Cool Campers (6 page)

“All right, dudes,” Mark announced, “bring on the spaghetti.” The first kid dumped a pile of spaghetti onto the tray. “Right on, dude,” Mark said. “Now the applesauce.” His friend scooped some applesauce on top of the spaghetti and stirred it in. A low “ooooh” came from the crowd. “Dude, bring on the salad.” Salad was then mixed into the pile. Finally, the disgusting mixture was complete.

“What's with all the ‘dude' talk?” I whispered to Graham.

“What do you mean? Cool guys like that guy always say dude,” Graham answered. “Everyone knows that.”

Mark lifted a spoonful of the nauseating concoction into the air and took a whiff. “It's Herron's Heap!” he said. “Any of you dudes care for a sample?” There were no takers. Then, without plugging his nose or making a face at all, he put the spoon in his mouth. He let out a big “Mmm” as he pulled the clean spoon from his lips. Everyone cheered. Mark stood up and took a bow. “We'll see you dudes next time for another exciting episode of Herron's Heap.”

Even after the crowd broke up and everyone returned to their tables, the whole room was still talking about the Amazing Mark Herron.

“I can't believe he ate that!” I said. “He didn't even flinch. That was disgusting.”

Graham agreed. “Yeah, that guy is so cool.”

After dinner all the patrols gathered in front of the lodge. Fuzzy led us through a few songs, and the staff performed some more funny skits. Then, one at a time, each patrol presented its new name and cheer. Fuzzy said the patrol that showed the most spirit would get an award at the ceremony on Friday night.

We listened as each patrol performed. They all had cool names like the Fighting Eagles, Super Snakes, Roaring Lions, and stuff like that. Graham looked at me. “For some reason our name and cheer don't seem as cool now as they did earlier today.”

“Yeah, I'm not sure they're going to help much with our popularity,” I said.

Finally, it was our turn. Toad hopped up in front of us. I was already embarrassed. “One, two, three,” he called out. Then we all screamed, “We are the Toad Claws!” and hopped around cheering, “Har! Toad Claws!” The other patrols were either laughing or looking at us like we were nuts. No one laughed harder than Flex's team.

“Just what I would expect from a Toad,” Flex called over to us. I could hear in his voice that he didn't mean it in a good way. Toad seemed to hear the comment but ignored him.

Flex's patrol was called the Muscular Monsters, and for their cheer they did four push-ups while yelling “One, two, three, four. Muscles are the best for sure!” Then they jumped up and flexed their muscles. I thought they looked stupid, but a lot of people cheered for them and thought they were cool. For some strange reason the crowd thought muscular monsters were cooler than pirate toads.

AFTER EVERYONE FINISHED
their cheers, we sang a final song and lowered the flag. Our patrol followed Toad back to the benches in front of our cabins.

We all sat down, and Toad made a campfire in the pit. “All right, who's ready for Roses, Thorns, and Buds?”

We looked around at each other. I don't think anyone knew what he was talking about.

“Let me explain, Toad Claws. Every night when we gather around the campfire, we'll each take a turn and share a rose, a thorn, and a bud. A rose is something you've enjoyed that day, maybe your favorite activity or just something great that happened. A thorn is something that didn't go so well or that you didn't like about the day. And, finally, a bud is something that you are looking forward to tomorrow.”

Toad looked around at our blank faces. “Why don't I go first to show you how it works? Today my rose was coming up with our patrol name and cheer with you guys. Patrols always choose to be eagles, hawks, or mountain lions, but this is the first time I've ever heard of one called the Toad Claws.

“As for my thorn . . . I'd have to say that my thorn was stepping in the mud this afternoon. These are my brand-new camp boots.

“And my bud is the hike we'll be taking tomorrow. It's always my favorite activity.” Toad sat down at the end of the bench in front of cabin six and patted a kid named Jackson on the back. “Your turn,” he said.

“Okay, my rose was watching Mark Herron eat the Herron's Heap at dinner. It was awesome!” A lot of heads nodded in agreement. “My thorn was the freezing cold water in the lake.” Again, there were a lot of heads nodding. “And my bud is getting to see Herron's Heap again tomorrow.”

Graham turned to me. “Raymond, these guys never met Mark Herron until tonight, and they already think he's the greatest.”

“I know. I don't get it. All he did was eat a pile of mixed-up food,” I said.

Graham was right. Almost every kid mentioned Mark Herron as a rose or a bud. One kid even had him as his thorn because he missed seeing Herron's Heap at dinner.

Finally someone got up who didn't adore Mark Herron: Lizzy-Boy.

“My roses, thorns, and buds are the same as Toad's,” he said.

“You mean your thorn is that Toad stepped in the mud?” Graham called out. Everyone laughed, except Lizzy-Boy. He just gave Graham a rude smirk and then sat down.

I leaned over to Graham. “Wow, he really is like Lizzy.”

At last it was our cabin's turn. Tiny went first.

“Well, my rose is making friends with the guys in my cabin. They're really awesome.” He looked down at us and smiled. It made me feel good. Then he continued. “My thorn is when I jumped off my bunk and accidentally landed on Raymond's foot. Sorry, man,” he said to me. I smiled and gave him a thumbs-up. “And my bud would have to be the food. I really like to eat, if you can't tell.” He pointed to his large stomach and everyone laughed.

BB was next. “Well, my rose is finding this cool brown spider I named Harry. I'm not sure what kind he is yet. He looks like a wolf spider, but he may be too small. But don't worry, I'll figure it out.” I looked around, wondering how many people were actually worrying. “My thorn is when I forgot to tell Tiny about Harry and he got on Tiny's shirt. Sorry, Tiny.” Tiny shivered, but smiled. Then BB raised both hands in the air. “And my bud is us winning the spirit award this week. Go Toad Claws! Har!”

The whole group joined in.“Har! Toad Claws!”

Graham stood up. “Let's see. My rose would have to be this awesome bear claw I got at the Trading Post.” He held it up to show everyone.

“My thorn was when Tiny and I accidentally switched—”

Tiny jumped up and interrupted, “Wallets, when we accidentally switched wallets. Right, Graham?”

Graham caught the hint. “Um, yeah . . . wallets. It was really . . . um . . . weird.” Everyone was looking at Graham like he was crazy. “My bud is having marshmallows with the girls tomorrow night. My girlfriend, Kelly, is coming from the girls' camp. Just in case you wanted to know.”

It was my turn. “I guess my rose is just being here at camp. My thorn would be either that I didn't pass my swim test or that I did a cannonball in the shallow part of the lake.” I rubbed my backside, which still hurt. There were a couple of chuckles from the patrol. “My bud is having this campfire every night. I love campfires.”

In the end, I thought Roses, Thorns, and Buds was pretty fun. Afterward, we all sat around the fire for a while and chatted as, little by little, people went inside their cabins to go to bed. Pretty soon it was down to BB, Tiny, Graham, and me. Graham and I ended up telling them about how we wanted to become cool and popular at camp.

“Are you guys part of the popular crowd at your schools?” I asked BB and Tiny.

“I'm actually the most popular kid at my school,” BB said confidently.

“Me too,” Tiny said. Graham and I stared at them in disbelief.

Then they both burst out laughing. “Just kidding! Of course I'm not,” BB said.

“I hardly even know who the popular kids are at my school!” Tiny giggled.

I couldn't believe it. They sounded like they didn't even care that they weren't popular.

“Well, we're tired of being just regular guys,” I said. “We want to be the guys that everyone likes and wants to invite to their parties.”

“Yeah, like Mark Herron,” Graham said.

BB shook his head. “Just because he calls everyone dude and eats some gross stuff, he's suddenly an instant hit? I'll bet he doesn't even know the life expectancy of a flea.”

Then Graham stood up and hit himself in the forehead like he just remembered something. “Wait a minute. What if Mark
didn't
eat all of those weird things? And what if he didn't call everyone dude? What would he be like?”

I thought about that for a moment. “I don't know. Just some regular guy, I guess.”

Graham smiled. “That's right, just a regular guy. A regular guy like us.”

“Yeah, so what? You're not saying we should eat a bunch of weird things so people will think we're cool, are you?”

“Why not? It seems easy enough,” Graham continued. “We could just throw a couple of things together on our trays and do what Mark did. And we could call everyone dude.”

I thought about it. “I don't know,” I said. “What if we just try calling everyone dude for a day? Maybe that would be enough and we wouldn't have to eat anything gross.”

Graham rubbed his chin. “It's definitely worth a try . . . dude.”

“All right, let's start right now, dude,” I said. I felt cooler already, like I wasn't just a regular guy anymore. I felt like, well, a dude.

I stood up. “Dude, I'm going to bed.”

Graham yawned. “Yeah, let's go.”

“Don't you mean, let's go,
dude
?” I said.

“Right. Thanks, dude.”

BB and Tiny looked at us strangely. “Are you guys serious?” BB asked.

“Of course we're serious, dude,” Graham replied.

Tiny stood up. “I think I'll pass on the whole dude thing,” he said.

We all grabbed our toothbrushes and walked down to the bathrooms together.

“We've got to think of a great prank to pull on David,” Graham said as we arrived at the sinks. We thought hard about what we could do, but none of us was really used to pulling pranks on people.

Tiny, BB, and I finished up in the bathroom and were waiting outside for Graham to come out when we heard him shout, “I've got it!”

“You've got what?” I asked.

Graham came out and announced, “This little trip to the bathroom has inspired me.”

“What are you talking about?” I said.

Graham smiled and put one hand on my shoulder and the other on BB's.

BB slid his shoulder out from under Graham's hand.“Hey, did you wash those hands?” he asked.

“I've got one word for you guys,” Graham said. We all leaned in to hear this one important word.

“Toilet paper,”
he whispered.

“Toilet paper? But that's two words,” Tiny said.

“No, it isn't,” Graham argued. “
Toilet
is a word, and
paper
is a word, but when you are talking about toilet paper, it's just one thing. You know,
toiletpaper
.” He repeated the words really fast, trying to make it sound like only one word.

“Tiny's right,” BB interrupted. “It is two words.”

“That's okay,” Tiny said. “It can be one word for Graham.” Tiny never wanted to hurt anyone's feelings.

“Whatever. It doesn't really matter how many words it is,” Graham said. “The point is: we should toilet paper David's cabin.”