Nerd Camp (17 page)

He didn't have to. He could back out. Like Nikhil said, it was just one item in a long scavenger hunt list, and chances were no other team would have it, either. Or he could let C
²
or another older kid go. C
²
had offered. But Gabe had said he would do it. And he'd said it with such surety. He hadn't even flinched. At least, he hoped he hadn't.

It's just kayaking
, he thought. But it wasn't just kayaking. It was kayaking by himself in the middle of the night, in the pitch black, to somewhere he had never been and wasn't supposed to go. Somewhere that was haunted. C
²
had given him a map and a compass. But there wouldn't be any lifeguards on the dock watching and ready to jump in and save him. And there wouldn't be any counselor to count up the kids and notice that he hadn't come back.

According to the map, Dead Man's Island was small and perfectly circular. It was just around the bend in the lake, through a narrow inlet that was hidden by clumps of trees that hung over the water, and just beyond a round area marked Lily Pad Lagoon.

Gabe didn't think the legend could be true, and he didn't think he believed in ghosts. But he also didn't think he wanted to kayak there alone at night and find out.

But there was no other way to do it. He couldn't go during the day, because he had the water sports competition instead of regular swim time. And anyway, he'd get in trouble if he tried to go with lifeguards watching, since you were only allowed to kayak in the marked area. That was also why he couldn't go during free time: The lifeguards would be there. The only time was after lights out. And there was no one to go with him. Nikhil was good at kayaking, but there was no way he'd even consider something as unsafe as this. Wesley would love to go, but he was terrible at kayaking. C
²
or one of the older kids could go with him, but that would mean admitting he was too scared to go alone. A couple of other boys from his bunk had offered too, but the more Gabe thought about it, the more he felt that he needed to tackle this alone. Of course he
was scared. But why? He'd just go there, get a cup of red sand, and come back. No need to even get out of the kayak.

Above him, Wesley wiggled onto his side and hugged the inside of his sleeping bag. He murmured, “You can do it.”

Gabe nodded.
I
can
do it
, he thought.
Zack will think I'm so cool
. He had to; there was nothing geeky about an adventure like this. He'd be going back to the noncamp world soon, becoming Zack's brother for real, and he wanted to fit in in his new family.

And here at camp, kayaking to Dead Man's Island would make him a hero on his team, and it would impress C
²
. He knew what Zack would think of C
²
—C
²
had skipped two grades and thought science was fun. But he wondered what C2 would think of Zack. Gabe wouldn't want C
²
to see Zack's letters, that much was sure. He didn't know whose opinion was right—or whose he should care about more.

Well
, he thought,
kayaking to Dead Man's Island will impress them both.

The silence of the morning was cut by the blare of the wake-up siren, and the boys began to stir. Ready or not, today was the day.

It was the second day of Color War, and the competitive spirit of the camp was fired up. Gabe's counselor passed some tubes of green face paint around the bunk, and the boys applied it like war paint. Gabe put lines under his eyes like a football player would do. Nikhil wrote green on his left arm and nation on his right. When Wesley returned after ten minutes in the bathroom, he had a big symbol on his whole face. “That's cool,” said Nikhil. “What is it?”

“Duh,” said Wesley. “It's a
G
.”

Gabe cocked his head. “Did you do it in the mirror?” he asked.

“Yeah, why?”

He cracked up. “Because it's backward!”

At breakfast the director of the camp read out the current standings.

“In fourth place,” she shouted, “is the YELLOW TEAM with 90 points!”

Yellow broke into applause, but the other three teams cheered even louder because if yellow was in last place, it meant that they weren't.

“In third place,” she called, “is the GREEN TEAM with 145 points!”

Red and Blue cheered the loudest now, and Green clapped. Some girls from one of the Green bunks started chanting, “That's all right, that's okay, we're gonna beat you anyway!” The rest of Green joined in, but the director quieted them down after two rounds.

“In second place,” she announced, “with 160 points, is the BLUE TEAM!”

“We're only 15 points behind,” said Nikhil excitedly. “One win in water sports or the obstacle course and we'll move up.”

“Or one item they don't have on the scavenger hunt,” said Wesley. “Like red sand.”

Gabe nodded stoically.

“And in FIRST PLACE,” the director said, even though she could barely be heard above the talking, “with 205 points … is the RED TEAM!”

Red broke into a rousing rendition of “We're Red, we rock,” and the other teams clapped politely. Then Yellow began chanting, “Go Red, you rock!” in an obvious effort to snag the 200 points for sportsmanship that were still up for grabs.

The director reminded them that today's battles were worth a total of 800 points, and tomorrow the scavenger hunt was worth another 400. “Add team spirit and sportsmanship for 200 each,” she said, “and it's still very much anyone's game. So, eat a big breakfast and get ready to give it your all today.”

Between the amped-up atmosphere and the superfun battles, Gabe could almost forget what he was going to do that night.

The first battle was the obstacle course, which was rumored to always be one of the best parts of Color War. It absolutely lived up to expectations. First you had to jump through a line of tires. Then you had to solve three arithmetic problems—inside a smelly port-a-potty. After that you had to run with an egg on a spoon across the field, and dropping the
egg cost your team points. After depositing the egg in your team's color-coded bin, you came to a huge map of the world on the ground, and you had to locate the country or body of water that the counselor called out. From there, you slid down a giant inflatable slide into a mud pit. Once you used the mud as paint to correctly spell a word on a wall, you were done.

The counselors had to do it too, as did the teachers, and even the director and the nurse. Miss Carey screamed as she went down the slide, and Mr. Justice dunked his whole body in the mud pool and emerged with long, dripping dreadlocks of mud. By the end of the morning, the entire camp was a walking, grinning gloopy brown mess.

The younger kids had water sports in the afternoon, and Gabe did everything he could to rack up points for Green. While he was standing on the dock, wearing his towel still and getting ready to compete in the first race, he had a moment of panic and thought that maybe he shouldn't be doing
everything
he could to win—maybe he shouldn't be wearing what he was wearing under his towel. After all, this wasn't a regular swim meet, where everyone was representing a swim team.

Gabe removed his glasses and handed them to the lifeguard. Then he shifted his prescription goggles from his
forehead onto his face, and the lake once again came into focus. He saw the other swimmers drop their towels and toss them behind themselves. They were all wearing the type of bathing suit Gabe usually wore to swim in the lake: knee-length and baggy with cargo pockets on either side.
Too late to change now
, he thought. He removed his towel to reveal his suit: a tiny, tight-fitting Speedo.

He heard the crowd behind him gasp. He could hear some of the boys laughing and could sense the girls pointing. He didn't even want to think about Amanda's reaction. But he could also see that his competitors were nervous. They knew he meant business.

“No fair,” complained the Red swimmer. “He's got so much less friction.”

“Yeah,” said Yellow. “His friction coefficient is probably, like, point zero five.”

“On your mark!” shouted the lifeguard.

Gabe moved to the edge of the dock, bent over, and assumed a launching position. The other swimmers did the same, following his lead.

“Get set!”

Gabe lifted his butt into the air. He didn't even hear the
snickers behind him or the person who said, “I see Green team's underpants!” He was in the zone.

“GO!”

Gabe catapulted off the dock and cut swiftly through the water. The other swimmers didn't stand a chance. He tagged the floating island and swam back to the dock almost twice as quickly as the second-place finisher from Blue. The Green team went crazy. A bunch of his bunkmates rushed toward him to pat him on the back or hug him or lift him onto their shoulders, but they stopped a few feet away once they remembered the Speedo. Still, Gabe thought,
I'll be a hero
²
after tonight.

Word got around that Gabe was planning on kayaking to Dead Man's Island, and between battles and meals, kids from the team kept giving him items they thought would help him prepare. He found a pair of binoculars on his bed after breakfast. After lunch, a few of his bunkmates gave him a flashlight and a roll of duct tape so he could attach the flashlight to his hat. And, during free time, he found an envelope with an anonymous note that said its contents would help ward off evil spirits. Gabe opened the envelope but then quickly closed it without even looking inside—whatever was in there smelled horrible.

But mostly people gave him things to read. Victor gave him an article from
National Geographic Kids
about what causes rapids, which was informative. Jenny brought him a book of ghost stories with a Post-it on the page where a ship of ghost pirates attack a boat of fishermen, which wasn't very helpful. Wesley lent him a battered copy of
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
, since Huck rafts down the river. Nikhil went to the library and took out
The Cay
and
Island of the Blue Dolphins
, just in case Gabe got stranded on the island and had to live off the land. Gabe thought he'd prepare better by rereading
Swallows and Amazons
—which had a sea-island adventure that
didn't
involve getting stranded or nearly dying—but when he discovered that neither of his bunkmates had read it, he insisted they read it immediately and gave them his copy.

The day went so quickly that he wouldn't have had time to read most of these materials anyway. After dinner, it was time to rehearse for the sing-off and then perform. Green wrote and sang “Green Will Rock You,” a song to the tune of “We Will Rock You,” which consisted of that one line repeated in all eleven languages spoken on the team. They thought they were better than Blue, who prefaced their song with a long
explanation of why the sky is blue. Red was pretty impressive: They ended their song with not just a human pyramid, but also with a human trapezoid and even a human rhombus, and only one person fell. But it was Yellow that came from behind with what was undoubtedly the crowd favorite. They dressed up as robots and computers and sang their entire song in binary.

Before long, it was time for everyone to go back to the bunks. And shortly after that, it was lights out. And fifteen minutes after lights out, it was time for Gabe to go.

“Are you really going?” Nikhil said in the dark.

“Yeah,” said Gabe. He was antsy with readiness and fear, and he hoped his voice betrayed only the former.

“Wear a life jacket,” Nikhil said. “And the flashlight hat.”

“Don't forget to bring back the sand,” added Wesley with a silly snicker.

“Okay,” said Gabe.

“Wake me up when you get back,” said Nikhil.

“Okay,” said Gabe. They sat for a few seconds in silence. Then he said, “Well, I'd better go before David gets back.”

He unzipped his sleeping bag and peeled back the upper half, then slid his legs onto the floor and sat up. As he tiptoed
down the aisle between bunks, boys whispered phrases of encouragement and, in case he didn't return, final words.

The cabin door was creaky, so he opened it just enough to slip out. The night was quiet, still, and cold. Apart from the low din of cicadas and the occasional voice from the clearing, where the counselors were hanging out, all Gabe could hear were his own footsteps. He walked in the dark until he was sure the cabin would block a view of him from the clearing. Only when he felt the turf of the field beneath him did he turn on the flashlight on his hat, cupping his hand across the top of it to keep the light from scattering. He quickly pointed it across the field to make sure he was heading in the right direction.
Ha
, he thought.
I'm
heading
in the right direction, and the flashlight is on my
head.

For some reason, this stupid joke gave him the confidence he needed to run to the lake. “One …,” he whispered to himself. He switched off the flashlight. “Two …” He took a breath. “Three!” Gabe exploded across the field like soda from a shaken can, and he didn't stop until he'd rounded the upper cabins, zoomed through the wooded path, and reached the lake. A few kayaks and paddles were lying upside down on the grass right by the water.
That was a relief; he wouldn't have to go into the shed and lug one out by himself, which would be difficult and noisy. He did go to the shed to get himself a life jacket, though—he was a strong swimmer, but he wasn't taking any risks for this trip. Besides, if something did happen to him and his body washed up on shore without a life jacket, what would Nikhil think of him?

He kicked off his sandals and dragged a kayak to the lake. It slid into the water with a low
plop
, and Gabe looked around to make sure no one had heard. He also worried, illogically, that someone might hear his heart pounding as he waded into the cold water and clambered into the kayak. But then he was in, and no one had come running from the campground, ready to bust him for breaking the rules. It was pitch black and stock silent and deathly
cold.
But a sudden rush of adrenaline sent blood pumping through Gabe's body.
I'm doing it!