Breakfastfic, part one.
This wasn't really meant for human consumption, but sometimes wolfshirts gets everybody the right kind of riled up and you can't stay quiet.
Sunrise at Camp Illiniwek is a time removed from time.
Softly, softly, through the pines, come tender rays of morning. The silver mirror of the lake breaks to tremble gently in the summer breeze. The blue-jays whistle their joy in the wood, the warming of dawn hints itself against the damp of dew and Adam Siska had like seven mosquito bites already, seriously, what the hell.
Adam stopped on the path between Tamaroa and Pottawatomie, the two cabins identical except for their carved wooden signs, and the pile of muddy sneakers in front of Pottawatomie’s steps. He checked his watch. 6:59. Shaking off the feelings of irrational dread, Adam filled his lungs with air and raised his trumpet.
Approximately twelve seconds later, one of the wooden panels that served as window shades on Illiniwek cabins was yanked up with a thunk, and Nate stuck his head out of Tamaroa to gawk.
“Sisky?” he said, eyes like fried eggs. “That was you?”
“Yeah,” said Adam.
“That was you on purpose?”
“What the--” another panel rose and Alex’s head joined the party. “Siska, what the heck was that?” The senior counselor was squinting without his glasses and his hair was a little Warholian from sleep.
“Reveille,” Adam answered, trying very hard to stomp down the desire to throw his trumpet.
“That’s... that’s great,” Alex said, rubbing his eyes. “That’s great that you think that.”
“I gotta go over there now,” Adam said, stalking off toward Shawnee and Moingwena.
* * * *
There was nothing good happening in the kitchen this morning. Bert and Quinn were laughing like lunatics, Jepha had already burned an entire tray of bacon (like, nuked it), and William was missing. Frank shoveled viscous scrambled-egg product around the griddle, grit his teeth and concentrated. The rest of these fuckers could go down, but Frank would not abandon his eggs.
“Will you please.... just look at this fucking muffin?” There were tears in Jepha’s eyes. Actual tears of mirth threatening to spill out over his stupid grinning face as he clutched at Frank’s arm and tried to get him to leave his station so he could go marvel at the fucking pastry that was ruining his morning. Due to some fluke of physics, the top of the muffin had swelled into a very distinctive, very familiar shape, and now Quinn and Bert were flailing around on the floor in a disjointed wrestling match as Bert tried to fellate it and Quinn tried to stop him.
“Don’t! Don’t eat the cockmuffin--” Quinn wrapped his arm around Bert’s neck and rolled them violently, bashing Bert’s knees into the door of the industrial fridge. “--you piece of shit. Not until Gabe gets here, I want to show him.” Bert giggled hysterically and strained against Quinn’s arm, stretching his tongue out.
“I just wanna lick it!”
“That’s what she said,” came William’s voice over the creak of the screen door. He waltzed in and let the door spring shut with a crack. Frank flinched (so did Jepha, he reasoned,) but Bert and Quinn were busy so nobody got called a pussy. William walked exactly three steps, lit a cigarette, and slouched against the sinks.
“Your mom,” he clarified, in case there was confusion. “So I let her, because I am a tenderhearted philanthropist.” He took a drag and blew a stream of smoke at the ceiling. “Well, I’m done for the day.”
“Dude, cigarettes,” Frank ground out, and William cut him off with an elaborate hand gesture, scoffing at Frank’s complete unreasonability.
“Like anybody can tell. It reeks like burnt bacon in here.”
Jepha smacked an air-kiss at him from across the kitchen, where he was undercooking all the rest of the bacon to save time.
“Everything I do I do for you, Billvy,” he said. William pursed his lips. Then the rotation of Quinn and Bert’s power struggle sent them nearly into his legs, which was unacceptable, so he got a kick in there and reached down to snatch the muffin.
Bert made an alarming squawk and disentangled himself from Quinn, leaping at William with his talons out. William examined the muffin, holding it up out of reach and poked Bert in the throat, surprising him enough to stumble backwards and trip over Quinn’s feet as he tried to get up. Bert hit the floor with a grunt and William bit into the muffin, chewing unceremoniously as Quinn made a noise like his team just lost the superbowl.
“Bert, your glans is surprisingly moist,” William said thickly, still chewing. He grimaced. “Ew, poppyseeds.”
There was another gunshot crack from the other screen door, making Frank flinch again (seriously what was wrong with the doors in this place) and Gabe the waterfront director legged it across the dining room to lean on the serving counter.
“Hey Jepha, what’s for brefa?” he sing-songed, removing his neon sunglasses and hanging them on the neck of his tank top. True to lifeguard form, his shorts were shiny and minimal and he’d already coated his nose with zinc. Gabe... was kind of a tool. But he committed.
“You’ve been a naughty little boy this year, Gabriel,” Jepha said, dumping a pile of charred bacon onto a plate and shoving it in Gabe’s face. “Nothing but coal for you. Ho ho ho.”
Gabe recoiled and tried to whip Jepha with his towel through the serving window. He missed, but knocked over some pepper shakers.
“Get those carcass scrapings away from me! You fucking phillistines,” he gave a nauseated full-body shiver. “Also, Santa don’t give no hand-outs to the Jews, my friend.”
“It was gonna be cockmuffins, ‘til Princess Legboy over here ate the evidence,” Quinn said, scowling at William. William shrugged.
“I ate Bert’s chode and they’re mad at me,” he supplied. Gabe slapped his hands over his eyes and made a sound somewhere between a laugh and a shriek.
“Could you never, ever say that again, William? Would you do that for me? Wait, maybe just one more time. Wait, maybe I need to hear it every night,” Gabe threw his hands up. “I can’t decide.”
“You let me know,” William said.
Gabe folded himself in half so he could lean in through the serving window and was midway to a really sleazy follow-up but the effect was ruined by Dan coming up behind him. And the really epic wedgie. Only through the intense self-discipline necessary to keep one’s job at a summer camp was Gabe able to avoid screaming the second half of the word “motherfucker” as he hopped around, trying to put right the universe in his shorts. Dan smiled sunnily and leaned against the counter.
“Mornin’ Jepha, what’s for bref--”
“TOO LATE,” Gabe shouted, at the same time Quinn yelled “NOT COCKMUFFINS.” Dan took this news in stride and Jepha handed him a piece of undercooked bacon. Dan wiggled it at him in thanks and shoved it in his mouth.
“Flag’s in ten minutes,” he said. “Everybody ready for a family meal?”
“Fuck!” Frank yelped. “Fuck fuck! Cereal! You assholes, please work! I have eggs, here. They can’t be left alone.”
“Quinn, why is Frank such a pissy girl?” Bert asked.
“Because eggs are the only things he’s laid all session,” Quinn deadpanned. Bert blew in Frank’s ear to make him twitch and humped his leg a few times before Quinn clamped two hands on his shoulders and steered him toward the pantry.
Frank started slopping eggs onto serving platters and craned his neck around to yell at William. “Dude, are you going to be a consumptive whore or are you going to put the coffee out?”
“I did,” William said, pointing. Frank blinked. He had.
“When did that happen?” he said. William ashed in the sink.
“I need coffee,” Dan announced, and beelined for the thermos tub. “Big day for the lawnmower man, I get to sit on the party raft.”
Dan was general groundskeeping and maintenance, but when Nate drove the waterskiing boat he needed somebody to stay on the floating dock with the rest of the kids. The job tended to rotate through the kitchen staff, with the notable exception of Bert and Quinn, who were of the opinion that people from Utah shouldn’t swim. Jepha was also from Utah, but he was of the opinion that raft-duty was awesome. And it was; Frank was jealous. He’d gone after the camp job with the intention of being a cabin counselor, but by the time his application had gone through, all the slots were filled. So he was stuck with kitchen, and these stupid motherfuckers who still hadn’t finished laying the tables.
As if on cue, Bert and Quinn staggered out of the pantry balancing irresponsibly high stacks of mini cereal boxes.
“There’s one more cocoa puffs left in there,” Bert whispered to Frank as they went by on their way out to the tables. “In the back behind the soymilk.” Frank grinned a little. He loved them. He did. Jepha lined plates of bacon up in the window and stacked extra napkins. William finally finished his cigarette and wandered out into the dining room. Dan came up and sniffed him.
“You smell like a bad influence on children,” he said. William stole his coffee.
“Is that a cat?” Gabe called out from the corner, where he was spinning around on the piano stool. “What’s happening to it?” The others cocked their heads at the strange noise coming from outside.
“Oh,” said William, without expression. “It’s Siska. Flag’s over.” he took another sip of Dan’s coffee. “Fuck,” he said.
“Fuck,” the sentiment was echoed by everyone. Kind of the kitchen equivalent of an “amen.” Jepha pulled on the gloves he was supposed to have been wearing already, grabbed a runcible spoon and affected his zen face. Frank snapped his fingers and bounced on his toes a little. He liked the moment before the kids came in. It was kind of a high when the door opened, like he was on stage instead of behind a steam table.
“Just so you know,” came Gabe’s voice again. “Pete’s C.O.D. today.”
There was another collective “Fuck.”
“Jesus please us,” Jepha mumbled, and the door exploded open again.
The air filled with exclamatory chatter in every possible voice register as three hundred campers (ages ranging from 8 to 17), plus fifty-odd counselors (conditions ranging from tired to near-comatose) made their way from the flagpole into the dining hall. At the front of the pack, striding the aisle and grinning like Willy Wonka, was Pete.
“Mornin’, boys!” he crowed, approaching the serving window. There were probably sharks with fewer teeth, Frank thought. Pete leaned down and eyed the kitchen crew with “serious business” written in his eyebrows. “Is there a microphone back there?”
Adam dodged meandering children and made for Kickapoo’s table, where Ryland and most of the cabin had settled ahead of him. Gabe, having abandoned the piano stool, was talking to Patrick in the corner. When he saw Adam, Gabe’s face lit up and he stepped over to drape an arm around his junior counselor.
“Sisky Biz,” Gabe said brightly. “I was just telling Stumpy how somebody raped a moose under my window this morning.”
Patrick tried to hide his laugh in a cough. Adam scowled.
“I’m seriously not that bad,” he started, and Patrick gave up and just laughed outright. “You guys!” Gabe’s shoulders were shaking. Adam shoved his arm off. “I don’t even know why I got stuck with being bugler, anyway! Patrick, don’t you actually play the trumpet?”
“Not at 7 AM, I don’t,” Patrick muttered. “No, seriously, Sisky, you’re doing fine. You’re--” he bit his lip, “You’re getting better!” There was a guffaw from Gabe. “Really! Taps last night was, like...” he trailed off. Adam stood there and thought about murder while Gabe hooted. He opened his mouth to say something scathing, but was silenced by a hand on his shoulder.
“Are you laughing at my Siska?” William said. He looked pissed off, which meant he was totally kidding, but Gabe and Patrick didn’t know that and looked suitably abashed. Adam smiled smugly and allowed himself to be gathered into William’s side. He twined his arms around the older boy’s skinny midsection.
“Bill, they suck,” he said into William’s armpit. “They said I can’t play the trumpet.”
“Adam, you can’t,” William said, frowning down at him. “You’re terrible.” Adam exhaled, defeated.
“I know,” he said. William clucked at him and petted his head.
“Who cares? You do your job,” he said. “Everyone wakes up don’t they? That’s the whole point.” He pushed Adam gently back toward Gabe and addressed the lifeguard. “You, don’t give my boy no guff or I’ll give you what for.”
“I like what-for,” Gabe said.
“Then stop it or see if you get any what-for for the rest of the session,” William muttered. Gabe saluted, grabbed Adam’s wrist and made him salute, too.
“Loud and clear, Billiam,” Gabe sang. William snorted, hiding a smile. He looked over at Adam again.
“A girl in Vicky’s cabin plays the clarinet, I think,” he said, and shrugged. “Maybe you can work out a deal.” Adam sighed long-sufferingly. William chuckled and wandered back into the kitchen. Gabe watched him retreat and wrapped Adam up in a hug that was full, Adam knew, of misdirected ardor.
“I like him,” Gabe said into the top of Adam’s head.
“I know, Gabe,” Adam said.
“Shit, I think my kids are killing Mikey,” said Patrick, and fled.
The dining hall tended to have kind of a cattle-farm atmosphere right before meals, as counselors tried to cull their charges from the milling masses and lead, corral, or carry them to their respective places. The tables were massive and wooden, with a long bench on either side and a chair at each end. The surfaces shone dully beneath the stenciled cabin-signs that hung from the ceiling, fluttering in the motion-stirred air.
All the cabins were named for tribes or villages from the region’s Native American heritage except, inexplicably, Otter. Otter was inexplicable in a lot of ways.
For example, why were there twenty-four spoons on the table and no forks?
“I traded them,” Wylie said.
Butcher blinked and waited for that to make sense. Then he gave up and said “Traded them?”
Wylie nodded. “To Kaskaskia. For their spoons. I figured we needed them.”
Butcher nodded, biting his thumbnail, and refrained from asking what exactly Wylie thought they might need them for, as experience had taught him that Wylie rarely carried thoughts as far as say, their logical ends. “So they have our forks.” An assured nod from Wylie. “Aren’t they going to need spoons, too? Like, for cereal and stuff?”
Wylie waved him off. “No no, they have spoons. I traded them as a set.”
Butcher looked at the two dozen spoons lying on the table, then looked over at the Kaskaskia table (where they appeared to be constructing some sort of fork sculpture), then looked back at Wylie. He squeezed his temples with one hand. “Wylie, whose spoons did you steal?”
“Um,” Butcher turned at the sound to find Brendon hovering behind him, looking apologetic. “Do you, have you guys seen our spoons?”
Butcher meant to sigh exasperatedly but it kind of ended up as a laugh. “Wylie,” he said, “Take Brendon’s spoons back to his table and apologize, please.” Wylie shrugged and started dividing the pile of silverware in half. As soon as he left, Leon’s head snapped up like he’d just come out of some kind of trance.
“Butcher,” he said, as though he hadn’t been present for the entire exchange with Wylie, “We don’t have any forks.”
Butcher wondered what it was like in Leon-world. “Wylie gave them to Kaskaskia out of kindness,” he said, and slumped into his chair.
“I don’t really get spoons,” Luke said, in the voice he used when he was getting ready to speak authoritatively on a subject he knew nothing about.
“What’s not to get?” V growled. V growled everything. “They dig food.”
“Yeahbutlike, forks are just better. Forks can stab and scoop. It’s like a waste of time to have both forks and spoons.”
V made a face like Luke was killing his soul with stupidity. “Have you ever heard of soup, you utter pantsface?” Butcher could see Simon Bean mouthing “pantsface” with a kind of awe. V was from England, and therefore every word from his mouth was gold.
“You can just drink soup!”
“That’s what they do in Japan,” Dutch offered. His “I have no idea what I’m talking about” voice was tempered by the fact that once in a blue moon, he actually did. “So really, all we need is chopsticks. That’d be the most efficient.”
Luke lit up at this. “Yeah! Chopsticks can stab, scoop, and likeyouknow,” he made pinching motions. “Be tweezers.” He nodded. “I vote for chopsticks.”
“Chopsticks are definitely the best for stabbing,” Kris said ominously, and adjusted several of the way too many necklaces he was wearing. They were all some variation of a chunky silver cross on a leather string. Despite the fact that it was July, he was sporting about six layers of black clothing held together by pockets and gromits. Kris was perpetually torn between his desire to be a vampire, and his desire to be a vampire hunter. In a conflict that cool, who could choose a side?
“I think I could manage a pretty good job with a spoon,” V said irritably, narrowing his eyes at Luke across the table. “I’d scoop your eyeballs out right quick.”
Unfortunately Gerard chose that moment to show up at the table with Auggie and Timmy in tow, and Butcher could see the moment the words “scoop your eyeballs out” hit Timmy’s brain.
“What?” Timmy said, eyebrows nearly shooting off his face. His dark auburn hair was sticking up like someone had towel-dried it with an angry cat. “Whose eyeballs? Who’s scooping eyeballs? Oh my god that’s disgusting-- like what if you did it with an ice-cream scoop and there was this like giant tupperware of eyeballs rolling around their own gook under the counter, all veiny and like, blobbling around and people would come up and be like hello, there! I’ll have the cone of the day! and you’d be like coming right up! and it’s like scoop, scoop, vanilla, chocolate, eyeball, grapenut--”
Gerard broke at “grapenut,” turning to the side and trying to hide his squeaky laugh in his fist. Timmy was waving his arms around now, mouth still going, eyes gigantic. He was this close to a complete freak-out and Auggie was delighted.
Butcher pressed his fists against his eyebrows. “Can we not have any more scooping of eyeballs? Any at all. Come on guys, it’s breakfast. Let’s keep it together.”
Wylie came back minus cutlery and wedged himself onto the bench between Leon and Simon Bean, where he did not fit, at all. Simon Bean gave a resigned sigh and removed himself to the opposite bench. Gerard parked Timmy and Auggie at his end of the table and took the chair at the head.
Butcher did a quick count. Nine. “Where’s Zul?” he said. The bench scraped against the floor as it was pushed back slightly and Zul crawled out from underneath the table. “Buenos dias,” Butcher said. Zul flashed him a devil-horns fist and smiled, taking a seat. Butcher couldn’t help but smile back. Zul was silent in the mornings, but totally made of magic .
Butcher caught Gerard’s eye across the table. “Everything okay?” he said lightly, shooting his glance quickly toward Timmy and back. Gerard grunted, anger flickering across his face. Someone had thrown a spider at Timmy’s head during flag. He’d reacted in the natural fashion, which was to say, he flipped out. This in itself wasn’t anything abnormal (who likes getting an arachnid to the face, really?) but it was Timmy, for whom flipping out was something of an Olympic sport. There’d been the requisite flailing and screaming about legs in his ear canal, but it was about the time Timmy had shrieked out something about how it was going to eat its way into his cerebral cortex and drive him around like a truck that he realized the spider had crawled into his hair and he couldn’t find it. From there things had degraded into Timmy running around hysterical, with Auggie chasing him, bashing him repeatedly on the skull and hollering “Stop flinching! I almost got him!” Then he had gotten him, with a vengeance, and Gerard had had to drag the boys behind the dining hall to wash dead spider bits off Auggie’s hands and out of Timmy’s hair. The only reason they weren’t in major trouble for disrupting flag was that everyone had been completely mesmerized by Siska’s astounding rendition of “Raise It High, Camp Illiniwek.”
Gerard sighed, deflating, and smiled ruefully at Butcher. “Yeah, they’re fine. It’s just.... I just wish it wasn’t us, sometimes. You know.”
Butcher knew. When it had become clear to them, after the first week, what sort of position the Otters were destined to hold in the Illiniwek food chain, Gerard had gotten really upset. Butcher had sat out on the rec hall steps with him one night, long after lights-out, listening while Gerard chain smoked and ranted about the interesting kids always getting picked on, and how camp was supposed to be where you went to get away from this kind of middle school bullshit.
“--you’d just think that in a camp of three hundred kids, there’d be more than ten walking targets, and they wouldn’t stick them all in one cabin.” Gerard had made a frustrated noise and run a hand crazily through his hair. “Jesus! They get shit on every day in school, then summer finally comes and they get shit on every day at camp and that’s supposed to be their vacation?” Butcher had not pointed out that Gerard knew exactly nothing about the lives of their campers outside of camp and maybe was projecting, a tiny bit.
“So we’ll teach them to be kick-ass,” he’d said instead. Gerard had gone quiet, then glanced over and crooked his mouth up a little.
“Yeah,” he’d said softly. “Yeah. Better in here with us, huh? I knew you’d be on board with the misfit agenda, Mrotek.”
Now, however, at the beginning of week two, Butcher considered himself and Gerard and their Freaky Freak brigade, and wondered if he wasn’t letting everybody down. Try as he might to keep up cabin morale, it was pretty clear that nobody else’s kids were getting hit with spiders during morning ceremonies.
“Dudes and ladies, your attention please!” Butcher’s introspection was interrupted by the metallic squeal of feedback. Pete had found a microphone, apparently. He tapped a rhythm out on it, waiting for the hum of conversation and scraping of benches to quiet down before continuing. “It’s me, Pete, Head of Boys, also of Cahokia--”
“CAHOKIAAA!” several of Pete’s kids called out. Patrick shushed them wildly, saying something about “not yet.”
“--and I am your Counselor of the Day!” Pete punched the air. “It’s gonna be a wild one, everybody. But first and foremost, we need a hearty breakfast. So let’s get down to business.” He pulled a crumpled piece of paper from his pocket and unfolded it, sliding his glance back and forth across the dining room. “Because I am Head of Boys, and I take my job extremely seriously, there is no way that I can start my COD duties with just any old grace song. So I’ve prepared a little ditty. An ode, if you will, to the boys’ side of Camp Illiniwek!” There was a sudden explosion of sound as the room went up in a fifty/fifty split of cheering and booing. Pete cringed a little behind the mic. “Sorry ladies, no disrespect.”
“It’s all right, Pete,” Lindsey Ballato yelled. She was Head of Girls. “We don’t want to hear you mangle ‘Menominee’ anyway.” Pete graciously ignored the dig to his diction skills and resumed his spiel.
“Okay, Chiefs!” Pete addressed the upper camp, ages 13 to 17. “I’m gonna need some beat-boxing, here. Let’er rip!” The reluctant strains of some boom-boom chick-ing rose up above the general buzz, and somebody started a stomping rhythm under a table. “Awesome! All right, Arrowheads, lemme hear you say woop woop!” This was dutifully answered by the lower camp. If nothing else in the world, you could count on Pete getting kids to yell indoors.
Pete’s grin was bigger than his head now. He smoothed out his lyrics sheet, bobbed his head to the beat and took up the mic.
“A-one! Two! Three! Four! Lemme tell you ‘bout a cabin called PIANKASHAW!”
A high-pitched cheer went up in the far corner. Pete flicked them a grin and kept going.
“--It’s their first year here, they don’t know how it’s done, but that ain’t gonna stop them from having some fun!” Brendon gave a whoop and jumped up to start dancing, the 8-year-olds taking his lead. Jon and Travis looked approvingly at the funky chicken display but chose to remain sitting.
“--Who’s up next, it’s KASKASKIA! What the heck is Ryan wearing, I’m askin’ ya!”
Ryan rolled his eyes. Bob patted his shoulder silently.
“--Then we got SHAWNEE, those guys are super brawny--” Andy struck a Mr. Universe pose and his cabin cheered. Joe squeezed his bicep.
“-- but put Andy next to Carden and he looks kinda scrawny--”
Laughter broke out at Michigamea, a table away, followed by a brief napkin fight that Spencer had to break up by himself because Mike Carden and Jack were participating, jerks.
“--POTTAWATOMIE! Tom and his homies! With sick burping skills that you don’t need to show me--” Tom smirked and did anyway, his boys echoing in a cacophonic episode of digestive gasses rounded out by Matt Cortez belching “ILLINIWEK” with startling clarity. Matt McGinley buried his face in his hands.
Butcher had been listening along with nervous anticipation about what Pete might have to say about his guys, so he got a sinking feeling when Pete finished with Pottawatomie and skipped right over to his own cabin.
“--Get ready to rock, ‘cause these are my boys! Mikeyway, Patrick, let’s make some noise! CAHOKIAAAAAAA!”
“CAHOKIAAAAH!” Pete’s cabin screamed. Patrick grinned. Mikey yawned and gave a halfhearted fist pump. “CAHOKIAAAAAAAH!” The rhythm broke down while there was some elaborate high-fiving and declaration of how much Cahokia ruled. After a minute, Pete waved his hands around and the beat-boxing continued. Butcher felt the swoop of anticipation again. Even though Otter were Arrowheads and Cahokia were Chiefs, they were technically the same age group, so maybe Pete had just switched the order.
“Yo, MICHIGAMEA, did we mention Mike C’s hot bod--”
“That doesn’t rhyme, Pete!” Spencer yelled out, throwing a napkin.
“It’s free-form!” Pete shot back.
Butcher was dismayed. It was really no skin off his back if Pete forgot to mention them in his ridiculous breakfast rap, but a glance around the table confirmed his suspicion that the boys didn’t really feel the same.
“--Whattup KICKAPOO! Better listen, for true! If you get Gabe mad he’ll kick the poo outta you--”
Butcher drummed his fingers on the table top, waiting for Pete to get through Moingwena (“--Lumumba-Kasongo! And Ray’s got a mean ‘fro!”) and Tamaroa (“--Does anybody even know Eric’s last name?”) and start winding it up.
“--So if they’re claimin’ that they’re better, they can go to heck! Nothing beats the boys’ side of ILLINIWEK! THANK YOU!” Pete dropped his head and thrust his arms up in the air with a flourish as the dining hall shook with thunderous applause, cheers and foot-stomping. Butcher snuck a glance at his co-counselor; Gerard looked just as stormy and slighted as the adolescents around the table. Butcher sighed and raised his hand, waving it around.
“Hey Pete,” he called out. “I think you forgot some awesome dudes, here.”
Pete’s head snapped up and he looked toward Butcher, startled.
“I did?” His eyes grew round with sudden realization. “Oh, crap. Uh, Otter, Otters, they...” he improvised desperately, “....mate for life?”
Laughter erupted from every table but one, and Butcher regretted saying anything at all.
* * * *
Sunrise at Camp Illiniwek is a time removed from time.
Softly, softly, through the pines, come tender rays of morning. The silver mirror of the lake breaks to tremble gently in the summer breeze. The blue-jays whistle their joy in the wood, the warming of dawn hints itself against the damp of dew and Adam Siska had like seven mosquito bites already, seriously, what the hell.
Adam stopped on the path between Tamaroa and Pottawatomie, the two cabins identical except for their carved wooden signs, and the pile of muddy sneakers in front of Pottawatomie’s steps. He checked his watch. 6:59. Shaking off the feelings of irrational dread, Adam filled his lungs with air and raised his trumpet.
Approximately twelve seconds later, one of the wooden panels that served as window shades on Illiniwek cabins was yanked up with a thunk, and Nate stuck his head out of Tamaroa to gawk.
“Sisky?” he said, eyes like fried eggs. “That was you?”
“Yeah,” said Adam.
“That was you on purpose?”
“What the--” another panel rose and Alex’s head joined the party. “Siska, what the heck was that?” The senior counselor was squinting without his glasses and his hair was a little Warholian from sleep.
“Reveille,” Adam answered, trying very hard to stomp down the desire to throw his trumpet.
“That’s... that’s great,” Alex said, rubbing his eyes. “That’s great that you think that.”
“I gotta go over there now,” Adam said, stalking off toward Shawnee and Moingwena.
* * * *
There was nothing good happening in the kitchen this morning. Bert and Quinn were laughing like lunatics, Jepha had already burned an entire tray of bacon (like, nuked it), and William was missing. Frank shoveled viscous scrambled-egg product around the griddle, grit his teeth and concentrated. The rest of these fuckers could go down, but Frank would not abandon his eggs.
“Will you please.... just look at this fucking muffin?” There were tears in Jepha’s eyes. Actual tears of mirth threatening to spill out over his stupid grinning face as he clutched at Frank’s arm and tried to get him to leave his station so he could go marvel at the fucking pastry that was ruining his morning. Due to some fluke of physics, the top of the muffin had swelled into a very distinctive, very familiar shape, and now Quinn and Bert were flailing around on the floor in a disjointed wrestling match as Bert tried to fellate it and Quinn tried to stop him.
“Don’t! Don’t eat the cockmuffin--” Quinn wrapped his arm around Bert’s neck and rolled them violently, bashing Bert’s knees into the door of the industrial fridge. “--you piece of shit. Not until Gabe gets here, I want to show him.” Bert giggled hysterically and strained against Quinn’s arm, stretching his tongue out.
“I just wanna lick it!”
“That’s what she said,” came William’s voice over the creak of the screen door. He waltzed in and let the door spring shut with a crack. Frank flinched (so did Jepha, he reasoned,) but Bert and Quinn were busy so nobody got called a pussy. William walked exactly three steps, lit a cigarette, and slouched against the sinks.
“Your mom,” he clarified, in case there was confusion. “So I let her, because I am a tenderhearted philanthropist.” He took a drag and blew a stream of smoke at the ceiling. “Well, I’m done for the day.”
“Dude, cigarettes,” Frank ground out, and William cut him off with an elaborate hand gesture, scoffing at Frank’s complete unreasonability.
“Like anybody can tell. It reeks like burnt bacon in here.”
Jepha smacked an air-kiss at him from across the kitchen, where he was undercooking all the rest of the bacon to save time.
“Everything I do I do for you, Billvy,” he said. William pursed his lips. Then the rotation of Quinn and Bert’s power struggle sent them nearly into his legs, which was unacceptable, so he got a kick in there and reached down to snatch the muffin.
Bert made an alarming squawk and disentangled himself from Quinn, leaping at William with his talons out. William examined the muffin, holding it up out of reach and poked Bert in the throat, surprising him enough to stumble backwards and trip over Quinn’s feet as he tried to get up. Bert hit the floor with a grunt and William bit into the muffin, chewing unceremoniously as Quinn made a noise like his team just lost the superbowl.
“Bert, your glans is surprisingly moist,” William said thickly, still chewing. He grimaced. “Ew, poppyseeds.”
There was another gunshot crack from the other screen door, making Frank flinch again (seriously what was wrong with the doors in this place) and Gabe the waterfront director legged it across the dining room to lean on the serving counter.
“Hey Jepha, what’s for brefa?” he sing-songed, removing his neon sunglasses and hanging them on the neck of his tank top. True to lifeguard form, his shorts were shiny and minimal and he’d already coated his nose with zinc. Gabe... was kind of a tool. But he committed.
“You’ve been a naughty little boy this year, Gabriel,” Jepha said, dumping a pile of charred bacon onto a plate and shoving it in Gabe’s face. “Nothing but coal for you. Ho ho ho.”
Gabe recoiled and tried to whip Jepha with his towel through the serving window. He missed, but knocked over some pepper shakers.
“Get those carcass scrapings away from me! You fucking phillistines,” he gave a nauseated full-body shiver. “Also, Santa don’t give no hand-outs to the Jews, my friend.”
“It was gonna be cockmuffins, ‘til Princess Legboy over here ate the evidence,” Quinn said, scowling at William. William shrugged.
“I ate Bert’s chode and they’re mad at me,” he supplied. Gabe slapped his hands over his eyes and made a sound somewhere between a laugh and a shriek.
“Could you never, ever say that again, William? Would you do that for me? Wait, maybe just one more time. Wait, maybe I need to hear it every night,” Gabe threw his hands up. “I can’t decide.”
“You let me know,” William said.
Gabe folded himself in half so he could lean in through the serving window and was midway to a really sleazy follow-up but the effect was ruined by Dan coming up behind him. And the really epic wedgie. Only through the intense self-discipline necessary to keep one’s job at a summer camp was Gabe able to avoid screaming the second half of the word “motherfucker” as he hopped around, trying to put right the universe in his shorts. Dan smiled sunnily and leaned against the counter.
“Mornin’ Jepha, what’s for bref--”
“TOO LATE,” Gabe shouted, at the same time Quinn yelled “NOT COCKMUFFINS.” Dan took this news in stride and Jepha handed him a piece of undercooked bacon. Dan wiggled it at him in thanks and shoved it in his mouth.
“Flag’s in ten minutes,” he said. “Everybody ready for a family meal?”
“Fuck!” Frank yelped. “Fuck fuck! Cereal! You assholes, please work! I have eggs, here. They can’t be left alone.”
“Quinn, why is Frank such a pissy girl?” Bert asked.
“Because eggs are the only things he’s laid all session,” Quinn deadpanned. Bert blew in Frank’s ear to make him twitch and humped his leg a few times before Quinn clamped two hands on his shoulders and steered him toward the pantry.
Frank started slopping eggs onto serving platters and craned his neck around to yell at William. “Dude, are you going to be a consumptive whore or are you going to put the coffee out?”
“I did,” William said, pointing. Frank blinked. He had.
“When did that happen?” he said. William ashed in the sink.
“I need coffee,” Dan announced, and beelined for the thermos tub. “Big day for the lawnmower man, I get to sit on the party raft.”
Dan was general groundskeeping and maintenance, but when Nate drove the waterskiing boat he needed somebody to stay on the floating dock with the rest of the kids. The job tended to rotate through the kitchen staff, with the notable exception of Bert and Quinn, who were of the opinion that people from Utah shouldn’t swim. Jepha was also from Utah, but he was of the opinion that raft-duty was awesome. And it was; Frank was jealous. He’d gone after the camp job with the intention of being a cabin counselor, but by the time his application had gone through, all the slots were filled. So he was stuck with kitchen, and these stupid motherfuckers who still hadn’t finished laying the tables.
As if on cue, Bert and Quinn staggered out of the pantry balancing irresponsibly high stacks of mini cereal boxes.
“There’s one more cocoa puffs left in there,” Bert whispered to Frank as they went by on their way out to the tables. “In the back behind the soymilk.” Frank grinned a little. He loved them. He did. Jepha lined plates of bacon up in the window and stacked extra napkins. William finally finished his cigarette and wandered out into the dining room. Dan came up and sniffed him.
“You smell like a bad influence on children,” he said. William stole his coffee.
“Is that a cat?” Gabe called out from the corner, where he was spinning around on the piano stool. “What’s happening to it?” The others cocked their heads at the strange noise coming from outside.
“Oh,” said William, without expression. “It’s Siska. Flag’s over.” he took another sip of Dan’s coffee. “Fuck,” he said.
“Fuck,” the sentiment was echoed by everyone. Kind of the kitchen equivalent of an “amen.” Jepha pulled on the gloves he was supposed to have been wearing already, grabbed a runcible spoon and affected his zen face. Frank snapped his fingers and bounced on his toes a little. He liked the moment before the kids came in. It was kind of a high when the door opened, like he was on stage instead of behind a steam table.
“Just so you know,” came Gabe’s voice again. “Pete’s C.O.D. today.”
There was another collective “Fuck.”
“Jesus please us,” Jepha mumbled, and the door exploded open again.
The air filled with exclamatory chatter in every possible voice register as three hundred campers (ages ranging from 8 to 17), plus fifty-odd counselors (conditions ranging from tired to near-comatose) made their way from the flagpole into the dining hall. At the front of the pack, striding the aisle and grinning like Willy Wonka, was Pete.
“Mornin’, boys!” he crowed, approaching the serving window. There were probably sharks with fewer teeth, Frank thought. Pete leaned down and eyed the kitchen crew with “serious business” written in his eyebrows. “Is there a microphone back there?”
Adam dodged meandering children and made for Kickapoo’s table, where Ryland and most of the cabin had settled ahead of him. Gabe, having abandoned the piano stool, was talking to Patrick in the corner. When he saw Adam, Gabe’s face lit up and he stepped over to drape an arm around his junior counselor.
“Sisky Biz,” Gabe said brightly. “I was just telling Stumpy how somebody raped a moose under my window this morning.”
Patrick tried to hide his laugh in a cough. Adam scowled.
“I’m seriously not that bad,” he started, and Patrick gave up and just laughed outright. “You guys!” Gabe’s shoulders were shaking. Adam shoved his arm off. “I don’t even know why I got stuck with being bugler, anyway! Patrick, don’t you actually play the trumpet?”
“Not at 7 AM, I don’t,” Patrick muttered. “No, seriously, Sisky, you’re doing fine. You’re--” he bit his lip, “You’re getting better!” There was a guffaw from Gabe. “Really! Taps last night was, like...” he trailed off. Adam stood there and thought about murder while Gabe hooted. He opened his mouth to say something scathing, but was silenced by a hand on his shoulder.
“Are you laughing at my Siska?” William said. He looked pissed off, which meant he was totally kidding, but Gabe and Patrick didn’t know that and looked suitably abashed. Adam smiled smugly and allowed himself to be gathered into William’s side. He twined his arms around the older boy’s skinny midsection.
“Bill, they suck,” he said into William’s armpit. “They said I can’t play the trumpet.”
“Adam, you can’t,” William said, frowning down at him. “You’re terrible.” Adam exhaled, defeated.
“I know,” he said. William clucked at him and petted his head.
“Who cares? You do your job,” he said. “Everyone wakes up don’t they? That’s the whole point.” He pushed Adam gently back toward Gabe and addressed the lifeguard. “You, don’t give my boy no guff or I’ll give you what for.”
“I like what-for,” Gabe said.
“Then stop it or see if you get any what-for for the rest of the session,” William muttered. Gabe saluted, grabbed Adam’s wrist and made him salute, too.
“Loud and clear, Billiam,” Gabe sang. William snorted, hiding a smile. He looked over at Adam again.
“A girl in Vicky’s cabin plays the clarinet, I think,” he said, and shrugged. “Maybe you can work out a deal.” Adam sighed long-sufferingly. William chuckled and wandered back into the kitchen. Gabe watched him retreat and wrapped Adam up in a hug that was full, Adam knew, of misdirected ardor.
“I like him,” Gabe said into the top of Adam’s head.
“I know, Gabe,” Adam said.
“Shit, I think my kids are killing Mikey,” said Patrick, and fled.
The dining hall tended to have kind of a cattle-farm atmosphere right before meals, as counselors tried to cull their charges from the milling masses and lead, corral, or carry them to their respective places. The tables were massive and wooden, with a long bench on either side and a chair at each end. The surfaces shone dully beneath the stenciled cabin-signs that hung from the ceiling, fluttering in the motion-stirred air.
All the cabins were named for tribes or villages from the region’s Native American heritage except, inexplicably, Otter. Otter was inexplicable in a lot of ways.
For example, why were there twenty-four spoons on the table and no forks?
“I traded them,” Wylie said.
Butcher blinked and waited for that to make sense. Then he gave up and said “Traded them?”
Wylie nodded. “To Kaskaskia. For their spoons. I figured we needed them.”
Butcher nodded, biting his thumbnail, and refrained from asking what exactly Wylie thought they might need them for, as experience had taught him that Wylie rarely carried thoughts as far as say, their logical ends. “So they have our forks.” An assured nod from Wylie. “Aren’t they going to need spoons, too? Like, for cereal and stuff?”
Wylie waved him off. “No no, they have spoons. I traded them as a set.”
Butcher looked at the two dozen spoons lying on the table, then looked over at the Kaskaskia table (where they appeared to be constructing some sort of fork sculpture), then looked back at Wylie. He squeezed his temples with one hand. “Wylie, whose spoons did you steal?”
“Um,” Butcher turned at the sound to find Brendon hovering behind him, looking apologetic. “Do you, have you guys seen our spoons?”
Butcher meant to sigh exasperatedly but it kind of ended up as a laugh. “Wylie,” he said, “Take Brendon’s spoons back to his table and apologize, please.” Wylie shrugged and started dividing the pile of silverware in half. As soon as he left, Leon’s head snapped up like he’d just come out of some kind of trance.
“Butcher,” he said, as though he hadn’t been present for the entire exchange with Wylie, “We don’t have any forks.”
Butcher wondered what it was like in Leon-world. “Wylie gave them to Kaskaskia out of kindness,” he said, and slumped into his chair.
“I don’t really get spoons,” Luke said, in the voice he used when he was getting ready to speak authoritatively on a subject he knew nothing about.
“What’s not to get?” V growled. V growled everything. “They dig food.”
“Yeahbutlike, forks are just better. Forks can stab and scoop. It’s like a waste of time to have both forks and spoons.”
V made a face like Luke was killing his soul with stupidity. “Have you ever heard of soup, you utter pantsface?” Butcher could see Simon Bean mouthing “pantsface” with a kind of awe. V was from England, and therefore every word from his mouth was gold.
“You can just drink soup!”
“That’s what they do in Japan,” Dutch offered. His “I have no idea what I’m talking about” voice was tempered by the fact that once in a blue moon, he actually did. “So really, all we need is chopsticks. That’d be the most efficient.”
Luke lit up at this. “Yeah! Chopsticks can stab, scoop, and likeyouknow,” he made pinching motions. “Be tweezers.” He nodded. “I vote for chopsticks.”
“Chopsticks are definitely the best for stabbing,” Kris said ominously, and adjusted several of the way too many necklaces he was wearing. They were all some variation of a chunky silver cross on a leather string. Despite the fact that it was July, he was sporting about six layers of black clothing held together by pockets and gromits. Kris was perpetually torn between his desire to be a vampire, and his desire to be a vampire hunter. In a conflict that cool, who could choose a side?
“I think I could manage a pretty good job with a spoon,” V said irritably, narrowing his eyes at Luke across the table. “I’d scoop your eyeballs out right quick.”
Unfortunately Gerard chose that moment to show up at the table with Auggie and Timmy in tow, and Butcher could see the moment the words “scoop your eyeballs out” hit Timmy’s brain.
“What?” Timmy said, eyebrows nearly shooting off his face. His dark auburn hair was sticking up like someone had towel-dried it with an angry cat. “Whose eyeballs? Who’s scooping eyeballs? Oh my god that’s disgusting-- like what if you did it with an ice-cream scoop and there was this like giant tupperware of eyeballs rolling around their own gook under the counter, all veiny and like, blobbling around and people would come up and be like hello, there! I’ll have the cone of the day! and you’d be like coming right up! and it’s like scoop, scoop, vanilla, chocolate, eyeball, grapenut--”
Gerard broke at “grapenut,” turning to the side and trying to hide his squeaky laugh in his fist. Timmy was waving his arms around now, mouth still going, eyes gigantic. He was this close to a complete freak-out and Auggie was delighted.
Butcher pressed his fists against his eyebrows. “Can we not have any more scooping of eyeballs? Any at all. Come on guys, it’s breakfast. Let’s keep it together.”
Wylie came back minus cutlery and wedged himself onto the bench between Leon and Simon Bean, where he did not fit, at all. Simon Bean gave a resigned sigh and removed himself to the opposite bench. Gerard parked Timmy and Auggie at his end of the table and took the chair at the head.
Butcher did a quick count. Nine. “Where’s Zul?” he said. The bench scraped against the floor as it was pushed back slightly and Zul crawled out from underneath the table. “Buenos dias,” Butcher said. Zul flashed him a devil-horns fist and smiled, taking a seat. Butcher couldn’t help but smile back. Zul was silent in the mornings, but totally made of magic .
Butcher caught Gerard’s eye across the table. “Everything okay?” he said lightly, shooting his glance quickly toward Timmy and back. Gerard grunted, anger flickering across his face. Someone had thrown a spider at Timmy’s head during flag. He’d reacted in the natural fashion, which was to say, he flipped out. This in itself wasn’t anything abnormal (who likes getting an arachnid to the face, really?) but it was Timmy, for whom flipping out was something of an Olympic sport. There’d been the requisite flailing and screaming about legs in his ear canal, but it was about the time Timmy had shrieked out something about how it was going to eat its way into his cerebral cortex and drive him around like a truck that he realized the spider had crawled into his hair and he couldn’t find it. From there things had degraded into Timmy running around hysterical, with Auggie chasing him, bashing him repeatedly on the skull and hollering “Stop flinching! I almost got him!” Then he had gotten him, with a vengeance, and Gerard had had to drag the boys behind the dining hall to wash dead spider bits off Auggie’s hands and out of Timmy’s hair. The only reason they weren’t in major trouble for disrupting flag was that everyone had been completely mesmerized by Siska’s astounding rendition of “Raise It High, Camp Illiniwek.”
Gerard sighed, deflating, and smiled ruefully at Butcher. “Yeah, they’re fine. It’s just.... I just wish it wasn’t us, sometimes. You know.”
Butcher knew. When it had become clear to them, after the first week, what sort of position the Otters were destined to hold in the Illiniwek food chain, Gerard had gotten really upset. Butcher had sat out on the rec hall steps with him one night, long after lights-out, listening while Gerard chain smoked and ranted about the interesting kids always getting picked on, and how camp was supposed to be where you went to get away from this kind of middle school bullshit.
“--you’d just think that in a camp of three hundred kids, there’d be more than ten walking targets, and they wouldn’t stick them all in one cabin.” Gerard had made a frustrated noise and run a hand crazily through his hair. “Jesus! They get shit on every day in school, then summer finally comes and they get shit on every day at camp and that’s supposed to be their vacation?” Butcher had not pointed out that Gerard knew exactly nothing about the lives of their campers outside of camp and maybe was projecting, a tiny bit.
“So we’ll teach them to be kick-ass,” he’d said instead. Gerard had gone quiet, then glanced over and crooked his mouth up a little.
“Yeah,” he’d said softly. “Yeah. Better in here with us, huh? I knew you’d be on board with the misfit agenda, Mrotek.”
Now, however, at the beginning of week two, Butcher considered himself and Gerard and their Freaky Freak brigade, and wondered if he wasn’t letting everybody down. Try as he might to keep up cabin morale, it was pretty clear that nobody else’s kids were getting hit with spiders during morning ceremonies.
“Dudes and ladies, your attention please!” Butcher’s introspection was interrupted by the metallic squeal of feedback. Pete had found a microphone, apparently. He tapped a rhythm out on it, waiting for the hum of conversation and scraping of benches to quiet down before continuing. “It’s me, Pete, Head of Boys, also of Cahokia--”
“CAHOKIAAA!” several of Pete’s kids called out. Patrick shushed them wildly, saying something about “not yet.”
“--and I am your Counselor of the Day!” Pete punched the air. “It’s gonna be a wild one, everybody. But first and foremost, we need a hearty breakfast. So let’s get down to business.” He pulled a crumpled piece of paper from his pocket and unfolded it, sliding his glance back and forth across the dining room. “Because I am Head of Boys, and I take my job extremely seriously, there is no way that I can start my COD duties with just any old grace song. So I’ve prepared a little ditty. An ode, if you will, to the boys’ side of Camp Illiniwek!” There was a sudden explosion of sound as the room went up in a fifty/fifty split of cheering and booing. Pete cringed a little behind the mic. “Sorry ladies, no disrespect.”
“It’s all right, Pete,” Lindsey Ballato yelled. She was Head of Girls. “We don’t want to hear you mangle ‘Menominee’ anyway.” Pete graciously ignored the dig to his diction skills and resumed his spiel.
“Okay, Chiefs!” Pete addressed the upper camp, ages 13 to 17. “I’m gonna need some beat-boxing, here. Let’er rip!” The reluctant strains of some boom-boom chick-ing rose up above the general buzz, and somebody started a stomping rhythm under a table. “Awesome! All right, Arrowheads, lemme hear you say woop woop!” This was dutifully answered by the lower camp. If nothing else in the world, you could count on Pete getting kids to yell indoors.
Pete’s grin was bigger than his head now. He smoothed out his lyrics sheet, bobbed his head to the beat and took up the mic.
“A-one! Two! Three! Four! Lemme tell you ‘bout a cabin called PIANKASHAW!”
A high-pitched cheer went up in the far corner. Pete flicked them a grin and kept going.
“--It’s their first year here, they don’t know how it’s done, but that ain’t gonna stop them from having some fun!” Brendon gave a whoop and jumped up to start dancing, the 8-year-olds taking his lead. Jon and Travis looked approvingly at the funky chicken display but chose to remain sitting.
“--Who’s up next, it’s KASKASKIA! What the heck is Ryan wearing, I’m askin’ ya!”
Ryan rolled his eyes. Bob patted his shoulder silently.
“--Then we got SHAWNEE, those guys are super brawny--” Andy struck a Mr. Universe pose and his cabin cheered. Joe squeezed his bicep.
“-- but put Andy next to Carden and he looks kinda scrawny--”
Laughter broke out at Michigamea, a table away, followed by a brief napkin fight that Spencer had to break up by himself because Mike Carden and Jack were participating, jerks.
“--POTTAWATOMIE! Tom and his homies! With sick burping skills that you don’t need to show me--” Tom smirked and did anyway, his boys echoing in a cacophonic episode of digestive gasses rounded out by Matt Cortez belching “ILLINIWEK” with startling clarity. Matt McGinley buried his face in his hands.
Butcher had been listening along with nervous anticipation about what Pete might have to say about his guys, so he got a sinking feeling when Pete finished with Pottawatomie and skipped right over to his own cabin.
“--Get ready to rock, ‘cause these are my boys! Mikeyway, Patrick, let’s make some noise! CAHOKIAAAAAAA!”
“CAHOKIAAAAH!” Pete’s cabin screamed. Patrick grinned. Mikey yawned and gave a halfhearted fist pump. “CAHOKIAAAAAAAH!” The rhythm broke down while there was some elaborate high-fiving and declaration of how much Cahokia ruled. After a minute, Pete waved his hands around and the beat-boxing continued. Butcher felt the swoop of anticipation again. Even though Otter were Arrowheads and Cahokia were Chiefs, they were technically the same age group, so maybe Pete had just switched the order.
“Yo, MICHIGAMEA, did we mention Mike C’s hot bod--”
“That doesn’t rhyme, Pete!” Spencer yelled out, throwing a napkin.
“It’s free-form!” Pete shot back.
Butcher was dismayed. It was really no skin off his back if Pete forgot to mention them in his ridiculous breakfast rap, but a glance around the table confirmed his suspicion that the boys didn’t really feel the same.
“--Whattup KICKAPOO! Better listen, for true! If you get Gabe mad he’ll kick the poo outta you--”
Butcher drummed his fingers on the table top, waiting for Pete to get through Moingwena (“--Lumumba-Kasongo! And Ray’s got a mean ‘fro!”) and Tamaroa (“--Does anybody even know Eric’s last name?”) and start winding it up.
“--So if they’re claimin’ that they’re better, they can go to heck! Nothing beats the boys’ side of ILLINIWEK! THANK YOU!” Pete dropped his head and thrust his arms up in the air with a flourish as the dining hall shook with thunderous applause, cheers and foot-stomping. Butcher snuck a glance at his co-counselor; Gerard looked just as stormy and slighted as the adolescents around the table. Butcher sighed and raised his hand, waving it around.
“Hey Pete,” he called out. “I think you forgot some awesome dudes, here.”
Pete’s head snapped up and he looked toward Butcher, startled.
“I did?” His eyes grew round with sudden realization. “Oh, crap. Uh, Otter, Otters, they...” he improvised desperately, “....mate for life?”
Laughter erupted from every table but one, and Butcher regretted saying anything at all.
* * * *