Chapter 9

Now we have three notes from Pops. And all this intrigue is making my stomach feel kind of jumpy—but in a good way. We head toward the bunk, and Simon and I are really psyched about sharing the story with Josh and Tyler.

“But first, we’ve got to get rid of Nathan,” Simon announces.

“Why?”

“He’s a counselor,” Simon says, wrinkling his nose.

“Don’t you like him?” I ask.

“That’s not the point,” Simon replies curtly.

I feel like he thinks I should just know what the point is. I don’t.

“I mean, it’s not that I don’t like him,” Simon adds. “He just—well, he doesn’t have to hang out with us, now does he?”

He explains that he’s that heard the counselors don’t usually hang out with the campers after dark. Mostly, they just check to see you’re okay and then meet up with their friends at the canteen on the other side of the clearing. But Simon’s nervous that Nathan doesn’t really have any friends. And Simon thinks the only upside of going to sleepaway camp is the chance to be kind of independent and not have someone older breathing down your neck.

Josh and Tyler are already in the cabin, playing games on Josh’s computer. Simon puts his finger to his lips, signaling for them to be quiet, and points to the slightly open door between our bunk and Nathan’s.

Simon knocks and pokes his head inside. “Hello, Nathan,” he says in his cheery, clipped British way.

Nathan is sitting up in bed, reading.

“Just letting you know we’re in for the night,” Simon says.

“Oh.” Nathan glances up. “What time is it?”

“He didn’t even know you were gone,” Josh mumbles, rolling his eyes.

“Not too late, so not to worry,” Simon replies.

“Um, okay,” Nathan says and starts butt-hopping towards the end of the bed. “Did you want to, like, talk or something?”

“No, no.” Simon holds his palms up. “We’re totally fine.”

Nathan looks questioningly at me. I nod in confirmation.

“We’re just going to hang out. You know . . .” Simon’s sentence fades off.

“ ’Kay.” Nathan looks kind of relieved and kind of unsure at the same time.

Outside, several counselors laugh loudly, and I recognize Janine’s giggle and flirty banter.

“I’ll be here,” Nathan says with a wan smile. “With my book,” he adds, holding it up—like, just in case we didn’t know what he meant. “So . . . ’night. Let me know if you nee—”

“’Night then,” Simon interrupts, pushes me back, and quickly closes the door. “Well, let’s hope that sets a precedent.”

“Whaddaya mean?” I ask.

“He means,” says Tyler, “hopefully Nathan’ll get the idea that we want to hang out by ourselves.”

“Do you think he’s, like, lonely?” I ask.

“He’s got all the other counselors to hang out with.” Josh shrugs disinterestedly, his attention concentrated on his laptop.

Out the window, I see Jake and Sarah from Bunks 5 and 9 trotting toward Janine & Co.

“You’re so slow! Hurry up!” calls Sarah affectionately as she links arms with Cooper from Bunk 2.

They chat and laugh as they head toward the shadowed, needly pine trees and the dim yellow glow of the little canteen beyond.

Next door, I hear Nathan padding around. There’s a click, and the white light seeping under the crack of our door shuts off. I’m guessing he’s going to bed, even though it’s only about nine o’clock.

Eagerly, Simon starts describing what happened with Pops to Tyler and Josh. His excitement gets me excited until we’re totally babbling over each other. At first, Josh and Tyler don’t believe us, but when Simon shows them the picture of Sal on my shoulder, they’re like, “Whooaaaa!”

“Sal’s a carrier pigeon,” Tyler says. “I’ve read about those.”

They agree that the notes are very mysterious.

“These are from your pops?” Tyler asks, delicately examining them. “That’s amazing. He must be really smart or something.”

“Mmm . . . or something,” Simon says.

Josh shoots him a questioning look.

“No offense, Noah,” Simon says, “but your pops is a little . . .” He makes a circling motion with his finger around his ear. “It’s possible the notes don’t mean anything at all.”

“It’s hard to know” is all I can think to say, which is how I feel.

Sometimes I think Pops is a little out there, but sometimes I think he’s super smart. After all, he knew how to train Sal, and he knew how to be a lover and not a fighter in World War II, and he knew how to survive to be ninety-something years old.

“I have an idea,” Tyler says exuberantly.

He writes down all the letters from the notes on a piece of paper, cuts each one out, and spreads them all out on the floor.

“Maybe the notes are anagrams,” he says. “That’s when the letters stand for different words, and you have to mix them up to figure it out.”

When he shuffles the letters around, we actually get some interesting combinations:

Tel her so

Where vat does

Wade over stlh

That last one makes the least sense until Tyler reasons that maybe stlh is code for the name Stella, like some sort of double secret code.

At first we’re all super revved-up about that idea, batting it around for a while, until we realize that I don’t know a Stella and that it’s not only a stretch but also kind of dumb. Finally we agree that none of the anagrams make any more sense than just plain “Save the world,” which seems pretty clear.

At this point, it’s getting super late, and Yipsy pops his head in the door. Mick Jagger rushes over to me, all waggles and wiggles.

“Hey, boy,” I say, putting out my hand for him to sniff.

I remember the piece of bologna I put in my pocket for a late-night snack, and I tear off a few pieces for him.

“Now he’s your friend for life, dude,” Yipsy says. “Ten minutes till lights out, guys.” He disappears with Mick Jagger at his heels.

We fool around with anagrams for a little while longer, but soon everyone gets bored and starts playing on their phones. Simon’s quiet. He quickly throws on a pair of jogging pants and a T-shirt and gets into bed. He shoves his phone under his pillow and turns off the light that’s clipped onto his headboard. He doesn’t say goodnight.

Lily sometimes says the thing you can’t have is always more appealing than the thing you do have. That seems kind of pointless to me, but whenever I’ve asked her why she feels that way, she just tells me to stop being dense.

I try to sleep, but my head is filled with soft images of the moon and the ducks rising off the lake, of Sal cooing and Mia singing. So when I hear everyone’s deep, rhythmic breathing, I slip out of bed and open my computer. Glowing in the screen’s light, I open my last cinematic installment of A Life So Far, and the images dance across the screen.

The sixth-grade class trip to the aquarium, where I filmed Bailey doing an interpretive dance about dolphin captivity while Rex accompanied her on the didgeridoo. The class picnic where I filmed a virtual tour of the woods in search of Bigfoot sightings. Lily’s school dance, where her friends lined up in the backyard for pictures while I held their bags. The talent show where I manned the punch bowl.

I upload Mia’s performance from my phone and edit it in. Tomorrow night, at Show Your Stuff, I’m going to show mine.

I hear guffawing coming from outside. Peering out, careful not to be seen, I spy Mike and Jake Rottweiler, the beams of their flashlights bouncing along the ground. They’re creeping across the clearing to the signpost at the camp entrance. They keep their voices low, looking around as if they don’t want to be seen. Mike is holding a shovel and Jake is holding a burlap sack.

Suddenly, Mike glances up in my direction as if he senses me watching him. I duck, and after a few seconds, they turn and trot up the path toward the historic homestead site.

What are they doing out so late at night, and where are they going?

My thoughts spin with curiosity, but as I crawl back into my bunk, a tidal wave of tired crashes over me. Before I know it, I’m fast asleep.