Andrew Smith - The Alex Crow

It sounded like the future of America to me.

“Lucky thing I missed out on the Camp Merrie-Seymour for Psychopathic Boys cycle that summer,” Max said.

“Every day, you’d wake up and it was like Custer’s Last Stand,” Larry said.

“That’s slang for jerking off,” Max pointed out.

“It is?” Larry said,

Max nodded his assurance.

Larry went on, “The Earth cabin’s counselor was a guy named Marshmallow Jeff. The kids called him that because he was really, really white, and he’d use marshmallows as bribes to get the crazies to behave themselves. And he was super creepy, too. He kept marshmallows in his pockets for the kids, and tucked inside the tops of his socks, too. Nobody liked him, and he never talked to anyone.”

For some reason, this last statement caused Max and Cobie to turn and stare at me.

Then Larry said, “But the kids of Earth were like zombies under Marshmallow Jeff ’s control, on account of all the marshmallows he’d give them. The Earth cabin’s still here, too. It’s on the other side of the creek from the mess hall, in the woods. After the incident that happened there that summer, they stopped keeping the vines knocked back around Earth, so unless you know it’s there, you don’t even notice it.”

“So, what happened at the Earth cabin?” Max asked.

“I’m telling you, kid. Be patient.” Larry moistened his lips and burped a silent blast of vodka gas. “Pretty much as soon as the camp term started that summer, Marshmallow Jeff complained to Mrs Nussbaum that one of the other planets was playing tricks on the Earth boys—trying to scare them. He said that his kids kept seeing two red eyes in the woods at night, like they were staring in at them through the screen on the cabin. Nobody likes to get stared at by red eyes at night, right? Anyway, it kept happening, night after night, and the eyes kept getting closer and closer and closer to the Earth cabin.”

Larry lowered his voice and got a crazy look in his eyes when he said the part about the eyes getting closer. And I’ll be honest—I’d never heard stories like this before, so it was making me more than a little scared.

Then something happened that made us all jump.

We heard the fluttering buzz of a vibrating cell phone. Larry jerked his hand down to smother the spot in his cargo shorts where he’d hidden his phone, but it was too late. The thing may just as well have been an air-raid siren as far as the boys of Jupiter were concerned.

“Uh,” Larry said.

Robin Sexton’s eyes flashed flames.

“You have a phone!” Robin said.

“No—I—uh—”

In other circumstances, with other planets, I could easily imagine a bloody scene ending in Larry’s gruesome dismemberment. But clearly, Max, Cobie, and I didn’t care about Larry’s cell phone. Robin Sexton, on the other hand, began salivating and attempted to get to his feet.

But Larry held out a warning hand and said, “Don’t even think about it, kid.”

Robin chewed on his lower lip and sat back in the dirt.

It was reasonable that counselors would be permitted to have such luxuries as cell phones and electricity and so on. I could only assume that most of them were more adept than Larry at keeping their secrets concealed.

“Am I going to finish telling this story, or what?”

“If we had our phones, you could group text us,” Cobie Petersen offered.

Larry sighed, and put his hands on his knees like he was going to get up and go to bed.

“No. I was just kidding, Larry,” Cobie apologized. “Please finish the story.”

Larry pointed his spear-finger at Cobie. “You’re telling one, too.”

“I promised, didn’t I?”

So Larry continued, “One night there was a terrible storm. Everyone shut themselves up inside the cabins just trying to keep dry and warm, except for Marshmallow Jeff and the boys from Earth. They’d seen the red eyes in the woods again, right outside their cabin, and Marshmallow Jeff told his campers he’d give them all fistfuls of marshmallows if they would go out in the storm into the woods with him, so they could kick the living shit out of whoever was trying to scare them.”

“Were you in Jupiter then, Larry?” Cobie Petersen asked.

“Yeah.”

“Six summers in Jupiter.” Cobie shook his head. “You must be very, very lonely.”

“Shut up. It’s not like I spend all year here, kid. I have a life,” Larry said.

“Doing what, exactly?” Cobie asked.

“Jesus. Are you guys going to let me tell the story, or what?”

I think we all wondered what Larry did when he wasn’t in Jupiter.

“Sorry,” Cobie Petersen said. “I just find you endlessly fascinating, Larry.”

Larry’s jaw kind of hung open slightly, and he stared blankly at Cobie Petersen—probably the way one would look out at a pair of glowing red eyes in the middle of a creepy forest at night. When he regained his composure, Larry said, “We heard screams—the most horrible sound you could ever imagine—coming from deep in the woods that night. The whole camp was terrified, and when we looked, Earth cabin was completely empty. We searched and searched all the following day, but there was no sign at all of Marshmallow Jeff and the boys from Earth. It was like they had completely vanished into thin air.”

Max, Cobie, and I glanced at one another, trying to gauge by each other’s face whether or not we should believe Larry’s story.

Robin Sexton twitched, rocked slightly, and stared into the fire.

Then Larry’s voice lowered to a sinister whisper, and he said, “We only ever found one clue that remained of Marshmallow Jeff and the boys from Earth. Out there . . .”

Larry stretched his arm out and pointed off into the woods on the opposite side of the creek from the mess hall. “Their shoes—six pairs, counting Marshmallow Jeff ’s—were all perfectly lined up by the well house. And there were a few marshmallows scattered on the ground. That was it. Nothing else. It was a mystery, but the boys and Marshmallow Jeff were never seen again. Unless, that is, if you believe the stories some people tell of seeing a big barefoot white man who wanders the woods and hunts for children with baits of marshmallows.”

“I call bullshit,” Cobie Petersen said.

“Oh yeah?” Larry was irritated. “I dare you kid—right now, I bet you could go out there in the woods past the well house, and you’ll see footprints—bare feet—that belong to Marshmallow Jeff and the crazy boys he abducted from Earth.”

And Larry added, “I dare you, tough guy. Let’s all go take a look inside the old Earth cabin right now, if you have the balls. Marshmallow Jeff and his friends are waiting for you.”

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