3.
Martin slammed the door to the classroom behind himself. It echoed down the hallway in a really satisfying way. He stood in the hallway squeezing both fists as hard as he could until the muscles in his fingers ached. His eyes were filling up with tears, he was so angry. He kicked the wood of the door. He kicked it again, hard. Inside the classroom, everyone would be laughing or staring at the door. He kicked it again.
Hands grabbed him from behind, and Martin twisted and lashed out with his feet, kicking and thrashing. He kicked and kicked until the hands let him go.
“Jesus Christ,” the vice-principal said. “Are you done?” Martin tried to keep from crying. When he got angry, his eyes watered, but he wasn’t crying. He should count to ten. Those were the rules. Count to ten when you’re angry. If you’re still angry, count again. Martin was angry. He wasn’t crying. “Oh, now you’re going to give me the waterworks?” the vice-principal said.
Martin squeezed his fists as hard as he could. “I’m not crying,” he said.
“I suppose you weren’t just kicking that door, either,” the vice-principal said. “What’s all this? Why are you out here? What did that door ever do to you?”
“I got kicked out,” Martin said. The door opened, and his teacher stepped into the hallway, pulling the door closed. She was younger than Martin’s mother, but not as pretty. She wore her hair in a pony tail.
“This is what he handed in for today’s quiz,” she said. She was smiling at the vice-principal. In the classroom she had been furious, but here she was smiling. Martin couldn’t tell which one was real. She showed the vice-principal Martin’s quiz sheet, on which he had drawn his teacher, with her eyeball popping out of her head. He had spent a lot of time drawing that eyeball. He didn’t know the answers to the quiz questions, but he had still wanted to impress the teacher. He liked her. “I don’t think that’s very respectful, do you?” she said. She was smiling, but ignoring Martin completely.
“It’s not a very good likeness, either,” The vice-principal was smiling now, too. “I’ll take him down to the office.”
“Thanks, Carl.”
* * *
“Does your mother know you’re calling?” Martin’s grandmother said. In the background he could hear his grandfather asking for the phone, but she covered the phone and said, “Go put your teeth in, for goodness’ sake. You look like a chicken without a beak.”
“I wanted to ask you,” Martin said.
“Your mother was very clear with us about how she feels, Martin. She doesn’t want anything to do with the church.” Martin knew that his mother was an atheist. He knew it the way he knew she was twenty-nine years old. It was just a fact. It didn’t seem important to who she was.
“I just think Bible Camp sounds fun,” he said. “And I know that we can’t afford it, but I remember last year you said that the church would pay for me. And I don’t think she’ll mind. This way I’m not a burden on anyone.”
“Of course they’ll pay,” Martin’s grandmother said. “They send a dozen kids every year, I’m sure they’d be happy to help you, too. But you shouldn’t be asking behind your mother’s back.” In the background, Martin’s grandfather said something else.
“What did he say?” Martin asked.
“Oh, don’t mind him,” she said. “Now he looks like a chicken with its teeth in.”
* * *
“If this is what you want,” Martin’s mother said. “Then I’ll call your uncle and tell him that you won’t be staying at their place.”
“You’re not mad?” Martin said.
“Why would I be mad?” she said. “I went to that camp when I was a kid. It was fun enough. It wasn’t for me, but that’s a choice I made myself. You have to figure it out on your own, I guess.”
“You mean about whether I believe in God?” Martin said and his mother laughed.
“I don’t mean to laugh, honey,” she said. “No, Martin. Not about whether you believe in God or not. I mean whether you enjoy sitting around a campfire every night, getting eaten alive by mosquitoes, singing pop songs with all the words changed so they are about Jesus.”
“Oh,” Martin said. “One more question?”
“Out with it.”
“You’ll save me some eyeballs?” Martin said.
“Of course,” she said. “I’ll mail you a big tub of eyeballs at camp, return address marked: “The bowels of Hell.” That’ll help you make friends, I’m sure. And Martin?” She knelt so their faces were at the same level. “I might even send you some bloodstained teeth.”
* * *
On the last day of school, Zoe and Christine gave Martin a small box of chocolates wrapped in a bow. There was a small folded card and they smiled and watched him open it.
“We voted you best fixer-upper,” Zoe said. She had her baseball cap on backward today and her jeans were torn and dirty as always. The other girls were all over by the picnic table, but Zoe and Chris had come to meet Martin halfway. “You don’t have to give a speech or anything,” Zoe said.
“Thank you,” Martin said. He couldn’t tell if it was a joke or not. He was never really sure with Zoe and her friends. Sometimes he got the feeling that they thought of him like an alien life form or an animal in a zoo. But mostly he felt like one of the crowd. He liked to be around them. They talked and laughed and hatched plots and he could just sit and listen. He could just be carried along without worrying about anything. And they seemed to like him, too. They liked that he occasionally went nuts and drew teachers with their eyeballs popping out. But more than that, they liked that he sat and listened.
“We’re going to egg Fowler’s car,” Chris said. “Zoe’s going to the store while everyone is at the assembly so you need to give her a dollar if you want your own egg.”
“I do!” Martin said. He found a dollar in his pocket and gave it to Zoe. Then he opened his chocolates and smiled. “Thank you for the chocolates,” he said.
“We’re gonna miss you this summer,” Chris said. “Bible Camp! That sounds terrible.”
“Tell Jesus we said hi,” Zoe said.
4.
The driveway to the Bible Camp was long and narrow. It wasn’t wide enough for two cars, though it was clearly meant to be both entrance and exit. It went past a small billboard with the camp’s name and down between two large fields. Badminton nets across the field on the left, and a line of archery targets on the right. The driveway continued on down into the trees.
Martin held his mother’s hand as they drove. The trees were so close that the branches closed above them, so that, after the brilliant sunlight, it felt as though they were driving into darkness. The path twisted and turned and Martin had no idea what they would do if they came across another car.
And then the trees to their right pulled back to reveal a small white chapel with a stained glass window above the front door and with a cluster of headstones beside it. Martin twisted in his seat as they passed, trying to see the headstones more clearly. Were they new or old? But then they were back in the trees and the shadow.
The camp was bright and open, though. There were a half-dozen cars parked in front of the big main building. Children and parents were standing around and smiling. The main building was white, too, like a farmhouse kind of white, all cracked paint and wooden siding. There were screens on the doors and windows.
“Last chance to change your mind,” Martin’s mother said.
* * *
Tony, the head counsellor, approached the microphone and tapped it a few times until everyone stopped talking. His uniform was dark brown and he looked friendly. Martin sat lower in his seat. This was going to be a long two weeks, but it was better than staying with his uncle. Tony tapped the microphone again. There were posters up on the wall here, inspirational things about Jesus and about the Holy Father and the Bible. “Have you read this year’s real best seller?” Things like that.
“First let me tell you a little bit about why we run this camp every year,” Tony said. “Every year we hike out here to the woods and we live in these little cabins with all you rowdy kids for one reason and one reason only. Because it’s fun. Running this camp for the past two years, I don’t think I’ve ever had more fun. We have swimming and archery and orienteering and arts and crafts and we have capture the flag and we have a bonfire every week where we sing and play guitar and I don’t know one camper who hasn’t had the time of his life.” He caught himself. “His or her life.
“Last year we had a girl who got stung by six jellyfish when she was out swimming. She was stung pretty badly and we had to call her parents and arrange to take her to the hospital. When she was getting into the car, she wouldn’t stop crying, and I told her that she was going to be okay. She was going to be fine. And do you know what she said to me? She said, ‘I’m not going to be fine, I’m going to miss the bonfire tonight!’” He laughed.
“Here I was, trying to console her because she had been stung so badly, and that wasn’t why she was upset at all! She just wanted to stay and have more fun!”
The other counsellors all laughed along with Tony. The campers did, too. Martin made himself laugh, no louder than anyone else, but no quieter, either. There was a girl with a single feather earring sitting two rows ahead. She wasn’t laughing. She leaned over to one of her friends and whispered something. Martin should have sat closer to them. They seemed more interesting than anyone else here.
“But I’ll stop talking about how fun it is, and I’ll let you go and figure it out for yourself,” Tony said. “Just let me ask one question and when you’ve answered it, just get up and head into the next room where we’ve got cake and juice and milk and plenty of other stuff they probably didn’t tell me about because they were afraid I’d eat it all before you got here!”
The counsellors and campers all laughed again.
“Have you accepted Jesus into your heart?” Tony was serious now. “That sounds like a simple question and maybe it is, but have you accepted Jesus into your heart? Don’t answer right away. Give it a minute. Look inside your heart and when you find Jesus there, just stand quietly and head into the next room. If you can’t find him, I just want to sit down and talk with you for a few minutes. Nobody’s in trouble, here, so let’s be honest.”
Two rows ahead, the girl and her two friends jumped to their feet and headed to the next room. There was no hesitation, no soul searching, no deep reflection on what it meant to accept Jesus into your heart. Martin followed them.
* * *
Tony came down from the podium and smiled at his counsellors. They were all wearing their uniforms, except for Angela. Angela was wearing jeans and a camp t-shirt. There was no reason not to wear the uniforms. It wasn’t more difficult to put on uniform pants instead of jeans. And uniforms served a functional purpose, instilling trust in the campers and providing a clear visual marker of authority. It wasn’t going to spoil Tony’s day, though. Look at all those campers, smiling and fresh faced. Plump and ready for a summer of fun!
“How’d I do?” Tony said. He knew how he did, though. He gave the same speech every year. “They seemed to like it.”
“Good,” Chip said, “That was smart, going with the jellyfish story instead of mentioning the kid who got his hand cut off. Good call.” He laughed, and a couple of the other counsellors laughed with him. Chip had blonde streaks in his hair. Were those called highlights? Tony didn’t know for sure.
Tony sighed.
“Try to be respectful, Chip,” he said.
* * *
The girl with the single earring was named Melissa. Her friends were Courtney and Joan. Martin sat down at the table with them and listened as a counsellor introduced herself. The counsellor was wearing an all brown uniform, too. Her name was Cindy, she said.
“So what do you girls like to do for fun?” Cindy said. “There’s no TV or internet out here, but we’ve got girls’ softball and soccer!”
“You name the sport, we love it,” Courtney said. “Soccer, football, rugby!”
“Rugby!” Cindy laughed. “Well, that’s a bit intense for me. I’m more of a volleyball girl.”
“Oh we’re sports nuts,” Courtney said. “We love intense! Intense is right up our alley.”
“I like volleyball,” Melissa said. Cindy smiled, and adjusted her counsellor uniform.
“What about you?” Cindy said to Joan. Joan just looked down at her hands.
“She likes volleyball, too,” Melissa said.
“This is going to be fun. I’m glad I got you girls, this year. Some years I get stuck with real weirdos, you know? And before lights out tonight, we’ll turn that room upside down until we find your other earring, Melissa.”
“And you can tell us everything you know about that counsellor Chip!” Courtney said. “We saw you talking to him!”
“Well, I don’t know if it’d be right to tell you girls everything,” Cindy laughed and then she was off, introducing herself to another table.
“God, I thought she was going to bother us all night,” Courtney said.
“Tell us everything you know!” Melissa said, holding her hands together up by her head and batting her eyelashes. “Oh, he’s so dreamy.” She made a horking sound. “What did she mean about my other earring?”
“What do you mean, what did she mean?” Courtney said. “You’re only wearing one.”
“So? I only have one.”
“Well, usually people wear two earrings, one in each ear, Melissa.”
“Are you taking her side now? Maybe tonight you can curl up in bed beside her, talking about boys while Joan and I go watch for the comet alone. You don’t mind if I borrow your telescope?”
“You wouldn’t know what to do with it,” Courtney said. “You’d just get all confused by a piece of equipment that powerful. You’re better off staying with that kid’s toy of yours.” Melissa wasn’t listening. She was looking at Martin. Courtney just kept talking. “It’s always something, isn’t it? In the city there’s too much ambient light to get a clear look at the sky. And out here in the woods there are idiots. I guess there are idiots in the city, too, but we don’t have to share a cabin with them.” Then she noticed Martin, too. She stopped talking, and the three girls sat staring, waiting for Martin to say something. He didn’t.
“What’s your name?” Melissa said.
“Martin.”
“Well, Martin, can we help you? Is there some reason you’re eavesdropping on our conversation?”
Martin thought about it for a second before answering. “Will you show me your telescope?” he said.