“Uh-huh, it’s cracked a little, too,” I shot back, making them laugh in spite of themselves, and matters relaxed somewhat.
The way kids will do, we gingerly got around to names. The one sitting next to me was Kurt, with a K, he informed me, as though that made him something special and not just a victim of poor spelling. The duo across the aisle weren’t named much better, Gus and Mannie. They looked like brothers but didn’t act like it, Gus nervous as a pullet and Mannie the kind who would stare you in the eye while he took your lunch. Kurt was the leader, I could tell. Leaders always sat by themselves, or in this case by the seatfiller I happened to be. I wished I had drawn the set of boys directly behind us, who were quietly reading comic books.
Still trying to figure out this many punks my age being transported somewhere in one clump, I couldn’t help but ask. “Is this a school trip?”
“Where’ja get that?” Kurt looked at me like I was crazy. “School’s out. We’re goin’ to camp.”
“Sleep outside like that?” Why on earth would anyone with a home and a bed, as these milksops surely had, camp for the night on the cold ground? “What for?”
“Outside, nothin’,” the big talker who spelled his name with a K turned up his nose at that. “We’re goin’ to Camp Winnebago. It has cabins and everythin’.”
Hope flickered in me for the first time since this horde speckled with redheads showed up. If they were not all to pour off at the Manitowoc depot in a sea of confusion, maybe the aunt and uncle who had never seen me would have a chance of finding me after all. Cautiously I asked, “H-how do you get there? To Camp Winnegabo, I mean.”
“How do you think?” Kurt sneered. He crossed his eyes at me like one moron talking to another, while Gus and Mannie rolled theirs. “What goes down the road like sixty but always turns around to chase its tail?”
“Bus.” I exhaled the answer, relieved at the thought that the driver would dump this bunch off at some mosquito patch that called itself a camp—before or after Manitowoc, I didn’t care which.
“Give that man a dicky bird.” With that, Kurt pinched the back of my wrist black-and-blue.
“OW! Hey, quit!” Trying to shake the sting out of my hand, I at least had the consolation that Kurt was groaning as he rubbed his ribs and complained, “Oof, you gave me a real whack,” which, in all justice, my elbow automatically had done when he pinched the bejesus out of me. Somehow it seemed to make him think better of me.
“So, Don”—I had prudently trimmed mine to that in the exchange of names, seeing as theirs were as short as bullets—“where you goin,’ anyhow?” he asked almost civilly.
But when I told him, he snickered, while across the aisle Gus, or was it Mannie, jeered, “Ooh, old Manitowocee, couldn’t make it to Milwaukee.”
Swallowing hard, I changed the subject. “What do you do when you get to dumb camp?”
“All kinds of stuff!” They were only too glad to tick off activities to me. “Swimmin’! Makin’ things with leather! Tug-o’-war! Archery!”
It was Gus, the fidgety pullet one, who interrupted the litany with “Don’t forget singin’,” causing Mannie next to him to hoot out, “The campfire ditty!” and before you could say Do re mi, all three of them were laughing like loons and raucously chorusing:
Great green gobs of greasy, grimy gopher guts,
Mutilated monkey meat.
Dirty little birdie feet.
Great green gobs of greasy, grimy gopher guts,
And me without my spoon.
That was impressive, I had to grant, as did the harried grown-up who came rushing down the aisle and told them to quit showing off. As one, they snickered at his retreating back. The candy company should have put the three of them on the Snickers bar, like the Smith Brothers on cough drop boxes.
I didn’t have much time for that kind of thinking, however, as they turned their attention back to me, the Mannie one looking particularly hungry for a crack at me.
“So,” I blurted the first thing that came to mind, “you guys shoot bows and arrows, like Indians. That’s pretty good.”
“You bet your butt it is.” Unable to resist showing off, Kurt drew back archer-style with an imaginary twang, the other two loyally clucking their tongues to provide the thwock of arrow hitting target.
Oh, the temptation that brought on. To see the look on their faces when I coolly announced that when it came to things like arrows, I just happened to have a lucky arrowhead older than Columbus right there in my possession. The only hitch was, if they clamored to see it I’d have to show it in its wrapping of Tuffies, and I sensed that was not such a good idea. I hated to miss the chance to be superior about the archery matter, but maybe I had something better up my sleeve.
“How about guns?”
My question silenced them for a full several seconds.