The Worst Kid

The Worst Kid

It was the middle of the summer when our worst camper arrived. We had survived the deaf and blind Friendship camp with all of its challenges and had yet to face the inner city group. This was a hectic week for us, with all our base camp cabins full and all our outposts—Cowboy, Wilderness, Water Skiing, and Indian camps—running. Every counselor had a full cabin, wagon, tent, or tepee.

I shall call the worst kid John, because I have forgotten his real name. Plus, if he has survived this long, he has a right to some anonymity.

John was built like a bulldog, short, broad, loud, and not particularly evil-looking. I have looked into the eyes of the inner city kids. Some of them know already, as children, that they are in training to become gang members. And like their dads, uncles, and older brothers, they face short and painful lives. This knowledge shows as anger in their eyes and in the way they carry themselves.

John’s face didn’t show that kind of hostility, but he liked to clobber people. He would hit to say “Hello,” or “Get out of my face,” or “I want your dessert.” He liked to aim his fists at the abdomen, but would attack any body part that didn’t get out of his way. He often did it with a grin.

By the first evening, the camp secretary started calling his grandmother to pick him up and take him home. She refused, and by mid-week, John’s grandmother had stopped answering the phone, even for the camp director.

This kid went through our boys' cabins like a Piranha fish, leaving damaged kids and counselors in his wake. I was the camp nurse that summer and passed out ice packs to all who needed them. By the second day, I was also treating John. After dodging fists, I noticed John had the worst feet I have ever seen. It looked like someone had dumped boiling water on them. They were mottled red and angry-looking. The kid must have been in considerable pain. But he didn’t complain, he said his counselor made him come to my nursing office, not the pain. How long had his feet been this way?

Because of the desperate look in the camp counselors’ eyes, I knew to give this boy the full and lengthy foot treatment. This boy’s counselor had survived a group of blind campers with ADHD just the week before, but judging from the look on his face, John was much worse.

Before Nursing School, I had been a camp counselor for two years and knew that some kids need a team approach if the counselor is to survive, so I soaked John’s feet in a Betadine solution. Betadine is a brownish-orange disinfecting medicine that looks like it means business. I mixed it with warm water in a shallow basin, sat the kid down, and had him soak for as close to half an hour as he could manage. Then I rinsed his feet with more warm, soothing water. He had trouble sitting still, fidgeting, and splashing, so I had to yell for him to keep his feet in the medicine. After a few days of these treatments, he got used to holding still and began watching with interest as the other kids came to me for care. He was delighted with the bloody ones and the ones who barfed.

He also had trouble lying. He said that his foot problems came from stepping on a jellyfish. But from his pasty complexion, I thought it was unlikely that he had ever visited the beach. The camp doctor said it was a massive fungal infection and provided an antifungal ointment that I would apply each day after the soak treatments were completed. The doctor wanted to give John an antifungal shot, but we didn’t have that in stock. The doctor argued with me about the foot soaks. He said they didn’t do any good with this kind of fungal infection. I countered with, “The soaks are for the camp counselor and his cabin of boys. It gives them a break from getting hit.”

By Friday, John had abused and alienated every boy's cabin group we had in Base Camp. As a last resort, the director put him in with the Aquatics group that had just returned from their week of water skiing at Sly Park Reservoir. The aquatic campers were a good-looking group of teen boys with big muscles and golden tans earned during their week on the water. The counselor was the adult version of them, taller, with thicker muscles, respected, and exceptional at showing God to teen boys.

When John returned to my nursing office on Saturday afternoon, I noted that his feet were bleeding badly after the afternoon hike. As we went through the usual soaks, three of the Aquatic boys pulled up chairs and sat right next to John. They asked him about his pain, patted his shoulder, and chatted casually about various things. It was apparent that John didn’t know how to chit-chat, but I noticed he was paying close attention. He didn’t even fidget.

After I applied the soothing antifungal ointment and wrapped his feet in sterile gauze, I shrieked when he bent to put on his dirty socks.

“You can’t put those socks on those feet!” I yelped.

“These are the only pair I have,” he said bluntly, holding up the bloody things.

“How many did you bring to camp?” I asked.

“I only have one pair. That’s all I own.”

There was a stunned moment of silence.

“I have an extra pair of clean socks you can have,” offered one teen. “I never wore them.”

“To keep?”

“Of course!”

“I can give you a piggyback ride to the cabin. Here, climb on,” another said, turning his back and squatting down.

I was rinsing out the basin when John was carried out of the Nursing office door, smiling shyly back at me with a wide-eyed look of shock.