Dare Ya!
Summer camp.
It’s got its highlights and lowlights. Like the bus—it was an old, repurposed school bus, no longer safe to transport students to and from school, but just fine for summer camp. There were fun activities, and you got to hang out with some old friends and also meet some new ones. Some of the counselors were as stiff and stodgy as school teachers, while others were young and cool.
The food was so-so, the pond was great, they had a ropes course . . . and they had bullies.
“Come on, everybody’s doing it,” Hoops says.
“Yeah.” Dumb-Bell crosses his arms over his faded “Ponez in the Hood” t-shirt.
“You some kind of a coward?” Score asks.
“No,” you say, your voice shaky. “But Mom says it’s dangerous to play around trains—”
“Mom.”
“Mommy’s boy.” Hoops slaps you in the chest. “You do everything Mommy tells you?”
“Does she do your homework for you?”
“Does she style your hair?”
“She must, that cut’s so out of style.” Score blows his bangs back.
As if their hair style is anything special. Bangs that cover their eyes most of the time, just because Ponez in the Hood looks like that—they’ll jump on any trend the moment it starts to get traction and pretend they’ve always been like that, while you’re constant, doing your own thing and trying to stay out of the way of everyone else.
And you’d been doing okay, not coming to the attention of the jocks—the bullies—thus far at camp.
Thus far.
Hoops opens his palm to reveal a faded penny. “It’s just a penny or two, what’s gonna happen?” He flips the coin in the air, catches it, and then closes his fist around it.
Dumb-Bell puffs his chest out and moves in, tightening the circle. “Guys, don’t be rude, that’s his snack money.”
The three crack up at the joke. The camp does have a commissary where you can spend cash, but so far you haven’t availed yourself of it.
You look them over. They’re jocks and jerks, but they’re also the three coolest teens at camp. Big and strong, agile—Hoops aced the ropes course yesterday, and Score almost set the record for sprints. He wasn’t more than a few seconds behind the current record-holder.
You're not so good. You didn’t grow up with some of the opportunities they had to try out climbing courses and you were never into exercise for exercise’s sake. Give you something to run from and you’d give it your all, but running for fun . . .wasn’t.
You could fight them, and that would earn you some camp cred. But it was three on one, and the last one who’d tried had spent a week with all her privileges taken away. Three on one factored in when explaining the situation to the camp counselors; three identical stories versus one differing one, who were they going to believe?
“Listen,” Score says. He cups a hand to his ear. “I can hear a train coming. Over there.”
“It’s still miles away,” Hoops adds. “So you’re not gonna get squished.”
“Not if you’re quick,” Dumb-Bell adds. “Quicker than when you raced yesterday—you can do it.”
You feel the weight of change jingling in your pocket. “Whatever.” You wave your hand at them and turn back to your camp cubby. Not everything is fun and games; there are some classes at camp and you’re supposed to be prepared for them: the camp advertises itself as being educational, after all.
Book classes aren’t as much fun as the outdoors stuff, but at least you don’t struggle with them. You’re not sure that Dumb-Bell even knows how to read; it’s hard to judge his expression under his eye-covering bangs, but every time he cracks a book, it’s like seeing a dog watching a magic trick.
“Do it,” Hoops says. “We’ve all done it.”
“Real men do it,” Score adds. “Go on, put some coins on the railroad tracks.”
He nudges Dumb-Bell, who adds his two cents like a broken jukebox that needs to be jostled to play a track. “Everybody’s doing it.”
Nobody’s doing it; you haven’t seen a single camper run past the warning signs to place some coins on the track and then run back to watch them get run over. And now that you think about it, how many friends do these two even have? Besides each other? Still, the counselors seem to respect them, as do the younger campers—if you did put some coins on the railroad tracks, would you become part of their group? Would Hoops teach you the secrets of the ropes course? The trick to not falling off a Jacob’s Ladder?
Would Score give you some tips for fast running? There’s a blue girl at camp with rainbow hair who’s kind of a loser and kind of braggy and kind of cute and maybe—
[CHOICE]
>Do it, you coward, and then you’ll be cool too (Chaos)
>Stand your ground, don’t be bullied (Hero)
[CHOICE A: Chaos]
“Fine, what’s the worst that can happen?” You look towards the railroad tracks and then reach into your pockets, clutching a handful of change.
It is your spending money, or some of it. You were going to buy a candy bar—that can be risked to be cool at camp. It’ll be worth it to get in with the bullies.
You jog across the field, beelining towards the railroad tracks. Even though you know the train’s still a way off, it makes you nervous as you crunch across the ballast. Mom said to never play near the tracks.
And never put anything on them.
You lay out the coins in a neat row and are back on the far side of the field well before the train hits them.
You weren’t expecting much; coins are small and soft while trains are big and heavy. You thought it would squish them.
Instead, the locomotive rides over the coins and then jumps off the tracks, all the cars behind it piling up in a mass of splinters and smoke and squealing metal.
You watch in fascinated horror as the crew evacuates the locomotive, running towards safety. Just in time; the locomotive explodes in a cloud of steam and smoke, shrapnel whizzing by. The three bullies are watching wide-eyed, until finally Hoops looks over at you. “Dude. That was awesome.”
“I can’t believe you did it,” Score adds.
Dumb-Bell nods. “Best train wreck ever.”
[CHOICE B: Hero]
You grab your book and shove your backpack back into its cubby. “I don’t need you,” you tell them. “So go find somebody else to annoy. You think you’re hot stuff now, bullying everybody you can, but wait until you’re older and you can’t find a job. I know your kind, you think you’re better than everybody else and years from now you’ll be the same jerks you’ve always been, working a dead-end job as assistant to the fryer manager and bragging about your title even though it means nothing.
“If you want coins squished on the tracks, go and do it yourselves.” You reach into your pocket and grab your change. “Here.” You toss it at them. “In case any of you are broke. Go on, what are you afraid of? Detention? They gonna take away your pudding at dinner? This camp means nothing in the grand scheme of things, we’re here to make friends and give our parents a couple weeks of vacation.” You look over to Dumb-Bell. “You might want to ask to be re-upped, I think your parents could do with a month.
“You’re bigger and faster than me, but you’re not smarter . . .one day I might be your boss, and you’d do well to remember that.”
“Big words for a little boy,” Hoops scoffs. He shoves you, knocking you off-balance. “Whatever, you aren’t worth our time. Go on, dream of sitting at a desk and ordering us around if it makes you feel better.”
Your resolve falters, and then comes back. Rainbow doesn’t take any guff from the bullies, and if you want to impress her, you shouldn't either.