Nothin But Net

by Matt Christopher

  “Thanks. I was planning on it.”

  “Good. No, but seriously, you look okay. A little red is all. Lots of guys have sunburns from this week. It hasn’t rained once yet.”

  “I hate dancing,” Billy said. “I’m no good at it.”

  “Look, all you have to do is dance one dance with a girl, then ask her if she wants to go outside and talk.”

  “Oh, so you’ve got all the moves down now?” Billy said, looking doubtful. “Where’d you get that info?”

  “Listening to the other guys talk about it,” Tim admitted. “But I’m sure you can dance as well as anybody else.”

  “I wouldn’t know,” Billy said glumly. “I’ve never tried.”

  “Never?”

  “Never.”

  “Ah, it’s nothing to worry about, dude,” Tim assured him. “It’s just a dance.” Tim flopped down on his own bed, wishing someone else were giving him a pep talk, instead of the other way around.

  The gym was all strung up with Christmas lights, even though it was July. Independence Day was the only holiday of the summer, and the camp was taking full advantage of it. Tonight, after the social, there would be a display of fireworks down by the lake.

  Tim looked around at the flickering lights, topped off by a rotating mirror ball and disco lights. On his side of the gym, all the boys from age eleven on up were hanging together in groups, checking out the girls, who were doing the same thing on the other side. Everyone was dressed up, which, here at Wick-asaukee, meant that the guys had showered, moussed their hair, and were wearing slacks instead of jeans or shorts and regular shoes instead of sneakers. The girls were all decked out in dresses, heels, and makeup. It kind of gave Tim the willies. “No pressure,” he told himself under his breath, but he couldn’t deny he was feeling it. Most of the boys were, by the looks of them.

  The music was already playing, courtesy of a DJ who was parked on the stage, surrounded by his equipment. A lot of the Condors were up and dancing already with the girl Condors. Some of the counselors were serving punch and cookies at the other end of the gym.

  Tim wondered which of the Eagles would be the first of their group to break the ice by asking someone to dance. Would it be a girl Eagle, or would one of the boys step forward first, cross that dance floor with every eye in the place on him, and tap the girl of his choice on the shoulder?

  Don DeGeronimo was on his feet, being gently shoved forward by Tito, who wore a sneaky grin on his face. Don went straight across the gym floor, bopping to the music, looking molto casual, and sidled up to Rise Lawrence, a tall blond-haired girl with huge blue eyes. Donnie tapped her on the shoulder, and she put her hand to her chest as if to say, “Me?” Donnie nodded, she smiled, and the two of them walked out onto the floor together to dance.

  “Way to go, Donnie!” Brian Kelly said, high fiving the kids nearest him.

  Big shot, Tim said to himself. Let’s see you go ask somebody.

  Tim started checking out the girls to see whom he might ask. His eye rested on a girl with shiny black hair cascading down her back — a girl with twinkling dark eyes and a dazzling smile. He wondered what her name was — if she was one of the girls the boys had been talking about. Maybe she was new here, and he had as good a chance as anybody else.

  “Come on, you losers!” Tito was saying, goading them on. “What are you afraid of? A bunch of girls? Get out there and ask somebody to dance!”

  “How come they don’t have to ask us?” Merrick asked.

  “Quit squealing and get out there, Cue Ball,” Tito insisted, ignoring the question. But Tim did wish it was that way. Having to make the first move was hard. And after all, whose law was it that guys had to do the asking?

  “Well, Daniels?” Tito came up to him from behind. “Time’s a-wasting. Not scared, are you?”

  “Me? No way!” Tim said, feeling instantly terrified. He only wondered how Billy would react when Tito got to him. He glanced around to see where Billy was and found him cowering by the corner of the bleachers, a look of utter dread on his face.

  Tim launched himself across the floor, which was filling by now with couples dancing. He looked for the black-haired girl but didn’t see her. Where had she gone? He’d only turned his head away for a few seconds!

  There she was — on the dance floor, kickin’ it live with Mike Gruber. Argh! AAARGH!

  He knew this feeling — knew it from second grade, and then again in fifth, and yet again in sixth. He had a crush.

  He didn’t even know this girl’s name. He’d never even talked to her. He knew not one thing about her, except that her hair was black and her eyes were twinkly and her smile was, well, perfect. But the minute he’d seen her dancing with Mike Gruber, he knew.

  Suddenly he realized he was standing right next to a knot of girls who were waiting to get asked to dance. They were whispering to each other and giggling and checking out the boys out of the corners of their eyes. Tim was seized by a sudden resolve not to let anyone know what he was feeling. Not to let anyone know he had a crush on … whatever her name was.

  He stepped up to a cute, kind of chubby, freckle-faced girl and said, “Wanna dance?”

  “Sure,” she replied, smiling and showing a mouthful of braces. “I’m Wanda. What’s your name?”

  “Tim. Tim Daniels.”

  “Cute name!” she said, giggling as he took her hand and led her out onto the floor. They danced a little, and now and then, Tim snuck a look over at Mike Gruber and his dancing partner. He tried to maneuver himself and Wanda closer to them, until they were close enough for him to wave at Mike and say hi.

  Mike grinned and gave him the high sign, as if to say, “Good work, pal, you picked a real winner.” Tim thought Wanda was okay for sure. But he couldn’t take his eyes off the black-haired girl. Except when she happened to catch him at it — or almost catch him. Tim wasn’t sure which, but either way, he looked away in a hurry. When he looked back, she was whispering to Mike and giggling, casting quick glances at him. Yep, he guessed she’d caught him staring. Great. Just great.

  Maybe she was giggling at him because she thought he was cute. Nah, thought Tim, it couldn’t be that. Probably Mike Gruber was telling her stuff about him, and making him look like an idiot in her eyes. All the mistakes he’d made playing b-ball, all about Tim being best friends with Billy Futterman the geek.

  The word made Tim wince. He’d never called anybody a geek in his life, but he could easily picture Mike Gruber doing it. He was probably calling Tim a geek right now — that would explain the girl’s giggling. …

  “You okay?” Wanda asked suddenly.

  “Uh, yeah,” Tim said hurriedly. “Why?”

  “You stopped moving.”

  “Huh?”

  “You’re just, like, standing there. Sure you’re okay?”

  “Yeah, I’m just … thirsty. Yeah, that’s it. Wanna get something to drink?”

  “Sure.”

  She followed him over to the punch table, and they kind of stood around for a while, sipping punch and nibbling on cookies, checking out all the rest of the kids.

  And then he saw her coming toward him. He had to get away — now. His stomach was heaving, and he was afraid he was going to be sick right there in front of everybody. “Hi,” she said, in a voice like liquid silver. “I’m Stephanie. You, um, wanna dance?”

  Tim froze, his jaw working but no words coming out. “I … uh … um …” He looked over at Wanda. She was pretending not to notice him and Stephanie, but Tim could tell she noticed, all right. She’d probably feel hurt if he said yes — but how could he not? She’d asked him, for goodness’ sake! “Uh, sure,” he said, then turned to Wanda and said, “See you later, okay?”

  Wanda flashed a quick smile and waved, turning her back to him as he followed Stephanie out onto the floor. She was taller than he was, by a good three inches, but he didn’t care. He just hoped she didn’t.

  They danced for a while to a hip-hop number, Tim’s heart pounding as h
e felt the eyes of everyone in the room on the two of them. He couldn’t believe it — one of the prettiest girls in the whole place had asked him to dance. It meant she must like him better than Mike Gruber!

  The DJ lowered the lights. “Okay, everyone,” he said over the microphone, “it’s time for some slow dancing. Grab your partners and cuddle up close.”

  She was looking straight at him with those twinkling eyes of hers, but he couldn’t hold her gaze. Looking at the ground, he reached out and drew her closer, into slow-dancing position. They rocked around the floor to some song he didn’t even hear, spinning slowly. Every few seconds, he looked up at Stephanie’s black hair — or worse, straight into her twinkling eyes — and quickly looked away.

  Her perfume was sweet but strong. Suddenly, he could barely breathe — the smell of it was making him dizzy … he was going to be sick for sure, if he didn’t leave the gym pronto. “I … excuse me,” he told Stephanie, backing away.

  “You okay?” she asked, concerned.

  “Yeah, it’s just … I’ll be right back.”

  He threaded his way through the couples on the floor and headed for the far side doors, which were half hidden in darkness. Behind him, he could feel a hundred pairs of eyes watching him beat a shameful retreat. He banged the door open and stood outside on the porch, breathing in huge gulps of the fresh mountain air. Overhead, the moon shone brightly. Billions of crickets chirped, and the throbbing sound of music from inside mingled with nature’s orchestra.

  Tim turned and looked back in through one of the windows. He could see Stephanie, surrounded by a bunch of girls, all of them giggling and casting glances toward the door he’d exited. Making fun of him, no doubt. How could he have ever thought she liked him — him, a new camper who wasn’t even all that good at basketball, and who had a nerdy friend, and didn’t know how to act around girls he liked.

  Why would she ever like him? Why would anybody?

  Now he knew just how Billy had been feeling all this time. Made fun of wherever he went. Later, back at the bunkhouse, he’d be sure to apologize to Billy for joining in the torment, even if he’d only done it a little bit.

  He spent the rest of the dance out on the porch, except for once or twice when he went in and asked Wanda to dance. She was nice, she was comfortable, not bad-looking, and she didn’t make him the least bit nervous. Too bad he didn’t have a crush on her. And too bad Stephanie thought he was ridiculous.

  He walked back to the bunkhouse a good way behind the other campers in his group. He was busy trying to frame an apology to Billy. But he never got the chance to give it, because when he climbed the stairs and threw open the door of their room, Billy was already in a screaming, froth-at-the-mouth rage.

  “Will you look at this?” he shrieked. “Look. Just look!” He pointed to his bed. Tim went over to it and peeled back the blanket. Someone had short-sheeted the bed and slit the sheet, so that when Billy had gotten into bed, he’d ripped it right in half!

  7

  All right, everybody out of bed — now!” Jody was steaming mad, no doubt about it. “I’ve had about enough of this, okay? Now every last one of you is gonna contribute one dollar to the Billy Futterman buy-a-sheet fund. Then you’re gonna make his bed with new sheets — and you’re gonna make it perfectly, do you understand?”

  There were some mumbled replies from the chastened campers. “I can’t hear you!” Jody shouted.

  “Yes!” they all responded in unison.

  “Yes what?”

  “Yes, we understand!”

  “You’d better. Now, let’s go. I’m gonna drop a dime on that blanket when you’re done, and it better bounce back!”

  The Eagles went into action, throwing dirty looks at Billy Futterman as they worked on his bed, yanking the sheets back and forth and tucking them in tightly.

  Billy didn’t seem to care. He was allowing himself to enjoy this brief moment of payback, and he stood there, his arms folded, a satisfied smile on his face.

  Tim thought he was making a big mistake. The kids were only going to hold a grudge against him. If Billy thought the worst was over because he’d told Jody on them, he was way wrong.

  Sure enough, the next morning, when the whole camp had assembled for flag raising, Coach Gabe looked up at the top of the flagpole and froze.

  “What is that up there?” he asked, even though he knew full well what it was. “Is that someone’s underwear?” He hauled it down and read the nametag inside. “Billy Futterman — I believe these are yours …,” he said, holding them up with two fingers at arm’s length, like they smelled or something. “Would you please come up here and get them?”

  Billy shambled forward, to the hoots and laughter of the assembled campers, and retrieved his pilfered boxers. His face was as red as cranberries, and Tim could see the tears of shame glistening on his cheeks. He felt painfully sad for his friend’s agony. But at the same time, he was as glad as could be that it wasn’t his underwear.

  “Hey, Tim!”

  Tim looked up from his arts-and-crafts project to see Tito coming toward him, a smile on his face. “Hey.”

  “Whatcha got there?” Tito asked, looking at Tim’s piece of sculpture.

  “It’s gonna be a candy dish,” Tim explained, cocking his head sideways to try to see a candy dish in the unformed lump of clay he’d been working on since lunch. All day long, the Eagles had been relegated to indoor activities as punishment for hoisting Billy’s Skivvies up the flagpole. A full day of arts and crafts, bunk cleaning, and nap time had made everyone antsy and grouchy.

  But Tito seemed in good spirits. “I need you to go down to Max at the lake and get me the jetty scraper, okay?”

  “Okay,” said Tim. He got up, stretched, and went outside into the blinding sunlight.

  It was a long walk down to the lake. “Hi, Max,” he greeted the swim counselor. “Tito told me to ask you for his jetty scraper.”

  “The jetty scraper?” Max repeated, scratching his head. “Oh, yeah — I loaned it to Fred Ferguson. Go ask him for it.”

  Fred Ferguson was the tennis coach, and the tennis courts were way back on the other side of the camp. But what choice did Tim have? He didn’t want to come back to Tito empty-handed. So he crossed the whole campus to the tennis courts and found Fred Ferguson giving a group lesson.

  “The jetty scraper … hmmm … who did I lend that to? Oh, yeah — the chef has it over at the mess hall. He’s probably done with it by now. Why don’t you ask him for it?”

  Tim sighed in growing exasperation — the mess hall was way back the other way, past the swimming area. So he crossed the whole campus yet again — and when he got there, the chef wasn’t even there. Rory, the assistant cook, told him the chef was in his bunk, taking a nap between making meals. So Tim had to climb the hill to the very top, where he roused the chef, and asked once again for the jetty scraper.

  “Oh, wait … I left it at the mess hall, with Rory. Go ask him.”

  This was getting really frustrating. Tim headed back down the hill and asked Rory for the scraper. “Jody wanted to borrow it this morning,” Rory said. “So I loaned it to him.”

  “But it wasn’t yours to lend!” Tim said, exasperated. “It was Tito’s.”

  “Oh. Yeah. True. Well, he probably has it back by now.”

  Tim went looking for Jody and found him lying in his bed, reading a magazine on his free hour. “The jetty scraper?” he asked. “I think I left it by the front steps. Check around there.”

  Tim wanted to ask what it looked like, since he’d never actually seen a jetty scraper before. In fact, he’d never even heard of one till now. But he didn’t want to look like a jerk, so he left Jody without asking him.

  Coming down the front steps, he was about to start looking around for it — whatever it was. Instead, he saw Billy doing just that. “Looking for the jetty scraper?” Tim asked.

  “Huh? No, the sky hook,” Billy replied. “I’ve been going around all over the place trying t
o track it down for Tito.”

  “Wait a minute,” Tim said, sitting down on the steps. “Wait just a doggone minute!”

  “What?” Billy asked.

  “I have a funny feeling we’ve been had.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Ever hear of a wild goose chase, Billy?”

  “Sure.”

  “I think we’ve just been on one.”

  From inside the arts-and-crafts hut, they could hear the sound of laughter. Tito’s head popped out the window overhead. “Find that jetty scraper yet?” he asked, cracking a sly grin.

  That night as the two of them lay awake in bed, they heard the door open, creaking softly. Tim wondered what prank was about to be pulled this time, and by whom. But the huge silhouette outlined in the doorway could only have been Dick Dunbar.

  “You guys awake?” he asked gently.

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Can I come in?” He didn’t wait for an answer, but instead came into the room, found a chair in the dim light, and sat down between their two beds. “How you guys been doin’?” he asked. “I, um, heard about the little episode today.”

  “It wasn’t so little,” Billy said. “And it wasn’t the first time, or the second, or the third.”

  Tim remained silent, content to let Billy do the complaining for him. But he felt awful, knowing that now he was as much the target for the practical jokers as Billy was — and now, even their counselors were in on it!

  “That was wrong, what they did to you today,” he said. “I just thought you ought to know, they did it to me, too.”

  “You?”

  “Apparently they do it to all the new guys — it’s a time-honored Wickasaukee ritual.”

  “Yeah, right,” said Billy. “Why not human sacrifice? That’s a time-honored ritual, too.”

  “Now, come on, Bill,” Dunbar said, patting him on the knee. “Cool down. You’re still all in one piece. And you know what they say about sticks and stones.”

  “I don’t care,” Billy said. “I want to get even. Better than even.”