A breeze was coming off the water, and it smelled faintly of fish and algae and weeds.
They’d been warned that any camper caught in the water or on the dock after hours would be sent home, so Riley followed a narrow, wooded path along the shore.
The lake wasn’t huge—about three-quarters of a mile long and a quarter mile wide—but it was dark and said to be deep. It could get choppy in a hurry when a storm came up.
Riley walked slowly, keeping his hand over the flashlight beam so he wouldn’t attract attention. The path seemed to circle the entire lake, but he had no intention of doing the whole loop at night. There were bears in the woods and probably snakes, and maybe that creepy missing kid, too. And one wrong turn would have certainly got him lost.
So he stopped about a hundred yards past the dock and stepped to the edge of the lake. The moon was high in the sky, but it was only a crescent, so it wasn’t providing much light.
“I’m not
that
bad at basketball,” he said to himself, barely above a whisper. It wasn’t his best sport, that was for sure, but he could dribble. He could outshoot his father sometimes when they played one-on-one in the driveway at home. With a more reasonable matchup than tonight’s, he could play good defense.
He knew he’d do better at water polo—he was a strong
swimmer—and would probably hold his own in softball. But tonight’s game had been a setback, for sure. The rest of the guys in the cabin already considered him a weakling.
He thought about that marathon swim race, the last night of camp. The length of the lake and back. Swimming for nearly an hour. Not just swimming, but
racing
. He could do that.
He’d been swimming since he was two.
But that race was a long way off. Almost two whole weeks. Two solid weeks of crappy food, group showers, Barry’s stupid insults, and—worst of all—nobody his age to hang around with.
“Geronimo!”
A shout back at the dock made him look that way with a start. In the dim light from the boat house he could see several of the counselors. One of them dove off the dock and the others jumped in, too. They started tossing a water-polo ball around, slapping at the water and laughing.
He’d surely be seen if he walked past the dock. Nobody said he couldn’t
walk
by the lake at night, but he was pretty sure he wasn’t supposed to. Certainly not after lights-out, when the only excuse for leaving the cabin was to use the bathroom.
And he was getting very sleepy. The only choice he had was to walk around the lake—either that or make a
roundabout circuit through the woods to avoid the dock. But the terrain on this side of the lake was steep and rocky, and there was no way he could leave the path without shining his flashlight. That’d be a dead giveaway, too.
So Riley set off on the path again, praying that it would bring him all the way around the lake.
Stupid
, he thought.
Why didn’t you just stay put and go to sleep?
The walk was easy until he reached the far end of the lake and started to loop around the edge. Then the footing began to get mucky, and suddenly he’d reached the brook that provided the lake’s outlet. Somehow he’d gone off the path.
“No!” he said in frustration.
The brook was about ten feet wide where it exited the lake, but seemed to narrow as it moved farther downstream. The woods were thickest down at this end, and Riley was scared.
He looked back down the lake. The counselors were still in the water near the dock, and from this vantage point Riley could see other lights—at the dining hall and the Larry and the gym. They seemed very far away.
He slapped at a mosquito and felt it squash against his neck.
Somewhere out in that lake a giant snapping turtle
waited patiently, perhaps for a bass to swim by. Maybe for a camper.
Riley followed the brook, shining his light fully now. He breathed a sigh of relief as the light caught his escape route—a simple wooden bridge about thirty yards downstream. He could also see where the path resumed on the opposite side.
He rapped his fist against his thigh and stepped onto the bridge. It was sturdy. He’d be back in bed in fifteen minutes.
The path was wider on this side of the lake and less bumpy. The moon was higher now and the sky was clear, so he shut off the flashlight and walked more carefully. He stumbled a couple of times but didn’t fall, and soon he was climbing the grassy hill that led to the open area between the cabins.
Everyone seemed to be asleep. Riley pulled open the squeaky screen door and waited for his eyes to adjust to the darker room. Then he sat on his bunk and took off his sneakers.
Patrick Monahan peeked over the edge of the top bunk at him. “That must have been some long whiz.”
“I just wanted some air. I was looking at the stars for a while.”
“See any UFOs?”
“Not even an airplane. No ghosts yet, huh?”
“Not one. Eldon threw up.”
“When?”
“About a half hour ago.”
“In here?”
“No. He got outside. Over by the woods.”
“Oh.”
Riley crawled into his sleeping bag. Barry was snoring, but everything else was peaceful.
Eldon was a year ahead of Riley in school. He was on a lower bunk across the way. Riley looked over and could see that Eldon was looking back.
“I felt sick ever since that bus ride,” Eldon said. “That greasy hamburger didn’t help any.”
“You better now?”
“Much. I’ll sleep it off.”
Barry let out a big snorty snore and sat up. “Hey, everybody shut up, huh? Some of us are trying to sleep.”
“You shut up,” said Patrick. “You sound like a buzz saw.”
“I’ll buzz-saw your head in a minute if you don’t shut your face. Hey, look, the wanderer is back.”
Riley knew Barry was referring to him.
“Where’d you go?” Barry continued.
“The bathroom.”
“What’d you do, fall in? You were gone like an hour.”
“Just hanging around,” Riley said.
“Like a night crawler.”
Then Barry started talking about Cabin 3.
“As long as we’re up,” he said, “let me tell you why you all might think twice about venturing outside by yourself at night. I’ll tell you what went down in this very cabin last summer, but it happens all over camp. The ghostly stuff, I mean.
“What happened in here wasn’t any violent haunting or anything like that,” he said slowly. “Just this feeling of being watched, of being an intruder in this spirit’s domain. One guy told me he woke up at about two-thirty and saw this phantom floating above his bunk—a misty, glowing shape with wide, dark eyes looking right at him. The guy had to go to the Larry, but he held it until the next morning, too scared to even move. The thing just drifted away or dissolved, but the kid said he never slept more than fifteen minutes at a time the whole rest of camp.
“Other guys had similar experiences. They swore it was true. I believed ’em.”
They fell into silence, and within a minute Barry was snoring again. Riley lay awake for quite some time, staring straight up with his hands behind his head.
He’d been hoping everyone would be sleeping when he got back and not aware of how long he was gone, but
obviously they’d noticed. Then again, that was probably better than if they hadn’t.
He was safe now, but that had been a pretty cool adventure.
The Wanderer. The Night Crawler.
Having a nickname or two was a start toward fitting in, at least.
LATE BASKET LIFTS FIGHTERS TO VICTORY
Wonders and Fortunes Also Win
Danny Avila’s baseline jumper at the buzzer capped a furious comeback Saturday night as the Cabin 5 Fighters edged the Cabin 6 Sixers, 33–32, at the Olympia Arena. Trailing 27–20 after three quarters, the Fighters utilized a patient inside game to whittle away at the lead. Avila finished with 13 points.
Other scores:
Cabin 1 Wonders 38, Cabin 2 Tubers 25; Cabin 4 Fortunes 37, Cabin 3 Threshers 35
Practice That J Stroke; Canoe Race Is Coming!
Two-man teams from every cabin will vie for the first major championship of this camp season on Monday afternoon in the 600-meter canoe race. Each cabin can enter three teams.
Sure, It’s a Sport! Karaoke Contest Is Tonight
Camp Olympia athletes are known for their powerful biceps and quadriceps, but who has the camp’s strongest vocal cords? We’ll find out tonight at the All-Star Karaoke and Dance Contest. Each cabin can enter two teams of up to four participants. Judging will be by camp staff.
Where:
Olympia Center for Music and Culture
When:
8 p.m.
What’s at Stake:
Team points toward the Big Joe
Trophy!
Some Rules to Live By
—No visits to the lake unless a counselor is present.
—No seconds on anything unless you’ve eaten everything on your plate.
—“Lights-out” means go to sleep!
R
iley plunged off the wooden dock into the murky green water and let himself sink. Underwater, the visibility was near zero; just a few rays of sunlight broke through and turned streaks of the lake a paler green.
Riley’s left foot reached the bottom of soft, slimy vegetation and he pushed off, breaking the surface and inhaling.
The water felt great: warm on the top layer and much cooler a few feet below. Riley started swimming, headed for the small floating dock about fifty yards out. Several campers and a counselor were already there.
The swimming area was marked with ropes and floats. A second area for water polo was on one side of the main dock, and the camp’s canoes and rowboats were tethered to the other.
Riley quickly reached the floating dock and hauled
himself up. He had about fifteen minutes before the water-polo match. Cabin 3 had already played its softball game, managing a 9–6 win. Riley had been stuck in right field the whole game, but he hadn’t made any errors. He hadn’t had any hits either.
“You’re supposed to have a buddy,” the counselor on the floating dock said.
“A what?”
“A buddy. No camper is allowed off the main dock unless he’s buddied up with someone. Next time you swim out here, you need to have someone with you.”
That was news to Riley. He loved to swim, but most of his cabin mates were doing cannonballs off the main dock or just splashing around in the shallow water. Riley wanted to swim laps.
“Does it have to be somebody from my cabin?” he asked.
“No. Anybody. Any
buddy.”
The counselor laughed as if he’d said something hilarious.
Riley would have to find someone. He’d been on a competitive swim team for the past two winters at the YMCA. Most of the races were short—25 or 50 meters—but the training was rigorous. Swimming nonstop for a half hour or so wasn’t a big deal for him. He enjoyed it.
He looked across the water toward the main dock. “Can I swim
back
alone?” he asked.
“Yeah, go ahead. I’ll keep an eye on you.”
So Riley took his time heading across, stroking out to the middle of the swimming area before curling over to the dock. It gave him a few minutes to think about the other nine guys in his cabin. Would any of them want to be his “buddy”?
—
Fat Barry Monahan
. Great storyteller and a great sense of humor, but Riley could tell that he looked down on him as a scrawny little kid.
—
Patrick Monahan
. Sarcastic and fidgety. Who’d want to be his buddy, anyway?
—
Vinnie Kazmerski
. Too old for Riley to hang out with. Too big. Too full of himself.
—
Hernando Valenzuela
. Funny and strong. And a lot like Vinnie.
—
Tony Maniglia
. Part of the Barry-Vinnie-Hernando crowd, but a nice kid when he was on his own.
—
Eldon Johnson
. Quiet. Almost a year older than Riley, but he seemed like a good guy.
—
Kirby Lincoln
. Didn’t seem very bright or athletic or talkative or friendly.
—
Colin Dugan
. Tried hard to be part of the Barry crowd. Didn’t seem to be succeeding at it.
—
Diego Martinez
. Vinnie’s shadow.
Riley never minded being a loner back home. There were lots of kids around to play football or street hockey with, and he was always getting into a game. When it was over, nobody took much notice when he went his own way. Here at camp it’d be different. “Going home” meant back to the cabin with nine other guys, not the easy feeling of being home with his parents.
Instead of reading a comic book in his own bed at night or just looking out the window at the New York City skyline across the river, he’d have to deal with Barry’s mocking and Vinnie’s bragging and anybody else’s showboating.
Still, he was glad to be here. Sports were his passion. That’s why he’d signed up for this camp.
Riley climbed onto the dock. The rest of Cabin 3 was warming up in the water-polo area, throwing the ball around. Shawn, the counselor, waved them over.
“Listen up,” Shawn said, addressing the team. “You all got your headbands?”
Riley had his orange band looped three times around his wrist.
“Okay,” Shawn said. “We play seven at a time—four forwards, two defenders, and a goalie. You can only dunk the guy who’s playing the ball, so no jerking around or it’ll be a penalty. And no two-on-one dunking either. That’s illegal.”
The water in this area was about six feet deep, so they’d be treading or swimming most of the time. The goalie and
defenders could hang on to the dock when the ball was down at the other end.
The area of play was about twenty yards long and nearly as wide. Shawn put Riley on defense with Eldon, and he put Tony Maniglia in goal.
“Signal with your hand or something if you get a cramp and need to come out,” Shawn said. “Or you can rest on the bottom if you want,” he added with a smile.