by Robin Mellom
There were equal amounts of groans and squeals of excitement. Apparently, eagerness to hear a ghost story ran at about 50 percent. Trevor was in the eager category because he never actually found ghost stories to be scary.
There were always plot holes.
“I have a ghost story!” Corey jumped up on a log and stuck a flashlight under his chin. “Listen up, everyone.…”
Trevor covered his face with his hands. Oh, no. If anyone can actually make a ghost story terrifying, it would be Corey.
With a low and raspy voice, Corey began. “It was on a night just like tonight.…”
The students ooooohed and squirmed as they settled in for the story.
Corey squinted his eyes to increase the tension. “A man named One-Armed William—”
“Don’t you mean Willy?” someone called out.
“William. Willy. Whatever! Here’s the story.…” Back to tension-squinting. “Years ago, he escaped from the local maximum-security jail—”
A question came from the audience. “What was he in jail for?”
Then another. “Where exactly was the jail located?”
And yet another. “How could William escape a maximum-security jail if he had only one arm?”
Trevor couldn’t help but grin.
Plot holes.
Even in the dark, Corey’s angry red face was visible. “You guys really need his entire backstory?” He folded his arms and thought for a moment. “Fine. Here’s your backstory. One-Armed William was the son of a gold miner, and he lost his arm at the tender age of ten years old in a tragic gold-mining incident that involved an explosion that killed everyone in his family, so he grew up with a lot of resentment, and that’s why he turned to a life of crime that involved him exploding buildings for fun, which was why he was arrested when he was found trying to place a stick of dynamite in the mayor’s bathroom, except no one realized that he’d smuggled one last piece of dynamite into the jail, and on his third day, he blew up his cell-room floor and crawled through the sewer system until he finally reached safety”—Corey took a deep breath and pointed at a hole in the ground—“right here on this very spot.”
The group gasped.
Trevor went back to covering his face. No. Way. The guy is filling in plot points, and they almost make sense!
Corey raised an eyebrow, feeling confident that he had succeeded in scaring everyone. But not just everyone…Trevor. His goal was to prepare Trevor for what was about to happen that night: the Haunting of Cabin Thirteen.
Corey put the finishing touch on his story. “So now, One-Armed Willy—”
“William!”
Corey grunted. “One-Armed William haunts the grounds of Camp Whispering Pines every night, trying to get revenge.”
“Wait, bro,” Marty interrupted. “If he haunts, then he’s a ghost. But you never said he died.”
Corey slapped his forehead. “Fine. He died in an unfortunate dining hall incident involving some undercooked eggs. So now he wanders the campground, super upset about that bad breakfast with an arm that’s a spiky ball and chain.”
Yet again, more audience questions and concerns.
“But you never mentioned a ball and chain!”
“And shouldn’t it be a hook?”
“Yeah, all ghost stories have a guy with a hook.”
“Or maybe he has a rifle for an arm.”
“Or a chain saw!”
“Oh, I know! His arm shoots out spears, but they’re rainbow spears that smell like strawberries!!”
The last suggestion came from Cindy Applegate.
“Naw, naw!” Corey waved his arms around, looking very frustrated. “You guys are missing the point. What I’m saying is that you may hear a strange clanging sound at your window tonight, and it’s probably One-Armed William getting revenge for his fatal pancake breakfast.”
“EGGS!”
A small smile formed on Trevor’s face. Even though Corey had come close to scaring him, he’d introduced the ball-and-chain detail far too late in the story for the plot to ring true.
Trevor wasn’t scared one bit.
As the students were dismissed back to their cabins, Trevor headed off down the trail with a big grin on his face.
But he didn’t realize that Corey was watching his every move.
Did you see that grin? People ALWAYS grin when they’re super scared. I know I do.
So I have a lot of prep work to do. That whole thing about William having a spiky ball and chain was just made up on the spot, so now I gotta go find something that replicates the sound of a ghost angrily hitting a spiky ball on a window.
I could use a ball with spikes all over it!
Oh, wait. I don’t have one. I’ll just have to search for some tin cans to bang together.
[nods as he thinks this over]
This idea is definitely going to work.
Especially since Trevor is already halfway to terrified.
It’s time I pay the haunting forward. Last year, Luke Lawson ran a zip line outside my cabin and hung some clothes and sticks together to look like a skeleton and pulled it into my window.
I screeched like an owl. Also—and don’t use this for the final edit—I cried for my dad to come save me.
My dad doesn’t even live in this state.
So it’s taken me a full year to carefully rebuild my reputation back up to where I am now—the pinnacle of popularity.
[tosses his bangs out of his face]
I’m a survivor, man.
THE TRAIL BETWEEN THE CABINS and the bathrooms was lit up with all the students’ flashlights as they made their final attempts at hygiene. They hustled to and from the bathroom with their lights bouncing around, looking like a highway in a bustling city.
As Trevor walked along with his toothbrush hanging from the corner of his mouth, he immediately recognized the beam of Molly’s flashlight heading toward him. It was a blue light.
She marched right up to him and stuck the light in his face. “I want you to stop trying to make me smile.”
He gently pushed the light away. “Why?”
“You’re ruining this trip.”
Trevor was confused. He’d decided to willingly come on this trip because of her. And now this? “I thought you said you were excited I was going to be on this trip.”
She dipped her head and looked down. “I like you being the way you usually are—the friend who hangs with me when I’m complaining about something, maybe even joins in. But all this turning me into some Smiling Monster is just lame.”
“I’m sorry? I guess?” He really didn’t know if he was supposed to be sorry or what. He just knew her being mad was not the goal of the Molly Project.
In the light—or lack of—Trevor could see just the outline of her face, and he was almost certain he saw a tear form. A tear? From Molly?
He put his hand on her shoulder. “Are you okay?”
“Yep,” she said, then pursed her lips.
“You sure everything’s all right?”
No response.
“Blink once for yes. Twice for no,” he instructed.
She blinked twice.
Something was going on! What could it be? “Do you want to talk about it?”
Molly turned to him, her lips still pursed, then blinked twice. Two very obvious blinks.
Nope, she didn’t want to talk about it. Not one bit. Molly aimed her blue flashlight down the trail, headed off to her cabin, and didn’t look back.
Trevor settled into his lower bunk bed, while Marty was above him, clutching his favorite camouflage Snuggie blanket. He wouldn’t call it a Snuggie, but really that’s what it was.
The other boys were quietly reading, and Mr. Applegate was already snoring.
Trevor decided this would be a good time to get advice from Marty. But not school advice this time. Girl advice. “Hey, Marty,” Trevor whispered up at the mattress ceiling above his head.
“Yeah?”
“Could you give me
some advice?”
“Of course. I’m a pro. Do you need to know how to whittle something?”
“No.”
“How to collect rainwater in the wilderness?”
“Um, nope.”
“Make a raft out of twigs in case you’re stranded?”
“Maybe later, but right now I have a question about…girls.”
Marty scrunched his face up. This was not a topic he was used to talking about, especially in a semipublic way like this. Getting Cindy to like him had been an uphill battle. She was a complicated girl. But he figured he’d give girl advice a shot. “Ask away. I’ll do my best.”
Trevor took a deep breath, then let his question flow. “What do you do if a girl seems to like you, but when you try to make her smile, she likes it at first but then she decides she doesn’t like it, and then there’s some problem that seems to be making her upset, and she says she doesn’t want to talk about it, and it’s possible there was a tear in her eye, and then she runs off with her blue light? What do I do? I mean, asking for a friend.”
Marty was a little stumped. Not by the “asking for a friend” part—he knew Trevor was talking about Molly—but by the part about what to do. When it came to girls, he really needed an instruction manual. One of those easy ones like in the LEGO sets for ages four to seven.
Marty shrugged and took a guess. “If a girl says everything is all right but there’s a tear in her eye…it probably isn’t all right. So figure out what’s wrong. That’s all I know to do.”
It was simple advice. Trevor was relieved that the Molly Project wasn’t over—it had just changed direction. Enough with getting her to smile. Trevor needed to find out what or who was bothering Molly. “You’re brilliant, Marty.”
“Thanks,” he said, hoping it was true. He grabbed an extra set of earplugs and dropped them down to Trevor. “Wear these. The snoring could get epic tonight.”
“Won’t all the other guys wake up?” he whispered.
“I gave a pair to everyone. And Mr. Applegate won’t hear a thing with all his own snoring.”
Trevor smiled. “Good night.”
“Good night,” Marty said.
And with that, Trevor went right to sleep, completely unaware that One-Armed William had come to pay a visit.
I don’t get it! I DON’T GET IT!!
I saw Trevor’s frightened grin after my ghost story. That dude was perfectly prepared for an epic haunting.
So why didn’t he budge? Why didn’t ANYONE budge?!
[paces back and forth]
My plan was foolproof. I told my chaperone I had to go to the bathroom, and I left my cabin at 9:58.
I grabbed a couple of tin cans from the recycling bin. Then I stood on my tiptoes to peer into the cabin. They were all asleep.
Smooth sailing, right? WRONG.
I clanged the cans together and made woo-ing sounds, like One-Armed William would’ve done.
But no matter how much I clanged or how much I woo-ed, NOTHING. No one woke up, not even Trevor. All I could hear was Mr. Applegate’s snoring. How did they all sleep through that?
So all this explains why I got mad and tried to grab a rock, but then I tripped and landed in a berry bush, and now my clothes are stained with red berry juice, and some of it landed in my hair, and it won’t come out and, man, I REALLY DON’T WANT TO TALK ABOUT THIS ANYMORE.
[storms off]
THE NEXT DAY WAS THEIR FINAL HIKE. Corey lingered behind, staying at the back of the group, dealing with his sour mood. Trevor, on the other hand, bounced along the trail, looking forward to all the day’s events. He was invigorated by his great night’s sleep that didn’t involve any appearances by ghosts whatsoever. Except for the strange dream he had about a ghost who was in a tin can band. So much clanging. And wooing. But he shook off the dream and happily headed down the trail.
Up ahead of him, he noticed Libby with a stressed look on her face.
He briskly hiked up next to her. “What’s wrong?”
“Everything.”
“I don’t think it’s statistically possible for everything to be wrong, Lib.”
“First, there’s this.” She handed him a crumpled note.
Libby looked overwhelmed. “I haven’t gotten all the answers on my Pop Psychology quiz, so I have no idea how to answer him. And worse?” Libby frantically flipped through papers on her clipboard. “I have to come up with something completely new for tonight’s social. Everyone will think I stole the ideas from Savannah.”
“Relax. It’s a social. People can wander around, talk, eat some food. You don’t have to plan everything.”
Libby’s eyes grew huge. “You mean, don’t plan anything? Not even Literary Limbo?”
“That’s not exactly—”
“Whoa. Just let people be…like in nature.” She tapped her chin as she considered this. “Oh my gosh, that even has a wilderness theme!”
Trevor worried he’d sent her down the wrong path. “Um, don’t you want to plan one event? You still have the stick for limbo.”
Libby threw her hands in the air, like she’d just crossed the finish line of a marathon. “No plan—that’s my plan!” She paced around for a moment, a large grin on her face, and finally calmed down enough to take a break and sit down next to a tree.
Libby looked up at him and said, “Maybe I put too much thought into things. I’m too rigid. Am I the only seventh grader who has a label maker at the top of her Christmas list?”
“Of course you are.”
She pressed her lips together. “I appreciate your honesty.”
After a weird silence, Libby lifted her chin and said, “Enough about me. Let’s figure you out.” When Libby was exhausted by her own problems, she often found solving other people’s problems to be downright relaxing.
“Me?!” His voice cracked.
“The Molly Project. It seems to be having a big impact on you—it’s like you’re changing or something.”
“Changing? Me?” He glanced down at his hands, flipping them over to make sure he wasn’t turning werewolf.
“You’ve been following Molly around trying to make her smile, you’re singing campfire songs like a contestant on a reality show, and you picked up a BUG.” She narrowed her eyes. “Who are you?”
He waved her off. “Stop. It’s nothing.”
She folded her arms the way she did when she was about to get a little judge-y. “You know, if I didn’t think you were doing all that to keep your mind off Corey, I might think that you like Molly.”
“Like?!” he yelped.
“Yep. Like-like.”
“Nah, I’m just being friendly.” Trevor needed to change the subject quick. And he knew exactly what would get her to stop questioning him about Molly. “Speaking of like-like, what’s your decision on Corey?”
She flipped over a few pages on her clipboard. “I’m still trying to finish up this pro-con chart. I’m not sure how to get the answers to some of these questions.”
He grabbed the list from her, read it over, and looked up. “You need to know whether he prefers toothpaste that’s spearmint or winter mint?”
“A guy who chooses spearmint is not serious about finding a girlfriend. Spearmint just tastes like gum…it doesn’t belong in a mouth-hygiene routine. But since you’re Corey’s hiking partner, can you help me out with a few of these? I want to make my decision tonight at the social, around eight p.m. When I’m on deadline, I make great decisions.”
Trevor wasn’t sure how he could get Corey to answer some of these. How could he simply walk up to him and suddenly have a deep conversation about salad dressing?
He patted Libby on the back. “Don’t worry. I’ll find out all these answers.”
But first Trevor had to find the guts to get all these answers—guts he didn’t have at the moment.
Time is running out for me, man. I told my brother I’d make him proud and pull pranks that would uphold the family name.
So far, I’ve faile
d.
That grizzly bear footprint hoax fell a little flat.
The campfire ghost story didn’t seem to scare anyone. And the haunting of Cabin Thirteen only seemed to make them sleep more soundly.
It’s time to turn this ship around.
And by ship, I mean “SUCCESSFUL pranks I’m going to pull on Trevor.”
Today will go down in Prank-Victim History.
COREY DIDN’T SEE ANY OTHER CHOICE. He had to turn to some foolproof pranks. He also referred to them as “things I looked up on the Internet.”
The rest of the afternoon consisted of studying rocks, sketching plants in their journals, and doing an arts and crafts project where the students made a necklace entirely out of things found in the woods. And then there was one bathroom break.
But Corey had other plans…three pranks that simply couldn’t fail. These had taken some serious time to research, and he was glad he’d looked them up—for emergencies. Because here he was, in the depths of a prank emergency.
Somehow it was Cindy who grabbed the pranked cup, not Trevor. Corey felt a little bad about that. But not very bad. Because the next prank would work for sure.
Yet again, Corey accidentally pulled his prank on someone other than Trevor. But he had one final trick up his sleeve.
Next up was a scheduled bathroom break. Corey got in line right in front of Trevor. He would get it all set up, Trevor would come in after him, and whammo! Prank pulled on the correct person!
(It was truly unfortunate timing that Trevor let Marty cut in line.)
Corey didn’t know Trevor had such ninja skills. How did he evade every single prank he’d set up?
It hit him that there was only one way to pull an epic prank on Trevor.
He had to get him completely alone.
D-did you see him? Marty—he had steam coming out of, well…everywhere. Anger steam.
He is one scary dude.