Sheep and Wolves by Jeremy C. Shipp

don’t hit my head this time.
    A boy rushes into the cabin and I kick at him, even though he’s quite a distance away from me.
    “Wake up. You have to see this,” the boy says, not a ghost, but England. He tugs at the stupid fake necklace of teeth he wears all the time. He always plays with that thing when he’s excited.
    “What’s going on?” Nigel says.
    “Come on,” England says. “Before they take it away.”
    So we follow him outside, past the other cabins, toward the Barn. Already, there’s a small group of kids standing around the outside of the Barn.
    We enter the circle and see the body.
    “Shit,” Nigel says. “Is it anyone we know?”
    “No, it’s just some guy,” a younger kid says. I don’t know his name. He’s new.
    Tiny spotlights stroke the man’s carcass up and down. A flashlight rests for a while pointed at the man’s face, and I notice that someone’s crapped in his gaping mouth.
    “Maybe the ghost did it,” England says. “What’s his name, Nigel?”
    “He forgot his name,” Nigel says. “He’s too consumed with rage to remember.”
    Hamilton squeezes through the child barrier, wearing urine-colored pajamas covered with smirking bees. Kent, in his nightgown, is close behind.
    “Go back to bed, children,” Hamilton says.
    No one moves.
    “Does anyone know this man?” Kent says, kneeling, searching through pockets.
    “He thinks I’m a slut,” Mike says.
    “No I don’t,” Kent says.
    “Not you, Kent. The dead man.”
    “Oh.”
    “Go back to bed, children,” Hamilton says. “Or none of us will be allowed in the Barn tomorrow.”
    Most everyone groans.
    “Now,” Hamilton says.
    We go back to bed.
    I’m usually no good at falling asleep, but the instant I hit the mattress, I sleep like a rotting baby.
    *
    One swipe of Hamilton’s keycard and the Barn door will open, and we can all do what we’re here for.
    But Hamilton doesn’t swipe the keycard. He stands there, staring at us, smiling.
    “As I’m sure you all already know, a certain troubling incident took place last night, and we need to talk about it,” Hamilton says. “Kent and I haven’t been able to ascertain the identity of the man, but we believe he was homeless and living in the woods.”
    “Then he wasn’t homeless,” Nigel says. “If he was living in the woods, then the woods was his home.”
    Hamilton’s smile grows a little—which doesn’t mean that he’s any happier, by the way. “OK, Nigel,” Hamilton says. “The point is that we’re probably not going to cancel Camp because of what happened, but that doesn’t mean we can just forget about it.”
    Cold wads of water begin to pelt me from above.
    “Can we talk about this inside?” England says.
    “No one’s going into the Barn until we finish this conversation,” Kent says.
    “He was just some homeless guy,” England says. “It’s not like he was one of us. Who cares?”
    “We should all care,” Hamilton says. “Your parents sent you here because they want you to care.”
    “I’m too fucking cold and wet to care,” England says.
    “You’d better start,” Kent says. “Or you’re not going to last very long.”
    “OK,” England says. “Sorry.”
    Sometimes the other kids put England and Nigel in the same category, but England really isn’t much of a rebel. He only talks back because he likes the attention. 99.9% of the time, he doesn’t mean what he says.
    “The rules and regulations that we follow here don’t exist to make our lives more difficult,” Hamilton says. “They’re here to protect us. To help shape us into very fine young people.”
    “Not into prostitutes,” Mike says.
    “That’s true,” Hamilton says. “But what we’re discussing right now is the deceased homeless man.”
    The dead man floats around like a ghost inside my mind, so I close my eyes to get a better look. I see him so clearly, it startles me. He looks a little like my father.
    Hamilton continues, “For safety reasons,