“You’ve come to the wrong state if you want adventure,” Jay says.
“Oh, come on, there has to be something that could get us into trouble.”
“What about Camp Aweelah?” Jay says.
“What’s that?”
Even in the darkness, there’s a gleam in Jay’s eyes. “It’s a Christian summer camp across the lake. We could sneak in and—”
“And what?” Becky gets the same mischievous glint in her eyes. “We could scare a few little kid campers?”
“That’s mean,” I say.
“Sounds like fun,” Becky says.
“Let’s go.” Jay jumps around to the steering wheel and starts the motor. “Sean, you wanna untie us?”
I hesitate. I don’t really want to go to Camp Aweelah. I don’t know if it’s because that’s where Lisa is, and I am afraid to see her right now, afraid that she’ll see me with Jay, or just because I’m afraid of getting into trouble. I try to think of an alternative, something that will keep me from going along on an adventure that I don’t want to go on. But my brain is quickly approaching overload, and nothing comes to me. I shrug, give a quick smile to Becky, and lean over and untie the bowline.
Within seconds we are speeding out of Bell Cove and beyond the point to Camp Aweelah. It finally occurs to me that I could have just said I didn’t want to go, back out like Becky did the other night. But it’s too late now. We’re headed across the lake, and we’re not turning around.
So I sit in the stern and look at the lights of Bell Cove scattered along the shoreline and up into the hillside. There’s only a few houses lit up at this hour, and as the distance grows, they start to twinkle, as if the sky has extended down and swallowed the town, absorbed it and turned it into just another corner of the universe.
“Sean,”Jay calls to me. I turn to face him. “Come here. Show me some more of your constellations.”
Like an obedient dog, I cross and stand beside him. Becky is still sitting in the bow seats, the wind whipping her hair into a tangle of frizzy black wire. She smiles at me. Jay puts his arm around my shoulders. He’s warm. I didn’t realize how cold I was. I stand closer and lean into him, letting his heat warm me.
Chapter 13
There’s only a quarter moon tonight, but it’s bright and reflects off the pale sand of Camp Aweelah’s beach so that we can see it from several hundred yards off. A handful of lights dot the shore, probably marking the paths to the bathrooms for campers who have to get up in the middle of the night. Jay heads toward one of the lights hanging on the end of the dock, and cuts the motor to half throttle.
“Is that it?” Becky asks.
“Yes.”Jay holds a finger to his lips to signal quiet and kills the throttle altogether. We drift toward the dock, the only sound the gentle splashing against the hull. Jay grabs a paddle from a storage bin underneath the rear banquette and inserts it into the dark water. There’s no sound as he steers us to the dock.
I feel more than hear the dull thud as the boat hits the rubber tires hanging along the dock edge. Jay wastes no time tying the stern line and signals for me to do the same in the bow. Within a few seconds we’re tied up.
Jay leads the three of us into the camp. We keep to the shadows as we cross the beach up to the cabins nestled among the trees. Jay has grabbed a flashlight from the boat’s emergency kit, and between its narrow beam and the moonlight we can make out the paths through the trees.
There’s a large green space with a flagpole in the center as we approach the main grouping of buildings. This must be where they hold the big camp gatherings each day. There’s a volleyball net off to one side, and I can see the trampled lines in the grass where they must have had a softball diamond set up. The camp is eerily quiet, and it feels like we’re committing some deadly sin just being awake right now.
“They go to bed early at church camp,” Becky whispers. “I would never make it as a counselor.”
The first building we go to is the mess hall. It’s a big screened-in building with rows of tables set up in the middle. Once I see there’s no one here, I think we’ll move on, but Jay motions to Becky and me to follow him, and he leads us around the back of the building to a screen door.
Jay swings the flashlight along the ground and seems to be looking for something, but I don’t know what. Suddenly, he stops and bends over and comes up with a stick about a foot long. I look at Becky for an explanation, but she only shrugs her shoulders. We both watch as Jay goes back to the screen door and pulls the handle. The door only opens an inch, and when Jay shines the flashlight I can see why. An old-fashioned hook-and-eye lock holds it shut. Jay hands me the flashlight, and I train it on the lock while he slides the slender stick underneath the hook. After a second of jiggling, he has it. He stands back, holding the door wide, and ushers us in like a doorman at a fancy city hotel.
“This way, monsieur, mademoiselle,” he whispers.
Jay seems to know where he’s going and leads us to a small room off the side of the kitchen. When he shines the flashlight inside I can see that it’s a pantry. This early in the summer it’s well stocked, and every shelf is full of camp staples like maple syrup, pancake mix, mustard and ketchup, pasta, and bags of potatoes. I feel guilty thinking we are going to steal food from camp kids, but that doesn’t seem to be what Jay has in mind. He is clearly looking for something specific. He pulls out a box of trash bags and takes the strip of twist ties and shoves them in his pocket. But he’s not done looking. After several more seconds he clicks his tongue in recognition. He bends, then hands me a gallon-sized plastic tub: vegetable shortening. I have no idea what it’s for, but Becky claps her hands in delight. Jay is on the move again. We follow him back outside. Now Becky seems to know where we’re going, too.
“You’ve done this before, haven’t you?” I say into the darkness. Becky giggles in reply.
Jay turns and puts the flashlight underneath his chin, casting sharp shadows that give him a sinister appearance. He turns his voice to a demonic whisper. “Whatever gives you that idea?” He lets out a low, evil laugh that makes Becky giggle even more.
We head across the grounds toward a couple of low, windowless buildings. As we get closer I realize they are the bathrooms, one for the boys and one for the girls. Jay goes in the boys’ bathroom first and waves for us to follow. Becky doesn’t even hesitate.
“What are we doing in here?” I ask.
“Shh,” Becky says. “I did this last summer when I worked at a fat camp in New York.”
“Fat camp?”
“I know, a lot of good it did, huh?” She squeezes her middle and sticks out her tongue in disgust. “Anyway, I worked in the kitchen cooking egg whites and turkey bacon for the campers. Once a week we were allowed to cook them dessert, so one week we made brownies. I snuck some laxative in the batter.”
“You didn’t!”
“Just imagine a camp full of overweight twelve-year-olds who haven’t had chocolate in a week. The brownies were gone in about three seconds.”
“What happened?”
“It’s funny. ’Cause all week these kids are eating nothing but fruit and salad. High-fiber stuff, so their systems were already primed. So anyway, like twenty minutes later, suddenly all that roughage has got to come out. There’s this mad rush for the bathrooms. I swear to you, a stampede. These kids were running faster than they had in their entire lives.”
“Sounds kind of cruel to me.” But also very funny.
“It is, but trust me, every summer camp has pranks. It’s part of the experience.”
“I guess. But where does this come in?” I ask, holding up the tub.
“Well, we didn’t actually have any vegetable shortening at that camp, so we had to use Vaseline, but the effect is the same. Watch. ”
Becky points to where Jay has gone into the first stall, and we both squeeze in behind him. Taking the tub from me, he pries off the lid and scoops out a small handful of shortening. I watch him spread it around the toilet s
eat, like frosting a cake. It’s a thin layer, not so much you’ll notice if you’re not looking, but enough that you’ll feel it when you sit down. I can just imagine the sensation of sitting on vegetable shortening when you are expecting hard plastic. I shudder at the thought. But suddenly I realize I’m having fun, too.
It only takes a few minutes to “frost” the toilet seats in both bathrooms. I do feel slightly guilty, but the thought of screaming eight-year-olds is too funny to make me stop. I wish I could be there to see the faces that go along with the screams.
After we finish with the bathrooms, I figure it’s time to head back to the boat. I don’t have a watch, but the moon is high enough in the sky that I know it must be near midnight—and my curfew.
Before this summer, I’ve never broken curfew before. In fact, before this summer, I was such a good son, I had never had a curfew to break. My mother’s never been seriously mad at me before, and I have no desire to see what it’s like. I start to head back toward the dock, but Jay and Becky go in another direction.
“Where are you going?” I whisper. “The dock is this way.”
“We’re not finished yet,” Jay says over his shoulder, as he heads across the center green toward the cabins. I notice he hasn’t put the lid back on the shortening.
“Becky?”
But Becky just puts her finger on her lips and follows Jay. Curiosity gets the better of me, and the next thing I know I’m running behind them, trying to keep up.
Jay slows down when we get close to the cabins, and I realize he’s trying not to make any noise. He waves his arm toward us, his palm pointing to the ground to indicate we should follow his lead. I’m suddenly aware of my feet crunching on the gravel pathway that connects the cabins. It’s like trying to open a bag of candy at the movie theater; no matter how careful I am, the sound echoes in my ears.
The cabins are dark brown boxes in a wide arc around one side of the center green. In the front of each box, there’s a screen door and a wooden plaque with a number on it. There’s one window in the center of each of the other three walls. I count twelve cabins.
We approach the first cabin, and Jay sneaks right up to a window and looks in. He gives his eyes a few moments to adjust and then turns away from the screened opening.
He shakes his head at us. “Boys.”
“What’s wrong with boys?” I say.
“Not as fun as girls.”
I look at Becky. She smirks, but nods in agreement. We head to the next cabin. It’s boys again.
“The girls must be at the other end,” he says.
He leads us down the row of cabins, skirting the edge of the woods. We stay off the gravel pathway and stick to the soft bed of pine needles that muffles our footfalls. About halfway up the row, Jay holds up his hand for us to stop. He crosses over to the cabin and looks in the window. The moon is directly overhead now, and I can make out the plaque over the door: 6.
“This is Lisa’s cabin,” I say to Becky.
“Lisa, your ‘girlfriend’?” Becky asks, using more of her finger quotes.
Jay turns away from the window with a broad smile. My stomach jumps a little. Even in the dark his smile is magical. “Bingo,” he says.
He sweeps the flashlight across the pine needles at our feet until he finds what he’s looking for: pinecones. He grabs three and heads back to the cabin. First he smears each cone with the shortening. Then, I watch as he pulls the twist ties from his pocket and begins to tie the pinecones together. He uses the twist ties to attach the pinecones to the door handle. Finally, Jay pulls out his cigarette lighter and lights the bottom of the cones. Suddenly, I see what he’s done.
If you’ve ever been camping, then you know that pinecones are nature’s firecrackers. Throw a couple of pinecones into the campfire and sit back and enjoy the show. A large dry cone will pop and crack for several minutes as the pockets of dried sap ignite and cause the pine nuts to act like popcorn kernels. Jay has made a makeshift Roman candle.
“It won’t be long,” he says. “C’mon.” Jay leads us back into the woods, where we crouch out of sight behind some low bushes and wait for the excitement.
We only have to wait about thirty seconds. Once the flame hits the shortening, the reaction is instantaneous. And loud. It sounds like a hundred popguns firing all at once, but even louder are the screams that come right after. The air is filled with the shrill screeching of six little girls. Within seconds the door flies open, and they’re running out into the open grass. They finally stop screaming and huddle in a small group. They’re all wearing oversized T-shirts and I can see the white skin of their bare feet in the moonlight.
Next I see Lisa come running down the path. The counselors’ cabin must be at the end of the row. She stops to comfort the girls while a male counselor investigates the pinecone firecracker, which has by now burned itself out. The doors of other cabins are opening as the other campers get up to investigate. I want to stay and watch as the soap opera unfolds, but I feel Jay put his hand on my shoulder.
“We gotta get going. Too many people awake now.”
I nod and reluctantly follow him through the woods back to the dock with Becky right behind. I can’t believe I almost missed this.
Jay rushes us through the trees toward the dock and his boat, no longer caring about staying silent. Our footsteps sound like thunder as we crash through the underbrush. No one seems to be following us, so I guess the commotion is enough to cover our tracks. I can hear Becky making little snorting sounds behind me, barely holding in hysterical laughter. I feel bad for Lisa after what she told me about how difficult it is to get her campers to sleep, but I have to admit it was funny.
“Shut up, they’ll hear you,” I hiss over my shoulder.
“If they were going to hear us, they would have by now,” Becky says with a small gasp of laughter. She is losing her battle.
“C’mon!” There’s an edge to Jay’s voice.
“What’s wrong?” But then I see. We break through the trees and onto the camp beach, a swath of light-colored sand separating us from the lake.
Becky catches up to us, breathing heavily. “Where’s the dock?”
For a moment no one speaks. My mind races with questions. Does the camp have two beaches? How did we get turned around? How are we going to get out of here?
“There,” Jay says, pointing. “Shit.”
Becky and I follow his finger. The dock is a hundred yards down the beach, the boat tied up at the end, drifting silently. And between us and the dock, the beach is in full view of the cabins. A wide section of trees has been removed to provide easier access and a view to the lake. There is no way to get to the dock without being seen. The adrenaline that had been pumping through me freezes in my veins. I feel like I just swallowed lead.
“How are we going to get back?”
“Over here.” Jay leads us away from the dock toward the other end of the beach. There are ten or fifteen canoes here, pulled up into the sand like dark stitches sealing a cut. Jay grabs the closest one and starts pushing it toward the water. “A little help?” he says, his voice pinched in exertion.
Becky and I grab the other end and pull the canoe into the lake. The water soaks through my sneakers as I splash into the shallows with deafening eruptions of water. I’m sure they must be able to hear us up at the cabins. Compared to the chilled night air, the water actually feels warm against the skin of my legs. I’m in up to my knees before I realize the canoe is floating.
“Get in,” Jay whisper-yells at us. He is holding the other end of the canoe to stabilize it. I swing one leg into the canoe. I feel it wobble beneath me, but I keep my balance and push up with my other foot. I crouch in the bow of the canoe, trying to keep my center of gravity as low as possible.
Becky watches me, but doesn’t move.
“C’mon,” I say.
“Jews and canoes don’t mix,” she whimpers.
“Just get in.” I shrug and put my hands out in a gesture of helples
sness. What does she want me to do?
She takes a deep breath and manages to get one leg over the side of the canoe and then sort of bellyflops into the bottom. The canoe tips wildly, but Jay holds us steady. Becky starts to get up. The shift in weight sends us tilting again.
“Don’t move,” I say. “Just stay where you are.”
Becky lays spread-eagled in the bottom of the canoe, one foot still hooked over the edge. Jay gives us a push and then gracefully lifts himself into the back. Within seconds we are cutting through the shallow water away from the shore.
Luckily, there are two paddles in the bottom of the canoe, and soon Jay and I have us taking a wide arc around the beach toward the dock. Becky, still too afraid to shift her weight, looks up at me from her contorted position.
“Won’t they see us anyway?”
“They won’t be looking this far out into the water,” Jay says.
We guide the canoe toward the dock, approaching from the other side to stay out of sight of the cabins.
“Okay, Becky, we’re almost there,” I say.
“You want me to move?” Becky says as if I’m asking her to have my baby.
“Slowly. ”Jay and I have guided the canoe up beside his boat at the end of the dock. I put my hand on a cleat by the engine housing to steady us and watch as Becky tries to maneuver. She manages to get herself on her hands and knees and slowly rotates so she is facing the boat. Her movements are slow and deliberate like a drunk looking for the toilet. “You can do it,” I prod.
She pulls herself up to the edge of the canoe and then places her hands on the side of Jay’s boat. She hoists herself to an almost standing position and gets ready to jump. I realize what she’s about to do, but it’s too late. Becky thrusts herself from the canoe, pushing down hard on the side. It rocks steeply, threatening to dump Jay and me into the water. We lean back to counterbalance, but we overcompensate. As soon as Becky’s weight is shifted to Jay’s boat, the canoe rockets back the other way, and there is nothing we can do to stop it.
If I Told You So Page 8