Over the remaining few days of that first week, Archie took Vivian almost everywhere he could without attracting attention to their budding partnership and shared with her the tools of his trade, allowing her to observe everything: the good, the bad, and the occasionally ugly. The way he acted a little awkward when he spoke to the other kids, so they thought he was just trying to be overly friendly and underestimated him; how he shuffled his feet as though he was embarrassed and refused to answer when people tried to find out if he was, truly, related to the entrepreneur Archie Drake; and more than anything, the way he always carefully constructed his cons so it was next to impossible for him to get in trouble.
Even the chocolate sale had plausible deniability—he was just sharing candy with a friend; he had no idea Julian intended sell the bars to kids all over camp.
That was the key to everything.
Of course, what Vivian couldn’t possibly know was that a major part of his plan was to keep close tabs on her for the entire week. The more time she spent with him learning how to be a con artist, the less time she’d have to try out any of his techniques on her own—and potentially get them both in serious hot water. And, no less important, the more opportunities he would have to turn the tables on her for tricking him into teaching her in the first place.
“Just like when you do something for them, then they owe you, another way in is to get them to do something small for you,” Archie instructed her as the lessons continued. “Get them to give you something, help you with something. Once you get someone to do something for you, even if it’s just a tiny little favor, they are more inclined to do big things. I read all about it online.”
Vivian made a face. She had zero interest in learning all the stuff he’d read on the Internet during the school year about new cons; she said it was “too weird.”
“Okay, something small,” she said. “Like what?”
“Well, like a cookie,” he said, stopping a younger boy who was walking back to his table with two cookies on a plate. “Hey, can I have one of those?” Archie asked, good-naturedly.
“Um, okay?” the boy said, looking around a little confused. “But there’s a whole tray of them—”
“I know,” Archie said with a shy smile. “But the cookies go fast and they’ll all be gone when I get up to the front of the line. And you did take two. . . .”
The boy looked chagrined, like maybe he’d broken one of the camp’s many rules by taking two cookies.
“Okay, here,” he said, and held out the plate.
Archie’s smile broadened. “You’re the best,” he said, grabbing one of the cookies and taking a big bite. “What’s your name?”
“Sam,” the boy said shyly.
“Well, it’s nice to meet you, Sam. I’m Archie Drake.” The boy’s eyes went wide at the name, and he kept looking at them over his shoulder, even as he wandered toward a table in the back, and Archie turned back to Vivian. The boy almost tripped over another kid’s outstretched legs, but caught himself.
“So you think I’m spending all this time and energy hanging out with you so I can learn how to cheat little kids out of cookies? That doesn’t seem like much,” Vivian said.
“Cookies . . . ,” Archie said. “Or, you know, cupcakes.” He gave her a meaningful look.
“Right, point taken,” she said. “Now it’s my turn.”
They were standing back-to-back so it didn’t look like they were together. All around them kids were picking at their food and talking. Nobody seemed all that interested in today’s lunch, which was Camp Shady Brook’s famous “beef surprise.” The standing joke at camp was that the “surprise” part was that there wasn’t actually any beef in it. Few people wanted to know what was actually in it instead, though there were plenty of rumors. But the cookies they served once or twice a week were okay, even if they were dry enough to require a full glass of milk to eat a single one. And some of them were even chocolate chip.
Without another word to Archie, Vivian walked over to a table of ten-year-old girls, better known as the Carp bunk, and plopped herself down in an empty seat. “Hi, everyone,” she said in a friendly tone to the younger girls, who openly gaped at her. “Are you guys having a good time at camp?” she continued.
Archie listened carefully from a few feet away, though to the rest of the campers it looked like he was merely examining one of the posters of rules that hung on the walls.
“Yeah, I guess so,” one of the girls sitting next to Vivian said. “Though I don’t really like the food.” She pushed her beef surprise around on her plate with her fork, then picked up what may or may not have been a carrot, examined it, replaced it, dropped her fork, and made a small, unhappy face.
“Yeah, the food is pretty terrible,” Vivian said. “Except for the cookies. They’re okay.” She sighed in a theatrical way that Archie thought was a bit over the top, personally. “Too bad they ran out before I got one.”
The group of Carp girls shifted uncomfortably in their seats. Sitting smack in the middle of the table was a plate with at least half a dozen cookies on it—obviously one of the girls had brought a bunch of them to share with her friends. Vivian glanced at the cookies, then pointedly looked away.
“Do you, like, want a cookie?” one of the girls ventured.
“Oh, those are yours!” Vivian said. “I wouldn’t want to take your cookies.”
“But we have a lot of them. I didn’t realize they’d run out so quickly.”
“Of course you didn’t,” Vivian said. She smiled, grabbed a cookie off the plate, and stood up at the same time. “Thanks.”
She didn’t look at Archie as she walked past him and sauntered out of the mess hall, but she did whisper “Easy as pie” over her shoulder as she left.
He smiled to himself. Everything was definitely working out just the way he intended.
And while he hated to admit it, he was also a little proud of how well she’d done—how quickly she’d picked up on the ruse and made it her own. He wasn’t used to being honest with anyone, except maybe Oliver. And yet, this girl . . . It might be nice to have a worthy adversary for once. Even if his real goal was to eventually crush her.
• • •
“Are you really sure this is a good idea?” Oliver whispered later that afternoon as they pretended to ignore each other during free swim. Most of the kids avoided swimming in the lake unless the counselors made them, since the only way to get in and out without wading through endless weeds was from the dock, which had its own hazards, including an endless number of splinters and several protruding rusty nails. Still, sitting around on towels on the dirt patch that passed for beach was one of the few reasonably nice ways to spend free time at Camp Shady Brook. As long as you had enough bug spray. “I think you need to keep this girl on a shorter leash. She could ruin everything.”
Archie shushed him and looked over at Vivian, who sat by herself on a towel, looking bored. “Trust me,” he said.
“Aren’t you always saying never to believe anyone who says that?” Oliver said, but Archie ignored him, and walked toward where Vivian was sitting. He gave a glance around to make sure none of the other the kids were looking over.
“I don’t understand how anyone can swim in this lake voluntarily,” she said to him.
He laughed, a real laugh, surprising himself. “I think the point is it’s not really voluntary.”
“Well maybe we should convince the other kids that someone got a flesh-eating virus or something from swimming in there? We’d be doing them all a favor.”
Archie smiled, without meaning to. But then he reminded himself why he was even talking to her.
“So, you’re almost ready to graduate,” he said out of the side of his mouth, looking out at the lake like he was deep in thought. “The final test is to find a mark of your own.”
“Really?” she asked, her eyes showing her skepticism. “You’re really going to let me do my own con at your precious Camp Shady Brook?”
“Why not?” he said with a broad smile. “It’ll be fun. And it’ll prove I know what I’m doing. That I can truly teach my method to anyone. Heck, maybe I’ll write a book someday.”
“Right,” Vivian said. She took a deep breath. “Okay, what do I need to do?”
“Well, you know tomorrow’s Field Day, right?”
“Um, yeah,” she said. “Some of the kids in my bunk were talking about that.”
“And there are prizes for the winners, right?”
“Sure, I guess so. . . .”
“I want you to get one of the prizes.”
She made a face. “You want me to, like, win the sack race? How is that a con?”
He laughed. “I don’t want you to win one of the prizes. I want you to get one. That’s very, very different. And it’s most definitely going to take a con.”