Tent City (10 page)

“Why would they be different for me?” I ask.

“Well, isn’t it obvious?” he asks with that grin again. This time I’m not so quick to fall for it.

Instead of waiting for him to answer, I take off. I half hope he can’t keep up with me. I have a new energy in me now, and I just badly want to get back to Brody. I’m not worried about him, but I need to spend more time with him. I can’t imagine Kit likes having baby-sitting duty all the time, especially as she is starting to expand her social butterfly wings. Besides, I miss him.

The rest of the way back we don’t talk. I’m annoyed that I can’t outrun him and he makes it look easy keeping pace with me. I’ll have to get used to not being the fastest kid around anymore. Not that it matters. I plan on running solo from now on. I get back, clean up, and find Kit and Brody playing a game of checkers.

“Hey Brody, I was supposed to be the one to teach you how to play checkers,” I tease him.

“Well, he hasn’t learned anything yet, if that makes you feel any better,” Kit says. “Did ya have a good run? I see you had some company.”

“Don’t ask.”

“Like that’s going to happen. Spill it, what happened?”

“Well, I didn’t find out anything more about this place. It’s frustrating ya know, he acts all super nice and sweet one minute, and then the next, he treats you like you’ve got the plague.”

“Well, I think he’s hot. You should give him another chance.”

“Kit, that’s the last thing on my mind. I’m not even sure we should be here. There’s something going on here they’re not telling us. Do you even think it’s safe here? Honestly?”

“You got a better plan?”

“No, and that’s the problem,” I sigh. “And I don’t want to think about it right now. All I could think about on my run back was that the only thing I wanted was to just hang out with Brody, and try to remember why we’re doing this again.”

“That sounds like a good idea,” she says, as she stands and runs a brush violently through her hair. “I’m going into camp. I’ve met some girls who are really nice and they’ve offered to show me around. You cool with that?”

“Sure,” I respond and she’s out the door. I feel a twinge of jealousy. Obviously, she is going to make friends. Maybe I just thought she was going out and making new guy friends, which for some reason doesn’t bother me as much. I suppose I need to get used to being here. Before long, she’s never going to want to leave.

After a few failed attempts at teaching Brody the game of checkers, we venture out to camp to get some lunch. It appears to be asparagus soup and some wild game. I can already see Brody turning his nose up in disgust. Maybe I could sneak into the supply cabin and see if they have anything a five-year-old won’t find repulsive.

As I’m about to knock on the door that holds the supplies, Bentley opens it.

“Hey,” I start.

“Hey you. What are you doing here?”

“Well, I couldn’t help but notice the only things for lunch are asparagus soup and is it squirrel maybe?”

“Well, yes, squirrel and some other little critters, I imagine.”

“I was kinda hoping maybe we could get some of those canned peaches I brought in. My little brother is kind of a picky eater and I just want to make sure he gets something to eat.”

“Sorry Dani, I can’t do that.”

“Why not? We brought them in!” I can feel the heat rising up my neck and I remind myself to keep my cool.

“Dani, we can’t just go giving out supplies to everyone who doesn’t like what’s on the menu. We’d have mayhem and we’d run out of supplies. This isn’t a buffet. This is survival living. Eat what’s being cooked or don’t eat at all,” he says through clenched teeth.

Why does he keep saying my name? Did someone teach him that at some leadership camp? Use their name to demonstrate your authority?

“Listen Bentley,” I say giving it a try, “we brought that stuff in. Our mom sent it with us so Brody would have something to eat. She left it up to me to take care of him and how am I supposed to do that if I can’t even get him to eat?”

“Like I’ve told you before, I have to treat everyone the same around here. If word gets out that I’ve gone soft, and it probably already has, given that I even let you guys stay here, then I don’t have any order here at all. That’s how we’ve made it so far. We keep the order and everyone seems to do pretty well. I know you need to have some time to adjust, so I’m trying to be patient. It can’t be easy having to do what you’re doing by taking care of your brother, but try and see it from where I’m coming from. You can’t keep coming to me to solve all your problems,” he says, raising his hands in mock surrender.

I’m so mad right now I could punch him in the face. I’m half tempted to do it, but Brody’s here. It probably wouldn’t be a good move anyway. We’d just get kicked out of the camp or worse. I know he carries a pistol on him and I’m not all that certain he wouldn’t use it.

Why does he think I need him to solve my problems? I’m only here to get what’s mine. Why do they have the right to say when we can use our supplies our parents gave to us? I wish we’d never even come.

We could’ve figured something else out. Maybe we could have gotten further back into the woods and built our own cabin for winter. It can’t be that hard.

“That being said,” he interrupts my internal fury, “you may want to go check in the kitchen area. Just tell Callie you are looking around to see if the kitchen would be a good fit for you. She’s got a soft spot for kids. I’m sure she’ll find you something for Brody, but don’t tell her I sent you for that. Let her think it’s her idea.”

What is his deal? He did it again. Complete reptile one minute and then sweet the next. I wish he would just pick one or the other. It’s confusing, and hard to tell which direction he’s going to turn. A good fit for me he had said, and that reminds me, I have to find a job, one that’s going to allow me to have Brody with me.

At first, I was thinking I might like to hunt, but I can’t have Brody with me for that and I would be terrible at it anyway. I wonder if the kitchen would be a good fit for me. It would allow me access to the food, which I need for Brody. He’s either going to need to be less picky, or I’m going to have to become a food thief.

Bentley is right about one thing; Callie does have a soft spot for kids. She takes one look at us walking up to the kitchen, and she’s already all smiles. She has started rambling on about a brother and a sister she had to leave behind and how Brody reminds her of her brother.

She has the whitest teeth I’ve ever seen, which only makes her mocha skin seem deeper brown, almost velvety. Or is it the tan skin that makes her teeth whiter? Either way, she is striking in an exotic way.
  She also seems to know a lot about Bentley and the inner workings of Tent City, but for now she is reluctant to share much information.

Brody takes an immediate liking to Callie. I’m sure the marshmallows she is feeding him don’t hurt. Where did she get marshmallows? I haven’t seen them for years. The sight of the puffy white balls of pure sugar leaves me yearning for Mom and Dad, as I remember them teaching me to roast them over a fire. I can see them arguing now about how I should handle the marshmallow when it became engulfed in flames.

Mom said, “Tap your stick on the fire ring gently until the fire goes out.” My dad, on the other hand said, “Slowly bring it to your mouth and blow the flames out.” Mom won that one. 

Callie seems eager to have another helper in her kitchen, but I’m not sure if this is the job for me. I know I’ve got to start thinking of what I will do soon. I already feel our welcome here is wearing thin.

Kit has gone out of her way to make sure she is one of the
mothers
. Her job is basically keeping the camp clean, attending to first aid needs, and going on water runs, but mostly from what I can tell, she is just doing a lot of gossiping with her new friends and having the time of her life. She has also been helping out a whole lot with Brody, as she is the only one I can trust with him.

“So how did you get involved in the kitchen?” I begin.

“Well,” Callie says, “back home, my parents owned a restaurant, a kind of Italian eatery, not that it was much towards the end, but I did learn a few things, so I guess this was just the most natural fit. Are you thinking you might want to give the kitchen a try? We could use the help.”

I chuckle a bit at the thought of cooking, since I’ve never done more than put a sandwich together.

“So how does this work? Do I just do what you need me to do and Brody can be with me?” The idea is getting more appealing, as I watch Brody devour the marshmallows.

“Um, obviously I would have to check with Bentley if Brody can be here in the kitchen, but I can’t imagine a place that would be better for him. From what I gathered from Bentley, he expects Brody to pitch in too, and we can always teach him to wash dishes.”

“What’s the deal with that anyway?” I ask. “Why is everything Bentley’s decision?”

I can see she is reluctant to talk about Bentley in any great detail, but I am determined to get some more answers about him. Finally, she gives me some vague answer about him being the founder of Tent City, and everyone just accepts him being the leader. But I feel like there’s something more there. The little she does say about him seems to come off in sort of a dreamy way. I can’t help but think she thinks of him as more than just her leader.

The next few days go by in a blur. Working in the kitchen has provided me with the ability to feed Brody what he wants, but it’s hard work. We must be there by sunrise and we don’t leave until after the last meal is cooked. Thankfully, we don’t have to do the cleanup for supper, as the “cleaners” do all of that, but it’s backbreaking work feeding so many people.

From what I learned, there are only about five people (not including Brody) who are in food prep, but really Callie is the cook and we all just do what she says. Her ability to make things just from the limited supplies and wild game is astounding.

I don’t know how she does it, but she knows all the plants and herbs that are edible, and which ones are not. She has a complicated system for using the supplies at just the right time before they expire to avoid wasting food.

The charts she has in the kitchen with dates of expiration and what goes with what are mind-boggling. After about the fifth time studying, I gave up trying to figure it out.

Brody is getting restless for Mom. He is having more trouble sleeping at night. While he is dreaming, I hear him call out for her. I still keep him wrapped tight in the sleeping bag with me.

The sweet baby smell of his shampoo is completely gone and has been replaced with the scent of nothing. Nothing is a confusing smell when you are expecting something.

Everything else around here smells like pine and meat. I wish Mom had packed his shampoo, just so we could have that piece of home.

If I concentrate hard enough while we are lying still in the night, I can almost picture it and think back to a time when things were better. I can’t believe I didn’t realize how good we had it back then. Sure, we worked hard, Dad most of all, but at least we were together.

I feel okay about being here for my sake, but I worry Brody is missing Mom so much that it’s taking the innocence out of him. But most of all, I worry if we are here too long, he could forget about her altogether. It doesn’t help that there are no other little kids here to play with.

Everyone here treats Brody well, but there are some people who resent he’s here since they were not allowed to bring their own little brothers and sisters. Bentley has been receiving a lot of complaints about it. This much Callie has told me.
 

It’s been a few days since I have had a chance to talk to Bentley. He seems almost like he’s avoiding me.

It’s also been a few days since I’ve had a chance to get out for a run, since we work all the daylight hours here in the kitchen. I’ve asked Callie for the morning off so I can get out for a run to get some of this restlessness out of me. To my shock, she tells me I have to ask Bentley!