At seven, they made their way to the commissary for breakfast; at 8:30 they gathered by the flagpole for flag-raising and opening assembly.
After that they had swim lessons, and first elective, and lunch, and second elective, and free period, and dinner, and, usually, some scheduled evening program.
Twice a week, in place of one of their electives, they had Survival Classes, led by T.J. Hewitt herself. In them they learned to build shelters, forage for food, and build spears with which to fish. They learned how to find or make potable water, and how to build traps for small animals, which they also learned to skin and cook.
These classes were the heart of Camp Emerson: the reason it had been founded in the first place, the campers were told. They were also important training for a tradition that occurred toward the end of each summer—the one for which Camp Emerson was most famous.
The original name of the tradition was the Solo Trip. In the earliest years of Camp Emerson, when Peter Van Laar I still reigned from the house at the top of the hill, all campers were sent into the woods alone for three nights with nothing but their wits to keep them alive. No camper had ever died, but stories of parched and emaciated children staggering out of the woods had been passed down through the decades. By the time of Tracy’s tenure at Camp Emerson, the Solo Trip had become the Survival Trip. Thanks to the intervention of a new generation of concerned parents, campers were now sent off in small groups. And this year, as T.J. had explained, those small groups would be chaperoned by a counselor.
For these classes, campers were divided not by cabin but by Survival Group—each of which consisted of approximately twelve campers. Groups were carefully constructed to include no more than two campers from any cabin or age group, designed to allow older campers to mentor younger ones.
• • •
Tracy’s Survival Group met, for the first time, on her fourth day at camp. They’d been told to meet at the flagpole, where T.J. Hewitt would be waiting for them. And there she was, when they arrived: silent and fierce-looking, uninclined to make small talk of any kind.
Tracy was pleasantly surprised to find that her group included Barbara Van Laar, who nodded to her when their eyes met, but otherwise stood as silently as their instructor.
The last person to arrive was a boy—fourteen, perhaps. One of the oldest campers on the grounds. Immediately, Tracy reddened. This, she thought, was the most beautiful person she had ever seen in her life.
He was tall, and wore a shell necklace around his neck, and his skin had, in early summer, already acquired the kind of tan that wouldn’t ever be possible for Tracy to achieve. His hair was long—to his shoulders, almost—and on his feet he wore huaraches, though they’d gone out of fashion several summers before. Like the rest of the campers, he wore a uniform; but his accessories convinced Tracy that his regular attire was most likely bohemian, a style Tracy associated with the previous decade.
“Tracy?” someone was saying. T.J. Hewitt was looking down at her clipboard, taking attendance. “Is Tracy not here?” said T.J., her pencil poised to strike out Tracy’s name.
“Here,” said Tracy, quickly—forcing her gaze away from the boy in question, who stood across from her in the little group around the flagpole.
In doing so, she caught the eye of Barbara Van Laar—who wiggled her eyebrows up and down. She burned.
“All right,” said T.J. “That’s everyone.”
Then she set off abruptly in the direction of the woods, where they spent the next hour learning how to orient themselves. By the end of the hour, all of them understood the basics of navigation with a compass, or with the sun.
If both of those techniques failed, concluded T.J., the most important thing was not to panic.
For a bonus, she asked them: Who knew the origins of the word?
“Which word?” someone said.
“Panic,” said T.J. But no one raised a hand.
She explained. It came from the Greek god Pan: the god of the woods. He liked to trick people, to confuse and disorient them until they lost their bearings, and their minds.
To panic, said T.J., was to make an enemy of the forest. To stay calm was to be its friend.
• • •
When the day’s lesson was over, Tracy set off on a slow walk back to her cabin. She was moving in a languorous daze, bewitched by T.J.’s words, and also by Lowell Cargill—the name of the boy, she had learned. She was so distracted, in fact, that she didn’t notice who was at her side until they were halfway to Balsam.
When she finally looked to her left, she saw that Barbara Van Laar was keeping pace with her, watching her, a sort of half smile playing on her face.
“What,” said Tracy—ready to be teased.
Barbara shook her head. “Nothing.”
Tracy looked straight ahead. She was interested in Barbara in the same way that everyone at Camp Emerson seemed to be. But she was certain she had nothing to offer her: no stories in her past, no social cachet. She had divorced parents, yes, but loads of the other girls did too. She couldn’t imagine that Barbara would want to talk to her. And yet there she was, Barbara Van Laar, walking right alongside her, bouncing on her toes, clapping her hands every so often as she swung her arms ahead of her, as if keeping time to a song in her head.
“He’s cute,” said Barbara, after they had walked in silence for a while. “Don’t you think?”
“Who is?” said Tracy.
Barbara laughed. Rolled her eyes. Tucked her hair behind her ears.
“Pretty sure you know,” said Barbara. “But if you don’t want to talk, that’s fine.”
I do, Tracy thought. But her words, as usual, failed her.
• • •
On her second night at Camp Emerson, she had heard—overheard—something she didn’t quite understand. It was, she believed, about Barbara.
She’d been trailing two of her bunkmates back from the latrines.
“Isn’t it awful,” Caroline had whispered. “To be a—replacement for your older brother.”
Tracy widened her eyes in the dark. What a truly terrible thing to say, she thought. And Amy must have agreed with her, because she replied, “Caroline,” in a tone that bordered on shock.
“What?” said Caroline, growing bolder. “I’m only saying what I think.”
• • •
