Nerd Camp (10 page)

Francesca bit her lower lip and nodded. “The tousled look. I feel you.” She scanned the table and chose a tub of clear, bubble-filled gel. “Take off your glasses and have a seat.” She raised her eyebrows twice in quick succession. “I'm going to work some magic.”

Francesca rubbed some gel between her hands and applied it to the whole of Gabe's head first, massaging his scalp. With his glasses off, Gabe's heightened sense of touch made him tingle from the cold goopiness of the gel on his head, but he felt the way he had before reading his haiku out loud in poetry class, anxious and excited at the same time. After the initial big coating, Francesca used her fingertips to position smaller pieces of hair in different directions. Gabe could hear
her pausing and considering, then feel her adjusting. When she was done, she stood him up and led him, his eyes closed and glasses in his hand, to the wall with the mirrors.

“Are you ready?” she said.

Please don't let me look like a poodle
, Gabe thought.

“Take a look!”

Gabe put on his glasses and opened his eyes. He turned his head to the right and then the left. It was different, but it looked pretty good! “Do you think it looks cool?” he asked Francesca.

“I think it looks awesome,” she said, “but I did it, so I'm biased. Here. Colleen!” She called the other counselor. “Come check out Gabe's hair.”

Colleen put her hand over her heart and gave a long, loud gasp. “I
love
it!” she cried.

“You do?” said Gabe.

“Yes! But you know what I might love even more? A Caesar style.”

“Like Julius Caesar?” said Gabe. He tried to remember what Caesar looked like.

“Oh,” said Francesca, “brushed forward? But we could flip the front up. That might look slick.”

Colleen sprayed Gabe's hair with water to loosen the gel and then combed it all straight toward his face. Then she knelt down and used a brush to make the front go straight up, and—after telling him to close his eyes—she sprayed a cloud of hair spray to make it hold.

Gabe thought this looked pretty good too. Even though it was named for a historical figure, it looked like a style Zack would approve of.

Francesca was at the side of the room, holding pieces of hair from two girls' heads while two other girls practiced French braiding. “I really like that,” she said to Gabe.

“Let me see,” said one of the girls who was having her hair braided.

Francesca and the girls shuffled over to Gabe in a clump, all attached. “Oh, yeah,” said the girl. “Some boys in my school wear their hair like that.”

“Now let me see,” said the other girl whose hair Francesca was holding. They all shifted positions.

“My brother used to wear his hair like that,” the girl said, “but now that he's in middle school he wears it kind of up in the middle instead. He says this style is so out.”

“It is?” Gabe asked.

He spent the rest of activity time in the center of a group of girls, every one of them with an opinion about which hairstyle would be the coolest. His hair was side parted, center parted, slicked back, and faux hawked. They brushed, moussed, spritzed, and teased until he was sure his hair was going to fall out.

At the end, he looked at himself in the mirror. His neck was sore, his sweatshirt was wet, and his forehead was sticky.

“Well, Gabe,” said Francesca, “which do you like best? Let me know and I'll even let you keep the product we used for it.” She winked.

Gabe thought as he looked in the mirror. Apart from a few styles that had everyone cracking up, he thought Zack would consider a lot of them cool. “Which one did you think was the best?” he asked Francesca.

“A lot of them looked really good,” she said. “But only you can decide which one is really
you
.”

Gabe wrinkled his nose in the mirror. Just what he needed. Another thing to figure out.

Problem: Am I a nerd who only has nerdy adventures?

Hypothesis: No.

Proof:

Dear Gabe,

Hi from Disneyland. I no Disney is lame but I used to come here alot when I was a kid so my mom wanted to come 1 more time b4 we move. C the picktur on the front that is space montin. that ride is still good I rode it 3 times!! Its pitch black in their but not really scary. I like getting ur letters from camp it sounds like the funnest. can u beleve the wedding is
soon. after disney I have to pack all my stuf t0 move but I got a space moantin poster to put in our new room. talk 2 u soon!

from Zack

“Is that a postcard, Gabe?” asked Nikhil. “Add it to the postcard wall!”

“I think the postcard wall needs a theme song,” said Wesley. He sang, “
Postcard waalll, poooostcard wall.
”

“Wait,” said Nikhil. “We should only sing the postcard wall theme song when we add a postcard to it.”

“Okay, but let me practice.
Postcard waalll, poooostcard wall. Gabe's adding a postcard to the postcard wall.
” Wesley looked at Gabe, who was staring blankly at the back of his postcard. He sang, “
Gabe's not adding a postcard to the postcard wall. He's not even listening to the postcard wall song.
”

That was true; Gabe wasn't listening. He was trying to figure out what to do with this postcard. The picture of Space Mountain was cool, and the fact that Zack said “our room” made Gabe's heart race with excitement. But Zack's spelling was so poor. And so was his grammar. And even his
handwriting—it looked like he'd written it with the wrong hand. What if one of his bunkmates turned it over and saw how badly his stepbrother wrote?
It's okay,
he thought.
What's the big deal? It's not like
I
spelled “mountain” two different ways—both wrong—even though the correct spelling is printed right on the postcard, just a few inches away.

He stood up and walked over to the postcard wall with his postcard.

Nikhil poked Wesley. “Sing it! He's putting it up.”

Wesley cleared his throat. “
Postcard wall, postcard wall.
”

All the postcards were taped on the top so you could flip them up and see the messages. Nikhil's eight-year-old sister had written with her postcard upside down, but Gabe remembered that her grammar was better than Zack's. Even Wesley's cousin in China had better spelling than Zack, and he was only just learning English. Gabe felt a funny, hollow feeling as he held Zack's postcard. It was similar to how he felt back in New York City with Zack, when he'd worn his skeleton pajamas—only the reverse. Here at camp, could it be that
he
was embarrassed to have a stepbrother like
Zack
?

David entered their section of the cabin and knocked
on the side of Nikhil's bed. “Dinnertime,” he said. “Come on, guys, line up.”

Nikhil looked at his watch. “But it's only five fifty,” he said. “My watch hasn't even beeped the five-minute warning yet. And it can't be wrong; it had the same time as the computer this morning—I checked. Just to be safe.”

“Your watch is right, Nikhil,” said David. “But the camp director wants everyone there a little early today. She has an announcement.”

Wesley dropped the book he was holding and stood up, ready to go. “Come on, guys. Announcement!”

“Maybe it has to do with Color War,” said Nikhil.

“But the algorithm doesn't have it breaking until next week,” said Gabe.

“The algorithm could be wrong,” said Wesley.

“Guys,” said David, “let's go.”

With their hurry to get out and their conjecture about what the announcement could be, no one mentioned the postcard wall. Before running out to line up, Gabe folded the postcard in half—with the writing inside—and slipped it between his mattress and bed frame.

When everyone was seated in the cafeteria, the camp director stood on a chair and spoke into a megaphone. “Everyone! Attention please.”

“I think you're right, Wesley,” whispered Nikhil. “She's going to break Color War!”

“I thought it's supposed to break with something crazy and fun,” said Gabe, disappointed. “I'll be mad if it just starts with the director saying it at dinner.”

“Quiet, guys,” said their counselor.

“See?” whispered Nikhil. “You have to be quiet when Color War breaks.”

The director cleared her throat into the megaphone and waited until she had complete silence. “Thank you,” she said. “Unfortunately, we found a case of head lice here at Summer Center. We have treated the camper who had it, but I want all of you to be extra careful. Don't share hairbrushes or hats, and don't put your head on someone else's pillow. Shampoo every day. If you feel itchy, please see the nurse. We don't want the lice to spread. Those of you who did the hairstyles activity a few days ago should especially get checked. Any questions—” Hands shot up around the cafeteria before she could finish her sentence with “ask your counselors.”

The director paused, deciding whether or not to answer questions herself. Then she called on a boy whose hand was up and shaking with urgency.

“Who has it?” he asked.

“That's not important,” the director said.

“But if we know who has it,” the boy explained, “we'll know who to stay away from.”

The director said, “You don't need to stay away from anyone, but the point is that you should be cautious in general, because it could spread to anyone.”

At Gabe's table, Nikhil nodded nervously. Gabe noticed
that he was leaning slightly away from Gabe, probably because his spiky do reminded Nikhil that he'd done the hair-styles activity.

The camp director pointed at a girl on the other side of the room. “Yes?”

“Lice are insects, right? What genus and species are they?”

The director's expression was a cross between amusement and exasperation. “I don't know,” she admitted. “Thank you for your attention. If you have any other questions about how to prevent lice, please talk to your counselors or the nurse. If you have questions about lice as organisms, speak to a science teacher.”

A camper seated right near the director raised her hand intently. The director looked at it, contemplating. Finally she said, “Is this a question that you could ask someone later?” The girl shook her head, and the director said, “Okay, last question, then. Go ahead.”

“I don't know the genus and species, but I do know the phylum and class,” the girl said. “Anthropoda Insecta.”

“Thank you,” said the director. “Let's all be vigilant so the lice won't be a problem. Have a great day.”

Gabe remembered how many girls had touched his head
at the hairstyles activity. All of a sudden, his scalp felt itchy. He didn't seem to be the only one.

“I think I've got it,” Nikhil said. He ran his hands through his tall yard of hair as though searching for something he'd buried there earlier. “I should probably go see the nurse.”

“Do lice fly?” Wesley wondered aloud.

“I don't think so,” said Gabe, running his pointer fingers over his scalp. “I know they lay eggs, though.”

“But they're insects,” said Wesley. He asked their counselor, “Do lice have wings?”

Gabe asked, “Is ‘lice' the same singular and plural?”

Nikhil ran a fork through his hair and examined the prongs. “I should probably just shave my head,” he said. “Just to be safe.”

The nighttime activity choices changed every day, but they usually fell into standard categories: arts, crafts, sports, academic challenges. But every now and then there'd be a special activity, brought on by extraordinary circumstances and only available that one time. The night Gabe had tried different hairstyles, for instance, was particularly clear, so Nikhil had done stargazing. And the day a famous chef came to
speak to the Food Science class, he stuck around for activities and taught campers how to make cinnamon rolls.

On the sign-up sheet the day after the director's announcement, there was an ad for another special, one-time activity.