Lions & Liars

by Kate Beasley

  “I’m sorry about your finger,” Ant Bite said. “I didn’t know it was your finger, and I thought I was drowning, and I just…” He clicked his teeth. “Hey, is that a monkey?” Ant Bite asked suddenly.

  Frederick followed Ant Bite’s gaze. A monkey was standing on a lower limb of a nearby tree, pulling on its bottom lip as if it was perplexed at finding itself in a magnolia.

  “It must be from the zoo,” Frederick said. “I wonder how many animals they lost? One of the drivers said there were nails in the road.”

  Ant Bite’s eyes widened. “I didn’t put nails in the road.”

  “I didn’t say you did,” Frederick said.

  “The Professor might’ve,” Ant Bite said. “But I didn’t.”

  “What?” Frederick asked. “Why would—”

  “Do you hear that?” Ant Bite asked.

  At first, Frederick thought Ant Bite was trying to distract him, but then he heard it, too. There was a growling sound, and it was growing louder.

  “That’s a motor,” Frederick said.

  A few seconds later, he saw Glo’s diesel truck inching through the trees, angling toward them.

  Eric was leaning out the passenger window with a pair of binoculars, surveying the woods.

  “Hey!” Frederick yelled. He stood up, waving his arms. The boat wobbled dangerously, and he sat down again before he fell.

  Eric’s binoculars swept past the boat.

  “Over here!” Ant Bite yelled.

  “Eric!” Frederick shouted.

  The binoculars swept back and stopped on them.

  “Yes!” Ant Bite and Frederick cheered together.

  Eric lowered the binoculars and pointed at them.

  “Dash! Anthony!” Eric shouted in a raspy voice. “Stay right there!” As if Frederick and Ant Bite were about to run away.

  Frederick saw that Benjamin was behind the steering wheel. Through the windshield, he saw the counselor’s face light up when he spotted them. He started punching the horn.

  Beep, beep, beep!

  Benjamin leaped out of the truck before it had come to a complete stop and ran over, splashing water as he came. Eric jumped out and strode toward the boat, too. The head counselor’s socks sagged and bagged around his ankles. His sunglasses dangled from a strap around his neck.

  “Are you okay?” Benjamin yelled over the splashing. “Are you hurt?”

  “We’re fine!” Frederick called back.

  Benjamin reached them and leaned over, bracing his hands against his knees.

  “You said you’d be here last night!” Frederick exclaimed, looking up at Benjamin from his seat in the boat. “Where were you?”

  “Yeah, what happened?” Ant Bite demanded. “We got back to camp early in the afternoon. We waited in the main building forever and you never came!”

  “We’ve been looking for you all night!” Benjamin’s blue polo was rumpled. He had purple crescents under his eyes, and his cheeks were covered in patchy stubble. But he looked great to Frederick. “And then Eric got the truck stuck—”

  “I did not!” Eric snapped, walking up. He crossed his arms and looked at Benjamin. “You were the navigator. You should’ve warned me about that bog.”

  Eric adjusted his shorts as he turned to survey the flooded woods.

  Benjamin rolled his eyes upward and then looked back to the boys. “Y’all are in about three inches of water,” he said, looking down at the water. “I’m surprised that boat’ll even float. Why don’t you just get out?”

  Frederick and Ant Bite looked over the edge of the boat and down. Then they looked at each other. They scrambled out of the boat and onto the ground that they could’ve been walking on for the last several hours.

  Ant Bite and Frederick got in the backseat of the truck, and Benjamin drove slowly through the woods, dodging fallen trees.

  “Thanks for finding us,” Frederick said.

  “Yeah,” Ant Bite agreed fervently.

  Eric twisted around to face the two of them. “Men of character don’t leave anyone behind,” he said.

  “Do you know if my parents are okay?” There was a thread of worry in Ant Bite’s voice.

  “Where do they live?” Eric asked.

  “Macon.”

  “That’s really far inland,” the head counselor told him. “They’re fine.”

  Ant Bite didn’t look completely relieved.

  “They’ll be a lot better once they know you’re safe,” Benjamin said. He glanced at Ant Bite and Frederick in the rearview. “Glo wanted to stay and look for you, too,” he assured them. “But she had to drive one of the buses with the campers.” He paused. “I told her I’d find you. Even though they didn’t cover natural disasters or search parties in our training.”

  “You did great, Counselor,” Frederick said.

  In the rearview, Frederick saw Benjamin smile.

  They finally made it to the road, but it was covered with fallen trees, too, and it took them ten minutes to reach a sign that said YOU ARE LEAVING CAMP OMIGOSHEE, WHERE BOYS ARE TRANSFORMED.

  They hadn’t made it much farther when they saw a car that had stopped, blocked by a tree. The car was familiar to Frederick, and just as he was saying, “Hey, that’s my—” his mom, his dad, and Sarah Anne scrambled out of the Corolla, leaving the doors wide open.

  “Frederick!” his dad yelled as they clambered awkwardly over the tree and then ran to the truck.

  Before Frederick knew it, they were opening his door and dragging him out and into their arms, not even letting his feet touch the ground. His mom was sobbing and holding his head. His dad was hugging his legs, and Sarah Anne had his middle.

  “Why didn’t you evacuate?” Frederick asked when they finally put him down.

  “Because you were missing!” Sarah Anne said, and punched him in the arm.

  “Did you think we would leave without our baby?” Mrs. Frederickson rubbed her nose. “And then we g-got,” she hiccuped, “a call from the police that you were here.”

  “We wouldn’t have left the cat behind in that storm,” his dad said. “Much less our kid.”

  Eric, Benjamin, and Ant Bite had gotten out of the truck and were standing a short distance from the Fredericksons. Mr. Frederickson walked over and shook all of their hands, even Ant Bite’s.

  While they were standing there, another truck drove up and stopped behind the car. It was Joel’s dad in his Super-Duty four-wheel drive. And Joel was in the front seat.

  Frederick felt like he’d missed a step going down stairs. It seemed like it’d been weeks since he’d seen Joel. It startled him to realize that Joel looked the same as always. But he looked different, too. Frederick didn’t know how both of those things could be true.

  “You’re all right!” Mr. Mincey bellowed as he jumped out of his truck. He ran over and pulled Frederick into a hug that squished his cheek against Mr. Mincey’s chest. Mr. Mincey was wearing the same blue shorts and flip-flops he’d had on at Joel’s party, and he had a scrubby beard on his jaw. “We headed this way as soon as we heard.” His chest was heaving against Frederick’s face. “I-I’ve been out looking for you ever since the party.”

  “I’m sorry I took your boat,” Frederick said in a muffled voice. “And I’m sorry I lost your motor.”

  Joel had gotten out of his dad’s truck and was walking over slowly. He looked rumpled and tired and a little shy, which wasn’t like Joel at all. He kept glancing at Frederick and then looking away, like he was afraid Frederick was going to yell at him.

  “It’s all my fault!” Mr. Mincey exclaimed, letting go of Frederick and wiping away tears that were streaming down his face.

  Frederick glanced at his dad, expecting to exchange an uncomfortable look with him. But Mr. Frederickson was wiping his own eyes.

  “I should’ve taught all you boys how to drive the boat,” Mr. Mincey said to Frederick. “I’m going to…,” he said. “I’m going to make sure the next time you’re in my boat you can drive it right. I�
��ll make a captain out of you, son.” Mr. Mincey scrubbed his nose.

  After hours of sitting on a metal bench seat in a hurricane, Frederick didn’t want to get back in Mr. Mincey’s boat ever again, but he didn’t say that. He was too tired to string words together.

  Joel was still standing back, but he took a few steps forward. “Hey,” he said to Frederick, still not meeting his eyes. “I’m glad you’re okay.”

  “Yeah,” Frederick said uncertainly. He wasn’t sure why Joel was acting so weird. Normally, he would’ve been telling everyone loudly how Frederick was bound to get lost in a storm because he was a loser, and how if he had been lost in a storm, he wouldn’t have been scared at all.

  “It was a stupid joke,” Joel blurted then, shaking his head. “That thing about giving you the boat and making fun of you because you missed your vacation. I didn’t mean for anything bad to happen. I thought I was being funny.”

  Everybody was looking at Joel, and his shoulders hunched up toward his ears.

  “It wasn’t funny,” Joel said. “I’m sorry.”

  Everyone’s eyes turned to Frederick then.

  For a moment, he didn’t know what to say. Joel had been terrible, and a part of Frederick wanted to tell Joel that yeah, he’d been awful and Frederick was done with him. But then he thought about how he owed the other guys in Group Thirteen an apology and how he really hoped they would tell him that it didn’t matter. He wished they were here right now and that they would tell him that they still liked him, that they were still his friends.

  “It’s okay,” Frederick said. He paused. “You’re my best friend,” he added.

  Joel lifted his head and finally met Frederick’s eyes. He looked startled, his eyebrows climbing. But then a smile broke out over his face.

  Frederick felt himself smile, too. Then he realized that his mom and dad and Sarah Anne and Mr. Mincey, Eric, Benjamin, and Ant Bite were all looking at him and Joel. His neck got hot, and he shifted his feet.

  “This camp,” Mr. Mincey said to Benjamin, breaking the silence. “Is it occupied now? Are there more kids missing? ’Cause I’m willing to keep searching.”

  Benjamin rocked up onto his toes and then back on his heels. “The other boys have been evacuated to Valdosta. We’re going there now to help get them back to their homes. They should be all right.”

  “Of course they’ll be all right!” Eric said, puffing out his chest. “Safety and preparation are the hallmarks of the program here.”

  “Then how did these two boys wind up alone in the middle of a hurricane?” Frederick’s mom demanded, rounding on Eric, who took a step back.

  Mr. Frederickson put a steadying hand on his wife’s shoulder.

  “We need to get going,” Mr. Mincey said, eyeing Mrs. Frederickson warily. “It should’ve taken us an hour to get here, but it took three. Storm’s blocked so many roads.” He eyed the tree across the pavement in front of the Fredericksons’ car. “I had to get my chain saw out twice.”

  Mrs. Frederickson glared at Eric a moment longer, then turned to Frederick. “Let’s go home, baby,” she said.

  Sarah Anne was already walking back to their car. Frederick’s legs were suddenly heavy. He wanted to go home and sleep for a week, but his brain was slowly putting things together and realizing that he was going home, but Ant Bite wasn’t coming with him. He was going somewhere else. His own parents were waiting for him. And Nosebleed, and the Professor, and Specs. How long would it be before he could tell them he was sorry? Or … what if he never got to?

  “Bye,” Ant Bite said, taking a step toward Frederick. He looked like he was going to hug Frederick, but then he held out his hand.

  Frederick had only known Ant Bite for two days, but they’d survived a hurricane together and a lion attack and atomic dodgeball and rope climbing, and he didn’t know what to say, but he was sure that good-bye didn’t cover it.

  He shook Ant Bite’s hand. The other boy squeezed his bitten finger, and he winced.

  “I…,” he started to say. “Thank you for…”

  “Hey,” Ant Bite said. “It’s Anthony.”

  “What?” Frederick said.

  “My name’s Anthony.” Ant Bite shrugged. “And I want you to know—I like you better than the real Dash.”

  Frederick tried to smile. Joel walked up to him and threw his arm around Frederick’s shoulders.

  “Come on, man,” he said, and walked with Frederick to the car.

  Despite Frederick’s protests that he was perfectly fine, his mom actually buckled him into his seat, like he was a toddler. The doors slammed.

  Mr. Mincey steered his roaring truck around, and Frederick’s dad drove behind him.

  Frederick looked back through the rear windshield. Eric was stoically watching them leave, his arms crossed. Ant Bite and Benjamin waved, and then they were so far away that Frederick couldn’t see their faces.

  His last thought, before he fell asleep against the window, was that this was a stupid ending.

  23

  Four Months Later

  Of course, Frederick had been wrong, and that day when he’d said good-bye to Ant Bite wasn’t the end of anything for anybody.

  The counselors at Camp Omigoshee went back to college. Benjamin was spending a semester in Australia studying marsupials. Glo was going to graduate in a couple of months, and in her free time she was training to compete on American Ninja Warrior. Eric had a part-time job making smoothies. Frederick imagined that he wore his sunglasses even while he was blending almond milk and protein powder.

  The state had lots of people cleaning up the camp, and Frederick’s dad told him it would probably be an even nicer camp when they were done with the refurbishments.

  Mr. Mincey had gone online and bought a wet suit and scuba equipment, and he’d dived into the Omigoshee like a large seal. He found his motor on the riverbed and attached a chain to it and dragged it back onto the shore. He didn’t find the anchor, but he bought a new one at Bass Pro and taught Frederick how to securely tie a line to it and tie that line to the boat.

  The people at the Jacksonville Zoo were probably the busiest of all. They had lots of scientists and volunteers helping them search for all the missing animals. Most of them were found and recaptured without a problem. According to the news, one macaw and one animal called a kudu, which was similar to a deer, were missing, but people said they still might turn up.

  And Frederick was busy, too. With help from Sarah Anne, his mom and dad, Raj, and Joel, Frederick had started his own fund-raising campaign.

  * * *

  Four months after Hurricane Hernando flooded a hundred miles of coast and ruined the Fredericksons’ yearly vacation, Frederick found himself, at long last, on a ship in the Caribbean. Music blared. The sun blazed overhead, and there wasn’t a single cloud in the enormous blue sky.

  Frederick padded across the hot deck on bare feet and stepped up to the bar, where Sarah Anne was perched on a stool, sipping Sprite through a straw and chatting at the bartender.

  “… of course, it looks good on college applications,” Sarah Anne was saying, gesturing with her hand as she spoke. “But that’s not why I do it. I do it because I want to be an active and productive member of society.”

  “Another strawberry daiquiri, please,” Frederick told the bartender.

  “The only downside,” Sarah Anne went on, crossing her legs and swinging one sandaled foot, “is that now everyone acts like I’m the ‘fund-raising girl.’ Like that’s all I do. And it’s not. I don’t want to be doing fund-raisers for the rest of my life. I want to be, like, a television host or an advice columnist, because I’m really great at fixing problems. Or maybe I should be a lawyer. Or maybe an actress.”

  Frederick took the drink the bartender slid him. He shifted the paper umbrella out of the way and caught the straw in his mouth as he walked back to his lounge chair.

  “Hey, Frederick!” Nosebleed called from across the pool. He waved him over to where he and several
other boys were having a cannonball contest.

  Frederick lifted his drink at Nosebleed, indicating that he needed to finish it before he got back in the pool. He sat down in a lounge chair beside Ant Bite. Ant Bite had a beach towel wrapped around himself and was reading the girl spy book they’d found at camp. His bare feet were propped up, bouncing in time to the steel drums that were set up by the pool.

  All the boys from Camp Omigoshee were enjoying an all-expenses-paid trip, thanks to some generous donors and fund-raisers, to make up for the fact that their camp had gotten cut short by the hurricane. In Frederick’s opinion, a cruise was better than a transformational disciplinary camp any day. Nothing ever went wrong on cruises.

  Then the ship’s alarm sounded. There were three shattering blasts on the intercom that made Frederick flinch so badly his straw went up his nose.

  Everyone around the pool stopped talking. The drummers quit playing. They looked around, trying to figure out what was happening.

  Then Frederick saw a man in a crisp ship’s uniform hurrying between the lounge chairs. The man stopped right at the end of Frederick’s chair and grabbed a lifeguard’s elbow.

  “There’s a kid overboard,” the man said in a low voice to the lifeguard. “He’s off the back.” Then they both jogged toward the stern of the ship.

  Ant Bite swung his feet to the deck and looked at Frederick. “Do you think…”

  Frederick scrambled off his lounge chair. Ant Bite dropped the book. Nosebleed and the cannonballers climbed, dripping, out of the pool. They thundered to the back of the ship, scattering shuffleboard players and leaving wet footprints on the deck. When they got to the stern, they grabbed the railing and peered out over the dark blue sea stretching to the horizon.

  Behind the ship, bobbing on the waves, was one of the orange-and-white lifeboats that was supposed to be hanging from the side of Deck Three. The boat was loaded with what looked like fifty mangoes and a glistening ice sculpture in the shape of a dolphin. Dashiell Blackwood sat at the helm. A red bandanna was tied around his head, and he was driving the boat toward the horizon.