The Order of the Poison Oak (11 page)

Chapter Thirteen

It was really windy the next morning—the kind of blustery day when it seems like the whole world is being shaken up like a Boggle tray and it’s impossible to predict how everything wil1 end up.

We didn’t have an all-camp activity that day. It was already Wednesday, and that first two-week session was ending on Saturday. So each cabin was given the last three afternoons to prepare a skit for the session’s wrap-up celebration, to take place that Friday night.

For our skit, I’d decided to have us act out the story of Rainbow Crow (but only the actual Indian legend, not the part I’d made up about the Order of the Poison Oak). I was going to narrate, and the kids were going to dress up like the various animals and the Creator. I knew this was dicey as a camp skit for a couple of reasons. First, there was the whole “fire” issue: did I really want to tell the story of the birth of fire to a group of burn survivors? But the tale had gone over well with my kids, so I figured we should just go for it. I was more worried about the fact that we were doing an actual mini-play, not like the other cabins, which I knew would just be doing silly sketches making fun of Mr. Whittle. The skit I had planned
did
have plenty of humor (for example, when Rainbow Crow tried to get the Creator’s attention, he was going to sing the Rolling Stones’ “I Can’t Get No Satisfaction”). But—and maybe this was the gay boy “artiste” in me—I really wanted our skit to have an actual story, and a point too.

As we worked on the costumes—and our cool fake fire torch!—I remembered something I’d been meaning to tell my kids.

“I’m supposed to pick an Outstanding Camper,” I said to them. “Mr. Whittle told us counselors that at the beginning of the year. Each counselor has to pick the Outstanding Camper from his own cabin. I didn’t think anything about it at the time. But now that I’ve gotten to know you guys, I see how stupid it is. I like all you guys—even if your medicines do stink up the cabin at night.” At this, I smiled and winked. “Anyway, we ‘re a team, and I don’t want to single one of you out.” I didn’t say the rest of what I was thinking, which was that, in a way, I even loved these guys. It hadn’t been two weeks yet, but I felt like I knew everything about them—from Julian’s love of trading card games to the fact that Ian was always losing things (not just his flashlight!).

“But I have to pick one of you,” I went on. “So I picked the guy who I think everyone will agree had the best attitude all session long, and who was probably the easiest to be around. I picked Trevor.”

“Me?” Trevor said.

“Sure,” I said. “And I don’t mean to act like it’s not any big deal. I really appreciate what a good guy you’ve been, and if anyone deserves this award, it’s you. I hope it makes your parents really proud. Anyway, I wanted you guys to know so there wouldn’t be any suspense on Friday.”

Trevor didn’t say anything. But before I could ask how it made him feel, Mr. Whittle appeared from out of the trees. I knew he came around once a day for cabin inspection, but that was always during lunchtime. I’d never known him to come in the afternoon.

“Hey, Mr. Whittle!” I said. “What can we do for you?”

He nodded at my kids but didn’t really smile. “Russel,” he said. “I need to see you for a minute, okay?”

“Uh, sure,” I said. I looked at my kids. “Just keeping working on the costumes. I’ll be right back.” Then I let Mr. Whittle lead me away from the others. “What’s up?” I said to him.

“We just had a warning from a ranger,” he said. “The fires are moving closer, and they’re worried about them jumping the lake, what with the wind and all.” I glanced over at the water. I didn’t see any sign of fire on the opposite shore. And ironically, the smoky haze that had been hanging in the air for days now was gone—but that was probably only because it had been swept away by the wind. “There’s no immediate danger,” Mr. Whittle went on. “But we don’t want to take any chances. So we’re going to evacuate the camp, okay?”

I looked back at Mr. Whittle. “Evacuate?”

“It’s not as big a deal as it sounds. We’re going to move the kids into town, and we can all stay in the high school gymnasium until their parents come pick them up. We’re calling the parents now. All this really means is that we have to end the session a couple of days early.”

“Oh,” I said. It’s a little embarrassing that my first thought was, Does this mean we won’t be able to do our skit about Rainbow Crow? But I didn’t say that to Mr. Whittle. Instead, I asked, “So what do I need to do?”

“Get everyone packed up and ready to go. We want everyone on the buses by three o’clock, okay?”

I nodded. “I can do that.”

“But Russel.”

I had already started to turn back to my kids, who I just knew were watching Mr. Whittle and me like hawks. “Yeah?”

He lowered his voice. “As I said, there’s absolutely no danger. This is all just a precaution. But let’s not mention the fire to them, okay? I don’t want anyone getting scared. These kids especially. Let’s just tell them there’s a hurricane coming.”

“A hurricane?” I said. “In the mountains?” It made sense to lie, these kids being burn survivors and all. But couldn’t we come up with a better lie than
that?

“Just do it, okay?”

Mr. Whittle left to go tell the other counselors, and I returned to my kids. They were absolutely silent, with all eves on me, and I knew I’d been right about them watching Mr. Whittle and me.

“It’s no big deal,” I explained to them. “But the camp session’s going to be ending a little earlier than usual. I guess there’s been a hurricane warning.” Then, before anyone could question that too closely, I went on to tell them that we had to go stay in the high school gymnasium for a night or two, until their parents came to pick them up. “But it’ll be fun at the gymnasium!” I said, trying to keep things light. “It’ll be like a big slumber party.

“What about our skit?” Blake asked, and I don’t think I’d ever felt so close to a kid in my whole entire life.

“Why don’t we bring the props and costumes with us into town?” I said. “I bet we’ll still get a chance to do the skit.”

“When do we leave?” Zach said.

“In an hour. But you won’t be coming back here again, so I need you all to go inside and get everything packed up.”

* * * * *

An hour later, my kids and I gathered with all the other cabins out on the marching field. Except I knew at a glance that someone was missing from my group—two kids, in fact.

“Where are Ian and Trevor?” I said to the others.

No one said anything. My kids all stared at the grass at exactly the same time.

I rolled my eyes. “I’m going back to the cabin to get them. No one move until I get back.”

“They’re not there,” Noah said quietly.

“What do you mean?” I said. “Where are they?”

Again, no one spoke.

“Look,” I said. “I don’t have time for games. Where are they?”

“They went down the trail,” Kwame said.

“Trail?” I said. “What trail?”

Zach pointed south. “That way.”

The Waterfront Trail? But that led to the narrowest part of the lake. If the fires were going to use the winds to jump the lake anywhere, that’s where it would be!

“What?”
I said, feeling panic grip me like a wrench around a bolt. “Why?”

“They didn’t say,” Willy said. “But Ian said they’d be back soon.”

This was a
disaster!
Camp Serenity was being threatened by forest fires, and now two of my kids— burn survivors, no less!—were heading right into the potential danger zone! Why in the world would they do that?

Suddenly, I knew. Which meant I also knew where Trevor and Ian were going.

As I searched for Mr. Whittle, I forced myself to relax. Ian and Trevor were in
big
trouble, but they weren’t in any real danger. They couldn’t be. Mr. Whittle had said there wasn’t any danger—that the evacuation was just a precaution.

But what if he’d been lying to me? What if the fire had
already
jumped the lake and that was why it was so important to get the kids away quickly? He certainly hadn’t hesitated when it came to lying to the kids!

I couldn’t find Mr. Whittle or any other adults, but I didn’t have time to search the entire camp. I needed to get to Ian and Trevor. I knew where they were going, and they couldn’t have gone too far down the trail by now. If I ran, I was pretty sure I could catch up with them.

I found Gunnar and Min, who had gathered their kids out on the marching field too.

“Two of my kids went down the Waterfront Trail!” I said, practically a shout. “I know where they’re going, but I can’t find Mr. Whittle, so I need your help!”

To their credit, they didn’t act all standoffish, despite my having pissed off both of them. I needed them, and they were right there for me.

“The other counselors and I will watch your kids,” Min said. “You
guys go see if you can catch them.”

Gunnar nodded and stepped up next to me.

“Wait,” Em said from nearby. “I’m coming too.”

“Me too,” Otto said, also stepping forward.

I looked back at Min. “When Mr. Whittle gets here, tell him where we went.”

And then Gunnar, Em, Otto, and I ran off across the camp grounds for the trail.

“What’s going on?” Otto asked me when we reached the trailhead.

As we ran, I explained to the others my theory of what had happened.

It was that damn Outstanding Camper award. My mistake had been telling Trevor I was giving it to him, and how proud it would make his parents.

Trevor didn’t
want
to make his parents proud! As Beautiful People, they resented their scarred son for smudging up the perfect Christmas-card photo that was supposed to be their family. For that, Trevor resented them—who wouldn’t? As a result, the last thing in the world he wanted was to make them “proud.” If they couldn’t accept him for who he was, he wanted to
punish
them. And how would he do that? By going to Kepler’s Homestead, a place where the kids had been warned never to go! In fact, now that I was reciting my theory out loud, I even remembered Otto saving to the kids how going to Kepler’s Homestead without an adult was so serious that any kid who did it would immediately be reported to his parents and expelled from camp!

As for Ian, he’d gone along with Trevor to try to talk him out of it.

I knew my theory made perfect sense. I had
seen
Trevor’s parents act uncomfortable around burn survivors, and I’d seen Trevor act resentful in front of them. I also remembered how quiet he had been when I’d told him about the Outstanding Camper award. As for Ian, I knew how seriously he had taken that Order of the Poison Oak thing. And I had specifically said that part of the Order’s code was helping out other members—members like Trevor, who was planning to do something as stupid as going to Kepler’s Homestead just to embarrass his parents.

Somehow I knew my theory was right. I knew these kids inside and out, body and soul!

Five minutes later, we ran smack into Trevor on the trail. He’d been running back toward us.

“Oh!” I said, surprised. “You’re here! You’re okay!”

“Huh?” he said.

“You came back from the Homestead!”

He looked at me like I was crazy. “What homestead? I went after Ian. To stop him. But then I saw the fire, so I turned around.”

“Fire?” Otto said. So it
had
already jumped the lake!

“Ian!” I said. That’s when I realized—duh!—that Trevor was alone. I froze, puzzled. “But why is
Ian
going to Kepler’s Homestead?”

“Why do you keep saying Kepler’s Homestead?” Trevor said. “Ian wasn’t going
there.”

My theory was wrong? I thought, So much for my knowing my kids inside and out, body and soul!

“Then where?” I said. “Where’s Ian?”

He hesitated, glancing at Em and Gunnar.

“Trevor!” I said. “This is really, really important! Whatever it is, you’ve got to tell me!”

Trevor stepped closer to me and lowered his voice. “To the poison oak patch. He lost his leaf.”

“What?” I said, still confused.

“His magic poison oak leaf. He lost it, but he didn’t want to leave camp without it. So he went back to get another one.”

I clued in at last. None of this had anything to do with Kepler’s Homestead (now that I thought about it, how would anyone have known that Trevor was there, anyway?). No, it was about Ian having lost his magic leaf. Actually, I thought, this made a lot more sense than my theory about Trevor and his beautiful parents. I had told my kids to keep those leaves forever, to press them between the pages of a book, and Ian
had
said how important the Order of the Poison Oak was to him. And he definitely tended to lose things!

I turned to Otto. “Take Trevor back to camp. Tell Mr. Whittle what’s happened.”

He nodded, and the two of them ran off down the trail.

Then I looked at Em and Gunnar. “I know where Ian is. This time, I know I’m right. It’s not too much farther. But it sounds like there’s fire ahead. This could be dangerous. Are you coming?”

Neither one hesitated an instant.

“I’m in,” Gunnar said.

“Me too,” Em said.

We started down the trail again.

Ten minutes of hard running later, we reached the fire. It wasn’t at all how I imagined it would be, or like a forest fire always is in the movies. It was ahead of us on either side of the trail, but it wasn’t one big fire burning everything in sight. Instead, it was a bunch of little fires—a stump burning here, a branch burning there. True, sometimes there were bigger patches of fire. But none of them were connected, except by the fact that all the flames were caught in the same breeze, so they would all blow in the same direction with each new gust of wind. Sparks and floating embers whirled around in that wind like a blizzard of burning snow.

The other thing that surprised me was how loud the fire was. It was a cross between a roar and hiss, like the sound of a white noise machine turned way up high.

Up ahead on the trail, maybe twenty yards away, I could see the giant tree that I had used as a marker the night I’d done the ceremony for the Order of the Poison Oak. If Ian had been coming back here to get a poison oak leaf, he had to be around here somewhere.