Now, I like nature as much as the next guy. In fact, I like it a lot.
I like hiking too.
But it turns out that when you put those two together to make “nature hike,” it’s like putting pickles in a pudding cup. Bad combination of two perfectly good ingredients.
It probably doesn’t have to be that way. (The nature hike, I mean, not the pickles and pudding. The one time I tried to make Georgia eat that, she almost threw up.)
(What? You thought I was going to try it myself?)
The thing about nature hikes at Camp Wannamorra is that they’re led by the head counselor, Chuck—also known as Wood Chuck, Up Chuck, and most of all, Boring Chuck.
He was one of the science teachers in the morning, which meant he knew everything there was to know about every leaf, bush, tree, bird, and bug within a hundred miles of camp. Make that five hundred miles.
And that meant instead of getting the afternoon off from school, we were hiking right back into it.
Sometimes my teachers, or even my mom, will ask me why I’m always spacing out and making up stuff. All I can say is that sometimes life is a whole lot more interesting inside my head than it is on the outside.
In fact, why don’t you come on in, and I’ll show you around, Khatchadorian-style. You want a nature hike that doesn’t put you to sleep? Follow me.
Now if you come right down here through the woods, you’ll get a nice view of Lake Wannamorra, just in time to catch the camp mascot, Heads and Tail. He’s the two-headed, slime-eating, slime-spewing beast that surfaces from the bottom of the lake once a day to empty his snot pockets all over the people we don’t like. (That’s right, Doolin, I’m talking about you.)
Oh, and look up there in that tree. It’s Ugg and Lee, the most hideous-looking crows you’ve ever seen. They’re either brothers or sisters, I’m not sure which. It’s hard to tell with crows. But their song is sweeter than a slice of apple pie with extra cinnamon. This next tune goes out to Katie Kim.
Okay, everyone, we’re coming into a rougher part of the forest now, so watch your back. Right over there, I can see Bucko the Deer, Bambi’s cousin from the wrong side of the tracks. He looks innocent enough, but don’t let those big eyes fool you. This deer-dude is armed and dangerous, and he’ll steal your lunch money just as soon as look at you.
Of course, Bucko’s nothing compared to what you don’t see around here. Meet Snake, Rattle, and Roll, just three of the zillion venomous killers waiting for you in the shadows if you’re unlucky enough to stumble onto Snake Hill.
If you ever do come face-to-face with one of these guys, it’s probably because they already have their three-inch fangs in you, and you’ve got just enough time left to wish you’d done arts and crafts that day instead of hiking.
So let me give you a tip: When you find yourself lost and alone on Snake Hill, there’s one thing you can do to protect yourself. Just one thing that can save your life, so listen very carefully. First, you have to—
“Rafe?” Boring Chuck said. “Are you even listening to me?”
“Yeah,” I said.
“What was I just saying?”
“Uh… something about leaves?”
“That was ten minutes ago. I was saying we have to turn around and go back now.”
I looked up at the sky and saw a bunch of dark clouds. The wind was kicking up too, and it was just starting to rain.
“Sorry, fellas, it looks like we won’t make it all the way to Snake Hill today, after all,” Chuck told us.
I was kind of disappointed, actually. I was just starting to get into this whole nature hike thing.
TUNA SURPRISE
When we got back to the Muskrat Hut that day, we had another surprise waiting. Not the good kind of surprise, of course. More like the smelly tuna-and-sardine kind.
“What is that?” Bombardier said, before we even got up the steps. He had the best sniffer of anyone, which is funny when you think about it.
But there was nothing funny about the inside of the cabin. It smelled like one giant fish market, with extra fish.
“Oh, man! I’ve got tuna under my bunk!” Cav yelled out.
“Sardines over here,” Smurf said.
When I looked under mine, there were sardines and tuna. Lots of it.
The “Cool Cabin” had struck again. Shaving cream, old fish… what was next?
“I don’t get it,” I said. “What do those guys have against us?”
“Everything,” Tunz said.
“We tried talking to Major Sherwood once,” Cav said.
“But he thinks it’s all ‘good clean fun,’ ” Smurf said. “You know how he’s always saying Camp Wannamorra men work things out for themselves? Well, this is what he’s talking about.”
It was weird. I felt like they were all saying the same stuff Norman had said about his nickname—how it’s always been that way, and there was nothing we could do about it, and blah-blah-blah.
But I wasn’t ready to just roll over, play dead, and go home at the end of the summer smelling like tuna, sardines, and defeat. It was time for us losers to start sticking together.
This was it. They weren’t going to push us around anymore. It was time to push back. Hold our ground! Get revenge…
… just as soon as we cleaned up all that fish.
“Listen, guys,” I said. “We have to do something about this.”
“What do you mean, like air freshener?” Bombardier asked.
“No. I mean—well, maybe that too,” I said. “But we’re not going to let Doolin and the Bobcats walk all over us anymore.”
“What are you saying?” Dweebs asked. “You mean they’re going to run all over us?”
All of a sudden, everyone was looking at me. Even Legend, I think, but I didn’t have the nerve to look back, especially since I didn’t have a plan yet.
But I did know where to start. First things first. (And I don’t mean the fish.)
“Who’s up for a little reconnaissance?”
RECONNAISSANCE
We waited until after lights-out that night. Then we waited some more, for Rusty’s bunk check at eleven thirty. We’d all gone to bed with our clothes on, so as soon as we heard him whistling his way back down the path, we were good to go.
Everyone went except for Norman. The seven of us left him at the Muskrat Hut and took off. We went around behind the cabin, then up through the woods, so nobody would see us on the trail. It also gave me a chance to talk about Norman.
“You guys should stop calling him Booger Eater,” I said, once we were out of earshot. “I don’t think he likes it. Who would?”
“I guess,” Smurf said. “It’s just kind of always—”
“Yeah, yeah. That’s how it’s always been,” I said.
“So what? We know who the enemy is now. I say we focus on them.”
“Yeah. One for all, and all for nothing!” Dweebs said.
“Duck, Dweebs!” Tunz said.
“What?”
I heard a clunk in the dark. That’s when Dweebs hit his head on a branch. The kid lives at a different altitude than the rest of us, that’s for sure.
“I’m just saying, it wouldn’t hurt anyone to call him Norman once in a while,” I told them.
“Shh!” Smurf said.
We were just about to come out of the woods. Our cabin was way back in the trees, but Bobcat Alley was right out in the open. If we wanted a good look at this place, we were going to have to commando-crawl into the middle of the main field and make like pancakes in the grass.
Even then, there was no way to get too close without being seen. That place was like a fortress.
“What are we looking for?” Cav whispered.
“Shh!” Smurf said.
“Don’t shh so loud!” Dweebs said.
“Is anyone going to answer my question?” Cav said. “What are we looking for?”
“Anything we can use,” I whispered.
The truth was, I didn’t know. There was o
nly so much plan I could come up with ahead of time. So we waited. And watched.
And watched. And waited.
After a while, it started to feel less like spying and more like lying in the wet grass watching nothing happen.
But then, all of a sudden, a line of shadows came out of the woods, heading straight for Bobcat Alley.
“Who’s that?” Dweebs said.
“Shh!”
There were four of them. At first, I thought it was some kind of sneak attack, but then the shadows walked right up the steps and into the cabin. Once they were inside, another four came out and headed toward the same part of the woods.
I could hear Doolin with them too, and my brain kind of sizzled like a frying pan. I really didn’t like that kid!
Then I saw someone flick a lighter in the dark. It was just for a second before they disappeared into the woods. That lighter meant they were doing one of three things: lighting stuff on fire, setting off fireworks, or smoking—and I hadn’t seen anything burning or heard any explosions from the woods.
What a bunch of idiots! Who in their right mind would smoke?
“Should we follow them?” Smurf asked. “I think we should follow them.”
“Not yet,” I said. “We just found their weak spot. Next time we come back, we’ll hit them hard. They’ll be sorry they ever messed with us. Am I right?”
“Um…”
“I guess.”
“I doubt it.”
I was just about to tell the guys to man up a little when I heard this horrible, scary growling noise in the dark…. To be totally honest, I almost wet my pants.
“What was that?” I said.
“Is it a bear?”
“I don’t want to die!”
“Shh!”
“Sorry, guys,” Tunz said. “That was my stomach. I’m starving.”
Phew! I was glad to hear that. In fact, I was starving too.
“Where can we get something to eat around here?” I asked.
“Supposedly, there’s a kitchen in the counselors’ dorm,” Cav said. “I hear they’ve got some bodacious snacks.”
“They do,” someone said.
At first, I didn’t even recognize the voice. Then I realized it was Legend who’d said it.
Everyone stopped and tried to look at him in the dark, but he didn’t give any more details. And nobody asked. It seemed safer that way.
Meanwhile, I was still starving.
“So… where is this place with the bodacious snacks?” I asked.
THE DICTATOR
Major Sherwood was not amused. He marched us all double time to his personal cabin to begin the interrogation.
As we came up to the ominous cabin, I got to thinking about what kind of torments Sherwood used to pry confessions from suspects, and then WHAM! Suddenly, I’m a head on a wall.
“I told you we didn’t want to get on his bad side,” Dweebs whispers to me, just before—FWAP! He gets a riding crop to the cheek.
“No talking!” the Dictator screams. “Understand?”
“Yes, sir,” I say, right before—FWAP!
“I said NO TALKING! Understand?”
I understand, all right. I may be down to just a head, but something tells me this guy hasn’t done his worst yet. I’m going to be lucky to make it out of here with two eyes, a nose, and a mouth.
“I have one question,” he says. “Whose idea was this?”
Nobody says anything. Nobody even breathes. While he waits for an answer, the Dictator paces back and forth like a restless lion. And then, because that’s just how my luck goes, he stops right in front of me.
“It was you, wasn’t it?” he asks. “Mr. Whatcha-macallit.”
I shake my head no, because (a) I’ve already learned my lesson about talking in here and (b) there’s nothing else left to shake.
“LIAR!” he screams, sending a spray of spit and the last bits of whatever he had for dinner in my face. It smells like beef jerky, but for all I know, it’s camper jerky, made from the last kid to cross this guy.
“Do you know what I could do to your family?” he asks. “To you?”
I nod, because yes, I have a pretty good idea about that by now.
“We have laws around here for a reason. Do you understand, Whatchamacallit?”
I keep nodding like my life depends on it—because it probably does. The spit’s flying so fast, I’m also wishing for those glasses with the little windshield wipers on them.
“I won’t have it, Whatchamacallit, do you understand? I won’t have it! All of my boys were good, law-abiding subjects before you came along….”
I want to say, Excuse me, but have you met Legend? Or Doolin? Or any of the other hostile creeps running around this place? But instead, I just keep snacking on my tongue.
“… so consider this a warning—your first and your last. Lucky for you, I’m feeling generous tonight. Have you got that?”
Nod, nod, nod…
“You may thank me now.”
“Um… thank you?” I say.
“Now all of you—GO! Roll on out of here before I change my mind,” the Dictator roars.
He doesn’t have to ask us twice. And because that’s the only thing we can do, we get rolling while the rolling is good.
CONFINED TO QUARTERS
Major Sherwood might’ve called it “confined to quarters,” but I know a suspension when I see one. That whole next afternoon, we had to stay put in our cabin and “think about what we’d done.”
The big surprise was that Norman hung with us all day, even though he wasn’t in trouble.
“Thanks for sticking around, NORMAN,” I said, about six times before anyone got the hint. “That’s really cool of you, NORMAN.”
“Thanks, Norm,” Bombardier told him.
“It’s Norman,” Norman said, without even looking up. I’d have to talk to him later about meeting the guys halfway. Still, it seemed like progress.
Then he jumped down, went over to unlock his trunk, and started going through the wall-to-wall books inside. I swear, he didn’t even have room for extra underwear in there. It was just a library in a box.
“Here,” he said, and tried to hand me this three-inch-thick book.
“No, thanks,” I said. “I’m not that bored.”
“You like art, right?” he said. “You’ll like this. And the story’s good too.”
The name of the book was The Invention of Hugo Cabret. There were still too many words but also a ton of awesome art. By the time I put it down again, I’d gotten all the way to page 131, which I think would have made Ms. Donatello back home—not to mention my mom—think the world had just turned upside down.
In fact, the only reason I stopped reading at all was because I’d promised Mom and Grandma I’d write them a real letter at least once a week. So far, I’d been at camp for almost two weeks. That meant I still had… almost two letters to write. (Oops.)
But Norman said I could hang on to the book for later. I think he was actually trying to thank me for the whole “Norman” thing.
Of course, only he would try to do that with a book. But whatever.
STUPID, IMPOSSIBLE, RIDICULOUS
So you’ve probably figured out by now that I couldn’t get Katie Kim out of my head. Otherwise, why would I be writing to my mom about her?
And yes, I know how crazy that sounds. Basically, I had a better chance of being struck by lightning and winning the Megabucks while a unicorn did my homework for me than I had with Katie Kim. Or with Jeanne Galletta, for that matter.
Not to mention, falling in love with a teacher is a little like falling in love with the enemy, right? But if you know me (and I think you probably do by now), then you know that being REALISTIC isn’t exactly my best quality.
In other words, why have one stupid, impossible, ridiculous crush when you can have two?
I couldn’t help it. Every time I was anywhere near Katie, it was like she hijacked my brain. I’d be sitting there in mat
h class or floating around on the lake, and I’d just start thinking… and thinking… and thinking….
ASSAULT WITH A DEADLY CANOE
So there I was one day, having a perfectly nice (stupid, impossible, ridiculous) daydream about Katie when I almost got mowed down right in the middle of Lake Wannamorra.
Nope, not the Bobcats. This time it was my own sister.
At first, I wasn’t paying any attention. I had my head in the water, and this tiny voice somewhere in the background started going, “Rafe… hey, Rafe… it’s me!”
But then without warning, it turned into, “LOOK OUT, RAFE! I DON’T KNOW HOW TO STEER THIS THING!”
When I looked up, all I saw was the pointy end of a canoe coming right for my face. I dove down deep, swam over to the raft, and climbed up on top to get out of the line of fire. Lucky for me, I’m good in the water.
Georgia was sitting there in the canoe with some girl I didn’t know. Both of them had these big life vests on and looked like a couple of giant orange marshmallows—the kind who don’t know the first thing about steering a boat.
“What are you doing here?” I asked. “I can’t believe they let you out on the lake by yourself.”
“I’m not alone—duh!” she said. “This is Christine Worley. She’s my bunk mate and my new best friend.”
As soon as the other girl started talking, I could see why she and Georgia might get along. It was like they had matching big mouths.
“Hi-Rafe-Georgia-already-told-me-all-about-you-are-you-having-a-good-summer-I-am-and-by-the-way-I-think-your-sister-is-totally-the-bomb-I’m-so-glad-we-got-assigned-to-the-same-cabin-because-we’re-having-a-really-really-really-REALLY-awesome-time!” she said.
“Hi,” I said.
“Christine’s brother goes here too,” Georgia told me.
“Uh-huh,” I said. Katie was over on the dock putting suntan lotion on her nose, and I was watching her, so I wasn’t really paying attention.