Day 6—Thursday

After a dinner of spaghetti, garlic bread, and salad, we raced to canteen and elbowed our place in line. Canteen was a small wooden building strategically surrounded by the soccer field, the waterfront, and trampled lawn. It had a large piece of wood in front that flipped open from the inside to make a window for ordering. It also had an oversize padlock on the rickety door in back that only Brenda and Earl had the key to.

The crowning achievement for all Meadow Wood campers was to sneak out in the middle of the night and break into canteen to pillage the soda, ice cream pops, and candy bars that filled the fridge and freezer inside. It was usually senior campers who tried. And so far, no one had ever succeeded. We all knew the warped plywood door wasn’t that hard to budge, but the creaks and squeaks that rang out at the slightest touch were so loud it always made the invaders scurry away like terrified mice.

I had tried once, back in Clover, to break into canteen with Jordana and Carly, but we didn’t even make it to the building. We were halfway across the lawn when we heard Earl’s golf cart revving nearby. The three of us beelined for the rocks at the waterfront and dove behind them to hide. I accidentally slammed my knee into a smaller rock when I landed and had a bruise bigger than my fist for three weeks afterward. My bruise looked like a side view of a man’s head, so Carly and I named it Bruno Bruiser and took a picture of it with the disposable camera she always brought to camp. I still had the photo. I showed it to Jamie once, but she didn’t get it. Maybe some things were only funny at camp.

We lived for our weekly canteen visits. Junior campers had canteen on Tuesdays, intermediate campers went on Wednesdays, and us seniors had it every Thursday night. Canteen offered more than just snacks—you could restock on soap, shampoo, hair bands, stamps, envelopes, and other supplies you might run out of before the end of camp. But the real attraction was the junk food. The meals in the dining hall were good, but summer just wasn’t summer without Popsicles that turned your tongue blue and bright orange soda that was so sugary it made your teeth hurt.

It was all Asters at the front of the line, of course, and the few who strolled over late just butted in to join their friends. Those girls were fifteen years old, already in high school, but some of them still acted like the cliquey girls I couldn’t stand at my middle school back home.

“They just cut,” I told Carly, nodding at two Asters who’d just arrived.

Carly shrugged. “I’d let you in line if you were late. That’s what friends do.”

“Oh.” I realized she was right. “I’d let you cut, too.”

Carly grabbed my hand and started swinging it while she lifted herself on her tippy-toes. “What’s taking so long? All I want in life right now is sugar!”

“I see Brenda coming,” I reassured her. “It’ll open in a sec.”

Jordana was in line in front of us, waving like crazy to get Simone’s and Bella’s attention. They eventually turned and waved at her, but then turned back to their Aster bunkmates and pretended not to hear Jordana’s request for “frontsies.”

And then the cheering began.

Marigolds started the “Go Bananas” cheer, clapping as they called out the letters B-A-N-A-N-A-S over and over. All the Aster girls joined in, adding foot stomping to the clapping. The cheer got louder with each round while Brenda fumbled with the padlock and ushered two counselors in with her to help her flip open the window and distribute the food and supplies.

Chieko appeared beside me, one hand holding her Eleanor Roosevelt book, the other palming her forehead like she was auditioning for a headache commercial.

“This was not in the brochure. I swear to God.” Chieko shook her head at me. “There was no mention at all of this coordinated screeching.”

“You mean cheering,” I corrected her.

“How about we cheer for some peace and quiet?” she called out into the storm of noise around her.

The crowd behind us increased their volume even more to spell out, “B-A-N-A-N-A-S! GO, GO BANANAS!”

“You’d think our lives were at stake here and not just some Snickers and root beer.” She tucked her book into her back pocket.

“I told you,” I said. “Camp is pretty much just two straight months of people cheering and clapping at each other.”

“Who even made these cheers up?” Chieko asked. “‘Go Bananas’? Where do we want them to go? And why are we picking on bananas? We need the potassium.”

“Chieko, I think you made a serious mistake by signing up as a camp counselor,” I told her.

“I know. I’m in my own personal hell. But that’s kind of why I did it.”

“You wanted to spend your summer in hell?” I was confused.

Chieko shook her head, pulled out her book again, and whipped it open to a page she had dog-eared. “See? Right here. This is what I’m spending my summer doing.”

She shoved the book in front of my face, and I read the underlined sentence out loud. “‘You must do the thing you think you cannot do.’”

“Yup.” Chieko nodded once in agreement.

“Says who?” I asked.

“Says Eleanor Roosevelt.” She flipped the book closed to show me the cover.

“Did Eleanor Roosevelt know you’d be surrounded by constant screaming for weeks on end?”

The volume had reached a level that was even beginning to hurt my ears. “G-O-B-A-N, B-A-N-A-N-A-S, GO BANANAS, GO, GO BANANAS!”

“Good God.” Chieko squinted her eyes closed and pushed her hands even tighter over her ears. “I should have packed more Tylenol.”

“Get some from clinic,” I told her.

“I can’t go there. They even cheer at clinic. It’s insane. And inane. It’s insane and inane.”

“What’s ‘inane’ mean?” I asked.

“It means this.” And she motioned at all the screaming, clapping, stomping girls around her. “It means foolish, stupid, vapid, idiotic, absurd, and any other synonym you can think of.”

“I bet you aced your verbal SAT.” I patted her on the shoulder.

“And I will pass my vocabulary skills on to you, young one. That’s why they pay me the big bucks.” Then Chieko clutched her stomach and fell over herself laughing while repeating “big bucks,” which made it pretty clear that the counselors at Meadow Wood got paid next to nothing.

The line moved quickly once it started, and in less than two minutes it was my turn to order.

“A root beer and a Kit Kat Big Kat bar, please.” The root beer was for Carly, since she won the Jordana bet, but she already told me we could split it.

As the counselor turned to grab my items, Brenda stepped into her place and said, “Hi, Vic. Can we talk?”

I stalled a moment, hoping my snack would arrive so I could rip into it while Brenda talked to me, but the counselor was slow and Brenda was quick.

“Come to the back.” And she turned toward the door, a look on her face I hadn’t seen before. I had no choice but to walk around and meet her, my stomach grumbling for candy.

She stepped out of the canteen, looked down at me from her lofty height, and said, “I’m very sorry to tell you this, but there’s no money in your canteen account.”

My mouth opened but no sound came out.

“There was money, when camp started, but your mom called today and pulled it out. She said you didn’t need it.”

I felt my lips come together to form the beginning of What? but then they just froze again.

“I’m sorry, Vic. You can get canteen today, on me, but after that you’ll have to sit it out unless your parents send in the money.”

I felt my head nod in understanding, even though I didn’t understand it at all.

The sound of wrappers being ripped and Popsicles being sucked filled the air. Soda can tabs popped open, followed by the sounds of greedy gulping, loud burping, and laughter. I wasn’t a part of any of it.

My mind whirled.

I’ll tell him, I promise, once the kids are gone.

We’d been gone for six days.

Did that mean she told him? Did my dad know about Darrin? Did my dad leave? Did he storm off in anger, taking credit cards and closing accounts to punish my mom? Was my mom on her own? Was that what she wanted—to be on her own, with Darrin?

The grass under my feet rolled and spun, and I had to lean against the canteen wall to steady myself. My heart started pounding so hard and heavy in my chest I thought Brenda would hear it. Sweat started to bead up over every inch of my body, even though I felt nothing but a cold, clammy dampness drenching me.

Brenda took my hand and gave it a squeeze, then slid something into it as she said more words I didn’t hear. I shoved whatever it was into my back pocket as she turned and went back into canteen, leaving me dazed and alone.

I stayed there a minute, breathing in and out, waiting for my heart to stop beating in my ears. Once I had my balance back, I walked away. I left the canteen and my friends and Chieko and walked, quickly, to the main office, which was just one small room off Brenda and Earl’s cabin. I heard Carly’s voice shout, “Vic?” but I didn’t answer and she didn’t come after me.

The door was unlocked and the office was empty, so I marched right in like I owned the place. I picked up the phone and dialed home with a rock in my throat so big I almost couldn’t breathe.

She answered on the first ring.

The disappointment in her voice when she heard me say hello got tacked onto the list in my head of all the reasons I was furious with my mom.

“I can’t get canteen,” I said, as slow and steady as I could manage.

“Yes, I know,” she said, after a pause. “I’m sorry. We’re having some unexpected financial issues.”

“Who is?”

“Us. We are,” she answered.

“Did Dad lose his job?” I asked, knowing the answer.

“No, of course not. He’s just—”

“He’s just gone, right?”

She gasped. “Why would you say that?”

“You’re the only one having financial issues. Because he’s gone and he’s in charge of the money and he was so mad he left you with nothing, right?” I wasn’t going to make this easy for her. I could taste my anger, bitter and salty on my tongue.

“Have you talked to him?” my mom asked immediately. “Where is he?” Even the four hundred miles between us couldn’t keep the desperation in her voice from reaching me. And I almost felt bad for her.

Almost.

Because those words still pressed on my brain.

We’ll be together, just wait.

So I mustered the courage I didn’t know I had and heard myself say, “If you need money so badly, why don’t you ask Darrin?”

My stomach clenched and I felt dizzy the moment the words were out. I had crossed a line and could never go back. No more pretending I didn’t know.

There was a silence so thick and heavy it could have suffocated us both.

“Vic, I don’t know what you know,” she started, a quiver in her voice that was either very angry or very sad, and possibly a mixture of both, “or what you think you know, but please understand that I’m trying to sort it out.”

“Did you take Freddy’s canteen money, too?”

“Freddy is fine,” she said, but the fact that her voice jumped an octave made it clear to me that she had pulled all the money from his account, too.

“How could you do that?” I spit at her.

“He has everything he needs. I packed it all myself. Extra money for candy is not a requirement. I’m sure there are other kids who never get canteen food.”

“No, Mom, there aren’t. Everyone gets canteen. It’s part of camp.”

“Well, that’s ridiculous. Even your father said the extra money for canteen was a scam. We already pay a small fortune for you to go to camp, you know. It’s a luxury, how you get to spend your summer up there.”

“I didn’t want to go to camp!” I screamed at the top of my lungs. “And neither did Freddy. I didn’t want this ‘luxury’! You wanted the luxury of not having me and Freddy around so you could be with Darrin!” I spit his name out of my mouth like a piece of gristle. “If I was Dad, I would have left, too.”

I didn’t hear what she said next because I slammed the phone down with such force I worried for a second I might have broken it.

The air around me hummed with emptiness while I caught my breath.

I had never hung up on my mom before.

I had never hung up on anyone before.

I left the office, shutting the door carefully behind me. I could hear the seniors talking and laughing and cheering down at canteen.

So I went the other way, past the flag and through junior camp and into the woods. I climbed on top of my rock to sort out the spinning in my brain, and that’s when I realized, as I sat down and went to hug my knees into my chest, that there was a Kit Kat Big Kat bar in my pocket. It was the free canteen snack Brenda had gifted me. I remembered she had squeezed my hand and slipped something into it but was too distracted at the time to realize what it was. Now the chocolate was melting and I could feel the squish and goo of it through the wrapper.

I peeled half the plastic back and dropped the whole mushy thing to the ground. Then I waited. While the sky grew dark and the sound of slamming cabin doors echoed behind me, I watched the chocolate bar disappear under a mob of swarming ants.