Nerd Camp (6 page)

Gabe took his copy of the problem from Miss Carey and looked at the first clue: “Amanda sits between two boys.” Part of his jitters evaporated. This was fun! He
loved
problems like
this. And the sooner he completed it, the sooner he could move away from the annoying girl next to him. He pulled out a freshly sharpened pencil and began working.

Amanda sits
between
two boys
, he thought.
Since she's between two people, she's not at one of the ends.
He found Amanda on the list of students and put an X in the boxes for the first seat and last seat.

He skipped down the list of clues to one about him. “Gabriel's seat is closer to the windows than to the door.”

That was easy. He located himself on the chart and X-ed the first half of the boxes, the ones that represented seats closer to the doors. He continued to work, reading a clue, thinking about what information it revealed, and filling in the chart. He made a mistake somewhere along the way—it didn't make sense for Michael to not have a seat—but he was able to go back and fix it. He was concentrating so hard that he barely registered the squeak of chairs along the floor as a few students figured out their spots and got up to move to them.

“Rose and Gabriel are as far apart as can be,” he read.
I hope this annoying girl next to me is named Rose
, Gabe thought as he looked at the chart to solve the last of the clues. If he and Rose were as far apart as can be, that must mean
they were sitting on the two ends of the U. And if his seat was closer to the windows than to the door, Rose must be at the seat closest to the door. And he must be closest to the windows, next to someone named … he checked his chart—Amanda. He only had to move one seat over, into the seat where the annoying girl (Rose, he'd convinced himself) was sitting right now. That meant he got to kick her out, which was an added bonus. He put down his pencil and looked up with satisfaction.

But before he could tap her and steal the seat,
she
poked
him
on the shoulder. “Thanks for keeping my seat warm,” she said.

“What?” said Gabe.

“You're in my seat,” she said.

“Aren't you all the way over there?” Gabe asked. He pointed to the seat by the door. As soon as he did, his hopes were dashed. In that seat was a girl with pigtails. She was wearing a T-shirt with a big picture of a rose on it, and the pencil case on her desk was plastered with roses.

The girl next to Gabe said, “Maybe you did it wrong. I'm Amanda. I'm right here next to—”

Gabe finished her sentence for her: “Me.”

The girl broke into a smile. “Good thing I forgave you,” she said. “We're meant to be.”

And just like that, Gabe was back to feeling sick.

“Don't look,” said Wesley. “There goes Amanda Wisznewski again.”

Gabe put down his grilled cheese sandwich and rolled his eyes. “Why does she keep walking by here?”

“She must be really hungry,” said Nikhil. “She's walked by so many times.”

“But she doesn't even have to walk by our table to get more food,” said Gabe. “She just keeps doing it to annoy me.”

“Don't look,” said Wesley. “She's walking back the other way.”

“Let's talk about anything but Amanda Wisznewski,” said Gabe.

“Okay,” said Nikhil.

But for some reason, apart from Amanda Wisznewski there wasn't very much to talk about. The boys ate their lunch silently until a few minutes later, when Amanda walked by again and Wesley said, “I won't say who, but someone just walked by again.”

Recess wasn't any better. Every time the boys turned around, Amanda and some girls from her bunk were right there. They tried to lose them by running in separate directions off the field, but when they met up in the woods, the girls were right near them, playing some sort of hopscotch game with rocks and logs.

Gabe wasn't even surprised when Amanda was in Poetry Writing as well. But the Poetry Writing teacher made up for that. Gabe knew he'd like Mr. Justice the minute he saw him. He was short and thin, with rimless glasses and thick dreadlocks that hung down to his elbows like the branches of a willow tree. From the way he kept the lights out in the classroom while he taught, to the low, sure pitch of his voice as he told the class he thought them mature enough to not need set rules, Mr. Justice created an atmosphere of such tranquility that Gabe thought he could forget about Amanda Wisznewski—if only she would let herself be forgotten.

When Mr. Justice asked them to get into pairs for a getting-to-know-each-other exercise, Amanda shouted out, “I pick Gabe Phillips!”

Mr. Justice saw Gabe take off his glasses and rub his
eyes, but he only raised his eyebrows and said, “Well, then.”

Amanda pushed her desk close to Gabe's. “You're welcome,” she said.

“What?”

“I said you're welcome. I knew you'd want to be my partner but would be too embarrassed to say it, so I said it.”

Gabe wanted to close his eyes and ask her to repeat what she said, to make sure he'd heard it right. “Why do you think I wanted to be your partner?”

“Because I haven't been able to shake you all day.”

Gabe blinked. “You think
I've
been following
you
?”

Amanda began counting on her fingers. “You sat next to me in Logical Reasoning, even before we had the assigned seats. Then you kept looking at me all through lunch. And talking about me—I heard you and your friends saying my name every single time I passed your table. Then you kept following me around during recess, even in the woods. And now you're in this class with me. It's kind of obvious.”

Gabe didn't even know what to say.

“I forgive you, though,
again
.” Amanda shrugged. “I've just accepted that we're meant to be.”

Problem: Am I a nerd who only has nerdy adventures?

Hypothesis: No.

Proof:

Zack—

Did you ever swim in a lake? It's not like the ocean, because the water isn't salty and there aren't really waves. Also, the bottom has mud instead of sand. It's kind of weird, but you get used to it. But one of the girl counselors dove down and scooped up mud and then rubbed it all over her body. She said it's good for your skin, and some other girls tried it. Gross!!

I think the best thing about camp so far is kayaking. They have kayaks that you can use during swim
time. You sit in it and use a paddle and you can go all over and turn and stuff. It's SO FUN! Wesley tried it a few times, but he's so bad. He can't even paddle forward, and he even flipped over two times and the lifeguard had to come help him get out from underneath. Now he just sticks to swimming. I think the lifeguards are happy about that.

The worst thing about camp so far is Amanda Wisznewski.

“You know what's meant to be?” said Wesley. “Me and the play.”

“What play?”

“The play that's happening this week during activity time. It's right here on the list. See? Playwriting.”

It was the second Monday of camp, and even with time slowing down whenever Gabe waited for Amanda to disappear, the days were passing so quickly that Gabe worried camp would be over before he had a chance to try everything. Every afternoon during free time, the list of evening activities was thumbtacked to the post of the counselor's bed. You had until dinner to choose and sign up for what you wanted
to do that night after homework. You could play sports, use the computers, make crafts, cook, watch movies—the list changed and grew, and everything on it sounded so fun that the boys often found themselves choosing by eenie meenie miney mo.

“I'll get the chart,” Nikhil said. He walked to the back of the cabin and took the activities chart they'd made off the wall. It listed the day, the activity each of them had chosen, the type of activity, how fun it was on a scale of zero to five, and any additional comments. There was a row for each of them, plus a row for Amanda. The reasoning was that if they kept track of her choices, they could figure out what she'd choose next—and Gabe could avoid it. So far, that theory was failing miserably. The activity column had matching entries for Gabe and Amanda four out of the six days.

“I think we're all due for a sport tonight,” Nikhil said after reviewing the chart. “Except maybe you, Gabe, since you played Spud on Thursday. But you gave it a four point five, so maybe you want to do another one anyway.”

“I'm doing the play,” said Wesley. “I'm going to star in it.”

“You like being up there in front of people?” asked Nikhil.

“Yeah,” said Wesley. “I wanted to go to acting camp, but
when I got into Summer Center, my parents said I had to come here.”

“This wasn't your first choice?” asked Gabe. He put a mental tick in his non-nerdy column—Wesley wasn't a complete nerd. Unless acting was nerdy. Zack probably thought so.

Wesley shrugged and shook his head. “My mom and dad think school is the most important thing. Plays are just for fun. That's why I'm here.” He brightened. “But they're not here. So I'm doing the play.” He rubbed his hands together sinisterly.

“The play is every day for a whole week, right?” asked Nikhil. “If you don't like it, you're stuck.”

“I'll like it,” said Wesley. “I'm going to be the lead.”

“How do you know you'll get the lead?” asked Gabe.

Wesley smiled, as if he'd been waiting for this question all day. “This week, you sign up to
write
the play. Then, next week, you sign up to be in it. So, I've got a foolproof plan. I'm going to do both. And I'm going to write the lead part so that it's perfect for me.”

Gabe and Nikhil looked at each other and nodded. That was a smart plan.

Nikhil said, “Gabe, maybe you should do the play. If
Amanda doesn't do it, you'd have two whole weeks without her, guaranteed!”

Gabe considered this. “But if she does do it, I'll have two weeks
with
her, guaranteed.”

Nikhil moved his head from side to side. “You're right,” he decided. “It's not worth the risk.”

Gabe took the chart from Nikhil and looked at the list on their counselor's bedpost. The choices were all good, as usual. There were a few options for sports, but he was pretty tired from kayaking during swim time. Since Nikhil was going to do one of those and Wesley was going to do the play, that meant Gabe was on his own. Silent reading called out to him like it did every time it was on the list. But then, like every time it was on the list, he reminded himself that he could read before lights out, and if he did it during activity time, he might be missing out on some of the more original options. Last night he'd thought the same thing and then ended up choosing baking cookies. Unfortunately, so did Amanda, so he spent the hour defending his ratio of chocolate chips to dough and trying to keep her grubby fingers out of his mixing bowl.

What
wouldn't
Amanda pick tonight? Her row of the chart was completely illogical; there was no pattern to it
at all. Sometimes she picked completely girly things, but other times she'd be the only girl in the group. On Tuesday she made friendship bracelets, but then on Thursday, while most of her bunkmates were having a dance party, she was a running back on Gabe's flag football team.

What will Amanda not do?
Gabe wondered, tapping his nose. But then he took it one step further.
She probably assumes I'll pick something she would not want to do
, Gabe reasoned.
So, I should pick something she normally
would
do.
He made a mental note to ask Miss Carey what that sort of reasoning is called.

“What's karaoke?” he said.

“Karaoke!” said Nikhil. “I studied that word for the spelling bee. The language of origin is Japanese, and it means musical accompaniment without vocals.”

“Singing,” Wesley translated. “I bet it's all girls.”

“That's what I thought,” said Gabe. “I think that's something Amanda would do but would think I wouldn't do.”

Nikhil moved his eyes back and forth, processing each piece of that statement as if it were a volley in a tennis match. “I concur,” he concluded.

“I concur squared,” said Wesley.

“Perfect,” said Gabe. “I'm doing it.”

And that was how Gabe ended up in a room with Amanda, eight other girls, and an hour of girl singers' greatest hits.

He made a new mental note to tell Miss Carey that that sort of reasoning totally backfired.

“I didn't know you like singing,” Amanda said while Jenny Chin and Vidya Gupta sang/screamed, “Girls just wanna have fun!”

“I don't,” Gabe grumbled.

“Then why did you pick karaoke?”

“It's a long story.”

“Is it because you thought I would do it?”

Sort of
, Gabe thought. Then he had an idea. “Yep,” he said. “What activity are you going to do tomorrow? Tell me so I won't have to guess.”