Cheesie Mack Is Cool in a Duel Read online

  “Wind-WHOOP” is the unofficial official Camp Windward cheer. Lenny Kalecki had stepped onto the bus. He made up this cheer two years ago. Last year, the Camp Leeward girls got jealous and began yelling, “Lee-LOOP!” which I think makes no sense. On the last night of camp when we have a joint campfire, the two groups alternate cheering. It can get pretty loud.

  Wind-WHOOPing and pumping his fist up and down, Lenny took a long time to get to the back of the bus. There were lots of high fives and knuckle bumps.

  Then Granpa, who had been directing everything outside, blew his whistle (the kind basketball refs use). Lenny started Wind-WHOOPing again, and when I joined in, so did Robbie, Evan, and Georgie. Pretty soon lots of guys were Wind-WHOOPing.

  I leaned over the kids in the seat in front of me and craned my neck out their open window. Granpa lifted both his arms into the air as the bus drivers took their seats and closed the doors. Then he blew three short blasts on his whistle and yanked his arms down. Immediately all six bus horns and all the parents’ car horns started honking.

  That’s the way Camp Windward and Camp Leeward kids and their parents say goodbye to each other.

  With maximum NOISE!

  We do it every year.

  I leaned back, pulled Granpa’s camera out of my pocket, and with Georgie leaning over to look at it, replayed the video we’d shot.

  I am a terrible cameraman. The image was all jumpy, Goon’s face was all shadowy, and we could barely hear her saying, “Oh, Kevin …”

  We didn’t care. We all laughed. The summer was starting out great!

  Operation Bus Blaster

  It was pretty noisy on the bus. Everyone was excited. I was smiling inside, just sitting in the middle seat of the backest, my feet stretching out into the aisle in front of me, daydreaming about the next six weeks.

  Here’s why. The boys at Camp Windward get divided into two groups: Big Guys and Little Guys. The Big Guys play different sports, like lacrosse and flag football, and have dances and stuff with Camp Leeward. The two groups don’t see much of each other, except at campfires and meals.

  Georgie and I have been Little Guys for the last four years. This year we’d be Little Guys again, but because we’d be in the eleven-year-old bunk, we’d be the biggest of the Little Guys, and that was why this was going to be our best summer ever. (I was actually still ten, but since my birthday would come on the last day of camp, that counted!)

  Georgie and I terrifically love going to camp. But we almost didn’t get to go this summer. If you read Not a Genius or Anything, you know why. If you didn’t, I’m not going to give the plot away because you might read it someday.

  For the first fifteen minutes on the bus, I was constantly watching out for incoming spitballs. But then Lenny began talking about his remote-control plane.

  “It’s awesome! Got a wingspan like this.” He held his arms out wide and began talking about loop-the-loops and barrel rolls, and pretty soon I was completely interested and paying no attention to anything else.

  That was when a spitball hit my arm.

  I spun around, looking everywhere, but all heads were facing front.

  “Guys,” I whispered. “Don’t look now, but the spitball war has begun. I just got hit.”

  Every one of them looked anyway. So did I. Alex Welch was looking back at us. He turned away quickly.

  “Correction,” I said. “This isn’t a war. It’s a one-man sniper attack. Everyone act natural. Lenny, let us know when to launch a counterattacking artillery barrage.”

  Barrage rhymes with garage, and means “a whole bunch of guns firing all at once.” I love unusual words. Having a good vocabulary makes writing a lot more fun and gets me excellent grades on things I write for school. The first time I ever used the word barrage was in a report last year. I wrote: “I was attacked by a barrage of howler monkey screams long before I could see the primate cage.” I got an A+ on my primate report. It’s on my website. I’m assuming you know what a primate is … you primate!

  A few moments later, Lenny whispered, “The target is definitely Alex Welch. He has a straw in his mouth. Okay, he’s facing front now. Ready …”

  I turned and aimed directly at the back of Alex’s neck. I gave a quick look to both sides. Three other cannons were aimed at Alex. I moved a spitball from my cheek and tongued it into position just inside the straw.

  “Aim …,” Lenny whispered.

  I steadied my hand and drew in a big breath through my nose.

  “Fire!”

  Whoosh!

  Splat! Splat! Splat! And splat! Four super-soggy spitballs smacked into the spitball sniper.

  Alex spun around. “Quit it!” he yelped.

  “You started it!” Georgie shouted back.

  “We’re even,” I said. “Gimme back my straw.”

  Alex shook his head, then turned back around and began complaining to his brother. Kevin ignored him.

  “Mission accomplished,” Lenny said. “Cheesie’s Operation Bus Blaster was a total success. Good shooting, gentlemen. Bull’s-eyes all around.”

  After a while, the road signs indicated we were on the interstate going north through the tiny bit of New Hampshire that touches the Atlantic Ocean. I knew from experience that in a few minutes, when the bus crossed over the Piscataqua River Bridge into Maine, there would be a big cheer.

  Because I liked the way it sounded (piss-CAT-uh-kwah … no giggling, please), I once looked it up, hoping it meant something like “shark-infested quicksand” or “don’t eat the poisonous clams.” Turns out it’s a Native American word that means “branch of a river with a big current.”

  I could see the New Hampshire–Maine state-line sign coming up fast. Suddenly the whole bus exploded with loud screams. And at that exact moment, a spitball hit my chin. I couldn’t believe it! There was Alex, straw in hand, grinning at me.

  I yanked my straw out of my sock, tossed a bunch of T-shirt pocket spitballs into my mouth, and fired back at him. Bad idea. I didn’t plan. Alex ducked, and my shots missed him entirely. They went one row farther and smacked Kevin right in the cheek.

  I might’ve been safe if I’d dropped my peashooter out of sight, but I was too stunned by my bad shooting. Kevin spun around, saw me with the straw still in my mouth, and jumped out of his seat. He stormed to the backest and stood in front of me.

  Kevin’s big. I’m small. But I wasn’t afraid he was going to do anything to me. Kevin is way smarter than his brother. He did exactly what I thought he would do … which was even worse.

  “Listen, Runt.” He calls me Runt, which I hate, because that’s what my sister mostly calls me. “You”—he gave me a hard look—“have just bought yourself a summer of pain.” He started to turn away, then looked back at me. “I’m gonna make sure of it.”

  No one made a sound as he walked back to his row. He tapped his seatmate on the shoulder, mumbled something I couldn’t hear, then pointed at me. The other boy, a big guy named Ty who had been at camp for only one year and whom I had never really talked to, stared at me and smiled. It was definitely not a smile of friendship.

  I looked left and then right at Georgie and my camp friends, Lenny, Evan, and Robbie. “Oh, great,” I said. “Now I have camp enemies.”

  The Greatest Camp

  in the Whole Known Universe

  Three boring bus hours later we turned onto the road that leads into Camp Windward, and our boredom instantly disappeared.

  As the bus bounced through the woods and over the hill and stopped in the parking area, every kid—me too!—was talking or yelling or both. Then Lenny began Wind-WHOOPing, so I instantly joined in and elbowed Georgie in the ribs to get his attention. Soon our row … then the rows near us … then the entire bus was Wind-WHOOPing.

  It was great! Summer fun on Bufflehead Lake had finally begun. I had completely forgotten Kevin’s threat.

  Interesting fact: A bufflehead is a small black-and-white duck with a large head. The name is from “buffalo head.” I
put a picture of one on my website.

  Even more interesting fact: There is a place in Massachusetts called Lake Charg​oggag​oggma​nchau​ggago​ggcha​ubuna​gunga​maugg. It’s true! Granpa took me fishing there. You can hear him pronounce the name on my website.

  Boys and girls swarmed out of the six buses and joined the crowd of others who had driven up with their parents or came in buses from New York and New Jersey.

  I’m sure I was grinning big-time as I looked all around. Here’s what I saw:

  1. Everyone was running every which way saying hello to camp friends.

  2. Uncle Bud (I’m going to write his name that way when he’s doing camp stuff, but he’ll be Granpa when he’s being my grandfather) was standing right in the middle of the parking area holding a battery-powered megaphone. He was trying to be all stern and businesslike, but when he saw me, he gave me a squinty-evil-eye (which meant, “Aren’t we going to have fun this summer?”).

  3. Parents were kind of standing around.

  4. The drivers and the camp staff began unloading the bags and stuff from under the buses.

  5. Deeb, my very smart springer spaniel, was zooming everywhere, sniffing everything, and getting patted and petted a million times.

  Uncle Bud had brought Deeb to camp because my mom and dad went on vacation to Alaska. I’d get to play with Deeb whenever I wanted. Best of all, because the camp is in the woods, I would not have to clean up Deeb’s you-know-what.

  Uncle Bud lifted his megaphone and boomed, “Welcome, campers! Welcome to Camp Windward! Welcome to Camp Leeward! It’s going to be a great summer. Parents, please say your goodbyes now. We’ve got a lot to do this afternoon before dinnertime.”

  Someone scooped me up and lifted me above his head. It was Scott Dutcher, the greatest counselor in the history of ever!

  “Hiya, Cheesie!” he said, looking up at my grinning face. He pumped me up and down a couple of times like he was lifting weights, swung me down onto my feet, and then rubbed his knuckles across my pate. (If you don’t know that word, you can find it on my body parts webpage.)

  “I thought you weren’t going to be at camp this summer,” I said. (This was in my last book.)

  “Changed my mind,” he chuckled.

  Lenny jumped onto Dutcher’s back. “You gonna be our counselor again?”

  Dutcher wiggled out from under Lenny and yelled over his shoulder as he jogged off to help unload the buses, “Abso-tootin-lutely!”

  That was the best news! Lenny Wind-WHOOPed. Georgie was so happy he slugged me. Robbie and Evan did a crazy dance, almost bumping into Aunt Lois.

  Aunt Lois is Granpa’s ex-wife, but she is not my grandmother because she married Granpa when my dad was fifteen and got divorced long before I was born. It’s complicated.

  Aunt Lois owns both camps. She laughs a lot and is always cheerful. Uncle Bud is always grumpy, but I think that’s mostly an act. Aunt Lois is totally artistic and creative. She makes every summer different. Here’s how:

  1. Before camp starts, Aunt Lois dyes two stripes into her hair, which is normally almost white. The stripes indicate what the team colors will be for Color War. This year her stripes were purple and orange.

  2. One day—you never know when—is Strange Day. You don’t know what to expect until she announces it at breakfast. Last year it was Sing-Only Day. No one, including the camp staff, was allowed to talk normally. At first it was embarrassing and hard, but by dinner, it was totally funny and fun.

  3. Every year Aunt Lois puts up a new sculpture somewhere in camp. Last summer she attached one of those lawn gnome statues to the front half of an old rowboat, put it all on tall legs with a ladder up the side, and installed it as the lifeguard’s chair on the beach where we swim.

  Georgie and I were watching Dutcher unloading the suitcases two and three at a time when someone poked me in the neck. Hard.

  It was Goon, my evil sister. “Kevin told me he is going to murder you.”

  I ignored her.

  “He is definitely going to murder you.”

  “Then I’ll be dead. Go away.”

  She didn’t move. She stood way too close to me, grinning.

  Goon and I have had an adversarial relationship for as long as I can remember. (Peter Pan and Captain Hook are adversaries. It’s a high-class way of saying “opponent.”)

  Goon tried to poke me again, but I jumped away, and she stumbled and fell. A couple of girls giggled, and Goon blushed. Four points for me! The score was now 661–660. I was ahead!

  Since mostly the only times the Little Guys ever see the girls is across the dining hall at meals, summer camp is the one time of year when I have very little contact with my sister, so there was a good chance I’d be in the lead all summer. The last time I led, I was in fourth grade and the score was only 17–15!

  Goon was gone for less than a minute when I heard another girl’s voice. “Hello, Cheesie.”

  Georgie turned. I didn’t. I knew who it was: Lana Shen, the girl from my fifth-grade class who all last year was always hanging around and talking to me.

  “Hi, Lana,” I said, still staring at Dutcher, not turning around.

  “This is my friend Marci Housefield.”

  I turned a little bit. Lana was my size, but Marci was really tall, almost as tall as Georgie … and really skinny.

  “I told her all about you,” Lana said, staring at me.

  Lana always stares at me. I don’t know why, and I have never asked because if I did, she’d probably tell me … and I don’t want to know. So I just stared back without saying anything. Lana’s hair is black and very shiny.

  Just then Goon appeared again, leaned between us, and said, “Kiss, kiss,” with lots of smooching sounds.

  If I hadn’t reacted, she would have gotten no points, but I instantly turned red. Four points for her. The Point Battle score was 664–661. I’d been in the lead for less than two minutes!

  Goon snickered and strolled away into the crowd of kids.

  “This is Marci’s first year at camp. She’s from New York City,” Lana said.

  “It’s called the Big Apple,” Marci explained.

  I knew that.

  “You’re Georgie, right?”

  Georgie nodded. Marci stuck out her hand. Georgie looked at me, then sort of extended his hand. Marci shook it vigorously. She talked fast.

  “Lana told me a lot about you, Georgie. You live with your dad, and you want to be a cartoonist or a Navy jet pilot. Me? I live with my mom. She’s a pediatrician. That’s what I want to be, too. I like cartoons. I don’t know much about jet planes.”

  Then she stopped talking and shaking his hand. Georgie’s mouth was hanging open. Marci finally let him loose and said, “Gotta go!” She spun on her heel, pulled Lana with her, and took off, yelling, “Bye, Georgie! Bye-bye!”

  *

  The people who print this book told me it’s important for readers to know what the kids in my story look like, but to be honest, right now, while I’m writing this chapter, even though I probably saw Marci a hundred times at camp, I can’t remember what color her eyes were … or her hair. So now I’m telephoning Lana.

  Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

  Sheesh! Each one of those blahs is a minute. Eleven minutes on the phone! That girl loves to talk. So now I know that Marci’s hair is light brown. And her eyes are blue. And she has braces on her teeth with those little colored rubber bands. And she really likes horses. And she has a cat named Blossom. And she didn’t lose her first baby tooth until she was almost seven. And … And … And … Sheesh!

  *

  The bus unloading was finally done, and the parents were almost all gone, so Uncle Bud lifted his megaphone and began directing the boys to their side of the Border Line and the girls to the other side, where Aunt Lois was waiting.

  The Border Line divides Camp Leeward from Camp Windward. It is made up of yellow dashes painted down the middle of the camp road, yellow ro
cks in the parking area, a yellow line down the middle of the dining hall, and more yellow rocks from the back of the dining hall to the cliff above the lake.

  “The Border Line,” Uncle Bud announced over his megaphone, “is uncrossable. The penalty is death or something else … my choice!” He says that every year.

  Just so you can get an idea of what’s where, here’s a close-up map I drew of the two camps and Bufflehead Lake. It’s not exactly to scale, but pretty good.

  If you look at my map, you can see that the canteen, the computer room, and the nurse’s office are special. Because boys and girls share those two facilities, the Border Line goes around them on both sides. They’re sort of on neutral ground.

  Interesting fact: In the olden days before computers were invented, the computer room was the camp’s bakery. You can still see marks on the walls where the bread ovens used to be.

  “Seven-and eight-year-old boys,” Uncle Bud bellowed through the megaphone, “follow me. Seven-and eight-year-old girls, follow Aunt Lois. The rest of you campers, look at the maps on the bulletin boards. Find the cabins for your age group, grab your gear, and go. Rosters are posted on the cabin doors. If you have quest—”

  Georgie, Lenny, Robbie, Evan, and I had already snagged our stuff out of the pile. We didn’t need to stick around for the end of Uncle Bud’s announcements. And we didn’t need to look at the map. We knew where we were going. The eleven-year-olds were in Cabins F and G every year.

  Robbie got to the roster at Cabin F first. He ran his finger down the names. “Me, Lenny, and Evan are in here. Cheesie and Georgie must be in G.” He pointed at the other eleven-year-old cabin.

  I read the paper on the door. Scott Dutcher was the counselor of Cabin F. But Robbie was right. Georgie and I were not on the list. I ran to Cabin G.

  “I’m in this one!” shouted Alex Welch from the steps of Cabin G.

  I pushed past Alex and looked at the paper on the Cabin G door. “Huh? We’re not on this list, either!” I yelled back to Georgie, who was standing with the others, still holding his bags.