Edward Goes To Camp

   Edward sat on the front porch reading Doc Savage novels and playing make believe. He wasn’t hiding from his parents or his older brothers, but he was hidden from the neighborhood. This part of the porch wrapped around the side of the house and Edward could not be seen for the overgrown bushes and hedges. He sat on the double car seat that substituted for deck chairs and imagined he was leading a group of five companions on adventures. He didn’t imagine he was Doc Savage, but rather his own creation of a hero that wore a permanent mask that never showed his face and kept himself mysterious to all.

    Inside he could hear his brothers bragging about drinking, fighting, and dirty pictures of girls. All the things that made the neighbors tell their kids not to play with Edward because his brothers were too rough.

   At school Edward made no friends, either. Except, almost, for the one time another kid had stepped on his clothes when he was changing in gym class. Edward was so mad he shoved the kid. The other boys actually supported Edward, circling and calling for Edward to make the kid bleed, but Edward didn’t know how. Neither his dad, nor his brothers taught him anything about anything. He didn’t know how to throw a punch. He ran out of steam and only half heartedly pushed the kid some more until the gym teacher came in.

   “Everyone, twenty laps, get out there! Baumgartner, my office!” The gym teacher, Mr. Kruk, said. He favoured using last names as if he had actually done military service. Edward sat in front of Mr. Kruk’s desk while the grown up paced back and forth and huffed and puffed. “Your oldest brothers were linebackers. Harry was a receiver. I come in here today and I find you fighting with one of the other students and you won’t even join the football team!”

   Gym was the only class Edward kept failing, and for his good marks in his other classes he was called a brownnoser.

   As the summer came Edward’s mom and dad sat him down to announce, “You’re going to summer camp. Somebody’s son can’t make it so these people wanted to give it to some family that’s not as well off. We don’t even know who they are. Anyway, it’s free, and it’s for two weeks. Isn’t that great.”

   Edward’s mom packed an insane amount of clothes for him, and some cheap bought outdoor gear, in a duffle bag. He was put on a bus going up north to the camp. He left his Doc Savage paperbacks behind lest they be lost or stolen in the wilderness.

   Several buses unloaded at Camp Walkabout at the same time. Edward’s head spun from the number of all the different kids from all over who lined up to be assigned to different counsellors and cabins. The kids from the previous two weeks piled onto the buses and departed. A few of the newly arrived kids cried from homesickness the moment the buses left.

   Randy was a stocky counsellor in his twenties who welcomed Edward with everyone one else in his group. The others in Edwards group didn’t stand out yet, except for Bailey who seemed way younger and smaller than the rest. They unpacked at their cabin. Eight of them in the cabin, four bunk beds divided by two half sized dressers they would all shared. Randy had his own separate bedroom at the front of the cabin by the door.

   That night the counsellor led them in introducing each other and telling stories about where they were from. Edward began to realize none of the others knew Edwards family. None of them knew what his brothers were like. None of them had been told not to hang out with Edward.

   The next morning all the groups went swimming. Edward could not swim. Same with a few of the others. They were shown two dock platforms at one part of the lake. A deep-water area swimming circle was marked with ropes and red buoys at the docks. They went further down to a sandy beach area, the shallow circle, also marked with ropes and buoys.

   “Everyone has to swim two lengths between the docks before we can hang around the deep end. We got to stay here in the shallows until we can all do that.” Randy said.

   The next day they gave the dock swim a try. Edward couldn’t make the two lengths, as half the boys couldn’t. When he tried to get out of the water back onto the docks, he couldn’t quite lift his pudgy belly up. He finally had to pull and roll himself onto the dock in an embarrassing fashion. He was too self conscious to notice a few others had to do the same.  

    The first week went by with field trips, camping out some nights, and capture the flags games. The group found themselves one night pulling all the mattresses off the bunk beds onto the floor for group wrestling. There was no roughness to it as Edward had known growing up. No one was kicking or punching, or getting angry. No one feelings seemed to be hurt. Everyone just wanted to join. Even Bailey pushed his way in with everyone looking out not to push him back too hard. Randy broke it up after a while, but it was the best fun Edward ever had.

   Into the second week they were still stuck in the shallow end of the water, with Edward and little Bailey holding them back. One afternoon they were playing make believe war in the cabin and Bailey was strutting on one of the dressers giving orders. One of the group pointed a broomstick at him, meant to be a gun, and said, ‘Bang!’ Bailey did a dramatic clutching of the chest and fell backwards. He hit the screen window behind him and went with it out of the cabin. A scream and a thud were heard. Everyone ran out to get him. Bailey had hit the screen, which, fortunately had hit a tree only a foot away from the cabin. It must have been the only window among all the cabins that had a tree so close to it. The tree had helped slow Bailey’s collapse and fall, more or less, into one piece onto the ground below.

   Everyone had been scared, and the guy who fired the broomstick apologized, but Bailey thought it was the greatest thing that ever happened to him. Bailey was brushed off, and he carried his pains from the fall rather well. He liked the attention.

   Two days before the end of the two weeks, Edward and Bailey swam their two lengths. Edward even discovered a wooden ladder attached to one of the docks so he could now climb out of the water with some dignity. The whole group enjoyed one day in the deep end and the next day they packed up, shook hands, and were back on the buses.

   When Edward got home his oldest brother was moving out. His other brothers were fighting. His dad was off working. His mother was reading a romance novel while her soaps played on television. The front porch was waiting for him. He put away his Doc Savage novels and started reading Edgar Rice Burroughs and Stephen King that summer. He still played make believe, but his own imaginary hero didn’t have a mask anymore.