Boot Camp Read Online Free PDF Page B

sir.”
    Joe squints and sets his jaw as if he’s getting angry. I wonder if it’s real anger or just an act. “Boy, you must either be stupider than we thought or a damn masochist to give me that answer. Don’t you remember why you got sent to TI in the first place?”
    â€œSend him back,” says a thin kid with short brown hair and a face covered with bumpy zits. He sits hunched over, a finger between his lips, gnawing on a fingernail.
    I expect Joe to yell at him for speaking out of turn, but my “father” just gazes at me, waiting for my answer.
    â€œYou said I had to learn to obey authority, sir.”
    â€œAnd did you?”
    â€œYes, sir, I did.”
    â€œLiar,” spits a chubby, red-cheeked girl with stringy brown hair.
    â€œSend him back,” repeats Zitface Boy.
    A stocky guy with short black hair, deep-set eyes, and thick black eyebrows that meet in the center of his forehead glowers at me. “You are full of crap.”
    Thus I discover that in Circle we are allowed to speak out as long as what we say shows support for the group leader. Meanwhile, the girl with the black hair widens her eyes and gives me an alarmed look, as iftrying to warn me that I’m headed for trouble.
    â€œSo there was a time when you didn’t obey authority?” asks Joe.
    â€œI guess that depends on your definition of authority, sir.”
    â€œI define authority as p-a-r-e-n-t-s.” Joe spells the word out. “In your case, parents who expected you to come home at night, go to school during the day, not take drugs, not steal money, and listen to what they said.”
    â€œSir, with all due respect? I went to school enough to make the honor roll. I only smoked once in a while, and the money I took wasn’t even pocket change to them.”
    â€œThat’s not what your parents said,” Joe replies.
    â€œCan parents ever be wrong, sir?” I ask. “Or, sir, more precisely, if our parents weren’t paying for us to be here,
then
could they ever be wrong?”
    The kids in Circle go quiet. The question has struck something inside each of them. As if they’ve all wondered or wanted to ask the same thing at one time or another. Joe instantly shoots them a warning look.
    Sitting next to me the red-haired kid with the freckles and the lizard teeth snorts loudly with ridicule. “That’s phat.”
    â€œYeah, right!” chimes Chubby Girl, her eyes darting toward Joe for approval.
    A noisy chorus of antagonism follows as kids eagerly jump at the opportunity to show Joe that they know better. That they’ve learned the lesson I’m still struggling with.
    â€œOf course our parents were right, you jerk!”
    â€œCome on, idiot, when are you gonna take responsibility?”
    â€œYou can’t go through life blaming everyone else when you’re the one at fault!”
    As each of them recites another patented Lake Harmony slogan—their personal pledge of allegiance—they look to their all-knowing “father” for brownie points.
    â€œJust a perfect little angel,” adds glowering Unibrow Boy. “Never had a problem with no one. Doesn’t even know why he’s here. It must be some kind of mistake.” Like the red-haired kid, he radiates an aura of danger.
    â€œSit down, Garrett,” Joe barks. “Suppose I told you that as soon as we’re finished with Circle, you’re going back to TI? Think that would change your mind?”
    â€œHow, sir?” I ask.
    Joe stares at me in disbelief, and now I’m pretty sure it’s no act. “You really don’t get it, do you?”
    â€œHe’s too stupid,” says the red-haired one with the lizard teeth.
    â€œNah, he thinks he’s too smart,” counters Zitface. “Just because you memorized the bible doesn’t mean you learned it!”
    â€œYou haven’t learned squat,” growls