Disruption (2 page)

Jason nodded. “He probably means it this time. Better just fly under the radar, Matt. Make a tie-dyed T-shirt, shoot some arrows, and learn what a moose turd looks like. Then get back here so we can plan some pranks for high school.”

I laughed. “Moose turd?”

“I know what goes on in those summer camps,” Jason said. “It’s a bunch of dorks running around the woods smelling animal turds.”

I laughed again. “And if it
is
a military camp?”

“Then shoot some guns and learn how to do military stuff.” He kicked a stone. “Then come back and teach me.”

“Deal,” I said.

“While you’re gone,” Jason said, “I’ll think up some truly epic pranks for us to pull when you get back. Things we’ve never done. Things that will make grown men weep.”

“That might be tough,” I said with a smile. “We’ve done a lot.”

“If there’s one thing I’ve learned from TV,” Jason said, “it’s that there’s always something bigger and better. Maybe we can finally pull that train-station one.”

I laughed. The train-station prank was an ongoing plan of ours that involved a boatload of fireworks and a train station. It wasn’t a real detailed plan.

Jason reached into his backpack. “Hey, that reminds me. Here.” He pulled out a small black object and tossed it over to me. “It’s just a cell phone. I know your parents won’t let you have one, but at least you can use this while you’re gone.”

“You got me a phone?”

“It’s my old one.”

Jason’s old phone was about a million times better than most people’s new ones.

“Just don’t pocket-dial me while you’re having a sing-along.” He pretended to vomit into a bush.

“Thanks, man.”

He waved his hand. “It’s not a big deal. Hey, what time do you leave tomorrow?”

I groaned. “Buses leave at six o’clock.”

“In the morning?”

I nodded.

He grimaced. “Maybe it
is
an army camp.”

Chapter 3

Dad pulled the car into an alley, just close enough for me to see the parking lot in the distance and the five yellow school buses parked in the lot. Dozens of kids marched around loading suitcases and backpacks into the storage compartments and hugging parents goodbye. The ones I could see looked like total losers. Their idiotic smiles and almost comically awestruck expressions made me shake my head. I had a feeling it was going to be a very long summer.

Dad put his hand on my shoulder. “Follow instructions at camp, Matt. Don’t get into trouble. And try to learn something.”

“Yeah, yeah,” I said. “Or you’ll send me to Alaska. I get it.”

Dad sighed. “Matt, these kids come from wealthy families, successful families who can give them all the advantages in life. You could really benefit from what they can teach you.”

“Clearly not if
I’m
going to the camp too,” I said. I knew my comment would hurt him, but I didn’t care.

Dad closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Then he gripped my shoulder tighter. “Son, don’t mess up. There’s a lot riding on your ability to fly under the radar in there. Plus, you know your mom will be disappointed if you don’t take advantage of this opportunity.”

I nodded.
Mom
would be disappointed? Either he realized it wouldn’t be much of a deterrent to tell me
he’d
be disappointed, or he was already as disillusioned as he could get.

It had taken my mom the better part of an hour to say goodbye to me. She’d sniffled and wiped her eyes as if I were going off to war. I glanced up the street at the parking lot again. Unless war was being fought by a bunch of nerdy kids, I wasn’t going to be on any front lines.

“I get it, Dad. I’ll blend in.” I gestured out of the car. “Do you think I haven’t noticed how far away we are? I get that you don’t want them to see that I’m your kid.”

“That’s not it, Matt,” my dad said. “This camp is associated with my work. It’s only supposed to be for the children of executives. It’s not a camp we’d be able to afford.”

I raised my eyebrows. “And yet here I am, about to go in.”

There was more to this story. My dad looked genuinely ashamed, and the fact that he was telling me any of this meant he was worried.

“Look, Matt . . . You need to take this seriously. There’s a lot on the line.” He turned and looked out the window. “I didn’t
exactly
get permission to send you to this camp,” he said. “I had to pull some strings.”

Strings? What kind of strings could you pull?

“Just don’t wreck this opportunity, Matt. If you blow this, if they kick you out, or if you run away . . .”

“Uh-huh, I know. Alaska.” I reached for the handle. “I’ll do my best not to embarrass you.”

I pushed open the door and was about to get out when my dad grabbed my arm.

“Matt,” he said. “I’m not trying to threaten you. You’re just not making good choices. You’re getting involved in things that could send you down a road your mother and I don’t want for you.” He shook his head. “This is your chance, son. Please don’t throw it away.”

I brushed his hand off my arm and got out of the car. “I already said I’d blend in, didn’t I?” I grabbed my bag from the back seat, slammed the door, and started walking toward the buses.

“Matt!” Dad called.

I turned.

“We love you, son.”

“Great. Lucky me.” I turned again and started walking.

“See you in a few weeks!” he called after me.

I didn’t turn back this time. I just kept walking. I hoped ignoring him would make him feel guilty for sending me away for three weeks of summer. But that was dumb. I was going to camp, not prison. I glanced over my shoulder. My dad was still there, watching me. What kind of camp was this going to be? If it was a camp for rich kids, then it wasn’t going to be the military camp I’d imagined. Rich kids got cushy camps, didn’t they? It might be one for future business leaders, though, and the only activities we’d have would involve calculators and discussions on the economy. I shuddered.

That would be worse than military camp.

“Fit in,” I said, repeating my dad’s words. “Fit in or you’re going to Alaska.” I gritted my teeth, took a breath, and forced a smile. This was going to be a long three weeks.

Chapter 4

I headed toward a large man standing in front of the buses. He stood rigid, with that perfect posture you see only in movies about military camps. Beside him stood a very petite woman, or perhaps a woman who only looked petite because she stood beside such a giant. Either way, they both had clipboards, and they scrutinized the kids as they walked by, probably checking off little boxes beside questions like, “Is the camper wearing a sweater vest?”
Check
. “Does the camper have his pants pulled up to his armpits?”
Check
.

“Name?” the man asked when I stepped up to them. He was well over six feet tall and as thick as a WWE wrestler. He had a square, clean-shaven face and reddish-blond hair, cropped very short. He wore one of those safari vests, the kind with a thousand pockets; each of his bulged. I wondered if one of the pockets contained a list or maybe a diagram to tell him what was in the other pockets.

“Matt,” I said.

He lowered his clipboard and glared at me as if trying to burn holes in my face. He spoke each word like it was its own sentence. “Matt. What.”

I hadn’t noticed when he first spoke, but he had a slight accent. We had a substitute teacher from South Africa once, and this guy sounded the same. I rolled my eyes at him, and the woman smiled.

“Matt
Cambridge
,” I said.

The muscles in his jaw clenched, and he turned back to his clipboard. He slid the pencil down the page and stopped, presumably at my name. His brow furrowed, and then he looked back at me. “You’re Matthew Cambridge?”

I put my arms out to the side. “In the flesh. But please, no autographs.”

The woman smiled again and made another note on her clipboard.

Safari Man glanced over my shoulder and looked right, then left. “Where are your parents?”

“My dad just dropped me off.”

“He
what
?” The man’s face flushed, and his knuckles whitened around his pencil. “He’s gone? Parents are supposed to check their kids in before leaving.”

I shrugged.

The woman made more notes on her clipboard, which seemed to have a calming effect on Safari Man. Another man, this one wearing dress pants and a dress shirt with rolled-up sleeves, strolled over, and Safari Man tapped the clipboard with his pencil.

The man in the dress shirt glanced at him casually and then turned back to me and smiled. “Welcome to camp, Matthew. Is everything okay?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe you should ask the Crocodile Hunter here. Apparently, he thought my dad was coming to camp with me.”

Safari Man’s pencil snapped in his hand, and the woman at his side chuckled.

“Ms. Sani,” the second man said, his tone cool and even. “Most of our campers are . . . less outspoken than Mr. Cambridge.”

The woman waved her hand. “Save it, Mr. Dalson.” She turned to me. “Matt, is it?”

I nodded.

“Are you looking forward to camp, Matt?”

“Oh yeah.” I rubbed my hands together. “Maybe I’ll get a cabin with a kid who farts too much or maybe I’ll swim in a lake filled with leeches or eat some disgusting food that makes the cafeteria at my old school look like fine dining.”

She laughed some more and then scribbled something at the bottom of the page. Then she pulled the paper from her clipboard and handed it to the man she had called Mr. Dalson.

He took the sheet, but for a moment kept his gaze fixed on me. His eyes were gray, like the sky before a storm. My usual scoff-at-authority attitude shrank.

I could almost hear Dad’s voice in the back of my mind.
Way to go, son. Not even at the camp yet and already completely ignoring the one thing I asked of you—blend in. Make sure you pack your parka. Alaska’s cold this time of year.

Dalson’s gaze lowered and settled on the paper. Then he blinked. “I don’t understand.” He turned back to the woman. “We’re approved? You made it seem like it could take a while. Weeks maybe.”

She pointed at the paper. “It’s a preliminary approval. I’ll stop by toward the end of the summer and reassess.” Dalson glanced back at the page, and she added, “Relax. It’s just a formality.” She gestured around the parking lot. “You have dozens of counselors, far more than the minimum requirement. Your campers look happy. The parents I’ve spoken to seem satisfied, and the camp is probably one of the nicest ones on the west coast.”

That was a relief.

“The only thing you were missing,” she continued, “was campers like Matt.”

Dalson looked at me and then back at the woman. Safari Man looked doubly confused.

The woman sighed. “Do you know how many camps I look into, Mr. Dalson?” She tapped her clipboard. “Dozens and dozens every year.” She swept her hand behind her at the kids getting sorted onto buses. “And do you know how many of those have campers as wholeheartedly enthusiastic as yours?”

Dalson shook his head.

“None,” she said. “I was starting to get a very bad feeling about this place until this kid came along.” She smiled at me and then picked up her briefcase. “All camps have kids who don’t want to be there. Kids whose parents make them go.” She pointed at me. “You’re not here because you want to be, are you?”

I shook my head. “Nope.”

“Punishment?” she asked.

I nodded. “Yep.”

“What did you do?”

I shrugged. “I nearly killed a gymnasium full of middle-school kids.”

Her eyebrows rose, and then she smiled and looked at Mr. Dalson. “See? He’s the one I was waiting to see. If you have one, you’ll have more than one.” She nodded at me. “Have fun, Matt Cambridge. Perhaps I’ll see you when I come for the final check.”

“Yeah, sure,” I said.

She smiled, then nodded at Mr. Dalson and Safari Man, walked straight to a white car with a rusted bumper, and drove away.

“Nicely done, Matt. We weren’t sure why she was taking so long with our approval. We’ll have to work on camper appearance.” He extended his hand. “I’m Dalson.” He nodded to Safari Man. “And this is Smith.”

“You will call me
sir,
” Smith added roughly. He glanced in the direction the woman had driven. “That was pretty gutsy. I thought you were blowing the whole thing. I was this close to throttling you.” He held up his thumb and forefinger an inch apart.

Throttling me?
I swallowed. Was he seriously telling me that he had been seconds away from strangling me? I shook my head. It must mean something different in whatever country he was from. The two men stood there staring at me for a moment, so I said, “Um, no problem.”

“We were wondering who you were, Matt,” Dalson said. “We saw your name on the list as a late registration. Your rankings are pretty impressive. I guess after that, I understand why.” He looked at Mr. Smith. “A real outside-the-box thinker, wouldn’t you say?”

Mr. Smith grunted approvingly.

“Well, it took real guts to talk to her like that,” Dalson continued. “And talk to Smith like that.” He frowned and looked me up and down, then said, “You’ll be a Delta, of course. We were going to have five this year anyway.”

I had no idea what they were talking about, but the way they spoke made me think they expected me to understand completely. “Er, thank you.”

Mr. Smith pointed at the buses. “You’re on Bus Two, Matt Cambridge.”

I nodded, then turned and headed for my ride. Dad had said there’d be things I wouldn’t understand, but I was getting the distinct impression he had understated that point considerably. The other kids seemed confident and excited.

No more mouthing off, I decided. I hadn’t even gotten to the camp yet, and I’d already almost been throttled by a counselor. I suddenly realized I didn’t know if they were camp counselors or camp directors—Mr. Smith could be the camp nurse for all I knew. But from now on, I was going to stay in the background. Blend in and just get through these few weeks.