Nothin But Net (7 page)

T
he mess hall was deathly quiet that night at supper. Tim could hear the clinking of ice water as it was poured into glasses
from pitchers, the clinking of forks and knives on plates, the chewing, but no talking. Tim covered his ears to protect himself
from the deafening silence of the huge hall, but it was no use. Everyone at his table kept sneaking hard glances at him, thinking
poisonous thoughts.

“Well, look at it this way,” Jody said, taking in the whole group of them. “It had to happen sooner or later. No streak lasts
forever.”

“It didn’t have to die today,” Mike Gruber muttered under his breath.

“What? You say something?” Jody demanded.

Gruber made a face, shook his head. “Nothin’,” he
said, crossing his arms over his chest and looking Tim right in the eyes.

“Come on, man,” Donnie DeGeronimo said, shaking Gruber to get him out of his black mood. “It’s everybody’s fault, not just
one person’s. We all made mistakes today.”

“Only one person made the last mistake — the one that cost us the whole match!”

Tim fought back tears. He was not going to give them the satisfaction of seeing him cry.

“I’m … not feeling well,” he told Jody. “Could I go back to the bunk and lie down?”

“Uh … sure, sure,” Jody said. “You wanna go to the infirmary?”

“Nah. I’ll be okay. Just … could I?”

“Sure. Go lie down and rest.” Jody turned a scowl on the other kids. “Now you guys look Tim in the eye and say you’re sorry.
Say, ‘We’re all responsible.’ Because that’s the truth.” He paused, but no one spoke up. “Say it!” he repeated. “Gruber, you
first.”

Mike Gruber turned a look of pure hatred on Tim and said, “I’m sorry, Tim. We’re all responsible.” Then, one by one, they
all said it after him, exactly the same way — and as sincere as the grin on a crocodile.

It didn’t make Tim feel any better, though that was clearly what Jody intended. In fact, Tim felt worse — poor him, the baby,
who needed the counselor to protect him.

He was almost back to Eagles Nest when Billy caught up to him. Billy was panting, having obviously run all the way. “Hey!”
he said. “You okay?”

“Fine,” Tim said, not breaking stride.

Billy kept up his quick pace. “That Gruber’s a punk,” he said.

“Yeah, so?”

“It wasn’t your fault we lost.”

“It wasn’t?” Tim stopped at the front steps and faced his friend. “Sure looked to me like it was.”

“Donnie was right. Everybody could’ve done better. And Jody was right, too — all streaks come to an end. It’s a mathematical
certainty.”

“Ugh.” Tim sighed in exasperation. “Why did you follow me here?”

“I just wanted to, you know, stand by you. You’re my friend, so —”

“So you attach yourself to me like a puppy dog?” Tim blurted out. “They’re right, okay? I’m a loser — and so are you!”

Instantly, he wished he hadn’t said it. He realized for the first time how angry he’d been at Billy all this time, for preventing
him from being popular here at camp.

“Nice to know you feel that way,” Billy said, his lip trembling.

“Oh, come on, I don’t really,” Tim said, trying to laugh it off. “I don’t know why I even said that.”

“You said it because it’s true,” Billy replied, looking right through him.

“It isn’t.”

“Yes it is, or it wouldn’t have been in your mind like that,” Billy insisted.

“Billy —”

But Billy was gone, up the stairs and inside the building. Tim didn’t follow him in. He felt like finding a hole to crawl
into instead of his bed, which was probably short-sheeted and shaving-creamed anyway.

He’d hurt his best friend, who had only been trying to help him. What kind of kid was he, anyway?

A loser, that’s what kind. Billy wasn’t one, but he was. A kid who lets his whole camp down and then throws dirt in his best
friend’s face. Alone in the darkness, Tim lowered himself down onto the lowest front
step and cried for a long time. Only when he heard the others coming back from supper did he run inside.

Billy was facedown on his bed in the darkness. Tim felt his own bed for damage, but it seemed to be okay. He lay down, still
dressed, and within moments fell into an exhausted sleep.

The following night was the second social of the summer. Tim had been in a bad mood all day, going through the motions in
softball, swimming, arts and crafts, and tennis on a rare day without basketball. If they’d had to play b-ball, he’d have
felt even worse — every moment reminding him of his dismal failure of the day before.

The kids were speaking to him again, as if nothing had happened, but there was a certain coldness in their tone now, even
the ones who had been fairly friendly to him before. Only Billy said not a word to him. Obviously waiting for an apology,
Tim thought. Well, he’d apologized to him as soon as he’d said those horrible things. What did Billy want from him? Blood?
Well, he wasn’t going to get it. Tim felt bad enough about things already.

He’d forgotten about the social till lunch, when the
kids started talking about it in the mess hall. Then he thought about faking illness again, like he had at supper the night
before. It might work, especially if he went to the infirmary and saw the nurse. Maybe he could steal one of those hot packs
from her first-aid kit and fake having a fever. Anything not to have to deal with girls — not tonight. Not when he was feeling
this bad about himself.

But Tito and Jody weren’t taking no for an answer, and in the end, Tim went along, getting dressed up, moussing his hair,
even shaving, although he didn’t really need to yet. He walked to the gym at dusk like he was walking to a funeral. This,
he was sure, was going to be total torture.

Tonight, the gym was decked out in an outer-space theme, with silver foil planets and stars hanging from the ceiling, twisting
in the breeze from the fans, and shining colored lights reflected from disco balls rotating in various places around the hall.

The girls were all clumped around the food-and-drink table, just like last time. Some of the Condor boys were over there,
trying to catch the girls’ attention and impress them with how cool they were. Tim sat on one of the bleacher benches, trying
to look casual.

“Yo, Daniels,” Jody said, coming over and sitting down next to him. “Who do you like?”

“Me?”

“Is there another Daniels I don’t know about?”

“What do you mean, who do I like?”

“You know — the girls, man.
Las chicas
.”

“Oh … I don’t know … nobody special.”

“You like that Wanda, right?” Jody said with a knowing smile. “I saw you two dancing last week.”

“Yeah, Wanda’s pretty cool,” Tim said, just to get Jody off his back. Actually, he did kind of like Wanda, braces and all.
At least she seemed really interested in him — not like Stephanie Krause, who kept giggling about him to her girlfriends and
whispering about him to Mike Gruber.

He saw Stephanie now, her black hair gleaming red and blue in the soft lights of the gym. She was talking to not one, not
two, but three guys, and when a new song started, she began dancing with one of them. It was a Condor boy — probably fifteen
years old. Man, thought Tim. The oldest kids get to choose any girl they want to dance with.

He would have loved to ask Stephanie to dance. But after last time, he’d decided once and for all — no
more asking girls to dance. If anyone wanted to dance with him, she could ask him. Maybe, maybe he’d say yes. But getting
rejected was for the birds, and he felt bad enough already.

“Well, get on up there and find her, yo,” Jody said, giving him an elbow.

“Sure, Jody,” he said, getting up. Anything to get away from you and your nagging.

He waltzed over to the food-and-drink table, poured himself some punch, bopping in time to the music, and then edged slowly
toward the side doors and through them, out onto the porch. Out here, there were a few couples whispering and kissing in the
darkness.

Tim found an empty bench and sat down on it to sip his punch and wait out the evening — or as much of it as he could before
anyone noticed he was missing.

He didn’t know how long he’d been out there — maybe five or ten minutes — when he looked up and saw a dark shadow looming
between him and the porch light. Even in the semidarkness, he could tell it was her — could tell by the shimmering of her
black hair and the way she tossed it to the side as she approached him. “Hi, Tim,” she said in that musical voice of hers.
“It’s me. Stephanie.”

“Oh, hi,” he said, his voice barely audible, so big was the lump in his throat. “What’s up?”

“I saw you come out here, and I kind of wanted to talk with you. Could I, um, sit down?”

“Sure,” Tim said, shoving over a little to make room for her on the small bench. Behind them, a big window would have given
a view of the gym and the dancers, except that a white sunshade had been pulled down from inside. They were private out here.
All the other couples were kissing. For goodness’ sake, what was Stephanie doing out here? What did she want from him?

“You’re not dancing tonight?” she asked softly.

“Um, nah, I land of didn’t feel like it.”

“Bad day yesterday, huh?”

“You heard?”

“Kinda. Hey, it’s okay, don’t feel bad. The girls lost, too. We got creamed.”

“You guys didn’t have a ten-year winning streak to protect,” Tim pointed out.

“Yeah, but so what?” Stephanie said. “Who cares about a dumb streak?”

She was being so nice! His head was spinning. What was going on here?

“I thought you were a good dancer,” she said. “Last time, I mean. It was fun.”

“Yeah?” He was finding it all hard to believe. Here she was, coming to him like an angel in his lowest moment, saying things
to him he wouldn’t have dared to dream of!

Still, the nagging doubts in his head wouldn’t let him give in to the dream. “You — you were laughing at me last time,” he
said. “I saw you with your girlfriends.”

“What? I was not!” she said, taken aback. “Why would I do that?”

He had no answer to that question. What was he going to say? Because I’m a loser?

“You were. You and Mike were whispering, and you were checking me out. I thought you — I thought he might have wanted you
to ask me to dance, you know, as a goof.”

“That is sick.” Stephanie recoiled. “You are so totally wrong.”

“Really?” She seemed so angry with him, and he didn’t want her to be angry with him. Besides, why would she be angry if she
was guilty?

“You want to know the truth? Mike’s jealous of you,” she whispered in his ear, giggling softly, making little hairs stand
up on the back of his neck.

“How … how come? He’s better than me at every sport there is.”

“He thinks I like you, because I told him I thought you were cute. And it really ticked him off that I asked you to dance.”
She grinned mischievously, and her eyes twinkled at him.

“Oh …”

“Tim … have you ever kissed a girl?”

His heart took a long pause before starting to beat again, and he felt close to passing out.

“Um, sure,” he lied. “I mean, once or twice.”

“Oh,” she said, sounding disappointed.

“Not really kissing, though,” he said, hoping he hadn’t blown his chance by saying the wrong thing. “Just kind of like, you
know, pecks and stuff.”

“Oh,” she said, smiling and giggling again. “You wanna kiss?”

He swallowed hard and tried to say yes, but nothing came out, so he only nodded his head.

“Okay,” she said, quickly looking over her shoulder
to make sure no one was watching. “Close your eyes, then.”

She said it loudly, and he wondered why, but he was too wrapped up in what was about to happen to pay attention to anything
else. He closed his eyes.

“Now kiss me,” she whispered.

He moved his head slowly forward, lips first, reaching for hers. He felt them, soft and warm and … rubbery?

F
ffffftttttttt!
He opened his eyes in shock, only to see that he’d just kissed, not Stephanie Krause’s lips, but a rubber whoopee cushion!

Laughter erupted from behind him. Turning, he saw that the sunshade had been lifted from inside, and six or seven kids were
staring at him through the window, pointing and screaming with glee.

Tim could feel himself turning bright red. He wheeled around, but Stephanie was nowhere in sight.

Tim had had all he could stand. He marched straight off the porch and back to Eagles Nest, so angry that he was sure smoke
must be coming out of his ears.

Billy arrived about fifteen minutes later. “What happened?” he asked. Apparently, he’d forgotten he was mad at Tim.

“They played a nasty trick on me,” Tim said, not going into the gory details. “You were right about the kids here, Billy.
They’re the pits.”

“So you finally got mad,” Billy said, crossing his arms on his chest and nodding with satisfaction. “I was wondering how long
it would take you to come around to my point of view.”

“Well, I’m through getting mad,” Tim said. “I say it’s time we got even.”

T
hey lay in their beds in the dark that night, but neither Billy nor Tim dozed off. They remained awake and alert, listening
to the low sounds of conversation coming from the other rooms of Eagles Nest, the boys talking and laughing softly about things
that had happened at the social.

Tim knew — he just knew — that the laughter was at his expense. The whoopee-cushion stunt had caught him completely off guard.
And Tim held one person, and one person alone, responsible — Mike Gruber.

He felt sure that Mike had put Stephanie up to it. It must have been him, because what reason did Stephanie have to hurt his
feelings? Whereas Mike had had it in for Tim ever since Tim blew it in the game against Camp Chickasaw.

Maybe even before — Tim wondered if Stephanie
had asked him to dance that first time because she wanted to. He wanted to believe it was Stephanie’s own idea — that she
was telling the truth when she’d said he was cute — but he figured it was Mike all along, putting her up to it from the very
start. He and the other kids had probably just gotten tired of taunting Billy and decided it was time to go after chicken
boy’s best friend.