by Kate Beasley
“Why didn’t you tell the others?” he asked. “About me pretending to be Dash?”
Ant Bite shrugged. “I figured it was your business. So your name is…” Ant Bite raised his eyebrows at Frederick.
“Frederick Frederickson.” He paused. “My mom named me. She said she wanted me to have a name people will remember.”
“A name people will remember,” Ant Bite repeated. “That was nice of her to think about that.”
Frederick had never heard anyone describe his mom as nice before.
“She is,” he said. “She’s nice.”
* * *
Frederick was hot and tired, and the red jersey smelled … weird. Like a stranger’s funky bad sweat. He pushed his hair off his forehead and blinked, looking ahead of them. A sliver of green roof showed through the trees.
“Hey!” He reached out and tapped Ant Bite’s arm.
“What?” Ant Bite looked up.
Frederick pointed at the green roof.
“That’s…” Ant Bite’s voice was faint.
“Camp!” Frederick said with relief.
He and Ant Bite walked faster. As they got closer, the buildings appeared out of the trees like something out of a fairy tale.
They made it to camp and walked between the buildings on the narrow paths packed by hundreds of feet.
Every so often the climbing bells clanged in a gust of wind. The flag snapped in front of the main building. Other than that, the camp was silent. Frederick hadn’t realized how much noise the campers made until they were gone.
He and Ant Bite didn’t speak. They didn’t need to. They were thinking the same thing. No truck was here … at least not one with tires that rolled. No phone was here. Not one that worked. No other human was here. What was here was the two of them. Camp Omigoshee was deserted.
“What’s that?” Ant Bite pointed toward the main building.
Something white flapped from one of the double doors. Frederick and Ant Bite exchanged a look and ran over.
They found a letter taped to the door.
Dear Dash Frederick and/or Ant Bite, If you are reading this, then you’ve made it back to camp.
“Yep,” said Ant Bite with a nod.
Don’t leave! Stay in the main building! We’re out looking for you, and if we find you, we’ll come right back. And if we don’t find you, we’ll be back before nightfall. (Probably around eight or nine?) I don’t know when nightfall is exactly and I can’t look it up on my phone because there’s no service. So we’ll be back sometime soon!
Sincerely,
Benjamin Merkel
P.S. Eric says nightfall is at nineteen hundred hours!
P. P. S. Glo says she’ll talk to the police and have them call your families.
Frederick sagged with relief. He looked at Ant Bite and saw the other boy’s face mirroring his own exhausted happiness.
Finally, they were done with all the running and being lost and being attacked. All they had to do was wait for Benjamin and the search party to come and get them. They were saved.
19
Tim Howard
Frederick and Ant Bite waited on the front porch of the main building. They sat against the wall with their knees up, watching the flag whip in the wind and keeping their eyes peeled for any sign of Benjamin and the search party.
The wind picked up even more, the trees swaying farther and farther, and a drizzle of rain blurred the camp beyond the edge of the covered porch. Neither Ant Bite nor Frederick pointed out these facts. They also didn’t mention that the sky was getting heavy.
All the things they weren’t saying crawled over Frederick’s skin, until finally, Ant Bite broke the silence.
“We should find a snack,” he suggested.
“Yeah,” Frederick said, quickly pushing himself to his feet, wondering why he hadn’t thought of a snack.
A snack was a quick meal that they could fix and take with them to enjoy in the truck or car if Benjamin showed up before they’d eaten it.
In fact, Frederick decided, following Ant Bite into the dark belly of the main building, he was sure that if they made a snack, Benjamin and the search party would show up soon after. It was like something he and Ant Bite had to do in order to summon help.
Once inside, Frederick patted the wall by the door, finding the light switch. Fluorescent lights flickered to life across the ceiling. The main building was a big, open room with linoleum floors and round tables. Half the chairs were turned upside down on the tables, as though somebody had been in the middle of cleaning the floor when they had to evacuate. A swinging metal door at the back of the room led to a long, narrow kitchen, which Frederick and Ant Bite searched for food.
In the refrigerator they found jugs of milk and enormous plastic bags of shredded cheese. The pantry had towers of cans: baked beans, tomato sauce, Vienna sausages. Frederick pulled down a can of beans and a can of sausages. Next, he and Ant Bite started opening drawers, searching for a can opener.
“Jackpot,” Ant Bite said. He was standing on a counter and looking into an open cabinet.
“You found it?” Frederick asked.
“No,” Ant Bite said. “I found something better. I’ll teach you how to make my specialty.”
Frederick looked over Ant Bite’s shoulder at several boxes of cereal.
Ant Bite’s specialty was a sandwich that consisted of two pieces of white bread smeared with pancake syrup and French’s mustard. And in the middle was Honey Bunches of Oats cereal.
The bread was soft, and the cereal was crunchy, and when Frederick pressed it down, it squished and then crunched. He bit into it. It tasted sweet and vinegary at the same time.
“’S’not bad.” Frederick took another bite.
“Mmmumph,” Ant Bite agreed.
They had taken their snack into the main room, choosing a table close to the front doors so they wouldn’t miss Benjamin and the search party coming in.
After three sandwiches, Frederick was feeling pretty content, all things considered, and he decided it was time he did something he’d been putting off.
“Hey. This morning when I told you I didn’t want to go on a cruise, it wasn’t anything personal. And I’m sorry…” Frederick didn’t look at Ant Bite as he spoke. Instead, he talked to a mounted trout hanging on the wall. “I’m sorry,” he tried again, “that I told you to deal with your own problems. That was pretty mean.”
“Nah, you were right,” Ant Bite said.
“No, I wasn’t,” Frederick said.
“You were,” Ant Bite insisted. “Everybody’s got to deal with their own problems. That’s just the way it is.”
“No, it’s not,” Frederick said. “Friends—I mean, people should help each other out.”
Ant Bite shrugged. He looked uncomfortable.
“And I’m sorry I said you were in trouble all the time. I didn’t mean it.” Frederick knew now that he’d been wrong about the guys in Thirteen. He’d assumed that everybody who was at a disciplinary camp must be a bad person, but they weren’t all bad. Ant Bite was really brave. And Nosebleed was kind. The Professor was tough. And Specs was … Specs. And Frederick wasn’t as good as he’d thought he was, either.
“It’s fine,” Ant Bite said, shrugging again.
The trout’s tail was bent like it would swim away if it weren’t stuck to the wall.
“Why did you get sent here?” Frederick asked, realizing that he didn’t know. “You said you had problems.”
“Just forget about it,” Ant Bite said, not looking at Frederick. “It’s nothing.”
“Come on,” Frederick said. He wanted to help. Whatever Ant Bite’s problem was, Frederick was sure they could find a way to fix it. And maybe that would help him make it up to Ant Bite for the way he’d acted before.
“I said no.” Ant Bite jerked, and his arm bumped his plate, nearly knocking it off the table. “You can’t help me anyway.”
“Why don’t you just tell me what’s bothering you?” Frederic
k asked, leaning back and holding his hands up.
“Because it’s not a big deal,” Ant Bite said. “Really.”
“Come on,” Frederick said again. “It’s—”
“Okay!” Ant Bite said, leaping to his feet. “If I tell you, will you lay off?”
“All right.” Frederick lowered his hands slowly, waiting for Ant Bite to settle down.
Ant Bite sank back into his chair and didn’t speak for a moment. When he did, he said, “So when I was in third grade, we had to do this science project.”
“Okay,” Frederick said.
“I made a robot,” Ant Bite said.
“Wow.” Frederick had never made a robot. He didn’t know anyone else who’d made a robot. For the science projects at his school they made baking soda volcanoes or grew bean sprouts in plastic bags.
“Yeah. It was good, too,” Ant Bite said. “I spent a long time on it. I glued some of those googly eyes on it. I named him Tim Howard.”
Frederick wondered how he’d come up with that name. Did the robot just look like a Tim Howard? Did he know someone named Tim Howard?
“But this other kid,” Ant Bite went on. “Rich. We were the first ones at school that day, and we were the only two people in the classroom. I don’t know where Mrs. Paulson had gone. But Rich took Tim Howard off my desk and wouldn’t give him back. When the other kids came in, Rich said that Tim was his and that I was the one who was trying to take him.”
Ant Bite dragged his finger through the puddle of syrup on his plate.
“What’d you do?” Frederick asked.
“I told the teacher,” Ant Bite said, like it was obvious.
“Oh,” Frederick said. “Right.”
“But she didn’t believe me,” Ant Bite said. “She liked Rich better. His mom was one of the class parents, and she was always helping out with field trips and stuff. So that day Mrs. Paulson told everybody that Tim Howard was Rich’s science project. And everybody was telling Rich he did a good job and not to listen to me. He even said he had come up with a name for it … Kevin.”
The trout’s bottom lip was open in shock.
“What’d you do then?” Frederick asked.
“I broke him.” Ant Bite gazed blankly at the syrup on his finger.
“Rich,” Frederick said.
“No,” Ant Bite said, rolling his eyes. “Tim Howard. I was angry, and I broke him. I was really upset about it. I mean, I should’ve just let Rich keep him. That would’ve been better for Tim.”
“Did you get in trouble?” Frederick asked.
Ant Bite shrugged. “Kind of. I mean, my teacher got on to me right then and told me I couldn’t go to recess. But later, my parents called and they even came to the school and said that it was my robot. They said they’d seen me working on it. But Rich’s parents came and said the same thing. They said it was his robot.”
The trout’s one visible eye was wide with alarm.
“His parents lied?” Frederick couldn’t believe somebody’s parents would lie about them making a robot. That seemed like a really big thing to lie about. Not a little lie like, Oh, I’m sure he studied for his test or Of course my son enjoys your class. It seemed like you shouldn’t be able to lie about whether your kid had built a robot.
Ant Bite nodded. He licked the syrup off his finger. “My teacher said the only fair thing to do was to not punish anybody and not give me or Rich a grade for the project.”
“How’s that fair?” Frederick asked. “That’s not fair.”
Ant Bite shrugged. “The thing is, I could tell my teacher believed Rich and his parents. I could tell she thought I’d lied. Or she wanted to think that I’d lied. Before all that happened, I was really smart. Like, I was as smart as the Professor.
“But then after this one thing, which I didn’t even do, it was like everybody forgot that I was a smart, good kid, and all they thought about me was that I’d broken Rich’s robot. That was when I started doing bad things. I figured, everybody already thinks I’m bad, so why should I try to be good? After that, I wouldn’t do my homework. Or when we were supposed to be quiet, I would talk. Or during break I’d go just outside the bounds we were supposed to stay in.”
The wind howled over the roof.
“Is that why you were sent to camp?” Frederick asked. “For doing all that stuff?”
Ant Bite sighed. “I’ve never done anything really, really bad. Not like Dashiell. The real Dashiell. But when I started fourth grade this year, my new teacher had a special meeting with my mom and dad, and she said that I should go to this camp. She was really nice about it. She said it would be like a reset, and when I got back I could start over. But I don’t know.” He shrugged.
Frederick waited for more, but Ant Bite was done.
“So … can you help with that?” Ant Bite looked up at him.
Frederick leaned back in his seat. He’d gotten interested in Ant Bite’s story and forgotten that the reason he was listening was to figure out how to help.
“Why don’t you just…” Frederick’s voice trailed off. “Well, why don’t you just quit being bad?”
Ant Bite was quiet for a moment. “I don’t know if I can,” he explained. “I started doing all this stuff. And then I started doing more of it … I don’t know if I can stop now. Even if I go back to doing what I’m supposed to, all the other kids are still gonna keep treating me like a bad person. So why even bother, you know?” He took a breath. “And why’d everybody believe Rich instead of me? That’s just not fair.”
The trout seemed to be looking at Frederick, waiting to hear his answer.
“Uhhh. My friends have this theory of life,” Frederick began. “They say that everybody has a place in the world, like there’s a natural order.
“Some people are lions. There’s this guy at my school named Devin and he’s a lion. And some people are gazelles. And some people are meerkats. And I’m a flea.”
Frederick didn’t know exactly why he thought this story would be comforting to Ant Bite, but he kept going anyway.
“I thought I could change the fact that I’m a flea,” Frederick admitted. “I thought if I could do something right or if I could win something, then I’d be as good as Devin and then…” He wasn’t going to tell Ant Bite about how he wanted a best friend who would hang out with him. He wasn’t going to admit he was that pathetic. “I thought everything would be great.”
“So,” Ant Bite said. “What happened?”
“Ummm … well, I nearly got eaten by a lion,” Frederick admitted ruefully.
“Oh,” said Ant Bite.
The small windows set high in the wall were dark, and rain drummed against the roof.
Something was bothering Frederick. The story he’d just told Ant Bite … his story had sounded wrong in his ears. It hadn’t sounded true. He knew that it had been true. But it had been true for an earlier version of himself. Now, he realized that he didn’t care so much about being a flea or not being a flea. Becoming that guy didn’t matter as much as he’d thought it had. He just wanted to fix everything he’d messed up.
“Is that it?” Ant Bite asked, looking over at Frederick. “Is that the advice?”
Frederick shrugged.
“That wasn’t even advice,” Ant Bite protested.
“Give me a break,” Frederick said. “I’m trying.”
Ant Bite shook his head. “This is just about the worst help anybody ever got.”
“I was trying to let you know I understand!” Frederick said.
“I’m a flea and everybody else is a lion,” Ant Bite said in a gloomy voice like Eeyore the donkey.
“That’s not the way I said it,” Frederick protested. “But okay, fine, I get it. Anyway, I don’t think you’re as bad a person as you’re making out. I mean, you saved me from that lion—the real lion. A bad person wouldn’t have done that.”
“It was adrenaline,” Ant Bite said with a grin. “If I’d stopped to think about it, I probably would’ve let it eat you.�
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“Nuh-uh,” Frederick said. “You wouldn’t have—”
“Nah, I’m just kidding, man.” He smiled. “And I don’t care if you’re a flea or what. I’ll still be your friend.”
At Ant Bite’s words it was as though a ball of light began to glow inside Frederick’s chest, warm and bright. He snuffed it out immediately.
Probably, when Ant Bite said friend, he didn’t mean friend. When he said friend, he probably meant person-whom-I-do-not-hate. Or maybe he was just saying friend to be polite. Although Ant Bite had never seemed particularly concerned about manners. But Ant Bite couldn’t really mean he and Frederick were friends after everything Frederick had done. Could he?
“Listen—” Frederick began.
There was a cracking sound from outside, followed by a tremendous pow! Frederick and Ant Bite yelled just as the lights in the main building blinked out.
20
The Water Is Lava
Without electricity, the main building was pitch-black. Frederick waved his hand in front of his face and saw nothing. He heard Ant Bite unzipping the bag and digging through its contents. Then the emergency flashlight clicked on. The two of them carefully walked out onto the front porch. Rain fell at an angle, hitting their faces even though they were under the roof. Outside, there was just enough light to see by, but the sky had turned an ugly bruise color. Benjamin’s letter, still taped to the door, was smeared and soft from the water.
“There,” Frederick said.
The wind was roaring in the treetops. A limb had broken out of a tree and knocked a big metal piece off the electric pole. A tangled wire was on the ground beside the building.
“Don’t touch it,” Ant Bite said in a voice tight with fear.
Frederick didn’t intend to.
“I think,” Ant Bite said, “I think that’s the transformer.”
They went back into the building and closed the doors.
“Benjamin’s letter said they’d be here before dark,” Ant Bite said, acknowledging their counselor’s absence for the first time. “It’s dark now. I wonder where they are.”
“They’re probably almost here,” Frederick said. “And they better apologize for being late.”