it was an insult. “Do you need help with dinner? I’m pretty handy with a knife.”
He shook his head again. “But thanks.”
His thanks sounded more like, And don’t ever speak to me again, but I tried not to take it personally. I got the impression that he didn’t like to work with people (or even talk to them).
“I guess I’ll go, then,” I mumbled as I headed toward the common room. I was halfway to the corridor when I realized I might look suspicious. “Director Verity wanted to talk.”
But he wasn’t listening anymore—he’d gone back to his tomatoes—and that was just as well. Director Verity’s office was in sight of the kitchen, and I didn’t intend to make a pit stop.
I burst into the common room, then took a sharp right down the lodge’s shorter leg. If I remembered correctly, Director Verity had said something about a full-size gym, which sounded too good to be true. But she hadn’t been lying. I’d been too preoccupied when I’d come down here before, but now I could tell there was definitely a gym at the far end of the hall. Sasha, my fencing coach, would have killed to see this place.
I turned my attention to the other doors. I already knew the last one was a bathroom, but unlike most of the other rooms I’d come across, these ones weren’t marked. And the first one wasn’t locked, either. When I turned the knob, it opened easily, but the room on the other side was just a storage room (and it was packed with extra bunks). I’d thought the bedrooms had seemed huge. Director Verity must not have wanted to draw attention to the fact that the camp was way less popular than they’d anticipated.
Then I tried the second room, which was certainly more interesting, though that wasn’t saying much. This one was stuffed with sports equipment: baseballs, volleyballs, life jackets, even a bunch of croquet sets. I tried to picture Brooklyn hitting multicolored balls through a series of white arches, but like a problematic sketch, I couldn’t get the image to settle. She’d probably waste her time calculating the viscosity of each and every hit (or maybe the velocity—I’d always had a problem keeping those words straight).
When I moved on to the third door, the last one before the bathroom, I found that the knob wouldn’t turn. Why lock this one but not the others? What was Director Verity trying to hide?
I still hadn’t come up with an answer when a stern voice asked, “What are you doing?”
I nearly leaped out of my skin, partly because I had a rare skin condition that made me prone to chafing but mostly because the voice had scared me half to death. But it wasn’t Director Verity’s. It belonged to one of the math nerds, a round-faced kid clutching one half of a Little Debbie Swiss Roll pack, the same one who’d snuck a snack on our way to Cabin Epsilon. And he hadn’t come alone. There were three more math nerds stretched out in a line behind him. One of them was whistling “The Imperial March.”
“Not that I mind,” the kid went on. “But if you’re breaking and entering, we could possibly help.”
I forced myself to stand up straight. At least the hall was dim enough that they couldn’t see me blush. “Oh, well, I was just exploring. Since I’m only gonna be here for a day or two, I figured it wouldn’t matter if I didn’t take Protractors 101.”
“It’s Protractors 202,” he said, downing the rest of his Swiss Roll. He wiped his mouth off with his sleeve. “But I guess that’s fair enough.”
I eyed his chocolate-stained shirt. It looked like he’d been wearing it for at least a day or three. “Exactly how long have you been here?”
“Just since yesterday,” he said. “My mom had to drop me off on her way to HestonCon. But most of the other campers only got up here this morning.”
I wouldn’t have admitted that my mom went to a con that didn’t involve the word “comic,” but maybe this Swiss Roll–snarfing math nerd was more comfortable in his own skin.
That was an uncomfortable thought.
“The best part is that I had all kinds of free time to explore. The woods behind the lodge are thicker than my granddad’s mustache.” He looked back and forth between us, his eyes wider than full moons. “Hey, have you guys heard the legend about Old Man Archimedes?”
I perked up despite myself. “There’s a legend?” I replied.
The math nerd nodded so hard the freckles that stippled his skin nearly vaulted off his face. “I’ve only picked up bits and pieces, but the guy who owned this land was an old dude named Archimedes.” He lowered his voice. “When he died, he left the land to Director Verity, but some people say his ghost still stalks Lookout Hill at night, hooting like a restless owl while it searches for fresh meat.”
A shiver skittered down my spine. I didn’t believe in ghosts (whether they hooted or not), but Toby said legends were almost always based on facts.
One of the others rolled his eyes. “Anyway,” he said, “the counselors wanted us to tell you that it’s almost time to eat.”
He was the shortest of the bunch, with brown skin and a gap-toothed smile. The soccer jersey he was wearing, which was plastered with the Cuban flag, looked two or three sizes too big.
The Swiss Roll–snarfing kid took the subject change in stride. “Do you want to eat with us?”
“Well, not really with us with us. But you could sit at the same table.”
I shook my head to clear it. If they weren’t going to let some half-baked legend get to them, I couldn’t let it get to me. Besides, I couldn’t help but grin as I surveyed their hopeful faces. I’d spent most of May sitting with David and his friends at lunch, but that was just because I’d forced myself onto his campaign staff. These boys might have been math nerds, but at least they wanted me to sit with them.
I made a show of shrugging. “I guess so,” I said oh-so-casually. “Even artists have to eat.”
A jolt of nervous energy rippled through the pack. If I’d been trying to draw them, I would have used squiggly lines.
“So where are you guys from?” I asked as we headed toward the mess hall.
A chorus of mumbled voices answered me. I thought I caught an “Eden” and maybe even a “Kaysville,” but I’d never heard of either.
“Eden sounds nice,” I replied, since that would still be a true statement even if they hadn’t said it. “I’m from Shepherd’s Vale. It’s an hour or two in that direction.” I pointed left, then right. “Or maybe that direction. I’m not very good with right and left.”
They just stood there blinking. Had I really been that off?
I cleared my throat and tried again. “For the record, my name’s Esther—”
“We know,” someone interrupted.
“—but you never told me yours.”
No one said anything at first. Then they said everything at once.
I held up my hands. “Well, that’s never gonna work, so let’s come up with something else.” I thought about it for a second. “How about nicknames? That’s a camp thing, isn’t it?”
“Nicknames?” one of them asked. “What do you mean, like Butch or Chip?”
“Well, those would be dumb nicknames, but something like that, yes.” I pointed at the whistling kid. “You could be Whistler, for instance.”
“Would that be too literal?”
“Haven’t you heard of Whistler’s Mother?” When he shook his head, I sighed. “It’s one of the most famous examples of nineteenth-century realism, and James Abbott McNeill Whistler was the guy who painted it.” I pointed at the first kid who’d been brave enough to talk. “And you could be, say, Munch.”
He’d just pulled another Swiss Roll out of his left cargo pocket, but when I called him out, he stopped and eyed it skeptically, then shrugged and ate it, anyway. “I know what you’re thinking,” he replied, “but I have a high metabolism.” He rubbed his swollen stomach, which was as round as his face. “Or at least I will someday.”
I held up my hands again. “Hey, I’m not trying to judge. I just have a thing for Edvard Munch. Well, techn
ically, it’s pronounced ‘Munk,’ but it looks like ‘Munch’ on paper.” When they just stood there blinking, I felt inclined to add, “You guys have heard of The Scream, right? But did you know that thieves have tried to steal it, like, six or seven times?”
Munch’s eyes narrowed. “I bet I’d make an awesome thief.”
I couldn’t guess why he’d said that—which was why I wanted to hear more—but before I could press him, the black-haired math nerd raised his hand.
“So what’s my nickname?” he demanded.
I looked him up and down. His skin was darker than the soccer fan’s, and now that we were standing almost on each other’s toes, I could tell he was taller than I was by a handful of inches.
“Nothing comes to mind,” I said, trying not to sound annoyed. I was taller than most boys and didn’t like it when I wasn’t. “What’s your non-nickname again?”
“Marshane,” he said defiantly as he stuck out his chin.
“Sounds good to me,” I said, sliding my phone out of my pocket. I’d never come across a chin with such a regal-looking cleft. “Mind if I take a picture for my sketchbook?”
“Not at all,” he said, like people asked him for his picture at least several times a day. “Which way would you like me to stand?”
Munch’s stomach growled. “Not to interrupt,” he said, “but it’s almost time for dinner.”
I took the photo with one hand and waved toward the mess hall with the other. “After you,” I said.
The math nerds mumbled to themselves as we made our way through the common room, where the First Problem was still just sitting there, silently waiting to be solved. Other chalkboards had been scribbled on as the afternoon had dragged along, but that one had gone untouched. I wondered if they’d looked at it sideways, upside down, and backward. In painting, like in life, you had to mix up your perspective.
I didn’t realize I’d stopped until the math nerds stopped beside me. They hemmed and hawed for a few seconds, and then Munch finally said, “That one’s a tricky beast. We’re still working it out.”
The Multiplying Mysteries of Mount Ten Page 3