Andrew Smith - The Alex Crow

Also, the counselors encouraged us all to sing the word balls instead of ears during our multitudinous renditions of “Do Your Ears Hang Low?” Everyone thought this was very daring and funny. I thought it was as demented as having a conversation about punching the clown over dinner.

But the worst thing was the third song. Nobody except the counselors and Max knew the third song, because it did not exist anywhere outside the solar system of Camp Merrie-Seymour for Boys. Max knew it because he’d been required to sing this same song during his summer at fat camp. The song was called “Boys of Camp Merrie-Seymour,” and it went like this:

Merrie-Seymour Boys!

We’re Merrie-Seymour Boys!

We’re learning healthy habits,

Smart as foxes, quick as rabbits!

When people see us they turn and stare,

Merrie-Seymour Boys are everywhere!

We’re fit and strong, as hard as granite,

We come from every single planet!

So cheer and make a happy noise—

For US, the Merrie-Seymour Boys!

For US, the Merrie-Seymour Boys!

When we shouted “US” in the last lines, we were supposed to clap. We looked like thirty-two (now that Bucky Littlejohn had been hospitalized) barking circus seals. I clapped, but I did not shout. I did not even sing. I moved my mouth like a beached trout and pretended. But the counselors made the boys sing the song at least a dozen times until we were loud enough to please them, all clapped with a reasonable sense of trained-seal rhythm, and had the inane lyrics permanently ingrained into our memories.

Larry was in a good mood while we were singing, but not because of the songs. He was in a good mood because he was drunk. We didn’t find out about the bottles of vodka and other stuff Larry kept hidden in the counselors’ clubhouse until later, but he was drunk, and I could tell, even if the other boys of Jupiter didn’t notice such things.

Before bedtime, all the planets retreated to their individual campfires. I’d heard stories from some of the boys at Camp Merrie-Seymour for Boys that when they stared into their fires they frequently hallucinated they were playing a video game.

The boys of Camp Merrie-Seymour for Boys were seriously damaged.

Larry told us we all needed to go take showers and brush our teeth before he’d light the fire, but we whined and complained about showering in the spider cave, so he backed off and told us we could go ahead and stink if we wanted to.

But he added a warning: “If it reeks like ass and feet in Jupiter tonight, I’m kicking all you fuckheads out and you’re hitting the showers—dark, spiders, fucking Sasquatches, whatever.”

I was unfamiliar with this new word— Sasquatch —but the other boys seemed to understand what Larry meant and take it in stride. Robin Sexton always had the same take-it-in-stride look on his face, anyway, probably on account of the toilet paper in his ears and not being confronted about masturbation, so who could tell whether that kid had any clue what Larry was talking about? Considering the preceding modifier Larry used, I assumed that a fucking Sasquatch was American slang for a sexual deviant who preyed on boys at summer camp.

If so, he could have Robin Sexton, I thought.

Larry sat in a folding chair at the edge of our Jupiter fire ring. We had to sit in the dirt.

Larry said, “You guys got any scary stories?”

This was also new to me. I had plenty of scary stories, but I didn’t think anyone really wanted to hear them.

Max said, “Why? I thought we already did the Mrs Nussbaum encounter thing once today.”

“No.” Larry licked his lips and shook his head a little too quickly. His chair nearly tipped over.

Larry continued, “Don’t you guys know anything ? You’re supposed to tell scary stories around the campfire.”

Cobie Petersen raised his hand.

Larry sighed. “What?”

“Do you know any scary stories, Larry?” Cobie asked.

Larry did.

Let me tell you this, Max:When I came out of the refrigerator, there honestly was no place for me to stay. I had to go along with the soldiers who’d come to the village after the gas attack.

They were nice to me, anyway. I think it may have had something to do with the clown suit—how it made me look like a baby, even if I had just turned fourteen. Although they smoked, they never offered their cigarettes to me.

It seems so long ago, Max. It’s why I tell you it was my first life, as though I had been resurrected at some point—at least once—before we ever met.

I asked Thaddeus, the man who’d taken off his mask first, if it was the Republican Army who’d gassed the village, and he told me, no, that it was the FDJA rebels. What else would he say? Depending on how long I’d actually been inside that refrigerator, there were probably dozens of videos that had already been posted on the internet assigning blame to any imaginable party. And everyone knows whichever video scores the largest number of hits would be the one that tells the true story, right?

So I went with Thaddeus.

We rode in the open back of a dusty troop carrier with nine other soldiers. Our truck drove in a convoy of military vehicles, some of which towed weapons that looked like missile launchers. Although there was a metal frame to support a canvas covering for our truck’s bed, there was no tent, so we all sat there exposed to the heat, dust, and sun. The men were so tired they slept in the rattling bed, slumped over wherever they fit. The soldiers lay atop coiled serpents of ammunition—bands of oily bullets as long as my forearm. The men were uninterested in me, or how I’d come to be there dressed as I was.

But Thaddeus was nice to me. He’d told me that he had two sons at home, and he promised me that everything would work out for me now that I was safe and away from the village. He shared his water and food with me.

In the afternoon we rode through another small city. I did not know the place; I had never been there. But when the convoy drove down the main avenue, the people lined the street and crowded the balconies above to watch us. It was so quiet, or maybe it was just that any sound the people may have been making was drowned out by the clank and roar of our convoy.

Young men followed along on motorbikes and scooters, or they ran like snakes along the crowded sidewalks, as though it were a sort of festive parade, and this was the best thing that had happened in memory.

From time to time jets flew by, low in the sky overhead. We could hear the explosions from the missiles they fired miles ahead of us, beyond flat farmland and low mountains.

That night we slept outside on a dirt road that ran through a sesame field.

I woke sometime in the darkest part of the night. There was no moon, only stars. I didn’t know it, but Thaddeus had been sitting next to me, watching me as I slept. He’d given me a blanket to lie on, and it was so warm that I was damp with sweat.

“Are you all right?” Thaddeus asked.

“Yes. It’s hot, and I’m not very tired.”

“Can I tell you something?” he said.

“Sure.”

“It’s not a good thing,” Thaddeus said, “but I feel I need to tell somebody. And I think you’re the person to say it to.”

“Why me?”

Thaddeus shook his head. “I don’t know. Maybe it’s the white suit.”

“It’s not as white as it was when I put it on,” I said.

“No matter,” Thaddeus said.

He scooted toward my blanket and leaned close, so he could whisper. “When I was a boy—I was—how old are you?”