How to Survive Summer Camp (5 page)

‘You’re going the wrong way. Downstairs! Go on, go and get your breakfast. Dear oh dear, you kids.’

I hated being called a kid but I wasn’t up to any more arguments. I trailed downstairs and found the dining room. I stood hovering in the doorway. I knew there were only about forty children staying at Evergreen but there seemed to be at least four hundred chattering and chomping away. They were sitting at benches around four big tables. One had a lime
green tablecloth, one olive, one jade, and one emerald. The cloths were all copiously egg-stained already.

I saw Marzipan waving at me and I ran over to her and sat down beside her with the rest of the Emerald girls. The Emerald boys were opposite. There were only four of them. Three looked about my age, but one was so little he didn’t even look old enough to feed himself. Scrambled egg dripped up his plump little arms to his elbows.

‘I think I’d better help you,’ said Karen.

The little boy shook his head vigorously.

‘Don’t need help,’ he said, and continued spooning haphazardly.

Karen shrugged and helped the little girl with the donkey instead, spreading her toast and cutting it into strips. The little girl sucked at a slither of toast as if it was an iced lolly.

Marzipan had saved me a plate of scrambled eggs, two slices of toast, and a cup of tea. It was kind of her but I wasn’t sure I was grateful. The scrambled egg was lukewarm and had set solidly, like a primrose jelly. I tried a mouthful and pulled a disgusted face.

‘Are you leaving those eggs?’ said the boy sitting opposite me. ‘Then give us your dregs.’

He was large. Much larger than Marzipan. He slurped up my scrambled eggs in no time.

‘Do you really like them?’ I asked, amazed.

‘Of course not. This food is absolute pigswill,’ he said cheerfully. ‘But I’m hungry, aren’t I? Brill!’

‘Here, do you want the rest of mine, Fatty?’ said Karen, passing her plate.

‘Who are you calling Fatty, Batty?’ said the fat boy, reaching over the table and pretending to punch her. ‘See this hand here? Call me that again and I’ll shove it straight through your ear.’

‘You touch me and I’ll tell,’ said Karen.

‘Tell, smell. Pass your plate, I can’t wait. My name’s James. I’m a poet and I know it. You think you’re it and you make me spit.’

I nudged Marzipan and we both giggled. Karen passed her plate without saying another word. She looked to Louise for support. But Louise wasn’t taking any notice of her. She was nibbling daintily at a toast crust, tossing her lovely long hair about and smiling mysteriously. She was being watched by the oldest Emerald boy. He was tall and good looking although his fair hair was so tightly curled it looked as if his mum had given him a home perm. He couldn’t take his eyes off Louise, more fool him.

There was one more boy at the table. He had odd sticking up hair almost as short as mine. He was eating his scrambled eggs and reading an old
Beano
comic.

‘Can I have a look at that
Beano
after you?’ Karen asked.

He ignored her. He didn’t seem to be taking any notice of anyone but the Bash Street Kids, but when the little girl with the donkey discarded her sodden strip of toast and slipped down her chair until only her forehead was visible above the
table he felt in his pocket and brought out a rather dusty sugar lump. He didn’t say anything but he put it beside the donkey’s mouth. The little girl didn’t say anything either but she made the donkey nibble at the sugar lump and when she thought no one was looking she ate it herself.

The little boy with the scrambled egg up to his elbows looked even more of a baby but he could obviously look after himself. Karen was asking everyone their name. The boy staring so stupidly at Louise was called Richard. The boy with the
Beano
was called Alan.

‘And what’s your name, little boy?’ Karen asked.

‘Bilbo,’ said the little boy, licking toast crumbs from his mouth.

‘Billy?’ Karen repeated uncertainly.

‘
Bilbo
,’ he shouted. ‘Wash your ears out.’

‘You can’t be called Bilbo. That’s even dafter than Marzipan,’ said Karen.

‘It’s not daft. It’s in a book,’ said the little boy.

‘What book?’

‘I don’t know. It’s got elves and wizards and things. My dad reads me bits.’

‘More flipping fairy stories. Sounds your sort of rubbish, Baldy.’

‘It’s not rubbish at all,’ I said triumphantly. ‘He’s talking about a book called
The
Hobbit
and it’s a smashing book, so there. We had it read to us at school. There’s a Bilbo in that.’

‘Oh yes, I’ve read that book too,’ said Louise.

‘See,’ I said to Karen.

Then Miss Hamer-Cotton came into the dining room and I stopped feeling so cocky. Had she really meant it about that team point? I slid down a bit on the bench so that she wouldn’t notice me.

She clapped her hands, smiling, her teeth as white and even as the pearls round her neck. I wished she was wearing her silly tracksuit. She looked so much more bossy and frightening in her skirt and blouse and high heels.

‘Good morning, everyone,’ she said jauntily. She didn’t
sound cross. ‘How are we all this morning, mm? Have you seen the sun shining? It’s an absolutely super day. Now, I want everyone down at the pool at ten o’clock. Get into your swimming things first, of course. There are a few spare costumes in the games room just in case anyone has come without swimming gear.’ She looked in my direction. ‘Then after lunch there’ll be a quiet time for writing letters and making out your activity timetables. And at three o’clock there’s our hike to Hampton Hill. I hope you’re all looking forward to it?’

One or two goody-goodies murmured obediently. I wiggled my eyebrows at Marzipan. Miss Hamer-Cotton noticed and I quickly tried to smooth them back into place.

‘Now, I want you to carry your crocks through to the kitchen and wipe down your tables and sweep up any little messy bits on the floor. We must all do our best to help the staff, mustn’t we? At the end of the week I shall give a team point to the tidiest table. Which reminds me …’ Her sunny smile clouded. It wasn’t going to be all right after all. ‘Someone has lost a team point already. Stella Stebbings.’

Everyone peered round like loonies. I pretended to peer too so they didn’t all know it was me, but it was no use.

‘Stand up, Stella,’ she commanded.

So I had to. Everyone stared at me. I went horribly hot. I knew I was going red.

‘Yes, no wonder you’re blushing. Fancy losing a team point already! And for rude behaviour too. It’s not very fair on the
other Emeralds, is it? So if I were you, Stella, I’d try hard to be very good indeed today. You want to win that team point back again as soon as possible, don’t you?’

I wanted to yell no, but I wasn’t that stupid. I just stood there until she swept out of the room, then I sat down on the bench with a bump. Louise stood up. She came over to me and thumped me hard in the back.

‘You pig!’ she said furiously. ‘I’m going to get you for that.’

I
 stood at the poolside in my borrowed swimming costume. It was an awful white puckered object with silly straps that tied at the back of the neck. I was scared the boys might try to undo them. But I was far more scared of the swimming pool.

I’d thought it would be one of those turquoise rectangles, but it was worse. It was a real pool, like a big pond. The water was as brown and bubbly as beer and weed trailed all over the place in long green strands.

‘What are all them snakey things?’ Janie asked suspiciously. She clutched the child with the donkey. ‘We’re not going in there, are we? We don’t want snakey things nibbling our toes.’

‘How can we have races in this squitty little pond? It’s just a kiddies’ paddling pool,’ said Louise, scornfully.

‘Yes, and it looks dirty to me,’ said Karen. ‘They could at least have a proper swimming pool with clean blue water. This place is a real dump.’

‘Don’t let’s go in swimming then,’ I said quickly. ‘You’re right, Karen, it is dirty. Look at the colour. Maybe there aren’t

any sewers at Evergreen. I think they just empty all the loos into the pool.’

‘Yuck! Shut up, Baldy. You are disgusting,’ said Karen. She looked at Louise. ‘She is joking, isn’t she?’

‘She’s scared,’ said Louise hatefully. ‘She just wants to get out of swimming. She wants to make trouble and then the Emeralds will lose another team point. Don’t let’s take any notice of her. She’s just a snivelling little coward. In fact I vote we all stop talking to her altogether.’

I felt sick but I stuck my chin in the air.

‘Goodie goodie,’ I said. ‘I’m fed up with your snobby whining drivel anyway.’

I hoped I sounded as if I didn’t care. Some of the boys laughed and I was almost sure they were laughing at Louise and not me, so I felt a bit better. But then Uncle Ron finished with all the Jades.

‘Come on then, Emeralds. Your turn next. Let’s be having you. Into the pool—and use the steps, OK?’

Alan wasn’t listening. He leapt up into the air like Superman. He tucked himself into a ball, whizzed round, and then shot out straight again and entered the pool with scarcely a ripple. We all stared at him when he surfaced, shaking the water out of his hair. Even Louise looked impressed. But Uncle Ron was furious.

‘I told you to use the steps, didn’t you hear me?’

‘Sorry,’ said Alan, smiling. ‘I always dive in. Force of habit. I just forgot.’

‘Nonsense! You just wanted to show-off,’ Uncle Ron thundered. ‘Nobody but a fool dives into a strange pool like that. What if it was only a couple of feet deep? You’d have broken your neck, lad.’

‘I saw the other kids swimming,’ Alan argued, red in the face. ‘I knew how deep it was.’

‘Watch me!
Watch!
’ little Bilbo shouted from the steps.

He tried to copy Alan, leaping like a little pink frog. He didn’t have time to tuck up but he did manage to bend forward. He hit the water with such a splatter that we were all soaked. Uncle Ron threw himself after him but Bilbo bobbed up again immediately.

‘I did it, didn’t I?’ he spluttered. ‘I dived just like Alan. Did you see? Wasn’t I clever? I dived, didn’t I, I dived.’

‘See what I mean?’ Uncle Ron roared at Alan, picking Bilbo up and struggling with him to the shallows by the steps. ‘Think you’re so clever, don’t you? But these little kids will follow your fat-headed example and drown themselves.’

‘I won’t drown. I can swim. Nearly,’ said Bilbo. ‘And I can dive now too, can’t I? Did you see me dive? Wow, I can dive! I can dive just as good as you, can’t I, Alan?’

Alan didn’t reply. He was even redder. I felt all squirmy and sorry for him. Uncle Ron was smirking. I hated him, even though I knew he was right.

‘Come on, you ladies at the edge of the pool. Get in the water and get your pretty cossies wet,’ said Uncle Ron. He blew his nose noisily in the water with his hand. ‘Come
on
.
All of you, in the pool and stand in line. Then one by one swim up to the first marker. Those of you who are good swimmers go as far as the second marker. But none of you go any further, even if you’ve been entered in the next Olympics. Understood, laddie?’