Shells, Smells, and the Horrible Flip-Flops of Doom

by Rachel Vail

  August 19, Thursday

  All day all we do is Color War. We have to beat the Red Team. We beat them at pick up pennies from the floor of the pool (I didn’t get any), but they beat us in Newcomb and then at tennis round robin.

  Cash and I were doubles partners. I was pretty good at getting out of his way when he was going for the ball. Better than Gianni was at getting out of Xavier’s way, which is why Gianni got a racquet sandwich.

  I offered to walk Gianni to the nurse. It would be fair that way—Xavier and Cash could play each other in singles.

  James/Jay said no. “Tough it out,” he said to Gianni. Then when Gianni really couldn’t get his mouth into the right shape, he made Gianni walk it off down to the nurse by himself. It is true that even though his bottom teeth were all to the right of his top teeth, his legs were fine. But in school if you have to go to the nurse, somebody has to walk you.

  I thought that was a general rule, or a law, in this country.

  While Gianni went to the nurse to have his jaw put back in the right part of his face, Xavier got to partner up with Montana C. James/Jay yelled at me the word focus when the ball Montana C. served zoomed past my left ear. I was busy watching Gianni walking sadly and hunched down the hill. I didn’t know we’d started again.

  “Focus” is what Qwerty doesn’t have at his obedience class. He gets in trouble, too. Maybe it runs in my family. I held my racquet with both hands and crouched over, but I didn’t even see the ball that time, just heard it as it passed me. James/Jay made doglike grunting noises and searched the clouds to see if my focus was hovering up there, maybe. It wasn’t.

  But that behavior of his gave me one minute of an enemy other than the Red Team.

  Xavier and Montana C. won. By a lot. Very quickly.

  “Next week we are going to have to win everything,” Cash said at Quad. And then he whispered to me very fiercely the words get ready.

  I think Color War might be tied with Knuckles as my second-worst enemy.

  Also tied with Obstacle Courses, swim tests, and lime popsicles, which was what was for snack.

  Gianni got to get picked up early by his mom, so he missed all that stuff. Mom said it was a nice idea I had, to call him. He said he was feeling much better, thanks, and that his mom let him have ice cream for dinner because of his dislocated jaw. Also he gets to miss camp tomorrow. He is going to hang around in his pajamas and watch movies all day.

  Some guys have all the luck.

  August 20, Friday

  When I came up to my room after camp, I discovered that while I was at camp failing to get into Deep and not crying when James/Jay/Barf Breath rolled his nasty bloodshot eyes about my lousiness at swimming, Qwerty had been busy chewing up two of my new knights.

  Elizabeth said maybe the knights were attacking Qwerty, and he just had to defend himself.

  That made me so mad, all my furious of the whole built-up summer of mad came vomiting out of my mouth. I yelled at her and at Qwerty, too, that that was the stupidest thing ever, and I don’t even care if we are not allowed to use the word stupid or the word hate or to let anybody hurt us or be quitters in our family. Because it is all so dumb and we all know it! It doesn’t even matter! Because of course the knights were not attacking Qwerty! They are just stupid plastic toys!

  I am not sure who looked at me most sadly after that, but it was not Elizabeth, who stomped away saying that I was in big trouble. It was a tie of sad faces between Qwerty and the one completely non-gobbled knight, the traitorous bad guy whose name is Steeltrap.

  I think Qwerty’s face looked sorrier but Steeltrap’s face looked more betrayed. Not like he was winking his one closed eye in a cool we share a secret way but more like an I can’t bear to look at you with both my eyes kind of way. Even though those gobbled knights are his sworn enemies, he has never betrayed them as badly as I just did.

  The gobbled knights were in too much pain from being chewed up by a big drooly dog to look at me at all.

  But I can’t waste my time thinking about the feelings of knights or dogs. I have to spend my weekend getting ready for when Monday comes around. I am going to get a lot of sleep and eat a lot of healthy food and maybe do some push-ups or other toughening-up activities this weekend.

  For now, I am going to sleep in the top bunk of my bed for sure the whole night tonight, no getting scared and moving down later like last time. It’s not just to avoid Qwerty and his whining and his huge tongue. And it is not to avoid any vengeance the knights might try to mount during the night.

  I meant it—nobody could be scared of them. They are just plastic toys, and their small weapons probably couldn’t hurt me very much even if they did come to life. Which I don’t believe in.

  Very much.

  The reason I have to sleep up top tonight is that the stuffties down in the bottom bunk are too complicated. Bananas, who is President of the Bed, and Snakey, who is not, are in a fight. Some of the other stuffties are whispering rumors that Snakey secretly likes Bananas, which he denies. And the leader of the Snakey Likes Bananas teasing is Rally, another rough stuffty who has been Snakey’s best friend since he joined the bed.

  It is a mess.

  And if I don’t get enough sleep, I am a mess, too.

  That is why I am up here, so close to the ceiling, with just Wingnut, Baloney, Fleecebelly, and Squirt, who are all very calm stuffties. We are all trying not to think about how far we are right now from the floor and what a big week we have ahead of us. We are ignoring the creaking sound that probably does not mean that this bed really does need some screws tightened right away.

  Maybe we should go ask Dad and his toolbox to check it out again. Because maybe last time he checked, there was a screw he forgot to check, or maybe one of the knights, for example possibly Steeltrap, secretly did come to life and used his weapon to loosen the screws to get back at me for what I said.

  Even if Dad yells, “Go to SLEEP, Justin” again, maybe it would be worth getting him to just check for safety. Because if I have a bunk-bed crash, I am not going to be able to be the hero of Color War next week.

  Which is my secret plan.

  I am telling myself with every breath in that I am safe up here. Noah is not so brilliant—he once got seven wrong on a ten-word spelling test. I will not fall out of this very high top bunk and smash into a thousand bits no matter what Noah says.

  With every breath out, I am telling myself, I will still be up here tomorrow morning when I wake up.

  August 21, Saturday

  When I woke up this morning, I was not on my top bunk.

  I opened my eyes in the middle of a dream where I was being chased through the whole ocean by a big whale with horrible pointy gunky teeth. I was breathing hard, still thinking I was running through deep water away from an angry whale, but I wasn’t. I had no idea where I was, though, other than NOT on my top bunk and not being eaten by a crazy whale.

  I thought maybe I had fallen off and smashed into a thousand bits so I was dead.

  I didn’t feel dead, but I have never been dead before, so maybe I didn’t know that this is how dead feels. I was not always alive, of course, but I don’t remember the time before I was born. It was too long ago.

  And I don’t know if that would feel the same as dead feels anyway. I thought about being not yet alive and being dead for a while, and if that is the same or different. Also I wondered if I was one of those types of not-alive—the not-anymore version, specifically.

  But then I decided that it would be weird to feel this alive and sweaty and in pajamas with a very annoying and itchy tag at the neck if I were dead. If I were dead, I probably would not feel so sparky.

  Being dead seemed less likely the more I considered it. Especially because I could hear waves.

  So then I thought, Maybe global warming happened and the ocean swallowed up the land all the way to our backyard.

  But that wouldn’t explain why I was lying in a top bunk bed that was not my top bunk bed. Global war
ming is powerful stuff, but still, I don’t think it could sweep a kid from one top bunk bed onto another top bunk bed.

  Anyway, it hadn’t.

  We were just at Gingy and Poopsie’s beach condo. Dad carried/walked me out to the car after bedtime, and apparently we had a whole conversation about whales on the way.

  I don’t remember that at all, which is too bad because Dad said it was very interesting and also funny. He and Mom looked at each other and smiled about that. A lot of the time it is Elizabeth they look and smile at each other about, so I might have to do some whale research when we get home, to keep my streak going with them on that.

  Later on, Dad handed me a piece of paper from Gingy’s notepad. It had pictures of shells and starfish preprinted on it, and also Dad’s writing. The writing was of that poem Dad liked by the poet with the girl’s name of Gerta: “Be bold, and mighty forces will come to your aid.” But this time under the poem was the name of Goethe.

  I guess a lot of people had the idea of that poem.

  I said thanks to Dad and tucked that piece of paper into my shorts pocket with my perfect shell. Then I changed into my swimsuit so I’d be ready for kids’ swim time. I need the whole two hours. I have big plans in mind for the last week of camp.

  August 22, Sunday

  Today it was thick-hot out, but the waves down at the beach were too rough so the red DO NOT GO IN THE WAVES, YOU NUMBSKULLS flag was up. We were swimming in the pool, where I was working more on my strokes because of the Color War relay races tomorrow and my big idea for dominating. All the adults were saying I must be the champion swimmer of camp and other nice stuff like that. It was not true, but it was very fun to pretend it was.

  At exactly noon on the dot, Mr. Cranky Pants yelled, “Those kids have to get out of the pool.”

  Mom said, “Come on out, kids.”

  Elizabeth and I said, “Aww.” But we were getting out. We were already swimming toward the ladder.

  We are not the fastest swimmers in the world, is all, especially Elizabeth who goes to Art Camp.

  Mr. Cranky Pants said, “They have to get out! It’s the rule! They have to get out!”

  “They are getting out,” Gingy said calmly, still reading her magazine. “Relax. It’s a hundred degrees. Don’t stress yourself.”

  “There are rules!” Mr. Cranky Pants said, pointing at the sign, where about a thousand rules were listed in tiny print. “Kids are only allowed in the pool between ten and twelve! Rules!”

  We climbed out. Mom wrapped Elizabeth in a towel. I sat down on my towel with my feet dipped in the deep end, the way we do on hot days at camp. The pool water completely evaporated off me in about one second.

  “He can’t have his feet in the pool,” Mr. Cranky Pants yelled from the shallow end, where his big hairy belly was still above the water, floating on top. “There are rules!”

  “His feet aren’t bothering you,” Gingy said, without looking up from her magazine. She likes to sit in the shade of an umbrella. Though she wears her fancy swimsuit with ruffles and bows under her fancy swimsuit dress, she does not care much for getting into the pool herself. Unlike Poopsie, who wears huge scuba goggles and does cannonballs.

  “His feet ARE bothering me,” Mr. Cranky Pants said. “I am entitled to do my laps without children’s feet in the pool.”

  “Oh, for goodness’ sake,” Mom muttered. “Justin, take your feet out of the pool, please.”

  So I did.

  I sat crisscross applesauce and watched Mr. Cranky Pants slowly dog-paddle toward the deep end. His slow head stayed above the water. His kicks barely broke the surface. When he got to about the halfway mark, he stood up and said, “I don’t think children are even allowed to be in the pool area when it’s past children’s hours.”

  “It’s a heat wave,” Dad said kindly, kneeling down on the edge of the pool. “If they promise not to make even a ripple, do you think they could just dangle their feet in the water?”

  “No!” Mr. Cranky Pants shook his head and his bouquet of chins jiggled underneath. “There are rules! No children!” He splashed the water with his open palm. “No children! That’s the rules!”

  “Come on, kids,” Mom said. She stood up.

  Gingy stood up, too. “Rules my eye,” Gingy said, taking off her hat, her sunglasses, and the ruffled dress she wears over her bathing suit. She slammed her magazine down on top of her pile of clothes and marched toward the shallow end. We all watched.

  “Rules are rules,” Mr. Cranky Pants muttered, a little less loudly, and started his slow dog paddle toward the deep end again, moving slowly but surely away from Gingy.

  “Yes,” Gingy said, stomping down the pool steps, splashing. “Rules are rules. And you wouldn’t want my grandchildren’s tiny feet interrupting your massive butterfly stroke. And you are entitled. Oooo, are you entitled.”

  “That’s right,” Mr. Cranky Pants practically whispered, quickening his little doggy-paddle strokes, a pucker of worry on his mouth.

  By then Gingy was standing in the shallow end. She lurched forward and started kicking up a storm, heading straight toward Mr. Cranky Pants. “But I am not a child,” Gingy shouted. “I am entitled to swim as much as I want right now.”

  Gingy swam past Mr. Cranky Pants, splashing him right in the face as she passed him. At the deep end, Gingy grabbed onto the edge and winked at me. “Justin, honey, would you please get your old grandmother that red kickboard? Thanks, love.”

  Gingy held on to that kickboard and practiced her kicking right exactly wherever Mr. Cranky Pants tried to swim.

  His face kept getting splashed with a turbojet of water from Gingy’s kicks.

  We couldn’t believe it. Gingy is the nicest person I have ever met. With the best manners.

  Elizabeth’s mouth was hanging open. So was Mom’s and so was Dad’s and mine was, too. Not Poopsie’s, though. Poopsie was standing by the side of the pool with his arms crossed, smiling down at his wife in the pool.

  Mr. Cranky Pants stood up. He walked the rest of the way across the shallow end and slowly yanked himself up the stairs, out of the pool.

  As he wrapped his grumbling self in his towel, Gingy yelled out, “Does anybody mind if my grandchildren cool themselves off in the pool? Do I hear a motion to suspend the rules during a heat wave?”

  “So moved,” Poopsie yelled.

  “Seconded,” yelled Mom.

  Mr. Cranky Pants banged the gate behind him as Gingy walked up the steps out of the pool toward her chair.

  Before he challenged me and Elizabeth to a cannonball contest, Poopsie gave Gingy a kiss right on her mouth.

  August 23, Monday

  I hate how Bartholomew Wiggins pokes me when he’s talking to me and I hate how itchy my neck gets when sweat dries on it and I hate blisters and I hate that Penelope Ann Murphy cries every time she comes in last in a thing, which is basically every time she does a thing.

  But what I hate even more than any of that is tetherball and also the word love.

  Especially after today.

  As I waited in line behind her at the tetherball tournament, I could see that Penelope Ann Murphy was kind of vibrating, like a string on a guitar after the counselor strums it and it’s still blurry and hummy.

  I got closer to see if any sound would be humming out of her.

  It wasn’t.

  But I noticed while I was close to her that, wow, she really, really smelled like pudding. Also that the fingers of her left hand were touching a ring she was wearing on her other hand. It had some sticky-uppy elements that were pretty cool.

  So I said, “Hey, Penelope Ann.”

  She turned around with her red face right next to mine and yelled, “What now?”

  Which made me take a step back and bump into Cash, who was behind me. But I didn’t fall down. I said, “I like your ring.”

  She squinted her eyes at me. “Are you teasing me?”

  “No,” I said.

  “What, then?” she asked.
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  “It’s fancy,” I said. “I like the sticky-uppy elements. Also the, um, colors. Of it. The ring.”

  She smiled a tiny smile. “Thanks,” she whispered. Then people were yelling at her to go, go—it was her turn, so she stepped forward onto the sand.

  Gianni Schicci served the ball.

  Penelope Ann Murphy ducked the first time the ball came whirring around, but then, as it came again, Penelope lifted her right hand and punched it—hard.

  She connected with a ball in the right way for the first time of the entire summer. She hit that ball with such force, sparks flew from it.

  Colored sparks.

  Sparkly sparks.

  They fluttered through the air like the grand finale of a fireworks show, and I opened my mouth to cheer, but no sound came out because I realized that those were not sparks and they were not fireworks.

  They were what used to be Penelope Ann Murphy’s ring.

  In slow motion, that ring just exploded into a million pieces that rained down all over the sand.

  Gianni punched the ball back, and it wrapped the rope all the way around the pole. Another point for the Red Team.

  They all cheered.

  Penelope knelt down on the sand and gathered up the molecules of her shattered ring. I got down and picked up some ring bits, too. She grabbed them from my hand without even saying thank you.

  Then she stood up, covered in sand and sweat. Her lower lip started to tremble. Her cheeks were jiggling like Jell-O, my least favorite food. Then her eyes overflowed, and she was crying and gulping air and drooling more than my dog Qwerty. It was about ten kinds of awful at once.

  Behind me the Blue Team started mumbling and whispering the usual stuff: She is such a loser, and why’d she have to be on our team?

  “You made us lose again, Pudding,” Cash said, a little louder, and to her.

  “Leave me alone!” Penelope screamed. Her palms were full of ring bits, so she had to wipe her nose with the back of her hand. “Just leave! Me! Alone!”