Sports Camp (6 page)
HEAT 2 (Cabins 3, 4)
Kelvin Dawkins (4) 24:22
Vinnie Kazmerski (3) 24:47
Tony Maniglia (3) 24:58
Colin Dugan (3) 25:28
Malik Rivera (4) 26:02
Riley Liston (3) 26:21
Eldon Johnson (3) 26:24
A. J. Castillo (4) 26:42
Tom Foley (4) 27:12
Barry Monahan (3) 27:20
HEAT 3 (Cabins 5, 6)
Danny Avila (5) 23:53
Avery Moretti (6) 24:17
Johnny Rios (5) 24:26
Troy Hiller (6) 25:42
Lionel Robertson (6) 26:18
George Macey (5) 26:34
Eddie Zevon (5) 27:13
Hector Mateo (6) 27:31
Rory Hiller (6) 27:38
Marc Goldman (5) 27:52
Today’s Events
Morning free-throw contest
Afternoon water polo
Evening softball
Sloppy joes for dinner! With ketchup!
The Double Dunk
B
arry Monahan stared at the Bulletin, slowly shaking his head. “I was twenty-seventh fastest!” he said. “That’s what … only fifty-two seconds faster and I would have made it.”
“Tough break,” said Vinnie, bending the paper toward him to take a closer look.
“The dream is over,” Barry said, flopping down on his bunk. “Can you imagine how unprecedented it would have been for the hot-dog-eating champion to also qualify for the marathon?”
“Truly Olympian,” said Vinnie.
Riley sat on his own bunk and looked at his copy. Ten swimmers had broken twenty-five minutes, and Riley thought he could have at least gone that fast if it hadn’t been for his stomach problems. Top ten out of the entire
camp would be a huge accomplishment if he could pull it off. And since the final was a considerably longer race, he was pretty sure he could place that high. The longer, the better.
Riley figured being wrenched out and dehydrated had to have cost him a minute, the Big Joe scare slowed him a bit more, and throwing up in the water wasted a little time, too. On a good night, he could definitely move up.
“Training,” Barry was saying. “If I’d trained hard instead of sitting on my butt all summer, I would have qualified.”
“Yeah,” Vinnie said, “that’s a heck of a big
if
. You’ve never trained for anything in your life.”
“Not quite true,” Barry said. “I trained for the hot-dog contest. Lots of eating. Quickly, too.”
Riley stepped outside and stretched his arms high over his head. They were scheduled for a water-polo game in a few minutes—the showdown with Cabin 4—but Riley was thinking ahead to after the game. The big race was still a week away; he had time for some training. He’d be sure to do some laps in the swimming area this afternoon.
Exhausted, Riley sank gently beneath the water, letting his body hang limp for a few seconds before rising to
the surface. The ball had gone over the goal and out of bounds, and they were waiting for someone to retrieve it.
Cabin 3 was clinging to a 3–2 lead, and Riley had played most of the game. It’d been intense, with fierce scrambling for the ball and rough play that saw players constantly being dunked and elbowed. Riley couldn’t wait for it to end; just a few more minutes and it would be over.
“I hate these guys,” Barry mumbled, staring across the water. He’d been playing goalie the entire second half, and he’d made several key saves. Riley had been a big factor, too, helping to slow the Cabin 4 assault.
A counselor dropped the ball in front of Barry, and he passed it to Riley. As usual, two Cabin 4 players scooted toward him. Riley swam sideways and flicked the ball ahead to Vinnie, who was also quickly surrounded.
Riley did a head count: Cabin 4 had only seven players out there, just as Cabin 3 did, but somehow there seemed to be more of them. Or, with the game about to end, maybe they were just more frantic.
“Control the ball!” Barry yelled. “Kill some time.”
Head up, Riley swam toward the center, protecting the area in front of the goal and providing a safety valve for a backward pass. Vinnie was underwater, held down by Kelvin Dawkins. The ball shot straight up and Vinnie
emerged. Four players slapped at the ball, and it landed three yards in front of Riley.
With a couple of fast strokes he was on it, but he had no time to react before Kelvin pushed him under. Riley hugged the ball to his chest, but there was no way out of this without releasing it. Where would it go? Back toward Barry?
Riley drew his legs in and kicked hard, pushing the ball forward as he broke free. He backstroked underwater and broke through the surface, searching for the ball. Hernando had it, but Kelvin had two hands on his shoulders and a second opponent was coming up from behind.
As Hernando went under, Kelvin grabbed the ball and tossed it to a teammate who was rapidly approaching the Cabin 3 goal. Eldon swam up to meet him, but a return pass found Kelvin wide open. Barry had no chance to stop the shot. The game was tied.
“That was a double dunk!” Hernando called, punching at the water.
“It
was!”
yelled Barry. “How’d you miss that, ref?”
“Looked fair to me,” said the counselor who was officiating.
“You’re blind,” said Barry.
“And you’re out of the game!” the counselor said. “Unsportsmanlike conduct.”
Shawn clapped and said, “Let’s go, Barry. Out of the water.”
Barry shook his head and climbed onto the dock. “That was
clearly
a double dunk,” he said. “Hernando had two guys putting him under.”
The counselor blew his whistle hard. “Time’s up,” he said.
Riley looked straight up at the clouds, treading water. It sure was frustrating to be tied just as the game ended.
“Clear the water, except for the Cabin Three goalie and one Cabin Four player,” the official said. “That violation brings about a penalty shot.”
“The double dunk?” Barry asked.
“No. Your whining.”
Riley and his teammates stared at the counselor in disbelief. Shawn put Vinnie in goal. Kelvin stayed in the water to take the penalty shot for Cabin 4.
“This is
un
believable,” Barry said, standing with his hands on his hips and shaking his head.
Riley stood there dripping. Kelvin took the ball five yards in front of Vinnie, feinted left, then right, and fired the ball toward the upper corner of the goal.
Vinnie strained and stretched. The ball glanced off his arm and into the goal.
Cabin 3 had lost.
Kelvin’s teammates dove into the water and mobbed him as Vinnie climbed dejectedly onto the dock.
“We got robbed,” Barry said.
“Just shut up!” his brother, Patrick, said. “Don’t get yourself suspended from the next game, too.”
Vinnie came over now. He punched his thigh with his fist. “We had those guys beat!”
“They cheat, then they get rewarded with a penalty shot,” Barry said. “Hernando should’ve been taking that shot. He was the one that got fouled.”
With that, Barry walked quickly away from the water and headed for the cabin, with Vinnie and Patrick and Hernando trailing behind.
Riley looked at Tony, who just shrugged.
“Still want to swim some laps?” Tony asked.
“I’m wiped out,” Riley said.
“That’s the best time to train. That’s how you get stronger. When you’re already spent.”
“Well, I’m definitely there,” Riley said.
“You know what they say. When the going gets tough?”
“Yell at the officials?”
Tony laughed. “Right. The tough get going.”
Riley took a deep breath and let it out. “Give me two minutes to rest,” he said.
“Okay. Six times to the ropes and back ought to do it, right?”
“I guess.”
“Fast as we can go,” Tony said. “That race is one week away. I plan to be ready for it. You too?”
Riley closed his eyes and nodded. “Let’s make it eight laps,” he said. “I think we need all the training we can get.”
Saturday,
A
ugus
t
7
SURPRISE WINNER IN FREE-THROW CONTEST
Rios Edges Robertson in Final-Round Shoot-out
Johnny Rios of Cabin 5 emerged as the surprise winner of the free-throw contest yesterday morning, hitting 9 out of 10 shots in the final round to edge sharp-shooting Lionel Robertson (Cabin 6), who made 8. Robertson had made 16 of 20 shots in the preliminary rounds.
Vinnie Kazmerski (Cabin 3) and Danny Avila (5) tied for third, with Kelvin Dawkins (4) in fifth.
Water-Polo Action Heats Up
Close contests were the norm Friday afternoon at the Aquatics Center, with Cabins 1, 4, and 5 scoring one-goal victories. The scores: Wonders 3, Tubers 2; Fortunes 4, Threshers 3; Fighters 2, Sixers 1.
In softball, it was Sixers 9, Fortunes 4; Threshers 7, Wonders 3; and Fighters 8, Tubers 4.
Standings
Perfect Aim
“
T
onight,”
Barry said, sitting on his bunk and looking seriously from camper to camper, “Cabin Four gets what’s coming to them. Eleven hundred and fifty hours.”
“That’s lunchtime,” Tony said. “You mean twenty-three hundred and fifty.”
“Whatever. Just before midnight. The witching hour.”
That was just over an hour away. Riley was lying in his bunk, but he was on top of his sleeping bag and was still dressed. Like most of the others, his flashlight was on and was turned faceup to point toward the ceiling. There was no other light source in the cabins, so this was the usual routine before lights-out.
Barry made it clear that at least four people had to stay behind.
“If we’re all gone at once, it’ll arouse too much suspicion,”
he said. “Patrick, Kirby, Colin, and Diego stay put. Make it seem like we’re all in the cabin somehow—laugh a lot and say things like, ‘Quit acting like a baby, Tony!’ or, ‘Hernando, your socks stink!’”
“They do not,” Hernando said. “My mom packed enough so I’d have fresh ones every day.”
“That’s beside the point,” Barry said. “I want people to think you’re in the cabin.”
“What about you?”
“Me too. They can say, ‘Barry, you are a very cool guy.’”
“Or they can say, ‘Barry, you sure have a fat butt.’”
“Whatever. Now everybody else follow me. Quietly.”
Riley figured he’d been chosen because he was fast, not because he was suddenly popular with these guys. He couldn’t see the plan working anyway.
Barry had explained that they’d hide in the woods near Cabin 4—“With absolute silence,” he demanded—until the campers had settled in for the night. Then they’d begin to toss pinecones or pebbles onto the roof of the cabin. Just a few, just to set a mood that not everything was peaceful outside.
“Wow,” said Tony. “Pebbles on the roof. What could be scarier than that?”
“Listen, wise guy!” Barry said. “That’s just the start. We do that a couple of times, then we stay quiet for ten or fifteen minutes. Then we do it again.”
“Ooh. They’ll be thinking,
There must be a ghost on the roof now.”
“It’s just to set the atmosphere,” Barry said. “Make them
slightly
uneasy. So when the real fun starts, they’re already sort of agitated.”
“And what’s the ‘real fun’?” Hernando asked. “Bigger pebbles?”
Barry smiled and folded his arms. “Eggs.”
“Eggs?” asked Hernando. “What’s scary about eggs?”
Barry reached under his bunk and pulled out an egg carton. He opened it to show that it held seven eggs. “I found these in the Dumpster behind the mess hall,” he said. “They must be rotten or they wouldn’t be throwing them out.”
“They must be
totally
rotten,” Eldon said, “or they’d be serving them for breakfast tomorrow.”
“Exactly,” Barry said. “These are a couple of weeks past their expiration date. When the time is right, I’ll throw one at the door of their cabin. They’ll come out to see what’s going on, then all six of us will let them have it.”
“I still don’t see what’s scary about that,” Hernando said.
“It doesn’t
have
to be scary,” Barry said. “It’ll be gross and they’ll never know who did it.”
“How won’t they know?”
“It’ll be dark. And we’ll be hiding. And we’ll be
very
quiet, got it?”
Riley looked from face to face. Hernando and Vinnie were grinning as if it was the coolest thing they’d ever heard. Eldon and Tony looked as if they thought it was the stupidest.
Barry looked smug and triumphant. “Remember,” he said. “No noise. You three—Eldon, Tony, and Night Crawler—head out like you’re going to the Larry, then circle through the woods and meet us at the far end of the clearing. There’s enough of a moon that you don’t need to use your flashlights, but bring ’em anyway. And keep your mouths shut.”