Psychic Summer Camp Ch. 2

Chapter 2 (Revised)



Lincoln had arrived back in class with two minutes to go, and they turned out to be the longest two minutes he had ever experienced. Moments before the bell rang Mr. Sackridge closed his book and smiled to the class.

“I guess it wouldn't hurt to let you go a bit early.” He said jovially, as though he were giving them some sort of treat.

Everyone moved in a frantic wave as though it were vital to their survival that they make it out of the room before the bell. It was of the utmost importance that summer be extended, even if just by a few seconds. Less than half of the students made it out in time though, and as the chirping sound of the bell died out so did the frenetic pace of those trying to escape.

“Have a good summer!” Sang Mr. Sackridge.

Now that class was over some of the excitement he was missing was beginning to make itself known, but it was mingled with concern about the news that Kyle had for him. He knew it wasn't going to be good and he fought with himself over whether to take his time and delay the inevitable, or hurry up and get it over with. Because he had packed his locker up during lunch period he figured there wasn't much he could do to delay the news, so he might as well just get on with it.

When he stepped out of the school he was nearly blown over by a sudden and strong wind and had to catch his balance. As he did a fat, cold drop of water cascaded down his back, causing him to recoil and shiver. He noticed, none too happily, that the ground around him was bone dry which meant that the first drop of the storm went straight down his shirt. He clenched his jaw, angry at the world for hating him so much that it had to so thoroughly ruin his last day of school. Everything about the miserable day seemed to be pointing toward a miserable summer.

As Lincoln walked toward the bus loading zone he saw Clyde Olsen standing by himself under a tree kicking at the ground and looking as miserable as Lincoln felt. It reminded Lincoln of how Clyde had looked like he wanted to shrink into the walls when they passed in the hallway earlier. After Lincoln had noticed the missing underwear he had taken Clyde's demeanor to mean that he had picked them up. But maybe he had been reading too much into it. Maybe Clyde just always looked that way. It was possible, he supposed, that the janitor had come by while he was in the washroom and picked them up. But if that were the case, why would he have left all the other trash there? Maybe the underwear was just higher priority because it was a biohazard or something. But that didn't do anything to alleviate the feeling that he had known that the underwear belonged to Clyde and also that he would be back to get them. And that, more than Clyde returning for the soiled undergarments, was what troubled Lincoln.

He found Kyle alone at the bus stop, pacing in small circles and talking to himself again. People were giving him looks that suggested they believed him to be crazy and Lincoln was beginning to wonder himself. Kyle didn't notice him when he approached so Lincoln tapped him on the shoulder. He nearly leaped out of his skin.

“A little tense are we?” Lincoln asked.

“Huh? Uh, no. Just great thanks. How was the last few minutes?” Kyle said, trying to look casual but unable to keep his eyes from falling to the ground.

“Best of my life.” Said Lincoln. “What are you hiding?”

“I'm not hiding anything!” Said Kyle. “I'm just... not telling you something because I think it might upset you.”

“Oh. My mistake.” Said Lincoln. “What is it?”

“If I tell you, you have to promise you won't get mad.”

“I'm already mad.”

“You have to promise you won't get mad at me.”

Lincoln drew an annoyed breath through his nose. He was already expecting a lousy summer, so what could Kyle say to make it worse? “Fine. I promise.”

Kyle twisted his mouth doubtfully, took a large breath and let it out slowly. Very slowly. Like he was stalling. “Okay.” He said. “I'm going to summer camp.”

Lincoln gave him a cold, stone-like stare. “That's it? You've had me fretting for like, five minutes for that? So you'll be going away for a week or two. Big deal.”

Kyle clasped his hands nervously at his waist and turned away from Lincoln. “It's not a week or two. It's... the whole summer. I leave tomorrow and I don't come back until September.”

“WHAT?” Lincoln shouted drawing curious stares from the other students. Lincoln was well aware of the attention he was drawing, but he didn't care. “Why would you do that? I'm staying home for the first time since grade three and you decide to go away for the entire summer?”

“I didn't know that you were staying home when I signed up.” He folded his arms across his chest, but his eyes remained firmly on the toe of his sneaker. It was the closest Kyle ever came to being firm on something.

Lincoln also crossed his arms, but he stared hard at Kyle as if he could change Kyle's mind by a mere force of will. “So don't go. Change your plans.”

“Can't.” Said Kyle. “My parents have already paid.”

“Well, call the camp and tell them you're sick and cant make it. I'm sure they will give you your money back.” Desperation was beginning to seep into Lincoln's voice. Kyle may not be forceful in his talk, but he was stubborn as a mule when he really wanted to be. If Kyle was gone for the whole summer then staying at home would hardly be better than going to his aunt Fred's.

“Maybe.” Said Kyle, offering a glimmer of hope. It wasn't to last though. “But I want to go.”

“Go next year!” Lincoln begged. “I'm sure I will be back at Fred's next summer, this year is just a fluke.”

Kyle was quiet for a moment, his mouth moving like he was literally chewing on the though. Lincoln had the look of a child pleading their old dog not to die. But Kyle shook his head. “I'm sorry Link. I've been looking forward to this for months.” When he looked at Lincoln his eyes were sad, but firmer than Lincoln had ever seen them. He added, “I'm sure you could still sign up if you wanted to come with me.”

Lincoln felt like he was being attacked by some unknown malevolent force determined to see that he had the worst summer of his life. “I've been looking forward to this summer since grade three.” Lincoln said coldly.

Just then the bus pulled up and he climbed aboard. He forsook their normal seat at the back of the bus and sat at the front beside Clyde Olsen, who was shocked to not be sitting alone for the first time ever, and not very happy about it. But Kyle would know the significance of his seating choice. Not only was he sitting as far from their seat as he could without kicking the driver out of his seat, but he was sitting with an untouchable; a dangerous move in high school. As Kyle walked past his eyes were sadly apologetic, but firm as ever. Lincoln scowled and looked out the window, not looking to the back of the bus once the whole trip home.



As the bus pulled up at the corner of Flint and Spooner, where Lincoln and Kyle got off, Lincoln was out of his seat before the bus even stopped moving. The doors had barely opened and he was stepping into the drizzling rain, oblivious to the call of the bus driver to have a good summer. He glanced up to  the bus and saw Kyle halfway down the aisle behind about ten other kids, mouthing for him to wait, but Lincoln ignored him. He didn't want to talk to Kyle. He didn't want to talk to anyone. He couldn't believe that the summer he had most been looking forward to was shaping up to be the worst one ever. A full day of school. Rain. His best friend leaving for the whole summer. Someone somewhere hated him. He was sure of that.

Ten minutes later he was soaked to the bone, cold and miserable, walking through his front door. The first thing that he noticed was the smell, and it brightened his spirits slightly. It was a smell that didn't fill his house very often; pizza. Easily his favourite food, but something he was rarely treated to because his parents thought it was terrible for him and found it hard to justify spending money on something that they felt harmed their child. Finally, thought Lincoln, something good is happening.

He rounded the corner into the kitchen where the thick meaty smell was so prominent that he felt he could already taste it. Two pizzas sat on the table, box lids open revealing the shimmering, greasy goodness of the mozzarella and the curled up edges of perfectly cooked pepperoni and the fluffy, thick crusts that he loved so much. There was also a bottle of pop, some plastic Pizzaville cups and paper plates.

His stomach growled violently, reminding him that he skipped lunch to clean out his locker hoping to get an early start to summer. The thought rekindled some of the anger he felt toward Mr. Sackridge but he pushed it away. It was too late to change it, so no point dwelling on it. Might as well just enjoy the one good thing that has happened all day, he thought as he grabbed a plate and pried two slices from the gooey pizza.

He went to the living room, planning on watching TV while he ate his pizza, but what he saw there killed his appetite and made him look at his pizza with revulsion. On the couch were two opened suitcases and they weren't filled with vacation apparel. They were filled with the rugged, brown outfits that his parents wore when they were working. There were two plane tickets on the coffee table in front of the couch. Lincoln picked them up, desperate to see Florida, California, Hawaii, or anything that might suggest vacation rather than archaeological dig. But the tickets had none of these places listed. The destination was Turkey. His mouth dried up and he felt anger pulse through him like a tesla coil. In a last ditch effort to find some hope in the situation he checked the departure and return dates. Maybe they were only going for a week or two. He could handle that, even if he had to sped them at his aunt Fred's. Depart June 23 – Return September 7. They left tomorrow and wouldn't be back until the day before school started.

Those dates should have made him fume. They should have turned his anger from a bonfire to a smelter's oven, but to his surprise they took all the fight out of him. He sank into the couch, feeling as formless as a deflated beach ball. They lied to him. It would have been one thing if they had told him the plans had changed as soon as they realized they had. But these were not computer print outs of tickets. These were real, from the airport tickets. They must have ordered them weeks ago. And this is how they tell him? They leave their packed suitcases on the couch for him to find and think they can bribe him with pizza? They didn't even have the nerve to be present.

Just then his dad bounded down the stairs two at a time. “Oh good, you're home.” He said. Though nothing about his tone suggested he was really glad to see Lincoln, but rather that informing him of their duplicity was the next check mark on the to-do list. “I'm sorry son, but there has been a change in plans.”

“Oh?” Said Lincoln, sarcasm dripping from the statement like the cheese from his pizza. “I suppose that's what the suitcases and tickets to Turkey mean, huh?”

“That's right.” Said his dad.

“And there is only two suitcases,” Lincoln continued, “so I'm guessing I'm not going with you.”

“Right again.” Said his dad. He rifled through one of the suitcases then hollered up the stairs, “hon! Can you please grab my razor?”

Lincoln didn't feel as though his dad was giving the situation the weight and attention that it deserved. “You're a liar.” He said.

His dad stopped rooting through the suitcase and looked at William severely. “I beg your pardon?”

Lincoln knew that he was in trouble now, but he didn't care. The statement was true and if his dad didn't like being called a liar, then maybe he shouldn't be lying all the time. “I'm not sure what else you would call it. You told me I would get to stay home for the summer. You told me that this morning before I left for school. But you have plane tickets that would have come in the mail, which means that you ordered them weeks ago. You knew I wasn't staying home, and you've been lying about it.”

His dad puffed up his chest and drew in a deep breath, his mouth was drawn into a thin line. When he spoke it was measured and with forced calm. “I realize that coming home to see this would have been hard on you, so I will abide your cheek this once. But your mother and I have not been lying to you. We did not order the tickets. They were sent to us. We have been specially requested for this dig because of our outstanding record of care for the dig site and the fact that previous excursions have made us specially qualified for this appointment. If we had known we were going this morning, we would have told you this morning. And we did debate the issue, but we decided that this is too important a job to pass up. If the dig goes well it could mean wonders for your mother and my careers.”

Lincoln put his pizza on the coffee table and slumped back into the couch with his arms folded across his chest. “So, the job is more important than me?”

His dad placed his fingers on the bridge of his nose as though he had a intense headache and let out an angry sigh. “This job is not more important than you. But it is more important than where you spend your summer. Now I don't have time for your teenage theatrics and emotional rhetoric. You need to pack your things for aunt Freida's.”

“I'm not going there!” Lincoln yelled angrily. “If you want to bail on me for the whole summer again, fine! But you can't back out on that. I'm fourteen. I can stay home by myself.”

“You're not staying here by yourself.” Said his dad, losing any of the calm he had been forcing a moment ago. “You are not legally allowed to be on your own for a few years yet. If you don't want to go to Freida's, fine. But you will have to find somewhere else to stay and we will have to give the okay. And the only reason for that is your aunt is going away for the summer and it would be easier for her if you were somewhere else.”

“Where is she going?” Lincoln asked. Maybe she was going somewhere cool and it wouldn't be so bad to go there.

“Some sort of knitting convention or something.” His dad replied shortly. “Now, you saw the dates on the tickets. You have until bedtime to make other arrangements or we will be dropping you at Freida's on our way to the airport at eight in the morning.”

“Eight in the morning? You want me to be up at eight in the morning on the first day of summer?”

His dad looked at him as though he had just said one of the dumbest things he had ever heard. “No. We will be dropping you off at eight in the morning. You will be waking up at six.”

“Oh. Well that's better.” Said Lincoln.

“Again, I'm sorry. Have some more pizza, your mother and I already ate.” Apparently he found whatever he was looking for in the suitcase because he stopped rifling through and went upstairs.

Lincoln picked up his pizza off the table. He thought about just throwing it out, but then decided it wasn't the pizza's fault that his parents were liars and his summer was ruined and he ate it. Normally it would have bee delicious, but today it was only just good. The unforeseen disaster that his summer had become seemed to have dulled his taste buds.

As he pried another slice of pizza from the box he tried to think of where he could go for the summer. Anywhere would do as long as it wasn't his aunt's house. The worst part about going to his aunt Fred's wasn't even the smell of cat pee or moth balls that seemed to be a part of the structure of her house, but the fact that she believed herself to be psychic. She was always having gullible people over for a fortune telling, card reading, or some other hocus pocus nonsense. She would take over the TV room and he would have to sit in the lounge listening to her as she adopted a fake, airy voice and pronounce the most horrific calamity on her patrons. On occasion she would tell them they were in for good luck, but for most who came to see her it was unbridled calamity. He once asked her why only people who were destined for bad luck ever came to see her and she chuckled saying that it's what people wanted to hear. No one wanted good news. They wanted the excitement that came with danger and dark portents. So that's what she gave them. One time, after a particularly horrendous reading, a man had emerged from the room ashen faced and trembling. He actually stopped to tell Lincoln how lucky he was to have an aunt with such a unique talent. Lincoln had rolled his eyes as the man walked away. The only talent his aunt had was for lying to people's faces. Must run in the family he thought.

He was polishing off the first half of a pizza when it occurred to him that if he wanted to avoid going to his aunt's on such short notice, then he was probably going to have to go to Kyle's stupid camp. At least then he would be with other people his age, and weaving baskets couldn't be anymore lame than sitting in a dark, smokey house all summer with only cats and a crazy person for company. He closed the lid on the pizza, scooped up both boxes and left for Kyle's.



Kyle opened the door with a huge grin that only got bigger when he saw the pizza. “What are you doing here?” He asked.

Lincoln lifted the lid, offering Kyle a slice. “You're lucky my parents are a bunch of liars. They may have saved out friendship.”

“What do you mean? What happened?”

“They're going away for the summer.” Lincoln said, walking past Kyle and into the living room. He dropped the pizza boxes on to the coffee table and sat on the couch.

“They are?” Kyle asked, following him in and sitting in a big fluffy armchair. “Where are they going? I thought they were staying home this summer.”

Lincoln took a bite from another slice of pizza and spoke with a  full mouth. “So did I. When I got home they were packing and they have plane tickets for Turkey. I don't know what they could be doing there, and I don't really care.”

“It must be really important if they are backing out on their promise to let you stay home.” Kyle offered.

“If I tried really, really hard, I might be able to care less.” Lincoln said. “I told them that I'm not going to aunt Fred's though.”

“So what, are they letting you stay home by yourself then?”

“Yeah right,” Lincoln chuckled, “have you met my parents? They said if I could find another place to go by tonight then I wouldn't have to go to aunt Fred's.”

Kyle nodded saying nothing, but his eyes had grown into excited, glassy orbs.

Lincoln stayed quiet for a few moments, allowing the pressure to build up in Kyle. Finally he sighed and said, “I want to go to your stupid summer camp.”

Kyle exploded out of the chair like a jack in the box. “Freakin' awesome! I knew that's why you came over!”

In spite of his horrible mood, Lincoln couldn't help but laugh at Kyle's enthusiasm. It felt pretty good after the day he had been having. He said, “what sort of camp is it anyway? Boy Scouts? Forest Dweebs? Dungeons and Dragons?”

Kyle produced a well worn pamphlet from his pocket. It looked like something made hastily on a home computer. Clearly Kyle had been looking at it a lot because the colours were faded in places where he held it and the folds were worn almost entirely away. But still legible across the front were three words in a thick, bold font.

PSYCHIC SUMMER CAMP.

Lincoln looked from the pamphlet to Kyle and back again. “You have got to be kidding me.” He said as he slouched miserably back in to the couch.