Lions & Liars

by Kate Beasley

Ant Bite tilted his head to the side in confusion. “We’ve been getting everything ready,” he said. “To go on the cruise,” he added when Frederick didn’t respond.

  “We?” Frederick sat up, still clutching his sheet, and looked around the cabin.

  The Professor was stuffing socks into the corners of an already-full duffel bag. Specs was standing beside the window, peering out at the yard beyond like he was keeping lookout. Nosebleed sat on the edge of his bed with a worried wrinkle between his eyes. He had a fat backpack, the straps already over his shoulders.

  “You think we’re going on a cruise,” Frederick said as he started to understand. “Today,” he said. “You think we’re going on a cruise today.”

  Frederick’s memories of the night before were fuzzy around the edges. But obviously somewhere along the way there had been a massive misunderstanding. He had thought—no, he had known that what they were doing last night was fantasizing about running away to go on a cruise, imagining something they were never going to do.

  Now Ant Bite was standing beside Frederick’s bed. He held the strap of a small shoulder bag out to Frederick.

  “I packed your stuff,” he said. “We even found some batteries for your flashlight.”

  “Eric’s nose-hair trimmers had double As,” Specs said gleefully from his station by the window.

  The Professor lifted a finger and smiled. “Had,” he said. Frederick scrambled off the bed and backed away from the bag like it held live spiders.

  “We can’t … We can’t just go,” Frederick said.

  “Why not?” the Professor asked.

  “Why not,” Frederick repeated faintly. And there were so many reasons why not that his brain had a system overload as it tried to process them all.

  For starters, they needed to eat breakfast. And after breakfast, what were they going to do … walk to Port Verde Shoals? It took six freaking hours for Frederick’s dad to drive there. And who knew which direction the interstate was from here? Not Frederick! What were they supposed to eat and how were they supposed to survive while they were traveling? How were five kids going to get on board a cruise ship without tickets and papers?

  Frederick imagined sneaking onto the cruise. He imagined a voice yelling over a megaphone, Catch those kids! And security people in small shorts and flashing sunglasses chasing him belowdecks until he wound up hiding in the boiler room, wedged in the giant gears of a cruise ship engine, bilge rats leaping off the floor trying to nip whatever bit of him they could reach.

  In Group Thirteen’s cabin, Frederick was panting as if he could hear the rats’ teeth clicking right then.

  “Okay…,” he said, trying to sound reasonable. “Last night we enjoyed talking about going on vacation. We enjoyed imagining it. But we can’t actually do it.” This made sense to Frederick. What the guys were suggesting was flat-out impossible.

  When Frederick had first arrived at Camp Omigoshee and decided to stay, it was because he’d thought, for one moment, that he could do something like that. Like he, Frederick Frederickson, could have an adventure and become someone special. He’d been wrong. People like him—fleas—they didn’t do things like that. Adventures didn’t work out for them.

  He looked at the others, expecting to see the effect of his words, expecting to see their excitement dim as they realized he was right.

  Their expectant faces looked right back at him, undimmed, and Frederick realized a crucial mistake in his reasoning. He couldn’t have an adventure. These guys, though, had gotten up before dawn so they could slash tires, break a window, steal the batteries from a man’s nose-hair trimmers, and cut off an entire camp from civilization. And now they were ready to go on vacation.

  “Oh, brother,” Frederick said, looking at their faces. He shook his head to clear it.

  Maybe this was why he didn’t have real best friends. Because when the time came to have an adventure or do something awesome, they were all ready to go, and he wasn’t able to follow. He couldn’t keep up, couldn’t hang. The guys in Group Thirteen were about to realize that, and then Frederick would be back where he started. Alone.

  “Dash is right,” Nosebleed said suddenly. “What if we get caught?”

  “Yes,” Frederick said, “exactly!”

  “So what if we get caught?” Specs said. “Are you scared of getting caught?”

  “No!” Nosebleed shifted, and the bedsprings creaked beneath him.

  Specs tapped the plastic wand that opened and closed the blinds and threw Nosebleed one of his practiced sneers.

  “It’s just…” Nosebleed hitched the straps of the backpack up. “I’ve never been in trouble before.”

  “You’ve never been in trouble?” Frederick said. “Then why are you even here?”

  Nosebleed shrugged. “My grandma and teacher thought I’d like camp. They thought I could do this weekend camp and see if I like it before I do a long summer camp next year. Like a test run.” He paused. “And I do like it.”

  “It’s a discipline camp!” Frederick said. “Why’d you come to a discipline camp?”

  “It’s more like a transformational camp,” the Professor said. “Like a personal development thing.”

  “You should stay,” Ant Bite said to Nosebleed.

  Nosebleed looked relieved.

  “But I’m going,” Ant Bite said.

  “I’m going,” Specs said quickly, as if someone had suggested that he was too scared to go.

  “I want to see the chocolate fountain,” the Professor said, as if that made his decision.

  Nosebleed slid the straps of his backpack off his shoulders.

  “And I can cover for you,” he said, back to his cheerful self. “I’ll say that you’re all in here throwing up and it smells terrible so no one can come in, and that’ll buy you a little more time.”

  The Professor nodded and zipped up his bag with a jerk.

  “They’ve found out about the trucks,” Specs said sharply. His eyes were narrowed as he peered out the window.

  Frederick was in his socks. His shoes were on the floor by his bed. Had he taken them off last night? He didn’t remember.

  He sat down on the floor and stuffed his feet into his shoes.

  “Finally,” Ant Bite said, watching Frederick. “Let’s do this!”

  Frederick didn’t answer, letting Ant Bite think he was putting on his shoes so he could run away. He pushed himself to his feet and headed for the door. Things had gone too far. He couldn’t run away from camp! He couldn’t hike to Port Verde Shoals without an adult. He couldn’t because … he couldn’t. He’d had enough, and it was time to go home. He would find Benjamin and make him understand that he was Frederick Frederickson. He’d tell him things only the real Frederick would know.

  “Hey, wait up!” Ant Bite called.

  Frederick opened the door and stepped onto the narrow porch. A blur flashed across his vision, and the next thing he knew, a rubber ball was slamming into his stomach.

  “Errrf.” Frederick doubled over. His knees hit the porch boards.

  “Rise and shine, maggots!” a voice said.

  Frederick clutched his stomach and looked up. Eric stood in front of their cabin, legs planted wide, sunglasses flashing.

  The ball that had hit Frederick rolled off the edge of the porch and bounced away—thunk, thunk, thunk.

  “We’re playing dodgeball this morning,” Eric said.

  13

  Dodgeball, Again

  Frederick was nauseated. Or was the right word nauseous? He didn’t know. Was there a word for when your guts were trying to claw their way out of your throat so they could drag themselves away and leave you to face your impending doom alone?

  He and the boys from Group Thirteen joined a straggling band of campers heading across the grounds. Eric had a ball tucked under each arm, and he jogged up to the next cabin and kicked the door open, yelling, “Wake up, campers! You stay up all night destroying property, you must not need sleep!”

  More ble
ary-eyed, sleep-tousled boys staggered out into the morning sunlight.

  Dodgeball. Dodgeball again. The crunch of his nose breaking. A shudder shook through Frederick as he remembered the pain.

  His legs were as heavy as if he had a sandbag tied to each ankle. He looked around, trying to find some way out. In the distance he saw two counselors hurrying from the main building to the head counselor’s cabin. One of them had her head tilted toward a walkie-talkie. They were probably dealing with the crisis of the slashed tires, cut phone line, and stolen nose-hair-trimmer batteries. Frederick casually started to veer in the counselors’ direction, thinking he could tell them everything and get this sorted out, preferably before he had to play dodgeball. But as he broke away from the group, Nosebleed, the Professor, and Ant Bite automatically headed that way, too, sticking close to him.

  Frederick tried to shoo them off, but they gave him confused looks.

  “Back in line, boys!” Eric barked, hustling up beside them to steer them back into the pack.

  “Hey, you forgot to call us maggots,” Nosebleed said.

  Eric’s face turned dangerously red, and they hurried past him. Frederick looked back over his shoulder just as the counselors disappeared into the cabin.

  The boys walked to the far side of the camp and stopped at the edge of a football field. Except, Frederick corrected himself mentally, this field didn’t have any chalk lines … or a scoreboard … or goalposts. Actually, the field was just a rectangular area of grass with big bald spots where the sand showed through. Four wooden posts, painted orange, marked each corner. So it wasn’t a football field at all, but it didn’t matter to Frederick if he humiliated himself on NFL-standard turf or this mangy patch of grass.

  Even after the disastrous rope-climbing relay, a lot of the boys at camp still thought Dash was cool. Or they thought that he was a little bit cool. But they were about to see the real Frederick.

  “Atomic dodgeball!” Eric shouted, striding down the line of boys. “That’s what we’re going to play this morning!”

  Frederick’s nauseous/nauseated stomach flopped over. Ant Bite sidled up to him in line. He nudged Frederick with his elbow.

  “Hey,” Ant Bite whispered. “We could sneak off once the game starts. Everybody’ll be running around. We can go through those woods.” He nodded at the thick trees on the other side of the field. Then he looked at Frederick’s face and leaned back. “Seriously,” he said, “what is wrong with you? You look like you’re gonna be sick.”

  “Hmmph,” Frederick humphed. “I have a … a dodgeball problem,” he whispered.

  The others all listened while pretending to pay attention to Eric, who was explaining the rules of atomic dodgeball (the rules were … there were no rules).

  “I had a bad experience,” Frederick said, barely moving his lips so that his words wouldn’t carry. “I don’t know if I can play.”

  “So you have, like, a phobia?” the Professor suggested in a low voice.

  Frederick swallowed and shrugged.

  Specs crossed his arms and looked at the ground to hide his mouth as he spoke. “I’ve never heard of a dodgeball phobia.”

  “You can develop a phobia for anything,” the Professor said.

  “Dodgeball’s fun,” Nosebleed argued. “You’ll see, Dash,” he said encouragingly.

  “No talking!” Eric roared, stalking down the line toward them.

  They all stood up straight and stared ahead.

  “Dash!” Eric barked. He stopped right in front of Frederick, so close that Frederick could smell him. He smelled like sweat and villainy. “Have you got a problem?”

  “No, sir,” Frederick said.

  “Why don’t you start us off,” Eric said with a smile that showed large, square teeth.

  Frederick didn’t answer. He wished he knew why Eric had decided to hate him in particular. Maybe it was his mission in life to stamp out all the fleas, and he could sense that Frederick was one.

  “Here.” Eric shoved one of the balls into Frederick’s stomach, knocking the wind out of him for the second time that morning.

  Then he strode down the line. Ant Bite, Nosebleed, and the Professor all turned to look at Frederick with questions written on their faces.

  “Nobody has a dodgeball phobia,” Specs muttered. “That’s stupid.”

  A minute later Eric blew his whistle, and the boys jogged out onto the field. Frederick stayed on the edge, holding the ball between his hands. His thumbs rubbed across the ripples and whorls stamped in the rubber. The boys were spreading out.

  Okay, Frederick told himself. Pull yourself together. You can do this.

  He’d only played dodgeball twice in his life. Once at a family reunion and once at school. He’d broken his nose 50 percent of the time he’d played. Statistically speaking, there was a 50 percent chance he was about to break his nose … again. He thought of Candace Licky, the girl who’d nearly died playing dodgeball. Maybe that would be him this time.

  Here goes, he thought, and he lifted one foot and put it onto the field. Most of the boys moved as far as possible from Frederick and from the other boy Eric had given a ball to. A handful of boys, though, stayed close, almost within range of a thrown dodgeball. They paced back and forth in front of Frederick, their eyes gleaming with challenge.

  Eric’s whistle blew again, shattering Frederick’s nerves.

  The boys took off, running in every direction. The other boy who had a ball drew his arm way back and hurled it like Thor flinging his hammer. The ball slammed into a kid’s chest, knocking him flat on his back.

  No one stopped to check on the boy. Someone dashed in and picked up the ball that was bouncing along the ground.

  Frederick clutched his own ball to his body. He hadn’t moved. He was standing there, panting.

  “What are you doing?” the Professor called to him, running closer. “Throw the ball!” He jogged smoothly and easily. He looked like a natural athlete, and Frederick could see why his coach wanted him to play football. “Throw it!” the Professor shouted.

  Frederick ran a few steps forward. He lifted the ball over his head. Boys were running in every direction. Frederick threw wildly. The ball hit the ground three feet in front of his shoes and rolled away.

  A boy swooped in and scooped up the free ball. Then he whipped his head around, looking right at Frederick.

  Frederick’s whole body tensed, bracing for impact.

  But … the boy nodded at Frederick and yelled, “Hey, watch this, Dash!” And he ran off, throwing the ball at someone else as he went.

  Frederick was so relieved that his knees started to buckle, but then someone grabbed his arm and was dragging him along.

  “What are you doing?” the Professor said in his ear. “Run.” He shoved Frederick hard.

  Frederick ran then. He zigged and zagged around the other boys, his heart galloping.

  Someone bumped into him, or he bumped into them—he couldn’t tell.

  “Sorry, Dash!” the boy yelled after crashing into Frederick.

  Frederick didn’t answer. He didn’t have any breath to speak. He looked over his shoulder to see the boy running off, rubbing his arm where he’d clipped Frederick. When Frederick turned around, he locked eyes with a boy who was right in front of him, arm drawn back, a ball in his hand.

  Frederick jerked to a stop, his muscles locking. He recognized the boy. He was from Group Ten, Eric’s group. This is it, Frederick thought, and he cringed.

  But the boy had paused, recognizing Frederick. He started to lower his arm.

  Frederick’s breath whooshed out in relief. The boy frowned. He drew his arm back again and hurled the ball. Frederick’s eyes snapped shut. His hands flew up, palms out, to protect his nose from the blow … but it never came.

  Frederick opened one eye and saw Nosebleed’s back stretching like a wall between him and the boy from Eric’s group. The ball was rolling away.

  “Guess I’m out,” Nosebleed said, turning to face Frederic
k. He was pinching his own nose, which had started bleeding. Whether it was because he’d gotten hit or it was one of his regular nosebleeds, Frederick didn’t know. Nosebleed shrugged at Frederick good-naturedly and headed for the edge of the field where everyone who had gotten out was gathered to cheer and jeer at the boys still playing.

  Frederick started moving again, more slowly, looking to see where the balls were. Ant Bite was close. He grabbed a ball and threw it, hitting another boy in the back so hard the kid fell to his knees.

  Frederick jogged, arms pumping at his sides. He couldn’t believe his luck that Nosebleed had run up at that exact moment. Or maybe … had Nosebleed blocked the ball on purpose? Why would he do that?

  He didn’t have time to think about it.

  As he ran and dodged, Frederick lost track of how long they’d been playing. At some point, he began to notice that there was more space between the boys on the field. There were only about twenty of them left. And the sidelines were getting crowded with kids who were out.

  Frederick hadn’t been the first one to be knocked out. He hadn’t even been one of the first ones out. He hadn’t done so bad after all. Even if he got out right now, he had lasted a long time. His legs, which should’ve been aching with exhaustion, suddenly felt strong and fast.

  He put his head down and jogged. Then someone was coming at Frederick with one of the balls, closing in. Frederick put on a burst of speed and leaned forward. He heard the ball hit the ground, and he ran harder. He was doing it! He was playing well. He was winning, and it felt good. It felt natural, like what Frederick was born to do. Like up to this point he’d been living a sham life, some other poor loser’s identity that he’d had to put up with. And now, finally, he was living the way he was supposed to.

  He made it to the end of the field and turned around. There were only five others still playing. Most of them were at the far end of the field, and as he watched, a ball bounced off one of the boys, who shouted in frustration and then headed for the sidelines.

  The kids who had been knocked out were yelling, shouting over one another. Frederick pushed his hair off his forehead, panting, and as he caught his breath, the shouts from the sidelines became clearer and stronger in his ears.