by Kate Beasley
He took a step back.
“Who are you?” Glo demanded.
“I’m … uh…” Frederick glanced at the boys from Group Thirteen and then looked back at Glo, who was staring at him without blinking. He didn’t know what else to say, so he told her the truth. “I’m Frederick Frederickson.”
Behind Frederick, Nosebleed made a surprised puh sound.
“There,” Glo said, snapping her fingers. “That’s Frederick.” She pointed at Frederick. “And this is Dash.” She pointed at the new boy. “Now we all know our names, and…” She raised her eyes heavenward. “Why am I even having this conversation?” She snapped her eyes back to Benjamin. “I need to talk to Eric, like, yesterday. Where is he?” She looked this way and that, as if expecting Eric to materialize from behind a tree.
A few of the gathered campers pointed toward the river, and Glo turned in that direction.
“This is Dashiell Blackwood.” Benjamin was shaking his head and frowning at Frederick in consternation. “I registered him myself.”
Frederick opened his mouth with the intention of saying something that would make everything clear, but he realized he didn’t know what that would be.
“You know what?” Glo said. “You figure this out, ’kay? Write me a report when you do.”
She started to stomp off but stopped midstride, one hiking boot up in the air. She tipped her chin back and raised one finger. “There is…,” she said slowly, lowering her boot to the ground. “There is an alert out for a missing boy.” She pulled a phone from the pocket of her khaki shorts and started tapping away at it. “I just got it this morning…”
“I’m not a missing boy,” Frederick protested, glancing at Nosebleed, the Professor, and Specs.
Missing boy sounded like he was some little kid who’d wandered off at the park and gotten lost. Frederick was ten, for crying out loud! He wasn’t missing. He was just here. At camp. Hanging out. He was just hanging out at camp like cool ten-year-olds did.
“Are you supposed to be here?” Glo asked, not looking up from her phone.
“Okay, so I was having a fight with my friend Joel,” he began.
“Urgh!” Glo yelled. She gripped her phone hard and lifted it over her head like she was about to throw it across the camp. Then she took a breath and calmly slid it into her pocket. She looked up and saw Frederick, Benjamin, Dashiell, Nosebleed, the Professor, and Specs staring at her.
“No service.” She flicked a strand of hair out of her face. “So what’s your name again?” she asked. She was looking at Frederick now with interested annoyance, instead of just annoyed annoyance.
“Frederick Frederickson,” he said.
She blinked.
“I know,” Frederick said. “It sounds made up.”
“No, no,” she said, shaking her head. “I remember the name on the alert being something stupid like that.”
She clapped her hands together. “Okay. Here’s what we’re going to do. Dash”—she pointed at the pale boy—“go to the food tent and tell them I said you could have a late breakfast. Do not run away, steal anything, or get within ten feet of anything resembling a Cabbage Patch Kid. Benjamin, come with me to find Eric. You—lost boy,” she said, looking at Frederick, “you come, too.” She spun on her heel and headed for the main building.
“We didn’t get breakfast!” a boy called after Glo. “How come Dash gets breakfast?”
She didn’t answer the boy, and she didn’t look back to see if Frederick and Benjamin were following her. They weren’t.
“You’re not Dash?” Specs said. “I knew you weren’t,” he added immediately. “I knew something was off about you.”
Nosebleed was standing with his hands hanging at his sides, looking at Frederick with hurt eyes.
“So you lied to us,” the Professor said.
“No!” Frederick said. “I didn’t lie.”
The three boys stared at him.
“I didn’t lie to you,” Frederick said. “I lied to Benjamin.” He turned to see Benjamin’s stricken face. “And I’m sorry!” he said. “I didn’t … I didn’t mean to lie to anybody. It was an accident. Ac-ci-dent.” He sounded out each syllable and tried to smile.
The others didn’t laugh.
“How can you accidentally tell a lie?” the Professor asked. His voice wasn’t accusing. It was calm and steady like always, and for some reason that was worse.
“Umm…” Frederick remembered staggering out of the boat and smelling the pancakes. He remembered Benjamin holding out Dashiell’s name tag and the feeling that he was meant to be at Camp Omigoshee. “A lot of things happened,” he began.
“So, let me get this straight,” said Specs. “Once upon a time, a lot of things happened and then you lied. The end.” He started walking toward their cabin. “That’s a great story,” he called over his shoulder. “You should write a book.”
The Professor turned away, too.
“We’re going swimming,” Specs said.
“Wait,” Frederick said, hurrying after them.
“You don’t come,” Specs ordered, turning and holding up a hand, stopping Frederick. “You’re not supposed to be here.”
Frederick looked at Nosebleed.
“Nosebleed,” Frederick said, “I didn’t mean to hurt anybody’s feelings.”
Nosebleed took a deep breath. Then he turned away, too.
Frederick watched them walk away, and even though he was standing on solid ground, it felt like he was falling from the bell pull all over again.
Benjamin sighed. “We should go with Glo,” he said. “We need Eric to sort this out.”
Frederick ignored him. He took a few steps after Group Thirteen. “Come on, you guys. I’m literally the same person I was before,” he yelled. “And you liked me then.”
As the words came out of his mouth, he realized they were true. They had liked him. They hadn’t been mad when he’d been the one to lose them the rope-climbing relay. Not really. They had dragged him back to camp last night. They had wanted to go on a cruise with him. They … they had helped him win at dodgeball. Except for Specs, and Frederick knew that that was just Specs being Specs.
And Frederick understood what a fantastic thing it was, having people like you.
“I tried,” he pleaded after their retreating backs. “I tried to tell you my name was Frederick, but you didn’t believe me!”
They didn’t look back.
After a moment, Frederick turned and followed Benjamin toward the main building. The soles of his tennis shoes scuffed the ground with every step. His red jersey swished around his legs. When he got to the flagpole, he turned back to see if he could make out any of the boys from Thirteen. He couldn’t. They were gone.
* * *
“What do you mean there’s sand in the fuel tanks?” Glo was demanding when Frederick walked into Eric’s cabin.
She and Eric faced off across the desk, both of them on their feet. Benjamin was standing with his back pressed against the wall, looking like a life-size statue of a camp counselor.
“I mean,” Eric said, “they didn’t just slash the tires. They put sand in the gas tanks, too.”
Frederick sank into a cracked leather chair beside the door, waiting for whatever they were going to do with him. He looked at the broken window beside the desk. Someone had Scotch-taped a manila folder over the shattered pane.
“These boys have never known discipline,” Eric went on. “This is what happens when we don’t teach young people discipline and character. And discipline!” He reached up and pulled off his sunglasses.
Frederick recoiled. Seeing Eric without his glasses seemed profoundly wrong, like seeing a snail without its shell. The counselor’s eyes were small and watery, and the skin usually covered by his sunglasses was pasty white against his tan face. Eric snatched a Kleenex out of a box on the desk and started polishing the lenses as he marched toward the door.
“Wait right there!” Glo said, and Eric stopped as suddenly a
s if she’d yanked an invisible leash.
“Hurricane Hernando’s turned,” Glo said.
“Of course it has,” Frederick muttered to no one in particular. He slouched in the chair and tipped his head back until it rested against the wall.
“That’s why I was breaking my neck to get here,” Glo said, ignoring Frederick. “I tried to call the camp, but I couldn’t get through. The storm’s headed right for us.” She took a step back and tucked flyaway hairs behind her ears. Her eyes went wide, and she let out a breath, seeming to deflate, as if the seriousness of the situation had just hit her.
But Eric flicked his hand as if to say pish to Hurricane Hernando. “It’s just some wind and rain,” he said. “People of character—”
“That’s right, Eric,” Glo said, rolling her eyes. “Our good character will save us from the eighty-five-mile-an-hour wind.”
“It’s not that bad.” Eric drew himself up and put his sunglasses back on. “They’re exaggerating.”
“They?” Glo said. She put her fists on her hips. “Who’s they?”
Eric opened his mouth to answer, but Glo didn’t let him get a word in.
“Maybe they is the Jacksonville Zoo, which is evacuating all its animals.” Glo’s voice rose as she took a step toward Eric. “Or maybe—maybe they is the entire state of Florida, which has closed.”
“I think—” Eric started.
Glo’s eyes bulged. “Maybe they are the people at the Syfy Channel, who just bought the film rights to the disaster movie that is about to happen to us!” She sucked in a breath and then let it out slowly. She removed a nonexistent speck from her shirt. “And you have sand,” she said primly, “in your tanks.”
The counselors fell silent, all of them probably contemplating the fact that a Category Five hurricane was on its way to ravage Camp Omigoshee, and they had only one working diesel truck with which to evacuate seventy-four not-yet-transformed boys and one liar who nobody liked.
Frederick lifted his eyes to the ceiling. Someone had stuck a smiley-face sticker against one of the ceiling panels. “Bring it on,” he said.
16
The Rock
“Are you ready to go?” Glo was asking Frederick ten minutes later.
She, Benjamin, and Frederick stood outside Eric’s cabin. The counselors had decided that Glo, three other counselors, and Frederick were going to squeeze into her truck and drive to the nearest town. Glo would take Frederick to the police station and hand him over to them so they could contact his family. Then she was going to find three school buses (“I’ll steal them if I have to”) that didn’t have sand in their tanks or gashes in their tires and have the counselors drive them back to camp, load up the boys, and drive west like The Fast and the Furious … only in school buses instead of sports cars.
“Mmmm…” Frederick looked around camp. Obviously he didn’t want to be in the camp when the hurricane hit, but he felt like he wasn’t done here. He at least needed to say good-bye to the guys in his group. The morning was sunny, and a light breeze was beginning to stir. It didn’t look like there was a hurricane coming.
“We’re hitting the road in less than five minutes.” Glo started walking off in the direction of a counselor who was crossing the camp. “So you’d better pack up and have your stuff in that truck”—she pointed at the big truck that she’d almost run Frederick over with—“in less than three.”
“Less than three,” Frederick repeated blankly.
“Minutes.” Glo’s eyes bugged out. “Three minutes.”
“Okay,” Frederick said, trying to think of what stuff he needed to get to take home.
Mr. Mincey’s boat was down by the river under the willow tree where Frederick had left it. Maybe he could come back and show Mr. Mincey where it was. Ant Bite had taken his bag of lost-and-found stuff, so he couldn’t pack that. The only other thing he had was his dirty shirt he’d swapped for the red jersey. He’d left the shirt on the floor by his bed.
“Ant Bite!” Frederick exclaimed, realizing. He spun around to Benjamin, who was standing at his shoulder, looking lost. “Benjamin, Ant Bite’s gone. He went away before Glo got here.”
“Went away where?” Benjamin asked.
“I don’t know!” Frederick said. “I mean, maybe … he might’ve … He might think that he’s going on a cruise,” he said. Was Ant Bite really trying to go to Port Verde Shoals? Or had he just run away for a little while? Frederick didn’t know.
“Okay,” Benjamin said. He hitched up his shorts. “A cruise,” he said, disbelief bleeding into his voice.
“The point is he’s gone!” Frederick said.
“Don’t worry,” Benjamin said. “We’ll find Ant Bite and evacuate him, too.”
“He was really mad,” Frederick pressed, trying to make Benjamin understand the seriousness of the situation. “And he doesn’t know about the hurricane.”
“Dash, relax.” Benjamin put a hand on Frederick’s shoulder. “Me and the other counselors are trained professionals.”
Frederick didn’t correct Benjamin about using the wrong name. Instead, he looked at Benjamin—really looked at him. His earnest, disappointed face. His neat counselor’s uniform and gigantic shorts. His name tag, which had twirled around to face backward again, showing the number thirteen. Benjamin gave Frederick a reassuring smile.
Then a bird flew over and a watery green turd landed on the shoulder of Benjamin’s blue polo. It slid down the fabric, and all of Frederick’s hope for saving Ant Bite seemed to slide with it.
“Oh my g—”
“Goodness gracious,” Benjamin said, twisting his head and pulling on the sleeve of his shirt so he could inspect the bird poop.
Frederick grabbed the top of his head and looked around, trying to come up with an idea for what to do. Then he spotted Specs, Nosebleed, and the Professor walking out of Group Thirteen’s cabin in their swim trunks.
“I’ll be right back,” Frederick said to Benjamin, and he ran over to the boys.
He stopped right in front of them. The Professor stepped around him and kept walking.
“Wait,” Frederick said, reaching for the Professor’s arm just as Specs grabbed the front of his jersey and shoved him back several steps.
“Get out of our camp.” Specs’s nose was an inch from Frederick’s.
“There’s a hurricane,” Frederick said, cringing back from Specs’s breath and prying the other boy’s fingers off his shirt.
“Get out of our camp,” Specs said again. “You don’t belong here. You’re not a part of our group, understand?” He stepped sideways so that he was between Frederick and Nosebleed and the Professor, like he was protecting them from having to come face-to-face with Frederick. That was ridiculous. Frederick wasn’t dangerous. He was one of them.
“Come on,” the Professor said to Specs. “Let’s go swimming.”
“There’s a hurricane!” Frederick said. “It’s called Hernando, and it’s coming this way, and it’s so bad the Syfy Channel’s going to make a movie about it.”
Specs didn’t back down. “I haven’t heard of any hurricane,” he said.
“That’s because you’re so self-involved you don’t care about the world around you,” Frederick said automatically.
Specs looked startled for a second, like he was trying to figure out what Frederick meant; then his nostrils flared.
“You get out of here,” Specs said, tilting his head back so he could squint down his nose at Frederick. “’Cause the next time I see you, I’m going to snap your glasses.”
“I don’t wear glasses,” Frederick said.
Specs lifted a finger, backing away. “Exactly,” he said, and turned around.
The Professor shrugged at Frederick and then followed Specs.
“I just wish you hadn’t lied to us,” Nosebleed said.
“I didn’t mean to lie!” Frederick said. “And I’m worried about Ant Bite.”
Nosebleed started for the river, his plasticky swim trunks
shrush-shrushing as he walked.
Frederick kicked the ground in frustration. “Ant Bite’s in trouble! There’s a hurricane!” he yelled as they walked away from him. He realized it was the second time that morning he’d found himself shouting at their backs.
“All campers report to the main building for an emergency meeting!” a counselor shouted into the megaphone. “All campers report to the main building!”
“See!” Frederick said, calling after them. “See?”
Specs and the others stopped and exchanged looks. The Professor glanced back at Frederick. Then all three of them turned and headed toward the main building, stepping wide around Frederick as they went.
“What about Ant Bite?” he called.
This wasn’t right. This wasn’t fair. It wasn’t like Frederick was asking them to do anything unreasonable. He wasn’t asking them to forgive him or to be friends with him again. He was asking them to help him figure out how to save Ant Bite, who was supposed to still be their friend.
This wasn’t Frederick’s job. It wasn’t his responsibility. This wasn’t even a job he could do. This was a job for somebody like the Rock or something. Not Frederick. Only, the Rock wasn’t coming. And sure, there was a whole spectrum of people who were between the almighty Rock and Frederick the Flea. But none of those people were going to help.
Frederick walked around in a tight circle, winding himself up. “Fine,” he said to himself. “Fine. It’s all fine.” He stopped walking in circles and started toward the field where they’d played dodgeball, in the direction Ant Bite had gone in earlier. “I’ll just go get Ant Bite.”
“Dash!” Benjamin yelled. “Where are you going?”
“Tell Glo I’m coming!” Frederick shouted over his shoulder, starting to run. “I’ll be right back!”
17
The Kudu
“Dash, come back!” Benjamin’s voice called after him. “Dash!”
Frederick ran past the small cabins at the edge of the camp and didn’t slow down when he got to the dodgeball field. His feet pounded across the scrubby grass. Less than an hour ago, on this field, he had experienced glory for the first—and maybe last—time. But he didn’t have time to think about that right now. He raced over the far edge of the field and into the forest that surrounded Camp Omigoshee.