So, guess who’s really good at disappearing? I mean like Houdini good. David Blaine good. Chocolate cake at Camp Wannamorra good.
Yeah, that’s right. Starts with a Norman and ends with a… well, I never did learn Norman’s last name. But you get the idea.
I told Katie whose trunk it was, and she told Rusty, who told Major Sherwood, who I’m pretty sure thought it was “all in fun” like everything else. They even kept going with the Olympics.
But after a while, it was obvious that Norman hadn’t just gone off to the latrine. Rusty went up to the cabin to look for him, and when he came back, he said Norman’s sleeping bag was gone.
That’s when Major Sherwood finally started taking this seriously, and we all spent the rest of the day not finding Norman, all over camp.
We looked in the cabins. We looked in the tents. We looked in the woods. We looked in the latrines. Basically, you name it, and we looked in, on, under, around, behind, in front of, and between it. But still—no Norman. I’m telling you, that manhunt was strictly FBI. (I mean Fumbling, Bumbling, and Incompetent.)
After a while, even the girls’ camp got into the game. Georgia came over with her new bestie, Christine, who wasn’t anything like her brother, Doolin. When I told them what happened, they thought it was the worst thing ever.
“That poor kid,” Christine said. “Which one is he?”
“Norman?” I said. “Skinny. Glasses. Reads like his life depends on it.”
“Oh, Booger Eater,” she said.
“THAT’S NOT HIS NAME!” I said.
I probably should have apologized for blowing my stack, but I had other things on my mind. Like for instance, how it was already getting dark, and Norman was nowhere in sight.