The Stars of Summer (8 page)

BOBBING LIKE A HOT DOG

D
AY TWO AT CAMP BENTLEY STARTED OFF
much like day one, except this time Gladys was allowed to come through the front gate with the rest of the campers. Everyone gathered in the field for the morning announcements, and Gladys couldn't help but glance around for Hamilton Herbertson. Was he wearing his purple shirt today, or still protesting against the camp's dress code?

Not like I care what he wears,
she told herself.
It's just that it's rude to Charissa and her family if he won't wear the uniform.

She finally spotted him and, like yesterday, he was clad in black from head to toe. Charissa was going to have a fit. Gladys turned to ask if her friend had seen him yet, but then Mr. Bentley's voice came booming out of the speakers.

“The swimming lesson schedules have been posted on the pool bulletin board, so if you're not sure what time your lesson is, please check there. Just like last year, the day will start with the least advanced class and progress to the most advanced right before lunch. So Basic Beginners will meet at nine o'clock, Advanced Beginners at nine thirty, et cetera. And, of course, today is also the start of Free Swim in the afternoons for anyone who has passed their lap-swimming test.”

Gladys tore a blade of grass out of the ground in front of her. She'd thought that she would at least have until the afternoon to mentally prepare for her first swimming lesson, but now she had less than fifteen minutes.

The announcements ended with a “Go get 'em, Camp Bentley!” and all the campers rose to their feet. Gladys quickly headed to the kitchen to try to catch Mrs. Spinelli and explain her new schedule before her lesson started.

As she passed through the covered cafeteria patio, she noticed that Hamilton was already in his usual seat, scribbling away in his notebook. Turning her nose up at him, she marched to the screen door and popped her head in.

Just like yesterday, Mrs. Spinelli stood behind the counter, though this time she was laying out rows of burger buns instead of bread slices. At the squeak of the screen door, she looked up.

“Hot lunch today, girlie!” she announced in lieu of a greeting. “Head on back to the pantry and grab me twelve of those jumbo cans of baked beans. Unless you're too puny to carry 'em, that is.”

“Um . . . I . . .” Gladys felt pulled in too many directions. Part of her wanted to march to the pantry and prove that she was
not
too puny, and part of her wanted to inform Mrs. Spinelli that homemade baked beans, seasoned with bacon and maple syrup, were far superior to canned ones. But the part of her that didn't want to be screamed at by Coach Mike for being late won out.

“I actually came to tell you that I can't start my CIT work at nine o'clock anymore,” Gladys said.

“Giving up already?” Mrs. Spinelli nodded to herself. “I guess I shouldn't be surprised. The moment I laid eyes on you, I knew you weren't cut out for it. It's not for the weak of spirit, this work.”

“I'm not weak of spirit!” Gladys cried. “It's just that my swimming lessons start at nine, so I'll have to come in a little later.”

Mrs. Spinelli slowly set down the bun she was holding, and Gladys gulped, sure that she was about to get a final strike for sass. But to her surprise, the skinny cook chuckled.

“Weak of swimming skills, then, is it? Well, you'd better get to work on that. We can't have you bobbing around in the pool like a hot dog on the boil, can we?” She waved the back of a latex-gloved hand toward the door, dismissing Gladys. “And you tell that Coach Mike that Yolanda Spinelli sends her regards. I saw him put away six of my hamburgers at last year's end-of-summer cookout. He's an impressive man, that one.”

Mrs. Spinelli looked quickly back down at her array of buns. Was she . . . blushing? Gladys stared for what was probably a moment too long, then turned and raced out the door before the cook gave her a strike for cheekiness.

She hurried to the changing rooms, and when she emerged, the camp's central clock said five minutes to nine. She was about to head over to the pool when a rustle sounded behind her: Hamilton turning to a fresh page in his notebook. He had not changed into his swimsuit, and he didn't seem to have any intention of going to the pool at all.

Forget about him,
she told herself.
Who cares if he gets into trouble?
But she couldn't help thinking that if
she
was about to miss her lesson accidentally, she'd appreciate being warned.

“Hey!” she said in the sharpest voice she could muster. She might be helping Hamilton, but that didn't mean she had to be nice about it. “We're supposed to go to the pool for our swim lesson.”

Hamilton glanced up, but his eyes looked vague and unfocused behind their black-framed spectacles.

“It's almost nine!” Gladys pointed to the camp clock. Hamilton looked, then sat up straighter.

“Oh,” he said. “I'm sorry, but I'm only signing books between eleven thirty and noon. So if you wouldn't mind coming back—”

“I don't want you to
sign a book
.” Gladys was trying to keep her cool, but he wasn't making it easy. “I was just pointing out that your swimming lesson starts in three minutes.”

“My swimming—oh!” He jumped to his feet. “That's right—I promised. I have to get dressed. Will you watch this for me?” And without waiting for an answer, he shot around the corner toward the changing rooms, leaving his notebook on the table in front of Gladys.

“Hey!” she cried after him, but he'd already disappeared.

Fudge
.

Gladys glared down at the notebook that was now going to make her late. For a moment, she considered just leaving it there and running to the pool, but she understood how important a notebook was. She would hate it if she asked someone to keep an eye on her reviewing journal and they just disappeared. Then again, Hamilton had just assumed that she would be happy to watch it for him—probably because he was a “celebrity.”
Ugh,
she thought.
After we make it to the pool, I'm never speaking to him again.

Hamilton ran back a minute later in his swim trunks, stuffing his other clothes into his bag and grabbing his notebook. “Come on!” he said impatiently—as though
Gladys
was the one making
him
late! More annoyed than ever, she followed.

Hamilton walked quickly, and given that his legs were longer than Gladys's, she had to scurry to keep up. The camp clock struck nine with a
bong!
when they were halfway across the field. “Maybe we'll just be able to slip into the group unnoticed,” Gladys panted.

“Sure,” Hamilton said, but a second later, as if by unspoken agreement, they both broke into a run.

They reached the pool in less than a minute, but any hopes of quietly joining the class were shot the moment they skidded to a stop on the concrete.

“Late!!!” screamed a high-pitched voice. “Coach! Coach! The big kids are
late
!”

The source of the scream was a little girl with bright red pigtails and freckles on pretty much every bit of skin not covered by her frilly pink bikini. She was pointing a finger at Gladys and Hamilton and nearly jumping up and down with excitement. Next to her, an even smaller boy with dark skin and closely shaved hair was shaking his head like he'd never been more disappointed.

“Late,
late,
LATE!” the pigtailed girl sang, and around her, more and more of her peers joined in.

Gladys had hoped that the Basic Beginners group might have a couple more older campers in it—maybe a poor swimmer from the Elephant Elevens or the Tarantula Tens—but not one of the kids looked to be over the age of six. In fact, she was pretty sure she saw a swim diaper poking out of the littlest boy's trunks.

“Silence!” roared Coach Mike. From behind her clipboard, Rolanda smirked.

The coach paced back and forth along the pool's edge. “This is Basic Beginners—which means that none of you little varmints has the foggiest idea how to swim. You are one false move away from drowning. And the only people who stand between you and a miserable death are me and my assistant, Rolanda. So you'd better listen up and do exactly what we say, or when the time comes . . .”

The coach just let those words hang in the air, but he didn't have to finish the sentence. All the little kids were staring at him now, several of them trembling as they no doubt imagined their watery demises.

“Well, that's a bunch of baloney.”

Gladys had been thinking the same thing, but at least she'd been smart enough not to say it out loud. Now every head in the group (including Coach Mike's and Rolanda's) turned toward Hamilton, whose ghost-pale chest was puffed out, Gladys realized, in preparation for another speech.

“You may be able to scare these children with your threats, Coach Mike,” he began, “but I am your intellectual peer. I know that you're legally required to save every one of us, no matter how badly we listen to you or how little we obey. If you let a child drown, this camp will be shut down and you'll lose your job—and probably be sued. So you can request that I do you the favor of listening, but empty threats against my life will get you nowhere.”

Now the little kids were gawking at Hamilton.

“Herbertson,” the coach growled. “My office. Rolanda, start them on the drills.”

Hamilton's spine was straight as he marched past the other kids and followed Coach Mike into the office at the edge of the pool area, and Gladys honestly wasn't sure who to root for. Resolving to forget about both of them if she could, she turned her attention to Rolanda, who was now demonstrating the arm movements and breathing patterns for a basic crawl stroke.

It turned out that Gladys needn't have changed into her swimsuit for this lesson, since they never even went into the pool. After the demo, Rolanda moved in and out of the rows, straightening elbows and adjusting heads. Five minutes before the end of the lesson, Hamilton and the coach finally returned to the group.

In spite of herself, Gladys craned her neck along with everyone else, trying to read Hamilton's expression. Had he been punished? Or had he managed to maneuver his way into yet another set of special circumstances? Unfortunately, just as he came into her sight line, Rolanda reached out and jerked Gladys's head back in the opposite direction.

“You breathe at regular intervals,” she hissed into Gladys's ear, “or you drown.”

By the time Gladys was able to peek up again, Hamilton had disappeared into one of the rows behind her.

• • •

The moment she got home from camp that day, Gladys made a beeline for the computer.
Please have found Wi-Fi, please have found Wi-Fi,
she thought desperately. But when she logged in to her DumpMail account, there was no message from Sandy.

She shoved the keyboard away in frustration. She needed to get started on this crazy hot dog assignment—but, more importantly, she just really wanted to talk to her friend. In the week after school had finished, she and Sandy had hung out constantly. Gladys could hardly even remember what they'd talked about in all that time. All she knew was that now she was bursting to tell someone about Mrs. Spinelli, and swimming, and Hamilton, but Sandy wasn't around to listen.

At least tomorrow would be Gladys's last day of camp for the week; Thursday was July 4, and Camp Bentley was shutting down for the long weekend. So Gladys would be off from camp on Thursday and Friday, even though her parents only had Thursday off from work.

Gladys's dad had grumbled about this all through dinner the previous night. “No rest for government employees,” he'd said between bites of a drumstick off the chicken Gladys had helped her mom roast. “When am I supposed to spend time with my family? Here's my daughter, growing up before my eyes, and I'm barely home to see it. How tall are you now, Gladdy, five seven?”

It was the best wrong estimate of her height that Gladys had heard all day.

Just for that, Gladys was planning to surprise her dad tonight with a key lime pie, his favorite dessert.
I'd better get started if I want it to have enough time to chill before dinner,
she thought, and shut down the computer.

The rest of the afternoon flew by as Gladys separated eggs, zested limes, and smashed graham crackers into bits for the crust. The harder she worked, the lighter her worries became, until they floated away like the steam that rose off her pie when she finally took it out of the oven.

On the menu for dinner that night was leftover chicken and microwaved frozen vegetables. Gladys settled in at the kitchen table with her plate, and her dad started up again about having to work on Friday.

“It wouldn't be so bad,” he said, “if all week long on the train I didn't have to listen to everyone
else
talk about where they're going with their families. Robbins is taking his kids to the Jersey Shore!”

Gladys's mom raised an eyebrow. “You're jealous of someone who's going to New Jersey?”

“I—no—look, it's the principle of the thing!” he spluttered. “On Friday, he'll be strolling down the boardwalk with his boys, playing arcade games and eating junk food, and where will I be? Schlepping around the city as usual.” He sighed, then turned to Gladys. “Have you got any fun plans for Friday, Gladdy?”

She was just about to say “Nope” when an idea struck her. She was off from camp on Friday . . . her dad wanted to spend more time with her . . . and she needed to get to New York City to start working on her review. It wasn't a boardwalk, but why couldn't they stroll around together eating hot dogs in Manhattan?

“Um,” she said, “actually, yeah. But first, I have a surprise for you, Dad!” And she hurried off to get the pie from the fridge.