What could only be described as a mind-numbingly loud siren ripped across the rolling hills of Camp Brown, and as it yanked me from sleep, I knew instantly that someone had died, a tornado was coming, or the zombie apocalypse had begun. Possibly all three at the same time.
I slapped my hands over my ears, my eyes still blurry with sleep. But instead of crying, hunkering, or defending one’s self against flesh-eating non-humans, all the chaperones in my cabin were laughing. At me.
“Good morning, sunshine,” my dad quipped. I fell back onto my pillow with a groan.
“Up, up, up, number one! We have a challenge to win!” Siegfried fluttered around the room like a butterfly on speed. I seriously considered suffocating myself under the pillow.
By the time every camper had dragged their body from the cabins dotting the lawn, eyes still bloodshot from the most unnatural wakeup call of our lives, I was afraid we all might start turning on each other like savages. Even Naomi, perpetually supermodel chic, appeared tired, mussed, disgruntled.
“Coffee,” we mumbled in unison. No matter how many times we were told coffee would stunt our growth, at Pemberly Brown, we were accustomed to our daily Starbucks runs and the caffeine jolt that followed. Starting the day with anything less was torture. Especially when we were ripped from sleep by a freaking siren. And like a mirage waving in the distance in the Sahara Desert, large canisters of coffee came into view, situated along the perimeter of Centrum, the centermost point of camp. We stampeded to claim our cup, and after each of us warmed our hands around the liquid gold, all was right in the world.
Camp Brown spread out from Centrum, a center point designed by Siegfried himself. He’d placed the first brick, rumored to be borrowed from one of Brown’s old school buildings. The rest of the smooth rocks swirled out from that point creating a rustic, circular mosaic and the perfect meeting spot. Siegfried stood on that first brick, megaphone in hand despite the fact that we could have heard him whisper.
“Girls and boys!” Siegfried spoke into the megaphone, and we slapped our hands over our ears again. Taking the hint, he lowered the contraption. “Welcome to the second challenge, Merge aut Nata,” Siegfried explained. He wore a gold T-shirt and winked at me. A few kids laughed and my cheeks caught fire. Sink or swim, I thought, translating the Latin. Kind of summed up my life right about now. He lifted up a pile of gold T-shirts.
“The winners of today’s challenge will receive these.” “Victor” was printed across the chest of five T-shirts. “They will also have the opportunity to join me in Chicago this summer at my company’s headquarters. Unlike years past, this summer’s internship will employ a group of Pemberly Brown students.” A few kids raised their eyebrows. Sure, no one wanted to work over the summer, but Chicago changed things a bit. Cute apartments came to mind, the lake, boutiques. An internship at Bye Bye Diaper suddenly wasn’t sounding so bad.
Chaperones began circulating, handing each of us a small ticket. We all opened our tickets, and whispers increased in volume as kids began comparing and even trading. My Econ teacher raised one arm in the air.
“All right, all right. Listen up. Your ticket designates your team for this challenge. We’ll organize ourselves by color, and uniforms will be distributed.” He indicated positions for team members to gather, and in seconds, we’d arranged ourselves into teams.
Sure enough, Naomi sidled to my side and elbowed me playfully. “I’m gonna keep my distance, number one,” she joked. “I’m staying local this summer.”
I laughed awkwardly with my stomach clenched. How could Naomi do that? How could she go from suspect to friend in seconds? Why did she have to make everything so confusing?
My Econ teacher handed me a bright green wetsuit I was to wear during the challenge. Taylor was handed green as well. She raised her eyebrows at me in understanding or solidarity or judgment. I couldn’t be sure which. As I unfolded the material, I noticed white lettering positioned across the front. Conventus. “To come together. To join. To unite.”
The word took my breath away like some sort of epiphany. Naomi carefully unfolded her suit and ran her slender fingers over the letters. Her eyes flashed to her brother’s a few groups over. Naomi and Bradley stood for a union of the Sisterhood and the Brotherhood. Their dream, their parents’ dream, was for the societies to merge so power would be distributed evenly. If I hadn’t been completely manipulated by Taylor and Bethany, they might have actually succeeded. And yet, I couldn’t help but wonder what our school might look like if they had. Would Alistair be alive? What about Clayton? Would the Factum Virtus have even been resurrected?
I couldn’t be sure about anything anymore. My eyes flashed back to Naomi, who raised her eyebrows at her brother. In that moment, I wondered just how far two people might go to accomplish a family dream. Would they set the Brotherhood up against themselves to prove a union was necessary? Would they trick? Would they kill?
I touched each letter of the word the way Naomi had just seconds before. “Conventus,” I whispered, loud enough for Naomi to hear. She turned from her brother to me.
“Conventus,” she replied.