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He turned on his heel and pointed his finger down at her face, vaguely aware of the onlookers. “Let’s get something straight here, all right?” He motioned at her and then back at himself. “You and I… we are not friends.”
Her face fell, but even Jack was impressed by how quickly she recovered. “Well… I just thought… I don’t know anyone here… and… well by the looks of things, it doesn’t seem like you have many friends… at least not anyone willing to stick their neck out for you, anyway. So, it appears to me that you could certainly use a friend or two.”
Jack allowed the corners of his mouth to turn upward ever so slightly, which he was pretty sure didn’t go unnoticed by the girl. She was young but smarter than she looked, he thought. And this would be just the first time of many that she would surprise Jack Harrison with her wit.
The following morning Jack received a pink slip requesting that he report to the camp counselors office. He entered the rickety shack and frowned when he saw the culprits who’d caused his black eye sitting beside one another looking none too pleased. Wonderful. This is exactly what he needed.
Mr. Thomas stood from behind h
is desk and motioned Jack in closing the door behind him. He motioned to the empty chair. Jack stood ignoring his wordless request. He knew what was coming, and he wasn’t going to make it any easier than it needed to be. The best thing to do in this situation is to remain quiet and composed, saying nothing at all.
Jack stared at the floor. Mr. Thomas peered over the rim of his thick-rimmed glasses. “So… Jack… do you want to tell me what happened to your eye?”
Jack shrugged. “I tripped.”
Mr. Thomas glanced at something on his desk. Jack’s eyes instinctively followed.
“Uh huh. I see.”
Jack squinted a little in an attempt to get a better look at the colorful object the counselor was eying. “Look, I’m on A.M. dish duty today… so if it’s all the same to you, I’d better get to it.”
The older man cocked his head to the side. “Jack, tell me… do you have any idea how poison oak could’ve made its way underneath the sheets of three of our campers beds. I mean… that’s a pretty atypical place for poison oak to grow, wouldn’t you say?
Jack considered the question for a quick second. “Well, we are in the woods here… so I guess you never know…” Jack was guilty. He knew it, and the counselor knew it. How he knew, Jack didn’t know. But that wasn’t the point. The point was to be as vague as possible, to give as little information as he could get by with—without either admitting or denying his guilt.
The counselor let out a quick, tired sigh. “Here’s the thing, Mr. Harrison… I had to send one of our campers to the emergency room this morning due to a severe allergic reaction. The other two are sitting out there waiting for their parents to pick them up until... until they have recovered. Now, usually, I wouldn’t have thought too much of this other than that it was an unfortunate incident. After all, as you’ve mentioned, we are in a heavily wooded area. But then this morning these showed up, coupled with a note.” He scooted the items across his desk toward Jack. “Do you want explain these?”
Jack stared at the Polaroid’s but didn’t dare touch them. Damn. He met the old man's gaze head on. “What’s there to explain? What’s that saying? A picture is worth a thousand words? Yeah, that’s it… a picture is worth a thousand words.”
The counselor leaned back in his chair and folded arms. “Jack, I can’t help you if you’re not willing to let me. But you can’t go around putting people in the hospital. Do you hear me? This is very serious. Bullying will not be tolerated here at Camp Hope. If these boys are bothering you, then I expect you to come to me. But you cannot continue taking matters into your own hands. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
“Completely.”
“Mr. Harrison, one further question… do you have any idea how these pictures might’ve gotten into my office? They came with a note… a very demanding note. But with no indication of who the sender might be. You see, it’s my job to know exactly what goes on here within my camp, and if something is going on that I need to know about, I do not intend to be informed via a Polaroid photograph. Surely, you can understand my position, can’t you? The trouble is that I just want to ensure that our little photographer understands it, too.”
Jack smiled though it didn’t touch his eyes. He shrugged his shoulders. “I have no idea.”
The old man deadpanned. “Yes, that’s just what I expected you’d say. Well, I guess now that we’re clear here… you’d better get on to dish duty. Oh, and Jack?”
Jack raised his brow.
“It’s dish duty for you for the rest of the week. Both A.M. and P.M. With one as creative as you seem to be, it’s important that we keep all of that… talent contained. Now, one last time, are you sure you have no idea who sent these?”
Jack glared. “Your guess is as good as mine.”
“Ok. Well, then… just to be safe, I’m thinking we’d better make that two weeks.”
“Yes, sir.” He nodded. “Am I free to go now?” The endless days of lying with his mother watching Perry Mason as she withered away counted for something, he thought.
The man motioned toward the door. “I suppose so. But do let me know if you can think of anything that we’re missing here. About these photos, I mean.”
Jack nodded.
That day, Jack scrubbed the dishes cleaner than perhaps anyone had ever cleaned them—thanks to that goddamned girl. He knew exactly who’d sent those pictures. And now, not only had she invaded his life, but his thoughts, too. He was going to kill her.
The next time that Jack saw the girl was in what they called ‘group session’ at Camp Hope. Jack hated ‘group’ where they were supposed to sit in a circle and ‘talk about their feelings.’ What the hell was there to discuss anyway, he wondered. Their parents were dead. They were in the middle of nowhere, misfits, cast off to some camp to ‘talk’ about feelings with strangers. Just so that the people who were supposed to really matter in their lives could avoid talking about them. It was what it was, so he never quite understood how talking about it was going to make any of it any different, which is usually why he sat outside the circle in the far corner of the room gazing out at the lake. Sure, they tried to make him inclusive within the group, the first few times of which he politely declined. The third time he walked out on them all together and let the door slam behind him. After that, they’d mostly left him alone. This summer marked Jack’s second year here at Camp Hope (which, by the way, he thought was a bullshit name), and it hadn’t gotten any easier and certainly was not any more fun, the way they’d all promised it would be. He hated this place, though, truth be told—ever since his mother had died he hated it everywhere. Sure, Jack still loved his mother more than he loved anyone, but he was coming to find that even she was a liar. It wasn’t getting better, and it certainly wasn’t OK. She once told him that he could still talk to her, that she would be there for him. But it was all a goddamned lie. He knew by now that she wasn’t really there. As hard as he might’ve tried, he couldn’t see her, he couldn’t feel her, and he couldn’t touch her. She wasn’t at a camp. She wasn’t at a lake in the middle nowhere. And she sure as hell wasn’t in any “group” circle time. She wasn’t anywhere except in the ground where they’d put her.
Jack had been thinking of the letters when the girl’s voice caught his attention. Although he was pretty sure she wasn’t here last summer, he’d never paid much attention to whatever it was they discussed in their little powwow they held over there—but this time he found himself anxious to hear what she had to say. Whatever it was he was going to use it to destroy her. To crush her once and for all. Keep her out of his business, out of his life, out of his thoughts. Once is all it’d take, he knew this all too well. He watched as she stood and addressed the group. She was peppy, confident even—although not overly so. The good news was this was her weakness. It left room for people like him to create cracks, to manipulate the situation. But at the same time, she was the optimistic type. Nothing seemed to keep her kind down for long, and he hated her for that. These types of people were the worst.
