The Stars of Summer (14 page)

ALL BUTTERED UP

T
HE NEXT DAY AT CAMP STARTED OFF
with morning announcements and the singing of the camp song—which, after a week of repetition, Gladys had finally committed to memory.

Camp Bentley, Camp Bentley,

the greatest camp of all!

We wish it was always summer,

never spring or fall!

The values of friendship

and fun are e'er our guides . . .

Loyal we shall remain

with purple-shirted pride!

(Yay, camp!)

“It's brainwashing,” a voice muttered behind Gladys as she crossed the field to her swimming lesson. “All these oaths and songs.”

She glanced over her shoulder and nearly tripped when she saw how closely she was being followed.

“Oh,” she said. “Hi, Hamilton.” Ever since Monday, Gladys had been trying to find an opportunity to quietly thank him for standing up for her cooking. She glanced around now; there were no CITs around to overhear her. “So, hey,” she continued, “I just wanted to say—”

But Hamilton hadn't finished. “We're always being forced to praise the camp, to glorify the color purple. I mean, our parents have already paid the summer's tuition. We're stuck here, aren't we?” He sighed. “This place is more like Cult Bentley.”

Gladys wasn't sure how to respond. She'd had similar thoughts herself but never dared to say them out loud.

“Look . . . I don't disagree,” she said finally in a low voice. “But don't let Charissa hear you saying things like that, okay? You don't want to be on her bad side, and . . .” She trailed off, already feeling rotten about what she'd been about to say.
Some way to thank him for standing up for you,
she thought,
by
telling him that the most popular kid at camp can't stand him!

But Hamilton already seemed to know. “Yeah, I can tell she doesn't like me,” he said. “I'm not surprised—Charissa Bentley is clearly the jealous type. What baffles me, though, is why
you're
friendly with her, Gladys.” Under the rim of his fedora, his brow furrowed. “Unless my powers of observation are way off, you two don't seem alike at all.”

Gladys was, once again, taken aback by Hamilton's directness. Did he always just say everything he was thinking? And now he was staring at her, waiting for a response. “Well, our friendship is kind of hard to explain,” she admitted. “But Charissa can be really nice once you get to know her.”

Hamilton shrugged. “If you say so.”

They were fast approaching the pool enclosure, and Hamilton's long legs put him within reach of the gate first. He undid the latch and swung the gate open, but then he stepped aside in a gallant sort of way, letting Gladys walk through first.

“Oh—uh, thanks,” she mumbled. She could already feel an unexpected flush creeping up her neck, and it only blazed hotter when, instead of saying
you're welcome
like a normal person, Hamilton swept his fedora off in a bow.

“After you, Madame Muse.”

Gladys ducked her own head and hurried to drop her backpack onto the bleachers. Thankfully, Rolanda had been too busy adjusting lane dividers in the pool to notice their awkward exchange at the gate.

A moment later, Coach Mike was barking instructions as usual. “Beginning swimmers!” he shouted. “You'll be retaking your swim tests in a mere three weeks! Your results will determine whether you'll be able to join Free Swim, or will need additional lessons in your last weeks of camp!”

Hamilton's disbelieving voice rose up from the back of the group. “Additional lessons?”

The coach's beady eyes lasered in on him. “Yes, Herbertson,” he growled, “additional lessons! If you cannot pass your swim test, you'll need to spend an extra two hours here every morning.”

Gladys's stomach dropped. She hadn't realized that so much depended on passing the next test. If she failed, she would have to spend her remaining mornings in the pool. One hour a day would not be enough time for her to make lunches! And Hamilton was probably thinking about how remedial lessons would cut into his writing time.

“Now, line up along the lanes!” the coach said. “Let's see how you would do if your tests were today!”

“What?” But Gladys's voice was swallowed up by the sounds of scuffling as the little kids around her raced toward the pool. Strangely enough, they all wanted to be first in line—Kyra Astin shoved past little Benny “Swim Diaper” Regis to get to the pool's edge. Trudging behind them, she and Hamilton brought up the rear.

They ended up swimming at the same time in neighboring lanes. Gladys tried to put her floating lesson with her mom to good use, and generally succeeded at staying buoyant, but she knew that her form was closer to a doggy paddle than the clean crawl stroke Rolanda always demonstrated. And Rolanda once again got to show off her rescuing skills when Hamilton disappeared under the surface one-third of the way across the pool.

“Lane three, Herbertson, FAIL!” Coach Mike shouted as Rolanda towed him toward the pool's edge. The coach shook his head like Hamilton was a lost cause—and Gladys had to admit she agreed.

When class ended at nine thirty, Gladys saw Hamilton jam his fedora over his still-sopping hair and storm out of the pool area. He didn't shrug off his failure like he had at the first swim test. Less had been at stake then.

Before she could even think twice, Gladys grabbed her lobster backpack and dashed after him.

“Hamilton!”

He looked back and stopped in his tracks.

“You need to practice floating more,” Gladys said breathlessly.

“Sorry?”

“It'll help,” she continued, “with your swimming. My mom taught me, and today I knew that even if I started to sink, I could just flip over onto my back and float instead of . . . you know . . .”

“Panicking?” A bitter laugh escaped Hamilton's lips.

“Well, yeah.”

Hamilton contemplated her advice; in fact, Gladys wasn't sure she had ever seen him stay silent this long when there was somebody nearby he could be bragging or speechifying to. Finally, he cleared his throat. “Floating,” he said. “All right, Gladys, I'll give it a try. After all, as my muse, you haven't steered me wrong yet.” And then, with a tip of his hat, he loped off toward the patio, pulling his notebook out of his bag.

Well
, Gladys thought,
now we're square.
Hamilton had tried to help her win over the campers at lunchtime, and she had tried to help him with his swimming. Now she could go back to ignoring him with a clear conscience—which, she told herself, was exactly what she intended to do.

Because he was still super-annoying.

Right?

In any case, she didn't have time to dwell on the question.

Back in the kitchen, her new ingredients had finally come in, and she threw herself into chopping carrots, roasting eggplant chunks, and mixing up a peanut sauce for gado-gado, an Indonesian-style vegetable salad. The lunch drew raves from the staff and CITs, and while Mrs. Spinelli insisted on eating one of her own meat sandwiches, Gladys did catch her licking peanut sauce off a ladle before she loaded it into the dishwasher.

After another afternoon at the archery range and a ride home with her mom that hit every red light on Landfill View Road, Gladys was finally in front of the computer. She had sent Sandy the map right after their call yesterday, and she really hoped that he'd come up with a brilliant solution for her.

At 5:02, the video-chat alert sounded, and Sandy's face popped up on Gladys's screen, once again streaked with dirt. “Secret Agent Anderson, reporting from the field!” he whispered. “How's it going, Gatsby?”

“Not bad,” Gladys said. “How are you?”

“Oh, fair,” he said, but his eyes kept shifting back and forth. “Look, I don't know how much time I'll have today,” he said. “There's a cold going around, and yesterday Director Samuels caught it. He's been in his bunk all day . . . and his bunk is right next to his office . . . which is right next to this bush.”

“Uh-oh,” Gladys said.

“Well, he's asleep now, I peeked in his window—so I think we'll be okay. But let's get right down to business. The good news is I've noticed a pattern in the restaurant locations.”

“You have?” They had all looked pretty randomly placed to Gladys.

“Yep,” Sandy said. “They're all close to beaches.”

“Beaches?” Gladys snatched up her printout of the map.

“Yep,” Sandy said. “Nathan's is at Coney Island—I mean, everyone knows that—but look at the others. In Queens, your Thai place is just a block from Rockaway Beach. And then up in the Bronx, Completos Locos is at Orchard Beach!” He was sounding more excited by the second. “Arizona Arthur's bar, with the Sonoran hot dogs, is only three blocks from South Beach on Staten Island. And then back in Brooklyn, Scandinavian Kitchen, with the pylsur, is just a mile from Nathan's in Brighton Beach!”

It was an interesting pattern, and Sandy seemed exceptionally pleased with himself, but Gladys wasn't sure how it could help her. Was she supposed to rent a boat and sail from one hot dog joint to the next along the New York waterways? “So, what are you thinking I should do with this information?” she asked.

“Sorry,” Sandy said. “I thought it would be obvious. You should ask your mom to—”

Suddenly, the picture on Gladys's screen went crazy. “Gotcha, you little sneak!” an angry voice cried—but Gladys couldn't see who it belonged to. Instead, her view bounced around from grass to bushes to sky; then it swooped again, and the face of a man with unkempt black hair and a very red nose came into view. Gladys fell back in her swivel chair in surprise.

“You!” the man shouted into the screen. “Yes, I mean you, young lady! I see you!”

Gladys groped for her mouse with a shaking hand.

“Who were you talking to?” the man demanded. “Which camper has broken the no-screens rule?!”

Click.
Gladys closed her web browser, and the camp director's face disappeared.

She sat frozen in the swivel chair for a full minute longer, until her heart finally slowed down to a normal pace.

If the director didn't know who had been using the tablet, Sandy must have gotten away. That was good. However, Gladys's tablet was now in possession of the director. That was bad.

Could the tablet be traced back to Sandy? Probably not—Sandy was smart about using anonymoussounding user names and encrypted passwords. His DumpChat log-in was “rabbitboy,” and at a camp with hundreds of boys, that could be anyone.

Gladys was relieved about that. But their videochats had clearly come to an end—and just before Sandy had revealed his plan!

What was the last thing he had told her before they'd been interrupted?
You should ask your mom to—
To what? How could her mom help her visit beaches all around New York City?

Then, like a pie to the face, it hit her. Sandy knew that Gladys's mom had been a champion swimmer when she was young—and Gladys had told him about her own swimming lessons at camp. She could ask her mom to take her to all those beaches . . . under the cover of wanting to go swimming with her!

“Sandy, you're a genius!” Gladys cried, jumping out of her chair. Her mom would be home in an hour, and then Gladys would put the new plan into motion. But first, she had some dinner to start.

• • •

Convincing her mom to continue their swimming lessons at beaches in New York City turned out to be easy.

“This will be so much fun!” her mom cried when Gladys proposed the plan over dessert that night.

Of course, at that point her mom was stuffed with buttered noodles, asparagus sautéed in garlic butter, and fresh strawberries with buttery shortcake. Gladys had literally buttered her up.

Gladys's dad, though, was frowning. “I don't see why you're so excited to go into the city with Gladys when you never want to go with me,” he said.

“Oh, George,” Gladys's mom replied, “you know that what I hate about the city is the crowding, and the noise, and the crime. But beaches, that's another thing entirely! Lydia and I used to swim at Coney Island and Brighton Beach all the time when we were children. Won't it be fun to share that experience with Gladys, too?” She smiled at her daughter, and then at her husband. “And you'll come with us, won't you?”

“Yeah, of course you should come, Dad!” Gladys chimed in.

Gladys's dad's grimace softened. “Well . . .” he said. “If I'm invited, too . . .”

• • •

Up in her room that night, Gladys tore a fresh page out of her reviewing journal.

Dear Sandy,
she wrote, then paused. She planned to hide this note, and his brownies (triple-wrapped in plastic to stifle the smell), in a package that looked like it was carrying something else. But she still needed to be careful about what she wrote, just in case it was discovered.

Thanks for your advice. Our friends George and Jennifer are taking me to Brooklyn this weekend. Hopefully, they'll have such a great time that they'll be willing to venture even farther next weekend.

G.G.

P.S. I hope that this extra underwear will be useful to you at camp!

She folded the note in half, then in half again. Tomorrow after camp, she would pop by next door to visit the Hoppers—and steal some of Sandy's leftbehind undershirts and shorts. As much as she didn't want to touch her friend's underwear, she had to hope that the camp director would want to dig through it even less.

SALT AND SAND

T
HANKS TO EXTENSIVE PLANNING BY
Gladys, that Saturday morning went off without a hitch. Determined to arrive at the beach in time for lunch, Gladys lured her parents out of bed early with hot coffee and a breakfast of blueberry crepes. She had packed their beach bags the night before, and hustled them into the car as soon as breakfast ended. An hour later, they were in the mostly Russianspeaking Brighton Beach neighborhood of Brooklyn.

Her dad muttered darkly as he searched for a parking spot, but Gladys was ready for everything. She had printed a map of the neighborhood, and now pulled it out of her own beach bag. “Hey, Dad, I found a lot online that charges only ten dollars to park all day.”

She showed him the location on her map, and her dad's mood immediately improved. “That's our Gladdy,” he said, swinging the car in a wild U-turn to head for the intersection she had indicated. “Always prepared!”

Gladys didn't know about always, but in this case, she had made sure to find a parking lot close to Scandinavian Kitchen. Sure enough, her family walked right past the restaurant on their way to the beach. In contrast to the other shops in the area, its sign was in English, and it flew Swedish, Danish, and Icelandic flags over the door instead of Russian or Ukrainian ones.

“Ooh, look at this place,” Gladys said, pausing in front of the menu posted in the window. “Food from Scandinavia! Hey, Dad, have you ever heard of an Icelandic hot dog before?”

“An Icelandic hot dog? What's that made of, whale?” he asked.

“It's not a good idea to swim on a full stomach,” her mom said.

Gladys made a show of reluctantly pulling herself away from the window. She hadn't really expected them to buy her a hot dog this early—but she wanted to plant the idea for later.

Once they found a good spot on Brighton Beach, everyone lathered up with sunscreen. That was when Gladys's stomach started flip-flopping. She knew the hardest part of the day was coming: swimming with her mom.

While Gladys's dad lay on their beach blanket with his copy of
Zombietown, U.S.A.,
Gladys followed her mom down to the ocean, gulping in nervous lungfuls of salty air. But she needn't have worried. They started off easily, and for twenty minutes, Gladys practiced breathing out as she put her face in the water, then turning her face to the side to breathe in. “The arms and legs can come later,” Gladys's mom said. “It's the breathing that you have to learn first.”

Gladys had always known her mom had a passion for swimming, but she'd never really had a chance to experience it. In fact, their two lessons so far were the most one-on-one time they'd spent together outside of the car in a long while.

“I thought you two would never come out,” her dad said when they finally emerged from the ocean. “I'm starved!”

“Let's head down to Coney Island and visit Nathan's,” her mom said. “That's where Lydia and I always used to eat.”

Gladys hadn't even had to say a word.

Nathan's Famous sat on the edge of the Coney Island boardwalk, the great green letters of its sign standing out against the cloud-streaked blue sky. Towering over it were the amusement park's Ferris wheel and roller coaster, but the Nathan's line was longer than the lines for both rides combined. Gladys expected her parents to moan and groan about the wait, but to her surprise, they simply joined the queue and started reminiscing about the hot dogs of their childhoods.

Gladys paid attention to their conversation—who knew what material she might be able to use in her article? But, annoyingly, her parents couldn't answer her most important questions.

“Do you remember what brand the hot dogs were?” she asked her dad in the middle of a story about grilling illegally with his brother on their fire escape in Jersey City.

“What brand?” Her dad frowned. “How do you expect me to remember a thing like that?”

“Well, do you remember what they tasted like?”

“Sure, they tasted like char—we built the fire too high!” He laughed. “And then the smoke alarm went off, right inside the apartment . . .”

Gladys's mom's memory was a little better—at least she knew that the hot dogs she and Lydia loved eating came from Nathan's. But getting any more details out of her was like trying to catch granules of couscous in a colander.

“What condiments we got? Oh, Gladys, who remembers these things?” She paused. “Well, maybe Lydia got mustard once, because I remember that she came home with a big yellow stain on her shorts and your Grandma Rosa made a huge stink . . .”

When they finally reached the register, her parents were still so far down memory lane that Gladys had to do the ordering.

“I'll take an original hot dog, a chili dog, and a corn dog,” she told the man behind the counter. “And a large order of fries.”

When their food came up, Gladys's dad carried their boxes over to a condiment station, where he loaded up on little cups of ketchup, mustard, and relish. Then they headed out to the beach.

Gladys had never eaten a meal on a beach—especially not a meal she was trying to review—and found it more difficult than she'd expected. Without a table, there was nowhere to put the food, and nowhere to hide her reviewing journal. Laying her hot dog's carton down gently in the sand, she tried to open her journal secretly in her lap. But then a gust of wind sent the pages flapping—and, even worse, blew a pile of sand over the dog.

“Gladdy, you're going about this all wrong,” her dad said, snatching up the hot dog and shaking sand from it. “It's called fast food for a reason. You've got to eat it quick, while it's hot and not too sandy. Here, like this!” And he took such a huge bite that he immediately choked, shooting a wad of green stuff right out of his nose.

Gladys and her mom nearly fell over laughing. Once her dad stopped coughing, he laughed, too, though not quite as loudly. “That was relish!” he insisted. “Relish, I swear!” But that only made them all laugh harder.

The next ten minutes were filled with food swaps, dives to protect the French fries from seagulls and sand, and more laughter. Gladys couldn't remember her family ever having so much fun together. Unfortunately, when the food was gone, she also couldn't remember which dish had tasted like what. Was it the French fries that had oozed grease onto her fingers—or was that the batter around the corn dog? Had the all-beef hot dog tasted better under a thick layer of chili, or a thin drizzle of mustard and relish?
Fudge,
she thought. She'd been so busy having a good time that she'd nearly forgotten about her assignment.

After a couple more hours playing Skee-Ball in the arcade and riding the Wonder Wheel, the Gatsbys made their way back to Brighton Beach. In her planning, Gladys had come up with all sorts of potential tricks to convince her parents to take her to Scandinavian Kitchen: She could feign exhaustion from a lack of protein, or tell them the theme of this year's camp color war was “Battle of the Baltic Sea” and that she needed to stop in for research. But as they turned onto the block with the restaurant, Gladys decided that, on this great day of swimming, laughter, and togetherness, she would try the truth.

(Well, the truth minus the whole
New York Standard
thing.)

“Hey, Mom, Dad,” she said, “I'd really like to pop into that Scandinavian place. I've never had an Icelandicstyle hot dog before, and as long as we're here, I think it might be really interesting to try.”

It turned out that was all she needed to say. They entered the café, which had simple white walls and paper menus, sat at a counter on wooden stools, and ordered three pylsurs. The franks were pink, the sauces soaking into the buns brown and red, and the onions both crispy and crunchy.

Gladys's parents dug in, comparing this hot dog with the ones they'd had earlier. Gladys agreed that the flavors were pleasantly surprising. But in truth, they weren't half as surprising as the fact that her parents had come in here with her at all. Just a few months ago, trying something as crazy and unfamiliar as an Icelandic hot dog would have been unthinkable for them.

It was like they were finally growing up.