Cool Campers (5 page)

All the Toad Claws ran into their cabins to get into their swimming trunks. I dug through my duffle bag but couldn't find my trunks.

“Hey, where are we supposed to change?” Graham said. “I'm not changing in front of you guys, that's for sure.”

BB looked around the room. “Yeah, me neither. I'm going to the bathroom to change.” The cabins didn't have a bathroom, so all of the campers shared a big bathroom next to the lodge. That's where the showers were too.

“Wait for me,” I said. “I just need to find my suit.”

Tiny had his entire bag dumped out in a pile on the floor. “Me too!”

Good idea
, I thought. I dumped out my duffle bag as well and searched through the pile. Finally, Tiny and I both held up our trunks and exclaimed, “Found them!”

“It's about time,” Graham said. “Let's go.”

But instead of moving toward the door, Tiny stood and climbed to his top bunk. “I just need to grab my nose plug. I think I left it up here.”

“Oh, man,” Graham huffed. “We're never going to get out of here.”

“Here it is. Let's go!” Tiny said. Then, before I could move, Tiny came flying off of the top bunk and landed right on my foot.

“Yeow!” I screamed. I fell to the floor and grabbed my foot.

Tiny bent down and held his hand out to help me up.

“Sorry, Raymond,” he said. “Are you okay?”

I wanted to say, “Of course I'm not okay—you just landed on me,” but I knew it wasn't his fault. He probably couldn't see my foot from up there.

“Yeah, I'm fine.” I grabbed his hand and tried to stand up. The pain was awful. I hobbled around the room a bit, trying to “walk it off,” as my baseball coach always said when someone got hit by a ball. Once some kid accidentally let go of the bat after he swung, and it hit our friend Carlos in the leg. He fell down and started to cry. I thought he should have gone to the doctor, but Coach just told him to “walk it off.”

I tried to walk this off, but I could barely walk at all.

“Too bad you're not a baby spider,” BB said, pushing his glasses higher onto his nose. “They grow new legs if one gets smashed or pulled off.” I looked at BB and thought that I was really happy I wasn't a baby spider.

Tiny felt so bad that he even offered to give me a piggyback ride to the lake. It didn't seem like a bad idea. But after a minute or two, he got really out of breath, so Graham and I slowly walked the rest of the way while the others went ahead.

By the time we got down to the dock, my foot was feeling better. Tiny had just finished his swim test, and the lifeguard signaled for BB to jump in.

“Whoa, look at him go. BB's like a fish,” I said. That kid could really swim. He finished his laps in no time at all.

Graham handed me his glasses. It was his turn. He jumped in and screamed, “It's freezing!” He swam much slower than BB, but finished just fine. After he got out, the lifeguard checked Graham's name off on a pad of paper and then pointed his pen at me.

“All right, you're up. Remember, the first lap is a forward crawl, and then you can swim the other two laps using any stroke.”

Graham gave me a pat on the shoulder. “Good luck. It's a little chilly in there.” I wasn't too nervous. I took swimming lessons when I was in first grade, and I was one of the best swimmers in my class.

“Cannonball!” I jumped in and splashed everyone. Graham was right, it was freezing. And each time I kicked, my foot would hurt. I stopped for a moment to rest my foot after my first lap.

“Are you okay in there?” the lifeguard asked. “Do you need to stop?”

“No, I'm all right.” I started again, but with every kick it hurt even more. I took one more quick break and then finished and pulled myself out. The lifeguard called me over. He told me that he couldn't check me off because I stopped twice.

“What? I didn't stop because I couldn't make it. I stopped because my foot hurt. I'll bet I could swim ten laps if my toes weren't smashed. I'm probably the best swimmer in my patrol!”

“I'm sorry,” he said. “It's for your own safety. If your foot feels better you can try again tomorrow. Until then you can still play in the lake. You just have to stay in that area over there.” He pointed to a small little roped-off place by the shore.

“Oh man. This stinks,” I said.

Graham heard the whole thing. “At least you can still go into the water. Let's go check it out.” We walked over to the roped-off area.

“Yeah, it's not so bad,” I said. “Last one in is a rotten Toad Claw!” I ran over and jumped in. Unfortunately, instead of making a huge cannonball splash, I hit the bottom. Not only did my foot hurt now, but my bottom was bruised. I stood up, and the water was only a little higher than my knees. Graham had been running behind me, but after seeing me crash, he came to a screeching halt and waded through the water until he was at my side. The water reached a little higher on him, but not much.

“What's this all about?” he said. “You can't swim in here.”

“I know. Why would they even have this shallow place?” We tried to think of something fun we could do there. We tried jumping up and down, but that wasn't fun at all. We tried sitting down, but that was like sitting in a big bathtub. Finally, we just got out and joined Toad and the rest of our group for the walk back to our cabin.

“OKAY, TOAD CLAWS!
It's almost everyone's favorite time of day: dinner!” Toad announced. “We have about thirty minutes if any of you want to shower off that lake water before you eat. Otherwise, you can have free time in your cabin.”

I definitely wanted a shower. I felt like I had a bunch of dirt in my swimming trunks from my cannonball into the shallow water. Graham, Tiny, BB, and I all decided to shower. The rest of the guys thought they were clean enough already.

When we got to the showers a bunch of kids were drying off and getting dressed. “Hey, these are the
boys'
showers,” David said as we walked in. “No girls allowed.” They all laughed.

“How come you're here then?” BB snapped back. He and Graham gave each other a high five. I shook my head, wondering why we always had to run into David.

“Just wait until the Olympics. Then you'll see who the real men are,” David sneered.

“We'll see, all right,” Graham said.

We set our clothes down on a bench and each took a shower stall. Tiny started singing one of the camp songs we had learned about a little green frog. Pretty soon we all joined in. After a couple more songs Tiny, BB, and I got out and dressed. Graham was still enjoying the hot shower after being in the cold lake.

“Come on, man,” I told him.

“Just go ahead without me. I'll be there in a few minutes,” he replied.

“Okay, we'll wait for you at the cabin.” Graham just kept singing. BB and I started running back to the cabin. I thought Tiny was right behind us, but when I turned around, he was still near the showers walking really slowly.

“Hey, are you all right?” I called back to him. We stopped and waited for him to catch up.

“I don't know. I just feel a little uncomfortable,” Tiny said. He had a sick look on his face.

“What do you mean?” I asked. He stood there for a moment trying to find the words to describe how he was feeling.

“It's probably nothing,” he finally said. We walked back to the cabin. Tiny tried to sit down on BB's bunk, but it looked like he was having a hard time.

“What's wrong with you, Tiny?” BB asked.

“You didn't do a cannonball in the shallow part of the lake too, did you?” I said.

“No, it's just that—”

Just then Graham came busting through the cabin door. “Do I look smaller than I did this morning?” he interrupted.

“What are you talking about?” BB asked.

“Well, either my mom bought me some huge . . . um . . . clothes by mistake, or I have suddenly gotten puny.”

I looked at Graham. “You don't look any punier than normal.”

“That's so weird,” Tiny said. “I feel the total opposite—like I got even bigger.”

“You guys look the same to me,” BB said.

“It just feels like my”—Tiny got quiet and whispered—“like my underwear is suddenly really small.”

We stood there for a few moments trying to figure it out. Then BB snapped his fingers and adjusted his big glasses. He looked like a scientist who had just made a new discovery.

“You guys haven't gotten bigger or smaller. You're probably just wearing each other's—”

Then it hit us all at the same time. “Underwear!” we all shouted. “Ooh, gross!”

“No way!” Graham said. “I'm sure I didn't put on your underwear.”

“Me neither!” Tiny cried.

Then Graham had an idea. “My mom wrote my name on mine. Check your tag.”

Tiny could barely move. “They're so tight I don't think I can stretch them to see. But check yours. My mom did the same thing.”

Graham pulled the back of the underwear around to the front without even stretching it. “It says TINY,” Graham read in a horrified voice. “Oh gross, I'm wearing your underwear!”

Tiny grabbed a new pair of underpants from his bag and ran toward the door. “I'll meet you guys at the mess hall,” he called out. He couldn't run very well in Graham's tight underwear. He looked like an enormous penguin trying to jog.

“Me too,” Graham yelled, following Tiny. The back of his underwear where he had pulled it around was hanging out of his pants.

BB and I stood there laughing our heads off. Then at the same time we both looked at each other and stopped laughing. We must have had the same thought, because we both reached for the back of our underwear and twisted our necks around. We let out sighs of relief as we read our own names.

Graham and Tiny made it to the dining hall just as dinner started. They looked happier and much more comfortable. Dinner was spaghetti, applesauce, and salad. On the way to our table we passed by David and his patrol.

“Hey, it's the Geek Patrol,” David called out. The rest of his table laughed. David had always been mean to me and Graham, but I didn't think his whole table would join in. I looked at Tiny, BB, and Graham. I wondered if we did seem a little geeky. I mean, even though Tiny was a big guy, he didn't look scary. Some kids look huge and tough. Tiny just looked huge and happy. You could tell just from looking at him that he would never hurt a fly. Then there was BB and his bugs, and Graham with his messy, curly red hair and his crooked glasses. I looked down at my clothes, which were hand-me-downs from my cousin Norman. I hated to admit it, but maybe we did look like geeks.

“How are those underpants fitting?” David yelled out. His entire table busted up.

“That was you?” Graham exploded.

“What's the matter?” David smirked. “Can't you read your own name on the tag?” I wanted to go tell Toad, who was in the front of the room talking to Fuzzy. But there was one thing I knew for sure: tattlers were
never
popular or cool. If we were going to be popular, we would have to try something else. Finally, we made our way to our table. Fortunately, it was far away from David's.

“This is going to be tougher than I thought,” Graham said. “How can we convince everyone we're really cool when David's announcing that we're geeks?”

“I was just thinking the same thing. I can't believe that he switched your underwear. He must have done it when we were showering,” I said. “What I wouldn't give to really get that guy.”

“Yeah, me too,” Graham agreed.

“Me three,” Tiny said. Graham and I both looked at him. It seemed like such an un-Tiny thing to say. Tiny was usually so happy.

“Hey, nobody messes with my underpants,” Tiny said.

“You know what? You're right,” Graham announced. “Two can play that game. If he wants to pull pranks on us, he had better be prepared to get some pranks pulled on him too.”

“Count me in,” BB added. He adjusted his glasses. “I always stand by my bugs and my friends.”

“We need to think of something good,” Graham said, rubbing his hands together.

As we sat there planning our attack, there was a commotion at the table next to ours. A kid was standing on his seat to make an announcement.

“And now the moment you've all been waiting for! The Amazing Mark Herron will eat whatever we mix on his tray. Gather around, Grizzlies.”

We got up and squeezed into the crowd that had already formed. A kid who must have been the Amazing Mark Herron was sitting at the table with a tray in front of him. He wore a Hawaiian shirt and a necklace made of what looked like little seashells.