Part 8 (2/2)

”Foxes,” Leech said, looking over at them and taking a little bow. I was amazed again by the amount of confidence that went with the actual physical person who was speaking. Then again, I knew after last night that appearances could be deceiving. Mine included.

Leech had just sat down, when Mike said, ”Dude, what happened to your hand?”

Leech's grin tightened. Before he could slip his right hand down beside him, we all saw that there was a thick bandage around the whole thing, making it look like a big white lump. ”Nothing, shut up,” said Leech. He glared at Mike.

”Sorry,” Mike muttered.

We got to breakfast and things were pretty normal. The cross-table flirting was more intense, as now Jalen and Noah seemed to have found girlfriends, though I didn't even understand what that could mean since we only saw the Foxes in the dining hall and during free time after dinner.

The bug juice was called watermelon today and we were eating oatmeal. I sat there with the usual cabin drama happening around me and barely noticed. I focused on getting food in, feeling ravenous from the night of swimming. Once I'd stuffed myself, exhaustion immediately overwhelmed me again. I tried not to fall asleep right there at the table, the whole time swimming with Lilly in the dark water somewhere back in my brain.

”Shut up!” Leech's shout snapped me out of my stupor. He was glaring over at the Arctic Foxes, and for a second it almost looked serious.

Paige and her friends cracked up.

”They asked if he was Paul's little boyfriend,” said Beaker, like he was now my personal a.s.sistant.

”Huh,” I said to him, then turned back to find that Leech had already rea.s.sembled his smirk.

”We take the motorboat out,” he was saying to the girls. ”I know how to pilot it, so, if any of you ladies want to take an early morning ride with me sometime, I know some secluded spots....”

This caused more cracking up and Paige's eyes to go wide, like now she was auditioning for the part of ”horrified.”

Leech turned back to our table and accepted his high fives from Jalen and Noah and Mike, and ignored Xane's attempt, but I thought about how he'd lost his cool at the mention of Paul. He'd recovered, but that had seemed weird, defensive. Why? Wasn't he proud of being Paul's little favorite?

”Stop gawking, Turtle,” Leech sneered at me. ”You taking notes on how to talk to girls?”

I didn't say anything, but then I smiled. I didn't mean to. I'd just thought about talking to Lilly underwater, and the smile slipped out.

Leech's eyes narrowed at me. ”What?”

”Nothing.” I remembered my plan to stay unnoticed, and turned to Todd. ”Can I go get more?” I started to stand.

”Sure,” said Todd.

”You better leave,” Leech muttered as I walked away, and again I had that feeling like, Yeah? Try it Yeah? Try it. I dare you. I dare you.

I headed back across the dining hall. The CITs were in their still-life positions on the couches. I spotted Lilly but she was reading. I glanced at her for a second, hoping she might look up, then noticed that Evan was nearby, and staring right at me. I turned away quick and tried to find something else to focus on.

Colleen's death made it easy.

I didn't see her fall, just heard the crash of metal tray against concrete floor, the shrill spray of silverware and plates, and the soft thud of skull.

It happened just to my left, and I looked down and there she was, lying fanned out on the floor.

I saw her a second before most of the dining hall. In that one second, all the talking and clinking and clattering continued, a hollow cloud of sound. One of the other cabins was even in the midst of doing a cheer that involved foot-stomping and claps. The morning sun was angling in through the back windows of the giant room, flickering off cutlery and teeth and eyeb.a.l.l.s, and arms were moving and waving, heads bobbing, people shuffling... and there in the middle of it all was this single tiny form lying completely still. Her spilled cup of bright red juice had created a pool in front of her that was spreading back into her hair and toward her head in a weird reverse scene, like it was blood being sucked back in.

Then heads started to turn, a few, then more, in a water ripple across the room. A little girl screamed, and then counselors were leaping, lunging, running. The Panda counselor was closest and got there first, sliding to her knees in a splash, red juice soaking her jeans.

”Colleen?” she called quietly, almost like she was hoping Colleen was just taking a little nap, like she didn't want to wake her. The counselor pressed fingers to Colleen's neck, looked up, head swiveling wildly. ”Someone get Dr. Maria!” She slowly rolled Colleen over onto her back.

We wished later that she hadn't. It turned out, watermelon bug juice was quite a bit different from blood. The stuff that was caked around Colleen's nose and all down over her mouth and chin, like a dam had broken somewhere inside, was much darker, and you could see the stickiness of it, the way it seemed to cling to the lineless skin of her cheeks, collect on stray strands of hair, and stain the collar of the sky-blue T-s.h.i.+rt with the cute, giant-eyed cartoon panda, the words Camp Camp above and above and Eden Eden below. below.

Colleen was still. Her eyes had rolled up into her sockets like she was trying to see what had made this happen, up inside her brain, like she wanted answers from her technicians. I looked around and saw that kids and adults were crying. I thought it was terrible, but it wasn't hitting me on any gut or tear-duct level; I'd never had a sibling and little kids seemed like strange lab experiments, but still, yesterday she'd been throwing up and today... this?

A crowd formed and Dr. Maria pushed through, her white lab coat getting pulled half off her shoulder. ”Everyone, please stand back!” she barked, her voice finding corners of the high ceiling to echo from in the now utter silence.

She dropped to the floor. Checked the pulse, too. I thought she would start chest compressions, or something like that, but instead she produced that small electronic device with the gla.s.s dot in the middle. As she moved it toward Colleen's forehead, it lit up a pale yellow, not green like it had for me when I'd drowned.

It seemed like Dr. Maria swore then, or sighed, her head falling.

”How is she?” Paul had arrived at the edge of the empty s.p.a.ce around Colleen.

Dr. Maria just looked up at him, her eyes welling with tears but also like she was saying something silently to him. She maybe looked angry, though with the tears it was hard to tell.

Paul watched, arms folded, eyes hidden. Then he stepped forward, knelt, and slid his arms beneath Colleen's knees and shoulders and lifted the body up off the ground. He turned without a word and headed for the back door, toward the infirmary.

Dr. Maria stood and stared after them. Sobs made her notice the counselor, still kneeling beside her, face in her hands. Dr. Maria reached down and rubbed her shoulder. ”It's not your fault,” she said, then again, her voice thicker. ”It's not your fault.”

The hall was beginning to fill with murmuring voices, kids asking, ”Will she be okay?” and ”What happened?” Everyone was looking around with wide, scared eyes, their mouths slightly open as the scene they'd just witnessed burned a permanent scar in their minds....

Except for the CITs. I found Lilly standing with Marco and Aliah, watching from the Ping-Pong table, all with their arms crossed. Their eyes were narrowed, like they knew all about this.

”It's okay, everyone,” Dr. Maria called. ”We'll find out what happened. It's-” She paused and put out her hands. ”No one needs to worry.”

She nodded to herself after saying this and started walking again. She was gazing blankly ahead, and I thought she wouldn't notice me, but then she did.

”Owen.” She paused and rubbed my shoulder. ”It's okay,” she repeated vacantly. Then she seemed to peer at my neck, her brow furrowing. ”Your bandages...” Her voice lowered. ”The wounds...” She sounded confused.

”Oh, yeah, all better.” I shrugged like things were totally fine, nothing to see here.

This only made Dr. Maria frown. ”Okay, um... listen, you'd better not come today, with... this.” She motioned to the door. ”But tomorrow, come see me first thing in the morning?”

”Sure, okay.”

”Good.” Her eyes flashed to my neck again. I'd put the NoRad on thick like Lilly had suggested, but I still felt a surge of unease. Dr. Maria was distracted, though, and in this light there was probably no way she could see the faint gill lines. She hurried off.

Sound was slowly creeping back into the dining hall, but the volume never returned to its original level.

I walked back to our table. Kids were mostly quiet, eating. After a while, Jalen started whispering with Paige, and then turned and tapped Leech on the shoulder. ”Dude, Paige says it's your first move.”

Leech seemed to snap out of some kind of trance. He'd been bent over the table, and now I saw that he'd been drawing in a little notebook with a black pen. It looked like he'd been into it, because Jalen's tap made him kind of jump. He looked up, but instead of his usual, mischievous smile, his face curled downward. ”Shut up,” he muttered, like Jalen, Paige, all of it, was annoying and beneath him. He hunched back down over the notebook and returned to whatever he was doing.

”What's with you?” Jalen asked.

Leech didn't reply.

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