What It Was Like Read Online Free PDF Page B

you.”
    â€œGreat!” I said sarcastically. “Who needs a private life?”
    Marcus snickered as the first bus rolled to a halt at the far end of right field. The air brakes hissed, the front door opened, and the bus began disgorging children. One by one, they stepped off onto the grass, kids in all sizes, each one met by some helpful Mooncliff person.
    â€œSay goodbye to paradise, guys,” said Stewie, as he scanned the list of our campers. “Which bus is this?”
    â€œConnecticut!” someone yelled out.
    We didn’t have a kid on the Connecticut bus, but, as the full assault of buses filled the ball field, it wasn’t long before we would have a bunch of them. I watched as the kids, some of them already in green-and-white, swarmed off the buses like insects. In no time, the field was buzzing with people and noise as bus after bus emptied.
    â€œInter Bunk Nine!” Stewie yelled through cupped hands. “Anybody for Bunk Nine? . . . We need some kids! We got zilch here!   We’ll take anybody!”
    Everyone near us heard Stewie and laughed. By now, I had gotten used to the fact that Stewie was a goofball. He liked to laugh and make other people laugh. He liked to have fun. In that, we were alike. But Stewie liked to call attention to himself, which was the very opposite of me. But that made me hopeful that we would be a good team, controlling this bunch of weird-looking and rowdy ten- and eleven-year-old boys gradually filling the row behind us.
    The semi-controlled chaos spread across the field as hundreds of kids streamed off the buses. Some of the kids were really young: five and six. A couple of the little boys were crying. One little girl wandering around was carrying a big teddy bear. What kind of parent sends a teddy-bear-carrying kid away from home for eight whole weeks? And some kids were – well, they weren’t really kids. The Senior boys, some of them, were bigger than me. One kid practically had a full beard. And the girls? The Senior girls? A couple of them – at sixteen – were model-tall and model-pretty. Some looked more mature than the girl counselors. But I really didn’t have time to look: Stewie and I were, little by little, being overrun by the growing mob of Bunk 9 kids growing restless and rambunctious behind us.
    â€œWhy don’t I take this bunch back to the bunk and get them started?” I said to Stewie. “You wait here for the other three.”
    Stewie thought for a moment. I don’t think that he expected me, as the Junior Counselor, to make any suggestions, much less a good one. But he saw the wisdom in my idea and agreed, “Good idea.”
    So I turned and saw seven little faces looking up at me, waiting for orders. I had to act.
    â€œOK, guys,” I announced. “Let’s move!”
    With a collective cheer, they turned and ran toward the Boys’ Campus, arms, jackets and knapsacks flying, a pack of wild, clumsy animals. I had no choice but to fast-walk after them – who knew what trouble these kids could get into?
    By the time I trotted up the steps and into Bunk 9, the free-for-all was in full swing. Kids were fighting other kids for – well, for everything: who would have the two remaining corner beds, who would sleep next to whom, who had the right to which closet in the back porch, who had claim to the few wooden hangers that were left, who would sleep on the mattress that had “cooties.” In other words, madness.
    At first, I tried to talk sensibly to them. I reasoned with each pair of kids who had a conflict, looking for a fair way to arbitrate their disagreement. But eleven-year-old boys are not interested in fairness; they are interested in getting their way, no matter what. Finally, I had to yell at them. In fact, I used the voice that my Dad used for yelling at me, the voice that used to scare the hell out of me when I was eleven.
    â€œStop what