Camp Director’s Office

Ted Jannings watched through his office window as the two young men approached.  Their faces were relaxed as they joked quietly with one another.  He imagined they were curious as to why he had called them out of the training session.  He stepped to the door, opening it before they even reached to front steps.  “Boys, come in.  Have a seat.”  Ted pointed to a couple of chairs, sitting on the edge of his metal desk as Dan and Jim seated themselves.

“What’s up, Ted?” Jim asked, leaning forward.

“I received a telephone call this morning,” Ted paused, searching for the right words.  “I’m afraid I have some bad news.”

“From New York?” Jim asked, at the same time Dan said, “From home?”

“No,” Ted hastened to assure them.  “It had nothing to do with your families.”

“Billy’s not out, is he?” Dan asked, his eyes flashing with alarm as his mind latched on to the next worse case scenario.

“No, no, nothing like that,” Ted hastened to assure him.  “It’s more sad than bad, I suppose.  Ted pressed his fingers against his temples.   “Kris won’t be coming back to camp this year.”

“Why not?” Dan asked, his brow wrinkling.  “Mark and Denis, I knew wouldn’t be back, but I thought we were getting Sam, Brady, Luis and Kris.”

“We were.  But Kris...” Ted paused, realizing that both younger men could see he was struggling for control.  Ted took a deep breath.  “Kris is dead.”

“What?” Jim asked, his shoulders jerking stiff with shock.  At the same time, Dan exclaimed, “How?” his body slumping back in his chair.

Ted sighed.  “I don’t have all the details, but from what I’ve been told, it was pneumonia as the result of an accident.”

“An accident?  What kind of accident?” Jim asked, his voice tight and skeptical.  “I mean, sorry, sir, but accidents usually give you cuts and bruises and broken bones.  Not pneumonia.”

“He had those, too.”  Ted took a deep breath.  “The cuts and bruises, I mean.  As I said, I don’t have all the details, but it seems that Kris was being bullied at school.  You remember that he had some fairly obvious problems?”  Dan nodded, his eyes dull, his fingers flexing and contracting against his denim covered legs.  Ted continued.  “Evidently, Kris attracted the attention of some bullies.  They tried to intimidate him, but Kris, being Kris, didn’t react to their verbal attacks.  So they got physical.  On the last day of school, a group of five boys allegedly cornered Kris in the boys’ bathroom.  They beat him up and dunked his head in the toilet.  Repeatedly.”  Ted looked away, trying to regain his composure.  “Kris managed to get away, but they chased him.  He ended up falling down the stairs, breaking his arm and his collarbone, as well as getting a serious concussion.  While he was in the hospital, he developed pneumonia -- probably from aspirating the water.  His body wasn’t able to deal with the infection, and he... passed away.”

“When?” Jim asked hoarsely, his jaw clenched nearly as tight as his fists.

“Last week.”  Ted shook his head.  “I’m sorry to dump this on you boys, but I thought you’d want to know.”

“What about the kids?” Jim asked.  “I know that the new ones don’t know Kris, but Sam, Brady and Luis do.  What do we tell them?”

“We’re honest with them.  Honesty is always best in situations like this.”  Ted scrubbed his face with his hands.  “We still have a few days before the kids arrive.  I need to think a bit, but once I have a handle on it, we’ll have another meeting to strategize.  I’ll be with you when we break the news, but the majority of the fallout is going to land on the two of you.” He looked at both of them.  “Are you going to be okay?  I know this has been a shock for you both.”

“I’m... shocked and angry,” Dan answered honestly.  “I’ll need to ... I can’t be okay right now, you know? I can’t.”

“Me, either.”  Jim looked at his hands, seeming surprised to find them clenched.  He concentrated his attention on them, slowly forcing his fingers to loosen.  “I don’t know what to say.”

“Good,” Ted said solemnly.  “I’m not doing so well myself right now.  If either one of you had tried to tell me you were okay, I’d be worried.  You go figure out how you need to handle this information.  Just know that I’m here for you--for both of you--if you need me.”

“Thanks, Ted.”  Both voices were bare whispers.  Moving in unison, Jim and Dan rose slowly, and left the director’s office.

*****

They walked in silence toward Cabin Three.  Mart was waiting on the porch, reading a book and absently eating popcorn from a bowl next to him.  “I brought snacks!” he said cheerfully.  His exuberance quickly faded as he noticed the expressions on both of his friends’ faces.  “What’s wrong?” he asked, jumping to his feet as his mind raced through every possible worst-case scenario.  “Did something happen at home?  With Brian and the girls?”

Dan simply shook his head, but Jim managed to say in a tight voice, “It doesn’t have anything to do with home, Mart.  It’s one of our kids from last year.”

“It must be bad,” Mart said, plopping himself back down on the porch.  “Because you both look as if you’ve been gobsmacked.”

“Gobsmacked?”  Dan rolled the word around on his tongue.  “I wonder about your vocabulary sometimes, Mart, but in this case, I think that fits.”  He pushed the popcorn bowl to the side, and sat down on the top step. “One of our kids from last year was murdered.”

“Kris died, Dan,” Jim corrected sharply.  “We don’t know that he was murdered.”

“What do you call it, then?” Dan asked, his voice raw with barely contained pain and rage.  “What do you call it when five guys try to drown a kid in the toilet?  When they chase him until he falls down the stairs?  When they torment him to death?  I call it murder!”

“Kris?” Mart asked.  “Wasn’t he the kid you said was... slow?”

“Yeah.”  Jim leaned against the wall of the cabin rubbing his head with one freckled hand.  “Kris has—had--what was probably Fetal Alcohol Syndrome.  He was slow, and he was really susceptible to suggestion.  That’s how he ended up here.  Older kids in his neighborhood would tell him to steal something or hit someone, and he’d do it.  He couldn’t tell right from wrong very easily.”

“No off switch,” Dan added, staring off into the woods.  “He’d just eat and eat--everything that was put in front of him.  And he was always moving --I don’t think he was ever still--something was always twitching or moving.”

Jim smiled sadly.  “On the first day of camp last year, Kris poked a horse in the eye.  He didn’t do it to be cruel; he just did it because he could.  He wasn’t mean.  He was just... Kris.”

“He didn’t hold a grudge.”  Dan wiped a hand across his eyes.  “All he wanted was to be included. He was so proud that he aced orienteering--that he was an important part of the team.” His voice wavered.  “He was good with that compass.”

“I gave it to him before he went home,” Jim admitted.  “I thought it might help him remember that he was part of our team.”

“Damn!”  Dan stood up, pacing the length of the deck.  “I hate this.  I really, really hate this.”  He turned his back on his friends.  “I need to take a walk.”

Mart rose to stop Dan, but Jim just shook his head.  “Let him go,” he warned.

“But he’s upset,” Mart protested.

“I know.  So am I.”  Jim clenched his jaw.  “I’m angry and I’m sad, and I really just want to lie down and cry.  But I can’t.  And neither can Dan right now.”  His green eyes glistened.  “I know you want to help, Mart, but you can’t.  Not now. You can’t know how we feel. You didn’t know Kris.”

“No,” Mart admitted, softly.  “I didn’t know Kris.  But I do have a brother in the same age range, and I was an eleven-year-old boy once, too.  I’ve seen the two of you with Denis and Mark, so I know that you had a strong bond with your campers.  It’s not that different than the bond I have with all of the Bob-Whites.  If something happened to one of you, I’d cry.”  Mart moved slightly, reaching to grasp Jim’s arm.  “You can cry in front of me, Jim.  It’s not like I’m going to laugh at you.”

A tear trickled down Jim’s freckled cheek, and he brushed at it impatiently.  “Tears aren’t going to bring Kris back,” he said, even as another one slid from his eye.  “Nothing’s going to change that he’s dead.”

“No.”  Mart sat down again, suddenly very interested in his shoelaces.  “I guess you’d know that better than I do.  But it doesn’t help to keep it bottled inside, either, does it?”

“Probably not,” Jim agreed, unable to stop the continuing trickle.  He let himself collapse onto the lower step.  “God, Mart.  He was just a little boy.  He had enough problems in his life.  He didn’t deserve to be bullied to death.”  Jim covered his face with his hands, fighting, unwilling to allow his emotions to overflow. He took a ragged breath, trying valiantly to keep himself together. “I don’t know how we’re going to tell the rest of the kids,” he choked.  “Right now, I don’t know anything.” The tears came then, in quiet torrents.

Mart had no response.  He just sat on the higher step, one hand on his friend’s shoulder, lending support and comfort through his silence and presence.

*****

Dan sat alone on a rock overlooking the stream near where Kris’ horse had thrown him the previous summer.  Kris had been a victim of bullying in that instance, too, as Mark had spooked the horse intentionally.  The exchange he’d had with Mark echoed in his mind.

“Why, Mark?”  It was Dan who spoke, the calm tone of his voice at odds with the frustration on his face.  “Just tell us why you felt it necessary to treat Kris like that.  He could have been hurt, Mark.”

“Nothing hurts him,” Mark said, derision staining his voice, as he dropped it to a whisper.  “The big dummy doesn’t even feel things.”

“That isn’t true,” Dan told the boy, glancing toward Kris to see if he had heard the insult. Kris was oblivious.  “Kris has some problems, but he is still a human being, and he can still be hurt--both his body and his feelings.”

Those words had made an impression on Mark and had helped him to see Kris as more than a retarded kid always tagging along.  It had been the start of the cabin coming together as a band of brothers, ready to support and defend one another at any cost.  Dan wiped at the tear that slipped past his eye, wishing he had been able to ensure others saw Kris as more than he appeared.

While the details from Ted had been sorely lacking, Dan had already pieced together a scenario in his head.  Kris--only wanting to belong--loping along like an overgrown puppy.  Bullies would pick up on that.  He could see them in his mind’s eye.  Older boys; cocky and sure of themselves, using Kris as their fall guy, and then laughing at him behind his back.  No, he corrected himself, laughing in his face.  Kris wouldn’t have realized they were laughing at him.  He probably would have laughed right along, oblivious to the fact that he was the joke.

Dan could clearly imagine how it happened.  The bullies teasing and taunting Kris, hoping to get a reaction so they could beat on him.  Hadn’t Dan witnessed similar things himself, during his time with the Cowhands?  Only, Kris, eager, slow Kris wouldn’t react.  He’d just follow along, annoyingly unresponsive.

That’s when it turned violent.  Dan was positive.  Unable to push Kris into starting an altercation, the bullies’ leader would force one.  Cornered in the bathroom, what would Kris do?  Dan tormented himself with the thought.  He’d have been scared when they started hitting him; he would have cowered and cried.  Egged on, the bullies would have kicked it up a notch, until Kris started swinging.  That’s when they would have grabbed him by the hair, dragging him into a stall for some “swirly” action.

Dan stopped wiping at the tears.  There was no stopping them now, as his imagination switched into overdrive.  Kris would have been terrified.  He didn’t like to swim on a good day, afraid to put his face under the water.  It would have been a nightmare, being held down and dunked, not being able to breathe, again and again.  His heart rate would have accelerated, and he would have panicked as water sneaked into his lungs.  Adrenaline would surge as he gasped and struggled, managing in a burst of superhuman strength wrought from desperation, to break free of his attackers.  He would have run then, blindly, dripping wet, with no real idea of direction, only a fear-driven need to escape.  His attackers would have given chase, and Dan could clearly see Kris looking over his shoulder in terror, slipping in the water dripping from his own face, tripping and falling down the stairs.  He would have felt that pain.  Broken bones, Dan knew, would have made it through the haze that always seemed to surround Kris. That kind of pain could penetrate just about anything.

His heart hurt.  Dan rubbed at his chest, knowing that it wouldn’t help ease the pain beneath his ribs.  He wondered if Kris had knocked himself out in his fall.  A part of him hoped so, because he well knew that being unconscious made the pain and fear disappear for at least a little while.  Kris hadn’t deserved to die at all, let alone with terror and pain.  Dan curled up on the flat rock, warm from the midday sun, buried his face in his arms, and allowed himself to mourn.

*****

When Dan didn’t show up for dinner, Mart went looking for him.  Using his basic knowledge of the camp, and personal knowledge of his friend, it took him less than half an hour to find Dan, curled up asleep on a rock near the creek.  The sun was starting its downward path into the far distant Pacific, casting shadows across Dan’s face.  Mart moved closer, not wanting to startle his friend awake.  “Dan,” he called softly. “Hey, Danny.  Dude, wake up.”

Dan’s eyes, slightly swollen and still red-rimmed, opened, his body tense and ready to fight.  As his vision cleared, he recognized Mart leaning over him and relaxed.  “Hey,” he rasped, coughing a little as he sat up.  “What time is it?”

“A little after seven,” Mart said, sitting down on the rock and reaching into his knapsack. “I was worried when you missed dinner, so I came looking for you.  Here.”  He handed Dan a paper sack, watching as Dan pulled out a thick sandwich wrapped in wax paper.

Dan unwrapped the sandwich.  It was a work of art: Turkey, ham and roast beef, layered with cheddar cheese, lettuce, pickles and ...He looked closer.  Shredded carrot.  As if in response, his stomach rumbled.  Taking a large bite, he chewed slowly, savoring the mix of flavors.  “It’s a masterpiece,” he said, preparing to take another bite. “Thanks.”

Mart blushed just a little.  “You’re welcome.  I didn’t want you to go hungry.  There’re some apple slices, a couple of cookies, and a soda in there, too.”

“You’re a good friend, Mart,” Dan said.  “I appreciate all the stuff you do, even if I don’t say it.”

“Don’t get all sappy, dude.  It’s just a sandwich.”  Mart tried to make his voice brusque, but he couldn’t quite manage to keep the grin of satisfaction off his face.  He watched his friend chew and swallow in silence.  As Dan came to the end of his sandwich, Mart quietly asked, “Are you coming back in tonight, or are you planning on bunking out here?”

“I’ve had enough of this particular bunk,” Dan answered, popping the top on the soda.   “How’d you find me, anyway?  This is a big camp.”

“Yeah, but I know you.”  Mart stretched out his legs.  “When you left, you were--quite understandably--upset.  When you’re upset, you go to either your father or Tessa.  You’d find your father at the cabin.  You’d find Tess near the water.  Since there aren’t any empty cabins listed on my camp guide, I chose the water.  I found the stream and followed it until I found you.  Bingo. My sister isn’t the only one in the family with detective skills.”  He sat down next to Dan on the rock, sneaking a sideways glance at his best friend.  “Do you want to talk about it?”

Dan shook his head and handed Mart one of the cookies.  “There isn’t a lot to say.  Some bullies got hold of an eleven-year-old with mental issues.  They bullied him, and he died.”  He grimaced, his uneaten cookie crumbling to dust as his hand clenched.  “Nothing we did here could help him out there.  Nothing that happened last year mattered.  Kris is dead.  I couldn’t stop it.  I can’t change it, and I don’t know how I’m going to tell the other boys.  I can send a letter to Marina.  She can break the news to Mark and Denis for me.  They need to know. But what am I going to say to the others?”  His scrunched his forehead.  “Sam won’t even be in our cabin this year, he’s twelve now, so he’s moving up to Cabin Five.  So we’ll have three kids who never knew Kris, and two that did.  What do we tell them about that empty bed?”

“I don’t know.”  Mart nibbled on his cookie, making circles in the dirt with the toe of his shoe.  “I know you’ll think of something, you and Jim.  You always do.”

“Thanks.”  Dan crumpled up the empty paper bag and rose stiffly to his feet.  “I’m glad my bed in the cabin is more comfortable than this one.”  He smiled and extended his hand to Mart.  “I’m beginning to think that Tessa is right.  Sleeping is a great way to escape--at least for a while.”

“Sleeping and eating are two of my favorite things,” Mart agreed.  “Although not necessarily in that order.” 

Dan laughed, and they set off back to the camp.  At the point where the path diverged, Mart held out his hand.  “I’m here if you need me, you know.  Just down there, in the room above the kitchen.”

Dan ignored the hand and pulled his friend into an awkward hug.  “Thanks, Mart.  It’s good to know you’ve got my back.  Goodnight.”

“Goodnight, Dan.”  Mart stood back, watching his friend disappear up the path to his cabin before seeking out his own room.

*****

Jim was stretched out on his bed when Dan entered the cabin.

“Hey.”  Dan kicked off his shoes and busied himself arranging them in the closet.  “How’re you doing?”  He didn’t look at Jim’s face.

“Craptastic.  You?” Jim replied.

“About the same,” Dan admitted, sitting down on the edge of his bed.  “The walk helped a little.”  He glanced briefly at Jim. Unable to be still, he let his fingers pluck at the seams of the bedspread as he asked,  “Any idea what we tell the boys?”

Jim sighed.  “No.”  He sat up, leaning his back against the wall. “Everything I come up with sounds... wrong.”

“Yeah.”  Dan turned to finally face his friend. “Ted said to be honest with the boys, but I can’t figure out how honest we should be.  Do we just tell them that Kris died in an accident? That he got sick and died? That’s the truth, more or less.  Or do we tell them the whole truth?”

Silence enveloped the room as Jim considered the question. His green eyes were haunted as he responded, speaking slowly.  “I think that we tell them that Kris died from pneumonia.  I don’t think we should tell them the ugly details unless we have to. It’s bad enough that they’ve lost a friend.  I really think that’s enough to deal with.”

“You might be right,” Dan agreed reluctantly, his own innate need for the facts arguing with his need to protect those in his charge.  “There are enough changes for them to deal with.  Sam moving up, Mark and Denis moving on, and new kids here in the cabin.  Last year was special.  This year will be different enough for them.”

“So we’re agreed?” Jim asked.

“I guess,” Dan acquiesced.  “We can talk to Ted about it tomorrow, so we’re all on the same page.”

“Sounds good.”  Jim yawned and stretched.  “I’m tired, but I don’t want to sleep.  Weird.”

Dan chuckled.  “I had a nap on a boulder.  I’m not sleepy, but this bed feels good.”

“I bet.”  Jim chewed on his lip.  “It’s going to be a long night, isn’t it?”

“’Fraid so,” Dan answered quietly. “They always are.”

************

Author’s Notes

    No one was more surprised than I was when Kris told me that he had died in such a sad and horrible way. His story is based on bullying gone too far.  It happens all too often these days, I fear, and although I hated killing an eleven year old. Kris insisted.

    I was so busy getting the story up for my Jixaversary, I completely forgot to thank my most wonderful editors.  So, belatedly, Thank you Dianafan (MaryN), Susan and Wendy!  I could have written it without you three, but no one would have wanted to read it.  Muchos gracias, chicas.

    While I’m on the subject, thank you, also, everyone who bothers to read my stories and takes the time to comment on them.  I really do appreciate all of you.

    Finally, Jixemitri is my home away from home, and I love you all very much.  Better late than never, right?

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