A Fistful of Fig Newtons (12 page)

“Fartridge,” of course, was Morey Partridge. Because of his complexion, he was also known as “Birdshit” among the Chipmunks. Historically, prisoners of war have always given deserving names to their jailers. Cliffie, for example, was better known as “Violet” or “That Fag” among the green-beanie crowd. It was reported that even Mrs. Bullard herself called the colonel “Old Leather Ass.” Biggie had become “the Tank” or “Lard Butt” and Crabtree had evolved to “Craptree” and finally to “Crappo.” He was even, among the Beavers, known affectionately as “Crabs” in commemoration of a legendary invasion that had occurred the year before at Nobba-WaWa-Nockee after Crappo had spent a big weekend in town. The resultant furor culminated with every camper’s being doused with DDT, green lime, and Dr. Pilcher’s Magic Ointment, but all to no avail. The scourge was finally defeated by marinating everyone, including Mrs. Bullard, in drums of kerosene. There was even talk among the state authorities of
burning the camp down. Mercifully, the crabs took the hint and departed for the girls’ camp across the lake.

The treasure hunt was the traditional high point, the crowning event in the panoply of camp life. By now, we were scarred, mosquito-bitten, smoke-blackened veterans of almost four weeks on the shores of Lake Paddachungacong. The hunt began with everybody in camp–Beavers and Chipmunks alike–gathered in a huge circle around the flagpole. A tremendous campfire lit up the ring of faces with a flickering orange light. For the past week, the treasure hunt had been the number-one topic of conversation. Now, here it was–zero hour. The heat from the roaring flames blossomed the festering blotch of poison ivy under the thick coating of calamine lotion on my back. It was the darkest night we’d had since coming to camp. No stars, no moon, just the pitch black of the Michigan woods. The lake had disappeared with nightfall and become a black, sinister void.

At the base of the flagpole, in the center of the ring, Colonel Bullard swept us all with the gaze of imperious command. Across the circle, I could barely make out the stolid bulk of Dan Baxter skulking behind Jake Brannigan, who was whispering to his circle of veteran Beavers. The light glinted on their golden badges of rank. I adjusted my Chipmunk cap, setting it squarely on my head. It was going to be a long night. I heard Schwartz chomping nervously on a malted-milk ball next to me in the darkness. All around me my fellow Chipmunks waited for the starting gun.

“It’s a perfect night for the treasure hunt, eh, men?” The swagger stick slapped smartly for punctuation. Beavers and Chipmunks shifted expectantly. “As you doubtless know, the treasure hunt is our yearly competition between the Chipmunks and the Beavers. And the Chipmunk or Beaver who unearths the concealed Sacred Golden Tomahawk of Chief Chungacong will bring eternal honor to his lodge. All members of his lodge will receive the Camp Nobba-WaWa-Nockee Woodsman Award. My wife, Mrs. Bullard herself, designed this handsome badge. The winners will
deserve their award for their valiant performance in the deep woods!”

A current of fear zipped up and down my spine as he said “the deep woods.”

“Now, Captain Crabtree, issue the secret envelopes. And good luck to you all, men.”

The colonel saluted Crappo, who led his crew of lieutenants around the circle. The envelopes glowed dead white in the blackness of the night. Each lodge had elected one kid who would accept the envelope and act as leader, a purely honorary title, since leadership was not a strong point among the Chipmunks. We had elected Schwartz to represent Mole Lodge.

“Stupe! Get out there! Do something!” whispered Flick from somewhere back in the crowd. Schwartz, beads of sweat popping out on his forehead, lurched forward. The Tank handed him the envelope.

“Give ’em hell, kid!” Biggie slapped Schwartz on the top of his beanie with a tooth-rattling smack and passed on to the next lodge leader.

We knew the rules, which said that we couldn’t open the envelope until the signal. After that, every lodge was on its own, and the one to come back with the Sacred Golden Tomahawk was the winner. Each lodge had been supplied with an official Boy Scout flashlight to help us follow the clues in the envelope–clues that would carry us, in the dead of night, through the wilderness and straight to the treasure. Lieutenant Kneecamp (better known as “Peecamp”) tossed a bundle of branches onto the fire. It roared and crackled, sending sparks shooting off into the blackness.

“Ready, boys? Remember, play the game well.” Colonel Bullard’s hand shot skyward. He clutched a gleaming silver automatic.

“ONE!”

Schwartz sniffed loudly.

“TWO!”

Jake Brannigan, across the circle, crouched like a sprinter.

“THREE!”

BANG!

The circle dissolved into a maelstrom of stumbling kids. The Beavers, with the craftiness of veterans, immediately melted into the darkness and were gone. Then Jaguar Lodge fled whooping off and disappeared into the woods. Schwartz stood there tearing frantically at the envelope.

“Come on, Schwartz! What the hell’s in that thing?” somebody yelled. In his frantic haste, Schwartz ripped the envelope down the middle, tearing the clue into two neat halves that fluttered to the ground. Struggling to turn on the flashlight, I felt my thumbnail split back to the knuckle. Bodies hurtled past us. Schwartz and the fat Chipmunk scurried about in the blackness on their hands and knees, looking for the torn clue.

“Gimme some light!” Schwartz grunted. I felt his hand grasping my Keds.

“Leggo my foot!”

“Shut up!”

The light glared forth. Quickly we scooped up the two halves of paper. Schwartz squinted at the typewritten sheet and began to read:

“Is that all there is?” asked Kissel.

“That’s it.”

We looked blankly at each other.

“Which way is north?” I asked.

“That way.” Flick pointed past the chapel.

“Let’s go!”

We charged up the path. Almost immediately, the blackness was so total that I had the sensation of running upside down on the ceiling of a black room. The others clumped and crashed around me.

“Hold it, Schwartz!” There was something wrong with the flashlight. It kept going off and on.

“My shoe came off!” wailed Flick. “Where’s the light?”

We found his shoe and got it back on.

Mole Lodge was beginning to fall apart.

We examined the note again.

“What’s this ‘wall’ stuff?” Schwartz croaked.

“I don’t know,” someone said.

“Well, let’s go north till we hit it.”

That seemed like a good idea.

“Where’s north?”

“Why don’t we look for some moss?”

“Moss?”

“Yeah, moss. It always points north.”

We scrounged around in the poison ivy, looking for moss on a tree trunk.

“Hey, you guys, here’s some!” Flick sang out excitedly. Sure enough, he had found moss at the base of an oak tree.

“It goes all the way around!” Another theory shot to hell.

“Well, it’s kinda thick on this side.”

We charged off once again, crashing through the dense underbrush. Branches slashed at my face; brambles and sharp twigs gouged and ripped. I began to feel a deep, mounting fear. I had no idea where we were or what would happen next. Schwartz, who was thrashing around ahead of me, was now carrying the light. I could hear Flick fall heavily from time to time behind us.

Up ahead, the flashlight suddenly vanished, along with Schwartz. A second later, the ground disappeared beneath me; I
was in free-fall. I clawed at the air, then hit hard, rolled over and over down a steep hill, and finally hit Schwartz with a grunt. Other bodies landed on top of us, squirming and writhing. Mole Lodge lay in a heap at the bottom of a ravine. Scratched, bruised, scared, we huddled next to a huge ghostly boulder. The flashlight still worked, but it was growing dimmer. The silence of the woods was total. We spoke in hoarse whispers.

“What do we do now?”

Nobody answered.

Finally: “Where’s Skunk?”

For the first time, I noticed that the fat Chipmunk was no longer with us.

“He musta gone back to the lodge,” Flick whispered.

“He’s probably back there eatin’ malted-milk balls.” I felt a twinge of envy.

Schwartz switched off the light to save the batteries. Once again we huddled in the darkness.

Crack! Crunch! Oh, my God! Something was coming at us.

“Turn on the light, Schwartz!” Flick squeaked.

The light flared on, its beam quivering in Schwartz’s hand. There, in the feeble ray, stood Jake Brannigan. Behind him a couple of other Beavers lurked, dark blobs against the trees. Brannigan flashed a crooked smile.

“You little stupes are makin’ enough goddamn noise in the weeds here to scare the crap out of every raccoon within fifty miles. Right, boys?”

His toadies guffawed behind him. Now we’re gonna get it, I thought. This is it! Mole Lodge is about to be annihilated by the Brannigan Gang. I inched backward.

“Hey, Dan,” he said over his shoulder, “tell these boobs who’s gonna win that golden hatchet.”

Dan snorted derisively, spitting out a long stream of dark brown fluid.

Jake’s look of scorn softened for a moment in what might pass in another man for pity.

“You guys lost? Lemme look at yer goddamn clue.” He grabbed the pieces from Schwartz’s hand. I was surprised he could read.

“I’ll give you dumb kids a break. This ‘Honest Abe’ crap must be about that rail fence up thataway.” He pointed up the ravine. “Now, get outa our way.”

We did not have to be told twice. Mole Lodge galloped up the ravine. The last sound we heard was Jake’s dry cackle; and then we were alone.

“Boy, that was kinda nice of him, helpin’ us out like that,” said Flick.

“Sure was,” I answered, too relieved at having been spared to question Jake’s unaccountable fit of compassion.

We struggled against vines, falling rocks, and tangled undergrowth. And a few minutes later, sure enough, there was a fence. It stood ahead of us, gray and sagging.

Schwartz darted under the top rail. I followed. Close behind me came Flick and the other Mole Lodgers. It was even darker here than back in the ravine. We inched along the fence blindly, gropingly. The ground seemed to be rising steeply. We struggled upward, each wrapped in his own fear. Camp Nobba-WaWa-Nockee seemed millions of miles away. There was only us and the blackness. Our flashlight had faded to a birthday-candle glow. We clung together in a tiny knot. Schwartz held the light, futilely pointing it ahead. I was just pulling an angry thistle off my knee when Schwartz, close by, sucked in his breath hard and sharp. The sound he made was like no sound I had ever heard anyone make before–a kind of rushing, gurgling gasp.

There, in the glow of our flashlight, loomed a huge, monstrous live Thing!

“Bruuuuuuuufffff!” it snorted.

“EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEYYYYYYYYYYYAAAAAAAA AAAAA!” I heard a deafening scream. It was me!

Flick shot back past me like a cannon ball, moving with maniacal speed, sobbing rhythmically. I felt the ground pounding beneath my shoes. Schwartz kept pace with me in a curious clawing
scrabble. He was running, pushing himself forward with whatever touched the ground–his head, his knees, his elbows, and occasionally his feet. He yelled hysterically over and over: “THE THING! THE THING! THE THING!”

As the cry was taken up by other voices in the darkness, I heard crashings ahead, to the left, to the right, behind, all around me. I ran even faster.

Flick gasped between sobs, “Jake done it! Jake done it! He sent us to the Thing!” Even as I faced certain death, I realized that Jake Brannigan had planned it all.

I heard muffled thuds as bodies collided with tree trunks. Sweat and tears poured down my face. My eyes burned. My head throbbed. My lungs were ready to burst. I pained from a million cuts and bruises. Ahead, I became dimly aware of a faint glow. My knee crashed against a tree. I ricocheted off a stump. I hardly felt it. I got up and ran on.

Suddenly, it was all over, like some nightmare that ends with a pail of water in the face. We broke into a clearing at blessed Nobba-WaWa-Nockee. I never thought I’d see it again. All around me, battered and torn Chipmunks, their eyes rolling wildly, pursued relentlessly by the Thing, popped out of the woods. Even a few hysterical Beavers raced by. We were safe. Miraculously, though it was covered with mud and stickers, I still had my Chipmunk hat on.

Old Leather Ass stood there glaring at us, his face grim in the flickering light from the campfire.

“This is a sorry spectacle! What’s this nonsense about a Thing? What Thing? There’s nothing in those woods but the gentle creatures of the forest–right, Crabtree?”

Crabtree nodded, but you could tell he wasn’t sure.

“This is the first year in the history of Nobba-WaWa-Nockee that no lodge has returned with the Sacred Golden Tomahawk. I am appalled at the craven behavior—”

“Excuse me, Colonel Bullard, sir. I beg to differ, sir.”

From somewhere off to my right, a reedy voice broke in. The
colonel, who was not accustomed to interruptions, slapped his thigh angrily with his swagger stick.

“What’s that?”

“Excuse me, Colonel, sir. Is this your sacred golden hatchet?” The voice was drenched with sarcasm.

A figure stepped out into the circle of firelight. Great Scott! It was Skunk! His Nobba-WaWa-Nockee T-shirt was crisp, his green beanie square on his head, his thick glasses gleaming brightly. He held something in his hand.

“By George, that certainly is the Sacred Golden Tomahawk. SPLENDID!”

“Thank you, sir. When my fellow members of Mole Lodge childishly panicked, I simply took matters into my own hands. It was quite interesting, actually, although ordinarily these idiotic games bore me.”

The camp was in an uproar. Mole Lodge had come through!