Cool Campers (2 page)

“Yeah, so what?” I said.

“Well, no one really knows who
we
are at camp either,” Graham said, rubbing his chin as he thought. “I say this year
we
become the Mr. Populars at camp.”

“You're right,” I said. “That's the best thing about camp. You can be anyone you want to be. It doesn't matter how dorky you are in real life.” We both smiled.

“Who cares about the stupid party?” Graham said. “Tomorrow we'll be the most popular kids at Camp Grizzly. And who knows? Maybe the coolness will stick when we come home.”

We high-fived. This was one of Graham's best ideas yet.

THAT NIGHT MY
mom and I packed all of my stuff. She wrote my name on the tag of my underwear with a black marker. I have no idea why she does that. I mean, of all the pieces of clothing that you could lose, why are moms so worried about underwear? I've lost a lot of jackets and sweatshirts because I take them off when I'm hot and then I forget about them. But how could you ever lose your underwear?

Everything fit into one big blue duffle bag. I was also bringing my backpack from school. It was packed with some snacks and a drink.

I could hardly sleep. I felt like my entire life was going to change the next day. When Tuesday morning finally came, I jumped out of bed, put on my shorts and T-shirt, and ran into the kitchen. No matter what time I got up, my mom always seemed to be in the kitchen making breakfast.

“Good morning, sweetie,” she said. “Just in time.” She set a plate piled high with French toast in the center of the table. I sat down in my usual spot and stuck my fork in the pile, pulling off about half of the toast.

Just then Dad walked in. He gave me a gentle pat on the head with the newspaper. “Whoa, slow down, big fella. Save some for your old man.”

“Oh, let him eat,” Mom said. “Who knows what they'll be feeding him at camp.”

Dad grabbed a piece of French toast from my plate and put it on his. “He'll be fine. I'm sure they'll be eating bear steaks, squirrel stew, and other good camp food.”

A terrible image of Graham and me sitting around the campfire roasting a squirrel on a stick filled my mind. I suddenly thought maybe I should eat as much as I could before leaving.

After breakfast Dad gave me a hug and told me to be good. He also pulled out his wallet and gave me a five-dollar bill. “Here's something extra for a treat,” he said. Then he left for work.

“Go tell your sister good-bye,” Mom ordered. I ran up the stairs. Geri was still asleep, and I really didn't want to wake her up. She's not too pleasant in the morning. But I took a deep breath and opened the door.

“Um . . . good-bye, Geri. I'm leaving for camp.” Without waiting for her to answer, I turned to leave. But Mom had come up the stairs and was standing right behind me.

“Geri, wake up and tell your brother good-bye.” Mom carefully put her hand on my sister's shoulder and gave it a little nudge. Then we both stepped back quickly. Waking Geri up is like playing with a bomb. If you don't do it just right, she'll explode.

“Go away!” She rolled over and pulled her pillow over her head.

“You're not going to see Raymond until Saturday. Don't you want to say good-bye?” Mom said. Geri let out an awful groan and sat up. Her hair was in a big snarly mess. I took another step back.

“Fine!” she said, putting on her biggest fake smile. “Good-bye, Raymond. I will miss you so much. What will I ever do without you?” Then she collapsed back onto her bed and pulled the covers over her head.

“See, she's going to miss you,” Mom said with a smile. I wasn't too sure about that.

We loaded my bag into the car and headed over to Graham's house. We pulled into his driveway and honked. My mom got out and chatted with his mom while we put his bag in the trunk with mine.

“This is going to be so awesome!” Graham said. “You should see how much candy I brought.”

“Cool, I've got a bunch too. Hey, what's that smell?” I sniffed around closer to Graham.

“It's probably either the sunscreen or the bug spray, or maybe a combination of the two,” Graham said. “My mom covered me in both. She said the sun is stronger in the mountains and the mosquitoes are everywhere.”

I plugged my nose. “I think the smell will scare away all of the mosquitoes.” The sunscreen was probably a good idea. Graham has a million freckles, and when he gets sunburn they turn green. I think it's cool, but he doesn't like it. We climbed into the backseat, and then we were officially on our way to camp.

“I've been thinking about the coolness situation,” I said. “Last year, part of Matt's coolness was the cub pack he was in. Most of the kids in his group were pretty cool. Plus, his leader was the best. So whatever happens, we need to get into the best group.”

“Yeah, you're right,” Graham said. “But the problem is they just assign you to your group. We can't do anything about it. What if you and I don't even get in the same group?” He was right. I guess we would just have to hope for the best. We tried to think of some other things we could do to be really cool, but we couldn't think of much.

“I know,” Graham said. “We need to say funny things. I don't know how Matt got so funny, but he was a crazy man at camp.”

I agreed. “Okay, what should we say that's funny?” We thought for a while but couldn't come up with anything.

Graham shrugged his shoulders. “I'm sure we will think of funny things when we need to.” I hoped he was right.

The rest of the ride up we played every car ride game we could think of. You know, like the license plate game where you try to find the most different states, or the alphabet game where you try to find every letter from
A
to
Z
on billboards and signs. And finally, we played ninety-nine bottles of pop on the wall. My mom made us stop after we counted down to forty-seven bottles. She said it was a fun song, but it was driving her crazy. I could tell from her voice that she meant it. But I didn't mind, because just as we stopped singing we passed a sign that read CAMP GRIZZLY NEXT RIGHT.

We turned under a giant arch made of logs. On the side of the road there was a big grizzly bear carved out of wood, and it was holding a sign that read CAMP GRIZZLY STRAIGHT AHEAD. Graham and I bounced up and down in our seats.

“We're here! We're here!” we shouted together.

“There's the lake.” Graham pointed.

“Wow, it looks even bigger than last year!” I said. “And there's Camp Wildflower way over there.” Camp Wildflower was the girls' camp. Heidi, Diane, and a bunch of girls from our school go there every summer.

We pulled into the dusty parking lot, where some friendly camp people directed us to a free space. One thing I like about camp is that everyone is always so happy to be there.

Mom walked us up to the lodge to check in. A guy in a yellow Camp Grizzly T-shirt was sitting at a table. Mom told him who we were, and he thumbed down a list and put a check mark by each of our names. Then he gave us name tags, a map, and a list of rules. He also handed us each a card with our name and cabin number on it.

“Sweet, we're both in cabin five!” I high-fived Graham.

The guy told us to take our things to the cabin and then go to the mess hall for lunch when we heard someone ring the big gong in the middle of camp. After lunch, we had to be back at the lodge at two o'clock for the opening ceremonies.

“Say something funny,” Graham whispered to me. I tried, but wasn't feeling very funny.

“Aye aye, captain,” Graham said, saluting the camp guy and squinting one eye like a pirate.

He gave Graham an odd look. “Um, okay.”

Graham turned to me and gave me a thumbs-up sign. The whole pirate saluting thing must have been Graham's joke.

“Should we go find your cabin?” Mom asked.

“We can find it on our own,” I said. I didn't think walking around camp with Mom would look too cool. “I think girls and moms aren't allowed. I'll see you on Saturday.” I gave her a quick hug.

“Not so fast, sweetie.” She pulled me in and gave me a humongous hug. Not only that, but she gave me a kiss on the forehead.

“Have fun, and be extra careful,” she said.

“I will.” She had already told me to be careful like twelve times that day.

“And don't lose your underwear. I wrote your name in—”

“Shh!” I interrupted. “I know, I know. My name's on the tag,” I whispered. Graham was giggling.

My mom finally figured out that she was embarrassing me. She gave me one last hug. “I'll see you bright and early on Saturday morning. Have fun! I love you,” she said.

“Me too,” I said quickly.

“Me too what?” she asked. I knew she'd understood what I meant. Why can't she just know that I love her even when I just say “me too”? I mean, she's my mom. Of course I love her. It's like the law.

“I love you too,” I said. She grinned and walked away. Finally, Graham and I lugged our bags to cabin five. There was camp staff all along the path to show us where to go. The last person pointed to our cabin. It was made of big logs. Three wooden steps led to a small porch and an old, scratched-up wooden door with a number five nailed to it.

“Now remember, we need to be funny,” Graham said.

“Right, I'll try.”

Graham pushed the door open. “Ah, home sweet home.”

“Don't you mean ‘cabin sweet cabin'?” I said, practicing at being funny.

Inside, we were met by a loud, “Shhh.” It came from a small kid by the window. He was even smaller than Graham, and he was hovering over a jar. There was another jar nearby.

We dropped our bags and went over.

“Hey, what's in the jars?” Graham said, reaching for one of them.

The kid shielded the jars from Graham with his body. “Shhh,” he repeated.

“Sorry,” Graham whispered. I stretched my neck around the kid to get a glimpse.

“I think he's about to make a cocoon,” the kid said.

I stretched my neck more but still couldn't see. “Who's making a cocoon?”

The kid huddled around his jars until he finally decided we were no longer threats. Then he slowly stepped back to let us see. “Jeremiah,” he said.

“Who's Jeremiah?” Graham asked. He slowly stuck his face up to the jar. “Hey, it's a caterpillar.”

I put my face up next to Graham's. “Jeremiah's a caterpillar?” Graham and I looked at each other. “That's a pretty big name for a bug.” I chuckled, trying to be funny.

The kid looked a little offended. “Hey, caterpillars are people too. Everyone deserves a name.”

“Sorry,” I said. “I didn't mean that he didn't deserve a . . . hey, did you say that caterpillars are people?”

“Of course. He's alive, isn't he?” he shot back. He was pretty feisty for a little guy. As I stood there trying to figure out how bugs are people, Graham piped in.

“By the way, I'm Graham,” he said, pointing to his name tag.

The kid reached out to shake Graham's hand. His name tag said ANDY. “I'm Andy, but everyone calls me BB, for Bug Boy. In case you haven't noticed, I like bugs.” I introduced myself too. BB told us that he liked to find and keep bugs in his room at home. His mom had made him let them all go before he came to camp so she wouldn't have to take care of them. So he brought some of his empty jars to find bugs here. He'd found the caterpillar on a leaf right outside of our cabin.

I looked around the room. There was a set of bunk beds on the wall by the window and another against the opposite wall. I could see that BB had already claimed the lower bunk bed by the window.

“Do you want the top bunk or the bottom?” Graham asked. Since I got stuck with the bottom last year, I thought I'd take the top. Unfortunately, without waiting for my answer, Graham climbed up to the top and made himself at home.

“I guess I'll take the bottom,” I sighed. I could have probably taken the other top bunk, but I still didn't know BB very well, and I thought I'd better stay on Graham's side of the room.

Just then the door opened and a huge figure walked in. The light from outside made it hard to see his face. I thought he must have been one of the camp directors or some other adult.

“Hello, fellow cabinmates,” said the large shadow in a jolly voice. As the door closed and the outside light dimmed, his face came into full view. He wasn't a man at all. He was just the biggest kid I had ever seen. Not only was he tall but he was big all over. His legs looked like they were as thick as my whole body. BB, Graham, and I stared in amazement.