Watch Your Step (15 page)

Unable to move my lips, I move my eyes and look around. The infirmary is a large white room. There are cots. Posters of smiling kids and adults wearing Kamp Kilter T-shirts. Shelves filled with jars of tongue depressors, cotton balls, and Band-Aids. It looks like a fairly normal infirmary. With one exception.

It's packed.

“Whsocrwd?” I ask against Ms. Marla's palm. She gives me a look, warning me not to say the wrong thing, then removes her hand. I try again. “Why's it so crowded?”

“Must be something in the air this morning.” Ms. Marla smacks a Band-Aid onto my forehead. “But good news! You're healthy as a horse, and free to go.”

With that, she pushes away from me and rides her
stool-on-wheels over to the next patient: a grown woman who appears to be totally fine except for her worried frown.

“Samara must be an excellent teacher.” Abe stands next to Elinor and lowers his voice. “Tons of parents are getting checked out for fake symptoms.”

My head starts spinning. Slowly at first, then faster.

“I remember what happened.” I look at Abe. “You're right. It wasn't an accident.” Then, “What's wrong with your hands?”

He holds them up. They're completely blue, from wrist to fingertip. “I washed them at my parents' house. Only what I thought was soap was some kind of weird ink. It came out clear but turned blue on my skin.” He lowers his hands. “Ms. Marla gave me some special ointment. I should be back to normal by tomorrow.”

“Me too,” Gabby says.

Her hands look fine. But, “Why are you wearing sunglasses?” I ask. “Inside?”

She leans closer. “Cleaning's hard work. I got hungry so decided to look for a snack. I opened the refrigerator in my parents' kitchen, and—BAM!”

“Gabby,”
Abe hisses. “Keep it down! Geez.”

“Bam,”
she whispers. “Stars.”

“Like the kind in the sky?” I ask, confused.

“Shaped like that, but these were battery operated and taped all over the inside of the fridge. When I opened the door, they started flashing like crazy. I was so surprised it took me a second to close the door—and then I still saw them. They were that bright.”

“You saw them shining through the refrigerator door?” Abe asks.

“No, silly,” Gabby says. “You know how when someone takes your picture, the flash goes off—and then you keep seeing light? Until your eyes adjust again? It was like that. Only times a hundred, because there were at least that many stars. Then it was hard to see anything else. I can see fine now, but Ms. Marla gave me these super-cute sunglasses to protect my eyes, just in case.”

I look at Elinor next. “Are you okay?”

She nods.

“Nothing strange happened while you were polishing silverware?”

“Not until I heard a lot of noise and found you on the balcony.”

“Great,” Abe says, clearly wanting to move on. “We're all fine. Now can we talk about what's happening?”

“Yes,” I say. “But not here. Too many ears.”

“How about the dining hall?” Gabby asks. “It's too late for breakfast and too early for lunch, so maybe it's empty?”

“Sounds good.” I sit up, give my head a second to adjust to the sudden movement, and start to stand. “Let's go.”

As we make our way to the door, I look around the crowded infirmary. It's crawling with parents, but I don't see mine. It's also crawling with kids, but I don't see Lemon.

I'm not sure how I feel about my best friend's absence. My friends and I aren't the only Troublemakers here so it doesn't seem like we were the only targets of mysterious pranks. Why was Lemon excluded? Or, what if he wasn't excluded—and is in such bad shape he couldn't make it to the infirmary?

When we're sitting in the empty cafeteria, I ask these questions aloud.

“Did you see the size of our parents' beds?” Gabby asks. “Lemon probably plopped onto one and fell asleep.”

“Maybe,” I say. “But he seemed pretty awake this morning.”

“Did he write you back?” Elinor asks. “When you e-mailed to check in with everyone before?”

“No,” I say. “And I'm kind of worried.”

Gabby gasps. “Elinor, the sundae bar's open. Want to check it out?”

The girls leave.

“I'm worried too,” Abe says when they're out of earshot.

“You are?” I ask. “Good. I was beginning to think I was the only one who—”

“Not about Lemon. The dude's weird. If he's acting differently, I'm sure it's just a new kind of Lemon-weird. And not because anything's wrong.”

“So then what are you worried about?”

“Not what.” His eyes dart toward the sundae bar.
“Who.”

“Go on,” I say.

“You're not going to like it.”

“Try me.”

He pauses. “Elinor.”

My heart skips. “She said nothing happened to her.”

“That's the problem.”

I glance at Elinor, who's now laughing with Gabby as she pours hot fudge over her ice cream.

“Think about it,” Abe says. “We're trying to bust her mom. Her mom's not here, so she asks if she can help out in your
parents' cabin. You guys split up. Then one second you're on the balcony alone, and in the next, you're knocked out. And who finds you first?”

I don't say anything.

“Kind of convenient, don't you think?” he asks. “That Elinor wasn't with you when balls started flying . . . and then when they stopped, she was?”

“She was the first person to find me because she was the only other person in the house. And she helped me.”

“After she hurt you.”

“No.”

“Maybe.”

“
No.
She was inside. The balls came from outside.”

“And there's no way she could've gone outside after you split up, and come back inside once she'd stopped firing?”

Of course she
could
have. We were apart long enough that that'd be physically possible.

But she wouldn't have.

“What about you guys?” I ask. “You and Gabby? If Elinor was so busy targeting me, how'd Gabby end up half-blind and you with blue hands?”

“Elinor filled the soap dispensers and rigged the fridge beforehand. Obviously.”

“And the other Troublemakers? Was she behind whatever happened to them, too?”

“Well—”

“Forget it. That question doesn't even deserve an answer. But Abe, what exactly are you saying? That Elinor isn't working with us? That she's actually secretly working for her mother—who, let me remind you, trapped her in a swimming pool of snakes? And who she couldn't get away from fast enough when we went to rescue her last semester?”

He thinks about it. “Yes.”

I laugh. “No offense, but that has to be the craziest thing you've ever said. I know Elinor. And she knows me. There's no way she'd—”

“Hinkle.”

“No, you need to—”

“Hinkle.”

I freeze. So does my mouth, which is still open from being interrupted. Because Abe's face is white. And when I follow his wide-eyed stare to a window near the cafeteria coffee station, I know why.

“Do you see what I see?” he whispers.

I see a dirty brown bandana. Tied around an oily, pimpled forehead. Holding back hair so greasy, it shines like the light in Gabby's rigged refrigerator. Whoever's wearing the bandana is outside, ducking under a cafeteria window.

Still staring, Abe and I answer his question at the same time.

“Shepherd Bull.”

N
o way!” Gabby exclaims.

“Yes way,” Abe says.

“I can't believe it,” Elinor says.

“I'm sure you can't,” Abe says.

“Why didn't you say anything?” Gabby asks.

“We didn't want to talk about it until we knew it was safe,” Abe says.

“But—where?” Gabby asks. “How? When?”

“Who?”
Annika adds.

We all look at our director. She's sitting at the head of a gleaming silver yacht. This is where Houdini brought us after we got back to our campsite, I e-mailed Annika and said we had big news, and she sent the golf cart. Houdini drove us to another lake, this one bigger and bluer than the one our parents are enjoying, and then took us by motorboat to the yacht floating half a mile off shore.

“
Who
is Shepherd Bull?” Annika repeats.

“Only the dirtiest, smelliest, meanest boy-giant that ever lived!” Gabby says.

“How do you know him?” Annika asks.

“We don't,” I say. “Not really. But we've seen him before. At IncrimiNation.”

Annika sits up straight. “So I was right. My sister
is
up to something.”

“Looks like,” Abe says.

“What else do you know about this boy?” Annika asks.

“He has a lot of dirty friends,” Abe says. “When we were at their school, they blindfolded us in gross gym socks, tied us up, and locked us in a closet.”

“And he seems to be some kind of leader,” I add.

“Where did you see him today?” Annika asks.

“Outside the camp cafeteria,” I say. “Spying on us through a window.”

“Was anyone with him?” Annika asks.

“We don't know,” I say. “He was gone by the time we ran outside.”

“And you don't know where he went?” Annika asks.

“Nope,” Abe says. “We checked the woods and other buildings, but there was no sign of him.”

Annika looks at Elinor. “What do you know about this?”

“Yeah,” Abe says. “What
do
you know?”

Like the rest of us, Elinor's sitting on one of the yacht's comfy lounge chairs. Now she sinks deeper into the cushion and says, “Nothing.”

“You've spent time at your mother's school,” Annika says. “Occasionally against your will, often against your mother's. At the very least, you were there several weeks last semester before your friends came and got you. You're saying you don't know anything more about this dirty boy-giant than what's just been shared?”

Elinor looks down at her hands, which she's clasping and unclasping. “They're right,” she says, her voice soft. “He's a
leader. My mother usually gives him orders, and then he tells the other kids what to do.”

Annika waits. “That's it? You don't know where he's from? How old he is? What his special troublemaking talents are? Why your mother favors him?”

Elinor's head snaps up. When she talks now, her voice is low but sharp. “He's mean. So mean, whenever I see him coming I turn around and go the other way.”

At this I want to run over to Elinor and give her a huge hug. But Annika smirks and speaks before I can.

“No wonder.”

“No wonder what?” I ask.

“That my sister takes any chance she can get to dump her—” Annika stops herself. “Never mind! Now, tell me. What should we do about this situation?”

I look at Elinor again. She's dabbing her eyes with her T-shirt sleeve.

“That's what we wanted to talk to you about,” I say evenly. “We thought you might want the Good Samaritans to take care of it. By finding Shepherd Bull and any other trespassers, and kicking them out.”

“Definitely not,” Annika says. “At least one Incriminator is on the premises. There may be more. This is an unexpected development, but it's also an opportunity. Here, on our turf, we have an invaluable chance to learn more about the enemy in ways we didn't anticipate.”

“How?” Abe asks.

“Engage them,” Annika says. “Let them do whatever they've come to do, and while they're doing it, watch. Listen. And, of course, defend yourselves as necessary.”

“Hang on,” Gabby says. “You want us to spy on our parents, spy on the Incriminators,
and
do all of our regular homework and assignments?”

“Is that a problem?” Annika asks.

“Nope!” Gabby gives two thumbs-ups to show she really means it.

“That's what I thought. And remember: You're well trained and up to the challenge. Just think of the Incriminators as new items you've picked up from the Kommissary and play with them like the toys that they are.”

Gabby laughs. Abe grins. I look at Elinor, who looks down at her lap.

“Moving on,” Annika says. “Abe's and Gabby's families will be here shortly.”

“They will?” Abe asks.

“Why?” Gabby asks.

“Role Reverse,” Annika says. “I told you about it the other day.”

“You also said we'd get e-mails with more information.” Abe whips out his K-Pak, taps the screen. “And I didn't get any.”

“You're all much busier than your classmates are,” Annika says, “so when this meeting came up, I thought it was a great chance to knock out two birds with one stone. I notified your parents, and they agreed to meet here.” She pauses. “You sound nervous. Why?”