Camp Dork

  Praise for Beth Vrabel’s Pack of Dorks and A Blind Guide to Stinkville

  “Debut author Vrabel takes three knotty, seemingly disparate problems—bullying, the plight of wolves, and coping with disability—and with tact and grace knits them into an engrossing whole of despair and redemption…. Useful tips for dealing with bullying are neatly incorporated into the tale but with a refreshing lack of didacticism. Lucy’s perfectly feisty narration, emotionally resonant situations, and the importance of the topic all elevate this effort well above the pack.”

  —Kirkus Reviews, starred review

  “Lucy’s growth and smart, funny observations entertain and empower in Vrabel’s debut, a story about the benefits of embracing one’s true self and treating others with respect.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “Vrabel displays a canny understanding of middle-school vulnerability.”

  —Booklist

  “Lucy’s confident first-person narration keeps pages turning as she transitions from totally popular to complete dorkdom in the space of one quick kiss…. Humorous and honest.”

  —VOYA

  “This book doesn’t soft-peddle the strange cruelty that kids inflict on one another, nor does it underestimate the impact. At the same time, it does not wallow unnecessarily…. The challenging subject matter is handled in a gentle, age-appropriate way with humor and genuine affection.”

  —School Library Journal

  “Pack of Dorks nails the pitfalls of popularity and celebrates the quirks in all of us! An empowering tale of true friendships, family ties, and social challenges, you won’t want to stop reading about Lucy and her pack … a heartwarming story to which everyone can relate.”

  —Elizabeth Atkinson, author of I, Emma Freke

  “A book about all kinds of differences, with all kinds of heart.”

  —Kristen Chandler, author of Wolves, Boys, and Other Things That Might Kill Me and Girls Don’t Fly

  “Beth Vrabel’s humorous debut, Pack of Dorks, takes a fresh look at what it means to embrace what makes you and the ones you love different…. The novel is a must read for anyone trying to survive fourth grade or anyone who remembers what it was like. Pack of Dorks is the pack I want to join.”

  —Amanda Flower, author of Agatha Award–nominee Andi Unexpected

  “Beth Vrabel’s stellar writing captivates readers from the start as she weaves a powerful story of friendship and hardship. Vrabel’s debut novel speaks to those struggling for acceptance and inspires them to look within themselves for the strength and courage to battle real-life issues.”

  —Buffy Andrews, author of The Lion Awakens and Freaky Frank

  “Beth Vrabel weaves an authentic, emotional journey that makes her a standout among debut authors.”

  —Kerry O’Malley Cerra, author of Just a Drop of Water

  “Most commendable is Vrabel’s focus on compromise and culture shock. Disorientation encompasses not only place and attitude but also the rarely explored ambivalence of being disabled on a spectrum. Alice’s insistence that she’s ‘not that blind’ rings true with both stubbornness and confusion as she avails herself of some tools while not needing others, in contrast to typically unambiguous portrayals. Readers who worry about fitting in—wherever that may be—will relate to Alice’s journey toward compromise and independence.”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  “Brimming with wit and heart, A Blind Guide to Stinkville examines the myriad ways we define difference between ourselves and others and asks us to reexamine how we see belonging.”

  —Tara Sullivan, award-winning author of Golden Boy

  “A Blind Guide to Stinkville is a delightfully unexpected story with humor and heart. Vrabel tackles some tough issues, including albinism, depression, and loneliness, with a compassionate perspective and a charming voice.”

  —Amanda Flower, author of the Agatha Award–nominated Andi Boggs series

  Also by Beth Vrabel

  Pack of Dorks

  A Blind Guide to Stinkville

  To my pack

  Copyright © 2016 by Beth Vrabel

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without the express written consent of the publisher, except in the case of brief excerpts in critical reviews or articles. All inquiries should be addressed to Sky Pony Press, 307 West 36th Street, 11th Floor, New York, NY 10018.

  Sky Pony Press books may be purchased in bulk at special discounts for sales promotion, corporate gifts, fund-raising, or educational purposes. Special editions can also be created to specifications. For details, contact the Special Sales Department, Sky Pony Press, 307 West 36th Street, 11th Floor, New York, NY 10018 or info@skyhorsepublishing.com.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously.

  Sky Pony® is a registered trademark of Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.®, a Delaware corporation.

  Visit our website at www.skyponypress.com.

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.

  Cover design by Brian Peterson

  Cover photos credit Thinkstock

  Print ISBN: 978-1-63450-181-1

  Ebook ISBN: 978-1-63450-620-5

  Printed in the United States of America

  Chapter One

  This was the biggest summer of my life.

  Surrounded by my pack, we’d take on the world. Or, if Sheldon had anything to do with it, at least summer camp.

  I looked through the pamphlet Sheldon had brought in for our last lunch period as fourth graders. On the front read CAMP PALEO. The campground was in southern Pennsylvania, hours from home.

  “Why Camp Paleo?” I asked.

  “Humpf.” Tom, aka the world’s biggest jerkface, made his usual snorty grunt as he walked past our table. Hard to believe he had once been my boyfriend—or worse, that I actually kissed his chicken-skin lips. “Camp Paleo? Shouldn’t you guys sign up for Camp Loser?” he sniggered.

  I jumped up out of my seat, making Tom stumble back a step. Sam grabbed my arm and pulled me back into my seat and started growling under his breath at the same time. Soon, April joined in. Amanda cracked her knuckles. Sheldon’s growl came out more like a yip. Not really frightening, until you noticed the way the veins in his neck bulged. Tom’s ears flamed red as he practically ran to the so-called cool table behind us.

  “That just never stops being awesome.” Amanda crossed her arms behind her head.

  “Never,” I agreed, smiling at my pack.

  “So, back to camp.” Sheldon shook in his dino-shoelaced sneakers, waiting to hear what we thought. Sheldon has a thing for dinosaurs. And by thing, I mean brachiosaurus-sized obsession. (He even has me saying words like brachiosaurus. The things you do for friends.)

  “I don’t know.” April chewed her lip. “It’s kinda expensive. And what about my red belt?” She took a deep breath through her nose. April is the middle of five kids in her family and used to speaking in bursts. I could almost see a mental brake being pulled up in her brain as she forced herself to slow her words. “I can’t miss a lot of karate or Miss Betsy won’t let me test for the next level.”

  I shuddered. I couldn’t blame April for not wanting to upset Miss Betsy, our purple-haired, walnut-shaped tae kwon do instructor. We both took classes with Miss Betsy, but the aging ninja clearly had greater expectations of April than me. Which was totally fine. April goes to class twice a week like me, but she’s also in the invite-only sparring class.

  “Camp’s only for two weeks. And look, archery!” Sheldon flipped over the pamphlet and pointed to a picture of a girl holding a bow and arrow. April’s bottom lip jutted out as she nodded
. Archery is sort of ninja-like. Sheldon pointed to something farther down on the pamphlet. “And there’s this blogging thing—” but Amanda interrupted him before he could continue.

  “Sounds awful.” Amanda tossed her pamphlet onto the table and took a huge bite of her ham and cheese sandwich. “Why does it say we have to bring a can of soup? I hate soup.”

  “You have anger issues. Everything sounds awful to you at first,” Sam pointed out, but not in a mean way. Just the way you’d say ham is pink. Or Sheldon likes dinosaurs. It’s just a fact. Everything makes Amanda angry. “I think the soup is probably for charity or something.”

  Amanda shrugged and picked up the pamphlet again, giving Sheldon the little boost of encouragement he needed.

  “Live Like a Caveman! That’s the second part of the title!” Sheldon bounced in his plastic chair. “Think about it, Amanda. It says we make our own dinners. I bet it’s those giant turkey legs! And the camp is built on a site known for fossils. We could find real fossils!”

  Amanda tilted her head, considering.

  “And, um …” Sheldon’s skinny leg drummed up and down, knocking the edge of his lunch tray. “There are meditation classes. They, um, are designed to help with anger issues.”

  “Cool,” Amanda said. “I’ve been meaning to work on that.” Sheldon let out his breath in a low whoosh.

  I couldn’t believe they were all going for this.

  It’s not that I didn’t want to spend summer with the pack. In fact, I was counting on it. We’d swim in Autumn Grove Town Pool. We’d go for bike rides and watch outdoor movies. Maybe we’d build a fort or something. But this? My eyes snagged on horrible phrases in the pamphlet. HIKE MOUNT HARMAN! Hike? Up a mountain? Why? EXCAVATE FOSSILS RIGHT IN CAMP PALEO! I wasn’t sure what excavate meant, but I was pretty sure it involved dirt. SWIM IN NEARBY LAKE MATILDA! Lakes are where fish live. And poop.

  Plus … and this really isn’t a big deal … I’m completely okay with it, but it could be an issue for the rest of the pack, because it’s a sleep-away camp. As in, drop-you-off-and-see-you-in-two-weeks camp. And maybe some of us haven’t even had, I don’t know, a single sleepover. Ever. I mean, I haven’t had a sleepover yet, but I’m not scared or anything. Especially not scared about sleeping in the woods without Mom or Dad. It wouldn’t be a big deal at all. But my parents probably wouldn’t go for it. That’s all.

  I scooped up a spoonful of refried beans to fortify myself before crushing Sheldon’s dream. “I don’t think I can do it. No offense, Sheldon, but there’s a reason people stopped living like cavemen. Like, I don’t know, toilets. Running water. And Google.”

  But Sheldon wasn’t going down without a fight. He held up a long, pointy finger. “Camp Paleo is sponsored by TechSquare!”

  “Are we supposed to know what TechSquare is?” It’s always refreshing when Sam asks the obvious questions, sparing me the responsibility.

  Sheldon rolled his eyes, the veins in his neck dangerously close to bulging again. “It’s only one of the largest Internet companies in the world!” Sure enough, right after CAMP PALEO IS SPONSORED BY TECHSQUARE, the pamphlet read, TECHSQUARE IS ONE OF THE LARGEST INTERNET COMPANIES IN THE WORLD! CREATED BY COMPUTER TECHNOLOGY GENIUS ALAN BRIDGEWAY, CAMPS PALEO AND EMAGINE WERE DESIGNED FOR THE EMERGING GENERATION.

  “We get an hour of screen time in the computer lab, guaranteed, every single day. Boom!” Sheldon whipped his hand in the air like a rock star.

  “Don’t ever do that again,” I ordered.

  “Huh,” Sam said, like Sheldon’s gangsta move convinced him. “I’m in.”

  What? You know how sometimes you turn your head so fast your neck sort of throws up inside and you feel hot juice running down the inside of your neck? Or maybe you’re more careful about throwing your head around. But that’s how fast my head turned. “You’re in?”

  Sam shrugged, a smile tugging the corners of his mouth. “It could be fun. Two weeks away from here, all of us together. You should do it, too.” He leaned toward me, chocolate-brown eyes sparkling. “I dare you.”

  My mouth spread into a grin. It was a low blow, but effective. I can’t resist a Sam dare. “I’m in.”

  Amanda put a fist in the middle of the table. “Me, too.” Sam and I put our fists on top.

  “Yes!” Sheldon added his.

  All of us looked at April. She chewed her lip some more and glanced at Sheldon, who muttered, “Please, please, please!”

  “I’ll talk to my parents.” She put her boney fist on top of the stack.

  We threw our fists in the air and howled. Kids at other tables audibly groaned.

  “Shut up, dorks!”

  “Do they have to do that every lunch?”

  “Ugh!”

  Ms. Drake rolled her eyes but didn’t say anything. Maybe she spared us the lecture because it was the last day of school, but I think the real reason is she knows it’s her fault we have a pack. She had assigned Sam and me a research project about wolves, which led to our forming a pack of dorks.

  My grin spread, if that’s possible, when our eyes met. I could see our fierce teacher fight to keep the stern keep-it-down-or-else look on her face. Soon, though, she smiled back.

  Chapter Two

  I lugged an overloaded backpack up the street to my house at the end of the day. Ms. Drake made us take home every scrap of paper from our desks and lockers. I think my backpack weighed about the same as a kindergartener.

  “Bye,” April said without her usual gusto when we got to her intersection.

  Each step toward my house was another step away from fourth grade. Why did this bother me so much? I mean, fourth grade was pretty much a black spot on my otherwise blemish-free life. I started the year being the envy of everyone. By the end, no one wanted to be me. Except me, of course.

  This was the year I finally learned that being a friend is more important than having a lot of friends. (Funny, isn’t it, that learning that brought me more friends—real friends, that is.)

  Yet lugging my bag up the street made me feel more and more like all of the things that kept my pack of friends together was as thin as a wisp of cotton candy. I knew I’d see April during the summer, since we live only a few blocks apart. Plus, my grandma picks up April every Wednesday and Friday for our tae kwon do class. But what about Sheldon? Or Amanda? Our parents don’t know each other well, and I never see them around town.

  And Sam. He lived on the other side of town, was constantly busy being a superstar at gymnastics, and wasn’t the let’s-hang-out-and-share-our-feelings type of friend. He was more the dare-you-to-eat-that-so-called-turkey kind of guy. I couldn’t imagine him calling me to chat. Would he ever want to just come over and hang out with me, Mom, Dad, and my baby sister, Molly? I made one of Tom’s trademarked snorty sounds. Of course not.

  So, when would I see Sam?

  Camp Paleo might be my only chance. But I was pretty sure Mom and Dad would veto my going to camp as soon as I asked.

  The only sleepovers I’d ever been allowed to attend were at Grandma’s house, and even then Mom lectured Grandma about not smoking her long, thin cigarettes in the house, curbing the cussing in front of me, making sure I ate the occasional vegetable, and getting me to bed at a decent hour. (I never told on her, but Grandma thinks “sleeping” is “watching SpongeBob on the sofa bed.”) No way would they be okay with me being away from them for two full weeks!

  “You’re seriously sending me to camp? You know it’s hours away! And sleep-away, too, right?” I pressed my hands so hard against the kitchen table that the vinyl cloth stuck to my palms while Mom looked through the Camp Paleo pamphlet. Who were these people?

  Here’s the thing: I want to go camp. I do! Mostly. But I thought Mom and Dad would be a little more reluctant about shipping me off to Pennsylvania. And I sort of had the idea that if I couldn’t go to the camp, the rest of the pack—or at least Sam—wouldn’t go, either.

  “It’s for two whole weeks!” I exclaimed.

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nbsp; “Adios!” Grandma called from where she was eavesdropping in the living room.

  “Mom! This is a family conversation.” My mom sighed through her nose as she bounced Molly on her knee. “Sounds like a great opportunity. You might even find a fossil!”

  My baby sister took a break from drooling all over herself to giggle at Mom’s bouncing. Molly is only six months old and growing little teeth. They might be fangs. The tiny white spikes in her gums are dagger sharp, and growing them makes her act like someone who’s turning into a werewolf. She twisted her shoulders and threw her wobbly head back to scream. Like a werebaby. I haven’t shared my theory with Mom and Dad. Yet. But I should stick close by for the next couple of full moons.

  “Gurghlup.” Molly stopped screaming and shoved her fist into her mouth. She plopped back against Mom’s chest. Molly can sort of sit up, but only for a few seconds before her head gets too heavy and she falls backward.

  “It’s super expensive, too,” I pointed out. “And you’ve got all those early intervention sessions for Molly to pay for …”

  Mom’s knee stopped bouncing and her eyes narrowed. Even Molly stopped mid-gnaw and stared at me. “First of all, Molly’s therapy is paid for through the state and our insurance. Secondly, you don’t need to worry about finances. That’s my responsibility, not yours.”

  “But shouldn’t I be here at home? You know, to help out?”

  Seeing Mom’s fierce face, Dad grabbed Molly around the ribs and hoisted her up in the air, tickling out another giggle. A dribble of Molly drool fell from her mouth and onto Dad’s cheek. I shuddered, but Dad just wiped at it with his shoulder. I think a few months of changing diapers and getting puked on has made him just accept disgusting things as part of life.

  Mom pulled one of my hands from the tablecloth and squeezed it in her cool grasp. “We’ve got things under control. You don’t have to worry about us.”

  I sucked on my bottom lip. I knew why Mom was being so serious. I finally leveled with her and Dad a few days earlier, sharing with them a lot I had kept hidden in the months after Molly’s birth. Things about my former best friend, Becky, going secret agent, pretending to hate me so she could report back all the mean things everyone said about me. And that she soon stopped being my friend, even in secret, and presided over the Everyone Hates Lucy fan club. I also told them about how Sam was the only person who was nice to me for weeks, and how Tom and his jerkface sidekick, Henry, made Sam pay for that by humiliating him so much he threw up before school for days.