“Cool.”
Taured stretched, lifting his arms high above his head and closing his eyes. When he was looking at her again, he said: “I tell you what, Summertime, you and your mama need some time apart.” He stood suddenly and Summer looked up at him with a frown. Did he know about the fight? She sniffed the air, seeing if she could smell Lorraine’s perfume, but the air still smelled like leftovers.
“Come on, I want to show you something.” He walked for the door, clearly expecting Summer to follow him, so she did. Summer’s face went red at the thought of Taured knowing what she’d said to her mother. If he knew she was capable of saying such awful things, maybe he would ask them to leave.
She followed him out of the cafeteria, where he took a left and walked toward the doors that led outside. When they stepped into the white-bright of outside, she shielded her eyes with her forearm, curling it around her face. Taured handed her his sunglasses and she tried to play it cool as she slipped them on. Summer knew he was heading in the direction of the school, and despite her reservations, she was curious about it. She trotted on his heels, feeling important. When they arrived at the entrance to the children’s building—as her mother called it—he turned back to look at her, winking. Her stomach clenched. A twist of his wrist opened the door, and then a blast of smells—paint and crayons—reached her nose. They were comforting smells. Summer reached for his hand and they stepped inside together. She propped the sunglasses on her head like her mom did.
He showed her the dorms, with white bunk beds lining the blue, green and yellow walls, each one with a shared desk and wardrobe. There were colorful shag rugs, and in the center of the room was a swing, hanging from the ceiling.
“Sara’s dad put that in,” he said when he saw her looking. Summer tried to play it off, but she was impressed. They moved on to what he called the canteen, where a rec area was set up with tables and chairs. In the far corner, and made to look like a tiki hut, was the Snack Shack, where they could trade good behavior tokens for cans of pop, chips and chocolate bars. Taured pointed to the projector, mounted on one of the walls.
“Movie nights,” he said.
“Awesome.” Summer couldn’t help herself; she was into it.
From the rec room, they passed through another set of double doors until they were standing in a room larger than the last. Instead of sitting in the center of the room, the desks were pushed against three of the walls. In front of each chair and stuck to the wall was each student’s name and daily schedule.
“Everyone works at their own pace here. There isn’t a teacher for every subject like in public school—we let the books teach you and you decide how much you want to learn. We had someone graduate high school at sixteen last year.”
Summer’s head darted up from the desk she’d been eyeing. It belonged to a boy named Jonah. She’d seen him around. He stared at her a lot with unblinking blue eyes, but he never spoke to her or pulled her into games like the other kids did.
Jonah had a jar full of colorful pens and pencils sitting on his desk, and a drawing he’d made himself of a hummingbird flying above a lion’s head. Summer liked it. She liked the sunny schoolroom, and the tropical Snack Shack, and the three colored walls in the dormitory. She liked the swing the most. She wondered how they took turns on it.
“This building was just used for storage before. It’s amazing what a little paint can do.”
“It’s a lot nicer over here than it is there.” Summer jerked her head toward the main building.
“Kids are the future, and we believe in investing in our future.” Summer couldn’t think to do anything but nod. No one had ever said anything like that to her before.
“So, Summertime, what do you think? You want to try out Kids’ Camp or what?”
“Oh, yeah,” she said.
It didn’t feel quite right, but she did it, anyway, the promise of a ceiling swing and snacks bought from a tiki hut fresh in her mind. Also, there was the promise of friends, and she wanted those more than anything. She’d seen everyone as they left Kids’ Camp and walked back to the main building. They were outside for some sort of field day, leaping and climbing through an obstacle course. They were on teams, judging by their red and blue shirts, and for a moment, Summer stopped to watch them, letting Taured get ahead.
They were having a pizza party that very night in Kids’ Camp, he’d told her, and after ice-cream sandwiches, they were going to watch a movie about Moses. It felt rushed, the way she was instructed to pack up her things and join them that night, but when she’d protested, Taured told her that they had planned to surprise her with a cake to welcome her and to not show up would be rude. Because she wanted to please her mother and to make friends, Summer agreed. As Taured watched from the door, she said goodbye to her mother. It felt silly, sure, because she was only going to be sleeping a few hundred feet away, but at the same time, it hurt so much she could barely breathe.
“It’s going to be okay,” Lorraine said, wrapping Summer up in her arms. Burying her face for a moment in her mother’s neck, she allowed her hair to be stroked and she breathed in that mama smell of comfort and soaped skin. Her mother was breathing hard as she touched Summer’s hair, like she was sighing with each breath.
“Lorraine.” Her mother’s hand froze at the sound of his voice, but then the stroking started again.
“I’m really proud of how brave you’re being,” she said into Summer’s hair. “Daddy would be proud, too.” She said that part softly, so Taured wouldn’t hear. Taured made it clear that anything her dad had said was influenced by the poison he had been taking; both Lorraine and Summer had taken to only talking about him privately, which was fine with Summer. She liked Taured, but the truth was, he hadn’t known her dad.
He was watching from the door and she was too embarrassed to let him see her cry, so Summer bit the inside of her cheeks and tried to think of something else as she let go of her lifeline and stepped away.
“I’ll see you at breakfast,” she said, lining her voice with a cheerfulness she didn’t feel. Lorraine nodded, tears edging her eyes.
“Take care of her?” Her eyebrows were drawn when she looked at Taured, who bopped his head at her request.
“You’ll see her in the morning, and you can confirm she was well fed and well taken care of, mama bear.”
The smile didn’t reach her mother’s eyes when she nodded, and then she turned away, facing her bed.
Taured led Summer to Kids’ Camp the same way he had earlier, but instead of coming inside with her, he stopped at the door. He knocked twice, and a woman Summer recognized as Marcy opened the door. Her smile was wide and her eyes were excited.
“Summer!” she said. “Everyone is waiting for you!” That sentence shot twin firecrackers of excitement and fear into her belly. She glanced back at Taured, who nodded at her. He was happy with her. Marcy reached for her hand and Summer allowed herself to be led inside.
Marcy took her to the dorms. At the back of the room was an empty bunk pushed against the wall. It was closest to the bathrooms, which would mean foot traffic and flushing toilets; she understood why it was the last one chosen. Marcy told her she could choose either top or bottom, since no one else had claimed it. A couple kids had trickled into the dorms after the movie and were pushing each other around and laughing. Summer stared at the bed, uncertain. She usually conferred with her mother about these things, but Taured had been insistent that she do this on her own. Lifting her chin, she said, too loudly, “I’ll take the bottom.”
As soon as she’d said it, a very tall girl climbed the ladder to the top bunk closest to Summer’s and settled back against her pillows.
“Wrong choice,” she said as she picked up a book and began to read.