Nerd Camp (11 page)

The counselors didn't know how many people would sign up, but they reserved one of the larger science rooms so that they could fit up to thirty campers. Once the sign-up sheets were collected, they had to trade rooms with the theater group so they could hold Lice 101 in the amphitheater, the only space
that could comfortably accommodate eighty- three people.

Gabe and Nikhil both went, even though the nurse had given them each a clean bill of health the night before (and that morning again for Nikhil; he'd gotten checked twice). Amanda came in with Jenny Chin, and they sat right in front of Gabe and Nikhil on the risers, so that Amanda's long, puffy hair hung millimeters from Gabe's shins.

One of the science teachers stood in the center of the stage and expressed her excitement at having so many people interested in head lice. She began with some facts: “
Pediculus humanus capitis
, commonly referred to as head lice, are wingless insects that feed on human blood. They are about the size of sesame seeds. They have six legs that have claws that grip human hair.”

Gabe looked at the back of Amanda's head. It was a thick, frizzy blob, a
Pediculus humanus capitis
amusement park.

The science teacher began writing and drawing on a rolling whiteboard that had been brought in for the occasion. She said, “The eggs that lice lay are called nits. Nits are oval in shape, and they're sort of yellowish white. When a female louse—‘louse' is the singular for ‘lice'—lays her eggs, the eggs glue themselves to the hair shaft.”

Gabe pulled his legs up onto the seat, away from Amanda's hair.

The teacher wrote
THE LIFE CYCLE OF LICE
on the board and began drawing a diagram. A few campers started to take notes. Gabe watched with interest, being careful to keep his toes away from Amanda's hair. He'd always lined up for the yearly lice check at school, and the one or two times someone in his class had it, he'd stuffed the note about it in his take-home folder with all the other handouts for his mom. He'd never really thought about lice as living organisms until today.

As he listened to the science teacher answer questions from around the room, he felt a tingly feeling come over him that he could only attribute to a love of Summer Center and everything they did there. For the sake of his logic proof, he knew he should bury that feeling and cover it up tightly.

Gabe ran his hands over the stiff peaks he'd spent ten minutes forming on his head.
Is it really fair that I have to stop liking Summer Center to please someone who thinks “picture” is spelled “picktur”?

“No,” said the teacher, “lice can't survive more than twenty-four hours without a human host. They need human blood to live.”

“That's gross but also cool,” Nikhil whispered to Gabe. “They're like little vampires. Not that vampires are real.”

Gabe put his fingers on his top lip to make fangs, and Nikhil covered his head with his arms. A printout with a blown-up picture of a real louse reached Amanda in front of them, and Gabe and Nikhil looked between the girls' shoulders to get a peek. “Look at its claws,” said Gabe.

Amanda spun around and smiled. “I know you like doing things with me, but you should wait for your turn.”

Gabe bared his teeth and made his thumb and pointer finger into lice pinchers. Amanda stuck out her tongue and turned back around.

Now the nurse took the stage to begin talking about preventing the spread of lice. “Girls with long hair should be especially careful. It's probably a good idea to wear your hair in braids and wear a hat or a bandanna over it.”

Gabe sat back and thought about how he could turn the lice problem into an epic poem. He could make it a whole story about killer lice vampires that are sucking the blood of unknown victims at camp. It would be really exciting, with plot twists and fight scenes and a team of bandanna-clad combs that blast the nits into oblivion.
What rhymes with
lice?
he thought.
Mice, rice, nice, suffice. …
He kind of hoped that the lice stuck around camp a little longer. Imagine a whole lice epidemic! That'd even be something he could write to Zack about—it was like something straight out of the
Grossology
book—as long as he didn't catch it himself. Fighting to obliterate lice was cool. Catching lice was not.

“Thanks for coming to Lice 101!” said the nurse. “You are all smart kids. If you're smart about preventing lice, this camp will be a lice-free zone the rest of the summer. You can
head
back to your bunks—ha-ha!”

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

Hypothesis: No.

Proof:

Dear Ashley,

You know how in my last letter I told you about the lice war? Even though in the poem I wrote, Super Combman and the Shampolice destroyed the lice, in real life the war is still raging. Don't worry, I don't have it and no one in my bunk does. But a lot of girls have it, and even a boy in another bunk got it! Yesterday, we got another talk about how to prevent it. All the girls have to wear bandannas, and all the boys have to wear hats all the time now. It seems like the counselors and the nurse are really confused.
No one can figure out why it's still around, not even Wesley in his sleep. These lice are tough! We play Lice vs. Hair during recess. It's kind of like tag, but the person who's It is lice and everyone else is Hair. It's fun.

It was probably the sign that doomed Gabe's bunk. The very day their counselor taped a sign to the cabin door that said
BUNK 2B IS A LICE-FREE ZONE
, Victor Kim started scratching his head. No one noticed it at first because Victor was a thoughtful kid who scratched his head whenever he asked a question. But he scratched and then tossed Robby the hat he'd forgotten on his way out of the bunk. And then Robby dried his hair after swimming in the lake and dropped his towel on top of Justin's. And then Justin told Nikhil he thought he had a mosquito bite on his head, and Nikhil took a big step away from him and sent him to the nurse.

Their counselor took down the sign.

“The lice should be totally gone by now,” Nikhil lamented, “not invading our bunk!”

Wesley reached to scratch his head but thought better of it. “It is weird. It seems like everyone is doing what they're supposed to, but the lice keep spreading.”

“It's a mystery,” Gabe agreed. Even he, who'd wished for an epidemic, thought this lice situation was getting old. It was annoying to have to think about his hair all the time and to listen to Nikhil freak out over every regular itch. He'd even stopped gelling his hair in the mornings, afraid to touch his head too much. The only good thing about lice was that a whole group of girls in Amanda's bunk had it at some point, so it gave him a valid excuse to keep away from her. But somewhere deep in his brain he admitted that he'd rather combat Amanda Wisznewski than head lice. At least she kept things interesting.

“I wonder if they won't break Color War until the lice are gone,” said Wesley. “The algorithm has it starting at the end of the week, but all the counselors are so busy shampooing people.”

Gabe had a scary thought. “What if there's lice until the end of the summer and they have to
cancel
Color War?”

“We have to stop it from spreading,” said Nikhil. “Maybe if Wesley takes a nap right now, he'll tell us how.”

But Wesley was hesitant to put his head on his pillow. Everything in the cabin looked dangerous. Pillows and sleeping bags, clothing, towels—even books and calculators could be infested.

Gabe said, “I kind of wish I'd just catch it already so I could stop living in fear. If
everyone
had lice, we could just have Color War, because there'd be no danger of anyone new catching it.”

Nikhil glared at him to take it back.

Wesley shook his lice-free head. “Yeah, but it's not like chicken pox, where you get it once and then can't ever get it again. Like Jenny Chin. She got it in the beginning, and then, after the nurse finally said she was clean, she got it again.”

“That is fishy …,” Gabe said. He had an idea. “Maybe Combman and the Shampolice aren't superheroes—they're detectives in the Case of the Returning Lice. And the first suspect is Jenny Chin.”

Wesley raised his hand. “Can I be Combman?” he asked.

“No,” said Nikhil, “Gabe gets to be Combman because he invented him. We're just his sidekicks.”

“The Shampolice,” said Gabe.

“Can I be chief of the Shampolice?” asked Wesley. Nikhil shrugged, and Wesley said, “Yes! Chief of the Shampolice reporting for duty. What do we do, Combman?”

“Investigate,” said Gabe. “We need to question the suspect.”

***

The questioning took place the next day during free time. They all met at a picnic table in the woods, and anyone who came by chasing a Frisbee or looking for a quiet place to read apologized and ran off, since it was clear that the meeting was official. The suspect wore a bathing suit beneath her tank top and shorts. At Amanda's suggestion, Jenny refused to talk without legal counsel present, so she was joined by Amanda, who looked the part in a big T-shirt with the name of her father's law firm on the pocket. Both girls had their hair in two French braids beneath bandannas, Jenny's red and Amanda's tie-dyed.

On the other side of the table, the detectives all wore shorts and T-shirts. Combman sat in the middle, wearing a New York Mets hat. The Shampolice officers sat on either side of him. The chief was wearing a khaki fisherman's hat that said FAN FAMILY REUNION on the front. He had a notebook and pencil to take notes. The other officer was wearing a shower cap with masking tape around the elastic. Just to be safe.

“I call this meeting to order,” said Wesley. He tapped his pencil eraser against his notebook like a gavel.

“This isn't court,” said Jenny.

“No, but it's just as important that you tell the truth,” said Wesley.

Jenny and Amanda looked at each other as if to say,
Boys
.

Amanda folded her hands on the table. “You had some questions for my client?”

Gabe nodded. “We are investigating the Mystery of the Returning Lice, and your client is our first suspect.”

“Suspect!” said Jenny. “Try victim.”

“Jenny,” warned Amanda. She looked at Gabe. “My client objects to the term ‘suspect.' She is a blameless victim of lice.”

“Twice?” said Wesley with his eyebrows raised.

Jenny crossed her arms. “You think I
wanted
to catch lice twice?”

“I'm sure we can clear your name,” said Nikhil. “We're investigating everyone right now,” he explained. “Just to be safe.”

Gabe looked to either side of him, impressed with the good-cop-bad-cop routine his roommates had worked out without even planning it. That meant he, Combman, could just play it straight and ask the questions. “Do you have any idea how you caught lice the first time?” he asked Jenny.

She shrugged. “All these girls in my bunk got it. It could have been from anything.”

“What about the second time?” Gabe asked.

Jenny glanced at Amanda and then looked down at the table and shrugged again.

She's hiding something!
Gabe thought. “After you got it the first time and the nurse gave you the shampoo treatments, how long was it before you got it again?”

Jenny did some math in her head. “Three days.”

“Did a lot of other people in your bunk still have it in those three days, so you could catch it?”

“Not really,” Jenny admitted. “Everyone got shampooed.”

Wesley stood up and leaned over the table. “So, where'd you get it from the second time, then, huh? Tell us or we'll throw you in the slammer!”

Amanda stood up. “Objection! Don't try to intimidate my client.”

“Take it easy, Wesley,” said Gabe.

“If you can't keep your boys in line, this is over,” said Amanda.

“I'm sorry,” said Nikhil. “We're just trying to get to the bottom of this.”

Wesley sat down, but his suspicious eyes didn't leave Jenny for a second. She stuck out her tongue at him.

Gabe summoned all he knew about police interrogations from TV and books and tried again. “Even though it may seem like it from my partner here”—he motioned to his right—“no one is accusing you of anything. We're just wondering if you can give us any clues about why the lice won't go away. Think hard, Jenny. Did you do anything that might have caused you to get it again in those three days?”