The Other Normals Read Online Free PDF Page A

this year.”
    “Eight weeks,” Dad says. “We’ve spoken to our counsel.”
    The lawyers nod. Mom hands me a brochure:

CAMP
WASHISKA
LAKE

15
    SIX WEEKS LATER I’M STILL LOOKING AT the thing. The brochure is crinkled and rumpled from my obsessive analysis of it. I’m in Mom’s SUV with my mother, father, brother, and the lawyers, driving through the surprisingly secluded woods of northwestern New Jersey.
    “‘Camp Washiska Lake and Conference Center: a nonreligious, activity-centered recreational community for boys and girls ages ten to fifteen.’ It doesn’t sound so bad, right?” I ask the car.
    “Shut up ,” Jake groans. “You keep reading that. Like we care .” He’s got a headache and he’s wearing sunglasses and drinking actual water for once. The Just Because played last night, and he sneaked into our bedroom at five a.m. I look at the SUV’s hybrid energy gauge, which says we’re getting 99 mpg and then flips to 0.01 mpg.
    “Look, we’re here!” Mom says.
    I snap my head back and forth from the brochure to real life. The cover of the brochure shows a happy bunch of racially mixed kids waving under an ornate carved wooden sign: CAMP WASHISKA LAKE . In real life, the sign is chippedwhite paint on nailed-together two-by-fours hanging from a wizened tree.
    “Stop the car! What is this?”
    Mom ignores me and keeps driving. Horace explains, “That entire brochure is clip art. If it were for legal services, they would have to say ‘paid spokespeople.’ But to advertise a summer camp, you can use whatever clip art you want.”
    I put the brochure away and pull out my Pekker Cland character sheet. That usually calms me down. Jake snatches it.
    “Hey!”
    “Shut up a minute, I want to see this. What’s this say? ‘Honor fifty?’ Is that out of a hundred?”
    “Gimme that!”
    “I thought you were good at this game. Didn’t you read the Odyssey ? The people with honor die quickest.”
    “Perry, I don’t know if you’re going to be able to bring your gaming materials to camp,” Dad says.
    “We’ll just deal with that when we have to, okay?”
    “What would you do if I ripped this up?” Jake asks. He tugs at the corners of the sheet.
    “No!” I grab it from him, moving a lot faster than I thought I could with Speed 7. I put the character sheet in my backpack. Jake, for a moment, looks impressed. I know someone else who would be impressed. I pull out my phone and send Sam a message: wish you were here.

16
    “I ADVISE YOU TO PULL OVER,” KIMBERLEY tells my mother. She pulls over. A sign is posted at a crossroads in the woods:
    NO LAWYERS BEYOND THIS POINT
    The sign is terra-cotta with white lettering; it looks more official than the camp sign. “I advise you to let us out,” Horace says. Mom nods; Kimberley and Horace exit.
    “What are they doing?” I ask. The lawyers dust themselves off. Jake is as astonished as I am. I don’t want them to go. They’re annoying, but they serve as a nice buffer between me and the nuclear Eckert family unit. I don’t like that unit. There’s something wrong with it. We could never even be happy at McDonald’s.
    “They’re obeying posted notices,” Mom says.
    “We’ll wait here until you pick us up,” Horace says. He sits on a log with Kimberley.
    As we drive away, I ask, “What is this evil place you’re bringing me to?”
    “Moments like this, without the lawyers, make you think about the importance of real conversation,” Dad says.
    “Do you have any questions you want to ask us before we drop you off at camp?” Mom asks.
    “Questions about women, specifically, Perry. You know this is a coed camp.”
    “Dad!” I want to tell him, Yes. I want to tell him, A woman appears late at night before my dreams begin behind three sets of horizontally bisected saloon doors. In the first set, the bottom door is open, showing her naked hips and legs; in the second, the top is open, showing her breasts and head and neck; in the third, both