The Girls of Summer

The Girls of Summer

It was early in the summer and the temperature was already in the mid nineties. Bobby Kaufman knocked on the door at his friend Stan’s house and said a silent prayer that Stan’s sister, Annie, would answer the door.

“Hi Bobby,” she said, smiling.

“Hi Annie, what are you up to?”

“I’m waiting for Stan to get off the computer so I can use it to talk to my friends on Facebook.”

“Well that shouldn’t take long; he’s supposed to go somewhere with me. Go tell him I’m here, will ya.”

“Sure Bobby,” she said, flashing that awesome smile again.

As she turned to go, Bobby grabbed her arm and stopped her.

“Tell him I said he better hurry if he wants to go with me. That should get him off the computer a little faster.”

“Okay, I’ll do that,” she said, taking his hand and squeezing it. “Thanks, Bobby.”

He watched her run up the stairs and heard her yell; “Stan, Bobby’s here. He said if you want to go with him you better get your butt off that computer and get a move on.”

When he saw Stanley coming through the driveway gate with his bike, he pulled the door shut and walked over to Stanley.

“Hey dude, you won’t need the bike.”

“I thought you said we were going to the woods.”

“We are, but we can’t take our bikes. The Girls of Summer are back.”

“Who are The Girls of Summer?”

“We told you the place is a Girl Scout camp. It’s summer, dude; everyone is out of school and the campers are here for the summer. The place will be crawling with girls and counselors.”

“Then why are we going down there?”

“Like I said, the place will be crawling with girls. Besides, it’s been raining for three days.”

“Are we going creek jumping?”

“No, we’re going to play a little peek-a-boo and then we’re going drifting.”

“Playing peek-a-boo and drifting?”

“Peek-a-boo is when we sneak up on the Girls of Summer and see if we can catch one of them changing clothes. When it rains and the creek floods, we jump in and let it wash us downstream. We get out at the bridge on Ritchie Road and walk back. It’s a long walk, but it’s worth it; drifting is a blast.”

Stanley put his bike away and the two boys started away on foot. They walked in the street and tossed anything they found into the water rushing down the curb and watched as it sped away into one of the storm drains.

“Peek-a-boo sounds interesting, but drifting sounds kind of dangerous,” Stanley said as they watched a large stick disappear into a storm drain.

“It can be, that’s one of the things that make it so much fun. In most places the water is only a little more than knee deep. You just kind of float and let the water pull you along and hope you don’t find a big rock with your butt. That can really hurt.”

“What about the counselors, won’t they chase us away?”

“The counselors are going to chase us, you can bank on that. You just run like crazy and jump in the creek and float away. They won’t come into the creek after us.”

“I thought you just wanted to see naked girls.”

“Well, yeah, but if you see them get naked you have to let them know you saw them get naked. That’s half the fun; making them scream their heads off.”

Bobby led the way as they walked up someone’s driveway and across the back lawn toward the woods. When they came to where a large cement pipe poured the rain water from the storm drains into a large ditch, there were two boys sitting on the grassy slope of the gully.

“Hey Alan, John and Paul aren’t here yet?” Bobby asked as they walked up to the other two boys.

“They’re not coming. Their mom is making them go to their aunt’s house with her.”

“Is that why you brought Billy Becker?”

“Yeah, he kept begging me to let him come.”

“I wasn’t begging, I just asked if I could come along, that’s all,” Billy said.

“When you ask, like one hundred times, that’s begging,” Alan told him.

Alan Smith, Bobby Kaufman, and John and Paul Carr were the heart of the Francis Scott Key Jr. High School football team. Billy Becker was the water boy.

“I’m glad he lives next door to you and not me,” Stanley said.

“Billy can be a real pain in the butt, but he’s okay. He can’t help being a skinny little wimp. He tries, and that’s what counts,” Alan said, slapping Billy on the back of the head when he grinned.

“Yeah, he saw a booby last year and has been drooling ever since,” Bobby said.

“The water is awfully high, you guys. Are you sure you want to try drifting in this?” Billy said.

“You might be right, Billy. Let me take a closer look,” Bobby said.

Bobby walked down to the water and stooped down like he wanted to take a closer look at it. He stood and cradled his chin in one hand while resting his elbow in the other hand as if he were deep in thought. He screamed “Yee Haw” at the top of his voice and leaped into the air, coming down on his behind in the middle of the rushing water.

“You guys are crazy,” Billy yelled as he ran along the bank. “The water is too high.”

“Bye Billy,” Bobby called, waving his hand in the air.

“Bye bye Billy.”

“I’ll tell you all how many naked girls we saw when I get back, Billy,” Alan called.

Billy walked into the water and slowly lowered himself into a sitting position and began to follow the other boys. They floated with only their heads and the toes of their tennis shoes breaking the surface of the water, letting the running water carry them along. They picked up speed when the ditch joined the main creek that ran through the Girl Scout camp.

Bobby was in the lead when he popped up out of the water and emitted a loud “ooowwwww.” Stanley and Alan began laughing hysterically and chanting “rock, rock, rock” as they attempted to steer themselves away from where Bobby had found the underwater obstruction.
They came to a place Bobby recognized and he pulled himself to a sandy area at the bottom of a steep bank and got out of the water. Alan and Stanley joined him and then had to go back into the creek to grab Billy as he was being washed by.

“Shhh,” Bobby said, placing a finger across his lips. “Time for a little Peek-a-boo.”

Bobby led them up the wet clay bank. At the peak of the sharp incline he slowly raised his head and looked both ways down the small road running along the top of the bank. Not seeing anything, he began crossing the road on his hands and knees. He heard a high pitched squeal followed by the unmistakable sound of girls laughing. He held his hand out, palm back, to stop his friends. He turned around with a broad grin on his face and cupped his hand behind his ear. There was another louder squeal followed by more raucous laughter. He covered his mouth with his hand to stifle his laughter and then crawled quickly across the road.

Where the road ended the ground fell away steeply to the shore of a small pond. The side against the bank was ringed by a dense growth of cattails. Bobby lay on his stomach and slid down the muddy bank to the edge of the water, followed closely by his three cohorts.
Barely visible through the cattails, there were five young girls at the water’s edge on the other side of the pond. Four of them stood ankle deep in the water while the fifth girl sat on the side of a partially sunk boat watching them with a bored expression on her face. One girl kicked water on another, causing more squeals and laughter. The girl who had been splashed retaliated more forcibly, soaking the front of the girl who had splashed her. All of the girls laughed uproariously, except the girl who had taken the soaking. She lunged forward and shoved the other girl in the chest, sending her sprawling on her back in knee deep water. She went completely under water, causing the other girls to laugh so hard they could barely stand up. When she stood, sputtering and wiping water from her face, she had a long strand of water grass draped over one shoulder. When her hand brushed against it, she screamed and threw it high into the air, tripping and sitting down hard in the fetid water.

Bobby saw movement from the corner of his eye. He turned to find Billy Becker lying on his belly in the shallow water working his way through the cattails walking on his hands. He nudged Stanley, who nudged Alan, and soon all four boys were crawling through the cattails like a herd of alligators.

When they stopped at the edge of the cattails they could see the five girls clearly. The girl sitting on the boat no longer had a bored expression on her face. She was bent over laughing and pointing at the girl who had fallen and was struggling to gain her feet. When she finally got her feet under her, she stood up and heaved a big handful of the nasty black mud from the bottom of the pond at the girl on the boat. The majority of the black goop hit the girl on the side of her face and splashed into her blond hair, liberally speckling the white Washington Redskins jersey and white shorts she wore. All five girls stopped dead still and went deathly silent for a moment. When the girl on the boat lifted her head and the blob of mud on her face fell, landing on her white tennis shoes, the other four girls were once more belting out peals of laughter.

The girl who had flung the mud scooped up another handful and swung her arm in an arc so that some of it got on everyone. Soon, all five girls were in the pond splashing and throwing mud at one another.

A red Jeep pulled up on the road behind the girls and three counselors in their early twenties sat and watched them for a moment. One of the counselors was a young woman, and she got out of the Jeep and began blowing a whistle as she walked toward the pond. The two young men drove the Jeep up to a two story brick building and got out and entered the building through the double doors at the front of the building. The female counselor corralled the five wayward water nymphs and soon they too disappeared into the brick building.

“That was pretty cool,” Stanley said to Bobby.

“Hey, where are you going,” Bobby hissed when he saw Alan moving away from them.

“Come on, nimrods, if you want to play peek-a-boo. I bet they are going to make those girls shower and change.” He turned and lowered himself so only his eyes were above the surface of the water and began making his way around the pond.

There was a big tree growing on a little knot of land that extended out into the pond. The boys got out of the water behind the tree but before they could sneak closer to the building they heard voices. The building had a porch across the front of the second floor. The door opened and the head of one of the girls from the pond poked out. They heard talking and giggling and then the girl came out and ran around the porch in her underwear. She dashed back inside, to more giggling, and then another girl came out and ran around the porch in her underwear.

The door opened all the way and all five girls walked out onto the porch in their underwear. They stood huddled together, nervously looking about as they whispered and giggled. The girl who had been sitting on the boat at the pond strode away from the other girls. She sauntered across the porch swaying her hip in an exaggerated fashion. When she reached the railing at the front of the porch she began striking poses like a fashion model at the end of a runway.

“Yeah, baby! That’s what I’m talking about,” Alan yelled at the top of his lungs as he stepped out from behind the tree.

All five girls screamed and clambered for the door. The girl who had been striking poses tripped over her own feet and fell down and had to jump back up to sprint to the door.

The doors below the porch burst open and the two young male counselors came running out of the building. As soon as he saw them, Alan turned and bolted through the woods next to the pond, followed closely by Billy, Stanley, and Bobby.

“Hey, you kids come back here,” one of the counselors yelled.

“Yeah, okay, we’ll be right there,” Alan yelled.

“We’re just taking the scenic route,” Bobby added.

The two young men began to pursue on foot, when they saw the water splashing up around the boy’s feet, they went back and got the Jeep. They had to drive past the pond to get on the road that ran between the pond and the creek. By the time they caught up with them all four boys were floating quickly downstream in the muddy water of the creek. They rode alongside them until the road turned away from the creek where they got out of the Jeep and glared after the boys as they floated away.

Alan looked back at the two young men and flashed them a big smile before raising his arm and extending his middle finger. The two men talked together for a moment and then one got in the jeep and raced away and the other began running along the side of the creek chasing them.

“Wow, Alan, I don’t think you should have flipped that guy the bird. He looks pretty pissed off,” Bobby said.

“Yeah, he looks pretty mad, alright. He’ll stop when we pass the bridge. That’s the end of the park; it’s just woods after that.”

When they came around the bend and could see the little bridge, the red Jeep was sitting in the middle of it. The guy chasing them was still running along the creek. He never yelled out anything, he just ran along silently.

The water at the bridge was deep enough to swim in when the creek was at its normal level. There were a couple of limbs wedged against the barrels full of cement that served as bridge pylons. Billy was in front of Stanley. When he saw the way the water swelled, he knew there was something just below the surface. He lifted his feet and stretched out, skimming over with just a little bump on his behind. Coming out from under the bridge there was another swell of water. When Billy lifted his feet and stretched out this time he didn’t clear the limb wedged between the two pylons. When his butt caught on the limb, the water rushed over his shoulders and pushed his chest under.

Stanley saw Billy’s feet sticking up out of the water, kicking wildly. He swam to where he was and tried to pull him up but the water pressure was too strong. He felt around under the water and discovered that Billy’s back was pressed against another submerged limb; he was pinned up-side-down. He called for help and Alan and Bobby fought their way to him.

“He’s stuck … the water is holding him down.”

All three boys pulled on his arms and couldn’t pull Billy up against the water pressure. Stanley saw that Billy’s legs had stopped kicking. He stood on the limb that was across Billy’s back and grabbed the heels of his feet. With all his strength, he pushed with his legs and fell back into the rushing water. When the water pulled Billy between the two submerged limbs Stanley lost his grip on his feet. He came to the surface but didn’t see Billy.

“He came loose!” Stanley yelled to his friends. They waited for a second, when Billy didn’t surface they began to dive into the muddy water looking for him. Stanley’s hand fell on something cold and clammy. He thought it was clay until his finger went into Billy’s mouth and he felt his teeth. He got him in a headlock and kicked off the bottom and dragged him to the surface. When he got his little friend to the bank of the creek he was turning blue and he wasn’t breathing. Stanley screamed Billy’s name twice while shaking him before he started crying.

Stanley was pushed roughly out of the way and the young counselor lifted Billy to his partner on the top of the bank. He climbed up the bank and began pushing on Billy’s chest while the other man blew into his mouth. In just a couple of minutes, Billy rolled to his side and vomited, and then he began to cry and breathe on his own.

The counselors had a walkie-talkie and called for an ambulance and the police. While they waited for the ambulance for Billy and a cop car for them, they thanked the young men repeatedly; Alan even apologized to the guy for giving him the finger.

Bobby knew his goose was cooked. The cops wouldn't arrest them or anything, but they would drive them home where all the neighbors could see them being delivered home in a cop car. He had already made up his mind to talk to Stanley's parents and tell them it was Stanley who saved Billy. They had enough to worry about with one son already in Viet Nam, and maybe they would go a little easier on Stanley. And just maybe, he would get to see Annie smile at him again.