by Mike Lupica
He waited, feeling like a dope being this excited, realizing he was holding his breath.
CON TESSA44: No my evil twin.
CROSSOVER2: Ha ha
He started to type something else. As he did, the message came up in red that his buddy was typing something, too. So it was like the old days now, him and Tess Hewitt trying to beat each other to the next funny comment.
Only she wasn’t trying to be funny.
Just Tess.
CON TESSA44: So how are you stranger? How’s camp?
CROSSOVER2: Great.
He waited, getting the “Your buddy is typing” message.
CON TESSA44: Great as in offthecharts travel team great?
That great?
CROSSOVER2: Well getting there I guess.
This wait seemed to be longer.
CON TESSA44: You guess? You never guess in bball fella. You always have the right answer. Before they even ask the question sometimes.
CROSSOVER2: I used to.
CON TESSA44: USED TO????? Past tense.
CROSSOVER2: Maybe just tense.
CON TESSA44: Hey you. Something wrong?
Truth or dare? Tell her the truth now, or not.
Danny decided on the truth.
He needed to tell somebody the truth today.
CROSSOVER2: Hate it here. Got hurt today.
He didn’t tell her he was leaving.
This time Danny waited for what seemed like an hour while his buddy was typing.
CON TESSA 44: Come on Walker. Only a week. How bad can it be? It’ll get better. Then you’ll win. Like always.
CROSSOVER2: Not this time. No no no.
CON TESSA44: Yes yes YES!
He wasn’t in the mood for a pep talk, not even from her.
So he changed the subject.
CROSSOVER2: How’s Middletown?
CON TESSA44: Have no idea.
He closed his eyes, searching what was left of his brain. Was there a trip she was taking somewhere? Danny tried to remember if she’d said anything about that the last time they talked.
Then he decided he really didn’t care where she was.
All he cared about was that they were talking again, even like this.
CROSSOVER2: Okay I give. Where R U?
He didn’t have to wait long.
CON TESSA44: Across the lake.
13
WILL AND TY WERE PLAYING PING-PONG AT THE OUTDOOR TABLE BEHIND Boston Garden when Danny found them.
Will gave Danny a sideways look and said, “Oh, you’re still here?”
Danny said, “I’m here.”
“Because we were wondering.”
“You guys don’t have to wonder about me.”
“If you say so.”
“I say so.”
“Hello?” Ty said. “Are we still playing to twenty-one, or are we stopping now?”
Will was getting ready to serve when Danny said, “I’ve got some news I thought you might be interested in.”
Will held the pose as if Danny had paused him. “About your knee?”
“No,” Danny said, “nothing about my knee. I’m tired of talking about my knee today.”
“The reason I ask,” Will said, going right on, “is that we ran into Nick Pinto and he said you might be fixing to leave and I just thought that might be something you’d want to mention to your two best friends before you did. Is all.”
“Because if you want to quit—” Ty said.
“I’m not quitting!” Danny said.
“Chill,” Ty said, holding up his racket like a stop sign. “I was talking to Will about our game.”
Will started his service motion again. Paused again. Danny heard Ty groan. “What’s your news, then?”
“Tess is across the lake.”
That got his attention.
“No way.”
“Way,” Danny said. He grinned and pointed toward the lake. “Thataway, actually.”
“How?” Will said.
“Her uncle,” Danny said. “When we were sitting at McFeeley one day, she laughed when I told her our camp was in Cedarville. It turned out she couldn’t believe we were going to be right near where her uncle has a place.”
Will said to Ty, “No wonder he seems to have recovered from his near-death experience.”
“Tess to the rescue,” Ty said.
“So when do we get to see her?” Will said.
“Tonight.”
“How?”
Danny said to his buds, “We’ll know that as soon as we come up with a plan.”
Most of the guys bunking at Boston Garden were over at The House by now, watching the nightly counselors’ game.
Danny and Will and Ty were sitting on some big rocks at the edge of the woods, overlooking the water.
Danny told them that according to Tess, her uncle’s place was a couple of miles away if you went the long way, which meant by car. But she said it was actually a lot closer if you went across Coffee Lake, maybe halfway between Right Way and the girls’ camp across the water.
“Too far to swim,” Will said.
“Ya think?” Ty said.
“So we’ll take a canoe,” Will said, “definitely.” Nodding his head quickly—Will was completely happy talking to himself—“Brilliant,” he said.
“Oh, right,” Danny said. “They’re just going to let us take a canoe out at this time of night.”
Will looked at him like he was the biggest loser on earth.
“We’re not going out on the lake now,” he said. “We’re going to wait until it gets dark, and then we’re going to steal one of these long, skinny boats, and then we’re going to see our friend Tess Hewitt.”
“We’re stealing a boat,” Danny said.
“Well, borrowing,” Will said. “I don’t intend to keep it. What am I going to do with a canoe?”
“We get it,” Danny said.
Ty said, “Why don’t we just wait until the counselors’ game is over and then ask Nick or somebody to drive us?”
“First of all, nobody ever knows when the counselors’ game is going to end,” Will said. “Sometimes they play until ten o’clock.”
Will Stoddard smiled then, looking at Danny, then Ty, then back at Danny, his eyes, as always, full of fun and trouble at the same time.
“Second, and most importantly,” Will said, “if Nick or somebody just plain old drove us over to her in the van, what kind of adventure would that be?”
Danny and Ty told him they hated to admit it, but he made a good point.
Danny said there was still time before it got all the way dark, so he went back to call Tess, tell her the plan they’d come up with, figure out exactly which place was her uncle’s and how they were going to find it in the dark.
When he got to the main office, Sue LeBow said, “Where have you been? I had people looking all over the camp for you. Your mom called and wants you to call her right away.”
Danny said he’d been hanging with his friends. Sue said he was lucky he showed up when he did; she was about to close up the office for the night. He could go ahead and use her phone while she went over to the mess hall to get a cup of coffee.
Danny didn’t have a whole lot of time to waste, he knew, but he also knew he better make the call.
She picked up on the first ring.
“Hey, Mom.”
“How bad is it?”
Not his cool, funny mom tonight. This was the mom who got right to it on the big stuff, like she was calling one of her English classes to order.
If she had been home when Danny called before, he had planned to start scamming a trip home to see the family doctor. But now he didn’t want to even think about that, he just wanted to go see Tess. So he told Ali Walker about the play, about Dr. Bradley, about how he’d taken it easy the rest of the day, tried to make it sound as if he’d been icing for the last four hours straight.
“I’ll live, basically,” he said. “The doctor says he might want to go for an MRI when the swelling g
oes down.”
“Good Lord,” Ali Walker said, “what is it about the men in this family and their knees?”
“Mom,” he said, “one bruised knee doesn’t mean I’ve turned into Dad.”
There was a pause, and then his mom said, “Do you want me to call your dad? He’s still in Oakland until tomorrow night.”
Quickly, maybe too quickly with his mom on the other end of the line, the way she could hear things in his voice that no other living human could hear, Danny said, “Why don’t you wait until he gets home? Let me see how it feels tomorrow, and I’ll call you guys.”
His mom said, “No basketball until it feels better. Do you hear me, Daniel Walker?”
“Loud and clear.”
“You promise your old mom?”
“Yes,” he said—never “yeah,” not with an English teacher for a mother. “And you’re not old.”
“And you’re sweet, even with a bum knee.”
“Hey, Mom?” Danny said. “I love you a lot, but the guys are waiting for me to go do something.”
“Well,” she said. “The guys. Waiting to do something. I wouldn’t want to stand in the way of all that.”
“Did I mention that you’re not old?” Danny said.
“I love you, good-bye,” she said.
After he’d hung up, he realized he hadn’t even told her about Tess. Maybe tomorrow. He called Tess then, got the exact directions, even drew himself a crude map from what she was telling him about her part of Coffee Lake.
On his way back to where Will and Ty were waiting, he saw Zach playing a three-on-three game on the lighted court at Gampel. Danny knew he shouldn’t stop, but he did, still feeling bad about the way he’d treated Zach on the dock.
When one of the other kids made a driving shot to win the game, Danny motioned Zach over.
“What’d I do now?” Zach said.
“Nothing,” Danny said. “I just wanted to talk to you about something.”
“What?”
The night before, when Danny had gotten back to Gampel, Zach had pretended to be asleep, even though Danny knew better.
“I want to talk about an adventure,” Danny said, then pulled him out of earshot of the other guys and told him what they planned on doing.
“You’re asking me to come along?” Zach said.
“Unless you don’t want to.”
“Are you insane?” Zach said. “Just give me one sec to put my ball away.” By now Danny knew that you could have gone into Zach’s living space at Gampel and taken all his clothes and games and whatever money he had hidden and the only thing he’d be upset about would be his basketball.
On their way down to the water, Zach said, “Nick was talking about your knee before—”
Danny thought, Who hasn’t Nick spilled the beans to? But he just said, “I’ll tell you all about it tomorrow. Right now, it’s time to hit the high seas.”
Zach Fox looked at him. “Now that,” he said, “really is wet.”
The counselor in charge of sending you out in the canoes was long gone by the time it was all the way dark. Nobody had a watch, but they guessed it was past nine o’clock when they snuck back down to the dock.
There were six canoes tied up there, paddles inside. On the other side of the dock were two Jet Skis.
“We could get there a lot faster on these very cool-looking Jet Skis,” Will said. “Plus, it would be like a chase scene in James Bond.”
“Faster and much, much louder,” Danny said.
“I’m not looking to change the plan,” Will said. “I was just making what I thought was an interesting observation.”
“There’s something new and different,” Ty said.
Zach wasn’t saying anything. He was just smiling at all of them at once in the light of a pretty amazing full moon, looking as happy as Danny had seen him without a basketball in his hands.
They sent Zach up the hill one last time, to make sure nobody was coming. He came racing back like he was trying to set the camp record and said the coast was clear.
“Well, then,” Danny said, “I guess it’s time to ship out.”
They untied the canoe closest to the dock as Will asked for about the tenth time if Danny was sure where they were going.
“Sort of.”
“Well, let’s sort of start heading over there,” Will said, “so we at least have a chance to get back before somebody realizes none of us are in our beds.”
“Have any of you guys ever ridden in one of these?” Zach said.
Danny shook his head and looked at Will and Ty.
“Don’t look at me,” Will said. “My mom swears she used to take me kayaking when I was little, but I told her I was gonna have to see pictures.”
From his seat at the front of the boat, Ty said, “I can do it.”
“Should have known,” Will said to Zach. “He could fly a plane if he had to.”
Ty explained then that these were what were known as “guide canoes,” because they were a favorite of Maine tour guides, and were about sixteen feet long. Will wanted to know how Ty knew that, and Ty said, “When you’re not one of those people who already know everything, you ask questions sometimes.”
“Is that a shot?” Will said. “Because that sounded like a shot to me.”
There were four life jackets in the bottom of the boat, two of which were small enough to fit Danny and Zach. Ty said that the most people he’d seen in one of these babies since he’d been at camp were three, but there was nothing to worry about, guide canoes like this could handle up to six hundred pounds.
Will made a motion like he was writing a score on a board and said to Ty, “Okay, I get it. You’ve got me beat bad on canoes.”
“And just about everything else,” Danny added.
“Another shot,” Will said.
Ty stayed in front, Danny said he’d handle the paddling in back, maybe switch with Will if he got tired.
“I’m going to be pretty busy navigating,” Will said.
They pushed away into Coffee Lake, the only real sound in the night the sound of their paddles hitting the water. Danny had already told Will to keep his voice down as much as possible, that out here on the water it would carry better than if he were using Jeff’s bullhorn.
They angled to their left, past the rope line you weren’t supposed to cross if you had permission to take one of the canoes out, went around a bend and the Right Way dock disappeared from sight. They were five minutes into the trip, if that.
Will said, “Are we there yet?”
Danny and Ty were already in perfect sync with their paddling, as if they were on some kind of two-man rowing team in the Olympics. Or maybe just running one of their little two-man games on a basketball court.
“Hey, you guys are good,” Zach said. “Danny, you sure you’ve never done this before?”
“Suck-up,” Will said into his hand, like he was stifling a cough.
They glided across the water in the night, moving faster than Danny thought they would, still just hearing the slap of the paddles when Will piped down. Danny switched the paddle from side to side, feeling strong as he did.
Realizing something at the same time:
It was like they were out here in their own little world, apart from camp. He wasn’t worried about anything, he wasn’t mad at anybody, he wasn’t all jammed up about what he’d decided to do before Tess called.
He would never say this out loud, certainly not to Will or Ty, not to Zach in a million years, but out here on Coffee Lake, Danny suddenly felt like he was floating.
Just then, Ty said, “There she is.”
Tess had told Danny she’d come out to the end of her uncle’s dock and be carrying one of those supersize flashlights that you only used when you lost power.
He was maybe a hundred yards away from her.
Will asked if it was all right for him to give her a shout-out now. The only way somebody from Right Way would be able to hear was if they’d been followed.
“Knock yourself out,” Danny told him.
Will waved now and yelled, “Hilary Duff, is that you? Is it really you?”
“Hey!” Tess yelled back. Danny could see her flashlight bouncing up and down now as she did. “Hey, you guys!”
Will said to Danny, “Jump in anytime.”
Without either one of them saying anything about picking up the pace, Danny and Ty both started paddling faster.
“Just pull alongside the dock,” Tess said, “and I’ll toss you a rope.”
Maybe thirty yards away now.
Now Danny couldn’t help himself.
Or contain himself.
After all the bad parts, he’d come to the good parts, finally.
Tess.
He tapped Will on his shoulder, handed him his paddle, stood up in the back of the boat. Usually he was soooooo cool toward Tess when Will and Ty were around, never acting like he was too happy or excited to see her.
Not tonight.
He shouted “ConTessa44 Hewitt!” at the top of his voice, waving his arm like he was calling for somebody to pass him the ball.
Will was standing now, giving Danny room to take his seat. But Danny didn’t want to sit in it, he wanted to stand on it, wanted to be the tallest one in the boat for just this one moment.
Wanted Tess to see him first.
There was just one small problem.
Just enough water from the splash of those paddles had gotten into the bottom of the boat on their way across the lake.
It meant that Danny’s Barkley sneakers were just slick enough.
His right sneaker got up on the little benchlike seat, no problem. But his left one slipped like he’d hit a patch of ice. And since there was no rail for him to grab on to, nothing but the night air for him to grab on to, Danny felt himself falling.
Zach saw what was happening, tried to dive across and catch him, but it was too late.
Danny Walker went over the side of the guide canoe and into the cold water of Coffee Lake.
14