Harmony (21 page)

“Uh, yeah,” he says. “Candy, do you want to introduce us?”

“Yeah, sure,” says Candy. She's beaming and holding on to her father's arm. “Dad, these are my friends Tilly and Iris. Guys, this is my dad, Michael McNeil.” Her voice has that formal kind of tone that you get when you have to use your parents' real names.

“His last name isn't Gough?” asks Tilly.

“No,” says Candy, sounding annoyed. “Neither is mine.”

“What about Ryan and Charlotte?”

I nudge my elbow against Tilly's arm a couple of times, because I don't think Candy and her dad want to explain their whole family history right now.

Candy's dad is looking around, like he's making sure no one else is coming. I think maybe he's nervous. “Hey,” he says. “Do you guys like fried dough?”

“Oh my God,” says Candy. “That would be amazing. You would not believe the healthy crap we've been eating here.”

“I've heard of that,” Tilly says, “but I've never had it. It's like a funnel cake, but flat, right?”

Candy's dad makes an exaggerated face like his eyes are bugging out. He seems nice. “You guys've never had fried dough?”

We shake our heads. “Oh my gosh,” he says, shaking his head. “We have got to remedy that ASAP. I am taking you guys to Weirs Beach.”

Candy lets out a little shriek, and Tilly says, “Yes! Score!”

We've been hearing about Weirs Beach ever since we got here. Seems like most of the Guest Campers either go there before they get to Camp Harmony or else right after they leave. There's a boardwalk and bumper cars, pizza and arcade games and mini-golf. It sounds so fun.

“Okay,” I say. “Let me just run and tell my mom.” I didn't even think I was hungry, but now I'm thinking about cotton candy and whatever that funnel cake thing is, and I can't wait. My mouth is actually watering.

“Well, wait just a sec,” says Candy's dad. “I don't want you to do anything you're not comfortable with, but I have a feeling that if you tell your parents, they're not going to let you go.”

“You want us to just go, without telling anybody?” asks Tilly. I can see her thinking about it.

“He's right, though,” says Candy. “They'll never say yes.”

“Yeah,” says Tilly. “I guess they wouldn't.”

“How long will we be gone?” I ask.

Candy's dad shrugs. “It doesn't have to be long. I'll drive you back and drop you off whenever you want.”

“They probably won't even notice we're gone,” says Tilly.

I sigh. “I don't know.” I sound so whiny, like a little kid. But I'm afraid we'll get in trouble.

Candy's dad reaches out a hand toward my arm, but doesn't quite touch it. “Hey, Iris,” he says. His voice is serious. It's nice that he paid attention to my name and remembered it. He says, “It's totally okay if you don't want to go. It's completely up to you.”

“Yeah,” I say. “I know . . .” I hear Candy sigh. Ugh, I hate this. Now it's like I'm the baby who's messing things up for the older kids. God, it's hot. I wipe some sweat away from my forehead.

Candy's dad is still leaning toward me, and now he smiles, just a little. “No pressure, but you know what else they've got there?”

He waits until I look up at him. I shake my head.

His lowers his voice to a stage whisper. “Snow cones.”

 • • • 

It's strange to be in a car again. Candy's sitting up front with her dad, and Tilly and I are in the back. It took us a while to walk to the road from the woods without going through camp, but Candy's dad seemed to know his way.

“So were you actually camping out there?” Candy asks, as we're putting on our seat belts.

“Yeah,” he says. “I've been here since Monday.”

“Were you spying on us?” asks Tilly. She sounds sort of excited at the thought.

He throws us a quick look, kind of apologetic. “Well, a little bit.” He pauses. “Not my finest moment, probably, but I've just been so worried.” He keeps his eyes on the road, but reaches across to Candy and squeezes her shoulder.

“Why were you worried?” she asks.

“Oh, you know,” he says. “I couldn't get in touch with you or your mom, I hadn't heard a thing from you in a month.”

“I sent you a letter,” Candy says. I don't know why I never told Candy about the envelope I found in the trash. It just seemed . . . like something Scott would want to be a secret, I guess.

“Well, I didn't get it. And you're out here in the middle of nowhere with that nutcase . . .”

“What nutcase?” asks Tilly.

“Do you mean Rick?” asks Candy. Her voice is tight, like she's ready to fight about this. It's funny because I didn't think she liked Rick much, but I guess it's one of those things where you can make fun of people in your family, but other people can't. Not even your real dad.

“No, sweetie,” says her dad. “Rick's fine. I know we've had our differences, but . . . no, I'm talking about the head guy. Bean.”

“Scott?” I say.

“Scott's a nutcase?” asks Tilly. Like it's a factual question, like whether he has Italian heritage or something. Like if this guy says yes, she's just going to take his word for it.

“Dad,” says Candy, with that irritated-teenager voice. It occurs to me that she must not get to do that very much: be annoyed with her dad. In addition to all the ordinary stuff, like not eating dinner with him every night, she also doesn't get a chance to get mad at him because he's telling lame jokes or he won't let her go out after dark or whatever.

“Okay,” says Candy's dad. “Maybe not ‘nutcase.' I just mean that your mom and Rick are the ones who signed up to join this thing and go live in the woods with a bunch of strangers. It's not something I picked, and I don't have to trust the guy just because they do.”

“Why don't you trust him?” asks Candy.

Her dad shrugs. “I've done some research. He's not a doctor, he's
not a psychiatrist. Not that he claims to be, I guess. He just says he's an educator, but still, where does he get the expertise? I set up a Facebook page a couple of weeks ago, when I couldn't get in touch with you. It's called Families Against Scott Bean, and it's taken off like crazy. People have just been coming out of the woodwork. Turns out that this guy's past isn't as squeaky-clean as he wants people to think. Like he got fired from a teaching job for hitting a kid, and . . .”

“Hey, can I use your phone?” Tilly asks. She's pointing at an iPhone sitting in the cup holder next to the driver's seat; she's already reaching out to take it.

Candy's dad scoops up the phone before she can grab it. “Well, wait just a minute there,” he says. “What do you want it for?”

I can tell he's thinking the same thing I am, which is: Is she thinking about calling Scott? Or maybe looking up that website?

But she says, “I just want to see if you have any good games,” and he passes it back to her, after taking a minute to put it in airplane mode. Like that would stop Tilly if she really wanted access to the Internet.

The rest of the ride is just Tilly playing
Angry Birds
and Candy and her dad talking quietly in the front seat about people I don't know. I watch the scenery out the window, which mostly doesn't look familiar, even though I know I saw it all a month ago when we first got here. It's kind of funny to realize that we haven't left camp once in all that time; I hadn't thought about it much. But I don't think I've ever stayed in the same place like that for so long. I feel almost like claustrophobic in retrospect; now that we're away from Camp Harmony, I don't really want to go back anytime soon.

Finally the Weirs Beach sign comes into view, and I'm the first one to see it: blue with big white letters and a curvy red arrow made of lightbulbs. I bet it looks awesome at night when it's all lit up.

Candy's dad parks the car, and we get out. The parking lot is right next to the beach, which looks not all that different from the
beach at camp, but nicer somehow. Wider and more festive, with lots of people swimming and stretched out on towels. Everything seems a little more colorful. There are people sitting at picnic tables, and kids playing with beach toys, even though lake sand sucks for building sand castles. For a minute, I wish that we had our bathing suits, but then I remember that we couldn't go back to get them, because we didn't tell anyone we were leaving. It makes me feel kind of scared. I look across the lake, at the ring of green trees all along every edge, and wonder where exactly my parents are, and whether they've noticed we're gone yet.

“This way, girls,” says Candy's dad. We walk past a random wooden gazebo sitting on some grass right in the middle of the parking lot, and go up a flight of stairs to the boardwalk. Tilly and Candy and I all stop and look around for a minute. It's pretty crowded here, and we feel funny after not being anywhere public for so long. Tilly moves a little closer to me and nudges me with her arm. I take her hand and hold on to it as we start walking again.

“Okay,” says Candy's dad. “I see pizza, video arcade, old-time photos. Looks like the food stands are down this way.”

He takes us to the fried dough counter and buys us all some. It's really good, maybe even better than a funnel cake. Less crispy, more . . . well, doughy, I guess.

Then Tilly wants to go to the arcade, and Candy's dad says, “Hey, you know what I'd like to do, Candy? Let's get one of those old-fashioned pictures taken, like we did that time on the Cape, remember?”

So he gives me and Tilly twenty dollars to play games, and they go off to the photo place.

We finish eating, and then we're thirsty, so we buy some lemonade. By the time we walk away from the fried dough stand and head to the arcade, Tilly's shirt is covered with powdered sugar. We stop for a minute, so I can help her brush it off, and when I'm done I see
that we're standing right in front of the vintage photo store. I look through the window, trying to see if I can see Candy and her dad, all dressed up. I love those old-fashioned dresses. But the store is totally empty, except for the guy behind the counter. Candy and her father are nowhere in sight.

They're not in the antique photo place, and when we walk back to the parking lot, the car is gone. I feel scared, all of a sudden, and kind of dizzy. I sit down on the hot grass, setting my paper plate and cup down next to me.

“Hey,” says Tilly, patting her pocket and leaving a smear of powdered sugar on her shorts. “I still have his phone. We can call him. Oh, wait . . .” She laughs.

“Tilly,” I say. I don't think she's getting it. “How are we going to get back to camp?”

“Well, Candy will probably tell them that we need to get picked up when she gets there.”

I shake my head. “I don't know if her dad is taking her back to camp,” I say. “He didn't seem to think she should even be there.”

I can see Tilly start to panic. “Oh no, oh no!” she says, her voice getting louder until she's almost yelling. Now she's
more
freaked out than she needs to be. I get what my mom means about Tilly seeing everything in black and white, with no gray. “What are we going to do? What if we never get back to camp? What if we never see Mommy and Daddy again?”

“That's just stupid,” I say. I'm feeling mean, but then Tilly's face crumples up like a little kid's, and instantly I regret it.

She starts crying (wailing, really), so loud that people are beginning to stare at us. “You don't have to yell at me,” she gasps when she has enough breath for it. I didn't really yell, but I guess that's not the point.

“Okay,” I say, patting her arm. “I'm sorry. I'm really sorry. We'll figure this out, okay?” I give her one of the napkins I'm holding, and she wipes her nose. Tears are still leaking out of her eyes, but she sniffles and calms down enough to take another bite of her fried dough. She looks so worried and so sad that I have to give her a hug.

“So, okay,” I say. “We have a phone. We could call the camp, except I don't know the number.”

“We could look it up on the Camp Harmony website,” Tilly says, which is really smart and actually not something I would've thought of.

“Good idea,” I say.

“We're going to be in a lot of trouble.”

“Yeah, probably.” Something occurs to me. “What time is it?” I ask.

Tilly pulls out the phone. “11:14.”

“So not even lunchtime. They might not even know we're gone yet. They probably think we're still out in the woods.”

I'm thinking while I'm talking. Here we are in this really fun place, more exciting than anything we've done in weeks; do we really have to turn around and leave right away? I know we're going to get into trouble either way. Might as well enjoy ourselves first.

“Know what I mean, Til?” I ask. “They probably don't even know we're gone.”

She's not getting it.

“You think we could get back without them noticing?” she asks.

I shake my head. “No. What I was going to say is, we've still got like fifteen dollars left. Why don't we have some fun?”

In the end, we never do get to call the camp. About an hour later, we're in the arcade playing Skee-ball, when a voice behind me says, “Matilda and Iris Hammond?” I turn around and it's a cop.

Tilly says, “Are you going to arrest us?” and the policeman speaks into his walkie-talkie and says, “They're here.” He takes us with him to a little police shack on the boardwalk, and fifteen minutes later, our car drives up with Scott sitting behind the wheel.

 • • • 

We're in trouble, obviously, but it takes a while for us to get to that part. First, there's just a lot of confused talking, with the policeman asking us questions and us trying to explain the situation with Candy. There's a lot of stuff about her dad's phone; the police seem to think that he left it with Tilly on purpose, so they wouldn't be able to track where he went, but as far as I can tell, it was just a random mistake. Tilly ends up having to hand it over to them; I can tell she was hoping that maybe she'd be able to keep it.

Once they let us go and we're all in the car—my dad's up front in the passenger seat, while me, Tilly, and Mom are all squished into the back—everything's just silent for a couple of minutes. I feel really tense, like it'd be better if they all just started yelling at us already.

It's weird to have Scott driving, because it's
our
car. Except it's way cleaner than it ever was before, which makes me wonder who cleared out all of our junk, and whether Scott or somebody actually took it to a car wash.

Tilly must be thinking the same kinds of things, because after a minute, she leans forward and starts looking in the seat-back pocket.

“Hey,” she says. Her voice is really loud, after all that quiet. I feel my mom flinch a little, where her leg is touching mine on the seat. “Where are my statue notes?”

I sigh, keeping the noise as quiet as possible. I'm younger than Tilly is, and
I
know that the best thing for us to do right now is just
to keep our mouths shut and wait to hear whatever the grown-ups are going to say. But she doesn't get it, or maybe she gets it but she's distracted by this other thing, and now she's probably going to freak out, and it's going to make everything worse.

Sure enough, Scott says, “Do you really think that's the most important question right now, Tilly?” His voice isn't mean or angry, but it's so cold it scares me.

“Yes,” says Tilly, her voice rising as she talks. “Yes, I do think it's the most important question. What happened to my statue notes?”

“We cleaned out the car,” my mother says softly. “I'm not sure . . .”

“Where are my notes?” Tilly yells. “They're mine, I need them . . .”

“QUIET!” roars Scott. The tires screech as he pulls over to the side of the road. The car turns so fast that I slide sideways into Tilly, and my mom slides sideways into me.

Scott turns off the car and yanks the keys out. He twists around so he can look at the backseat. His face is all red, except for one little white patch on his forehead that gets whiter when he's angry. I guess it's a birthmark or something.

“What the hell were you two thinking?” Scott yells at us.

“Scott,” my dad says, just as I say, “You don't have to yell.”

“You,” Scott says to me. He's taken his seat belt off, and he lunges toward me, putting his face right up to mine and poking me in the chest. “You need to be quiet, too.”

“Enough,” says my dad. He grabs Scott's arm roughly. “That's enough.”

Scott sighs and pulls himself back into the front seat. We just sit there, by the side of the road.

“I hate you,” says Tilly quietly, her voice cracking. “I fucking hate you.”

“Listen,” says Dad, turning to look at us. “I don't think you guys know how scary this was for us. We couldn't find you, we didn't know if you'd been kidnapped or if you'd gotten hurt in the woods somewhere. We were counting the canoes to make sure the three of
you hadn't taken one out without asking . . .” His voice sounds tight, like he's trying not to cry.

“Oh,” I say. It's a tiny little sound that just slips out of my mouth. He's right; I didn't think about what they would think had happened when they realized we were gone.

“You thought we were dead?” asks Tilly. She sounds weirdly amazed at the idea.

“Yeah, we did,” says Mom. I put my head on her arm. “We thought it was a possibility, anyway. We were really worried.”

“I'm sorry, Mommy and Daddy,” I say. “I'm so sorry.”

“Me, too,” says Tilly. “I'm really sorry.” I can see that she's got her head on Mom, too, over on the other side.

There's a problem, though, with Tilly and apologies, and I don't think she even knows about it. The problem is that she thinks that when you say you're sorry, it means everything's all over. She doesn't get that sometimes people are still mad at you afterward, or that sometimes there still has to be a punishment. So when she says it, she sounds kind of happy and relieved, like she's glad the problem has been taken care of.

“I know you're sorry,” says Mom. “But that doesn't . . .”

And that's where I can tell we're about to get to the bad part, the part about consequences and what happens next. But Tilly cuts her off before she can finish her sentence and asks, “What if we were really dead? What would you have done?”

“Oh, for fuck's sake,” says Scott. He turns the car back on and pulls back onto the road.

Tilly starts laughing. I reach over Mom and poke her. When she looks at me, I mouth the word “Stop.”

But she doesn't shut up. “What?” she asks. “Scott? Why did you say for fuck's sake?” And then she's giggling harder. “If we were dead, you would've fucked us?”

“Tilly!” says Mom. “Cut it out now!” My dad says, “Oh, my God, Tilly . . .”

“Do you see?” says Scott. I can see over the back of his seat that he's shaking his head. “Do you see what I'm saying?”

Mom sighs. “Yeah,” she says. “I guess I do.”

“Josh?” asks Scott.

My dad nods. “Yeah. Okay.”

“What?” I ask. “What's going on?”

“No,” says Dad. “It's nothing big. Just that we've been talking about what type of consequence we're going to give you guys.”

“Are you going to kick us out of camp?” asks Tilly? “Are we going to have to go back to Washington?”

Seriously? This is so obviously not what the punishment will be, and also so obviously what Tilly would
want
to happen, it's ridiculous. Maybe they'll also buy us new iPads! I roll my eyes but stay silent.

“No,” says Scott. “We don't give up at Camp Harmony; we just work harder. Which is exactly what you two will be doing.”

“So more AD Block?” I ask.

“No,” says Scott. “I think we can all agree that this goes beyond the scope of AD Block. You'll be taking on extra chores—we'll go over specifics when we get back to camp—and you'll be doing it in a very visible way.”

“What do you mean?” asks Tilly.

“We mean that you're going to be working where the GCs can see you,” says Scott. “And we're going to make sure it's very clear that you're being punished and that you understand the severity of what you did today.”

Tilly and I both talk at the same time. I say, “How?” and she says, “Why?”

“Why?” says Scott. “Because in addition to the events of this morning being very frightening, they were also very damaging to the reputation of Camp Harmony.”

“So what?” says Tilly, which, honestly, is kind of what I'm thinking, too.

“How do you think it looks?” asks Dad, turning around in his seat again. “These people are paying money to come to our camp and learn our parenting tips, and three of our own kids disappear one morning without a trace.”

Tilly starts laughing. “Probably not good,” she says. I close my eyes.

“Do you get that this is a business?” asks Scott. “Do you understand that this is how we earn a living?”

“Yes,” says Tilly, though I've never actually thought about it, and I bet she hasn't, either.

“Back to the question of how,” says Mom. I've still got my head on her arm, and I can feel the vibration of her voice as she talks. “You'll be wearing something on your clothes—a tag or a sign of some kind. Saying what you did.”

“This is just like the Nazis,” says Tilly. “We're living with Nazis now.”

“It is
nothing
like the Nazis,” says Mom, “and that's not an argument we're going to have right now.”

“We think it's important,” says Dad, “both that you don't forget why you're being punished, and that the GCs can see that we're not just sitting back and letting our kids run wild.”

“Mommy?” I ask in a small voice. I still have my eyes closed. “What about Candy?”

“What?” asks my dad.

“Candy,” says Mom.

“That's a good question,” says Scott, “and the answer is that we don't know. This has all happened very quickly, and we're still trying to piece it all together. I can tell you this, though: right now, Candy's mother, Diane, is at the Laconia police station, filing a report.”

They all keep talking, about kidnapping and custody laws and I don't even know what, but I breathe in and I breathe out, and after a while, I manage to stop listening. Even though I know we're almost
back at camp, even though I can feel it when the car turns from smooth road onto gravel driveway, I stay pressed against my mom and let my mind take me away to sleep, for however long the grown-ups will let it last.

 • • • 

When we get back, the adults let us get some lunch before we start our new chores. When we're finishing our sandwiches, Janelle walks into the dining hall.

“Hello, ladies,” she says. “I'm sure you're not going to be happy about this, but Scott asked me to make these for you. They go around your neck.”

She holds up two rectangles of white cardboard with strings attached to the top corners. They both say the same thing: “I GOT INTO A STRANGER'S CAR AND LEFT CAMP WITHOUT PERMISSION.”

“I'm not wearing that,” says Tilly.

“I'm afraid you are,” says Janelle. “And I've already heard your Nazi argument, so don't think that's going to sway me.” She sounds like she's almost smiling, though.

 • • • 

So we have to spend the afternoon of the Fourth of July wearing these signs while we weed the garden and clean out the chicken cages. And every time anyone walks by, either GC or CF (and even if it's somebody we've seen three times already), we have to stop what we're doing, stand up, and read our signs out loud. But for something that's supposed to be such a terrible punishment, it's not really that bad. Tilly and I practice saying the words in unison, and then if anybody laughs, we say (together), “Stop it! This is serious!” By the end of the day, we barely even mind it anymore. Candy's entire family is gone by dinnertime.