4. 23 Years Ago
Chapter four
It wasn’t a meet cute the second time, either.
“All right, kids, since it’s the first day of a new session, today we’re going to work in groups on rotation.
This way, you’ll all get a chance to experience a variety of the chores we do here on the farm.
There are three stations: veggies, orchard, and feeding.
I’ll count you off by numbers to keep it even. ”
Sam, the head farm counselor, counted kids randomly and grouped them together.
I looked at my group and shook my head. All boys?
Ugh. This is the last time I’m signing up for farm.
Class sign-ups had been the day before and in addition to swim (which everyone had to take), I chose dance, outdoor living, and farm.
And the only reason I chose farm was because Sam brought a baby bunny named Scout with him to sign-ups, promising that any camper who chose farm as an activity would get to play with Scout every day.
Lies, I realized. Instead, I was stuck in a group full of boys with exactly zero bunnies in sight.
“Okay, group one, you guys are going with Derek to pick green beans and cucumbers. Group two, you’re going with Joey to the orchard for peaches.
Group three will stay with me to clean pens and feed the chickens, goats, and pigs.
I’ll blow a whistle every 20 minutes so you know when to rotate to the next station. Any questions?”
I raised my hand. “Yep, you there,” Sam pointed at me.
“When do we get to play with the bunnies?” A few of the boys snickered. Sam shot them a look.
“Thanks for the reminder. Before the period ends, we’ll do five minutes with the bunnies. Deal?”
I nodded, temporarily satisfied. At least the whole time won’t be a waste.
“All right. Head out!”
I followed group one to the veggie garden. The boys ran ahead, kicking up a trail of dust from the dirt road. I kept my lips pursed but could still taste the dirt in my mouth. Strike two for the farm.
At the garden gate, boys who had obviously been doing this all summer paired up with one another quickly.
They grabbed big straw baskets and began claiming rows.
Cucumbers were the crowd favorite. Cries of “I got cukes!” became the anthem of the wildebeest boys in my group.
The only children who didn’t know what to do were me and one other kid, a boy with floppy brown hair and a spray of freckles across his nose.
We were the same height so I guessed he was probably eight years old, like me. He didn’t seem feral like the others.
Derek Moss, a counselor whose name I knew because all the girls thought he was cute, handed the boy a basket. “Green beans, dude. You got a partner?”
The boy looked around, having missed the part where someone explained the rules of this activity. He shook his head.
“What about you?” Derek asked me.
“No,” I began. “But if you don’t want to pick with a girl, I can get my own basket.”
The boy looked at me, sizing me up. “It’s all right.” He shrugged.
“Great,” Derek said. He held up a green bean from a full basket. “Take that row over there,” he pointed. “Ones that are ready will look like this.” The green pod was about six inches long and plump around the center. I committed the size to memory and gave Derek a nod.
In the garden, we crouched down low with the basket between us.
“So, are you new?” I asked.
“Yeah, I started here yesterday.”
“Too bad your parents started you mid-summer. There’s always new kids at the beginning of summer, but not so much in the middle.”
“Yeah, I’ve noticed,” he replied. “I think the kids in my cabin have been together the whole five weeks.”
“Who you got in there?”
“Billy McIntosh, Toby I-forget-his-last-name, Chris something-or-other, Kevin, I don’t know. I don’t remember everyone.”
“Well, Billy Mack is okay. I took horse with him. And I know Toby’s sister, Stacey. She’s a CIT in my unit.”
“What’s a CIT?”
“Counselor-In-Training. They help out the real counselors.”
“Hmm.” He picked a bean, inspecting it. “You know a lot.”
I shrugged. “It’s my third year here.”
“Really? How old are you?”
“Just turned eight.” I reached into the shrub, picking a pair of pods and tossing them into the basket.
“Wow,” he said.
“Wow what?”
“You started young.”
I nodded. “Yeah, I used to hate it. Not anymore, though. My first year I came for two weeks, second year was four weeks, and this year I’m here for the whole summer.”
“I’m just here for two weeks.”
“And? Are you homesick?”
He shook his head no.
“Well, that’s good. Camp’s fun. Way better than home, if you ask me.” I dropped a handful of beans into the basket.
We continued that way for a few minutes, talking and picking, moving slowly down the row, being careful not to step in muddy spots.
“Where you from? You look kind of familiar,” he said.
“I’m from Queens. It’s in the city.”
“Oh. I live in Bethpage. It’s in Nassau County.”
“Yeah. Most of the kids here come from Long Island. It’s okay, though. One day when I’m a grown up, I’ll move to Long Island. I like it better than where I’m from.”
“How come?”
“Well, for one thing, it’s quieter. I live on this famous street called Queens Boulevard. You know why it’s famous? Because people get killed from bad drivers there all the time.”
The boy looked at me, horrified.
“You’ve got to be street smart. Cross at the red and all that. My mom says it all the time. We get the right of way, 'cause we’re pedestrians.”
“What’s that?”
“It’s the walking people. We don’t drive. Only my dad does. Me and my mom take the subway and bus to get places.”
“Cool. I’ve never been on a subway.” He held up a green bean. “Hey, you think you can eat these?”
I laughed. “Uh, yeah. What do you think we’re picking them for, silly? Dottie—that’s our cook—she’ll probably serve them for dinner or something.”
“I dare you to eat one!” the boy said, smiling.
“Raw?” I grimaced.
“Yeah, raw.”
“That’s gross. But I’ll do it if you do it.”
He laughed, accepting the challenge. “Okay,” he said, wiping a string bean off on his mesh shorts. “On three. You ready?”
I chose a small bean pod from the basket and wiped the dirt off the end. I nodded.
“One, two, three!”
We both chomped down on the end of our respective green beans, our faces twisting at the taste. We stared at each other, unwilling to swallow.
Suddenly, a whistle blew. I turned to the side and spit out the mouthful of chunky, green slime, laughing. He mirrored me, sputtering into a nearby plant.
“C’mon, guys! Head over to the peach trees!” Derek called.
“That was nasty!” the boy declared.
“Yeah, those are way better after Dottie cooks them,” I agreed, expelling leftover pieces into the rows of crops.
We carried our basket out and dropped it at the gate.
“Race you to the peaches!” he called, tearing off ahead of me.
“Hey! Wait up! You never even told me your name!” I yelled, giggling.
I caught up to him at the orchard, where he climbed halfway up a stout peach tree. “I’m Matt,” he said. “And I’ll bet you a million dollars I can find the biggest peach on this tree.”
We searched and picked, comparing peaches, taking bites to test ripeness, basking in the warmth of midday sun and new friendship. I had such a good time that by the end of the period I completely forgot to go visit the bunnies in the barn.