by Theo Baker
“And if I get through camp,” I asked, “will you let me go to Spitalfields next weekend?”
“Deal,” said Dad.
“Wait! What? I haven’t agreed to anything,” Mum said.
“And Mum will stop looking through my bag without asking?” I looked at Dad. I was on a roll.
“If he can go to camp,” Emily interrupted, emerging from the shadows, “then I should be allowed to work in the deli…”
“I haven’t said Hank can go. And, no, I’m sorry, sweetie, but you’re just not ready to work at the deli. Don’t feel bad about it, ’kay?” Mum said.
“I don’t feel bad about it.” Emily opened her notebook. She wrote something down and underlined it. “But I will remember it.”
“I don’t like you keeping notes like that.”
“She can go, too,” my dad said to my mum, who flared her nostrils at him. Dad, however, turned to Papa Pete. “See? I teach them to be men… Why are looking at me like that, Em? I know you’re a girl. I didn’t mean you, of course. Stop looking at me that way. Emily, please stop looking at me that way. I’m the one letting you go, so look at your mum, OK? She’s the one who threw away the letter.”
Emily turned to Mum. “Can I bring my lizard?”
“This is your fault,” Mum said to Dad.
Dad quickly opened his laptop so his face was hidden by the screen.
“Don’t look at me,” he mumbled. “Look at Hank.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
People often tell me I’m an underachiever, but no one has ever said to me, “Hank, you’re over-thinking it,” which I take as a compliment. The way I see it, most things don’t really require that much thinking. Most real-world things turn out OK whether you think really hard about them or not.
Take packing a bag. Everyone I know thinks it’s really complicated and time-consuming. Whenever we go on holiday, my parents start bugging me to pack my bag, like, a decade in advance. Seriously, it’s as if my dad thinks I should be spending an hour every night just packing a bag or thinking about what I’m going to pack in a bag. But what’s to think about? You just throw a toothbrush and whatever cleanish clothes you can find into a bag and zip it up. Ten minutes, tops. Maybe I’m just really good at zipping?
And if you forget your socks or something, you can always buy extra, or “borrow” some from Emily.
But this time I did a lot of thinking about what to pack. Too much thinking. Because when you get down to it, packing a bag is like predicting the future. Some futures are easy to predict. Like when we went to the beach last summer, I packed a towel, my flip-flops and my Spiderman Speedos. Just kidding about the Speedos…
… Or am I?
Miss Adolf’s Survival Camp, on the other hand, was totally unpredictable. I knew we’d be at a campsite for two days, and that was all I knew. The location of the site wasn’t even listed on the permission slip. It was “undisclosed”. There are lots of legends about the camp, but there’s no solid intel. Kids who have gone don’t want to talk about it. The memories are too painful.
I could hear my family talking about me in the next room, saying things like, “Hank’s not up to the challenge,” and “I bet he forgets to pack socks, and the one pair he has gets wet.” Then Emily said that if your feet are wet for too long you get trench foot, and the only cure for trench foot is amputation.
So with my survival (and my feet) on the line, I had to take this packing job very seriously. The last thing I wanted was to flunk Survival Camp because I’d forgotten to pack something I couldn’t survive without. But other than plenty of socks (thanks, Emily), what kind of stuff do you need to survive?
First things first, Zipper Man, you need a rucksack to hold all of your awesome survival gear.
My bag was in the bottom corner of my wardrobe, and before I found it, I had to throw nearly everything I owned into a pile in the middle of my room. That took forever, and I very deliberately made a ton of extra noise. So while my family went on discussing how tough it would be to care for a double amputee, at least it would sound like I was doing some serious packing.
I threw every clean pair of socks I owned into my rucksack. Next up: trousers. But what kind of trousers, and how many? That was when I really started to over-think.
They always say to pack light in survival situations. But if I packed too light and didn’t take enough trousers, I might have to wear wet and muddy ones, and then I’d get hypothermia and fail the camp.
But if I packed too many trousers, my pack would weigh a ton, and Miss Adolf might make us carry our packs everywhere, or make us run up a mountain with them on our backs, and since mine would be the heaviest, I’d fall behind, and everyone knows that predators attack the stragglers.
The problem was the unpredictability. Then I realized something. This was Miss Adolf’s camp. So I had to think like Miss Adolf. Enter her world. What would she think I’d need to survive?
None of my stuff looked even remotely “survivally”. I kept expecting to find awesome survival stuff in my wardrobe, like hatchets, bear-traps and night-vision goggles, but all I found was a bunch of my old, broken toys. I started to feel pretty sorry for myself. After a while I just sat down on my bed, holding my nearly empty rucksack on my lap until there was a knock on the door.
“You can’t come in,” I said and dived onto the ground to start rummaging through my junky belongings. “I’m packing!”
My dad and Papa Pete came in anyway.
“Looks like a thorough packing job, champ,” Dad said. “Not bad.”
Not bad was probably the best compliment Dad had given me in nine months, so I played it cool. “You know me,” I said as I contemplated my old lightsabre with a serious look and then threw it in the rucksack.
“I’m proud of you for signing up,” he continued. “And I’ve got something special for you.” He patted his trouser pockets. “Where did I…?”
None of his pockets were bulging, so it had to be a very small, special something. Then I realized that this was the moment I’d been waiting for my whole life. Dad was going to give me a penknife!
“I have something for you, too,” Papa Pete said.
He sat on my bed and took out this small silver box. It was sort of rusty and textured and old-looking, but in an awesome way, like it had magical powers. On the lid was a faded engraving of a lion.
I sat on the bed next to him. “What is it?”
“It is a tinderbox. A fire-starting kit. It was my grandfather’s. It saved his life when he was shipwrecked after the war. He gave it to me, and now I’m giving it to you.”
It felt amazing in my hands. I could feel its history. “Whoa.”
“Promise you won’t lose it. You must give it to your grandson one day.”
“I promise, Papa Pete. Wow, thanks so much.”
“It gives me great pride and joy to give it to you. Now, let’s see what your dad has brought you.”
My dad was just standing there, looking even more uncertain.
“Dad?”
“Right.” He got my special something out of his back pocket. My special something was a zip-up plastic bag. “You can put your phone in it. Stop it from getting wet…”
“Oh.”
“It zips shut. Easy to use. It’s a triumph of modern technology, if you think about it.”
“Um, thanks?”
“You bet, champ.” He patted my shoulder awkwardly. “Now, I better get to that recycling.”
A penknife would have been pretty sweet, of course, and a major father-son bonding moment, but his gift made me realize how much my dad and I have in common. I, too, buy my presents from the bottom drawer. At least my bottom drawer has one-of-a-kind items, though, like the chewing-gum-and-pen-cap sculpture it had made after years of mysterious activity. I gave that to Emily for her birthday.
But the zip-up bag was good too. And it gave me an idea. What I needed was more bags. For food! Food was the ultimate survival gear. Food to eat. Food to trade for favours
and protection – because there was no guarantee Miss Adolf would feed us at all.
In the kitchen, Mum and Emily were doing some mother-daughter bonding. Mum had given Emily a pair of bright-yellow rubber gloves. I didn’t want to spoil the moment, so I did my best Emily impersonation and lurked in the shadows.
“… because tomorrow at the deli,” Mum said, “you’ll be doing the washing-up.”
“Are you trying to keep me out of the way?” Emily asked.
“Of course not. Now, put this in that cupboard.” She gave Emily a clean mixing bowl.
Emily sighed. “Are you scared my superior business abilities will expose you as a failure?” She opened the cupboard under the sink and found the mixing bowl I’d hidden in there yesterday. She sniffed it. “Ew, what is—?”
“Tonobungay!” I shouted, materializing out of the ether to snatch the mixing bowl from Emily’s yellow, rubber paws. “Mine! Special camping food.” After grabbing a Tupperware tub, I poured the sand-coloured slop into it.
Emily watched me the whole time. “That’s not camping food.”
“Of course it is.”
“Of course it isn’t.”
“Don’t argue with the customer. Mum, in the restaurant business, isn’t the customer always right?”
“Hank, are you packed?” Mum asked.
“Uh-huh.”
“We’re getting an early start, so you better be.”
“You’re not the customer,” Emily interrupted. “And that’s not camping food.”
“You’re wearing yellow gloves, Em, and I’m holding food. That makes me the customer and you the lowly employee.”
“That’s not even food. Doesn’t smell like food.”
“It tastes like food.” I pretended to eat some and rubbed my belly. “Mmm.”
“You’re not eating it.”
“Am too.”
“Give me that Tupperware.” And she lunged for it.
“Mum, your employee is harassing me!”
“Emily,” my mum said, exasperated, “the customer is always right. Dry those dishes. At once, young lady. I’m the empress.”
I made for another drawer, grabbed a stack of plastic bags and started loading them up with biscuits.
“What are you doing?” Mum confiscated my biscuit bags and chucked them, along with all the remaining biscuits and sweets, into a ten-centimetre space between the top of the kitchen cabinets and the ceiling. “Go and pack. And back to work, Emily. Chop-chop.”
As I walked back to my room, I heard Emily say to Mum, “If you try to keep me down, I will rise up against you.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
I woke up the next morning, and started screaming, because it was the next morning. It was today, and today was the beginning of the end. Today I would die at Survival Camp!
There was a knock on my door. “Everything all right in there?” Mum asked.
“Just a bad dream, Mum. I’m fine.”
“Good. We’re leaving in ten. Are you ready?”
The nightmare was ongoing. I couldn’t wake up from it. I had slept through my alarm clock. And on the floor was my rucksack, and apart from plenty of socks, Papa Pete’s tinderbox, Dad’s zip-up plastic bag and a Tubberware container of cake mix, it was totally unpacked. I screamed again!
“You’re going to fail,” hissed a voice.
I looked up to see that Emily had cracked the door open and was looking in at me with the evil eye. Katherine’s evil eye was also looking at me.
“Get out, vile woman!”
“Beware the lizard’s curse!” She chuckled as she closed the door.
I threw my head back onto the pillow, and gave myself two minutes. Two minutes just to rest my eyes. Two minutes just for myself. Just two minuuuuteeeesssss…
BANG BANG BANG!
“Are you up?” It was my mum again. “We’re leaving in five minutes!”
CHAPTER NINE
“You’re going to be so late, Hank.” My mum was driving fast, really fast. I was slumped all the way down in the front seat, covering my eyes and moaning aloud while making a smacking sound with my lips.
“Stop moaning,” Mum said.
“I can’t.”
“Hank, it was your mad idea to go to this camp.” Mum gunned the engine, then made a sharp right turn that threw me against the door. “And I can’t believe you waited till this morning to pack. You’re going to be so late.”
“Don’t worry. The coach doesn’t leave till nine.”
“I don’t know what you packed in that bag of yours, but it smells rotten.”
“Can’t you go faster, Mum? It’s six minutes to nine.”
“Good. You have six minutes to change your mind about going.” Mum came to a screeching stop to avoid rear-ending a lorry and blasted her horn. “What are you doing?” she shouted at the driver.
Maybe it was the brush with death, or maybe it was the fumes from my bag, or maybe it was both − but at that moment, it felt as though I might only have six minutes left to live.
And I wanted to live!
But I also wanted to go to Spitalfields. And that meant proving I was responsible by surviving Camp Carnage. There was no backing out now. Unless…
I groaned and − I’m not proud of this − I put my whole head in my T-shirt to try and knock myself out by breathing in the CO2 in my shirt.
Three lousy minutes later, I was still breathing, and the car came to a stop.
“What is this?” my mum asked.
“What?”
She yanked my T-shirt down.
“Looks like an empty car park,” I said.
“Good, Hank. And what do you not see?”
“The coach.”
“What time did you say it left?”
“Nine. Or eight, maybe. Or some other number, like tomorrow.”
“Hank, you don’t have to go to camp.”
“I know.”
“I can just take you home. Or we can go for a pancake breakfast. Just the two of us.”
No! I couldn’t do that. Frankie and Ashley were waiting for me at Camp Carnage. I couldn’t let them down. And a week into the future, a super-cool kid named Hank “the Zipper Man” Zipzer was waiting for me at Spitalfields. I couldn’t let the Zipper Man down either.
“Mum, drive me to Survival Camp. Please.”
She frowned at me as she pulled out of the car park and back onto the road. And as for the Zipper Man, I slumped all the way down in my seat. Then I covered my eyes and made a smacking sound with my lips again.
“Stop moaning,” Mum said.
“I can’t!” I wailed.
CHAPTER TEN
From the pages of Emily Zipzer’s field notebook…
11:30 a.m., 7th May
I arrived at the deli at 08:59, precisely. First impressions: the deli is run inefficiently. They do not keep electronic records, and this leaves both deli and customers operating at a loss.
Example: this morning Papa Pete baked forty-five cranberry muffins and only eight blueberry muffins. An hour after opening, they had sold out of blueberry muffins and had not sold a single cranberry muffin. I mentioned to Papa Pete that if he kept better records, he could establish a predictive model, but he did not hear me out. He said he runs the deli with his “feelings”.
The mother soon arrived. She was late. Hank had, of course, missed his coach, and she had to drive him to camp. He will be tardy to his Survival Camp. Miss Adolf will mark him down for his tardiness.
I hope the lizard’s curse contributed to this. (As a natural scientist, I do not believe in magic, but Hank does. I know he’ll be worrying about the curse. I do regret exploiting Katherine for my vengeance. Perhaps I will let her sleep in bed with me tonight.)
When the mother arrived at the deli, she gave Papa Pete a list of things he should not allow me to do. Papa Pete told her he did not need such a list, and that she was being over-protective. He said he could handle things here and gave the mother the day off.
Papa
Pete is a man of “feelings” and not data. He considers himself my ally. I can exploit his “feelings”. I can make him my tool. By hook or by crook, I will control him.
The mother soon noticed me observing and writing these notes. She watches now as I write this. She must wonder if I am writing about her. My notes make her uncomfortable. Clearly, she fears that I will uncover her incompetence. She has made every effort to keep me away from this deli. As a scientist, one must get into the habit of asking why.
Working hypothesis: the mother fears that I am more capable of running the Spicy Salami deli than she and Papa Pete are.
I am in good spirits as I write this, and hopeful for what the day will bring. Let this field notebook be a record of my deeds.
Today I plant the first seeds of my empire!
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“Bye, Mum!” I called out as her car screeched away. I didn’t get much of a goodbye. Or any goodbye. Just sort of a look that said if she opened her mouth, I wouldn’t like what came out of it. I don’t know why she was mad. She knows I’m no good at reading a map. What are those microscopic, squiggly lines for anyway? A map should look like what you’ll see on the road as you drive.
Here’s what should have been on the map:
A bridge.
A brownish tree.
A barn.
Some sheep.
Another barn.
A cow that looked at me.
The inside of my shirt and a fraction of my left nipple.
A waterslide park.
A camel, a llama and an alpaca.
A barn with cows sitting down outside it.
A golf course.
A pond.
And we’re here.
Here was just an empty, muddy field. A minibus was parked beside it. I had arrived super late. All the kids were on the other side of the field. Most of them were lying on the ground. The few kids still standing were hoisting their packs up and down in the air. Miss Adolf, in a full safari khaki short-suit with knee socks and wide-brimmed hat, was blowing a whistle at them.