The girls were jumping all over each other. Me and the guys were out of breath and panting.*
The evening activity was a scavenger hunt, but none of us could get into it. We were upset about losing the Color War.
“I can’t believe Camp Botshagotta beat us,” Michael whispered after Uncle Ray flipped off the light for the night and left.
“We need to get revenge,” Candyman whispered.
“But how?” whispered Ryan.
“We could sneak over to Camp Botshagotta,” I whispered, “and steal the underwear off their clothesline.”
“Let’s do it!” said Neil.
“And we should put the underwear up on our flagpole!” I suggested.
We all got out of bed, put on our sneakers, grabbed flashlights, and tiptoed to the door of the bunk. No counselors were around. The coast was clear.
We sneaked outside. The path behind our bunk led to the lake. And on the other side of the lake was Camp Botshagotta. We were sneaking around the trees like secret agents. It was cool.
“This is gonna be great!” whispered Ryan.
And you’ll never believe what happened next. Uncle Ahdoanwanna jumped out from behind a tree!
“Where do you boys think you’re going?” he demanded.
I looked at Ryan. Ryan looked at Michael. Michael looked at Neil. Neil looked at Candyman. Candyman looked at me. We were all looking at each other.
“We have a dentist appointment,” I said.
“Go back to your bunk,” said Uncle Ahdoanwanna.
Bummer in the summer!
“RISE AND SHINE!” announced Uncle Ahdoanwanna the next morning.
It was Friday, the last day of camp. We got dressed and went outside to pledge the allegiance. That’s when the weirdest thing in the history of the world happened.
We gathered in a big circle around the flagpole for assembly. Well, that’s not the weird part because we do that every morning. The weird part was when we looked up at the flagpole. You’ll never believe in a million hundred years what was up there.
I’m not gonna tell you.
Okay, okay, I’ll tell you.
IT WAS MY UNDERWEAR!
“Somebody snuck into our bunk and stole my underwear!” I shouted. “It had to be Andrea!”
“Ooooh,” said Ryan. “Andrea stole A.J.’s underwear and hung it from the flagpole! They must be in love!”
“When are you gonna get married?” asked Michael.
After they took down my underwear and put up the flag, it started raining. Of course! So instead of pickleball, we had to go to arts and farts, where we made lanyards with Aunt Nancy. Do you know what a lanyard is? It’s this plastic thing you wear around your neck so you can hang stuff from it.*
The whole week, we never played pickleball. We never went rock climbing. We never had archery. But we had plenty of mosquitoes, bees, ants, flies, mice, and spiders. One of the bunks had a bat fly into it. That must have been interesting.
The most exciting part of the week was when the porta-potty man came with this cool truck to empty out the porta-potties. Now that’s a tough job. When he was done, we all stood up and gave him a standing ovation.
Finally, it was the last night of camp. We went out to the woods, and all the campers gathered in a big circle. The counselors made a bonfire in the middle, and we toasted marshmallows. Yum!
Some guy came out with a guitar. He said his name was Uncle Howie, but we were supposed to call him “The Maestro.”
“Hey, campers!” he shouted. “Are you boys up for a sing-along?”
“No!”
“Here’s a little song I made up,” he said. “You sing it to the tune of ‘Over There.’”
And then he started singing . . .
Underwear! Underwear!
Send a pair, send a pair, I can wear!
For I left mine lying, on the line drying,
