The curly-haired guy tossed his bag on the bed next to mine. “I’m Jason,” he said, extending his hand. “Breaking and entering. Extenuating circumstances. You?”
He had a trace of an accent—Scottish or Irish maybe. “Caleb,” I replied. “Assault. Abusive stepdad.”
“Cool.” He stuck his thumbs through his belt loops and jerked his chin toward Chad, who appeared to have fallen asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow. “That’s Chad. He sold some weed to a cop. He’s a few fries short of a Happy Meal.”
“I heard that, dude,” Chad mumbled. “Makes me hungry.”
The final addition to our cabin was Tuque Guy. He stumbled into the room, pulling a wheeled blue suitcase behind him. We watched him in silence as he parked his suitcase next to the only remaining empty bed and said, “I’m Nick. And this…well, it’s not exactly the Ritz, is it? I think I could renew myself”—he made air quotes with his fingers—“more effectively if there was, like, a gym. And a TV. And…well. Just saying.”
He gestured at the roughhewn cedar walls, the burlap curtains, the thrift-shop lamps. I laughed, and we introduced ourselves.
“What are you in for, Nick?” Jason asked.
“Oh, you know. This and that.” Nick rolled his eyes. “My parents want to, you know, toughen me up. So here I am. Ready to lock and load. Rock and roll. Whatever.”
“You guys got any food?” Chad sat up and yawned.
“Nope,” Jason said. “Try the mess hall.”
“Dude, I have no idea what that is,” Chad said, absently scratching his balls. I had a feeling Chad did a lot of things absently.
Nick sighed. “Haven’t you ever seen Star Trek? It’s where you go to eat.”
“What?” Chad said. “There are mess halls on Star Trek?”
“It’s next to the girls’ cabin,” Jason said. “There’s food.”
“Girls and food. Two of my favorite things.” Chad stood up and strolled out the door.
Nick and Jason and I followed him after a few minutes. The door to the staff cabin was shut when we walked by, and I wondered if Warren and Claire and Rahim all shared one room, like we did. Awkward. There was a collection of shells on the steps, but otherwise it looked like our cabin: wilderness institutional and run-down. The mess-hall doors were wide open, and the girls and Chad were gathered around one of the dark wooden tables, eating what turned out to be cut-up fruit (the apples were already turning brown) and some kind of healthy cookie that probably tasted like sweetened cardboard. Jugs of juice sat next to an assortment of mismatched mugs. I felt like I was in preschool again.
Claire clapped her hands at the front of the room. “Choose a mug. It’ll be yours for the week. Keep it clean and don’t lose it.”
I grabbed a blue mug that said Every day is a second chance.
“This blows,” said Chad, picking up a purple mug and reading out, “Trust yourself. You know more than you think you do. What does that even mean?”
I looked over at Alice, who was trying to choose between a white mug (When opportunity doesn’t knock, build a door) and a green one (Every accomplishment starts with the decision to try). I could think of a few slogans that’d suit her better.
By the time we all had our mugs (Nick and Imogen almost came to blows over an orange one that said Go the extra mile), Warren and Rahim had joined Claire. She clapped her hands again, and Warren boomed, “Sit down, people. Orientation starts now. And enjoy those afternoon snacks—they’re the last food we’re going to prepare for you!”
Claire held up a large piece of paper. “This is the kitchen roster. Breakfast is served at seven, lunch is at noon, dinner at five. You will work in teams of two. Be prepared to be in the kitchen”—she gestured to the far end of the mess hall—“at least one hour before serving time. Menus have been set already. None of the food is complicated. All you have to do is work together and serve your fellow campers and the three of us.”
“And don’t forget the cleanup, Claire,” Warren added. “Leave the kitchen spick-and-span for the next guys.”
“Are you freakin’ kidding me?” Jason said in my ear.
Before I could reply, Rahim said, “I know it sounds like a lot, but kitchen duty can be fun. You get a chance to make a new friend, and you have the satisfaction of providing nourishment for the other campers. Sound good?”
A few people groaned, and Claire clapped her hands again. “Time to pair up,” she said. “Line your mugs up on the table so they make a rainbow. White mug on the left, black on the right.”
The tall girl (she had a black mug with the words Know thyself on it) put her mug down on the table and said, “White, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, black.” Her voice was soft, almost a whisper—as if she was too timid to take up any space in the world. My mom was like that, but in her case I knew why—Barry. We arranged the mugs in the correct order, and then Claire said, “Red and white, orange and yellow, green and blue, purple and black. Grab your mugs and say hello to your co-chefs, everybody.”
THREE
Alice
I glanced down at the green mug in my hand.
“Looks like we’re stuck with each other,” a low voice said behind me.
I turned. It was the dumb jock from the Zodiac. Great. “Yeah, us anorexics make fabulous chefs.”
“Um, ’roid rage? Remember?”
Like a whiny little kid. Mom, she started it. I didn’t bother responding.
“Look, can we start over?” He put his mug beside mine. “I’m Caleb. In case you forgot. And we are…green and blue. Very…uh…nature.”
“Very nature?” I raised an eyebrow. “So outdoors. Much wow.”
He laughed—he had a rather nice laugh, actually—and held out a hand. “Come on. Friends?”
“Well, co-chefs anyway.” I shook his hand. “And I am not very nature. City kid, all the way. Trees are not my thing. Wilderness is not my thing. Solar power is fine as an eco-friendly backup to the real thing, but cold showers and no Wi-Fi? Yeah. Not my thing.”
“So what is your thing?” he asked.
“You mean, why am I here? Among the very nature trees instead of in my high-rise condo with my couch, TV and PlayStation?”
“Yeah. If you want.”
He was good-looking, I guess, if you were into square jaws and muscles. Which I was not. He also had dark skin, darker eyes and ridiculous eyelashes. Mandy was going to be all over him. “My mother worries too much,” I said. “That’s why I’m here.”
“Your mother the cop?”
“Yeah. She also has an overactive imagination. Family trait.” I looked away from him, glanced around at the other campers. “Uh, are we supposed to be doing anything in particular?”
“Aha. A rule follower,” Caleb said. “Interesting.”
I scowled at him. “I just wondered if there was a point to this conversation.”
Claire clapped her hands. “Okay! Everyone’s met their partners. Now we’re all going to get to know each other, so grab a chair and let’s make a circle over here.” Another clap. “Circle time!”
Circle time. The previous summer I had worked at a karate camp for six- to ten-year-olds—Little Dragons, it was called—and this felt a lot like that. I hoped Claire wasn’t going to make us play Duck, Duck, Goose.
With much nails-on-chalkboard screeching, we dragged our heavy wooden chairs into a circle and sat there, checking each other out while pretending not to give a shit. Druggies, dealers, delinquents. I tried to think of a collective noun for my new peer group. A rabble of felons. A scourge of liars. A plague of losers.
I still couldn’t believe my mother had done this to me. Every time I thought about it, an awful rage surged up inside me, and I wanted to throw things or hit someone. My mother and I had always been super close—it had been just the two of us since I was a baby. But right now—really, ever since she’d told me she was sending me to INTRO—I almost hated her.
“I know you’re probably all tired,” Claire s
aid. Her voice was sugar-filled, over-the-top perky, a little too high-pitched. Phony, I thought. It was a weird thing I’d noticed before—a lot of adults who worked with teens were phony. My school was full of them. Sometimes I wondered if they were only phony when they were around teens and turned into real people after work.
“Most of you have had long journeys,” she went on, “traveling to our little island from Vancouver, and Imogen, I heard you were a bit seasick on the boat…”
Imogen ignored her. She pulled an enormous purse from under her chair and began rummaging through it. I’d never carried a purse, and I always wondered what other girls kept in them. Wallet, phone, keys, tampons? You didn’t need a bag the size of a microwave oven for that.
“Feeling all right now?” Claire asked. Like it wasn’t totally obvious that the last thing Imogen wanted was to have extra attention drawn to her puking.
Ignoring Claire, Imogen reapplied a slick coat of blood-red lipstick. Perfectly, without a mirror. I don’t do makeup—it makes me look like a little kid who got into her mom’s cosmetics bag—but I had to admit, there was something impressive about it.
I’d spent most of the bus ride listening to her tell one exaggerated story after another. At least, I hoped for her sake they were exaggerated, because to be honest, some of them were more than a bit shocking. I’d tried to act cool, but I could practically feel my eyes getting bigger and rounder the longer she talked. And I’m a cop’s kid, so it’s not like I’m a total innocent.
“Well,” Claire said. “Let’s have a quick round of introductions, and then we’ll give you some time to unpack and settle in before we start on the afternoon’s activities. How about we go first, Warren? Rahim?”
“Great idea, Claire,” Rahim said. He sounded excessively enthusiastic, like he was her co-host on a talk show. The Claire and Rahim Show. I wondered how Warren felt about that.
As if he’d read my mind, Warren jumped in. “Works for me. Why don’t you start us off, Claire?”
Claire clapped her hands again—god, was she going to keep doing that all week?—and flashed her big white teeth at us. The better to eat you with, my dear. There was definitely something creepy about her. All that smiling, but I felt like she was playing a part. The approachable counselor, professional but warm and friendly. I didn’t trust her in the least. For that matter, I didn’t trust any of them—not her or Warren or Rahim or any of my fellow inmates. This whole place was creeping me out.
“Now, I don’t want you to disclose anything too personal yet,” Claire said. “There’ll be plenty of time for that in group, after we’ve talked about confidentiality and established some basic ground rules. This is simply a fun get-to-know-your-fellow-campers warm-up, okay?”
Rolled eyes all around.
“So here’s what I want you to share. Your name. And three things about yourself. Two truths—and a lie. And then everyone will guess which one is the lie. Got it?”
Seriously? Two truths and a lie was the oldest icebreaker around. Still, it could be worse. I remembered some of the exercises we did with the kids at karate camp and felt grateful that Claire wasn’t forcing us to make a human knot or play Charades.
“Oh, fun!” Rahim said.
I made a face. Caleb caught me, I guess, because he winked, and to my annoyance, I found my cheeks heating up. Ugh, what was that about?
“So I’ll start. My name is Claire. I’m married to Warren, I love cats, and I’m allergic to celery.”
“No one’s allergic to celery,” Chad blurted out. “Like, I don’t think celery is even an allergy.”
“No shit,” Imogen said. “It’s a vegetable.”
I laughed out loud. Imogen might have her problems, but she was also hilarious. So totally deadpan.
He stared at her like he had no idea what she meant. After a pause, he shrugged. “Yeah, I guess. I don’t really eat vegetables.”
“Come on, people.” Rahim looked around the circle. “What do the rest of you think?”
“We already know she’s married to Warren,” the tall skinny girl said, twisting her long hair in her fingers. “It’s in the brochure.”
“Doesn’t mean it’s true,” Mandy pointed out. “Could be they just thought that’d be good for the business. Maybe they’re not actually a couple at all.”
Imogen snorted. “Yeah, you wish.”
Warren ran both hands over his bald head. “We’re married. Been married for six years.”
I actually happened to know this was true. Mom didn’t know him super well or anything, but their paths had crossed a bunch of times before he met Claire and left the police force to start INTRO. That was part of the reason my mom had sent me here—she said he’d always seemed like a good guy.
“She doesn’t like cats,” Jason said, sounding bored. “That’s the lie.” He leaned back in his chair, letting his knees fall apart and totally manspreading.
“You’re right,” Claire said. “But only because I’m horribly allergic to them. And to celery. Which is a shame, since I’m a vegan.” She smiled, scanning the circle. “Okay. So you see how this works?”
A few nods and some more eye rolls. A yawn from Chad.
“Rahim, why don’t you go next?” Claire suggested.
The exercise dragged on painfully. We learned that Rahim had a master’s degree in social work and was diabetic; that Warren played football and had his appendix out last year; that Imogen had sixteen piercings and a tattoo of a tiger on her thigh; and that Tara—the tall skinny timid girl with the heart-shaped birthmark on her cheek—had almost drowned as a child and was terrified of water. Jason lied about being a marathon runner but told us that his dad was Irish, which explained his accent: apparently his family had moved back to Belfast for most of Jason’s childhood to avoid some bookie who wanted repayment on his father’s gambling debts. Jason’s hero was an outlaw called William Brennan, who sounded like an Irish version of Robin Hood, stealing from the rich to give to the poor and all that. Nick played violin and spent a lot of time looking after his eight-year-old cousin, and Chad seemed to miss the point of the game completely and made up a bunch of stupid stuff. Mandy liked clothes and hated math. And Caleb stuck to the sports-related facts he’d already shared on the Zodiac—rugby, soccer, blah, blah, blah.
Then it was my turn. “I’m Alice,” I began and cleared my throat. I’m not shy, but I really would prefer never to have to speak in groups. “I play Call of Duty, I have a black belt in karate, and I’m addicted to CSI.”
Caleb laughed. “Okay, well, that’s easy. You’re definitely not the karate kid.”
There were murmurs of agreement. I turned to face him. “Why would you assume that, Caleb? Because I’m a girl?”
“Because you’re, like, tiny? I don’t know. You just don’t look the type.” His eyes narrowed. “Are you? Seriously? Because that would be pretty cool.”
“And I hate first-person shooters,” I said.
“You said something about your TV and your PlayStation.” He sounded defensive. “So I figured…”
“FPS games are for people who don’t have the brains for strategy games or the skill for platformers.”
“Dude, I play Call of Duty,” Chad cut in. “And Battlefield. And Planetside 2.”
“Right. Thanks for making my point for me,” I snapped.
Rahim cleared his throat. “Alice. It sounds like you are upset. Hurt, perhaps, and angry. Do you want to talk about that?”
I shook my head. “Yeah, no.” I didn’t want to talk about anything at all. Not to Rahim. Not to anyone. A week of this crap stretched out ahead—a whole goddamn week. It had only been an hour, and I was already losing my mind.
FOUR
Alice
Eventually the torture session ended and we were set free to unpack our stuff into the small dressers at the ends of our beds. Rahim had suggested we use the hour before dinner to reflect and process, but I needed a nap. I flopped on my thin mattress, pulled the gray fleece blanket ove
r my head and curled up in a ball.
And, of course, for the first time in my life, I couldn’t sleep.
Under the blanket, in my little cave, I opened my eyes. The INTRO logo stared me right in the face, embroidered in red and yellow stitching. I tried to remember what it stood for—In Nature something—and entertained myself by making up alternatives.
IDIOTIC NASTY TERRIBLE RIDICULOUS ORGANIZATION
ISLAND NONCONFORMISTS TORTURED REALLY OFTEN
I NEED TO REVOLT. OBVIOUSLY.
Yeah, good luck with that one, Alice. I pictured the two kayaks I’d seen pulled up on the rocky beach. Escape? Not a chance. Not over that distance, not with no land in sight, not with water this rough. It had taken over an hour to get here in a high-speed Zodiac. No way could I kayak to civilization. I was stuck here. I’d just have to do my time.
It was true, what I’d said to Caleb about my mother. I was here because of her paranoid imagination. She’d freaked out over the littlest thing, decided I was heading down the wrong path and was going to end up dropping out of school, selling my body, living on the streets—God knows what. I love you way too much to stand by and watch you throw your life away, she’d said.
You’d think she’d caught me shooting smack, not having a few beers at a party. I mean, I wanted to be a cop! A detective! I guess technically I was drinking underage, but everyone did that, and for the most part I was all about law enforcement. I certainly wasn’t about to do anything that could get me a criminal record. Holy drama, Batman, I’d said.
Which pissed her off even more.
Hence INTRO.
Every time I thought about it, the rage bubbled up all over again. Sure, fine, she loved me—but she obviously didn’t trust me. Either she thought I was lying to her about not needing help, or she thought I was an idiot who had a huge problem and didn’t realize it. Either way, it was insulting. Either way, it pissed me off.
I could hear Mandy and Imogen talking in hushed voices, but I couldn’t make out what they were saying. I sat up. “Where’s Tara?”
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