Cheesie Mack Is Cool in a Duel Read online

  2. Backstroke—I am very good at this.

  3. Breaststroke—My swim counselor says I have good form. I just have to go faster.

  4. Freestyle—Because I have excellent breathing technique, I usually have plenty of energy left to finish.

  I was practicing butterfly when a kid onshore yelled that there was a phone call for me in the computer room. I butterflied out of the lake, grabbed my towel, and took off running, flip-flops flying.

  I knew the call had to be from my parents in Alaska.

  Only one cabin at a time uses the computer room, and that morning—my bad luck—it was Lana and Marci’s. Neither girl saw me enter. Marci was head down, texting into her cell phone, and Lana was facing away from me, typing at a computer.

  But Goon saw me. Obviously the phone call was for both of us—we’d both been summoned, and she’d gotten there first. I didn’t do or say anything. Even so, she pulled her mouth away from her cell phone and snarled, “I’m talking to Mom and Dad now. Sit down, shut up, and wait.”

  I never like doing anything that Goon commands me to do, but in this case I really had no choice. I plopped down in a chair and shivered.

  See if your detective skills can guess why I shivered.

  If you said because I was in a wet bathing suit, you’re right, but you get only half credit.

  Try again. The answer is here.

  Then Marci said something to Lana, and both girls giggled. Marci seemed very jovial (JO-vi-al means “happy”). That was a good sign because every time I had seen her previously, she was sad about her brother. But then she noticed me, and her face went from happy to sad in an instant. That seemed weird. My M&M-itis flared up again.

  I closed my eyes to think about it, and when I opened them, both girls were standing in front of me, smiling.

  “What?” I asked.

  They looked at each other, then back at me.

  “What?” I said a bit louder.

  “Ummm,” Lana said, then looked at Marci.

  “We were wondering …,” Marci said.

  “Hey, Runny Nose!” Goon called from across the room.

  I ignored her even though my nose was running.

  “We were wondering …,” Marci repeated.

  “About the camp dance tomorrow night …,” Lana said.

  “You and Georgie …,” Marci said.

  “We want you both to dance with us,” Lana said, then blushed.

  Goon, who had walked over just in time to hear Lana, exploded in laughter. “Dance? My stupid brother? That’s the funniest thing I ever heard!”

  And then I blushed … big-time. I bet my whole body turned red.

  Goon, grinning hideously, held out her cell phone. “Mom wants to talk to you.”

  I took the phone and said hello, but I was thinking about the Point Battle. Goon would get points, that was for sure, but her insult was absolutely not excellent: two points only. The score was 666–661.

  I walked outside, which was sort of against camp rules (no cell phones outside the computer room), but I had lots of good excuses:

  1. It was way too cold in there for a kid in a wet swimsuit.

  2. I didn’t want to talk to Lana and Marci about the dance.

  3. Goon was bothering me.

  4. I needed privacy to ask my dad for advice about the Cool Duel.

  But first I had to deal with Mom. She was being very motherish, asking all sorts of questions about my allergies (“No problem”), brushing my teeth (“No problem”), getting enough rest (“No problem”), and lots more.

  “May I talk to Dad?” I think I was a little bit abrupt and might have hurt her feelings. (Sorry, Mom.)

  “What’s up, Cheesie?” Dad said. He mostly calls me Ronnie when we’re face to face.

  “I need some advice. Not from you as a dad, but from when you were a camper here. Okay?” Then I told him about the Cool Duel.

  (The Cool Duel Rules stated: “No one else in camp could be told about it, especially counselors and Uncle Bud.” I was not breaking the Rules. Alaska was definitely not “in camp.”)

  Dad was very interested. “Your duel ends in four days, right? So what’s going on during that time?”

  I told him about the upcoming dance, the annual camp photograph, the talent show, and all the sports and stuff we were scheduled for.

  “The talent show, you’re going to have to figure out yourself. The dance. Fuhgeddaboudit. But the camp photo,” Dad said. “It’s today, right? And you’re a pretty fast runner?”

  He gave me an idea, and I decided to try it.

  Right before lunch, the whole camp assembled on a slope in front of the woods for the annual photograph. Every kid gets a copy of the group picture at the end of the summer, and a framed copy goes up on the dining room wall. There are pictures dating back decades to the beginning of the camp. My dad is in lots.

  With 240 boys, all the counselors, and Uncle Bud in the picture, the photo is very wide. The photographer uses a special camera. It snaps the people on the left, automatically moves a bit to the right, snaps another picture, moves again, and snaps one more. Later some kind of software turns the three separate photos into one really wide one.

  Since I have been a Little Guy every year up to now, and since I am short, I have always stood in the front. This year, as one of the Big Guys, I stood in the very back row, all the way on one side, with Deeb next to me. Georgie stood in the back, too. Except he was all the way on the other side. While everyone was still moving around, I told some of the guys in Cabin H (I definitely did not tell Kevin and Ty) that I was planning to do something very cool.

  Once the photographer got everyone positioned, he said, “Say cheese.” (When I was with the Little Guys in previous years, Robbie, Evan, Lenny, and the rest of the guys in my cabin would always yell “Cheesie!”)

  Then the camera clicked, and here’s what I did:

  1. I waited a split second, smiling Cheesily.

  2. Then I turned and sprinted behind everyone as fast as I could. No one interfered because they were all facing the camera.

  3. A split second before the camera snapped the third photo, I hopped into the back row on the other side right next to Georgie with an even Cheesier smile.

  It worked! You can see for yourself. I am my own identical twin, in the photo twice!

  Uncle Bud: I bet you didn’t realize there’s a Cheesie Cheesie photo until you read this book.

  And if you look closely, you can see Deeb on both sides, too. She’s even faster than I am.

  On the way to lunch, lots of kids were talking about what I’d done, and I got plenty of back pats and high fives.

  As we entered the dining hall, Noah Keil, a Cabin H guy who had never really spoken to me before, put his arm on my shoulder and said, “Wicked cool stunt, Cheesie, but you might come out all blurry.”

  “Maybe.” I grinned.

  “How’d you know it would work?” Jimmy Kelly asked.

  “My dad was a camper here.” I gestured toward the wall covered with old annual photos. “He gave me the idea.”

  “Wicked cool,” Noah repeated.

  He and Jimmy walked off to the Cabin H table, but I stood, staring at the old photos. I had a hunch, so I looked closely. It took me a while, but finally I saw what I suspected. In the picture from twenty-four years ago, one kid was in there twice. It was my very cool dad!

  I felt confident about my progress in the Cool Duel until our afternoon activity: volleyball. Normally this would be fun because my speed and agility mostly make up for my shortness, but this time? No way. Here’s why:

  1. We were playing against the other twelve-year-old cabin. They were very good, and the match was very competitive, so I mostly sat on the bench.

  2. Kevin is really, really excellent at volleyball.

  3. He has a killer serve.

  4. He was the star.

  5. We won.

  Kevin was awesome. There was one volley where he dove and nicked the ball with two finger
s just high enough for Clark to set it up for Kevin to come back and spike it. Even the other team commented on that point. And after the match, everyone (even Georgie) cheered for him. Even (I admit it) me.

  I had expected to do better in that night’s Cool Duel vote, but Kevin’s awesomazing volleyball performance more than neutralized my double-photo run. Here’s the tally:

  COOL DUEL DAY FOUR

  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

  Twelve to three.

  Really bad. Stinking bad. Dead skunk on the highway, super-smelly bad. I’d lost almost everything I’d gained … and there were only three days to go.

  At breakfast the next morning, Aunt Lois announced, “Today is Strange Day.” The dining room got very noisy in anticipation. “The rule for this year’s Strange Day, which will last until dinner is over, is”—she paused and put the palm of her hand on top of her purple-and-orange-striped hair—“you may talk only if one hand is flat on the top of your head.”

  Immediately kids began chattering, hands on heads. It was fun eating breakfast that way, although it made it hard to cut anything and talk at the same time.

  Try it with your family or friends for a few hours. It’s easy to mess up, especially if you are thinking about other things. Like when, as we were leaving breakfast, Marci and Lana asked us for another Hack.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Mookie may—”

  “Your hand’s not on your head,” Lana said with her hand on her head.

  I put my hand on my head, but before I could continue, Marci interrupted, her hand on her head.

  “But I absolutely have to wash my hair before dinner or it won’t be dry, so can we do the Hack after the dance?”

  The dance! My hands instinctively went out in front of me in a stop-it gesture, and I blurted, “Whoa!”

  “Your hand’s not on your head,” Lana said again, grinning.

  “Everyone has to be strange on Strange Day,” Marci added, grinning even more. Both girls had hands on their heads. Georgie, too.

  “Come on!” I was exasperated (great word … means “fed up”). Suddenly Georgie reached out and put his other hand on my head.

  “This is not breaking the Strange Day rule,” Georgie explained. “Aunt Lois did not say it had to be your own hand.”

  Now I could speak, but I said nothing. I couldn’t think straight. Here’s why:

  1. I did not know how to dance.

  2. I did not want to dance.

  3. If I tried to dance, I would look so completely uncool that when it came time for the Cool Duel vote, everybody—even me—would vote for Kevin!

  4. I did not want to do a Hack that night. Something about those girls was still bothering me. M&M-itis!

  5. Georgie was pressing down way too hard on my head.

  I was in an impossible situation. So I did something I’m not proud of.

  I’d rather not write about it, but I promised myself (and you, I guess) that I’d tell the truth in this book.

  What I did was uncool to the max. Luckily none of my cabin mates were watching.

  I ran away.

  Answer: Because it’s filled with electronics, the computer room is the only place at camp that’s air-conditioned. It’s really cold in there!

  Dance Double Cross

  I was sitting on a log by the waterfront staring at Aunt Lois’s gnome statue in the lifeguard station when Georgie caught up with me.

  He put his hand on his head. “I knew you’d be here.”

  I didn’t feel like talking. I could hear a loon on the lake. Loons are like ducks. They have a very spooky, mournful call. I put their sound on my website. If you listen to it, you’ll understand how I felt.

  After a long time, Georgie put his other hand on my head. “We’ve been way too friendly with those girls.”

  “Uh-huh.” I felt like a complete dope.

  We sat silently. He dropped his hands. I continued to stare at the gnome while forcing my mind to focus on only one thing: How to Avoid Dancing.

  Focus. Focus. Focus.

  It didn’t work. Here’s what went through my mind:

  1. I don’t want to dance.

  2. That gnome is staring back at me.

  3. So what? That gnome is not real.

  4. Yeah, but what if gnomes were real?

  5. Wouldn’t it be weird if a real gnome walked out of the woods right now?

  6. Even better, what if an alien walked out of the woods right now?

  I don’t know why my brain does things like this, but suddenly all I could think about was extraterrestrial life. I put my hand on my head.

  “Hey, Georgie. Have you ever wondered why almost every alien in the movies or TV, except for insect aliens, which of course look like insects … why every alien always has two legs, two arms, and a head?”

  Georgie looked at me strangely, kind of like I was an alien, I guess.

  I continued, “Well, I think real aliens could come in almost any shape. I bet it’s because movie and TV aliens have human actors inside their costumes, and it would be really hard to act if you had to operate five legs like a starfish or if you had your eyes on the end of long, wiggly stalks.”

  “Or”—Georgie put his hand on his head—“if you had to talk with a hand on your—Oh! Oh!” Suddenly he stood and started fidgeting like his words couldn’t wait to come out. “I’ve got it!” Georgie took his hand off his head. “There’s no one watching. Can we just talk normally?”

  I looked around and put my hand down, too. “Yeah, I guess.”

  “Okay. We have to go to the dance tonight. All Big Guys have to. No way out of that. But look. It’ll be crowded. We’ll move around. Avoid them. If they can’t catch us, they can’t talk to us. No talking … no dancing.”

  I instantly brightened. “Georgie, that is absolutely another of your Great Ideas.”

  He nodded. “I call it the Spy-and-Shift Strategy.”

  “It’s perfect. But we have to be super sneaky. If the guys realize what we’re doing, it’ll be total stink for me in the Cool Duel.”

  We high-fived and didn’t worry about the dance or the Cool Duel for the rest of the day. Here’s why:

  1. Our morning activity was sailing, so other than when Kevin and Ty’s boat tried (unsuccessfully) to ram the ship commanded by Admiral Sink (I was Georgie’s crew), I managed to stay out of Kevin’s way.

  2. At lunch the girls wanted to talk to us (standing at the Border Line with hands on their heads), but we ignored them.

  3. In the afternoon, Lindermann split our cabin into two groups, and using compasses and maps, one team went east (mine and Georgie’s) and the other went west (Kevin and Ty’s). Each group hiked through the woods past lots of checkpoints and raced to see who’d get back to camp first. It took hours, and the only time we saw each other was when the two groups passed about halfway around and Kevin tried to trip me. (I saw it coming and jumped out of the way.) Our team won by nine minutes. Here’s my map:

  I figured neither Kevin nor I had gained or lost Cool Duel votes all day.

  An hour after dinner, wearing clean shirts (Lindermann insisted), Georgie and I headed for the Barn with all the Big Guys. Little Guys are not invited to dances, so we knew from past experience they’d be having a game night in their cabins (you know, Risk, Uno, Monopoly, Sorry!, card games … whatever). As we passed by Cabin F, a voice called to us from inside the screen door: “Don’t kiss too many girls!”

  The door flew open, and Lenny came out grinning. He waved, then performed a couple of dance moves that ended with a s
pin! Lenny is very talented. Last summer he told me he’s been in every school play and musical since second grade. He wants to be a rock singer.

  “Lay that one on ’em, Cheesie!” he yelled, and ducked back into his cabin.

  Suddenly Georgie grabbed my arm. “I’ve got an even better Great Idea! And it’ll be so completely excellent for you in the Cool Duel vote.”

  In the last of the sunlight slanting through the trees, I could see a devilish gleam in his eyes.

  “If my Spy-and-Shift Strategy doesn’t work”—he paused—“we dance with them.”

  I couldn’t believe my ears. “That is definitely not a Great Idea.”

  “You’re wrong. It’s the Dance Double Cross. And here’s what makes it great.”

  I listened … asked a couple of questions … and finally agreed. “It’s so stupid, it just might work.”

  We ran into Cabin F. Lenny was playing Monopoly on a bed with Robbie and Evan.

  “Lenny! We need a dance lesson. Right now!”

  Every kid in Cabin F stopped what he was doing and watched.

  A few minutes later we joined the rest of the boys in the Barn. The girls hadn’t arrived yet, so we scoped out the room and talked about how we’d do the Spy-and-Shift Strategy. Then all the girls arrived and everything changed:

  1. The sound in the room instantly went from chatter to CHATTER.

  2. Maybe the boys had gotten cleaned up a little, but the girls looked like they were at some high-class wedding. They were in dresses, fancy hairdos, and tons of makeup.

  3. Someone started the music.

  4. Someone dimmed the lights.

  5. Someone plugged in a light machine that sent rotating colored lights swirling all around the room. It was actually kind of neat.

  *

  Side note: My mother just came into my room with clothes still warm from the dryer for me to fold and put away. She plopped the load on my bed without saying a word because when I’m writing or doing my homework she doesn’t interrupt. But as she was leaving she glanced at what I was writing and asked why Lana and Marci were permitted to go to the dance since they were the same age as me and Georgie, and if we had been Little Guys like we were supposed to be, we wouldn’t have gone … so why did they?

  Good question!

  I never thought about that during the summer. Did you think of it while you were reading?