Love and Pollywogs from Camp Calamity (16 page)

I
was headed back to my cabin to get ready for dinner when I ran into Frank. I hadn’t had a chance to talk to him once since camp started. He was very busy with the boys, who were a lot more trouble than the girls. Well, except for today.

“Hey, Ef!” he said. “Your lips are nearly blue. Can I buy you a cup of hot chocolate over at Totem Village?”

“Yes, please!” I pulled my towel around me tighter. It was very shady in some places at Camp Wickitawa, with all the trees. It made me think that they’d probably have to cut a lot of them down for the water park. These were the very same trees that had stood here when my mom was here as a kid. I sighed. It just didn’t seem right.

“Everything okay?” Frank asked.

“Yeah, I was just thinking about Camp Wickitawa if it goes belly-up like I heard it might. A lot of people are going to be very sad. What will they do with all of Ms. Hawkins’s animals? Most of them can’t go back and be wild. I hope she has a very big backyard at her house!”

“Would be a shame,” he said. “This is such a beautiful piece of earth. It’s so restful. Well, not that I’m getting much rest,” he added with a smile, “but for city kids particularly. It’s such a great opportunity.”

“And what about Chica and Mr. Jimenez? This is their home! Where will they go? Have you seen their cabin yet?”

“I’ve just seen the outside. He’s very talented. I love all his flower boxes. He made every single one of them.”

“Frank, you have to see the inside. It’s not just Mr. Jimenez that’s talented!”

“I heard from Sister that you volunteered to teach Chica to swim. That’s really great of you.”

“You won’t say anything to my mom about it, will you? I mean, she’s on retreat right now and you shouldn’t bother her anyway.” I was afraid she might tell him that it came as a surprise to her since I couldn’t even swim myself. Maxey would keep her piehole shut since now I had the goods on her.

“Okay,” he said.

“It’s just that I’ll tell her myself after camp.”

“You got it, Ef. Whipped cream?”

“You bet!”

We found a bench in a sunny spot, took our cups, and sat down. The first sip scalded all the way down. I felt my toes uncurl from the cold. Is there anything better than hot cocoa with an avalanche of whipped cream on top?

“You talked to your mom, then?” he asked.

“Yeah,” I admitted. “Sister let me call her.”

“Ahhh,” he said, taking a careful sip. “Did you tell her about your altitude sickness?”

Sister was such a blabbermouth! She was supposed to keep that private. I guess she thought telling a priest didn’t count.

“Yes, but Mom thought I was probably just homesick, but that’s not it!”

“You feeling any better? Getting used to the altitude yet?”

I shrugged. “It comes and goes. Cricket told me if you stay busy and try not to think about it, it goes away. I hope so. It feels awful.”

“Sounds like excellent advice,” he said. “Other than feeling a bit out of sorts, how are things going for you?”

I stared down into my cup. “You probably heard about Sister’s phone,” I said.

“I did.”

“Ms. Marshall hasn’t told me yet what my punishment will be. Do you know what it is?”

“I don’t, but she’s pretty fair. So, why did you do it?”

I lifted my shoulders and dropped them. I hated lying to Frank, but I was in too deep already. “I dunno. Guess I thought it would be funny.”

“That’s not what I meant. Why are you taking the blame for Maxey?”

I studied my feet in my flip-flops. They were getting bigger every day, it seemed. “You can’t tell,” I said, looking over at him.

“Go on,” he nudged.

“I’m not even sure. It all happened really fast! I figured Maxey had done it, and I didn’t want Phil to lose her job. But it didn’t seem right to rat out my own sister. Ms. Marshall is worried about finding the bad apple and getting it out of the bushel, but Maxey isn’t really bad. She probably just got jealous that Phil gets to be a CIT and she’s stuck in the kitchen. Plus, Phil made her super mad yesterday by sticking up for me.”

“You know it really doesn’t help Maxey when you cover for her.”

“You can tell Mom when we get home, but please don’t tell Ms. Marshall, Frank.”

“I’d like it best if you and Maxey talk to your mom about it when you get home yourselves.”

“Okay,” I said. “I promise.”

He gave me a nice squeeze around my shoulders.

“Can I tell you something else, Frank?”

“Absolutely.”

“I’ve been thinking about Dad a lot this week. Being here makes me think about what it’s like for him in prison.”

“Ahhhh”
was all he said.

“I mean, even though he’s a bad criminal and all, I bet
when he first got to prison, he felt miserable. He probably missed Mom and us a lot. He didn’t get to eat his favorite stuff anymore, had to get up early for inspections, had to sleep with a bunch of bad guys, and he probably still wishes every day that they’ll call his name during mail call.”

“I bet you’re right about all that, Effie.”

“I don’t like thinking about it,” I said. “I don’t want to start worrying about him, too!”

Frank took my hand and held it a moment. It was big and warm. He could have kept it forever. After a bit, he took it and put it over my heart.

“Feel that?”

“My heart beating?” I asked.

He nodded. “When you get given a big one like that, it’s a responsibility. You’re going to have a lot of ground to cover in your life—a lot of people to love and a lot of people to worry about. But, Effie, I promise you, it’s going to be a helluva life.”

I gasped. “You’re not supposed to say that word, Frank.”

“I’ll make a deal with you. You try to stop worrying about other people so much this week, and I’ll try to stop using it.”

He raised his hot chocolate cup and I clicked mine into his. “I’ll try, Frank, really. But I’m going to have a”—I leaned over and whispered into his ear—
“helluva hard time doing that!”

O
n Wednesday I was sitting outside the armadillo pen making some notes for the report I was writing. It was about racing armadillos, which is a very unkind thing that happens some places in Texas. I had just learned about it. Ms. Hawkins showed us a video about how some mean guys capture wild armadillos, paint numbers on their little backs, and then make them race. Armadillos can’t see very well, so there is lots of crashing around, and people laughing. You can tell right away that the poor armadillos are near frantic about it, because they keep trying to get off the track. They are definitely not trying to win any races.

Ms. Hawkins had rescued her two armadillos from a fraternity that was racing them for money one weekend. They got caught with a whole bunch of them out on the
school track. Ms. Hawkins hadn’t tried to get all the paint off their backs or anything, so I offered to do it. I had brought my nail polish remover to camp in case I had time to change my toenail polish. She thanked me for my offer but said she would just leave it on until it wore off, as a reminder to boys and girls about respecting animals. One of them had
Kappa
written on its back, and the other one had
Sigma
.

I got what she was trying to say, but I still felt bad for them with names painted on their backs. They were probably trying to forget the horrible night that they got painted and made to race, and they couldn’t because it was the first thing people noticed about them. It was kind of like how Maxey and I have
Crook’s Kid
painted on our backs.

They were nine-banded armadillos, according to Ms. Hawkins, and they were native Texans. They liked to dig and burrow a lot, and Kappa was working on a big underground project next to me. I was getting very dirty, but I didn’t mind. I wrote down what else I’d learned today about them.

Guess who I was going to tell about this!

Sigma came near the fence and stared in my direction
with his tiny brown eyes. I wished they came with tiny eyeglasses.

“Effie!” Cricket called from the back of the classroom door. “Can you come here?”

“I’ll be back, you two,” I promised Kappa and Sigma. I stood up and brushed myself off.

“Ms. Marshall would like to talk to you for a minute. C’mon, I’ll walk over there with you,” Cricket said. “You can just leave your stuff here. We’ll be back.”

I waved a quick goodbye to Nit and Aurora. We all knew what this was about. It was my sentence.

Cricket pulled open the screen door to Ms. Marshall’s office waiting room. It was empty. No other kids were in there getting in trouble.

As I stepped into her office, the first thing I saw was the back of my sister’s head. And her very red neck, perched on top of her very stiff shoulders. She did not turn and look at me.

I sat down in the chair next to her and swallowed. “Is everything okay with our mother?”

“Yes, Effie, your mother is fine,” Ms. Marshall said.

“Did Pretty Girl die, then?” I asked, afraid to hear the answer.

“Everybody is fine,” Maxey said, without looking my way.

“Your sister came in to talk to me about what happened yesterday, Effie. Apparently she thinks she took Sister Lucille’s phone.”

“Oh,” I said, in a pea-sized voice.

I darted a look at Maxey, but she had her eyes glued on Ms. Marshall, who put her hands palms-down on her desk. “Only one of you could have done this, and I need the truth here, please.”

I scratched a mosquito bite on my leg and waited.

“Effie?” Ms. Marshall asked. “Is it true? Was it Maxey who actually took the phone?”

“I don’t really know for sure.”

“It’s like I told you, Ms. Marshall,” Maxey said. “I took it during the inspection at Elk. Effie is lying to protect me, and I don’t need her to do that for me.” She still wouldn’t look at me.

“Are you going to send us home?” I asked, thinking how ticked Mom would be if we both flunked camp. I’d come to Ms. Marshall ready to save our family’s reputation, and now we’d just made it worse.

“No, I’m not. Coco tells me that Maxey is one of the best kitchen helpers he’s ever had. I think he’d quit if I sent her home. But, Maxey, you are losing your afternoon swimming privilege with the staff for the rest of the week.
If you want to swim for exercise, I’ll arrange a time for you with Mr. Bucko.”

“Yes, ma’am,” she said. “Thank you, ma’am.”

“Generally, I would assign you KP as a consequence, but since you already work in the kitchen, I have to be a little inventive.”

She looked over at me then. “You are not off the hook, young lady. While you didn’t take Sister’s phone, you did come in here and lie to me about it. That can’t happen ever again.”

“It won’t, Ms. Marshall. I promise.”

“Good. I’m grounding you from the girls’ moonlight canoe ride tomorrow night.”

“Yes, Ms. Marshall.” Was she kidding? I was ready to pay to get out of that.

“I hope I don’t see either of you again in my office.”

“I don’t ever want to see you again either, Ms. Marshall,” I said. That didn’t come out right, but I think she knew what I meant.

“Maxey, please escort your sister back to Ms. Hawkins’s class, and then get back to Mess.”

Maxey nearly raced me to the Science and Nature Center. I almost had to run to keep up with her. I didn’t know if she was in a big hurry to get back to work or she just didn’t want to talk to me.

“If you want, Maxey,” I said, huffing, “I can tell Phil how busted up you were in the kitchen about it yesterday. I bet she’ll forgive you!”

She just kept walking. When we got to the center, she finally turned and looked at me. “Have a nice day, miss.”

But as she stalked off, she muttered in a voice loud enough for me to hear, “And I was chopping onions, for God’s sake!”