Cheesie Mack Is Cool in a Duel Read online

  Then Kevin repeated his request from the previous night. “Hey, Lindermann. Tell us a scary story.”

  “Sorry. Don’t know any,” Lindermann replied.

  Kevin muttered, “Lame.”

  I lay in my bed with my blanket over my head, looking by flashlight at the list I’d written.

  COOL DUEL DAY ONE

  ME KEVIN

  Ty Atkins

  Alfie Bickelman

  Lloyd Case

  Jason Chelsea

  Tommy Grace

  Noah Keil

  Jimmy Kelly

  Cheesie Mack

  Zip Matthews

  Henry Miranda Sam Ramprakash

  Ethan Rhee

  Clark Rosellini

  Georgie Sinkoff

  Danny Stephens

  Kevin Welch

  I fell asleep thinking, I’ve got a lot of work to do.

  I woke up thinking the same thing.

  While walking to morning activity after breakfast, I asked Jimmy and Danny, “Hey, guys. I’ve got a question. Why’d you vote for me?”

  Danny and Jimmy looked at each other, then Jimmy pointed uphill at Kevin. “He’s okay, but I don’t want him getting too cocky.”

  “Do something cool, and you can keep my vote,” Danny said.

  We had archery again that morning. It was a disaster. Unlike the previous day’s archery activity, this time a nine-year-old cabin was at the other targets, and they used all the smaller bows meant for Little Guys. I had to use a Big Guy bow, which was way hard to pull back. I kept flubbing, and when I did get an arrow nocked and aimed, it barely reached the target. Needless to say, my archery performance was not very cool.

  I tried all day to come up with something that would win me votes. The Cool Duel was my idea, and thinking was what I was supposed to be good at. My brain wasn’t working. Nothing. I felt really stupid.

  Luckily I didn’t have to come up with anything new for that evening’s Hack. We met the girls and went in. Marci worked her phone. We exited. We agreed to do it again the next night. It was a piece of cake.

  It really was! Mookie gave each of us a piece of cake.

  “Is your brother any better?” I asked Marci.

  “I think a little,” she said, licking blue icing off her finger.

  “When did he break his leg?” Georgie asked, swallowing the last of his cake.

  “About … I think … yeah, about a week before camp started. That’s why he’s so sad. He was really excited about coming.”

  “That’s why”—Lana took a small step toward me—“we have to keep doing this.”

  Have you ever had a feeling that something wasn’t right, but you didn’t know what it was? At that moment I sensed there was something wrong with the Marci/Marcus story, but I just couldn’t put my finger on it. (From here on in this book, I’m calling that feeling M&M-itis … you know, like tonsillitis or appendicitis.)

  All through dinner, M&M-itis was bothering me, but we watched a terrific movie in the Barn that night, and I was so engrossed (which means it held my attention … an excellent school writing word), my M&M-itis went away, and I didn’t think about it again until …

  Well, you’ll see.

  That night Kevin short-sheeted me. That’s where someone unhooks your top sheet from the bottom of the bed, folds it up to the top end, and tucks in the sides so when you slide in, your legs hit the fold halfway down and can’t go anywhere.

  I had never heard of short-sheeting before, but my dad says it happened to him when he was a camper, and it is a very easy way to make someone into the butt of a joke … which is what Kevin’s short-sheeting did to me. Lindermann and all the guys laughed … and I did, too. I had to admit that it was a very cool prank. If you want to try short-sheeting someone, I have instructions and diagrams on my website.

  Not surprisingly, the Day Two Cool Duel vote was bad news. Sam still abstained (he didn’t

  *

  Mom just called “Wash up for dinner!” So I stopped writing in midsentence to sneak into Goon’s room and short-sheet the two beds in there. She and one of her girlfriends are playing outside, and there’s going to be a sleepover tonight. I can hardly wait to hear them screech.

  ONE HOUR LATER. My mother just stuck her head into my room—I was doing my science homework—and said, “Very funny, Ronald.” She’d gone into Goon’s room to change the linens and found my booby traps.

  “I suggest,” she said to me, “you desist from further acts of aggression.” (Desist means “No more monkey business, buster.”)

  No Point Battle increase for me. Darn. But at least Mom smiled. Ha! As soon as she goes downstairs, I am going to sneak into my parents’ room and short-sheet their bed!

  THREE HOURS LATER. I was in bed reading “Rip van Winkle,” another Washington Irving short story (it’s about a man who falls asleep and wakes up twenty years later), when I heard my mother scream, “Ronald!” and then my father laughed very loudly. Ha!

  I am turning off my computer to go to sleep now, but tomorrow after school I will go back to my story’s unfinished sentence … which I left that way on purpose so I would remember what I was writing about!

  *

  Not surprisingly, the Day Two Cool Duel vote was bad news. Sam still abstained (he didn’t vote, saying “I don’t like taking sides”), and both Jimmy and Danny switched their votes to Kevin.

  COOL DUEL DAY TWO

  ME KEVIN

  Ty Atkins

  Alfie Bickelman

  Lloyd Case

  Jason Chelsea

  Tommy Grace

  Noah Keil

  Jimmy Kelly

  Cheesie Mack

  Zip Matthews

  Henry Miranda Sam Ramprakash

  Ethan Rhee

  Clark Rosellini

  Georgie Sinkoff

  Danny Stephens

  Kevin Welch

  Thirteen for Kevin. Two measly votes for me.

  Then came lights-out, and as I lay on my pillow in the cove, I told myself, Tomorrow is Day Three. You better think up something cool to do. Something cool. Something cool. Something cool.

  I do that kind of thing a lot. My mother says even when you’re sleeping, you’re still thinking, so I was programming my brain to solve my problem while I slept. Sometimes it works. Not all the time, but if you’ve got a problem, you should give it a try.

  This time it worked. When I woke up I had thought of something really cool to do during robotics, which was going to be our morning activity.

  I bet you’re wondering, Robotics? At summer camp?

  Yep. This was our first year doing it, and it’s great. And best of all, robotics at Camp Windward was actually my idea!

  I got the idea last Thanksgiving. My whole family, including my mom’s parents, Gumpy and Meemo, was at my house chowing down on the stuffing and stuff (that’s my shortcut way to describe our huge Thanksgiving dinner). I can’t remember the conversation exactly, but it was something like this.

  Granpa (complaining): I got a big problem next summer.

  Dad (chewing): What’s that, Pop?

  Granpa (waving a turkey leg): Crafts. Lots of kids are just plain bored with pottery and painting. And none of them like making take-home gewgaws out of pinecones and twigs. I need to come up with something better.

  Gumpy (leaning back in his chair): I’m not surprised, Bud. Today’s kids are electronically knowledgeable, twenty-first century all the way. Perhaps they see woodcrafts as irrelevant in their lives.

  Granpa (a bit louder): Well, we’re not getting more computers. We’ve got plenty. The kids get all the Internet and email they need.

  Me (cheerily): How about building and programming robots?

  Goon (snottily): Stupid idea. That would cost millions more than even computers.

  I paid no attention to Goon and explained about my robotics club at Rocky Neck Elementary School (I was still in fifth grade then). Our after-school club built little cars that could be programmed to drive ov
er and around obstacles. Gumpy was very interested, but Granpa barely paid attention until I told him my teacher said the equipment wasn’t expensive.

  (If you want to see what we did in my fifth-grade robotics club, go to the robotics page on my website.)

  Since this was the first year for robotics at camp, only a few of my bunk mates knew much about it. So Lindermann divided us into four teams of four each, with the most experienced boys—me, Georgie, Ethan Rhee, and Zip Matthews—as leaders. (Zip’s real name is Isaac, but because he is famous for being the slowest guy in every race, he got a zippy nickname.)

  The object was to build a robot car and program it to go through a tabletop obstacle course in the shortest time. It would have been total fun if Lindermann hadn’t put both Kevin and Ty on my team (also Alfie Bickelman, who is excellent at swimming and sailing, but not much interested in robotics).

  “Build it yourself, Nerd Boy,” Kevin muttered, pulling a comic book out of his back pocket. Ty sat down next to him.

  All the teams got busy building and programming their robot cars. A half hour later, Alfie and I had almost finished putting our team’s car together.

  “We’re missing a wheel,” Alfie said.

  I looked all around. “We definitely had four when we started,” I said.

  “Use three,” Kevin said without looking up from his comic book. “A tricycle would be perfect for you.”

  Alfie got on his hands and knees, searching everywhere. No luck. He asked Lindermann for a replacement, but after ten minutes of digging, Lindermann said, “Sorry, guys. I don’t have any extras.”

  Then I noticed the weird smile on Kevin’s face.

  “Gimme the wheel,” I said.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said.

  I knew he was lying.

  “Gimme the wheel, Kevin!”

  I was mad. So was Alfie.

  “Not funny, Kevin. Give it up,” Alfie said.

  “Oh, hey. What’s so uncomfortable?” Kevin said innocently, shifting in his chair. “Oh, look. I’m sitting on a robot nerd-wheel.” He tossed it at us, then went back to reading his comic book.

  “We don’t have much time, Alfie,” I said. “But I’ve got an idea.”

  Zip’s robot car went first and zipped (ha-ha) through the course. Ethan’s was fast, too. Georgie’s was disqualified because it ignored all the obstacles, never turned, and drove straight off the table at top speed. As it plunged to destruction, Georgie yelled, “Stop, Roboto!”

  Alfie and I were last on the course. I hadn’t had time to do all the programming, so I knew we wouldn’t do the obstacles very well. I didn’t care. I had a different plan. I announced, “Our robot car may be slow, but watch closely. It’s very cool.”

  I pressed the start button. It rolled to the first obstacle and stopped.

  “Oh, that’s very cool,” Kevin said sarcastically.

  Suddenly, just like I programmed, our car backed up and began spinning doughnuts (very cool go-in-a-circle moves) with its lights flashing. Then it stopped and spun doughnuts in the other direction.

  Everyone cheered!

  Except, of course, Kevin and Ty.

  As we were leaving to go to our next activity, Georgie whispered to me, “Good job. I bet you get Cool Duel votes tonight from Zip, Ethan, and Alfie.”

  I hoped he was right.

  That evening’s Hack went off flawlessly, except for Mookie.

  “You know,” he said as we entered the kitchen, “I’ve got a cousin in Farmingt on who’s a flat-out whiz when it comes to computers. I called him up. He says if you guys are having this much trouble every day, he could come over and fix it. No charge.”

  For a moment, I didn’t know what to say … and that’s why it’s great to have a best friend around.

  Georgie answered, “Nah. Don’t bother him. We can handle it. And Uncle Bud and Aunt Lois are giving us merit badge points. Kind of.”

  Mookie nodded and went back to his meal prep. “Okay. I get it. You’re being good scouts and doing a good deed. Yeah, sure.”

  What Georgie said was almost a complete and total lie, except we actually were doing a good deed, so maybe that made it okay … kind of.

  But did Mookie really believe us?

  “We’re going to have to skip a few days,” I said to Marci when she had done her texting thing and all of us were back out in the dining hall.

  “Why?” she pleaded.

  “I think Mookie’s getting suspicious.”

  “But my brother is so sad …,” she said softly.

  I looked at her closely. I had that feeling again. My M&M-itis had come back.

  “We’ll see,” I said.

  That night, when Lindermann was in the bathroom, I watched Kevin flip his head from side to side as he acted out both sides of a make-fun-of-our-counselor conversation.

  Kevin: Hey, Lindermann, how about a scary story?

  Whiny Imitation of Lindermann: I don’t want to.

  Kevin: Why?

  WIoL: Because scary stories give kids nightmares.

  Kevin: Puh-leeeeze. We love scary stories.

  WIoL: I don’t know any.

  Kevin: Why not?

  WIoL: ’Cause I’m a nerd.

  Then we had the Cool Duel fist/palm vote, and Georgie’s prediction came true. I really zoomed forward! I got votes from Zip, Ethan, and Alfie. And Danny switched back to me. Sam still abstained.

  Once the cabin was dark, I ducked under my covers, turned on my flashlight, and wrote down the votes.

  COOL DUEL DAY THREE

  ME KEVIN

  Ty Atkins

  Alfie Bickelman

  Lloyd Case

  Jason Chelsea

  Tommy Grace

  Noah Keil

  Jimmy Kelly

  Cheesie Mack

  Zip Matthews

  Henry Miranda

  Sam Ramprakash

  Ethan Rhee

  Clark Rosellini

  Georgie Sinkoff

  Danny Stephens

  Kevin Welch

  It was 9–6. The tide had turned against Kevin. I was getting close! And since it seemed like Sam wasn’t ever going to vote for either of us, if I could switch just two kids, it would be 8–7, and I’d win.

  Two more. Two more. Two more. That was what I was saying to myself as I fell asleep.

  Cheesie Cheesie + Strange Day

  The next morning I was the last out of the cabin, and I walked to flag raising with Dutcher and Lindermann.

  “Camp photo today. How do I look?” Dutcher asked, strutting like a model in a fashion show.

  “Very handsome,” I said. “Extremely handsome. Super handsome. More handsome than a—”

  He clapped a hand over my mouth, picked me up, and flipped me upside down, holding me by the ankles.

  “Are you doing anything for the talent show?” Lindermann asked Dutcher.

  “Yep. My usual.”

  Dutcher does a terrific circus strong-man act. He began lifting me up and down, banging my head on the ground (gently) each time.

  Lindermann leaned down toward my head. “I’ve got a question for you, Cheesie. But if you don’t want to answer, no problem. Why does Kevin pick on you?”

  I didn’t think he had noticed, and I didn’t know how to reply. I couldn’t tell him about the Cool Duel because of the Rules. Plus, Dutcher was swinging me back and forth by my ankles as we walked toward the flagpole, so talking was really weird. I told him how I hit Kevin with a spitball on the bus.

  Lindermann didn’t say anything until we were almost to the flagpole and Dutcher flipped me back onto my feet. I was a little dizzy.

  “Are you going to be in the talent show?” Lindermann asked me.

  “Nah. I don’t think so.”

  The talent show was two days away, while the Cool Duel was still going on. But I wasn’t worried about Kevin’s getting votes, because I didn’t think he was particularly talented. Unfortunately, neither was I.

&nbs
p; Lindermann looked around to make sure no one was listening. “You want to do something with me? Your spitball episode has given me an idea.”

  He told me about it. He called it JAMPAC.

  “I could go into town today to get what we need to build it. You could be the guy who operates it onstage.”

  I needed two more votes. I needed to do something cool. Working with Lindermann would be risky, because he was definitely not cool, but his JAMPAC sounded totally excellent.

  “I’ll do it,” I said.

  When we got to flag raising, I noticed every Cabin H kid except Georgie was holding a huge chocolate bar. Most were still wrapped, but Zip was munching his. None of the kids from any other cabins had any.

  “What’s with the chocolate?” I asked no one in particular.

  “This has nothing to do with the Cool Duel,” Kevin replied.

  Huh?

  “I bought a bunch at the canteen last night. My mom gave me extra money,” Kevin said. “I’m just a nice guy who gives out chocolate bars.”

  “The rules say no bribes,” I said.

  Kevin smiled a not-friendly smile. “These are gifts to my friends, not bribes.”

  Who did he think he was kidding? “Totally bogus, Kevin,” I said.

  “Totally wrong, Cheese-Runt,” Kevin said. “It’s totally legal. But sorry there’s none for you and Stinkoff.”

  I looked at Georgie. He was biting into a piece he had gotten from Zip, and gave me a chocolaty sheepish grin.

  (In addition to sheepish, which means “sort of embarrassed,” I know piggish and wolfish. I wonder if there are other animalish words? I am putting a list of real and made-up ones on my website. You can help.)

  As we walked from flag raising to breakfast, I realized I needed to come up with something to counteract Kevin’s cheatery, absolutely not legal, huge chocolate bar bribes (because that’s what they were). But I had no good idea.

  Two hours later, my dad came to my rescue all the way from Alaska!

  It was a hot morning, and I wasn’t thinking about the Cool Duel. I was down at the waterfront, practicing my swimming. In two weeks Camp Windward would compete against other camps in the Bufflehead Lake Swim Meet, and I wanted to race in the individual medley against kids my own age.

  In the individual medley you swim four strokes (twenty-five yards each) in the following order:

  1. Butterfly—It’s the hardest and most tiring stroke.