Mom nods. “Studying, work. You know the drill.” She looks at me.
I clear my throat. “Well, I do actually have news. I, uh, it turns out I’m going to be joining you at Camp Dubois in a few days.”
This time my words hit the floor with an almost audible thud. No one says anything. I clear my throat. “So great, right! We’ll have our Brother Summer after all, Luke! Yes!” I wave a fist.
“What are you talking about?” asks Luke.
“I, uh, applied … They had some last-minute openings … I wrote a really good scholarship essay!” I don’t look Mom in the eye. “I had to fill out some parent forms, Mom, but I’ll show you all the paperwork—”
“You. Did. What.” Mom’s jaw is so tight, I can barely understand what she’s saying, but her tone and facial expression make things pretty clear. “What did you just say to me?”
“Um, I, well.” This is harder than I thought.
Luke is staring at the screen, motionless and stone-faced. In fact, he’s so still that I think the screen is frozen for a second. But then a man whose fade is so tight he must live at the barber’s comes into view.
“Hey, Luke, break’s about to end,” he says. He’s taller than Luke, so he leans down to look into the phone screen and waves at me and Mom. “Oh, is that your family! Hey, fam! He’s doing good!” He pats Luke shoulder and moves away.
“I knew you’d pull something like this,” Luke mutters so low I can barely hear him. “I knew it.”
“What?” I say. “I thought you’d be happy, dynamic duo at DuBois! Hey, that kind of rhymes!”
“You’re talking about alliteration,” he says. “I guess I’m the smart one on that too now.” He shakes his head.
I don’t dare look at Mom. Judging by the steam emanating from her right now, I may not live past this call.
“That night … when you went to Target … I did the online application for Camp DuBois. The uh, parent signature just had to be typed in, and I figured you’d be happy about me taking initiative so, I … I filled it all out. I had to write an essay, but it was short. Hey! Remember when I won that essay contest in fifth grade? Anyway, so I wrote an essay and I made a video and I sent that in too, and I wrote them about how Luke was going to be working there, and …” I trailed off as Luke finally looked up and gave me serious fire eye.
“You put me in the middle of your mess?” He’s looking at me like he doesn’t know who I am.
“You knew about this, Luke?” Mom’s anger might have enough power to lift her out of her chair. At the very least, the look in her eyes might knock me out of mine.
“No!” he shouts. “Mom, I have no idea what is going on right now. And I have to get back to work.” He shakes his head again. “Nice job, bro. You couldn’t just let things go the way they were supposed to for once. Mom, I’ll call you later.” He doesn’t say goodbye to me, and the screen goes black. I turn to Mom.
“It was supposed to be a surprise,” I say quickly. “I thought if I went with Luke to camp, then you wouldn’t have to worry about me. I, uh, got a scholarship and everything. Like how Luke got one to Rowell.”
Mom takes a deep breath. “I need a minute,” she says in a scary-soft voice.
Is a minute all it will take to obliterate me? To huff and puff and blow me off the face of the earth? Is it cold in here all of a sudden? It’s June, but I feel like I want my winter coat. And a blanket.
This is not going how I planned.
After a while, Mom takes a deep breath. “What were you thinking? Why would you do something like this?”
I’d had an answer all planned for this kind of question.
But in my head, the context had been verrrry different. We were supposed to be in the middle of a family celebration right about now, where she’d be talking about my initiative and how proactive I’d been, such a creative thinker, which are words I hear a lot around here on most days.
Right now, though, Mom looks like she’s thinking words that she would never say out loud around us.
“I, um, well. You guys were saying what a great opportunity it was for Luke, and you, um, just two days ago you did say you wished I could go too … so I created an … uh, opportunity …”
“Emmett Franklin Charles.” The way she says it makes my name sound positively criminal.
“But Luke did the same—” She holds up her hand.
“Don’t even try it,” she spits out. “Do not try to compare what your seventeen-year-old brother did to get a job to this … this …”
“Proactive plan?” I suggest.
“You are thirteen years old! You still have to get permission to breathe audibly!”
“You know how my report cards always say I show a wisdom beyond my years? I’m thinking that puts me at a theoretical fifteen.”
“Really?” She scratches her hair and for a split second I can see how tired she really is. Like, bone-tired. Like I made her that way.
“Sorry,” I mutter, looking down. “I’m definitely thirteen.”
I get an earful for another fifteen minutes at full volume and lose my phone and computer privileges for a week before she says she has some studying to do and sends me to bed like I’m five.
I mean, I did this kind of cool thing, this thing she wished for me, all on my own, like independently and maturely, and I’m not even going to get props for that?
I’m not gonna brush my teeth. So there.
***
I have to call Luke three times before he picks up. He’s laid out across his bed on top of his worn navy-blue comforter, with a tablet in his other hand. He doesn’t look into the camera, but I start talking anyway.
“Mom’s really mad,” I say slowly.
He just raises his eyebrows and types on the tablet.
“Huh. Not exactly chill … more like shrill, amirite?”
Still no answer.
“Texting Taliesha?”
No answer. Just typing.
“Maybe if you smooth things over with Mom for me,” I start, but the look he gives me is almost a duplicate of Mom’s and I stop talking. I don’t get it. Why is Camp DuBois good for Luke but not me? I did exactly what Mom’s always talking about, opened a window for myself and climbed through—and everybody’s mad.
“Why’d you keep it a secret?” Luke’s voice is so low I have to practically put the phone inside of my head to hear.
“Well, you—”
“Don’t try it, E,” he says. “Don’t even try it. You knew what you were doing was wrong, that’s why.”
“If you’re going to answer your own questions, then …” I trail off. Then I sigh. “Okay, I mean … I guess I wasn’t sure what Mom would say. I mean, we never went to sleepaway camp before.” We weren’t even allowed to sleep over anyone’s house until Mom had met all the household adults at least three times, and after four supervised hangouts. WeeDee and Billy still think that’s hilarious.
He looks straight at the camera, and it’s like he’s in front of me. “That’s all?”
What does he want from me? “I thought you’d be happy, to be honest. I know I’m not as old as you or whatever but … I’m responsible! And it’s camp! It sounds really good! Does no one in this house want me to have any fun?”
“You ever think about how your fun affects me?” he asks. “You try to put it on me, all, ‘Well, but Luke did this.’” I start to speak, but he holds up a hand. “Did you think about what Mom would do if she thought I put you up to this stupid thing?”
Well, when you put it that way …
“Okay, so … no, I guess I didn’t think about that part,” I whisper.
“Yeah, okay,” he says, rolling his eyes. “Whatever. It’s late. I gotta get up early tomorrow.”
“Are you going to talk to Mom?”
He doesn’t answer, just picks up tablet and starts texting again.
“So … I guess I’ll see you soon, maybe,” I say. “Depending on what Mom says.”
He hangs up.
Well, that went well.
Chapter Nine
Sometimes being the “baby” comes in handy, I’m not gonna lie. After Mom talked to the people at Camp DuBois, Patrick’s mom, Patrick’s dad, Patrick; had endless pots of tea with aunties Carolyn, Frances, and Renée; read every online review of Camp DuBois she could find and then cross-referenced each one; and talked to Patrick’s mom again, she finally decided that I could go to camp.
Basically, she said that going to camp might help me not do things like sneak my way into camp again. Parent logic.
When I told WeeDee and Billy the whole story they were all, “Be careful what you wish for” and started telling me all the camp horror stories they’d left out before. Apparently, there’s more than bad food and your underwear up flagpoles to worry about—there are also giant spiders, brown water, immortal vampire mosquitos, and lightly supervised goons. They introduced me to Camp Crystal Lake. (If you don’t know, be glad. You will never look at a hockey mask the same way again.) I know that Camp DuBois isn’t really that kind of camp; Luke’s been saying all this time that it’s more like a “summer workshop for passionate young artists,” which sounds like something out of a brochure, but I’m a little nervous anyway.
Mom still went full consequences because of my “deceptive practices,” though—I have to take over all Luke’s old chores and do all our jerk neighbor Tyler Day’s yard work while he drinks lemonade and sends pictures of me doing his work to everyone from school. No video games, online games—even magnetic chess was off the table. My phone ban will be temporarily lifted during my time at Camp DuBois, but I can only use the phone to call Mom. So, basically still a ban. Mom manages to add at least one new consequence every day, which doesn’t seem fair, but I know it would be pushing my luck to complain, so I just keep my head down and scrub the bathroom till it shines.
What I hadn’t thought about was getting to camp. It turned out that Mom was not trying to just send me on the train even though that’s exactly what Luke did. She couldn’t take time off from work, so Luke has to come home to bring me back with him. Which … hasn’t made for much conversation between us, he’s continued to ice me out since he got in last night. He grunted at me and then stomped to the kitchen and talked to Mom. I tried to wait up for him, but I fell asleep and dreamed that I got lost trying to find Sesame Street. This morning he was gone—Mom said he’d gone to see Taleisha. We’re supposed to meet him at the train station in a couple of hours, during Mom’s lunch break. None of this has the celebratory air I was going for, but I know it’ll all work out.
Mostly, I’m real glad that Dubois Day has finally arrived. And I think I’ve got some new muscles from of all this work. I mean, I didn’t have old ones, but who was checking? (Me.)
I’m still a little freaked out about Mom being some kind of bachelorette or something while we’re gone, but I’m trying to be chill. It would help if I could talk to Luke about it, but he’s been pretty quiet for the last few days, hanging up fast when I try to join Mom on the phone. Things to do tend to work out for me; Luke paves the way, and the path just smooths out. And I’m ready to ride that train into infinity. I leave tomorrow. What could possibly go wrong?
***
I could get used to this. Luke opted not to sit with me; he’s directly across and staring out the window. I push my seat back a little farther. No one is sitting behind me; the train to New York is almost empty, and I’ve even changed seats a few times, just to see if the view changes (it doesn’t really). Mom had cried outright when we were boarding the train, and I’m not gonna lie, I got a little sniffly myself. I know Luke noticed, but so far all he’s said to me since we waved good-bye has been, “If we have to sit together, I got the window.” Still, he hasn’t glared at me as much since we settled into our seats; I suspect that Mom gave him a “talk” behind my back; she probably told him to ease up on me and do his big brother duty. I take out a deck of cards and lean toward him, and after he stares at them for a minute, he nods. After we play a couple of silent rounds of Spit, he loosens up. He takes out the DuBois brochure and points to a little shed.
“That’s where you’re gonna be living,” he says, smirking. “There’s a special place for trolls.”
“Ha-ha,” I say, and since I’m grateful that he’s talking, I act like it really was funny. I look around. “This is pretty nice, right? The seats are cushy enough to sleep in, I’m about to get a good nap.”
“You know rich people got like full on hotel rooms on the train, right?” he says. “Like that Murder on the Orient Express movie but modern. There’s a whole first-class world going on in the next car. Waiters walking up and down the hall with trays of shrimp and champagne. People get satin sheets and chocolate on their pillows. That’s also how I’ll be living as a counselor at DuBois, by the way.”
“Will the rest of us walk in front of you the whole time, tossing rose petals like Coming to America?” I ask, rolling my eyes. “One, you’re a junior counselor. And I’m not five anymore, Luke. This isn’t like how you used to tell me you could get inside the TV to be on any show you wanted.”
“Yo, that was hilarious,” Luke says. He barks out a laugh. After a brief moment of side-eye, he hugs my shoulder. “You are a piece of work, bro. You don’t even know how lucky you are that this all worked out.”
“Yeah, I know. Thanks, Luke. And I mean, it did work out, right? This is our summer, right?”
“Anyway, I’m just saying. This is only the beginning. I’m on my way to first class all day, every day. Did you see these art studios?” He pulls out the glossy Rowell School catalog for the gazillionth time. I don’t point out that printing out five hundred pages of We Are an Awesome School isn’t the most eco-friendly way to do things. Or that I’d been using the catalog as a step stool to reach the Christmas presents that Mom hid in the back of the cabinet over the stove. Or that I didn’t really want to hear again about how he was going to be a million miles away in September.
“Take that, Ally-Cat,” grumbles Luke. He has a right to be bitter; Principal Ally really did have it out for him and every other Black kid who didn’t have the “gifted and exceptional” seal of approval. She’s pretty much a big reason why he’s not coming back to Heart High for senior year. Well, that and the fact that he got a full scholarship to a fancy school. I know it’s like that long sermon we heard in church one day, what she meant for evil turned out good for Luke, because that’s how he ended up getting the Rowell scholarship. I’m still trying to work out how it’s good for me, though.
“Rowell is my big chance for a fresh start before college,” continues Luke. “No bad memories.”
And no me, remember? “Um, Luke? I know, I … kind of messed up and all, but … I’m glad we’ll be at DuBois together this summer. It’ll be like nothing’s changed. We’ll get to be a team for a little longer.” He rolled his eyes, then grabbed me in a crushing bear hug. “Ow!” I said.
“You’re forgiven, E,” he says. “I get it. I keep forgetting how young you are.”
Okay, he doesn’t have to go there. But I’m glad he’s talking to me, so I keep my mouth shut.
“And I think this experience will be good for you,” he says.
“Why do you and Mom have to talk like it’s Root Vegetable Summer or something? When you were going to Camp DuBois alone it was all fun, fun, fun, now you guys make it sound like … medicine.”
“I just mean that it will be fun and a learning experience for you, little bro. Relax. Not everything is not some Big Moment. Sometimes life is just … life. Change happens.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know,” I say. There is usually never a better time to panic than when someone tells you not to panic.
Things That Could Destroy Me at Camp
• giant spiders
• vampire mosquitos
• HOCKEY MASK-WEARING GOONS
Deep breaths. Luke will be there, that’s the whole point. It’ll be all good.
He looks at me. “I’l
l be working, though, so, you know I can’t really hang out with you.”
“Yeah, but I can help you out and stuff,” I say.
“Just go have fun, little bro,” he says, leaning back and crossing his arms behind his head. “You know what I said before still stands. Make a good summer for yourself, you can still get yourself a girlfriend—hey, and now you’ll have to learn to swim, we learned in training that everyone gets lessons …”
I punch him in the arm. “Yeah, yeah,” I say. “Wait—I thought swimming was optional.”
“Yeah, I guess.” Luke waves his arm and rubs my head like he doesn’t know how much time I spent every night making sure my do-rag was tight. The waves in my hair straight up look like the Caribbean Sea.
“Will you tell them that I don’t swim?” I ask.
“Tell them yourself,” says Luke. “E, I’m glad you’re coming to DuBois, but being here is my job. You’ve got to … make your own experience. I can’t get in your business while I’m working, okay? Seriously.”
“Yeah, yeah. Don’t worry, I got plans of my own.” I mean, I haven’t said anything to anyone, not even Luke, but I’ve been dreaming about some things—sharing s’mores at the campfire with my first-ever girlfriend, winning the camp dance contest like in the movie Step to Me Summer, which we make fun of every time it comes on but still watch the whole thing.
Luke and I spend some time flipping through the catalog pages together; I’m wondering if the kids in the pics were actual campers or just actors paid to look happy, and if there really was a sundae bar in every dorm. But I don’t say anything to disturb the good vibes we have right now. From the looks of things, Camp DuBois isn’t exactly going to be fish sticks and Tater Tots. Still, I’m glad that I buried Boo Boo and Mr. Elefancy (when I was two, I figured that a stuffed elephant wearing pants was fancy) in the bottom of my suitcase. They were my favorite stuffed animals when I was a baby; I only keep them around because I know Mom’s sentimental about them.
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