“Okay, okay,” I said. “You don’t need to make a whole thing about it. I know you were scared, but I’m fine.”
“Don’t flatter yourself,” Georgia whispered in my ear. “I just need to tell you something. I was talking to Christine, and she knows what Doolin did. And she said—”
“RAFE! RAFE! RAFE! RAFE!”
All of a sudden, a bunch of other people were there, drowning her out. They were applauding and cheering and slapping me on the back like I’d just won the Indy 500 while blindfolded or something.
“Way to go, Rafe!” Tunz said.
“Didn’t think you had it in you!” Cav said.
“I hope it was worth it, man,” Bombardier said.
“RAFE! RAFE! RAFE! RAFE!”
None of this was making any sense. What was Georgia talking about? And what were the guys talking about?
“What’s everyone talking about?” I asked Smurf.
He grabbed my arm and pulled me off to the side.
“We need to get you out of here,” he shouted in my ear. “Sherwood’s on the warpath looking for you.”
“Yeah, like you don’t know,” he said. “When he went back to his cabin last night, it was totally trashed. There was peanut butter and honey all over EVERYTHING!”
“Peanut butter?” I said, looking over at Norman.
“And honey. Nice touch, by the way,” Smurf said. “Sherwood got us all up in the middle of the night and started interrogating everyone. That’s when he found out you were gone too. I mean, that’s why you took off, right?”
I was still staring at Norman. I couldn’t believe he had it in him. Because you can bet Sherwood would think it was “all in fun” when someone else’s cabin got trashed. But when it was his place? Not so much.
Now I knew why Norman was afraid of getting sent home.
But I also knew I couldn’t let that happen.
My head was still spinning when I realized everything had gone quiet. Nobody was clapping anymore. No more cheering. I hadn’t had my back slapped in at least five seconds.
Then a big, round shadow fell over me. It was like a meatball-shaped cloud moving in.
I felt a hand clamp down on my shoulder.
“Mr. Whatchamacallit,” Sherwood said. “Do you have anything to say for yourself?”
This was it. Now or never. So I looked Sherwood in the eye, swallowed hard, and went for it.
“Yeah,” I said. “You should tell Chef Rudy he’s out of peanut butter.”