Archie first started going to Camp Shady Brook three years before, when his stepmom, Alicia, had the twins. The twins were “a handful,” as Archie’s dad put it, so it “made more sense” for him not to be “stuck at home” for the whole summer. Almost the minute Archie’s dad said those words Alicia produced a glossy brochure with a picture of a cabin nestled in a beautiful forest on the front and an application for financial aid for needy campers.
“This place looks great,” she gushed. “And they want some kids there on scholarship or something, so we wouldn’t even have to pay for him to go. For six weeks!” She seemed annoyingly overjoyed at the prospect of shipping him off to another state. Alicia was okay, most of the time, but she had trouble pretending that she considered Archie anything more than a burden, especially after the twins were born. It was hard not to feel displaced, whatever people said.
Archie’s dad had nodded too fast and too enthusiastically for Archie to have any hope of changing his mind. It was obvious Dad and Alicia had hatched this plan together as a way to get him out of their hair for most of the summer.
At first Archie was incensed they were sending him away to summer camp. And for six whole weeks—most of the kids in his neighborhood either went to day camp at the YMCA or, if they were really lucky, away for a week or two to learn soccer or karate. Not off to Vermont for most of summer vacation. “Why don’t you guys ship me off to military school?” he protested. “Then you could get rid of me for the whole year, not just the summer.”
“We’re not trying to get rid of you, Archie,” his dad had said. But his tone, to Archie, was unconvincing. It was just difficult to picture Dad being all that interested in another summer with a kid who hated barbeque and ball sports (both on TV and in real life)—his dad’s two summer passions—when he had a new wife, and two new kids, to be excited about. But that was a thought that Archie would have keeled over and died before expressing to anyone, especially his father. “We just want you to try something new. And maybe even have some fun.”
Archie arrived at camp that first summer extremely skeptical he would have any fun at all. He was on edge from the very first minute, convinced that everything from his cheap backpack to his hand-me-down clothes were practically a billboard screaming Charity Case! But it only took a day or two into the first week of his very first year at Shady Brook to realize the multitude of opportunities that lay in front of him.
For one thing, nobody knew who he was. Not like at home, where everyone knew his mom had skipped out when Archie was five and that his dad drove a limo and his stepmother ran the worst nail salon in town. She could paper the walls with the health code violations she’d racked up. Her Yelp reviews—Archie had checked—read like a script for a horror movie about a serial killer who attacked her victims with cuticle scissors.
Not only did all the kids at home know full well that he wasn’t related to the wealthy Archibald Drake, back in Trenton it was plain he was about as far removed from that kind of life as one kid could possibly be. At home he didn’t fit in anywhere. Not at school, where the kids only cared about whether or not you were good at sports and video games, and not in his neighborhood, where they only cared whether or not you could beat people up. And since Archie could do none of those things, he was at best completely invisible. At worst, he spent half his time walking around with a bright red bull’s-eye on his back.
But at camp—at camp people didn’t know the limo driver was his dad. They didn’t know that the other Mr. Drake wasn’t his uncle (or his father, or his grandfather—he never said anything concrete, but the campers all had their theories). All they knew was what he told them. And, he realized a few days into his deception, being able to be anything he wanted also meant that he could persuade some of them—not all of them, but enough—to do anything he wanted. Mainly, to give him things. Candy from their care packages (Archie’s dad and stepmom always said they would send care packages but somehow never managed to pull them together in time). Various goodies purchased at the camp store. And, unbelievably, money. So many of these kids had more than they could ever appreciate, and Archie began to feel like it was his personal mission to get them to share their undeserved wealth—well, except for the other scholarship kids, but he could usually pick them out pretty easily. By the time he got home, he was already begging to go back the following summer. Another chance to be someone completely different from who he was at home.
And now he was back for a third year. And it was going to be his best yet.
As Archie walked toward the main building, where they would have camp orientation—after they gave out bunk assignments, the counselors would sing a few silly songs, then the camp director would quickly launch into an extended list of rules Archie already planned to ignore—he heard a noise.
A girl was talking, loudly and nervously. But what really caught Archie’s attention was his very strong impression that she was . . . faking.
As a notorious faker himself, he could spot another one a mile away.
“Oh my gawd, I am having the. Worst. Day. Ever,” the girl was saying to the group clustered around her. “I can’t believe I forgot we were supposed to pack a lunch for the bus! And now they’re saying we won’t eat again until dinner! And I was in too much of a hurry this morning and I didn’t eat any breakfast . . .” She looked forlorn. The girl wore a black T-shirt with the name of a band Archie had never heard of, and her long hair was cut in a shaggy style like a teenager, though she was only about his age. Instead of shorts, she wore dark jeans and boots. She seemed cool and collected, except for her face, which was on the verge of tears.
One of the girls near her piped up. “Hey, you know, I could share with you if you want. My mother sent me with a bunch of cupcakes. They’re for the whole week, but if you’re really hungry . . .”
“Oh, no, I couldn’t take your food,” the girl was saying loudly, but she was already poking through the box the other girl had held out, pulling out two cupcakes and stuffing one in her mouth. “Thanks!” she said over her shoulder as she walked off past Archie. “I mean it. You’re the best.”
And as she sauntered past, eating her cupcake, for a brief second he swore he saw her wink.
Uh-oh, he thought.
Competition.