Nerd Camp (20 page)

When Nikhil and his parents reached the cabin, Nikhil said, “This is one of my bunkmates, Gabe. And this is my mom and my dad and my sister, Mo. She's the crazy person who could have gotten hurt rolling down the hill.”

“I love danger,” said Mo, smiling devilishly.

Gabe laughed. He couldn't imagine how one family could have two children who were such opposites.

Nikhil's family went into the cabin, and Wesley's came out shortly after. Gabe tried to be patient, but he was disappointed every time someone rounded the hill who wasn't his mom. Wesley's family came back out of the cabin and began talking to him. Talking to them all made Gabe wish he had more people coming to get him. Maybe not as many as Wesley had, but just a little more than his mom. He felt a familiar pang of yearning for a sibling.
I will have a sibling in a few weeks
, he reminded himself.
Once I go back home.

Someone tapped Gabe on the shoulder. He whirled around. “Mom!”

“Gabe, honey!” She wrapped him in her arms. “I missed you!” she said, squeezing a bit tighter on the word
missed
.

“Me too. But I have so much to show you and—” Gabe broke away from his mother's hug and saw his surprise.

“Hey, man!” said Zack.

Gabe blinked a few times behind his glasses. “Whoa,” he said.

“Are you surprised?” his mom asked.

“Yeah,” Gabe said honestly. He was also nervous and confused and angry. He was going to stop pretending around Zack from now on—he was sure about that—but he wasn't sure he was ready for Zack to see his camp for what it really was. He worked hard all summer to keep Zack from finding out the truth about Summer Center. Now that Zack was here—
here at camp
—he didn't know what would happen.

“It seems like you had the most awesome summer ever,” Zack said. “Now that I live in New York, I had to come see where it all went down.”

Maybe he won't figure it out
, Gabe thought desperately. “Yeah, cool. Hey, Zack!”

“Is this your bunk, honey?” asked Gabe's mom. “Can we go inside and see?”

“Um, sure.” Gabe led them into the cabin and down the length of it. They squeezed past other kids and their parents, including Nikhil's family. Gabe would have introduced them, but Nikhil's sister was leaping from one top bunk to another, and Nikhil was focused on telling her to come down, so Gabe decided to do it later. “This is my section,” he said when they reached it. “I shared it with Wesley and Nikhil.”

“Is this them?” Zack asked. He walked right up to the caricature that now said, in Gabe's handwriting,
SMARTY, GEEK, AND EGGHEAD: THE WORLD'S COOLEST NERDS
.

Gabe had to remind himself to breathe. “Yeah, that's the three of us,” he said as nonchalantly as possible. He took off his glasses and began rubbing out an imaginary smudge with his shirt. He had to prepare himself to see Zack's reaction as he took in the rest of the room. He put his glasses back on as his mom was commenting on the
READING ROCKS
poster and Zack was examining the funny quote board, which also contained flashes of genius they didn't want to forget, like “Good idea for a comic book about two gangs: Similes vs. Metaphors” and “Good invention: Windshield wipers for glasses.”

“What's a sim-mile?” asked Zack.

Gabe looked where he was pointing. “Oh, a simile?” he said. “That's a comparison that uses the word ‘like' or ‘as.' I learned about them in my Poetry Writing class.”

Wesley ran back into the room to grab a hat. “And in Color War,” he said. “We needed a simile for the scavenger hunt, and we used ‘The lake was as cold as an ice age.'”

“Oh,” said Zack, his forehead wrinkled beneath his spiky black hair. “And who's that?” He pointed to a printout on the wall near the ceiling.

Wesley stopped, his mouth in a circle. “That's Beethoven! You don't know Beethoven?”

“Oh,” said Zack. “He was a president, right?”

Wesley's jaw dropped even lower.

“Of course he knows Beethoven,” said Gabe quickly. “The composer. He's just kidding around.”

“Yeah,” said Zack, looking at Gabe with a combination of gratitude and befuddlement.

Gabe's mom smiled and pulled Gabe toward her to kiss the top of his head.

Wesley started laughing. “You really had me!” he said to Zack. “Beethoven a president! He wasn't even American! But he
does kind of look like Andrew Jackson. I always thought that.”

Gabe tapped his nose. “Just the hair,” he said.

“Oh, yeah,” said Zack sarcastically. “They could be hair twins.”

Wesley cracked up. “You're funny,” he said, “like Gabe! And your hair is kind of like the kind of hair he had for a while.”

Gabe's mom looked at Gabe with her eyebrows raised, but her eyes were smiling.

“Let's go to lunch,” Wesley said, leading the way out of the bunk. “I hope it's not lemon-plasma oatmeal again! Remember that?”

Gabe laughed. They had first had lemon-plasma oatmeal on the very first morning of camp. That felt like ages ago. His mom walked ahead, listening to Wesley tell her about how Nikhil taught them to put lemon juice on their food to kill bacteria.

“Lemon-plasma oatmeal?” said Zack, staying back. He looked up at the banner with Pi to the twentieth digit. “What kind of camp is this?” he asked.

Gabe looked at himself and Zack, nerd and non. He'd known this moment was bound to happen, only he'd imagined it happening when he was back home and had had more
time to prepare. But in a way, hadn't he had this whole summer to prepare?

He thought about Amanda, who he even sort of liked, despite her being so annoying and getting everything backward. And he thought about Nikhil and his sister, who were complete opposites but clearly loved each other anyway.

He took a deep breath. “SCGE stands for Summer Center for Gifted Enrichment,” he said. “It's a camp for nerds.”

Zack's shoulders drew up, and he cocked his head, taking this in. “But all the stuff you wrote about. Like kayaking to Dead Man's Island—”

“I kind of can't believe I did that,” said Gabe.

“And the lice—”

Gabe shuddered, remembering.

“And Color War. All that happened
here
, at”—he looked at the drawing of
SMARTY, GEEK, AND EGGHEAD
—“at this camp?”

Gabe nodded proudly. “And I didn't even write to you about some of the best parts. Come on, I'll tell you at lunch.”

The bunkmates and their families sat together in the cafeteria. The boys recounted their favorite camp moments, telling their families all about Alex Trebek and the lice lab and Gabe's karaoke stardom.

Gabe and his mom chatted happily, Wesley's siblings asked endless questions about his summer, and Nikhil's sister tried walking back from the buffet with her tray balanced on her head, which had Nikhil panicking. But Zack didn't talk to anyone. Gabe could see him taking it all in, occasionally rolling his eyes, and stabbing at his food almost angrily. The only thing holding him back from making fun of the
nerdiness of it all was probably that the parents were there.

Who cares what Zack thinks?
Gabe told himself. But he still barely ate, even though his tray was filled with delicious impress-the-parents food. As much as his brain insisted it didn't matter, his heart knew that it did.

After lunch, all the families paraded out of the cafeteria and toward classrooms for the presentations.

“Where's the lake?” Zack asked. “And the kayaks?”

“I can show you,” Gabe said, happy to hear Zack talk and anxious to show him something Gabe knew he'd find cool. “Mom,” he said. He had to say it a few times to get her attention; she was absorbed in conversation with Nikhil's parents. “Zack and I are going to go this way so I can show him the lake.”

“You two go ahead, honey,” she said. “I'll meet you at the math building.”

“Come on,” said Gabe. He cut away from the mass of people and scooted to the right, toward the woods. “You can actually get to the lake from the field, but this is a good shortcut.”

As he led the way through the woods, Gabe kept talking, rambling on about how great kayaking was, to avoid Zack's silent, piercing judgment. Running ahead meant he
didn't have to see Zack's expression, but he could hear Zack behind him, dodging trees, crumpling dead leaves, and jumping over roots.

“I can't believe the summer is almost over,” Gabe said, “and the wedding is really soon and you already moved to New York. The lake is just up here.” Gabe slowed down, but he didn't hear Zack. He glanced over his shoulder. “Zack?”

Zack was about twenty feet away. His body was as stiff as a sheet of ice, and his face was just as drained of color. His arms were up near his chest, and his fingers were spread wide.

“What is it?” Gabe asked.

Zack's lower lip began to tremble. “Snake,” he said quietly, his voice rattling. “Snake. Snake. Snake.” With each “snake,” his breathing became heavier and his body began shaking more, until he was trembling all over and almost hysterical.

“Snake?” Gabe inhaled sharply and his body tensed up. “Where?”

Zack motioned with his chin. “R-right there. By this log.”

Gabe took a cautious step forward. The snake moved. Zack screamed.

The snake curled itself over the log, and Gabe gasped
again. It was a snake all right, long as a yardstick but very slender. Its body was beige, like the log, but covered with thick, bloodred bands. Gabe's eyes began to widen. He dared to lean ever-so-slightly closer to get a better look. Just as he'd hoped, the red marks weren't stripes; they were blotches, and they were outlined in black. He'd recognize that snake anywhere.

“It's an eastern milk snake!” he said.

Zack moved his eyes from the snake for the first time, to look at Gabe like he'd just suggested they invite the snake to dinner. “Who cares, you nerd!” he yelled. “It's going to kill us!”

“No! Eastern milk snakes are harmless,” Gabe explained. “I know it for a fact. And that's an eastern milk snake. I'm positive.”

The eastern milk snake moved its tail end rapidly, making the leaves swish, and both boys jumped back. Then it stuck its head in the air and slithered along the log.

“It's okay. It's harmless,” Gabe repeated coolly, both for Zack's benefit and his own. “One hundred percent harmless.”

“How do you know?” Zack asked. His body was starting to thaw, but his eyes were still trained on the snake, which was now stretched out along the top of the log. It looked like
it could slither into the woods, away from camp, if only someone gave it a nudge.

“It was the Final
Jeopardy!
question in our Color War
Jeopardy!
” Gabe slowly, deliberately bent down. He picked up a long stick. “It's a harmless snake, native to this region but rarely seen at camp.” He took small, light steps toward the log. The snake didn't move. “And it sounds like it goes with your breakfast cereal.”

“Breakfast cereal?” said Zack. He stared, with awe and fear, as Gabe reached the stick out toward the snake.

“Milk snake. Cereal and milk.”

Harmless
, Gabe reminded himself one last time. He poked the snake with the stick. Both boys held their breath.

The milk snake adjusted itself as though it was tired but knew it had to wake up. Gabe poked it again. This time, it slithered slowly down, off the log and into the woods. When the very tip of its tail was out of sight, Gabe closed his eyes and let out a deep sigh.

Zack laughed nervously. “Cereal and milk,” he said.

Gabe snickered.

The two boys stood there, staring at each other from opposite sides of the log, laughing out of relief.

“I'm so glad you knew that was harmless,” said Zack, “or else I would've totally freaked out.”

Gabe raised his eyebrows. “
Would
have?” he said.

Zack rolled his eyes and shrugged one shoulder. “Okay, I guess I did freak out a little.”

“A little?” Gabe said.

After glancing into the woods to make sure the snake was gone, Zack hopped the log and gave Gabe a light punch in the shoulder. His arm was still shaking. “Okay, I was really scared. But you weren't! You went up and poked it with that stick!”

Gabe shrugged and felt himself blush. “I knew it was harmless from camp
Jeopardy!
”

“Man,” Zack said, shaking his head and smiling. “I don't know what would've happened if you weren't such a nerd.”

Gabe tried to think of something Zack might say. “No biggie. It's cool.” And it was.

“And then,” said Zack as Carla buttoned his tuxedo jacket, “the snake kind of hissed at Gabe, but he didn't even flinch!”

“It didn't really hiss,” said Gabe. He stepped up next to his dad, who was tying his bow tie in front of the long dressing-room mirror. “But he did move his tail around in the leaves, and it sort of sounded like a rattlesnake, which was scary.”

“But Gabe wasn't even scared! He just said, ‘Dude, this is a milk snake'—”

“Eastern milk snake.”

“‘This is an eastern milk snake, and it's harmless!' And
then he got a stick and poked it. And the snake looked like it wanted to attack—”

“Well, it really just looked like it was yawning.”

“And Gabe poked it again! And then it slithered away. And then we went to Gabe's logic class, and he told his teacher that we saw a milk snake, and the teacher used a walkie-talkie to tell the camp director, and then everyone was talking about it.”

“It was the first time someone's seen a milk snake on the campgrounds in over twenty years. The Animal Science teacher was really jealous and wanted me to show her exactly where we saw it, so she could go looking for it.”