Shells, Smells, and the Horrible Flip-Flops of Doom Read online

  Then I got a cramp and had to rest my shivering body. My toe meat was all shriveled up.

  So luckily it wasn’t a contest for who could stay in the pool the whole swim period—me or Bartholomew Wiggins—because that one I would’ve lost.

  At Quad, Cash and Xavier and Gianni and Koji were laughing about something Cash was telling them. I sat on my towel away from them and sang loud and clear all the words that I could remember of the song “Baby Shark.”

  Natalia crouched down beside me and asked, “You okay, Justin?”

  Some crying wanted to start inside my eyes, but I breathed in through my nose and convinced my mouth to curve into a smile. Then I looked up into Natalia’s brown eyes, and I said what I had been saving up for her:

  “So far, so good.”

  August 5, Thursday

  Bartholomew Wiggins was absent from camp today.

  Which left me on the grass, last boy, just me and Penelope Ann Murphy, with Cash next to choose.

  In Science Camp they don’t choose teams, they do experiments.

  He chose Penelope Ann Murphy.

  I think it’s because I said no to Knuckles, and now every Hawk loves Bang Bang best of all games. But right then it was baseball time, and Cash was pitching for his team. I was up last for my team. I kept striking out, every time. It is a long walk away from the plate when you strike out with Cash smiling at you. I did not want to do that walk again.

  Cash pitched a slow, fat one right across the plate. I swung and watched the bat wallop that ball, smack across the red stitches.

  It hit Cash hard—boom!—in the belly.

  He made the sound of oof.

  And people laughed.

  So that was a tiny and very wonderful piece of revenge, even if it means I am a terrible person for feeling that way.

  The oof of Cash when I hit him with a baseball in the belly is now ranked with my shell, gummy worms, and Nothing to Worry About in my top-five favorite things of life.

  I have not yet decided what the fifth is. I am keeping that space open for something really excellent.

  I am trying to think only of those top-favorite excellent things in the world instead of the swim test I have signed up to take tomorrow.

  Because when I think of that swim test, it makes the chance of falling asleep tonight smaller and smaller and smaller.

  August 6, Friday

  What I hate:

  1. Tests, especially in summer.

  2. Water up my nose.

  3. The color red, which is for Shallow.

  What I love:

  1. My new swim cap.

  2. Which is yellow.

  3. Hearing, “Yay, Justin Case!” from Xavier Schwartz, even though he has a Blue cap, so probably he thinks Yellow is not that great, but still he slapped me on the back so hard it felt like I might go flying back into the pool.

  4. Not flying back into the pool because even though my body was so tired from the swim test it managed to stay exactly where it was.

  August 7, Saturday

  It was a hurricane today.

  We had to stay inside and bake bread and then chocolate-chip cookies all day. Dad put masking tape in Xs on all the windows while the bread dough started to rise. Then we took turns punching the dough. We pretended it was bad guys and we were heroes.

  I pretended I was not scared at all of a hurricane ripping our house up and possibly tumbling us around like we were socks in the dryer. Mom and Dad and Elizabeth believed me, but there were a few stuffties on my bed who looked at me with I don’t think so, Mister looks in their doubting plastic eyes.

  The hurricane didn’t quite brew itself into anything more than rain. It was kind of a dud of a hurricane.

  But I got to lick the whole bowl plus both beaters while the cookies baked because Elizabeth was in trouble for sneak-eating so many chocolate chips. So it was a pretty cool day.

  Especially each time I thought of the color yellow.

  August 8, Sunday

  We went to the beach, just our little family. No other family, no grandparents. I thought it was going to be kind of boring, but it wasn’t. We built a sand castle and stayed out for dinner at Dock’s.

  Elizabeth was drawing on the paper tablecloth. I wanted to also, but I was being grown-up and boring so I didn’t. When tomato sauce dripped on her picture of a unicorn or maybe it was a fire truck, she shrieked and jolted back from the table, so a glop of tomato sauce tumbled onto her flip-flop.

  I thought she might fall down on the floor screaming about that, but she didn’t. She froze, staring at the glop.

  “There’s sauce on my flip-flop,” she whispered.

  “Here’s a napkin,” Dad offered.

  She lifted her suddenly pale face up to look at him with eyes like brown M&M’S. “I think I have to go wait in the car.”

  She started walking slowly away from the table, her toes crunched up to avoid the sauce. Mom shrugged at me and Dad. We both smiled.

  Mom placed her napkin on the table, stood up, and dashed quietly to Elizabeth. She put her arm around Elizabeth’s narrow shoulders and, whispering, guided her to the ladies’ room. Dad and I paid the check and went out on the deck of Dock’s to wait for Mom and Elizabeth to finish coping with the sauce disaster.

  The moon, fat and white, was heavy and low, melting into the water right across from us.

  “Hey, Dad,” I said.

  “Mmm-hmm?”

  “Let’s swim to the moon.”

  “Okay,” Dad said.

  “Looks like we could do it,” I said.

  “Sure,” he said, and put his heavy hand on my shoulder.

  “Might take us five hours,” I said.

  “Mmm-hmm. But, if you want to, we can.”

  I leaned against him. He was big and solid as a tree. “Yeah, Dad,” I said. “Let’s swim to the moon.”

  August 9, Monday

  Color War is going to happen in camp sometime in August but not yet so everybody is supposed to stop asking about it.

  I wasn’t. I had no questions about it until now.

  I know what color means and I know what war means.

  But the combination does not make any sense to me. Color War? How can that be a camp activity? Unless it has to do with paints in the arts-and-crafts cabin and some behavior I don’t think the grown-ups in charge would (or at least should) allow.

  But at Camp GoldenBrook, you never know.

  Even though I don’t know what a Color War exactly is, I can tell that it is something very exciting. I know that because when Miss Lisa announced that Color War will break out soon, who knows when, be alert for signs, everybody went nuts. It was like she was saying we all just won a million bucks each and a trip to Disneyland. Me and Bartholomew Wiggins and Koji were the only Hawks who were still just sitting on our towels.

  We are the only Hawks who weren’t Ravens last year.

  Bartholomew Wiggins said he is a pacifist so maybe he won’t have to do Color War.

  I am not sure what a pacifist is, but I am thinking I might be one, too, because those kids had very wild looks in their eyes while they were shouting, “Color War! Color War!”

  Except that I think a pacifist is the thing my baby cousin used to suck on, so maybe not. When he was a baby sucking a pacifist, my cousin was almost as drooly as my dog.

  August 10, Tuesday

  In my opinion the word pacifier sounds a lot like the word pacifist.

  In my other opinion, it is not nice for parents to laugh at their own son who is asking a question about vocabulary, which they should encourage him to expand.

  Even if they say they are laughing with him. You can’t laugh with a person who is not laughing.

  I was not being overly sensitive.

  If my knights came to life, they could seriously injure anybody who laughed at me or with me or fixed my horrible flip-flops of doom with something out of his toolbox called Duck Tape. I don’t know if it’s made of ducks or it’s tape you hold ducks togethe
r with, but if I can’t just get the kind of flip-flops Bartholomew Wiggins has, the kind without the pole between the big toe and other toes, my parents could at least tape my horrible flip-flops of doom with flip-flop tape. And also they could at least not keep saying they don’t want to fight with me about it because they are pacifiers.

  All I would have to do is order my knights to attack, and they would be so sorry.

  August 11, Wednesday

  We thought it was Color War breaking out today, but no. It was just a garbage truck rumbling up to the mess hall.

  I signed up to take the swim test again Friday. I have to get into Deep before this summer is allowed to end. I have to.

  I don’t care that James/Jay shook his head while I was writing my name on the clipboard sign-up sheet. But he did not have to say the words just give it up.

  And when we did Obstacle Course, he did not have to say the words oh, for Pete’s sake. I don’t know who Pete is, but if I can’t hang on to the rings or jump over the hurdles for my own sake, I don’t see how Pete comes into it.

  I don’t think there even is a Pete. I think James/Jay was just being mean again, in front of all the other campers, when he should have said some encouraging words like, you can do it or, even better, that’s okay, no problem, you can skip that section of the obstacle course, Justin.

  When I got home, I found Qwerty whining in the front hall. He was sad because Mom started taking him to Obedience School today. She told me, right in front of Qwerty, that he is the worst dog in the whole class.

  Qwerty looked very ashamed about that.

  I told Mom that Qwerty will probably get Most Improved Dog, or even become the best dog in the whole class by the end of the course, but she shook her head and kind of laughed and said, “Well that would be a big surprise.”

  So I took Qwerty out back to teach him some tricks, starting with the game of fetch.

  Qwerty is very enthusiastic, but he still doesn’t get the rules of that game, no matter how many times I explain them.

  Mom might have a good point about his lack of potential, but maybe not. Some of us are just late bloomers. So I am not giving up on him yet. I will never give up on him. I am just taking a break to rest for a while.

  August 12, Thursday

  Too bad for Qwerty that there is not a dog named Bartholomew Wiggins in his Dog Obedience class.

  There is only one reason I am not the worst boy in the whole Hawks group at lacrosse, and that reason is called Bartholomew Wiggins.

  On the other hand, I am pretty fast at running, especially when it is in the game of tag and Gianni Schicci is chasing me with something on his finger that definitely looks like it recently came out of his nose.

  Cash said if I am on his team in Color War, we will rock at running races.

  What I said to that was, of course, “Yeah.”

  I might have to pay Gianni Schicci to chase me with boogers.

  August 13, Friday

  It doesn’t matter that I didn’t make it into Deep. Mike said, “Great try, Justin. You are really improving.” I almost said back his favorite word of whatevs, but I just shrugged instead. I was just giving it a shot. I didn’t think I’d actually make it into Deep. I still haven’t gotten even one cent off the pool bottom. Xavier is practically a millionaire.

  James/Jay definitely didn’t think I would make Deep, either. He didn’t say anything this time. He turned his back to me while I was getting out of the pool. I heard him do a loud breathing out, because I guess he was out of breath from the effort of watching me not get into Deep.

  What I thought of saying to him: Shut up, you mean person.

  What I actually said: nothing.

  What I will say to him someday: Hahahahaha, I am in Deep now, and you are still a mean person. So only one of us improved this summer.

  My best friend Daisy is afraid of Friday the Thirteenth.

  I might call her on the phone later to see how she’s doing, but probably not. It might be too weird, and I am pretty much too worn out from my life these days to try anything else that might make me feel lousy.

  August 14, Saturday

  There were as many mosquitoes as berries at the Pick Your Own farm we went to today. And about twice as many gnats. We had to keep our mouths shut, or the gnats would just fly right down our throats, which meant we couldn’t complain as much when the moms put their two favorite screens (bug and sun) on us.

  Montana C. said without opening her lips that we should put on Little Kid Screen, too, to protect us from her little brother Buckey and my little sister Elizabeth.

  So I sprayed her with pretend Little Kid Screen.

  While I was doing it, I made a wish that it wouldn’t seem like I was the little kid myself, pretending to have a magic spray.

  My wish came true because she took the pretend (and invisible) bug spray from my hand and sprayed me with it, too. She smiled without opening her mouth at all but it was still nice.

  We got the most berries of any team, including the parents’. Buckey and Elizabeth were the losing team by a lot. They had almost no berries in their bucket at all, but I think they ate most of what they picked. Which is called stealing. But they didn’t get in trouble, even when Elizabeth said, “Come on, Buckey, let’s go as far as we can!” and they ran to the last row.

  Every time Montana C. and I opened our mouths to talk, we swallowed gnats. Then we both did a lot of spitting to get rid of the gnats in our mouths. She is excellent at spitting long distances. Just like she is excellent at everything, pretty much. She’s in Deep, of course.

  In the farm store, after the parents paid for the berries we’d picked, they also got us a bushel of peaches to share, since Elizabeth and Buckey were begging and pleading for them. The farm people had already picked the peaches so Montana C. and I didn’t care, and also we are older so we don’t beg.

  We each got to eat one peach and save one for tomorrow because they are not cheap.

  Peach juice dripped down my chin when I bit into my peach of today, but that was okay because the same thing was happening to everybody’s chin. We all made slurping noises.

  My new favorite foods in the world: raspberries and peaches.

  My new least favorite food in the world: gnats.

  My new second-favorite sound in the world: slurping.

  My new favorite sound in the world: Montana C. cracking up when I told her my new least favorite food.

  August 15, Sunday

  “A Sad Song About My Peach”

  I feel sad about my peach

  My little little peach

  That I ate

  It was good and it was ripe

  But now it’s down the pipe

  My sweet little peach

  That I ate

  August 16, Monday

  Montana C. sat with me on the bus to camp this morning.

  All day the boys in the Hawks said, “Oooooo, you love her. You want to marry her.”

  I said, “Shut up.”

  But I thought, Well, maybe I do.

  And then the whole rest of the day, I kept thinking that thought. Well, sometimes I got distracted and thought about why would they throw pennies onto the floor of the pool because isn’t that dangerous to the plumbing if they get sucked down the drain and how many cookies I would eat if I had infinity cookies or what would Mom do if I turned into a giraffe.

  But then I got right back to the thought of maybe I will marry Montana C. when we grow up now that Natalia is definitely out.

  August 17, Tuesday

  On the way to Newcomb, I mentioned to Xavier Schwartz that it would be really bad if we were two-dimensional because if a big wind or even a tiny wind came, we’d be blown right down.

  “Okay,” Xavier said.

  Which made me think maybe that was a dumb thing to say. Maybe other people don’t worry about if we were 2-D. Maybe worrying about that is proof that I am weird and not at all cool. And maybe even still a worried kid.

  “You know
what else would be bad?” Xavier asked.

  What I thought was, Saying a weird worry out loud when you should keep it to yourself? but what I said instead of that was, “What?”

  “If our internal organs were on the outside.”

  “Ew,” I said. “Like ornaments on a Christmas tree?”

  Xavier cracked up. “Yeah,” he said. “Brain on top, like a star.”

  “Guts wrapped around the middle,” I said.

  “Like tinsel,” Cash said, coming up on my other side.

  “Yeah,” Xavier and I said.

  “Disgusting,” Gianni said. “Think of the ooze.”

  “That really would be bad,” I said. “Gut tinsel.”

  “It would be awesome!” Xavier shouted.

  “If you got a little cut, you could sever a major artery,” I said. “And plop, there would be your heart on the ground.”

  Just as I was thinking, Whoops, did I say a weird thing again? all three of them cracked up. I laughed, too. Maybe it was from relief a little bit but also from picturing guts and plopping hearts.

  Then we got to the upper fields and saw there were balls all over the soccer pitch, organized into letter shapes.

  The letters were C-O-L-O-R W-A-R.

  Which means that Color War had broken out.

  So we all had to shout our heads off and tackle each other.

  August 18, Wednesday

  In Science Camp we sang songs like, “I want to walk (clap, clap) a mile in your shoes, to walk a mile in your shoes.”

  In Camp GoldenBrook during Color War we sing, “We are the Blue Team. Beat up the Red Team!”

  It is not nice to threaten to beat up the other team just because they are the other team. Wanting to walk a mile in the other person’s shoes is nice.

  But singing, “Beat ’em up beat ’em up rah rah rah,” is kind of a little bit fun. Maybe this camp is changing me into a rough-and-bad kid.