Hypergifted, p.13
Hypergifted, page 13
“Not the party!” I interrupted. “The whole thing! It’s not the Society of the Curly Tail! It’s the—”
He held up his hand in a stop gesture, and it was obvious his mood had changed. “Listen, boy genius. You’ve been here a bunch of times. Did you see any parties? Hear any music? Wear any whipped cream?”
“No—”
“No!” he echoed, cutting me off. “What you saw was Eddie and me, bored out of our skulls, trying to survive a dull summer on a campus that was totally dead. Look at us now: action everywhere—and this house is the center of it all. And it isn’t because we ordered pizza and bought a few cans of whipped cream. It’s because of the Society of the Curly Tail!”
“But there is no Society of the Curly Tail,” I protested.
“There is now,” he growled. “And anybody who says there isn’t had better say it someplace else.”
It was then that I realized that Darius and Edward could never be part of the Fibonacci Society because they didn’t take secret societies seriously. They had to know that the Curly Tail wasn’t real, but they didn’t care so long as it was making them popular. That was shallow and we Fibonacci people were above that.
It took a long time for me to get out of the house, since I had to make my way through the dancers again. I took a pretty ferocious elbow to the head and somebody smeared pizza in my hair, but the worst I suffered today wasn’t anything physical.
I’d lost control of my own secret society.
25
Hypergravity
Raina Overbrook
Luna was our spaciest camper. It wasn’t unusual for her to wander off following a butterfly or to lie on her back seeing pictures in the clouds nobody else saw. But put her in the middle of a cornhole match and she was 100 percent locked in.
Her hand cocked back, and when the beanbag was released, it was a guided missile. It traveled the distance to its target on a frozen rope, struck the ramp dead center, and slid straight through the hole. It was a sure thing. She never missed.
Our kids mobbed their teammate and hoisted her up on their shoulders. She was a wisp of a girl, and yet she had single-handedly carried Group Baloney through this quarterfinal victory over the Hot Tamales in the camp cornhole playoffs.
“Hey, Tamales!” Claire sneered in the direction of the losing side. “How’re you feeling now? Not so hot, right?”
“In your face!” added Manny.
I couldn’t help noticing the big smirk on Donovan’s face. He should have been reminding our campers about how to be good winners. Of course, that would mean he had to be a good winner himself—and I had a feeling he was anything but.
On the other hand, I had to cut him a little slack because it was so nice to see the kids happy and enthusiastic again. Even when they chanted “Baloney power!” it didn’t bother me so much anymore. In fact, it was starting to sound kind of catchy. It meant camp spirit, and that was what being a counselor was all about.
Cornhole mania was changing everything for Group Baloney. Okay, that plus the news that Porquette was alive and well and would probably be back at Wilderton soon. A new secret society called Curly Tail had her hidden away. They were waiting for just the right time to bring her home. The anticipation on campus was at fever pitch. And not just with the kids in the Explorers Program. The Curly Tail was an even bigger hit with the college students. They had to take down the sign-up sheets in the student union because they were so filled with names. And even after they posted an Admission Closed notice, that didn’t stop people from writing their signatures directly onto the cork of the bulletin boards.
My parents and their friends on the faculty considered it terrible that the Society of the Curly Tail was using the mascot as a publicity stunt. But most younger people thought it was pretty cool that this new group had found a way to come out of nowhere and instantly be important at Wilderton. And as long as Porquette was being properly cared for, where was the harm? There was none—just a lot of excitement at a time on campus that was usually pretty sleepy.
Our opponents in the semifinal were our old rivals, the Crunch Bunch. By this time, word of Group Baloney’s cornhole prowess had spread through the whole camp. But the Crunchers were no slouches, and they showed zero fear, even when Luna sank her first two shots.
The tone of the game became clear early on. Luna was the best cornholer by far, whereas all five Crunchers were pretty talented with a beanbag. So we were superstar-plus-four matched against a lineup that was consistent from top to bottom.
Luna worked her usual magic, but she was only one player. The Crunch Bunch opened a lead. Baloney stayed close, but try as we might, we couldn’t pull even with our opponents. It was the first time since the tournament had begun that we just couldn’t get into a cornhole rhythm.
“We’re going to lo-o-ose!” Manny moaned, stretching it into a much longer word.
“Not to the Crunchers!” Claire gritted through clenched teeth. “Never!”
The game was on interruption so Victor could have a bathroom break, sprinting across the campus, outpacing the fastest runners in the fifty-yard dash nearby.
Even chill, calm Jalen seemed on edge. “It would be really bad to come so far and lose in the semifinal.”
“It isn’t over yet,” I offered weakly, trying to sound encouraging.
Inside, I was torn. As a counselor, this was the perfect opportunity to teach the campers an important life lesson about sportsmanship and dealing with disappointment. But all I could think of was that the progress we’d made was going to melt away and we’d be a sad sack group again.
In desperation, I looked over at Donovan, hoping he’d deliver a pep talk, some comfort, something. Even though I was the full counselor, he was the one they turned to for big-brotherly advice.
He was on his phone in a video coma, scrolling through those phony clips starring himself as a “daredevil.” At least a million miles away.
That did it. I was never going to forgive him for this. I didn’t care that he was full of himself and selfish, and didn’t appreciate that no one less than Noah Youkilis had brought him to an elite university. He was abandoning our campers when they needed him most. For that, he was dead to me.
When the match resumed, Baloney dug in and fought hard, thanks to Luna’s heroics and some pretty fair shots from Jalen and Claire. We closed the gap, but it wasn’t enough. We were down to our final shot, trailing by a single point, and our chances looked grim.
Manny had already given up. Unable to face defeat, he flipped his T-shirt over his head so he wouldn’t have to watch us go down in flames. The others had the courage to keep their eyes uncovered, but it was pretty obvious they had zero hope as Luna took her place at the line.
She had one throw left, but the shot was a killer. Three Cruncher beanbags circled the hole. It would be impossible for Luna to score herself without knocking in one of the enemy bags too. In other words, even if she hit this, we would still lose by a point.
As soon as the beanbag left her hand, I could tell that she’d thrown it too far, and it was going to be a complete miss. There was an “Aaaaaah” from our campers and the Crunch Bunch as the projectile sailed past the hole and landed with a dull thud on the section of ramp just above it. Our kids winced in almost physical pain as the Crunchers broke into cheers. And then—
Gravity.
Slowly—agonizingly slowly—Luna’s beanbag oozed backward and dropped through the hole.
Baloney was in the final.
* * *
Lunch that day was a celebration. We toasted Luna with water and apple juice, congratulating her on “the most amazing, stupendous, fantastic, epic, colossal, and totally great shot in cornhole history.” Manny made a little speech, but when he reached the part where we almost lost, he got so emotional that he had to run to the bathroom to get himself under control. Claire predicted that we’d win the final by a thousand points. Luna herself was distracted by the progress of a caterpillar moving up the wall and missed most of the conversation.
I sat back in my chair, drinking it all in. This was what I’d dreamed of the moment I’d learned I’d be a full counselor: My campers—happy, excited, united. And even if we didn’t win the final game, we’d still have this incredible accomplishment to share, this awesome feeling to remember.
The one black cloud in this brilliant sunny sky was Donovan. Sure, he joined in the toast and offered a few words of congratulation. Mostly, though, he was still glued to his phone, obsessing on his career as a fake hero.
“There’s still an hour to go before the final,” I commented as we sent our campers to wash up after lunch. “How are we going to get them through a whole arts and crafts period when all they can think of is beanbags and cornhole?”
It brought a disinterested “Mmmm” from my counselor-in-training. His eyes never left the small screen.
The kids rejoined us—Claire, Manny, Victor, Luna, and . . .
“Where’s Jalen?” The words were already out of my mouth before I took a second to reflect on what they might mean.
No. Oh no. Please no. Not today. Not now!
“He wasn’t in the bathroom,” Victor reported.
The seriousness of the situation penetrated even the cocoon around Donovan. He leaped to his feet, scanning the lunchroom urgently. Not a sign of Jalen.
“He’ll be back in time for the game, right?” Claire asked.
“Of course,” I told her.
The one thing we had going for us was that the kids weren’t panicking—at least not yet. In their minds, whenever Jalen disappeared, he eventually came back.
I knew better. The championship game started in fifty-seven minutes. Jalen’s absences were always a lot longer than that. You can’t play five on five when you’ve only got four kids. We would have to forfeit—and Group Baloney would be devastated. Even if Porquette came home and the rest of the summer went without incident, all the campers would remember would be this.
Donovan grabbed me by the shoulders. “Take the group to arts and crafts!”
“Where are you going to be?” I shrilled, struggling to keep the hysteria out of my voice.
“I’ll be back!”
He pounded across the cafeteria and flew out the door.
26
Hyperchampions
Donovan Curtis
Oh-man-oh-man-oh-man-oh-man-oh-man!
When Group Baloney turned out to be a cornhole juggernaut, I always knew the one thing that could sink us would be Jailbreak Jalen. But when the playoffs started and we kept on winning, Raina and I figured Jalen was on board just like the others. We let our guard down, and look where it had gotten us. If we couldn’t produce all five kids in time for the championship game, we were toast.
I couldn’t let it happen.
I exploded out of the building, sprinting thirty feet before it dawned on me: I had no idea where I was going. That had always been the problem with searching for Jalen. The campus was enormous and the chance of tracking down one eight-year-old when you didn’t have the first clue what direction he might have taken was pretty much zero. We’d never found him. Not even once. He’d just come back. But with the championship game less than an hour away, we didn’t have time to wait.
That was when I saw it. In the soft earth around the air-conditioning compressor outside the cafeteria were two shallow tire tracks just about the right size to be made by—a scooter? I went over to investigate.
Definitely scooter tires—and also a small hole, possibly from a kickstand. A scooter—maybe even one of those electric ones. That would explain how he was able to disappear so quickly.
We were in charge of Jalen all day, but we never knew how he got to and from camp. Did he arrive by scooter and then hide it so he could use it for transportation in his escapes?
I had no proof, but one thing was clear: In this emergency situation, it was all I had to go on.
I traced the tire treads from the dirt to the paved path. Because it had rained last night, it was easy enough to see that the rider had turned north. I began to jog along the route, picking up speed as my confidence grew. I ran past Fraternity Row and past the roadways that led to Butternut Hall and the other dorms. The tire marks disappeared after half a mile or so, but I had to have faith I was on the right track. At this point, there was only one direction the scooter could have been going.
I’d never been to this part of campus before. It was beautifully landscaped—not the woods that surrounded most of Wilderton, but a real neighborhood, and a ritzy one at that. The homes weren’t mansions, but they were older, gracious and elegantly maintained. At my house, a tree root had been coming up through the driveway for two years, crumbling the blacktop, and Dad still hadn’t called the repair guy. Here, you got the feeling that if anything went wrong, it would be fixed within the hour.
The name on a mailbox caught my eye: Overbrook. Raina’s house! This must have been the neighborhood where the professors lived. I followed the street farther. I didn’t recognize any other names, but that didn’t mean much. I wasn’t a student here. Raina’s parents were the only professors I’d heard of.
At last, I came to the biggest house of all—gray stone, covered in ivy. My heartbeat doubled. The name on the mailbox was Aberfoyle, and that rang a bell in my head the size of Big Ben. It was Jalen’s name, but the house could only have belonged to his grandfather, president of the entire university. On the corner of the lawn, propped on its kickstand, was an electric scooter. I was right!
I hesitated. As far as I knew, President Aberfoyle was away on sabbatical all year. That’s why that Kendrick clown was in charge. So who was Jalen visiting here? Surely his grandfather hadn’t entrusted his keys to an eight-year-old with an invitation to stop by anytime.
I approached the house gingerly and peered in through the picture window.
It was a formal dining room with a breakfront and an oval table in dark wood. Six people were sitting around it, playing cards—five little old ladies and one eight-year-old boy.
I blurted, “Jalen!”
Everybody looked up. A couple of the old ladies screamed. I think they thought I was a burglar.
There was a mad scramble and Jalen opened the front door to bring me inside. “This is Donovan, my Baloney counselor. Donovan, meet my grandma and her poker club.”
“Poker club?” My eyes locked on the table. It was set up for poker. At each place was a pile of plastic bottle caps, the “stakes.” In the center was another pile, the “pot.”
I thought back to Jalen’s many absences. He’d always come back with his pockets full of toothpicks, or dried beans, or marbles. I’d spent hours racking my brain, trying to figure out what it meant. And all this time, the answer had been in this house, at this table—his poker winnings.
I turned to Jalen. “This is where you’ve been going? To play poker?”
He didn’t even try to deny it. “And I’m good, too.” He indicated his own seat at the table, which had by far the largest collection of bottle caps.
His grandmother spoke up. “We thought he had to be cheating, because he always won. But no. I guess he just has a knack for separating people from their stakes.” She said it almost proudly.
“Jalen, you have to come back to the group,” I pleaded with our wayward camper. “We’ve got the cornhole finals in half an hour. And if we haven’t got five players, we have to forfeit.”
“Jalen, honey”—Mrs. Aberfoyle addressed her grandson—“have you been ditching your camp group every time you’ve come here?”
Jalen must have decided it was better not to answer that question. “Sorry, Grandma. Gotta go! Oh, wait.” He rushed to the dining table and filled his pockets with his share of the bottle caps. Then he returned to me. “What are we waiting for? We’ve got a cornhole championship to win!”
I almost didn’t want to leave. It seemed to me that Jalen was about to get a chewing-out from his grandmother that he richly deserved. But the clock was running out on Baloney, so we had to get back to the final game.
With all the old ladies waving, Jalen took off on the electric scooter, with me sprinting behind him. Now that his scooter secret was out, Jalen rode right up to the sports field, where a cheering Claire, Manny, Victor, and Luna greeted him. Instead of throttling the little maniac!
I roared up thirty seconds later, panting and sweating, my lungs on fire, more dead than alive. Raina was there, her face frozen into an inscrutable mask.
“Those electric scooters are faster than they look!” I rasped.
It was impossible to read her expression. But who was I kidding? If it was something I did, it was probably wrong. I took too long; I cut it too close; I tore a giant rift in the space-time continuum.
She threw her arms around me and hugged me so hard I thought she was trying to finish me off. “You did it,” she whispered in my ear. “You said you’d do it, and you did it.”
If she didn’t let go soon, I was pretty sure I might pass out.
While I caught my breath—and it took a while—Luna single-handedly dismantled our opponents, the Dill Pickles. It was a lot more one-sided than our squeaker in the semifinal. The others did well too, but we almost didn’t need them. It was a beatdown.
The celebrating began even before the match was over. As soon as it became clear that Baloney would be victorious, our campers started bouncing like they were on pogo sticks, hugging each other and exchanging backslaps and high fives. Now that it was obvious that losing was no longer a possibility, Manny sat down on the grass, put his head in his hands, and cried. And when Baloney was crowned the winners, Claire shook hands with the other team and told them all, “Good game.” That might have been the biggest miracle of all.
Group Baloney, grand losers of the Explorers Program, were finally champions. And even if we were never even halfway decent at anything else again, we would always have this moment.
Mr. Arthropod himself rolled up in his golf cart to present us with our blue ribbons. Leave it to him to decide that cornhole was important enough for him to break the “Leave me alone” rule. Our kids dissolved into a dogpile on the grass, leaping on top of each other.
