The Ghost of Danny McGee, page 14
Sam looks up at the sky. The pain in her stomach is slowly settling. She imagines it, for a moment, but it passes in a rush. It would be impossible. Life outside of Camp is too far away. “No.” She shakes her head. “I’m here.”
Logan
After a week, Hugo Baker and Donna break up. No one knows exactly why. When they ask, Donna shrugs and says, “He was starting to creep me out.”
Rumors say they kissed. Other rumors say worse.
“I bet he broke up with her,” says Milly. Logan knows, by now, that she adores the drama. Without it, she would have nothing to make fun of.
During morning announcements, Hugo sits behind Logan. He tugs her braid. “Hey, horse girl.”
Logan looks up from the bracelet she’s weaving. It’s the most complicated she has made yet: black and white with a blue-and-gold double X pattern. Aside from a few loose stitches, it’s perfect. “What?”
“Who are you making that for?”
“I don’t know.” Logan can feel the rest of the Ravens staring at her.
“Can I have it?”
No boy has ever asked her for a friendship bracelet before. It sounds ridiculous, almost vulgar. He might as well have cussed.
“Umm. I guess.”
Hugo’s counselor snaps down the bench at him. “Hugo! Quit talking to the girls.”
“Okay, Smellias,” says Hugo, and everyone giggles. When Logan looks forward again, she catches Donna’s jet beam gaze.
The summer is almost halfway over. The Fourth of July went by in a blur of powdered donuts and sunburnt shoulders. Next will be the midsummer dance, on Wednesday night. Logan has hazy memories of the dance from her last stay at Camp, when she was littler. She remembers throwing up on her counselor’s toga after eating too many popsicles. Now, she isn’t sure if she should be looking forward to it or not. Dressing up in costumes and dancing seems like little kid stuff—anyway, she doesn’t know how to dance. She can’t jump around and scream like a Hummingbird, not anymore.
The theme of the dance is decided by the Falcons and Eagles together, as the two oldest cabins. They announce it in a badly rehearsed skit at breakfast on Monday morning. At the end of the skit, a tall blond Eagle named Stephanie stands on her chair and screeches: “Boys versus girls!”
A clattery silence falls over the mess hall. “What?” someone shouts back.
“Boys versus girls!” Stephanie, still standing on her chair, rolls her eyes. “On Wednesday afternoon there’s gonna be a huge Capture the Flag game: boys versus girls. Then you come to the dance dressed as a boy, or a girl!”
Campers murmur at their tables. “I don’t get it!” yells one of the Pigeons.
“Does that mean boys dress as girls, and girls dress as boys?”
“No, just—” Stephanie grumps and crosses her arms. “Wear what you want.”
“I’m gonna be a girl!” cries a Hawk. The rest of his table snickers.
Logan shares a frown with the other Ravens. With the announcement over, chatter and the clamor of plates and silverware pick up again. A counselor, passing the Ravens’ table on her way back from the coffee pot, stops to mutter to Sadie: “Who signed off on that?” Logan is sitting directly across from her. She perks up at the quiet exchange.
“I don’t know. Guess everyone’s a little preoccupied, right now,” says Sadie. The other counselor frowns knowingly and continues on her way.
Milly is in an uproar for the rest of the day. “Boys versus girls?” she wails. “That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. What, are we supposed to just wear our normal clothes?”
Logan looks at Milly, her dirty T-shirt and short locks, her square shoulders and bony face. In her normal clothes, it’s hard to place Milly on one side or the other. She stops short of saying so out loud. “I don’t know. Capture the Flag sounds fun, though. Do you think we should go?”
“Uh-huh. I’m gonna play for the boys’ team, so I can kick Stephanie’s ass for picking such a stupid theme.”
“Milly! You can’t play for the boys’ team.”
It’s afternoon activity, and they are on their way down to the barnyard. Logan has less love for the barn animals than she does for the horses, but it’s a quiet place to pass a lazy, hot afternoon. Socrates the goat is particularly entertaining—he has buck teeth and sideways eyes and likes to eat carrots right out of her hand.
Hugo and Max are at the barnyard, too. This is the first time the four of them have signed up for an afternoon activity together since air rifles, since they freed Spark. “Hey, Millipede.” Hugo shoves Milly hard in the shoulder. She shoves him back. He glances sideways at the counselor, then smiles at Logan, privately. His cheeks are flushed strawberry red with their shared secret. “My partners in crime,” he whispers to her.
There are a few other boys at the activity—Hugo’s posse of Falcons—and a cluster of giggling Bluebirds, who perch on a hay bale and whisper amongst themselves. The counselor, Kyle, lies on his back on another hay bale with his sunglasses on. The boys chase the chickens for a while, and Max helps Logan feed Socrates. He doesn’t say much to her. She is still a little mad at him for embarrassing her at the beach. They haven’t talked about the Pike Falls trip they are supposed to go on, alone, later in the summer.
About halfway through the activity period, a miracle strikes: the counselor leaves the barn. He says that he has a stomachache and is going to the kitchen for a ginger ale. He does look a little woozy. No one has ever been left unsupervised at an activity before—it feels like they have an obligation to get up to something, break some kind of rule. One of the boys suggests throwing rocks at the goats, but Logan quickly shuts that down. Another boy looks at her and Milly, thinks, and asks if they want to play Truth or Dare. It isn’t a game the boys would ever play on their own, Logan understands, but an intriguing option because they are here, and they are girls.
Milly and Logan shrug at each other. “Okay.”
They sit in a circle on the hay-strewn floor. The Bluebirds watch, silent and worried, from a distance. Logan is next to Max. Across the circle from her is Hugo, his legs crossed, leaning cockily over his kneecaps.
“Who wants to start?”
“I will,” says Milly. “Henry. Truth or dare?”
“Dare, dude, duh.”
“Do a backflip off the hay.”
The boys love that. “Do it, pussy!” Hugo howls, smiling.
Henry climbs up onto the stack of hay bales. For a moment he just stands there and brags, then he turns his back to them, leaps, and tucks. He slips on the landing and falls on his butt; still, it’s impressive. Logan laughs and claps with the rest of them. Boys, she is slowly realizing, aren’t really all that complicated. They don’t make her nervous the way girls do. This is easy.
“Okay, Todd. Truth or dare.”
“Truth—but make it dirty.”
“Okay. So, you get a blowjob from the hottest girl in Camp, but first I get to punch you in the head. Would you do it?”
“Dude, stupid question. I’d let you punch me in the balls if it was Sharon. Or Stephanie.”
Logan laughs. Their dirty jokes are plain and wide; compared to the nasty, prickly things the girls say in the dark of the cabin, this is nothing. The Bluebirds looking over at them suck in their lips and whisper behind their hands.
“Logan. Truth or dare.”
Logan hesitates, playing with the bracelets on her wrist. She definitely can’t do a backflip. “Truth,” she decides.
“Okay. Who do you like?”
The boys watch her intensely. She picks at her fingernails. “No one.” As she says it, her eyes land on Hugo Baker. She didn’t mean to look at him—it’s just that he is straight in front of her—but they see. They don’t let her get away with it. Henry shoves Hugo and shouts with delight.
“No one?” he says. “You don’t like no one, you like him! You looked at him!”
Hugo’s cheeks go pinker. He laughs, looks at her quickly, then wrestles Henry under his arm. Mortified, Logan melts into the ground. She wishes she had said dare. Now it’s her turn to ask, and she has to take their attention away from herself as quickly as possible, so she turns to Max. “Truth or dare?”
“Dare,” he answers, scratching at his hand beneath his cast.
Logan nods and looks around the barn. She needs to think of something, fast. Something big. Her eyes land on the skinny ladder against the back wall, and without pausing to consider it, she says, “Climb up there!”
The boys gasp. Milly gives her a surprised look. Logan realizes, too late, that she has said something horribly mean—he can’t climb with his arm in a cast. Max stands up in the same instant, looking almost brave.
“Wait,” she reaches toward him weakly. “Wait, no, never mind. You don’t have to.”
The boys have already taken the idea and run with it. “That’s the counselors’ place, right?” Henry asks, excited. “Yeah, do it, Max! Tell us what’s up there! Elias says they have a pool table and a soda machine.”
“Taps said they have slides and a ball pit.”
“Do it, Max!” says Hugo. “You can do it!”
Max doesn’t look at Logan as he turns around. He marches straight past the hay bales, to the back of the barn, and places his one good hand on a rung of the ladder. To her utter horror, he begins to climb. He goes very slowly, using only the tips of his fingers of his cast left arm. Logan has to look away. Milly and the boys cheer him on.
Max reaches the top of the ladder and disappears through the trapdoor. Footsteps stomp slowly over their heads. “It stinks up here!” His voice is muffled when he shouts down to them. “There’s a fridge. And . . . whoa!”
“What is it, Maxie?” Hugo calls up.
His feet thud back toward the door, then his head appears. His face is red, his hair hanging down. “Beer!” he exclaims. “A lot of beer!”
Kyle is crossing the barnyard with his soda just as Max’s feet touch the barn floor again. When he steps inside, all of them are sitting politely on the hay. Milly balances a chicken feather on her lips, attempting to blow it upward and catch it again. Max flops onto a hay bale and pretends to nap.
When the bell rings, they leave the barn in a hurry. The Bluebirds skirt ahead of everyone else, all atwitter. Behind them goes the jeering pack of boys. Milly and Max fall back; she quizzes him frantically him about what he saw in the counselors’ fridge (“But how much is a lot? Was it in cans? Bottles?”) That leaves Logan walking alone with Hugo Baker. Stiff and a little sweaty, she wonders if she should speed up or fall behind with Milly.
He nudges her with his elbow. “Truth or dare?”
Logan looks at her toes. “Umm. Dare.”
“Okay. I dare you to give me that bracelet you’re making.”
She giggles. “Okay.”
“Now your turn.”
“Umm, okay. Truth or dare?”
“Truth.”
“Okay, how about . . .” She thinks fast—What would the other boys ask him, or Donna? “Who do you think is the cutest counselor?”
“Sam’s pretty,” he answers. “But she’s also kind of a bitch.”
That is a big word, a stinging word. A grown-up word. It sends an electric tingle down Logan’s spine. They’ve started walking faster. Milly and Max are far behind them now.
“Truth or dare?”
“Truth.”
Hugo grins at her. “Do you like me?”
Logan doesn’t know what to say. Her face is hot. He laughs, bubbly and high. “You don’t have to answer that,” he says. “It’s okay.”
They reach the lawn and stand at the edge of the trail, facing the grass. Hugo stops walking, so Logan stops, too. He squints, like he’s thinking hard about something, then reaches out and grabs her arm and pulls her off the trail, into the trees. Dead pine needles crunch beneath their feet and stab at Logan’s ankles. “Come here.”
“We’re supposed to stay on the trails.”
“Just come here.” He tugs her until they reach a broad tree trunk, a few feet off the trail, out of sight of the lawn. With her back to the scratchy bark, he reaches out and puts both hands on her shoulders. He looks her in the eyes. Logan’s stomach does a backflip as high and wild as Henry’s off the hay. “Truth or dare?” he asks quietly.
“Dare?”
“Cool.” Hugo smiles. He tips forward in a jolting way, like someone pushed him from behind. His mouth lands on hers, quick, lips pressed flat together, then he leans back again. Logan reels. A lot of strange things have happened since she got to Camp at the start of the summer, but this, out of everything, simply cannot be real.
A raspy laugh shatters the air. They both turn their heads back toward the trail. Milly and Max are standing there; she howls and bends double, pointing at them. Max looks stunned. “Yuck!” Milly laughs. “I think I saw tongue!”
Hugo tells her to shut up. His whole face is red, from his chin to the tips of his ears.
They walk into dinner together, holding hands. Logan’s palm is slick with sweat—his sweat, she hopes, and not hers. Her heart thunders in her mouth. As they cross the mess hall, campers stare from their tables. Counselors slowly lower their coffee mugs, mouths open, watching them pass. If music were playing it would have screeched to a stop. Logan is soaring, swimming inside her brain. Hugo doesn’t let go of her hand until they reach the Ravens’ table. “See you later,” he says, wiping his palm on the front of his jeans.
“Bye.” Logan hardly recognizes the pitch of her own voice. She sits down to dinner. There is a moment of shocked silence. Everyone at the table, Sadie most of all, stares at her. Then the Ravens burst into a frenzy.
Sam
“Do you want to?” he asks her.
The question makes Sam laugh. It sounds so clunky, out of place. “You ask?”
“Shouldn’t I ask?”
Sam shrugs. No one she knows asks, at least not out loud. They know she wants to—or they expect her to stop them if she doesn’t.
Sex at Camp isn’t all that different from anywhere else in the world. Sam understands it; she knows the complications and the missteps and the sticky, tangled feelings. Sex is not at all private, but public, and political. It’s a game, like anything else. They keep score, they draw lines and track their numbers, show them off discretely like a hand of cards. They weigh and measure each other against those hands. Sam knows the rules. The game has always been easy for her.
It’s raining. Rainstorms in the mountains never come with a warning, and they never come lightly. The clouds swooped in over the ridge and broke open like floodgates within a half hour. Sam was supposed to be lifeguarding this morning, but now she is here, in the guest cabin with Nick, watching fat raindrops plop from the roof outside the open window. The guest cabin was his idea. When he unlocked the door with his lanyard of jangling keys, the little tube between them tapped against the lock, flashing in the gray light. Later it fell against her bare skin. It was cold and unexpectedly heavy. It settled in the well of her chest as he leaned over her. When he realized he was still wearing the lanyard, Nick laughed, apologized, and tossed it carefully to the floor.
They lie on the bare futon and watch the rain outside. The sky is lightening. Chances are the storm will evaporate as quickly as it appeared; they won’t have to cancel the Capture the Flag game in the afternoon, or the dance in the evening. Sam is oddly bitter about it. She wills the clouds to darken and the rain to fall harder, the break from the routine to continue. Calloused fingertips run along her side.
“You’re really beautiful, Sam.”
“I know,” she says. After a strained pause, they both laugh. “Sorry. I know that sounds shallow.” She rolls to face him. “I just mean, I know what I look like.”
He smiles thinly. “You don’t want guys to compliment you on your looks, you mean?”
“No, it’s not that. Guys will say what they say. I just already know what I look like.” Sam chews over her own words, then adds: “That probably comes across pretty bitchy, doesn’t it?”
“No. I don’t think so.”
She would not have been so brash with someone else. Something about him makes her feel reckless, like she can do anything, say anything. Him, or the place they’re in. Their surreal world, where rain appears out of the blue and dead girls lisp through missing teeth. Where murderers and bear turds and ghost stories all somehow lump together into the same vague threat. In light of all that, everything is just about as irrelevant as anything else.
“So,” Nick clears his throat, changes the topic. “The murderer and the wife were holding hands at dinner. Did you see that?”
It sounds like the punchline to a bad joke. Sam laughs. “Yeah. Sadie’s pretty torn up about it.” Sadie has been distraught, actually. She has taken on the prepubescent Gill couple as her personal mission, a desperate chance to prove that true love exists. As it is, chaos apparently trumps true love—the girl has a crush on Hugo Baker instead. “Can you imagine being her? Waking up at the end of the summer and realizing who you were holding hands with?”
She thinks he will laugh. He doesn’t. He grimaces up at the ceiling, running a hand absently over his bare stomach. Sam follows the trail of his fingers from ribs to hip. There is something undeniably funny about this, lying here in the rainy gray light with him, exposed, every freckle and belly hair out in the open. She can hear campers shouting from the archery range a few yards away. “No,” Nick says sincerely. “I can’t imagine waking up at the end of a summer like this, at all.”
Sam rests her cheek on the back of her hand. She looks up at him and wonders how much he knows, that she does not. She wonders—a little maliciously—what kind of information she can gain from this. “What is that like?” she asks slowly. “When they wake up?”
