Mine by Brett Battles Page A

laugh.
    “What if I don’t like Snickers?” a boy asked. His name started with a D, didn’t it? Not a normal name. Something strange. Du…Du…Dooley! Yes, Dooley.
    “It won’t matter because you’re not going to beat me,” Brian told him. “But all right. Winner gets whatever candy bar they want. How’s that?”
    Another counselor, Jennifer, was enlisted to act as judge, and the kids lined up to take their turn, Brian going last.
    One by one, campers jumped off the end of the dock into the lake, trying to make as big a splash as they could. Leah even made an attempt, but immediately knew her effort, like those of the kids before her, had been far from sufficient to outdo whatever Brian would accomplish.
    And then Dooley went. In the words of several of the other boys, his splash was epic. Even Brian seemed impressed.
    As more of the kids went, Dooley remained the one to beat. Until the second to last camper.
    Not John, but, but, but…God, what was his name?
    Before he leapt from the dock, no one would have given him a chance. Most of the kids had put some of their energy into landing a good several feet from the end of the pier, but Not-John put his effort into gaining height before coming down, legs tucked, less than an arm’s length from the dock.
    If Dooley’s splash had been epic, Not-John’s had been monumental. It rose at least two feet higher, and the outward splash went far enough to soak the boy who had been waiting to go after him. The other kids erupted into a roar that Leah was sure could be heard all the way back at the cabins.
    The final kid’s try was less than spectacular, meaning Not-John’s splash was the one Brian had to outdo. The counselor made a big show of stretching and preparing, but when all was said and done, Not-John was awarded his choice of candy bars from the camp store.
    Had that been when she’d first noticed him?
    “Hey, this is cool!”
    Terry came down the path toward the fire pit, followed by Juko and Todd. They stopped at the bottom and looked up at the seats.
    “Wish we had an amphitheater like this back at Cedar Woods,” Juko said.
    Terry shrugged. “Wouldn’t be too hard. Get a tractor and push some dirt around.”
    “Maybe you should suggest it.”
    “Screw that. They can figure it out on their own if they want.” Terry looked at Leah. “What kind of camp was it? Theater camp or something?”
    “Just regular camp,” she said. “Like Cedar Woods.”
    “Huh.”
    “So where did everyone stay?” Juko asked.
    Leah pointed left into the woods. “That way.”
    Juko looked at where she indicated. “How do you get there?”
    “There’s a path.” New growth had made it not as obvious as it had once been. She searched for a moment and then pointed. “Right there. By that tree with the broken limb.”
    “How about you show us?” Terry asked.
    Feeling less dread than she had when they first arrived, she said, “I can do that.”
    She led them to the path and into the forest.
    “The stables are out this way, too,” she said.
    “Stables?” Terry said. “Really? Damn, we don’t have any stables.”
    “It would be so cool to have horses,” Juko said.
    “There weren’t any horses when I was here,” she told them. “I think they just used the buildings for storage.”
    “That must have been disappointing.”
    When she reached the fork, she automatically took the path to the right. Soon the trees parted and revealed twelve cabins. Like it did elsewhere, nature had started reclaiming the area around the buildings.
    “These are the girls’ cabins,” she said.
    Juko moved up to the door of the nearest one and looked inside. “Kinda small. Only two bunk beds?”
    “That’s it.”
    “How did this work?” Terry asked. “Couldn’t have been a counselor in every cabin.”
    “Counselors had their own cabins on the other side, by the dining hall. These were just for campers.”
    Terry and Juko looked at her as if she were trying to pull their