Harmony (20 page)

The day after the stupid Lincoln penis thing is Friday. That's good because it means only one more day until Lincoln and his family leave and I never have to see them again, but bad because it means it's Mother's Day, and so I'll have to see a lot more of his ugly face all afternoon in the woods.

I mean, I'm okay. It's not like they raped me or sexually abused me or any of those things that older kids have special assemblies about at school. But ever since it happened, there have been times when I've been around some of the men at camp—really embarrassing people, like Scott or Tom or even my dad—and I think, out of nowhere, “He has a penis.” It just floats into my head by itself; I don't even mean to be thinking about it. It's like when I was little, and it occurred to me that everyone goes to the bathroom, even people like teachers and actors on TV. But that was kind of funny, whereas this freaks me out.

The whole Werewolf thing is messed up, too, because Candy and Tilly don't know what happened, and they want to keep making plans for the next group of kids. But now I don't want anything to
do with it. Because whenever I think about werewolves, I get this slide show in my head of Lincoln's ugly penis and Ryan's stupid scared face and all the fake blood and fur scattered on the dirt. And then I just feel like puking my guts out.

I just have to get through Werewolf today; that's the last time I'll ever have to be in the same place as Lincoln. On the way into the woods, I stick close to Tilly and Candy. We're walking slowly, so everyone else is passing us. When Lincoln walks by with Ryan, he calls out, “Hey, pussycats.” He emphasizes the “pussy” part.

“Shut up,” says Candy. And then, once they're a little farther from us, she says, “Lincoln's a dick.”

“Lincoln
has
a dick,” I say, and then feel embarrassed because Candy gives me a strange look, and I realize it's kind of a weird thing to say.

But Tilly doesn't look like she thinks it's weird. She just throws her arm around my shoulders to pull me into a clumsy half hug and laughs like it's the funniest thing she's heard all day.

By the time we get out to the Harmony Circle, I'm starting to think that maybe it will be okay. Maybe I'll just be able to avoid him completely.

But then Scott gets up in front of us and says, “Today, the Werewolf wants to do things a little bit differently.”

Doing something a little bit differently turns out to mean that we're going to build shelters in groups of two instead of by ourselves. There are eight of us, and I'm sitting way across the circle from Lincoln, so I don't think we'll end up together, but then Scott makes us count off and has one go with five and two go with six, etc. And there's Lincoln walking toward me with an ugly grin.

I don't even talk to him. I just stand up and walk over to the Building Store and wait in line to buy supplies. I see some of the kids in front of me getting some of the good stuff—like Candy has the big double sleeping bag, and Ryan has the dog crate—but I don't even
care because I've got other stuff on my mind. I wait my turn, and when I get up to Scott, I say, “I have to talk to you for a minute.”

He puts on his “concerned grown-up” face, and leads me a little bit away from the table and the other kids. And I'm thinking that saying the word “penis” to Scott might be the most embarrassing thing that's ever happened to me, but if it gets Lincoln in trouble and means I don't have to be his partner for this game, then maybe it'll be worth it.

So I tell him what happened, and my face is hot and probably bright red, but I get it out and I wait to see what Scott's going to do about it.

At first, he doesn't do anything but look at me. And he doesn't seem shocked or mad or even a little bit upset. He just stares at me, and after a minute he says, “Iris, if that's a lie, it's a very bad lie to tell.”

I suck in my breath, and it sounds like a gasp. I start to say something, to tell him that it's
not
a lie, but he holds up a finger to stop me.

“And if it isn't a lie,” he says, “it's going to get all of us into a whole lot of trouble.”

My mouth is still open from before, but now I don't have any idea what to say. I don't . . . does he mean that I'm in trouble, too?

Just then, Ryan comes running up, yelling something about Charlotte acting like a baby, and for just a second, Scott looks absolutely furious. He reaches out and puts his hand across my mouth, warning me to stop talking. Then with his hand still pushing against my face, he says, “Ryan, you will work this out, or no
Simpsons
talk for two days. And I swear to God, if you don't stop whining, I'm going to put you in that dog crate myself.”

Ryan's eyes get all big, and I can tell he's really scared. I almost feel bad for him, because that doesn't seem fair, threatening that he can't talk about
The
Simpsons
. I'm not sure he could even stop doing it if he tried. But then I think about the way he looked yesterday when
he was talking about peeking at me naked, and I feel like I wouldn't even care if Scott taped his mouth shut and locked him in the dog crate forever.

“Go,” says Scott, and Ryan turns around and runs back to his sister. Scott waits until he's gone before he takes his hand away from my mouth.

“So what I'm going to do,” he says to me, just like we were never interrupted, “is I'm going to pretend you didn't tell me what you just told me. I don't want to hear another word about it. And you're going to play the game along with everybody else.”

Then he smiles at me really wide and shrugs his shoulders with an expression like, “There's nothing I can do.” He says, “The Werewolf wants what the Werewolf wants.”

I can feel my face curling into something ugly. I'm mad. I'm so mad, but I'm not going to cry. I just turn around and walk over to the table at the Building Store, and I grab up a whole bunch of stuff: an old blanket and a plastic laundry basket and some duct tape. As much as I can carry in my two arms.

“Hey,” Scott calls after me. “That's not how the Werewolf does business.”

“Too bad for the Werewolf,” I yell over my shoulder. And then, still loud enough for everybody to hear: “I already gave my information. It's not my fault if the Werewolf doesn't want it.”

I walk over to Lincoln, who's looking at me like maybe I'm more interesting than he thought. I don't care, though. I don't care what he fucking thinks.

I drop all the junk I'm carrying at his feet, and then I just look at him, wondering what comes next. I can tell it's sneaking in, that feeling like I should be nice to him because I'm a nice girl. And if I'm
not
a nice girl, then who else can I be?

It's not really a literal question,
who else can I be
, but for just a second I imagine that it is. I try out Tilly in my head, but she probably
wouldn't even notice there was an awkward situation going on. And then I hear Candy, talking to someone across the field, and it's like an answer traveling through the air.

I look at Lincoln, who's staring at me with his ugly mouth hanging open. “What's your problem?” I ask. It sounds really rude. Good.

“Did you tell him?” he asks me.

“Did I tell who what?”

“Scott. When you were talking to him just now. Did you tell him what happened?”

I pretend I have no idea what he's talking about. “What happened?” I say. “Oh, you mean yesterday? When you showed me your”—I take a breath and put a mean smile on my face—“tiny little dick?”

He goes all red and splotchy. “You fucking bitch.” He pushes me, hard, and I fall back onto the grass. But there's something about his stupid blushing face and the way his voice cracks in the middle of the word “bitch,” and I just start laughing.

“Shut up,” he yells, and I think maybe he's going to kick me or try to stomp on me or something, but I also think maybe he's going to just freak out and start crying in front of everyone. And that makes me laugh harder, because I suddenly get it that, oh my God, he's just like Tilly. Except, of course, that Tilly doesn't have a penis—and that's such a bizarre thing to think that I just keep laughing and it feels like there's no way I'm ever going to stop. I'm laughing when Candy sees me lying on the ground and comes to ask if I'm okay, and I'm laughing when Scott comes over to grab Lincoln, who's started to hit me with these sad weak punches that barely even hurt.

I laugh until there are tears running down my face and my nose is all gross and slick with snot. And if there's any chance that maybe I'm crying about some other thing entirely, it doesn't even matter, because who would ever be able to know for sure? Nobody, not even me.

 • • • 

The week of the Fourth of July is a little less busy than usual, because we only have two Guest Camper families instead of three. I overheard my dad talking to Tom about it; I guess they didn't get many people signing up, because it was a holiday week, so Scott decided to charge more money for it and call it a “special intensive workshop retreat” or something like that. But other than the fact that there are fewer people than usual, we don't seem to be doing anything differently.

The Fourth is on a Wednesday this year. On Tuesday, after dinner, I'm on my way down to the lake, because Scott said we could have a Moonlight Swim, when I run into Ryan's mom, Diane, who's looking for Henny Penny. She gets out of the henhouse fairly regularly. I think maybe she's smarter than all of us, or maybe we're just not as good at building things as we think we are.

“I'll look for her,” I say. “I know all her hiding places.”

I drop my towel on the ground and head toward the woods. Sometimes Penny wanders in there. It's dusky out, and the sun is starting to go down, but it's still light enough that I don't need a flashlight.

I walk past the point where the path ends, past the place where the stupid thing with Lincoln and Ryan happened, and I continue through the trees, making soft little clucking noises as I go. Right when I'm starting to think that I should turn around, because she's obviously not here, I search the trees to my left, and my eye catches on something that's a royal blue kind of color. It's not like I'm paying much attention, but my brain notices that that's not a color you usually see in the forest. I stop walking, and look for a minute, trying to figure out what it is.

And suddenly, my heart is beating fast, and I want to get back to camp as fast as I possibly can. Because I think maybe there's something hiding out there in the woods, after all.

 • • • 

By the morning, I've pretty much calmed myself down. It's a tent; I'm pretty sure that the thing I saw in the woods was a tent. I don't know why it got me so scared—people go camping, it's not like a supernatural occurrence. And maybe it even belongs to somebody here at camp. No reason to get freaked out.

It is kind of a mystery, though, and because it's the Fourth of July and a holiday and everything, it seems like it might be fun to investigate it. After breakfast, we have some free time, and Tilly and Candy and I head into the woods.

At first, I get us all a little bit lost, because I can't remember exactly which way I went when I was looking for Penny (who we found behind the dining hall, by the way). But eventually I recognize some of the trees that I walked past.

It's a hot day, even in the forest, where there's more shade. It doesn't really feel like a holiday. I don't even know if we're going to get to see any fireworks.

We keep walking, but I'm starting to figure out that the tent's not there. I retrace my steps a little, until I'm sure I'm in the right place, but no. Nothing.

“I swear it was here,” I say, but I don't sound too convincing.

“Maybe it was just someone camping, and they left,” says Tilly.

“Weird place to camp,” says Candy. “The closest water is the lake, and to get there, you'd have to walk through all our cabins and everything.”

“Maybe you imagined it,” says Tilly. She's not really joking, exactly. It's just that whenever something happens that doesn't have an easy explanation, she starts looking for ways to make it work.

“No,” I say. “I didn't imagine it.”

“Or maybe it was a dream,” said Tilly.

“Well, anyway,” I say, “it's not here anymore.”

“Maybe somebody was filming a movie, and they had to film a camping scene . . .”

“Tilly,” I say. It gets annoying sometimes. “I really doubt there was a film crew out here. Whoever it was . . .”

Candy stops me from talking by putting a finger in the air. She looks like she's listening for something. And then I hear it, too: leaves rustling, just a little. And then a branch snaps.

We all turn around, the three of us. There's a man—someone I've never seen before—walking toward us. I let out a little scream, not because he seems particularly scary, but because I'm so surprised. Tilly grabs my arm, and we're both ready to run if we have to.

The man raises his hand in a wave. Candy's leaning forward like she's trying to see better, and then she takes a few steps toward the man.

“Daddy?” she says.

The man smiles the kind of great big smile that almost turns into laughing. “Candy,” he calls out.

He opens his arms, and she runs into them.

 • • • 

Tilly and I stand there awkwardly while Candy and her dad have their reunion. Before they're even done hugging Tilly asks, “No offense, but why are you here? I thought you and Diane were divorced.”

Candy's dad pulls away from Candy and turns to us and smiles. It's a weird smile, not mean, but just the way people look sometimes when they've just met Tilly and don't really get her yet.