by Kate Beasley
Then Raj screamed. He screamed high and shrill, and it was such an un-Raj-like sound that Frederick forgot what he was doing and stared at his friend. Raj didn’t scream. He stated opinions and observations in a dry voice.
But now Raj was screaming and jabbing a finger at the river.
Frederick looked down where Raj was pointing and saw a dark log floating in the water, moving up alongside the boat.
“Wait,” said Frederick. “Is that…”
“Alligator!” Joel yelled. “Gator! Gator! Gator!”
Frederick snatched up the burger patty from the bottom of the boat, drew back his arm, and hurled it at the alligator. It hit the gator’s armored neck, bounced off, and plooped into the water. The alligator didn’t blink.
Then the giant tail swished through the water, rocking the boat. Frederick lost his footing and landed on his butt on the metal seat. A jolt rocketed up his spine.
He tore his eyes away from the alligator to look up at his friends and found that the river had carried him so far downstream that Raj and Joel looked quite small. Their voices carried to him across the distance.
Joel grabbed Raj’s neck and shook. “Get help!” he yelled in Raj’s face. “Get help! Get help!”
Then Frederick saw someone scrambling down the hill toward the river. The person was running along the riverbank, trying to catch up with the boat. Frederick squinted.
“Oh, brother,” he said, and groaned.
It was Sarah Anne.
Sarah Anne ran until she reached the edge of the Minceys’ property and the ten-foot-tall chain-link fence that kept trespassers off their land. Frederick expected her to stop then and turn back, but she launched herself at the fence, catching it halfway up. The fence shivered under her weight as she scaled it.
Frederick stared. Sarah Anne was moving like freaking Jason Bourne. She grabbed the top of the fence and swung herself over, dropping to the ground and landing in a crouch. Then she was off again, moving parallel to the boat, hurdling over logs and plowing through briars and bushes.
Whoa, Frederick thought. Sarah Anne was … awesome. She didn’t look like Frederick’s self-righteous big sister at all. She looked like an action hero—heroine—arms pumping, blond hair streaming behind her, eyes bright as sparklers.
Unfortunately, the Omigoshee, which seemed so sluggish from the shore, was faster moving than Frederick had ever realized. And Sarah Anne, despite slapping willow branches out of her path like a human weed whacker, was falling farther and farther behind.
“Stop!” Sarah Anne’s voice shouted through the foliage. “Frederick, you stop right now!” she commanded. As if Frederick had the power to stop the boat and guide it back to his sister but was choosing not to.
The alligator’s tail swished again. It was swimming along with the boat. Its rough skin scraped the hull. Frederick clenched his arms to his sides and pinched his knees together, positioning himself in the absolute center of the metal seat, not wanting a single morsel of flesh to be any closer to the gator than it had to be.
“Sarah Anne!” he called wildly.
And then Mr. Mincey’s boat went around a bend, and Frederick was completely alone.
4
Are You There, God? It’s Me, Frederick
“Okay, God,” Frederick said, peering ahead at a jagged stump that jutted out from the riverbank and stretched over the water. “If, by the time we reach that stump, someone comes and rescues me, I’ll give every penny of my college savings account to the Hurricane Hernando victims.”
Gradually, the stump came into better focus as Frederick drew nearer.
He waited for some kind of sign—people crashing through the woods and yelling, We’re here, son!—but none came. The boat slid past the jagged stump with a ripple.
Frederick squinted ahead as far as he could. The light was fading—the light had been fading for a while now, but he was trying to pretend it was still daytime.
“If, by the time we reach that bit of Spanish moss hanging there, I’m saved, I’ll…,” Frederick thought. “I’ll never say another bad word as long as I live.”
An hour or so before, when Frederick had first started talking to God, he had been very formal about it: Dearest heavenly Father, please help me in this, my hour of need and all that. But as the light had faded and no help had come and the boat had slid past that stump and that weird bit of sand and that tree that looked like Elvis Presley, he had gotten more and more casual. His Sunday school teacher was always saying you could talk to God just like you would a friend. Of course, Frederick had never gotten much help from his friends, either.
He looked up as he glided beneath the Spanish moss. “Okay,” he said in a tired voice. “Fine. I guess I’ve got absolutely nothing you want.”
Being in a boat, alone, floating down the Omigoshee as the night set in, was 50 percent scary—blood-chilling, goose-bump-raising scary. The alligator had sunk under the water ages ago, but it could still be down there, just beneath Frederick, because alligators could hold their breath for a long time. Probably.
Frederick didn’t actually know, but probably they could because alligators seemed to be awesome at everything. So, it was 50 percent scary.
And it was 10 percent exciting. The only times Frederick had been in a boat before were when he was on a cruise (and that didn’t feel like being on a real boat) and when he was riding with Joel and his dad, which wasn’t often. It was kind of nice to get to have the boat all to himself for a change, without Joel reminding him that it didn’t belong to him.
The other 40 percent of the experience was … well … boring. As Frederick passed the six hundred thousandth tree, he regretted throwing his burger patty at the alligator. He would’ve eaten it now, even though it would’ve been cold and he didn’t have a bun or mayonnaise and it might’ve put hair on his chest.
Frederick pulled his T-shirt up and inspected his thin chest to see if there were any hairs there. He didn’t think so, but it was hard to see in the darkness.
He sighed and tugged his shirt down. He gingerly touched his enormous nose and winced.
Maybe Joel and Raj and Devin were right. Maybe he was just a flea, and he was always going to be a flea because that was the way the world worked.
Let’s look at the facts, Joel had said, and Frederick did. He had lost at dodgeball. He’d broken his nose. He hadn’t gotten to go on his cruise—the one thing he’d been looking forward to for weeks. When his parents found him, he was going to be in trouble for losing Mr. Mincey’s motor. And his anchor. His friends were never going to like him enough to wave him over and say, Come on, Frederick.
Those were all things he couldn’t have … because he was a flea. He guessed he should go ahead and get used to it. Try to make the best of it.
Frederick crawled into the bottom of the boat and pulled his knees in, curling up like a roly-poly right before a shoe squished it. He folded his hands under his cheek so that his face wouldn’t touch the cold metal. He closed his eyes and tried to imagine a strawberry daiquiri, but couldn’t.
Owls hooted, and crickets trilled, and water swashed and slopped against the boat’s hull. As he lay in the bottom of the boat, Frederick did not cry. His eyes didn’t even automatically release water.
He just wished someone was there with him to notice that he didn’t cry.
* * *
Frederick woke in the night and realized the boat had stopped. He sat up. The boat’s nose was stuck on the sandy bank; Frederick had finally run ashore. He sank back down in relief.
The next time he woke up, it was morning. Frederick pushed his hair out of his eyes. He was alone at the edge of the river. The boat rocked beneath him but didn’t dislodge itself from the sand. He smelled pancakes and coffee and then heard a man’s angry voice crackle through a loudspeaker: “Move it, maggots! Pick up your name tag and report to the welcome meeting ASAP!”
5
Dashiell Blackwood
Frederick scrambled out of the boat and o
nto the riverbank as gracefully as a one-legged crab that had been hit in the head with a mallet.
The bottom of the boat hadn’t been the most comfortable place to sleep. Frederick’s legs had cramped and gone numb. He had a crick in his neck, and he had pulled something in his shoulder. But none of that mattered, because he smelled pancakes.
Mr. Mincey’s boat had landed at the base of a weeping willow tree. The trailing fronds tickled Frederick’s neck as he dragged the boat farther onto the sand. He gripped the edge of the boat and leaned back, straining with all his weight. The boat slid an inch. He didn’t want it drifting down the river; it was bad enough that he’d lost the motor and the anchor. At least he could tell Mr. Mincey he hadn’t lost his boat. When Frederick was too exhausted to haul it any farther, he left it and lurched away from the water.
In the distance, the man’s voice barked over the loudspeaker again. “Pick up your name tag before the meeting. BEFORE the meeting!”
Frederick emerged over the edge of the riverbank and straightened up, pressing his hands into his lower back, his spine cracking like a glow stick.
“Pancakes,” he said, looking around.
He was in a forest, but there were signs of civilization. Through the trees, he saw a school bus parked in a paved drive. It was far away, but Frederick saw that the name of the school district had been blacked out with paint. A stream of boys trickled off the bus and gathered around a table set up beneath a flagpole. They called out to one another and laughed. One boy grabbed the flagpole and started to climb it.
Beyond the boys were a large log building and a cluster of smaller buildings with green tin roofs. Between Frederick and the buildings, slightly off to the side, stood a big, open tent. Under the tent there were mismatched tables and folding chairs and a gray-haired lady who was setting up several steel serving trays.
Frederick’s eyes fixed on the serving trays. He started limping toward the tent as fast as he could, tripping over pine roots and stomping through ant beds, not caring if he was walking through poison ivy or nests of rattlesnakes. When he made it to the tent, he weaved around the tables. His toe caught a chair leg, and he went over, landing on his knees in the cool grass. He crawled to the food table and pulled himself up.
“My stars,” the gray-haired woman behind the serving trays said, raising sharp eyebrows at him. “You’re supposed to be at the welcome meeting.”
Frederick hobbled sideways until he reached the first tray. He lifted off the steel lid and let out a pleased cry as steam wafted into his eyes. Three rows of pancakes, with not a single one missing. They were soft, golden, and round. Frederick’s stomach moaned like a humpback whale. He grabbed the first one and bit into it, closing his eyes.
“Don’t use your hands!” The woman wrenched the lid out of Frederick’s grip and clapped it down protectively over the pancakes.
The pancake was warm and chewy, faintly sweet with a tang of buttermilk. Frederick realized that the last time he’d eaten anything was lunch yesterday when he’d had a roll, some green beans, and one barbecued chicken wing.
The woman’s expression softened. “Poor thing.” She shook her head. “You were about to starve to death, weren’t you?”
“Muh-huh,” Frederick agreed with his mouth full.
“I’m Miss Betty,” the woman said. “I’m just volunteering today for the welcome breakfast. I won’t be around the rest of the weekend. Here…”
She lifted the lid on a second serving dish, revealing a tower of sausage links. She used the tongs to pull two out and drop them into Frederick’s hand. He wrapped the rest of his pancake around the sausages and stuffed the whole thing in his mouth.
“You might get in trouble if the counselors catch you eating your breakfast early,” Miss Betty warned.
Frederick’s mouth was too full to explain to her that it didn’t matter if he ate breakfast early or not. When you had just survived a terrifying ordeal, you didn’t have to follow the rules.
“And you’re missing the welcome meeting.” She shook her head. “You’re not off to a good start.”
“These are the best things I ever ate in my life,” he said, casting a wistful gaze at the pancake tray.
Miss Betty beamed. “Gah—all right then,” she said. “Have another.”
Frederick got another. This time he used the tongs, wanting to show Miss Betty that he was the kind of person who normally used tongs—that earlier he’d just been in a hunger-induced state of frenzy.
Miss Betty watched him closely as he ate, her gaze moving from his head to his toes and back again. Her eyes narrowed suspiciously as they moved over his face. “I’m just a volunteer,” she said again. “But I’m going to warn you right now…” Her voice turned stern. “There’s no fighting at Camp Omigoshee.”
“M’okay,” Frederick said with his mouth full.
“I mean it,” Miss Betty said.
Frederick shrugged and crammed another pancake into his mouth. “M’okay,” he said again. He had never been in a fight in his life, and he didn’t plan on ever being in one if he could help it. So if these people had a rule against fighting, that was fine by him. Then he realized what Miss Betty had called the place.
“Camp?” He looked around. The log cabins, the trees, the school bus that had brought all the boys. This was a camp. Of course it was!
He’d never been to camp before, but Sarah Anne had. She had done archery and gone swimming in lakes and eaten s’mores by a real campfire.
“Camp Omigoshee,” Miss Betty said, nodding. “Where boys are transformed,” she added in a dramatic voice, like she was quoting a slogan. Then she chuckled.
Frederick scrubbed his hands clean on the legs of his shorts and looked around.
Golden sunbeams slanted through the trees. Birds chittered and twittered above. The smell of pancakes and cut grass perfumed the air, and in front of the main log cabin, the American flag billowed majestically against a blue sky.
“There you are!” said a voice.
Frederick turned to see a beaming young man stepping under the food tent. He was wearing a baby-blue polo shirt and enormous khaki shorts that would’ve fit someone five times bigger than him. Around his neck was a lanyard. The lanyard had a badge that showed a handwritten number thirteen.
“Hi! I’m Benjamin,” the man said brightly. “I’m your counselor.”
Benjamin thrust out his fist, which was clutching a lanyard that matched his own. A name badge twirled at the end of it.
Frederick stared at the lanyard, not understanding what Benjamin the Counselor was expecting him to do with it.
“Oh. Ahh.” Benjamin’s cheeks turned pink. “You didn’t pick this up.” He pointed at the badge he was holding. “It was the last one left. And you aren’t at the meeting!” he exclaimed. “Why aren’t you at the meeting?”
“I was just … talking to Miss Betty.” Frederick glanced at Miss Betty, who was arranging the pancakes back into perfection.
“Miss Betty,” Benjamin said plaintively, turning to her. “He’s missed the welcome meeting. That’s step one of the campers’ transformation process!”
Campers. Benjamin thought Frederick was a camper. He thought Frederick was supposed to be here.
Miss Betty rolled her eyes, and Benjamin turned away from her and held the lanyard out to Frederick again.
Frederick hesitated.
He knew that now was the moment to explain who he was and what had happened so that Miss Betty and Benjamin could get him back home … where he belonged.
But Frederick didn’t want to go back. Back home, he was a flea. Back home, nobody liked him.
And then an idea came into Frederick’s mind, an idea that made his skin tingle like Coke bubbles. Maybe this camp was the opportunity he’d been waiting for his whole life. Maybe this was his chance to start over and become the person he was supposed to be. Maybe the hurricane and the boat motor falling off had all been for a reason.
He was scared, afraid of the ide
a that was forming in his mind. But then he knew, with a certainty that shocked him, that if he went back home now, he’d be the same old Frederick forever, and that was even scarier than what he was about to do.
“Thanks.” Frederick drew in a deep breath and took the lanyard out of Benjamin’s hand. He could hear blood rushing in his ears. His hands trembled with nerves, fear, and hope as he turned the badge over to look at the name. Dashiell Blackwood. “Dashiell Blackwood?” He hoped he was pronouncing it right. “That sounds made up,” he muttered. He looked up at Benjamin. “But it’s not,” he said quickly, pulling the lanyard over his head and adjusting the badge so that it faced out. He gave a shaky laugh. “’Cause that’s my name.”
6
Nosebleed, the Professor, Specs, and Ant Bite
The number thirteen was written in marker on the back of Frederick’s name tag, too.
“That’s your group,” Benjamin said, following Frederick’s gaze. “I’m Group Thirteen’s counselor.” He tapped his own badge, then glanced down and flipped it over so it showed his name. Benjamin Merkel, Counselor. Willemon University, Home and Family Science. “So if you need anything or if you have any questions,” Benjamin said, “or if you just want a buddy to talk to, I”—he pointed at himself—“am here for you.” He pointed at Frederick.
“Okay,” Frederick said. He hoped there would be s’mores at some point.
“I’ve been to training,” Benjamin confided with a nod. “So I can deal with any problem you might have. Any problem at all.”
“’Kay,” Frederick said. S’mores were probably more of an afternoon activity. Or maybe even a nighttime activity. Probably the counselors were going to say s’mores were a dessert so they had to be eaten after dinner, but technically that wasn’t true, because s’mores could be a dessert or a snack. Cake was sort of similar. Cake could be dessert. Or, if it was coffee cake, it could be breakfast. Really there were a lot of—