Page 131

It was a lie. Nothing was being handled.

Trevor was hiding behind some story about him falling. Mason was trying to keep the poor kid from actually falling in on himself. And Alvin was avoiding me like I’d been avoiding him all week.

So, being the responsible adult I was faking being, I made the campers participate in an anti-bullying activity. The irony was not lost on me.

We gathered beneath the pavilion in the afternoon, where the heat pressed down through the canvas roof and turned the air thick and hot and sticky. I arranged the campers in a circle and handed each of them a card with a scenario printed on it.

The first card described a kid being mocked for the way he talked.

“People are allowed to sound different,” I said.

One of the boys snorted. Billy-Bobby’s friend. “What if they sound like a fag?”

The pavilion went quiet besides the occasional muffled snicker.

“Knock it off,” I barked out.

One quarter of my self-imposed shadow leaned back in his chair. “I’m just participating in the group activity, Mr. D.”

“No, you’re not.”

He smiled. “You said we were supposed to be honest about how we felt.”

“I said you were supposed to be honest about how bullying made you feel. Not your ignorance.”

Another camper laughed. “What? Are we supposed to pretend we all like gay people now?”

My glare fell to where Mason’s hand had moved towards Trevor, stopping before actually touching him. He waited. Trevor didn’t look up.

I wanted to tear the entire pavilion apart. Instead, I picked up the next card and cleared my throat. “This one is about exclusion.”

“Like when nobody wants the fairy on their team?” someone asked.

The next bit of laughter came fast. It spread through the group before I could stop it.

Trevor folded farther into himself, while Alvin sat across the circle. Cindy next to him. Both silent as the grave.

That should have been enough to tell me something was wrong. Alvin never sat silently. He had spent the entire activity staring at the cards in front of him, his jaw locked, his hands resting flat against his knees. Every so often, his fingers twitched.

No one else noticed. Cindy was too busy trying to redirect the campers. Mason was focused entirely on Trevor. And the rest of the kids thought Alvin was simply angry about having to participate in “another lame group activity.”

They didn’t know him the way I did. I knew the difference between Alvin being furious and Alvin deciding what to do with that fury.

The first was loud. The second was deathly quiet.

“Alvin,” I called out to him.

His eyes came up to mine. There was nothing in them, and that was what scared me.

“You want to take over?” I asked.

A corner of his mouth lifted. “I’m sure you’ve got it all covered, Mr. D.”

The reply itself was mild. The meaning beneath it was not.

I looked towards the boys who I was certain had been at the dock this morning. They were watching Trevor and whispering behind their hands.

Alvin saw it too. His posture changed. His shoulders settled. His chin lowered. His focus narrowed until the rest of the pavilion seemed to disappear around him.