“THREE… TWO… ONE… GAME OVER, COCKROACHES! BETTER LUCK NEXT TIME!”
That seemed about right. It wasn’t like our luck could get much worse, anyway.
Especially mine. Because this one was all on me. And everyone else knew it.
Tag, You’re It
Well, that was pathetic!” Sergeant Fish said. “My great-grandma could have gotten farther than you cockroaches, and she’s been dead for twenty years.”
I was barely listening. I just lay there flat on my back, feeling like my lungs were two squashed watermelons. I could start to make out grumbles from the other kids. And I was thinking, WHAT JUST HAPPENED?
It’s not like I was afraid of heights. Or at least, I didn’t used to be. But as soon as I looked down from that tower, my brain turned into Jell-O.
Now Fish was yelling about how we’d all messed up, and everyone else was basically murdering me with their eyes. They didn’t have much trouble getting down once they had the box. If I’d had a nickname in that place, it would have been Weak Link.
Sounds like the world’s worst superhero, right? Yep, that’s me.
“Well, the good news is, you made an effort,” Sergeant Pittman told us. “And for that, you all earned your first tags. Good for you.”
She held up something that looked like a bunch of shoelaces.
“What are those?” Burp said.
“Something to eat, I hope,” Arnie said.
“Even better,” Sergeant Fish told us. “You could survive all week out here without food. But these?” He and Pittman started passing them out. “These you can’t live without.”
Pittman handed me a string. It was just a piece of leather with one painted metal washer on it. My washer was orange. Thea’s was green. Arnie’s was white. I had no idea what the colors were for.
“By the end of day three—that’s sundown on Tuesday—you need to earn ten tags. Not eight, and not nine-plus-a-good-effort. I mean TEN TAGS. Anything less than that sends you packing,” Fish explained.
“WHAT?” I said, along with almost everyone else.
“But I have to finish!” D.J. said. “I go to juvie if I don’t.”
“Me too,” Burp said. “I can’t get kicked out.”
“Well then, make sure you don’t,” Sergeant Pittman said. “And there’s more. By the end of day six, you need to have earned twenty tags. Only those of you with twenty tags by sundown on Friday will be allowed to run the last day of this course. It’s called the Ten, Twenty, and Out Rule.”
Of course it is, I thought. More rules. What a surprise.
“You earn tags by running obstacles,” Fish said. “You earn tags by doing your assigned work around camp. You earn them doing unassigned work too.”
“And most of all, you earn tags by showing us you can be a team player on the trail,” Pittman said.
“Dudes!” Diego said. “This is so not fair.”
“Duly noted,” Fish said.
And just like that, the hardest week of my life had just gotten harder.
Like, ten or twenty times harder, depending on how many days I lasted.
Quitters Never Win (But Since When Am I a Winner?)
All right, gear up!” Sergeant Fish told us. “We still have some serious ground to cover.”
Everyone was ticked off and grumbly about the new rule, their empty bellies, and me screwing up the Tower obstacle, but we started putting on our packs anyway.
Everyone except for Arnie.
“Hang on a sec,” he said, crossing his arms. “Are we getting anything to eat or not?”
“Of course you are,” Fish told him. “First thing tomorrow morning. In the meantime, you can chew on that poor performance of yours today.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me!” Arnie said.
“I don’t kid, kid,” Fish told him.
“Oh yeah?” Arnie said, and sat back down. “Well, I’m not going anywhere until I get some food. How do you like that?”
For a second, nobody said a word. It was like one of those Old West movies where the saloon goes dead quiet. The piano stops playing. The poker players put down their marked cards. And every eye in the place lands on the one guy who’s about to get a nice new hole in his skull.
But then Fish said the last thing I expected to hear.
“Maybe you should quit,” he told Arnie in an eerily calm voice that was somehow scarier than his constant yelling.
“Say WHAT?” D.J. said.
“We’re allowed to quit?” Thea asked.
“Sure you are,” Pittman said. “The question is, can you afford to?”
“Well, Arnie? Can you?” Fish said. “Because there’s plenty of food back at base camp. And I’m sure you can explain to your folks and everyone who signed you up for this why you lasted less than an hour out here.”
Arnie was squinting back at Fish so hard, you couldn’t even see his eyeballs. But then he just got up and started putting on his pack without saying a word. Fish had won.
“Yeah, I thought so,” Fish said. “Now, let’s get a move on!”
Meanwhile, my head was spinning in a whole new way. I was still back on the quitting thing.
After my big choke on the Tower, I figured I had a zero percent chance of getting all the way through this thing. How was I supposed to climb a Rocky Mountain when I couldn’t even climb a little tower without my brain going off-line?
Not to mention, none of these kids wanted me around anymore. I was Weak Link: Ruiner of Dinners. And if all the climbing, rafting, and starvation didn’t kill me, that Ten, Twenty, and Out Rule definitely would.
In fact, the more I thought about it, the more it seemed like quitting wasn’t just a good idea anymore. It was the only idea.
I could just see it now.…
Life o’ Crime
I QUIT!”
The words are out of my mouth before I can stop them. That’s it—no turning back anymore.
Sergeants Fish and Pittman look at me like I’m scum, but everyone else cheers. They’re planning the No-More-Weak-Link party.
Half an hour later, I’m sitting on my suitcase by the side of the road at Rocky Mountain High Base Camp, waiting for Mom to come pick me up. With any luck, I’ll be eating cheeseburgers by sundown! Sure she’ll be mad, but she’ll get over it, right?
Except, that’s when I hit my first glitch.
I wait for an hour.
Then two hours.
Five hours.
Fifteen.
After three days, I get the hint. Mom’s not coming. This was my last chance to prove I could be a good son, and I blew it.
So I start walking. What choice do I have? I pick a direction, stick out my thumb, and hope for the best. Maybe someone will take pity on me, the lonely quitter.
Eighty miles later, someone does. A rusted-out pickup truck pulls over, and I hop in. I’m so tired, I don’t even think about who might be behind the wheel.
Besides, how am I supposed to know he just escaped from prison or something?
My new friend’s name is Rocco. It doesn’t take long to find out he’s a real desperado—but so am I now. That practically makes us family. We’re going to stick together.
Next thing you know, I’m watching the parking lot for cops while Rocco knocks off an all-night convenience store… or two… or three. By the time the sun comes up, I’ve got fifty bucks in my pocket and a nasty case of brain freeze from all those slushees we stole. (I just can’t resist that blue raspberry.)
Rocco and I make a good team, so we just keep going. The newspapers start calling us R&R, for Rocco and Rafe, but the cops can’t pin us down. We’re like ghosts. So we hop from state to state, and trade up to bigger jobs as we go.
Before you can say “I knew he’d turn out this way,” there I am, wearing a Bugs Bunny mask and telling some lady at the First National Bank of Tucson to fill a bag with unmarked twenties.
It’s our biggest job yet, but this can’t go on forever. Rocco tells me we’d better
split up and lie low until things cool off. It’s for the best, he says.
I sure am going to miss him, though. He’s like the incredibly dangerous, no-good older brother I never had.
After that, I head for the hills. I hike way up into the woods, scout out a decent hiding place, and settle in for the long haul. I could use the rest, anyway. This whole life of crime thing is exhausting. So I put my head down on a rock and close my eyes to take a quick nap.…
Next thing I know, I’m waking up to the sound of choppers. It’s the FBI! They’re onto me! I can hear the tactical ground units moving into place too. Any minute now, they’re going to have these woods surrounded.
Life in prison, here I come!
Tell Mom I love her. Tell Mrs. Stricker she was right all along. And tell Jeanne Galletta to go ahead and marry Whatshisname. I’m no good for her now. I guess it was just a matter of—
When I looked around, Sergeant Fish was spraying spittle in my face and everyone else was heading up the trail. I majorly zoned out on Planet Rafe this time.
“I’m all out of engraved invitations, Khatchadorian!” he said. “Are you coming, or what?”
“I’m coming!” I said. “I’m definitely coming.” Then I hustled over to catch up with the group, the thought of Rocco fresh in my mind.
So much for quitting. I guess you can add that to the list of stuff I’m not very good at.
Besides, who can afford that life of crime?
Burp
For our first hike, Fish put me on “point” at the head of the line. That meant if there was a thornbush to walk through, I was your guy. If there was a hole you might not see coming, just watch for my falling body. If there was a poison-dart frog waiting to attack (even though there are no poison-dart frogs in Colorado)—well, you get the idea. I was gonna get sacrificed first.
After a while, the trail got wider. That’s when Burp started walking next to me.
“Hey,” he said.
“Hey,” I said.
“How’s it going?”
“Okay,” I said, because it was better than saying I was having one of the four worst days of my life.
“By the way, don’t worry about the Tower,” Burp said. “And don’t pay any attention to Fish either. That guy’s all bark.”
“Yeah, right,” I said. “I’m pretty sure he has some bite in him too.”
“Can you keep a secret?” Burp said, which was kind of weird. I was surprised he was talking to me at all. I didn’t think anyone wanted my Weak Link stink getting on them. But Burp didn’t seem like he cared.
“Yeah, I can keep a secret,” I said. (Seriously, does anyone ever say no to that question?)
He walked a little closer then and looked at the ground when he talked. “Nobody’s supposed to know this,” he said, “but Sergeant Fish is actually my uncle.”
“WHAT?” I said, and then said it again, but without shouting like an idiot. “What?”
“It’s not like I get special treatment,” Burp said. “I still have to call him Sergeant out here. But at home, he’s Uncle Fish.”
That was pretty hard to imagine. Uncle Fish?
What would that be like?
“So what are you doing in The Program?” I said. “Are you in trouble too?”
“Oh yeah. Big-time. Major trouble,” Burp said. “If I don’t finish, I go to juvie for six months. Then after that, it’s straight up to the big house.”
This kid was barely making sense. “What big house?” I said.
“The state pen—hello? I’m talking about real prison,” Burp said. “Once you’re eighteen, that’s where you go.”
“You’re seventeen?” I said. He looked younger than me. But Burp just shrugged. “What’d you do, anyway?” I asked.
“Mostly, it was an accident,” he said. “I mean, I stole the car on purpose, sure. But I sure wasn’t planning on driving through that bakery window. You should have seen the mess!”
“No way!” I said.
“Doughnuts all over the windshield. Frosting in the grill—”
“BURP!” Sergeant Pittman said. She was right behind us now, and I jumped about five feet. I swear, that ninja lady could walk through a pile of dead leaves without being heard.
“What did we say about the lying?” Pittman asked.
“I know, I know,” Burp told her. “I was just goofing around.”
“Well, cut it out!” she said.
After that, he just kept on walking up the trail like we’d been talking about the weather or something.
“So is anything you just said… you know—like, true?” I asked him.
“Not exactly,” he said. “The truth is, I got expelled for throwing a whole box of cherry bombs down the school toilets—”
“BURP!” Pittman said.
“Okay, one cherry bomb,” he said.
“Wow,” I said, but maybe not for the reason he thought. I was starting to wonder how many flavors of crazy we had on this trip. These people were making me look downright normal, and that’s saying something.
Still, I wasn’t going to worry too much about Burp. He seemed pretty harmless to me. He wasn’t a friend, exactly, but at least he wasn’t an enemy.
And out there, I needed all the not-an-enemies I could get.
Camp, Sweet Camp
When we got to our “camp,” it looked pretty much identical to “woods” to me. There was a stream nearby, and some rocks on the ground where you could build a fire. And also there were trees. Lots and lots of trees.
“Camp, sweet camp,” Sergeant Pittman said.
I think that was our rest break.
“All right, cockroaches. Packs off and let’s get you divided into two teams,” Fish said. “I need four volunteers for fire with Pittman, and four for shelter with me.”
“I’LL DO FIRE!” everyone said at the same time.
“What a surprise,” Fish said. “Diego, D.J., Thea, Burp. Come with me.”
That put me with the snake girl, the cranky musclehead, and the one who didn’t talk. But I guess it could have been worse. I could have been with Fish.
Sergeant Pittman marched us up into the woods to go peel birch bark and look for dry twigs and branches.
And of course, there were some more rules to hear about too.
“We work the buddy system out here,” Pittman said. “Nobody goes anywhere alone. Ever.”
“I got a question,” Arnie said. “What if we have to go to the—”
“Come see me first,” Pittman said. “And no making number twos until we show you how to dig a cat hole.”
I was pretty sure I knew what she meant by “cat hole,” but at the same time, I wanted no part of it. Some things are just meant to be flushed.
“All right, everyone pick a buddy,” Pittman said, and I felt a punch on my arm.
“Ow!” I said.
“Me and Rafe,” Carmen said. “We got this.”
“We do?” I said.
“All right, you two start on birch bark,” Pittman told us. “Veronica and Arnie, you start with kindling. That’s small twigs and other lighter materials. And remember, keep an eye on each other. If your buddy goes missing, it’s on you.”
“Do we get one of those tags for doing this?” Carmen said.
“Ask me when you’re done,” Pittman said. That probably meant yes, but not until we’d sweated a little. Or a lot. “Now, everyone get to work. I’ll be right back. Shout out if there’s a problem.”
She picked up a log that was about as big as me and started carrying it back over to camp.
Exactly two seconds after Pittman was out of sight, Carmen started walking the other way.
“Where are you going?” I said, starting to follow her. “We’re not supposed to split up.”
She turned around and stared at me like you might look at an old lump of gum on the sidewalk.
“Oh, you’re one of those,” she said. “Always sweating about the rules?”
“No,” I said. “That’
s one of my main problems. I’m not. How do you think I got here in the first place?”
That made her smile. And her smile scared me just a little. Then she said, “You’re kind of cute, you know that?”
Right before my jaw dropped down to the ground. If Carmen was trying to short-circuit my brain, it worked.
“I’ll be back,” she said. “I just got to talk to Veronica.”
“Well… uh… yeah… uh… okay,” I said.
Not that she needed my permission. She was already gone.
Just So We’re Clear
Carmen was the exact opposite of Jeanne Galletta, except for one thing: I didn’t have the first clue about how to act normal around her either.
Did this mean she liked me? Did I like her? Did it even matter what I thought?
When I saw Sergeant Pittman coming back through the woods, I waved over at Carmen to give her a heads-up. I didn’t want her to get in trouble—and more important, I didn’t want me to get in trouble either. But I couldn’t even look at her when she came over from where Veronica was quietly collecting some twigs. I just kept peeling birch bark like it was the most important job in the world. Eyes on the job at hand.
“Is that all you two have gotten done?” Pittman said. “You’re going to have to do better than that. Come on, double-time it.”
“Sure thing, Sarge,” Carmen said cheerily. “We’re on it.”
When I looked around again, I noticed that my pile of bark was about half the size it had been before. And Carmen’s was a lot bigger. My bark was sitting right next to the snake girl like it had been there all along. She even took the big half.
After Pittman went over to check on Veronica and Arnie, Carmen gave me another one of those smiles. “Thanks for not saying anything,” she said. “I’ll get you back the next time.”
“No problem,” I said. “But you probably shouldn’t go off like that again. I don’t want either one of us to get in trouble.”