Camp Shady Crook

  Praise for

  The Last Boy at St. Edith’s

  “Sweet, funny, exciting—a spectacular debut.”

  —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

  “Humor mixes with more serious issues in this clever debut.”

  —Booklist

  “Malone’s debut is a sweet, candid novel about fitting in, messing up, and making amends.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  For Judy, who taught me to love books

  1943–2017

  ARCHIE DRAKE

  Twelve-year-old Archie Drake stepped off the bus and took a long, deep breath. He smelled fresh-cut grass; cedar shingles; that dank, dark odor of the lake; and at the very edges of it all, a little bit of campfire.

  It was good to be back.

  He stepped away from the doorway of the bus to let the other kids pass and gave them his most casual smile.

  Already he’d sown the seeds for the first week of camp’s Big Game.

  It started when his father dropped him off at the strip-mall parking lot, one of the pickup locations for the Camp Shady Brook bus. Camp Shady Brook collected kids every summer from New York City, New Jersey, and Connecticut and drove them deep into New England, where they could spend a week learning archery, water safety, and antiquated campfire songs at a camp nestled into a patch of especially unattractive and straggly woods just outside a completely unremarkable town in Vermont.

  A week from now more than half of them would head back on the same bus, with new friends, lifelong memories, and more than a few bug bites (the mosquitoes at Shady Brook were notoriously vicious), but without—if Archie’s cons worked out, and they usually did—most of their pocket money and small valuables.

  Not that it would really matter to them, the way Archie figured it. Most of them had no idea how lucky they were.

  Archie had arrived at the mall parking lot in his dad’s limo. Well, not actually his dad’s, the limo really belonged to Mr. Carvallo, Dad’s boss at the car service. Dad just drove it around New Jersey, bringing executives to the airport, teenagers to proms, and brides and grooms to weddings.

  As he said good-bye, Archie played it cool, like he didn’t want a hug, but that wasn’t a problem for his father. Mr. Drake was not a demonstrative man, and he was already late for work. Archie knew how much his dad hated being late.

  Once Archie got on the bus, he waved stiffly out the window at his father, who stood next to the door of the limousine in his dark suit and white shirt, his hair slicked back with gel, dark sunglasses shielding his eyes. “Good-bye, Jameson!” Archie shouted at the closed window, deliberately loud enough so the kids nearby would turn their heads. “Give Mother and Father my love!”

  He knew his dad couldn’t hear what he was saying, which was good, since it was complete fiction.

  It was also the first step in convincing the kids on the bus he was someone other than he actually was. Because if he was honest with himself—and Archie was as honest with himself as he was with other people, which meant only rarely, and only when there was something in it for him—that was the main draw of camp. The chance to be someone else. Somebody richer. Better. More important. The kind of person who got a ride in a limo because his family could afford it, not because his father drove one as his job.

  As different from the kid he was at home as he could possibly be.

  Already his dad’s attention was glued to the Bluetooth headset in his ear, telling him he needed to get moving and pick up his next client. Probably some rich guy headed to the airport, at this time of day. With barely a nod, Archie’s dad got back into the limo and drove away.

  The boy sitting behind Archie poked his head over the seat and looked out the window to see what Archie was shouting at. “Who was that?” he asked.

  “Nobody,” Archie said with a downward glance, like he was embarrassed to be caught waving. “Just my . . . ride.”

  A girl across the aisle leaned over and said in a loud and obvious whisper, “Was that guy, like, your chauffeur?”

  “What’s a chauffeur?” somebody behind her asked. It sounded like one of the little kids. Camp Shady Brook took in campers from ages eight through thirteen.

  “It’s a driver, somebody who drives people around as a job, dummy,” another voice said. “Lots of people have them.”

  “Super-rich people,” still another voice chimed in. “Like celebrities and billionaires.”

  Archie averted his eyes from the kids who were now staring at him from all the nearby seats. “It’s not important,” he said, adding, with a touch of false humility he’d practiced over and over in the mirror all through the school year, “Really. I’m just another camper, like all of you. My name’s Archibald Drake the Third, but most people just call me Archie.”

  A murmur traveled through the crowd.

  This wasn’t a surprise to Archie. He knew the effect his name had on people. Most of them would immediately think of the other Archie Drake, the flamboyant chairman of Drake Industries, a regular fixture on TV shows and in newspapers, and one of the richest men in the world. Archie never actually told anyone at camp he was related to that Mr. Drake, and would avoid the question when he was asked directly.

  But he also never told people he wasn’t.

  Six glorious weeks spread out ahead of him. More than a whole month of sunshine and canoeing, but also, if his plans worked out, six weeks of cons and cold, hard cash. Camp Shady Brook required every camper to bring at least fifty dollars of pocket money to spend at the camp store, a fact Archie had learned to exploit his very first summer there, two years ago.

  He’d never understood why cartoons showed characters with a light bulb hanging in space over their head when they got a big idea, but that day, two years ago, he finally got the metaphor. It had been such a simple con, in retrospect. One of those snobby rich kids he’d been afraid to talk to that summer had offered him money in the camp store, because they thought he was related to the other, more important Archie Drake. He’d been stunned, but the kids had taken his shocked response as false modesty and bought him all the candy bars he’d been drooling over with no cash of his own to spend. Instant respect, and instant benefit, all from an easy-to-understand (and explained away, if that came to it) misunderstanding. The perfect con. And it had fallen into his lap.

  That moment had changed his summer—changed his life, even, since from then on he knew he was no longer boring/short/bad-at-sports Archie Drake, whatever the kids at home thought. He was someone else. A master of deception.

  And now he was back for more. It was almost like coming home—well, if your version of “home” was the worst summer camp in the entire state of Vermont, perhaps New England.

  He glanced around the bus. Each week it would take away a load of campers, sunburned, tired, and poorer. Then it would return with a whole new crop of kids, ready to meet Archie. Or Archibald. Or “A-Man” or “Drake” or whatever other nickname he decided to crown himself with, depending on his mood and scheme. All of those new campers, wandering off the bus each week with their duffel bags and eager smiles. Meek sheep, totally unaware of what was in store. At least until the end of the week, when they’d go home and beg their parents not to send them back to boring and beat-up Camp Shady Brook—or as he liked to think of it, Camp Shady Crook—ever again.

  VIVIAN CHENG

  Camp. Stupid, dumb, boring camp. Bugs all over the place and wearing sunscreen every day even when it wasn’t sunny and sleeping in a cabin with a ton of random girls who would probably end up hating her instead of staying at home in her room or traveling to some awesome hotel on one of her parents’ swanky summer trips.

  Vivian was not happy. She loved summer in the city, even though the streets smelled like three-day-old garbage and the glare off the pavement made it impossible to see anything even through her nicest pair of sunglasses. She loved hanging out in her apartment building’s lobby with Margot, who lived upstairs, going to Central Park to people-watch, and poking through Duane Reade to get some air-conditioning and maybe some new glitter nail polish. Convincing tourists in Penn Station they were stuck without train fare and just needed fifteen dollars to get home to New Jersey—even though the only times she’d been to New Jersey were when she and her parents flew out of Newark airport.

  The airport. Vivian didn’t even want to think about it. Airports meant flying and travel and all sorts of fun, exciting adventures. Adventures that involved elegant hotels and five-star restaurants in places like Hong Kong, not whatever was going to pass for meals and sleeping accommodations in Middle of Nowheresville, Vermont.

  Vivian’s parents owned a specialty travel agency that catered to the wealthiest world travelers. In the summer they took their richest clients on fancy trips to the most exciting destinations in Asia—and in past years Vivian always got to come along. But thanks to some . . . issues that had developed this year at school, that wasn’t in the cards. Not this summer.

  “We think you need more supervision,” her mother had said, standing in her favorite crisp plum-colored suit in the kitchen of their Manhattan apartment earlier that year. “Your father and I can’t watch you every second. Camp would be a . . . better experience for you.”

  Better how? Vivian thought. Instead of exploring the Yangtze River on a luxury riverboat—this summer’s first planned excursion—she’d be eating twigs and berries and singing ridiculous songs around a campfire, batting away mosquitoes with a bunch of mouth-breathers from the suburbs. For six whole weeks.

  She’d r
ather go to prison. At least in prison they had TV.

  “I can’t believe you’re doing this to me! It’s like I’m being punished for something that wasn’t even really my fault,” she said, appealing to her father, who sat at the little kitchen table in the corner looking at his laptop. “Won’t you miss me?” She gave him the Look, which usually worked. Dad was a soft touch.

  “Of course we’ll miss you, sweetheart,” he said with a sad smile. “But it’s not fair to our clients if we have to watch you all the time. And we don’t want you to get in any more trouble.”

  “But none of it was my fault,” Vivian grumbled.

  “What was that?” her mother asked.

  “Nothing,” Vivian replied, and heaved a huge sigh. She didn’t know how to explain what had really happened at school that year, especially since she was sure they would never understand. How do you explain to your parents that you’ve failed utterly and miserably at being a normal kid? How do you explain to your parents that you can’t even make friends? Not real friends, anyway. It was better to just act like she didn’t care.

  But things began to look up on the bus when she met some of the other kids headed to Camp Shady Brook.

  Well, not at first. Her seatmate had irritated her right from the minute she opened her mouth. “I’m Sasha Howard! I’m from White Plains! This is my first time at Camp Shady Brook, but I’m so excited! I’ve never been to camp before!”

  Every sentence sounded like it ended in an exclamation point. Or, as Vivian soon learned, a question mark. And obviously this girl wanted to be friends. But she didn’t know Vivian. She didn’t know that Vivian didn’t do “friends” anymore. Not after last year.

  “Do you think it’s going to be fun there? I don’t know if I’ll like the food? Or if they have private showers?” The girl let out a high-pitched self-conscious giggle.

  Vivian didn’t even want to contemplate the idea of nonprivate showers. What was this place, stuck in the Dark Ages?

  Finally the girl took a breath. “Oh my God, I’m talking so much! I’m so sorry! I’m just soooooo excited! What’s your name and where are you from?”

  “Vivian Cheng,” Vivian said, blowing her shaggy bangs off her forehead in irritation. The bus was air-conditioned, but barely, and unlike the rest of the kids in their shorts and tank tops, she was wearing skinny jeans and her favorite tall black leather boots. “And I live in Lenox Hill.”

  “Where’s that?” Sasha asked. “Long Island?”

  Vivian frowned, and her tone became even icier. “The Upper. East. Side. Of MANHATTAN.”

  “Oooooh!” Sasha said. “I love the city! My dad works there! We go there all the time! For our class trip we went to the Museum of Natural History!”

  Vivian rolled her eyes and tried to look out the window to get away from the girl’s beaming face. She always felt awkward around aggressively friendly people. People who acted like they were from another planet where everybody was nice and happy. She just knew she was destined to be the first person to disappoint them.

  Finally Sasha seemed to notice her reluctance to talk.

  “I’m sorry, are you shy? That’s okay, I’m shy too? Sometimes?” she said, and then paused. “You know what, there are some kids from my school on this bus! I can introduce you! Then you’ll know lots of people at camp! It’ll be great!”

  To Vivian’s horror, Sasha stood up and started calling out names like an extremely happy drill sergeant calling role. “Aidan! Phoebe! Lily!” she sung out. “This is Vivian! She’s from New York City!”

  Vivian slid down lower in her seat.

  One of the girls Sasha had called over—Vivian hadn’t caught her name—gave a sour look. “What’s so special about New York City? My dad works for a company that’s based in France and we go to Paris all the time.”

  “I’ve been to Paris,” Vivian said suddenly. And she had—it was the jumping-off point of a tour for European clients her parents had organized two summers ago. The group had met in Paris and then flown to Vietnam.

  The sour-faced girl looked skeptical, but the other kids were rapt, so Vivian kept going, even though she normally wouldn’t be talking this much. It was so rare to feel like people were actually interested in what she had to say. Even before everything had gone upside down, her former best friend, Margot, usually acted like she was just waiting for Vivian to finish so she could start talking. “I’ve been a lot of places, actually. My parents own a travel agency. We go to China, Korea, Thailand, Vietnam . . . all over Asia. And other places, too.”

  “Wow,” one of the kids breathed. “My dad’s parents are from Korea but I’ve never been there. He says it’s too expensive.”

  “Korea’s amazing,” Vivian said, turning toward the boy. “If you go, you have to go to Jeju Island. It’s gorgeous there.”

  And that’s how it all started. At first, she’d only begun talking because she wanted to wipe that smirk off the face of Little Miss I Went to Paris. But pretty quickly she found herself enjoying all the attention of the rest of the campers on the bus, and began to tell them some of the best stories of her world travels. Most of the stories she told were true, but as she continued, she realized she could literally tell them anything and they would believe her. Why wouldn’t they? She sounded like she knew what she was talking about. And they had no clue who she really was.

  For a tiny instant, she wondered if it might be nice to make friends with some of these kids, at least for the summer. A chance to start over. But she pushed that thought deep down. She sucked at making friends, so there was no point in even trying. If she’d learned anything at all in the past year, she’d learned that.

  Instead a brand-new idea began to form. A plan to have a little fun—with kids who probably weren’t going to like her anyway once they got to camp. If she could convince them she was a world traveler, maybe she could convince them to do stuff for her, just like those tourists in Penn Station. And just like Margot had done to her, last year, when she pretended to be her friend.

  Which might mean Camp Shady Brook wasn’t going to be that bad after all.

  ARCHIE

  Archie first started going to Camp Shady Brook three years before, when his stepmom, Alicia, had the twins. The twins were “a handful,” as Archie’s dad put it, so it “made more sense” for him not to be “stuck at home” for the whole summer. Almost the minute Archie’s dad said those words Alicia produced a glossy brochure with a picture of a cabin nestled in a beautiful forest on the front and an application for financial aid for needy campers.

  “This place looks great,” she gushed. “And they want some kids there on scholarship or something, so we wouldn’t even have to pay for him to go. For six weeks!” She seemed annoyingly overjoyed at the prospect of shipping him off to another state. Alicia was okay, most of the time, but she had trouble pretending that she considered Archie anything more than a burden, especially after the twins were born. It was hard not to feel displaced, whatever people said.

  Archie’s dad had nodded too fast and too enthusiastically for Archie to have any hope of changing his mind. It was obvious Dad and Alicia had hatched this plan together as a way to get him out of their hair for most of the summer.

  At first Archie was incensed they were sending him away to summer camp. And for six whole weeks—most of the kids in his neighborhood either went to day camp at the YMCA or, if they were really lucky, away for a week or two to learn soccer or karate. Not off to Vermont for most of summer vacation. “Why don’t you guys ship me off to military school?” he protested. “Then you could get rid of me for the whole year, not just the summer.”

  “We’re not trying to get rid of you, Archie,” his dad had said. But his tone, to Archie, was unconvincing. It was just difficult to picture Dad being all that interested in another summer with a kid who hated barbeque and ball sports (both on TV and in real life)—his dad’s two summer passions—when he had a new wife, and two new kids, to be excited about. But that was a thought that Archie would have keeled over and died before expressing to anyone, especially his father. “We just want you to try something new. And maybe even have some fun.”

  Archie arrived at camp that first summer extremely skeptical he would have any fun at all. He was on edge from the very first minute, convinced that everything from his cheap backpack to his hand-me-down clothes were practically a billboard screaming Charity Case! But it only took a day or two into the first week of his very first year at Shady Brook to realize the multitude of opportunities that lay in front of him.