A Parthan Summer - Julie Steimle (large ebook reader TXT) 📗

had was in his face. His entire left eye was ugly purple and swelled shut. He had ice packs for that. The swelling on his lip had died down and the cut had crusted over. And though it wasn’t the worst damage he had ever undergone—not by a longshot—it still felt pretty bad.

Yet lying there on the cot after a couple hours, cabin fever seized him and he had to get up.

Looking around his cot, he realized that he had nothing to read, nothing to play (except his ukulele—and there was only so much a guy could play on a ukulele), and nothing to do—and that did not suit him at all. It was weird, unexpectedly feeling bored. He didn’t usually get bored. Besides, normally he had tasks within the rebellion that occupied his time once he was done with homework after school. Of course, back in Pennington, when he did get bored and there was truly nothing else left to do (as he had a number of musical instruments he could practice on), he’d walk to the Hendersons’ and hang out with Brian and his family. Here, he hadn’t even brought a distraction for free time (excluding that ukulele), expecting to be kept plenty busy at camp with his pals. So, Jeff sat up, thought for a moment then decided to do a little people watching.

Grabbing his ukulele and stepping out the door past the Klingon and the movie star, Jeff walked down the gritty slope toward the gravel parking lot, placing his feet carefully since the rocky ground was not that stable. Whoever designed the campground failed to make decent, sturdy steps in some areas. In one section, Jeff nearly always slipped on the rocks.

As he walked down the hill, he glanced across the lower campground. His view overlooked the grassy knoll, part of the lake, and most of the gravel lot with its craft cabins and counselor cabins. Those within his range of sight were busy in their activities. He figured if he steered clear of Monroe kids, he’d be able to slip off to the craft cabin to get stuff to scrape the rest of the stickers off the ukulele and possibly sand it down. But as he looked that way he noticed two cars drive into the gravel parking lot. Curious, and innately cautious, he halted where he was and followed them with his eye. After all, who would come this late to camp?

 Jeff stepped discreetly behind a tree then leaned casually around it to peek at who had come. The cars were as unalike as onions and pears. One was a squat, junky vehicle, the kind people bought for cheap and fixed up in auto shop class at school. The other car was a newish Cadillac. Obviously well taken care of, it was washed and shiny. The people coming out of the cars were like the cars themselves—onions and pears in many respects.

From the Caddie emerged a man and a woman. A black couple. Though it wasn’t the first couple of African-Americans Jeff had ever seen in real life, it would be the first he would get to really interact with. After all, he had only been in Chicago for a few days and still transitioning to U.S. culture at the time. And the neighborhood of Pennington Heights was predominantly white with the minorities being mostly Asian or Hispanic. This couple was nicely dressed, like the clean-cut business folk paraded on TV to show that everything in US racial relations was A-OK. The ‘token black friend’, Todd would have called them. But Jeff had watched too many music videos with gangster rap and those punk kind of kids with their hats backwards and their pants hanging down to show their underwear, with flashy jewelry, dreadlocks or shaved heads, to entirely believe was he was seeing. He often wondered which portrayal by the media was real. Perhaps this was his chance to find out.

But the guy who came from the clunker looked as dilapidated and the car. A white guy—Anglo-American if he wanted to be politically correct. ‘White trash’ if he didn’t. Jeff chuckled to himself, realizing that was probably how people saw him. This man wore a stained tee-shirt and jeans with holes and worn fringe at the bottom cuffs. The man appeared to be about thirty. His hair was unkempt, dishwater blonde, and he had a bristly chin. Had they not come together, perhaps Jeff would have been less suspicious. But there was something in the way they parked, and something more in the way they got out of their vehicles and greeted each other that made him pause.

All three crossed the gravel lot to the lodge. One of them knocked on the camp director’s door.

Mr. Hardt opened it. Jeff could hear the director’s pleased greeting as he welcomed them all in and closed the door.

Thinking over what he had just seen, Jeff peered down at the lodge a second. He needed to make sure his suspicions were correct or if he was just being paranoid. He walked westward along the hill instead of downhill, so he could get behind the lodge without being seen. From there, he quietly crept down the slope, hoping with all his might he would not bring down a landslide. He also made sure he could not be seen through the director’s office window.

Sneaking around, Zormna had once remarked (snidely, he thought), was a gift of his. But now he wondered if she had not been merely pointing out the truth. She was such a blunt speaker, after all, who did not tend toward metaphor. But sneaking in such an unfamiliar environment full of moving flora and fauna, gravel and dirt, was not easy. He had to crouch low behind the bushes. His bruises twinged and ached immediately. Carefully, he slid on the dead pine needles to the bottom of the hill, reaching the end of the lodge and wall next to the office. With what stealth he could muster under the circumstances, Jeff slipped next to the window. There, he strained to hear the conversation inside. Only a part of what was said resonated through the window.

“…will be replacing Miss Kentzer. Mrs. Dayes knows me through…” came out like a whisper, but he could still tell it was a woman’s voice. She had no strong accent that he could identify.

A bird fluttered loudly past Jeff, startled by falling rocks. Jeff leaned more closely to the wall to hear better.

“…hardly ever. Can I start today? All I need is to talk to…” The woman continued. But some more stones rolled down hill, obscuring what she was saying. The possibility that someone had followed him, sent a tremor of panic through his chest. Jeff knew it was dangerous for him to be alone in his condition, so he quickly ducked below Mr. Hardt’s window, crawling hastily to the gravel lot with ukulele in hand. Only when he reached the corner of the building did he see the raccoon running down the slope to the trashcans at the back kitchen door.

Jeff grabbed his chest in relief, catching his breath. He was almost sure it was Damon ready to finish the job.

“Thank you for coming on such short notice,” the voice of Mr. Hardt abruptly broke the silence over his head. His door had open. “I hope you like working here at Camp Lake Dale.”

Jeff jumped up at once.

The three new counselors with Mr. Hardt stared down at him. Ukulele in one hand while the other clenched his side in pain, Jeff cringed at being caught.

“What are you doing?” Mr. Hardt stared the most, especially at the ukulele.

Jeff blinked at it also, then plucked a quick tune. “Sorry. I got bored in my cabin.”

The camp director stared dryly at him.

“What happened to your face?” the woman asked him in clear metropolitan English. Her skin was as rich brown as cup of dark cocoa. The man next to her was darker, like coffee. And taller, with hair trimmed close to this scalp. She had a more ethnic hairstyle, with long cornrows, hanging down into neat, thin braids—no beads. She had a scarf over the top half of it. Both appeared to be in their late thirties, possibly early forties. And they radiated health. “Did you fall?”

Jeff chuckled and shook his head lightly, glancing once at the camp director with a faint smirk. “Nope. I got the crud beaten out of me.”

Mr. Hardt’s face went pale. He peeked at the three newcomers, opening his mouth to smooth things over at once.

But Jeff never gave him the chance. “I mean…what kind of world is it where young men can’t be safe? Even at camp?” Jeff said it with a mischievous twinkle in his eyes and a dramatic gesture with his arms. He then strummed out a tune from The Smiths, pulling a ‘Brian Henderson’ by breaking into song: “You see the life I’ve had…can make a good man…bad. So for once in my life…let me get what I want… Lord knows it would be the first time…” He casually walked backwards towards the grassy hill where the cheerleaders were practicing. He had to in some way let Zormna know their FBI spies had probably arrived.

“Where are you going, Mr. Streigle?” Mr. Hardt called out, his gaze dry, with warning in his voice.

Jeff veered immediately to the right and called back in excuse, letting the hand holding the ukulele drop. “Uh, to the infirmary. Yeah. I think I need…uh, aspirin! Yeah, that’s where I’m going.” 

He continued toward the nurse’s cabin, winding through the other cabins along the way. Jeff stopped when he was sure he was out of the director’s sight. He could still hear them, though, mostly murmuring about what a strange boy he was.

“He’s a clown,” the white trash man said.

“What he is, is a handful.” The director shook his head and continued on, guiding them onward. “And he is one of the reasons I need you here. The rivalry between Monroe and Pennington has gotten pretty bad. And he’s one of the casualties. Coach Brown, you will be dealing with him with the aid of Coach Murphy.”

“What is he here for?” the dark man asked. His voice was deep and resonant.

“Jeff Streigle? Oh, wrestling. Apparently he is the state champ. I just found this out yesterday. If you haven’t heard about him in the papers last winter, it seems he broke a Monroe kid’s leg after a match. The papers say they jumped him, and he did it in self-defense. Problem is, every time I see him he’s got a bloody nose or something.” Mr. Hardt shook his head, walking north, leading them along the lodge. “Here, I’ll show you to your cabins.”

The three new adults followed. Undoubtedly they would be going back for their luggage shortly. But when they were out of earshot, Jeff snuck again toward to the grass knoll next to the lake.

The cheerleading workshop was drawing to a close when he crested the hill. While he was coming up, he had heard Michelle’s shrill voice shriek over the tune to the pirate dance tune as they drilled, and drilled, and drilled. Leaning against the grass just below the crest of the hill, he watched Zormna keeping with the beat that had been added to the song, following the calls of their captain—but she looked exhausted. Everyone did.

“Look!” Michelle shrieked. “We are going to do this until we have this perfect! The state cheer representatives are going to come and assess our performance. And we have to be ready for the competition at the end of the month! So I am going to make sure you are prepared, whether you like it or not!”

Jeff peered up at where Zormna was standing on top of Stacey’s shoulders. High in the air, she looked bored and tired. He smothered a laugh. The team had failed once again to make a ‘smooth as silk flag raising’ up their human-made pirate mast. Mostly,