Homesick

Part 1

Fabian sat down on his bed and sighed. He was heading for his last night in this familiar room, the last night in his big soft bed; and then there were eight long days and seven uncomfortable nights in a summer camp waiting for him. He took his backpack, opened the long zipper on its top and sat the backpack ready for packing on his bed. Around him lay the things prepared for him to pack. First of all a huge pile of clean boxers that his mother, naturally, found the most important. He could get lost in the wilderness, washed away over a waterfall or bitten by a snake, but it wouldn’t be so bad as long as he had clean underwear on. That’s how mothers are. Men would rather think of fish-hooks and nylon string to feed themselves in the wilderness as necessary, but wouldn’t waste any thoughts on the state of their underwear.

Fabian flipped through the pile and counted roughly eight boxers. So, his mom thought: Eight days = eight boxers. But then she’d forgotten that Fabian travelled there in a clean pair of undies, and even if he changed every morning he needed just seven.

Shaking his head Fabian drew the flyer for the summer camp out of his pocket and unfolded it. Waving this flyer his mom had come into his room two weeks ago, doing this as if it was a very special and generous surprise for him. “Aren’t you always after going camping?”, she had said. “This is a real ex-cel-lent summer camp, and real expensive!” Of course, she’d never asked him before if he wanted to go to a summer camp. And even when she held the flyer right under his nose, she only asked him casually, “This is okay for you, isn’t it?”

She always asked Fabian afterwards, when everything was already ordered, subscribed or paid, so that he could hardly ever say no. And if he ever actually refused, it meant big trouble for him.
The actual reason for this “generous surprise” was the business trip that his mom would be on during that time. Five days on a conference tour at a hotel with her boss. And this meant four nights with her boss, too. Fabian knew this guy, he had already been at the Waitaweill’s twice before for dinner. A nauseating guy. Always wearing a sharply ironed suit and a silky tie. He smelled like loads of after shave, so much that you got dizzy if you sat next to him.

“Wildwater Camp” was written across the flyer, with a jumble of computer clip-art printed below. High mountains, soaring pines, a waterfall, a canoe, a number of animals – each in an arty style, so that Fabian could hardly guess what some of them were supposed to be – and above all that, a sun with a ‘smiley’ face.

The flyer read:
“Dear wildwater traveller,
we’d like to invite you to a journey full of adventure. Come to our log cabin camp and have a time far away from the noise of the city, surrounded by nothing but pure nature. Come and sit at our camp fire under the gleaming stars…” and so on and so on.

At the bottom of the flyer was a checklist for all the things that you had to pack, and Fabian began to work his way through it. “Solid footwear” was the first thing on the list. In Fabian’s opinion his sneakers were solid enough to face the wilderness, or any other challenge, and he had already decided that he would not only arrive at the camp in his sneakers but wear them the whole eight days there. But grown ups meant by “solid footwear” a certain kind of trekking boot made of brown leather – just the kind that lay brand new and smelling like shoe-polish beside Fabian’s knees. He nodded and marked the checkbox by “solid footwear” with a pencil stub.

Next was: “Socks”, “underwear” (tons of it, thought Fabian), “two or three pairs of pants”, “washing things”, “tooth brush”, “swim trunks or speedos”, “gym shorts” and “leisure suit (optional)”. They’d provide t-shirts at the camp, so you didn’t need to pack those.

The last checkbox on the list was “lots and lots of fun”. Fabian made a face. He’d surely not check this one off. It sounded as if you had to take all your fun there with you. He stuffed his backpack with everything – the pile of boxers at the very bottom. Of course, the real life-saving stuff wasn’t on that list. There was just a note that one shouldn’t take cell phones, pocket computers or gameboys to the camp, since each time some of those things got either lost or stolen and they’d only cause trouble. Knives and lighters were strictly forbidden. But Fabian needed to take something with him to survive eight days and seven nights so far away from home: his small portable CD-player with earphones and freshly charged batteries.

It wasn’t easy to pick some proper CDs from the bookshelf where Fabian stored his music. His all time favorite album had to come with him, that was no doubt. Its plastic case was rather covered in scratches and its booklet nearly falling apart. Fabian took it out of the case and put it into the CD player just to test it. He plugged the earphones in and leaned back against the wall.

Slowly, a somewhat dreadful, lurking guitar solo faded in until suddenly the band fell in with a heavy rhythm and dragging drums. His friends teased him sometimes because he liked to hear that “air guitar music” – stuff you couldn’t dance to but just play on an imaginary guitar. Fabian hated hiphop or similar stuff. Just the fact that quite a lot of this kind of music was made by DJs was clear evidence to him that it couldn’t have anything to do with art.

Fabian shrugged heavily when he noticed that there was someone standing in the doorway to his room. It couldn’t be his mother – he always knew when she was near by the smell of smoke that was always around her. It was Niklas, his friend who lived close by. Fabian stopped the music.

“Hi”, he said.

“Hi”, said Niklas and closed the door behind him.

“I’m packing”, Fabian explained and sat the backpack up on his bed.

“I see”, said Niklas, who went half way around the bed and slumped down into an old armchair that Fabian had kept back from their last living room furniture. Just because he was used to it, Niklas took the E-guitar that stood in the corner and strummed softly across the strings. He never got tired of saying that he found guitars screwy and unnecessarily complicated to play, and that no real rockstar would play guitar anymore. Just keyboard. But somehow he couldn’t keep his hands off Fabian’s E-guitar.
In return Fabian used to say, the way Niklas played piano he’d end up as a bar pianist and never become a rockstar. As far as music went those two could never agree.

Niklas asked: “Are you really waiting for that summer camp?”

“No”, grumbled Fabian, rather dully.

“I have never ever been to a summer camp”, said Niklas trying to look envious.
“Be happy”, replied Fabian. He took a bunch of CDs from his bookshelf, looking for life-saving music for the wilderness.

“We’re not going on vacation this year”, said Niklas without taking his eyes from the guitar strings. “It was so expensive to repair our car. Just maybe we’re going to the theme park for a weekend.”

“Doesn’t sound bad to me”, said Fabian. How he’d like to give away that stupid summer camp for a weekend at the theme park!

“Yeah, but it’s only two days! Is that a journey? I mean, a real journey goes at least to the sea for swimming, and then at least for one week, or even better for two. Just like our journey last year.”
Fabian looked over at his blonde friend. He could remember well how tanned Niklas was when they came back from that journey. His freckles had turned almost invisible on his brown cheeks, just his nose looked as if there was still some sand sticking to it. And it took months until Niklas faded out again to his usual pale color.

Fabian said: “I know better things than going to a summer camp. It’s just because my mother goes on a business trip and she doesn’t want to leave me home alone.”

“Pity”, said Niklas and he had to giggle. “But why don’t you just come to us for as long as your mother’s away?”

“She says, we’ve done that too many times before, we can’t bother you again for such a long time.” Fabian sighed. Five days and four nights with Niklas would have been too nice to be true. “And besides, she already paid for the camp. She would never listen now.” He sat down on his bed again and spread the CDs out on the blanket. “If it was my decision, I’d just visit Walter and Jeremy.” Walter had been a friend of his mother and Jeremy his son. They had lived with Fabian and his mom for a couple of years. Fabian was deeply convinced that Jeremy was his little brother, just his mom and Walter forgot to marry, somehow. Now those two lived in another town, pretty far away. Fabian was sending letters to Jeremy quite often, and only two mere postcards had come in return since. He thought to himself, boys of Jeremy’s age don’t know what to say in a letter.

Those two postcards were pinned to the wall above Fabian’s desk.

Niklas played the only guitar chord he knew – G major. He preferred to say nothing when it came to Jeremy. He’d always taken the dark haired boy for Fabian’s real brother, and the way Fabian had favoured him all the time, had been geting on Niklas’ nerves. Jeremy here, Jeremy there. Fabian cheated in play to make Jeremy win. Each time Jeremy got hurt Fabian went away too, to take him home. If Jeremy didn’t want to play soccer Fabian didn’t join in the game either. But Niklas was never really mad about Jeremy, and when he was suddenly gone and Fabian cried for days, Niklas felt sad about him too. Even if his little sister was a pain in the neck, the thought that his family could get torn apart some day made Niklas frown.

“Which one would you take with you?” asked Fabian and held up two CDs.

Niklas bent over, ignored the two disks in Fabian’s hands and looked through the pile on the bed. Finally he drew out a movie soundtrack that Fabian surely didn’t like too much and said: “This one!”

Fabian moaned and looked at the ceiling. “You’re a great help!”

Niklas smiled wearily and asked: “So, what’s up? Will you come out to ride around a little on our bikes or do you wanna spend the whole evening with packing?”

Fabian shrugged and put the CDs aside. “Okay, I’ll come.”

Once Niklas had already ran out through the bedroom door, Fabian once again leant over his bed. There was one thing that he should never forget to pack, but it wasn’t necessary that Niklas knew about it. It was Jarvis the butler. A small stuffed animal in the shape of a penguin. Once it was a gift from Jeremy and now it was something like Fabian’s lucky charm. Even if this lucky charm hadn’t prevented a piece breaking from Fabian’s tooth when he fell on the ice, the little stuffed penguin always lay right beside his pillow. Quickly, Fabian let him slip into the backpack.

Now he could be sure he’d survive the wilderness.

The bus was supposed to stop at the small parking lot in front of the church to pick up the children that lived in the small town where Fabian and Niklas lived. And of course, it would do this early in the morning. Fabian was almost constantly yawning while his mother drove him to the parking lot. Why did those buses always go so damned early? The drive to the camp wouldn’t take so much time that that’d be the reason. And on top of that Fabian hadn’t slept that well that night. It was really time that he became a rock musician. Those cool guys used to sleep until noon, and anybody who disturbed them was shooed away by their bodyguards.

There were three girls waiting with their parents, but no one Fabian knew. About five minutes later a big coach came around the corner and stopped, hissing, on the parking lot. All the parents, including Fabian’s mother, did the same farewell ritual: One last time they hugged and cuddled their children, then held their shoulders and said with a straight, serious look: “Take good care of yourself! I’ll wait for you!” Then a short tender touch of their cheeks and a silent “I love you” and then they left them to their own fate; which meant they pushed the kids towards the door of the waiting bus. One last wave, and the door closed, hissing behind them.

The coach was already full of children from the big neighboring city where it had started. The front part was occupied by a number of girls who seemed to know each other. From time to time they started a song that usually died down after half a verse as they all forgot the lyrics. In the back part of the coach were boys who obviously knew each other too. They all talked loud at the same time and shoved each other from their seats. The center of the coach was neutral zone. Here were most of the remaining seats and it was, accordingly, quiet.

“Sit down!” the driver called in a bad mood, watching the wild bunch in the mirror.

Fabian was just about to take a seat next to a rather fat boy absorbed in the music on his earphones, when he noticed a barely conspicuous sandy-haired head out of the corner of his eye. It was the head of a boy who sat on the edge of his seat, looking outside, with his nose stuck to the window pane. He might have been half a head shorter than Fabian – just like Jeremy.

Without further inquiry Fabian let himself fall back into the seat next to the sandy-haired boy.

The coach started to move. The parents outside waved.

Timidly Fabian waved back.

Now his sandy-haired neighbor noticed him and turned around. He had freckles on his nose and his cheeks that were more numerous and more reddish than those Niklas had. And his skin was bright pink and looked rather delicate. Due to this contrast his lips looked a deeper red than the other boys’ lips.

“Hi”, said Fabian.

The sandy-haired boy looked around quickly and with seeming astonishment, up at his skinny neighbor with the dark brown, rock-musician hairstyle and said, with a thin and somewhat husky voice: “Hi!”
Then he turned back to the window and stuck his cheek to the pane again.

Slowly and ponderously the coach moved through the narrow streets of the small town and finally it left the houses, the garden fences and the parked cars behind. Fabian had a strange feeling in his tummy. He knew it would be eight days until he’d see all this again.

His small neighbor seemed to be fascinated even by the flat landscape outside. He kept sitting on the edge of his seat, one hand on the window pane, the other hand on a handle, looking at where the coach was heading.

Fabian watched him for a while since the smaller boy more or less occupied his view. Funny, the way he clung to that handle and the window pane beside him as if he needed it not to lose balance and fall from his seat. Fairly possible that this boy sat travelling in a coach for the first time. After a while he seemed to relax a bit and occasionally he even leaned back into his seat, exhaling with a deep but silent sigh.

Fabian couldn’t fight the impression that his sandy-haired neighbor was somehow depressed.

The noisy boys in the back part of the bus obviously had something like a leader. At least they called his name again and again: Angelo!

“Angelo, look here!” – “Angelo, just look!” – “Eh, Angelo! Angelo!”

Fabian turned his head and peered down the central aisle. There were three or four boys running from one side to the other making that noise. One of them was wearing a red baseball cap back-to-front, this seemed to be Angelo. The others did what he did. Camp followers. When Angelo climbed onto the back of his seat, the others appeared on theirs. When Angelo stuck his head to the rear window and made faces, the others came next to him and made faces, too.

“Hey, Angelo, check this out!”

Fabian sank back into his chair and muttered: “What a jerk!”

Then he noticed that his sandy-haired neighbor looked at him. His turquoise eyes were shining and a faint smile flitted across his lips. ‘Jerk’ – that seemed to amuse him.

“Do you know those dudes?” asked Fabian and pointed behind him with his thumb.

The turquoise eyes wandered a little between Fabian’s face and his thumb, then the sandy-haired head was hesitantly shaken. “Not really”, said the boy, finally.

“Is that Angelo at your school?” Fabian wanted to know.

The boy still looked a bit uncertain. “Yup”, he said, almost inaudibly.

“Any idea why the others are so fascinated by him?” asked Fabian.

His sandy-haired neighbor shrugged his shoulders. “Dunno”, he said. And since he probably had nothing more to say, he turned back to the flat landscape that followed the highway trail, his fingers playing with the zipper of a colorful nylon bag that was strapped to his tummy.

Fabian sank deeper into his seat. If he slipped down to eye-level with his neighbor, his knees bumped against the back of the next chair. The summer camp was for youngsters from 10 to 14 years. Surely, they would count Fabian with the older boys, the “big ones”, just because of his height. And the sandy boy next to him with the small ones.

“Do you know anybody coming with us here?” Fabian wanted to know.

The boy next to him turned around for a glance and was surprised by finding Fabian on eye-level with himself. For a moment he looked down at Fabian’s skinny stretched out body, which was the reason for the sudden loss of height. Then he shrugged his shoulders again and said: “Not really.”
Fabian stuffed his hands into the pockets of his khaki shorts. “Me neither”, he said and sighed. “I’m the only one here from my neighborhood.” He looked for a moment to see if his neighbor showed any sign of empathy and found none, but the sandy-haired boy seemed to relax a little more instead. He sank down in his seat like Fabian until his knees almost “bumped” the chair in front. Then he looked up to Fabian and smiled shyly.

Fabian explained: “My mother goes on a business trip, and so she just sent me away to this summer camp.” Still no reaction to Fabian’s tale of woe. His sandy-haired neighbor had almost slipped from his chair and now he was working himself up the seat again. Fabian asked: “Have you ever been to such a camp before?”

The sandy boy with the freckles nodded extensively. “But never that long.” And after thinking for a moment he added: “And never without my dad.”

“Oh, I see”, said Fabian. With a real dad by his side he probably would have found such a summer camp quite acceptable. Walter had been out camping with him and Jeremy once, that had been real great. Though, Fabian never called Walter his “dad”, and he wasn’t sure how it probably felt to have a real dad, he was badly missing something since Walter and Jeremy were gone. And it wasn’t just those small things like the smell of the strong coffee that Walter liked to drink, or his shaving stuff in the bathroom. Fabian felt somehow vulnerable ever since. If, for example, there appeared an “evil” letter in the house, such as an excessive bill, his mother would moan about it for days, calling friends on the phone, crying for advice, and in the end she’d pay in full. Walter would just grunt and then make a complaint about it the next day.

Somebody held an open pack of sweet smelling jelly beans under Fabian’s nose. His neighbor had dragged it out of his nylon bag and offered it now with a grin.

Fabian had to grin too, and pushed some jelly beans between his lips.

For quite a while now the coach drove along a country road winding through wooded hills. The jelly beans were eaten, and Fabian had found out that his neighbor with the sandy hair was called Patrick. Or just Paddy. And Paddy now knew Fabian’s name.

At a big “day trippers” restaurant, in log cabin style, the coach turned off onto a gravel road that led into the woods. Then it stopped on a parking lot in front of a wooden archway, lined left and right by stakes.

“Camp Wildwater” was written across the arch.

“We’re there!” the children called across the bus and leaped up from their seats.

Fabian was pushed towards the exit by the crush. Paddy stayed somewhere behind him.
Once outside, Fabian took a short look around. So, this was called “Wildwater”? There was just a quiet green lake stretched out in the woods, a simple public campground on one side and “Camp Wildwater” to the other side. No trace of the big mountains that the flyer showed. Only hills around here, overgrown with pine forest. What else did the flyer say? “Far away from the noise of the city… nothing but pure nature…” Well, the camp was just far enough from the country road that you couldn’t see the cars rushing by, and the restaurant at the junction would surely contribute some “night life” to the scene. But this was rather calming to Fabian. Civilization was only a stone’s throw away.

He picked up his backpack from the luggage compartment of the coach and followed the excited bunch of children through the wooden archway. The arch was flanked by two grown ups: a man with a beard and glasses who welcomed the kids with some mumbled words, and a young woman with short cut hair who counted the children. They stopped on a sandy yard in front of a flat building, that was definitely the biggest house in the camp and therefore seemed to be the main center. Spread around it stood a number of small log cabins.

The man with beard and glasses drowned out the children’s giggling and whisper with a loud and confident voice: “Well, it looks as if everyone’s present, very well, now. We welcome you at Camp Wildwater with warm greetings. My name is William, I’m the director of this summer camp. If you ever have any trouble or questions you can come to my office. There’s also a telephone, a fax or e-mail, if you like, so that in case of EMERGENCY…”, he said this word with emphasis and paused for effect, “…you can call your parents. If you just want to tell them how much you like it here, please use the public phone in our camp center’s corridor. You may only leave the camp in the company of a group leader. And now I want to introduce our group leaders.” The bearded man named William went around the kids to the entrance of the center building, where two men and two women had grouped themselves on the steps.
Beard-William explained: “You will now split up to four groups – two for the girls, two for the boys. Then you’ll get two T-shirts and a sweatshirt in the color of the group you picked. Each group has a different program for the following days, and you should choose a group with a program of your interest. The group leaders will now introduce themselves and their group. Let’s start with the groups for the girls.”
The woman with the short cut hair who had counted the kids under the archway held up a white T-shirt that was printed with the drawing of a long-necked bird. “My name’s Marion and I’m the leader of the group of the swans.”

“Geese!” interrupted a boy’s voice, causing laughter all around. That voice probably belonged to that well-known Angelo from the bus.

Short-haired Marion didn’t care and continued: “The swans are familiar with water, they like to swim and row, but they also have a sense for everything beautiful and graceful.”

The girls now whispered all at once. It seemed as if most of them felt already like swans.

The other female group leader had longer, curly hair and wore a red T-shirt and held another red shirt in her hands. “I am Christine and I’m a raccoon,” she said with a less confident voice than her work mate. This caused a lot of laughter, especially among the boys.

“So, where’s your tail?” a well-known boy voice called. Which gave rise to even more laughter and caused quite a commotion. Finally the loud voice of Beard-William cut through it: “Now, quiet please, really!”

Then Christine, the racoon-woman, could continue: “The racoons like to canoe, go on a trip to the other side of the lake and do some arts and crafts. Us raccoons help each other.”

Again there was a lot of whisper among the girls. It was clear that they had to choose for a group. The white swans were for girls who were good at swimming, and the red racoons for those who were scared of water.

Now the first group leader for the boys stepped forward, a slender young man of the “surfer guy” type. He had long frizzy blond hair that he had bound in a ponytail. He wore a black T-shirt printed with an eagle in white. An admiring murmur went through the ranks of boys. The surfer guy said: “I’m Hank and I’m leading the eagles. Us eagles are brave hearted but not careless. We’ll learn to dive in the lake and we’ll build a raft together.”

A certain restlessness went through the group of boys and quite a number already pushed a little into the direction of Hank, the blond surfer guy. It was clear that the group of the eagles in their fabulous black shirts was for the “real” boys. Whatever came after it could only be for sissies.

And that was exactly what the fourth group leader looked like: quite like a younger Elton John in shorts and sandals. He wore glasses and a plain hairstyle with a fringe. His chubby belly was clothed in a dark green T-shirt with something printed on that one could hardly recognize. “My name’s Brian, and the beavers belong to me. We’ll explore nature and we’ll go to a nearby game park to feed some animals. We’ll go fishing in the lake and light campfires.”

Chubby Brian of the green beavers didn’t get much attention. His introduction almost drowned in the whispering and excited chatter of the kids. The gangs and cliques of those who knew each other before tried to agree on one group. Around Angelo with his red baseball cap, there seemed to be some disagreement. “But I want fishing and a camp fire, too!” one of his followers protested. “Are you nuts?” the meanwhile familiar voice of Angelo shouted, “that stuff belongs to those beaver-dummies!”

“Listen!” Beard-William called right into the commotion. “I want to say that EVERY group will have camp fires, a nocturnal ramble and our all-camp lantern party. Nobody’s going to miss something!”

“Have you heard?” Angelo barked at his pal.

“And now I’d appreciate if you choose a group and – one after another – get your shirts from your group leader. Anybody who can’t make up his mind will be sent to the group with the least members so far.”
The four group leaders went to some desks with piles of T-shirts and sweatshirts in their appropriate color, followed by the pushing and shoving kids. Naturally, short-haired Marion of the swans and surfer-guy Hank of the eagles got pestered first.

Fabian wasn’t that type of boy who usually pushed forward to the front, but somehow the whole pack led by Angelo dragged him with them to the desk of the eagles and promptly he got a set of black shirts pressed into his hands by Hank with a wink. No question, Fabian was long and skinny, which looked sporty. Naturally, he had been chosen to be an eagle. Suddenly, right next to him a boy voice yelled. That was Angelo and for the first time he had a close look on him. A tanned boy of Fabian’s age and almost his size with dark and slightly curly hair who triumphantly waved a bundle of black shirts. One couldn’t deny that Angelo was real handsome, Fabian noticed with a strange kind of concern. For just a second their eyes met, and by the look of his lively brown eyes and his open smile Angelo was apparently glad that this skinny boy with the musician’s mane belonged to the eagles like himself.

Hank had just handed out his last set of shirts when the Elton John double, Brian, approached him and whispered something into his ear, showing him a piece of paper. Then both group leaders went to their chief – Beard-William.

“Uhhh, we seem to have a little problem with the groups of the boys”, the camp director announced with his loud voice. “There’re three cabins for each group with six beds each, which is 18 beds per group. Unfortunately we gave out shirts for the eagles two times too many. Now we have 20 eagles but only 14 beavers. I have to ask you to find two volunteers who’ll go from the eagles to the beavers.”

After this announcement a couple of boys holding black shirts in their arms drew one or two steps back, as if the grown ups could take away their shirts again.

Fabian looked at that poor bunch with the green shirts of the beavers in their hands. A group of chubby, slow and timid kids. What a bunch of losers, thought Fabian. But there were also many small ones among them, and Fabian could see the sandy glowing shock of hair that belonged to Patrick, his neighbor on the bus, shining behind some chubby shoulders. And when Patrick noticed Fabian, he shortly lifted his hand as if he wanted to wave.

Fabian sighed noisily and went over to Hank, the surfer guy, and gave back his black shirts. “God damn it, who cares”, he said.

The blonde group leader of the eagles looked a bit disappointed that it was Fabian who changed to the beavers voluntarily. With a short nod he accepted the shirts.

Fabian felt rather bad. The whole procedure reminded him of the gym at school, when two leaders had to pick players for a basketball team and the fat or slow-moving boys had to sit and wait until finally somebody “wanted” them. Fabian hated that.

A big chubby hand slapped him on his skinny shoulder. “Welcome to the beavers”, said Brian, the group leader, and gave him a bundle of dark green clothes.

Trying to ignore the looks of the boys behind him, Fabian trotted to the beavers. A few times Patrick gave him a short look and he seemed to be unsure, if Fabian even remembered him. “Hi”, said Fabian into his direction and Patrick almost jerked and said “Hi”, too, and then smiled a little bit relieved.

They had to find a second “volunteer” by drawing lots, and Fabian said silent prayers that it wouldn’t hit Angelo, because that would cause constant trouble and might spoil the whole time at the camp.

Fortunately they drew a rather calm, big guy who didn’t protest too much.

“Okay, here we are”, said Beard-William finally. “By the way, you can keep the shirts later as a kind of souvenir of what will hopefully be a nice time. Now the group leaders will show you the lodgings and you’ll get time to settle down. You’ll see us later for lunch.”

Each group leader directed the wild bunch belonging to him into another part of the camp. The three cabins for the beavers stood on the edge of the woods and looked quite comfortable from the outside.

“Listen”, said Brian and adjusted his glasses, “I leave it up to you who’ll share a cabin with whom, just don’t make a drama of it. All cabins are of the same size and quality. And besides, we’re only 16, that leaves us some space. Restroom, showers and toilets for the boys are over there at the back of the center building. Now, go and get your cabin, I’ll come to you later to write down your names.”

The beavers looked around undecided, only a small gang that seemed to know each other before rushed for the first cabin. Fabian noticed somebody timidly clinging to the back of his shirt, and he didn’t have to guess who that was. He looked back over his shoulder and said to Patrick: “`kay, let’s go.” And then they went together to the next cabin.

It was rather dark inside and there was the smell of old wood. To the walls stood three sets of very simple bunkbeds, each covered with a thin mattress and a pile of bed sheets and wool blankets. The usual lousy beds, thought Fabian. Apart from that there were a couple of chairs and a table.

“Stench goes upwards”, said a big, plump boy with bright, close-cropped hair and threw his backpack onto one of the lower beds as a sign that it was now his.

Fabian and Patrick stayed by the first stack of beds that was closest to the door and the small window so that it received most of the poor lighting. “Where do you wanna sleep? Top or bottom?” asked Fabian.

Patrick shrugged his shoulders. “Dunno.” He looked at the bed and he was obviously not enthusiastic about it. The matresses were stained, the wool blankets were cheap, dark grey stuff that looked pretty itchy. Finally, he sat down on the lower bed.

Fabian unloaded his backpack onto the upper bed. Then he looked all around him. Two other boys had joined them apart from the big, plump youngster, so that there were five of them in their cabin and one bed remained free. One of the other boys was almost smaller than Patrick and with his chubby cheeks and his shoulder-long black hair he appeared rather girlish. The second one was a weedy little guy with brown hair and glasses. Since Fabian didn’t know the names of their fellow occupants yet, he gave them nicknames, silently. To him, the big, plump one was the “walrus”, the girlish chubby cheek was the “señorita” and the weedy lad was the “swot”. The señorita and the swot shared the third stack of bunkbeds. For a while all five boys looked each other up and down in silence.

“Hi”, said Fabian.

“Hi”, said the others.

“It looks as if we’ll spend the next eight days together”, Fabian continued just to start at least some kind of conversation. But the others didn’t know anything to reply.

Suddenly, Brian, the group leader, burst into the silence. Panting he came through the door and laid some writing things on the table. “Sooo”, he called and pulled up a chair, “let’s get your names now. I’ll make a name badge for each of you that we’ll stick to one of your beaver shirts. And you’ll kindly wear it for a while so that we’ll get to know each other.” He adjusted his glasses, took a quick look around and pointed with the thick marker in his hand at Fabian who was closest to him. “Christian name and surname!”

“Fabian Waitaweill”, said Fabian.

Brian looked at his list. “Waita-what? Ah, here! So, you’re Fabian…” He checked a name on the list and scratched something with his squeaking marker on a sheet with yellow stickers. Then he peeled off the sticker and held it with his finger tips. “A beaver-shirt, please!”

Fabian held up one of his dark green shirts and Brian stuck the badge to its upper side.

“Next one”, said Brian and pointed at Patrick.

“Patrick Finn” said the sandy haired boy rather quietly.

“Pardon?” asked Brian who had drowned out the answer with his own panting.

With some emphasis Patrick repeated: “Patrick Finn!”

“Ah, yes”, said Brian and checked another name. On the badge he just wrote “Pat”. Patrick didn’t protest, although he had said on the bus trip that his nickname was Paddy.

The walrus was named Dan, the señorita turned out to be Julio and the swot was better known in real life as Michael, and he got a badge with “Mike” stuck to his shirt.

Brian gathered his stuff again and stood up. “Okay, that’s it. Making the beds is no problem for you, is it? You can handle that on your own?”

Fabian nodded. That procedure was quite familiar to him.

“Okay, then we’ll see you later for lunch”, said Brian and set out for the next cabin. In the doorway he turned to the boys once again. “And, please, put on the shirts with the badges. You’re beavers now!” Then he disappeared.

The boys looked at each other in the quiet semi-darkness of the cabin. Fabian lifted his arms, stripped off his polo shirt and folded it carefully to put it away into his backpack. Patrick kept sitting on his bed undecided and watched Fabian’s bare chest. Fabian noticed this with a slight tingle, almost like goose bumps. How would he seem to the approximately two years younger Patrick, he asked himself. Fabian was softly tanned by all the games in the garden of the Edlunds. Maybe Patrick was ashamed of his pale, freckled skin?

The sandy-haired boy sighed and then took off his shirt, but he had a vest on underneath which he kept on. Then he pulled on the green T-shirt of the beavers which proved to be a little too big for him. No matter how he pulled the T-shirt there was always a white piece of his vest sticking out of its neck.
On the walrus named Dan the green shirt looked too short. And the other two, señorita Julio and Mike the swot, could have used their shirts as tents. The boys made jokes about this and laughed. Then they started to make their beds.

Mike – the swot with glasses – gave an involved lecture about it, as if he had to explain the use of bed sheets for everyone. There were two sheets. One was to cover the mattress the other one was to prevent the grey wool blanket from itching on your skin. At last, there was a cover for the small, miserable pillow that belonged to each bed. Walrus Dan was done with covering his bed with sheets and blankets pretty soon and pretty untidily, and now he spread himself over it. “Wake me up for lunch.”

In the center building was a dining hall with long tables and benches. Everybody came together there at lunch time. The meal consisted of simple noodles, a mincemeat sauce and pudding for dessert.

No surprise that the members of each group kept themselves to themselves at those long tables. There was hardly a different colored shirt to be seen among the rows. The table with Angelo and his cabin companions, dressed in black shirts, stood out by the unsurprising amount of noise. “Ewww, what do you call that muck?” – “Hey, Angelo, watch this!” – “Uuurgh, that looks like the shits!” They hardly stayed on their benches at that table. When finally a portion of pudding from that table splashed down on the floor, Marion, the short haired group leader of the swans, came there and firmly upheld law and order. And this worked. If one managed to make Angelo shut up and sit down, the whole pack was quiet in no time.
And actually it was Angelo – that handsome Angelo – who had to wipe up the patch of pudding with a cloth and bucket after lunch.

In the afternoon everyone went hiking to explore the lake and the surrounding woods. Each group took a different route. Brian led his beavers on a path through the woods which became gradually narrower while leading up into the hills. They were going to look for the source of a creek, said Brian to the boys, and he told them the names of some particular bushes with red or black berries and if those berries were edible and so on. Almost like a museum guide he droned out his explanations, sometimes he didn’t even look at the bushes he was pointing at.

But when they reached the highest point on their route, Brian stopped and took a deep breath but said nothing. They had a view over the whole lake, which looked real beautiful from up here, as Fabian had to admit to himself.

“You didn’t forget your swim trunks, I hope”, said Brian and looked at everybody inquiringly. “If the weather stays like this, we’ll have the chance to go swimming in the lake quite a lot. The water’s great!”
Suddenly, almost every “beaver” looked somewhat depressed but nobody said anything. By now, none of the leaders had talked of swimming when it was about the program of the beavers. Surely, some of the boys thought they’d be able to get out of it when they chose the green shirt.

Back in the camp the leaders announced that they’d prepare a camp fire and sausages for a barbecue instead of supper and that the kids could spend the remains of the afternoon settling down and getting familiar with the camp.

The black-shirted gang around Angelo quickly agreed that they’d spend the time until dawn bathing in the lake. Though the weather wasn’t too sunny, there was a kind of stifling heat making the boys sweat since they had left the coach. They really needed some refreshment.

Fabian was in the mood for swimming, too, but he’d probably have to go alone because his comrades didn’t look at all eager to put on their swimming trunks. All, including Paddy, preferred to retire to the cabin and play cards. Fabian followed them, murmuring, to change clothes, which he did without shyly seeking cover behind the bunk beds or something. Fabian had no problem if they peeked at his naked butt.

A part of the lake shore belonging to the camp had been covered with sand to become a small beach. Next to it stood a landing stage sticking out into the lake, inviting him to take a run up and dive in. Fabian was passed by a couple of running boys he didn’t recognize without their black T-shirts for a moment. But even without that baseball cap back-to-front he could tell Angelo from the others. He was quite a lot more tanned than his pals and he was wearing swim trunks in conspicuous neon colors. They raced down the landing stage and jumped with a loud yell into the greenish water.

Fabian strolled behind them, sat down on the edge of the landing stage and dangled his feet in the water. It was warmer than Fabian had expected and clearer than its green color purported.

The other boys wildly kicked their feet and made the water splash and spray around them. Then they climbed up onto the landing stage again to take another run-up and jump into the lake. They seemed to ignore Fabian, although they sometimes missed his shoulders by only a hair’s breadth while jumping.

Suddenly, he felt two cold wet hands on his back shoving him forward, and the next moment the sunshine and the loud laughter around him was swallowed up by the green water. When Fabian surfaced again, the boys were still laughing.

“What’s up with you, eh?” he heard a voice coming from above. “Can’t you swim or are you scared of water?” Up on the landing stage stood Angelo in his neon trunks. He had shoved Fabian into the water.

Fabian cleared his eyes. “If I was scared of water, why should I wear swimming trunks?”

“Aren’t you one of those beavers?” Angelo inquired.

“Yeah”, said one of the others, “he’s the one who changed to those losers.”

“You’ll make something nice out of pipe-cleaners while we… we…”

“We build a raft! A real raft made from wood logs, that’s what Hank said!”

Fabian wished that it rained for the entire week so that these “log heads” would have to stay in their log cabins staring at the wall.

“Hey, why did you go to the beavers?” Angelo still insisted. He sat down on the edge of the landing stage, next to Fabian’s and splashed the water with his toes, so that some drops landed on Fabian’s face.

Fabian screwed his eyes up. “Well, I thought if they sent YOU there, there’d be trouble the whole eight days. Or if they’d have picked one of your pals.” He looked all around. The followers seemed to appreciate being called Angelo’s pals. They grinned and swung their arms in the water.

Angelo stopped spraying at Fabian. His dark brown eyes scrutinized Fabian’s face, and for almost a little too long their eyes met, and Angelo looked as if he wanted to say something in reply. But he didn’t say anything, instead he just let himself fall forwards into the water.

One of his pals, a blonde boy with braces, called: “Let’s try and see who can do the longest jump from the landing stage!”

“Yeeeaaah!” the others called and leaped back splashing to the landing stage to climb out of the water.

Fabian felt somebody grab his ankles under water and drag him from his feet. Bubbling, his head sank back down again into the cool, greenish water. He paddled his arms and legs under water until he knew where up and down were again. To one side a shape passed by, a shape with neon colored swim trunks. That was of course Angelo, who gave him a roguish look under water before he turned around to go up. The swimming trunks and those tanned legs belonging to them climbed up onto the landing stage on the other side. “That guy has it in for me”, thought Fabian before he went to climb up too.

“Out of the way!” the blond guy with braces yelled and flew through the air until he crashed into the water with bent legs.

“Ass-bomb!” the next one shouted, a somewhat sturdier boy. He didn’t jump too far, but he caused a real big splash.

Fabian wasn’t sure if he should make a jump, too, or if he was just disturbing the others. But actually Angelo waited until Fabian had climbed up the landing stage and he even let him go first. “Come on, show us something”, he said.

Fabian took a run-up. “Yahooo!!!” he shouted and made a far leap. For a moment his slender body flew on the warm summer air, for a moment it seemed as if he could jump across the glistening reflections to the other shore. Then he crashed into the cool whirl of bubbles and murky green shimmer. The skin on his feet and thighs burned a little from the hard impact but in the cooling stream of the water it let up quickly. Fabian made a few swimming strokes under water, using the momentum of his long jump. Stroke by stroke he came up again to the surface. He had come quite far, there was no chance to stand on the ground where he was. The water under his feet was dark from green algae growth. He paddled with his arms and turned around. He was at least 25 yards from the landing stage.

The figures that stood there on the landing stage made an appreciating murmur. The one with braces even whistled. Apparently, Angelo couldn’t put up with his pals being impressed by somebody else but him. He took a run-up. With powerful, thumping strides he moved over the landing stage, then a neon colored tracer bullet cut through the air, and with a far spraying splash Angelo disappeared. Some smaller waves and ripples spread out and faded, and for a couple of breaths the water remained quiet. And then even a little bit longer.

Finally Angelo’s head came up, not too far from Fabian. But clearly a little closer to the landing stage. Snorting and paddling Angelo looked around.

His pals on the landing stage remained in embarrassed silence.

Angelo couldn’t believe this. “You swam while I was under water!” he called at Fabian. “Say that you moved!”

Fabian just smiled. The same roguish smile that Angelo gave him, when he had dragged him from his feet. Then he swam back to the landing stage.

“Hey, by the way, what’s your name?” asked the one with the braces.

“Fabian”, said Fabian.

The rest of this afternoon went by pretty fast. The boys competed with each other in doing the longest dive or just in staying under water and holding their breath, and since they didn’t have any stopwatch they had to count slowly, which caused some quarrel. Fabian wasn’t too good at holding his breath, and so Angelo got over his little defeat pretty soon. And in the end he even called Fabian by his name and not just “hey.”

Rather tuckered out Fabian walked back to the cabins of the beavers. On the lawn yard behind the center building he saw the group leaders Brian and Christine piling up logs and twigs for the campfire. A nice crackling fire and a smoky grilled sausage – that could be the right stuff for him now!

It was quiet in his cabin, as if his roommates were already gone to bed. Actually, Dan the walrus was lying on his bed listening to music. The others seemed to have gone out to explore the camp or something. Still dripping, Fabian fetched a towel from his backpack.

“There you are, at last”, said a high voice behind him.

Fabian spun around. Patrick sat at the table in the dark corner of the room, where Fabian couldn’t see him at first.

“Hi Paddy”, said Fabian and rubbed his musician’s mane reasonably dry with the towel.

Sandy-haired Patrick shuffled the stack of playing cards listlessly in his hands. “Have you been swimming the whole time?”

“Yep!” said the head under the towel.

“The whole time? Three hours swimming?”

“We didn’t swim too much. Most of the time we jumped from the landing stage. Or we held our breath under water and somebody else counted.”

“Okay.” Patrick spread the cards slowly on the table just to gather them up again.
“I’m sure it would have been fun for you, too, if you had come with us”, said Fabian and dried his arms and shoulders.

“Nooo”, said Patrick rather quietly.

“I mean, even if you aren’t good at swimming. You don’t really need that. Actually, we only did wild jumping, into rather shallow water where you could stand.” Fabian hesitated and watched little Patrick, who looked up after a while because he noticed that Fabian was watching. Motionless he looked into Fabian’s eyes. Had Fabian been right about the reason why Patrick might not want to go swimming?
Patrick lowered his eyes. His freckled cheeks started to glow reddish.

“Myself, I can swim quite well since my… my dad showed me how to do it right”, said Fabian and blushed slightly, because he meant Walter who wasn’t actually his father. “And I was 11 already, back then.”

“Okay”, said Patrick and stirred the pile of cards slightly with his finger.

“I can show you how to swim, like my dad did. If you like.”

Patrick said nothing, he just stirred with his finger and watched the cards turning.

“Just when the coast is clear and nobody else is swimming. Just the two of us.” Fabian sat down on a chair on the other side of the table.

Patrick looked up. For a while he seemed to be unsure if he could trust Fabian.

“Okay?” asked Fabian. “Just when the coast is clear.”

Patrick sighed somewhat with a heavy heart. “Okay.”

The campfire popped and crackled and exuded a fine smell of smoke and pine wood. The group leader of the racoons, curly-haired Christine, had hung a guitar around her and sang the inevitable campfire songs together with some of her girls, from “Row, row, row your boat” to “Kumbaya, My Lord”. Most of the children had rumbling tummies already, and the boys especially couldn’t keep themselves from holding the white bread over the fire, which just left some black marks on it.

“Wait until the fire’s burnt down!” warned Hank the surfer-guy time and again.

Naturally, the boys around Angelo were the most impatient, and when the blond pal with the braces, whom Fabian now knew as Ryan, even let a piece of bread fall into the fire and shook his fingers, Hank became so angry that he almost slapped Ryan in the face.

“I can’t believe it, god damn it!” swore Hank, and Ryan rushed quickly into a less well illuminated part of the barbecue area.

Brian had roped in his green dressed beavers to care for the fire, to prepare the sausages and to serve drinks from big lemonade bottles. Fabian, Patrick and the “señorita” Julio stood behind a table with the drinks. This was quite convenient for Fabian, since he was very thirsty from all the romping in the lake, so he served himself first with some paper cups of lemonade.

Soon, Angelo appeared at the table with the drinks. “Hi”, he said to Fabian.

“Hi,” greeted Fabian in reply.

Angelo had left his red cap in the cabin, his dark, slightly curled hair had dried in the meantime and looked a little bit untidy now, just like hair always looks after being at the beach. He grinned with his white teeth and beautiful, light brown lips. “Don’t you have any cola here?”

“Nope. Just orange and lemon. Brian said cola always gets us in trouble with the parents”, explained Fabian and shrugged.

“Well, then give me lemonade”, said Angelo.

Fabian filled a paper cup with clear, fizzy lemonade.

Angelo tried a sip. “Ugh, well, not really my brand.” He giggled, but kept drinking.

Paddy got no customers and so he stood there and watched that tanned Mr Handsome in his black eagle-shirt with suspicion. Someone had written “Angie” on his name badge and stuck it upside-down on the black fabric. Angelo had probably done it himself to be funny.

“Your badge is wrong”, criticized Patrick.

“You’re just seeing it wrong, you garden gnome”, replied Angelo, “maybe for you I should put it on the fly of my pants!” He laughed about his answer and then sent a loud belch from the lemonade after it.
Patrick gave him a black look and stuck out his lower lip.

“Hey… hey, er… Fabian!” said Angelo, who seemed to have forgotten the name even though it was written on Fabian’s T-shirt. “Will you go swimming with us if we happen to get time tomorrow?”

A little nervously, Fabian’s eyes went from Angelo, to looking at Patrick and back. “Um… I… I dunno yet…” Didn’t he promise to go swimming with Patrick – and only with Patrick – right before?

Angelo said: “See you later”, and then took himself off.

Patrick glared after him. “Dork!” he grumbled.

For the rest of the barbecue party Patrick stayed around Fabian and more and more he realized, that Angelo’s pals and Fabian knew each other pretty well and talked like he was one of them and that they ignored little Patrick, at best.

Close to the end of the barbecue when everyone was just sitting bored in the grass and looking at the dying embers, Christine, with her guitar and some racoon-girls sang a song for goodnight. Finally Hank announced that his eagles had to stay there and clean up the place – which got some yammering and booing from the boys.

“Behave yourself the next time”, he replied unmoved.

“That’s just because of that stupid Angelo!” someone moaned who obviously wasn’t one of the pals.

The girls and the beaver-boys made off.

Compared to the cool night air outside, the small cabin appeared rather warm and stuffy. “Could somebody open the window?!”

“I think we don’t got it bad as beavers”, said Julio in his high voice.

Agreeing murmur from the others.

“Those stupid eagles have to clean up all the trash.”

Fabian stripped to his boxers and sat upon the edge of his bed on the upper level. A bit below Patrick made a fuss about undressing. Apparently, he didn’t like to change clothes while others could watch him. As long as possible he kept sitting on his bed while he stripped. And he kept his underwear and even his white socks on for the night. At last, he stood up and hung his oversized beaver-shirt and his pants tidily over the back of a chair. Fabian watched him. His underwear was white with small blue elephants on it. The skin on his arms and legs looked so bright and delicate. Fabian got a rather weird feeling while looking at Patrick. He looked so defenseless, so vulnerable. When Angelo had asked Fabian at the swimming that afternoon why he changed to the beavers, he couldn’t say a real reason. Fortunately, Angelo was satisfied with an evasive answer. But the actual reason was Patrick, and Fabian knew this very well. He liked to be together with Patrick, and of course, he wasn’t going to let the other boys in on this.

Meanwhile, all five boys were in their beds, with just Fabian still sitting on the edge, watching. None of the boys made a move to go to the wash room and brush his teeth. Those sort of irksome things got ignored in unanimous silence.

“Shall I turn out the light?” asked Fabian.

“Actually, I’d say… we should do some… stuff before we sleep”, said big, heavy Dan with the close-cropped blond hair.

“Do….. stuff?” asked Fabian.

“Ah, you know, things that you usually do when you’re on a summer camp”, said Dan, uncertain.

Hundreds of things that one could do on a summer camp went through Fabian’s mind, but all of them were naughty, and he’d surely never suggest anything like that.

“Aw, come on”, Dan tried to push a little, “what would you do at a summer camp?”

Fabian asked: “Tell ghost stories?”

“Ohhh, noooo!” the three smaller boys wailed.

“I couldn’t sleep then”, said Julio.

“A pillow fight?” suggested Mike, who didn’t look like a swot any more without his glasses.

“Oh, come on, guys”, Dan interrupted, “there has to be a little hotter stuff!”

Fabian thought to himself, he’d know quite a lot of ‘hotter stuff’, like ‘catch me if you can’ in the dark and without pyjamas.

Finally, Dan came to the point: “Why not tell dirty jokes?”

At first, the others didn’t know what to say about this. Julio was beaming expectantly all over his face, but said nothing, and Mike giggled smuttily.

Then Fabian said: “But, do you know any dirty jokes?”

“Sure! But I won’t tell them, unless you tell some, first”, replied Dan.

Mike laughed even smuttier and curled up on his bed. He seemed to enjoy this subject pretty much. Little Julio in the bed below suddenly said: “I know one, too! But maybe it’s not really dirty.”

“Well, we’re listening!” said Dan.

Julio sat up in his bed to tell the joke. He was wearing colorful children’s pyjamas. “Uh, just a moment, how did it go? Ah, well, there were two Native American chiefs sitting together. One says: ‘I have four sons’ and he shows the other chief four Native American boys. He points at the first son and says: ‘His name is Black Buffalo, cause I fathered him after I shot a black buffalo.'” Julio tried to imitate the deep voice of an Indian. “Then he pointed at the second son and said: ‘His name is Crying Falcon, because I fathered him at night, when a great falcon cried. This is Rolling Thunder, because I fathered him during a thunder storm!’ And then…” Julio had to laugh a bit, and Mike in the bed above him almost squeaked, cause he knew that now came the dirty punch line. “…and then the fourth son said: ‘We all have names that have to do with our procreation!’ And the chief says: ‘That’s right, Bursting Condom!” Julio and Mike giggled so much that their bunkbeds were shaking.

“That one’s an old one”, said Dan, “but still a good joke.”

“But what’s a condom?” asked Mike, who still had to giggle about the punch line, even though he didn’t understand it.

“Awww, you stupid!” called Julio rather loud and almost yelling, “those are those rubber things that…”

“Quick…stop it, there’s somebody coming!” Dan interrupted, as he heard steps outside the cabin. All at once everyone lay back in his bed and stuffed his feet under the blanket.

After a quick knock the door opened and Brian, the group leader, put his head round the door. “Everyone in bed?”

“Yeah”, some boy voices murmured.

“Then, good night, beavers!” His chubby hand reached for the light switch and it went dark inside the cabin.

“Good night, Brian!”

The door closed and the boys could hear Brian going over to the neighboring cabin. For a while they remained in utter silence. Then Mike said in the darkness: “Fucking!” and burst into laughter. One could hear Julio’s high voice giggling, too.

“That’s not a joke, Mike!”, said Fabian.

“Sex naked in bed!” squeaked Julio and laughed his head off. Those two were already having fun by saying out loud dirty words.

“Why don’t YOU tell us a joke, now, Fabian?” demanded Dan.

“I thought you know a lot”, replied Fabian. “And wasn’t it your suggestion? Now, you should tell us one!”

“Hey, Mike!” squeaked Julio, “do you know what happens when you’re horny? Your dick gets stiff!”

Mike laughed, squawking so much that he almost choked.

“What’s up with Pat?” asked Dan. “Why doesn’t he tell us a joke?”

There was no sound from the bed below Fabian’s. Actually, it had been totally quiet there the whole time, but Fabian hadn’t noticed until now.

Dan sat up and called: “Pat! Hey, Pat! Are you sleeping?”

No answer.

Fabian bent down over the edge of his bed and tried to recognize something in the faint gleam of light that came from the small window. Patrick lay in his bed, motionless, but Fabian thought he could see his open eyes shining in the darkness. Though he couldn’t really see Patrick, he felt for sure that the sandy-haired boy was somehow intimidated. Could it be that he got scared by telling dirty stuff?

Fabian lay back in his bed and said to Dan: “Let him, he’s sleeping.”

The boys calmed down now, gradually. Julio and Mike seemed to have already run out of dirty words, and Dan wouldn’t tell his dirty jokes, anyway. Besides, it seemed that Dan just wanted to provoke the other boys into saying “dirty” things. Or even doing them. Although that may have interested Fabian himself, to be honest, but he though better than to assume that all boys thought like that. What would they think about him if he made a suggestion like: “Let’s all strip stark naked in the darkness, and then we could run at the same time and change beds and if a bed is already occupied it’s just ‘bad luck’, hehe!” Would they think he was a dirty pig…somebody who wanted something from the boys?

He wasn’t even sure that Niklas and Jason would ever want to do any “dirty” things. Sure, they had agreed that kissing and hugging was allowed among them, but they had never talked about what could come next. Niklas’ opinion was just that little kids kissed and hugged each other, too, and that it had to be possible in a free country to do that even when you grew a little. But if that stuff was “allowed” too… the thoughts went round and round in Fabian’s head and left him restless. He actually didn’t know. Maybe he was the only boy who really liked to do that?

What made him a little sad was that their behaviour seemed to scare Patrick. Fabian had to be careful if he didn’t want to hurt that shy sandy-haired boy.

He was half asleep when he remembered the roguish looks that Angelo gave him. Ever since their eyes had met for the very first time Fabian had the impression that there was a very special shine in Angelo’s beautiful dark eyes. A shine that said: It’s you! You and nobody else! You got to be my friend! Fabian turned on his side and sighed deep into his pillow. Angelo was the right one to dream of. He had such fine tanned skin, such wonderful light brown lips, and real long legs… Angelo wouldn’t be scared. Angelo knew what he wanted.

In the night Fabian woke up for a short time because there was a lot of noise going on outside in the camp. Boy voices yelled and laughed at the same time, doors slammed, things fell clattering to the ground. Eventually, the noise lowered a little but then started again. Finally there were men’s voices shouting, real angry men’s voices. First there was Hank and then the voice of William, the director of the camp.

They made sure that quiet returned to the camp.

Part 2

Fabian was woken up by the daylight that fell through the small window beside the door and by some motion in the bunkbeds. Patrick was awake, too, and seemed to get up though everything around was still quiet. From Dan’s bed came the sound of deep regular breathing that was almost close to snoring. Julio and Mike sounded still asleep too.

Patrick’s head came up at the edge of Fabian’s bed and somehow instinctively Fabian closed his eyes and pretended to sleep.

Patrick watched this for quite a while, maybe because he had noticed a slight movement just before and didn’t really believe that Fabian was still sleeping. But then he seemed to be convinced and he snuck to the chair where he had hung up his clothes and where his backpack lay on the floor. There he hesitated and looked once more at Fabian, who kept his eyes narrowed to two tiny slits and imitated the typical slow breathing of sleep.

Then Patrick took off his undershirt and underpants and his socks and stuffed the worn clothes into his backpack. And this way Fabian could see him for a few fleeting moments in his whole bright pink paleness, from head to toe. Patrick took fresh underwear and socks from his backpack and pattered on bare feet back to his bed. Fabian had to close his eyes for this moment, otherwise his deception would be busted, so he couldn’t see Patrick’s whole beauty from the front.

Pity, thought Fabian and kept playing the sleeper.

Patrick put on the underwear and the socks and lay down in his bed again.

Fabian suddenly realized; his sandy-haired, freckled neighbor had been told by his mother to change his underwear every day, but he was ashamed to do this when the others could see him.

There was absolutely no reason for him to be ashamed, thought Fabian.

Later on – but still way too early – Brian burst in and called: “Good morning! It’s a fine, bright day – time to get up! Remember, you’re beavers, not groundhogs!” He stayed at the door and waited to see if there was any movement in the beds. Then he clapped his hands to help the whole thing along a little. “Get up you lazy bunch! Get to the wash room and get yourselves clean, then we’ll see you for breakfast!” Only when the first boys sat up grumbling in their beds, was Brian satisfied and moved on to the next cabin.
Promptly, the boys let themselves fall back onto their pillows to doze a little more.

After a while chubby, girlish Julio was the first to leap up from his bed, put on shorts and shoes, and go outside to the wash room with a towel and a piece of soap. He was followed by Mike, who didn’t seem to want to go alone.

Finally the two “big ones”, Dan and Fabian, started to move. With the comment: “Man, I gotta pee!” Dan shuffled towards the toilets.

Fabian looked down into Patrick’s bed. “Mornin’ Paddy!” he said and smiled.

Patrick stayed lying there, blinking a little and murmured: “Mornin’!”

Fabian knelt down to his backpack that lay on the floor at the head end of the bed. He opened its zipper and said: “Oh my! Just look, my mom packed up eight pairs of boxers for me! One for each day, and even one too many. Would you think, she’ll notice if I don’t use them?”

Patrick lifted his head and looked apparently uninterested at the pile of boxers. Then he said: “I’d say, she’ll notice. Probably.”

“But if I crumple them up, somehow…”

“Nope, she’ll notice.”

Fabian looked as if he was ashamed. “Ugh, I guess I have to, hmm?”

Patrick shrugged his shoulders as if he didn’t care.

Fabian took off his undies and put on fresh ones quite close to Patrick’s face. Then he pulled a pair of denim shorts over them and took his sneakers. “Wanna come with me to the washing room?”

Patrick looked like he was trapped. For a while he seemed not willing to reply anything or even to move out of his bed. Did he even want to get through the whole week unwashed? That little scaredy cat! For the sake of his mom he changed his underwear, but he didn’t dare to go to the washing room.

“Okay, forget it”, said Fabian, shaking his head, and put his towel around his neck.

Neither the washing room nor the toilets were pleasant places. Both were filled up with noisy commotion. In the washing room you got sprayed with water even before you could find an unoccupied faucet. Fabian finally found some spare room next to Ryan, the blond guy with braces. “Hi!” they welcomed each other.

“It was great fun, last night, wasn’t it?” shouted Ryan to be understandable over the noise.

“Really? What happened?” asked Fabian.

“Ah, we tried to throw water balloons into the girl’s beds.” Ryan grinned and lathered his arms.

“And? Did it work?” Fabian remembered the noise at night.

“Sure! At least two hit the bulls-eye, I tell you!” Ryan rinsed his bare torso with cold water, spraying around a little ruthlessly. “But then Hank came and even that director-dude and made loads of trouble.”

On his way back to the cabin Fabian saw somebody sweeping the dusty yard at the front of the center building with a broom. And unless he was completely mistaken, it was Angelo.

After breakfast Brian explained to his beavers that they were going to cross the lake in two big canoes today. For their safety they’d all get tucked into life jackets, even the boys who think they’re good swimmers. “But don’t be afraid, nobody has ever gone overboard, here.”

Fabian noticed a slight expression of horror in Patrick’s face.

Brian continued: “Now please get changed: Swimming trunks and T-shirt, nothing more. No shoes, we paddle bare foot.” Brian smiled weakly. “And if you got a watch, leave it here, it’ll only get wet and maybe broken.”

The beaver-boys set off for their cabins. Just Patrick stayed there as though glued to the spot.

“So, what’s up with you?” asked Brian.

“I… I can’t…”, stuttered Patrick.

“You can’t what?”

“I can’t row.” Hardly noticeable Patrick was trembling.

“We paddle, not row. Canoes got to be paddled. Besides, you can learn that today. It’s really no trouble.”
Patrick shook his head a bit tensed up. “N… no!”

“You see”, said Brian, thinking Patrick meant it was no trouble to learn it.

“I can’t!”

Brian was just about to turn away but now he bent down to Patrick, a little wearily. “What’s your problem?”

“I can’t go canoeing.”

“But why, for heaven’s sake? You’ll get a life jacket, so nothing can ever happen to you!”

“My… my skin. The sun is so hot. I always get a sun burn. And fever.” Patrick’s turquoise eyes showed real fear.

Brian sighed. “My goodness, what do we do with you, now?” He chewed his lower lip. “I guess you gotta stay here, in the shadow.”

Fabian had changed. Like all others he wore the green beaver-shirt and his swim trunks. But where was Patrick? He hadn’t come with the others to the cabin and even after changing he didn’t turn up. Fabian went to the center building and peered into the dining hall. But nobody was there.

In the corridor he met Brian, who had his bedroom in the center building like each of the group leaders. He had put on giant black swimming trunks and he allowed his feet the comfort of slippers.

“I can’t find Patrick Finn”, said Fabian, “he belongs in our cabin and…”

“That little red-headed kid?” replied Brian. “That’s okay. He’ll stay here, he’s got a sun allergy or something… I gave him a couple of books.”

“Oh”, was all Fabian could say, and remained standing in the corridor, looking dejected.

“You could help me by getting the life jackets out of the boathouse”, said Brian and dragged Fabian along with one of his chubby hands.

The canoe trip was great, the sun was burning hot but on the surface of the lake the air remained rather cool. They stopped for a break on a small island close to the other shore, and Brian could show the boys some real beaver lodges. On their way back they paddled pretty close along a low rock face, where a thin waterfall came tumbling down, wetting them a little…

But most of the time Fabian seemed to be miles away, because he thought of Patrick and that he was missing all this. On one occasion he asked Brian about the remaining program for the beavers and whether there would be more activities that might exclude Patrick.

“Oh”, said Brian calmly, “we have the nocturnal ramble, the lantern party and the game park, and maybe we’ll make a paper chase in the woods and stuff like that. There’s still plenty of opportunity for your little friend to join in.”

Fabian sighed. This didn’t sound too bad, and he was relieved that Brian had obviously thought about the same problem too. Besides, he started to like the chubby beaver-chief more and more. Brian was simply okay. Almost automatically Fabian laid his hand on that chubby shoulder. He was just about to draw it back and mumble an excuse, when Brian patted on Fabian’s much skinnier shoulder and nodded encouraging.

Back at camp, Fabian hurried to look for Patrick. He was quite easy to find, sat in their cabin at the small table. A couple of large illustrated books about animals lay in front of him, but it didn’t look too much like he had actually read them.

Fabian wanted to say something, that he was sorry about Patrick and stuff like that. But at the same moment Dan came tramping into the cabin and called: “Wooaah there, you really missed something, Pat! It was great!” And he let himself fall down on his bed so that it creaked.

Patrick lowered his eyes and looked at the book in his hands. “Rodents In The Woods”. Julio and Mike came pattering into the cabin too, and Julio asked casually: “Why did you stay here, Pat?”

Fabian was still standing there and couldn’t say anything.

Patrick’s face screwed up. He bowed his head. And Fabian felt pretty much the same, like he could cry. A pitiful weak squeaking came from Patrick and then tears rolled over his freckles.

Fabian sat down on another chair and said carefully: “We’ll do a nocturnal ramble and a paper chase in the woods and we’ll go to a game park and feed the animals there, and you’ll be with us again. From now on, I’ll only do things that you can do, too!”

Hardly noticeable Patrick shook his head and then he squeezed a few quiet words through his tears: “I wanna go home!”

Julio came standing behind Fabian and looked at crying Patrick. “What’s up with you, Pat?”

Fabian said: “Okay, all right, the camp started off pretty bad, somehow. The food is shitty, the beds are shitty, and some of the dudes here in the camp are… are real dorks.” He didn’t want to say that Angelo and his pals were shitty, too, they were actually just stupid and inconsiderate.

“I wanna go home!”, wept Patrick and let his tears flow.

Fabian didn’t know what else to say. Since the journey had started there had been hardly any moment when Patrick felt good. The way he had been sitting on the bus clinging to a handle and staring through the window, he apparently felt awful right from the beginning. And all the small things that had happened ever since had been more or less to Patrick’s disadvantage. However, Fabian really thought it wasn’t the best idea to ask Brian to call Patrick’s parents.

“I’m sorry”, whispered Fabian.

“I want… my mom… and my dad”, sobbed Patrick.

“We couldn’t practice swimming then”, said Fabian. “I was really looking forward to that!”

“I…”, Patrick got some kind of hiccups from weeping, “I can’t swim. I don’t wanna swim. And I can’t… any dirty jokes!”

Julio lowered his eyes, embarrassed. He probably had never thought that saying dirty words could intimidate a sensitive boy like Patrick. “But I only said that single joke.”

“And you…”, Patrick gave Fabian a tear stained look, “you go swimming… with that dork… anyways! You just don’t wanna… practise anything with me!”

“But… nooo!” said Fabian. “I really want it! I promised you I’d practise swimming with you and I meant it.”

Patrick sniffed heavily… he could hardly breathe between words.

“We’ll tell no dirty things anymore, okay?” said Julio.

Outside the other kids passed the cabin heading for lunch. A breath of wind wafted across the smell of something fried, like ham and onions.

Dan put on his shoes. “Looks like we’ll have something real substantial today!”

Julio looked undecided if he should go for lunch right now, while Patrick sat here in floods of tears. Finally he said: “You don’t have to be sad, Pat. We’re still here for you.”

One after another the other boys left Fabian and Patrick alone in the cabin and went for lunch.

Fabian asked: “Should we really ask Brian to call your parents?”
Patrick was still sobbing but at least his tears had stopped running. He said nothing.

“Think about it, the camp will be over for you and you’ll really miss everything. Even that ramble at night and when we feed the deer.”

Patrick sniffed and considered.

Then Fabian remembered something. He went to his backpack and pulled something out. It was the small stuffed penguin that Jeremy gave him once. “This is Jarvis, the butler. He’s my lucky charm.” He put the penguin on the table between the spread out books. “I got him from my little brother. Since our parents live apart from each other now, my brother is no longer with me and my mother. He’s about your age.” He pushed the figure a little closer to Patrick. “I’ll lend you Jarvis, if you like him. He’ll take care of you.”

Patrick looked at Jarvis, the butler. Then he asked in thin voice: “You have stuffed animals?”

“I got lots of stuffed animals. But this one is special, it’s my lucky charm, cause my little brother gave it to me.”

Suddenly Patrick came into motion. He took his own backpack and sat down with it on his bed. And then he pulled out of the depths of his backpack a stuffed animal, too. It was bigger than Jarvis, the butler, and made of white plush with brown flecks and looked like a pig. “I got one here, too.”

Fabian sat down next to him on the bed.

“This is Snoozie”, said Patrick introducing his stuffed pig.

“Why do you hide Snoozie in your backpack? His place is in your bed.”

Patrick blushed a little and chewed his lower lip. “I thought nobody here got a stuffed animal.”

“So, it’s you and me now who’ve got one”, said Fabian.

“Okay”, said Patrick and held his stuffed pig in his arms. He was leaning quite close to Fabian’s side, and Fabian felt that Patrick was seeking his company. He didn’t spend any more time thinking about it but wrapped his arms around Patrick’s tummy and squeezed him a little. Patrick breathed out once in relief and leaned back until his head touched Fabian’s cheek.

They remained like this for quite a while, sitting on the bed in silence.

And then even a little longer.

“You don’t have to practise swimming with me if you don’t want it”, said Fabian quietly, “but I’d like to, anyway. Angelo, Ryan and the other guys can get lost.”

Patrick said nothing, he just embraced his stuffed pig.

Fabian said: “From all the guys here in the camp I like you best. And I’d be sad if you go home right away.” He tightened his embrace around Patrick’s tummy a little, while Patrick began to stroke his cuddly toy. “Could you consider it one more time? Until tomorrow? You stay with us until tomorrow after breakfast and then you can decide if we call your parents, okay?”

Patrick stroked his stuffed pig a little longer, then he said: “Okay.”

“Shall we go to lunch, now?” asked Fabian carefully.

Patrick sighed. “Okay.”

After lunch the beavers had to be “chivalrous”, as Brian liked to call it. Because the racoon-girls were rehearsing a dance – something like a polka with ring-a-ring-o’-roses – they urgently needed some boys who had to line the route and form archways with their arms. “You don’t have to dance at all”, said Brian trying to calm down his beavers.

The girls used the lawn where they had the barbecue party to practise on, and since this was in the shadow of the surrounding trees Patrick couldn’t talk his way out of it. Some of the girls had put flowers in their hair to look like “real” polka dancers.

Christine, the curly-haired group leader, played on an accordion and gave instructions: “Now, everybody in a circle, put your hands on your hips — and turn around-and-round!”

First, the beavers just had to stand in the middle of the circle and watch the dance. Then they had to take one another by the hands in pairs and hold them up, so that they formed a line of archways. Of course, Fabian and Patrick were such an archway couple. When the girls came along dancing they had to “catch” them and to release again, everything matching to the rhythm of the music. Patrick played his part unexpectedly eager. The captured girls first looked just surprised, then distraught and finally they even moaned that it hurt.

Patrick just giggled and tightened his grip on Fabian’s hands as if he could slip away.

Patrick looked so occupied by the polka that Fabian was surprised. He had been afraid that it could darken Patrick’s mood again to be assigned for such girl stuff. But he seemed to like the dance with the girls.

Again and again the raccoon-girls whispered and looked across at Fabian and Patrick. Were they annoyed by those two oafs?

The eagles would have their nocturnal ramble after dusk and so the black shirted group got the afternoon off. You could see Angelo and his gang in swimming trunks running down to the beach, yelling.
Perfect, thought Fabian, the beach would be free later in the evening.

After supper, while the eagles gathered loudly around Hank, Brian just said that the beavers deserved to have a lazy evening after being busy the whole day. Everybody who was interested would have the chance to watch the basketball play-offs on TV in the dining hall, and promptly Dan the walrus put his hand up to “enrol” himself. Besides, there were board games and cards, too, and Brian announced he’d open the kiosk and sell drinks, candy and postcards.

Fabian didn’t want to push Patrick, so he simply pretended to go swimming. “Wanna come with me? I mean, the beach is free, the sun isn’t burning any more – just the best conditions.” He already had his swimming trunks on and put his hands on his skinny hips.

Patrick hesitated a little. But when even Julio and Mike went over to the camp center and he was alone with Fabian in the cabin, he agreed. “But you have to wait outside when I’m changing!”

Fabian grinned. “Okay.” He went out of the cabin and took a deep breath of the summery evening air. It was still really warm and calm. The sun stood low and yellow in the sky. Fabian sat down on the wooden steps in front of the cabin and poked with his bare toes in the sand. He felt some kind of nervous anticipation.

When Patrick finally came out he wore tight-fitting blue speedos and a white T-shirt and his sneakers. “Ready”, he said.

“Will you take all that stuff into the water?” asked Fabian.

“Nooope, just for the walk.”

“Alright, let’s go!” And they ran across the barbecue lawn and down a beaten path to the beach. The “coast” was completely deserted, they had the landing stage and the small beach just for their own. Fabian didn’t wait but immediately took a run-up across the landing stage and made a long jump into the water. The first contact with the water and the sudden chill was almost a little shocking, but it soon let up because the water wasn’t actually that cold. Close to the surface it was even fairly warm. Fabian remembered Patrick, made a few swimming strokes towards the beach and then entered the shallower water.

In the meantime Patrick had stripped to his blue speedos and stood with just his feet in the water. He acted as if he found the water rather cold.

“You have to come deeper in, at least then we can try a few swimming strokes, so maybe till it’s up to your belly button”, said Fabian, dripping wet.

“Okay, okay”, said Patrick and went step by step, shivering a little exaggerated, deeper into the water. In the warm light of the sinking sun he even didn’t look pale anymore. Just a few freckles and two small russet nipples stood out against his bright skin.

“The water feels cold only as long as you don’t move”, said Fabian and was tempted to spray Patrick wet, but he knew too well how he hated that himself.

Patrick was now to the point where just his legs got wet and his butt was almost touching the water surface. To get past this point was really hard because from there on the very delicate parts got wet. Arms wrapped around himself as if he was almost freezing, Patrick slightly crouched down a few times so that the blue speedos on his butt just touched the water.

Fabian stood beside him and waited patiently until Patrick got used to the temperature. But finally he said: “If you don’t really dip in at least once you’ll never get used to it!”

“I know”, said Patrick shivering and just dipped his bum once again, then held it facing into the evening sun.

Fabian couldn’t wait and simply took the next chance to push the smaller boy into the water. Patrick kicked and wiggled and then came back to the surface, snorting from water. “I’m so sorry”, said Fabian, “but I couldn’t watch that any longer.”

Patrick didn’t complain, he just wiped the water from his freckled face.

“What’s best to start with? Can you float on your back?” asked Fabian and went a few steps into deeper water until it reached to his tummy. Then he let himself sink back, dipped his back in the water and finally lifted his feet until he floated stretched out on the surface.

“Yeah, I think I can do that”, said Patrick and tried to copy it. But he held his breath and somehow his head dipped and he began to splash about until he got on his feet again.

“Don’t move when you try to float.”

“I know”, said Patrick and tried it once more, but again he sank down and struggled back to the open.

“You don’t trust the fact that the air in your lungs will keep you up”, stated Fabian. “Maybe it works better when I hold you.” He made some moves to get on his feet again and stood behind Patrick’s back. “Now look, I’ll hold your head so that you can’t sink and nothing can happen. Try it again, just lean back and relax.”

Patrick crouched down until the water reached his neck. Carefully, Fabian put his hands on the bright pink shoulders and bowed down a little. Reluctantly, Patrick leaned back until the rest of his body got a lift in the water. At last, he lay with spread out arms flat in the water and looked up, into Fabian’s face. His sandy-colored shock of hair was floating on the surface and his head bumped slightly to Fabian’s tummy. His red lips smiled.

“All right, you see that it works?” said Fabian. “You feel that the water is carrying you?”

Patrick nodded carefully.

“I’m gonna release you now, okay?” Slowly, Fabian withdrew his hands. “You simply have to keep still. The water can’t harm you now, you’re already wet all over.”

For a while Patrick was floating on the quiet water, just watching the sky.

“When somebody can’t swim he usually believes that he’ll sink in the water, immediately. But that’s not true. Actually, very few things need to be done to keep yourself up. And when you start learning to swim, you’ll surely believe that you’ll swallow water when you try to breathe and you’ll probably hold your breath. But that’s also wrong.”

“Okay, but how do I do it right then?” asked Patrick and he promptly lost his balance and had to kick and wave again until he got on his feet, snorting.

“Well, it’s pretty simple when you do the crawl, because more or less you swim lying on your side and you turn your head to one side when you breathe in”, explained Fabian. “Wait, I’ll show you!” He made a few strokes of crawl, almost in slow motion. “Look here! I’m just sliding quietly over the water and I can breathe to the side at each stroke.”

“Okay”, said Patrick. But he seemed to be rather unbelieving.

“Wanna try this? I can hold you up if you like”, suggested Fabian.

Patrick couldn’t quite imagine this.

“Float on your back once more, and I’ll hold you again and you’ll see”, said Fabian. And one more time Patrick leaned back into the water until he looked up along Fabian’s slender tummy. But this time Fabian dragged the floating body a little further where the water was deeper, so that he could easily hold him in his arms like he was swaying a baby. “All right, now turn on your side! Don’t panic, I’ll hold you up.”

Patrick looked confused around him for a way to manage this. But when he realized that Fabian was actually holding him up, he turned around carefully until he lay on his side in Fabian’s arms.

Then Fabian changed his grip so that he embraced Patrick above his tummy. “Keep your head like that, so that it stays up!” Slowly, he turned the boy’s body in his arms a little further until Patrick was almost floating on his tummy. “Now, try a stroke with that arm that’s completely under water!”

Patrick made a frail stroke.

“Almost like rowing a boat”, explained Fabian, “you just have to dip your arm deeper in. And for the stroke with the other arm you have to turn on the other side, and you can breathe to that side, too.”

They practised these moves while Fabian held little Patrick on top of the water. Then Patrick tried some swimming strokes on his own but he held his breath and went rather tense and inevitably he sank down. His next attempts didn’t go any better, he always disappeared under water after three or four strokes.

“Damn!” swore Patrick and wiped the water off his face.

“Hey, it’s not too bad for a start. You’re kicking your feet too much. You should rather stretch out on the water and trust in the fact that it will carry you, like it does when you’re floating on your back. And then you should move your arms.”

Patrick tried it a few times with more patience and even though he sank down again so that he had to come up snorting and coughing, some of his attempts looked almost like swimming.

Then for a change the two boys spent some time jumping wildly from the landing stage, fooling around and making faces, and they laughed a lot. Finally, Patrick seemed to have lost his timidity regarding swimming. As time went by, the sun went behind the treetops and slowly the sky turned violet.

“I guess it’s time for us to go soon”, noticed Fabian.

They could hear some well known, excited boy voices in the camp, and there were the beams of flashlights shining around. It was the eagles, who were going on their nocturnal ramble.

Patrick and Fabian stood quiet and motionless in the water as if they were afraid the eagles could discover them. Only when that chain of lights had disappeared in the woods, they moved again.

Fabian asked: “Wanna give it one last try? I can take you on my back while I’m swimming, like a dolphin does. You just hold on to my shoulders.”

Patrick looked amazed at his bigger friend.

And Fabian added: “That’s how my… dad did, when he showed me how to swim.” And again he meant Walter, who once taught him swimming. Fabian made some steps into deeper water and bowed down until only his head and shoulders looked out.

“Come on!”

Patrick giggled and clinged with both hands to Fabian.

The bigger boy made some careful strokes, always trying not to collide with Patrick’s dangling legs in the water behind him. A few times the weight of the boy on his shoulders dragged him slightly under water, but he could handle this by doing the breaststroke. But suddenly he stopped, waving his arms under water.

He panted. “It’s really deep here, I can’t stand on my feet.”

Patrick sounded anxious: “Please, Fabian, let’s go back!”

Fabian spit. “You have to swim on your own, I can’t make it with your weight on my back!” For a moment he went down to the tip of his nose.

“Eeek, I can’t do that!”

“You must! Quick! I can’t make it any longer!” Fabian went half down. Finally the dragging fingers released his shoulders.

Patrick kicked and waved for his life so that water splashed all around him.

“Quiet!” called Fabian who could hold his head up again. “Make quiet strokes!”

Patrick spit water and turned his head in panic, but soon he calmed down and really swam a little.
Fabian giggled. “Ah, I knew you could do it!” And he stood on the ground on tiptoe.

Patrick only stopped when his hands touched the sandy ground of the lake. He was way closer to the shore than he thought. And when he heard Fabian laughing he finally understood. Patrick stood up and swore. “You really scared me!”

“So did my dad, but it’s the best way to learn it real quick.”

“But that’s a shit way!” shouted Patrick angrily and set on Fabian. He grabbed the wrists of the bigger, skinny boy and tried to shove him into the water.

Fabian still had to laugh, partly about his trick, and partly about little Patrick’s busy efforts to push him down. He joined in the game, but directed this kind of wrestling into the shallow water close to the beach. Patrick changed his tactics now and tried to get Fabian by his neck and trip him. Fabian on his part held the freckled boy around the chest and waited, what else he’d try to do. Finally, he decided to lose his balance and splash down into the water stretched out together with Patrick.

There they kept lying for a while in what looked like a wrestling hold. It was nearly dark and they could hardly recognize the expression of each other’s face. Wet and loud they panted, out of breath, across the water surface. Fabian didn’t really hold Patrick’s shoulder anymore, rather he stroked that wet cool skin. And Patrick didn’t move, he swallowed and panted in the gloomy semi-darkness. Their chests slightly touched and the water between them made a funny sound. Fabian wished that this beautiful moment could last a little longer but then he thought that he might scare Patrick somehow. The sandy-haired boy didn’t move and didn’t say anything. At last Fabian felt that they’d better get up and leave the water before it got too cold. Uncertain, he waded to the shore and looked back at Patrick.

Patrick just said: “Wow, it’s really dark!” But the last gleam of fading daylight was still enough to find his shoes and his shirt on the beach. Then the two dripping wet boys ran back to their cabin.

“But this time I’ll not waiting until you get changed”, said Fabian and shivered a little. “We can leave the light out, instead.”

“Okay”, said Patrick who was also shivering a little and entered the dark cabin.

The other occupants were still in the camp center, the cabin stood still and empty. There was only a glimpse of light falling through the window beside the door. Everything else was dark. Fabian and Patrick could hear each other but couldn’t see anything. Patrick remained motionless and listened, you could just hear his breathing. Then he giggled because of the funny situation. “I can’t see anything”, he said.
“Me neither, but I think that’s exactly what you want.” Fabian groped in the darkness. Of course, he “accidently” felt a wet, cool boy shoulder at first. “There’s you.”

Patrick slightly jerked but kept standing there and laughed quietly.

Then Fabian groped to his side and after one or two steps he hit the bunkbeds that belonged to him and Patrick. “Here are our beds.” He slapped them slightly with his hand so that Patrick could detect them in the darkness. Fabian felt his way to the head end of his bed where he had hung up his towel to dry. Relieved about finding the towel he began to dry himself.

Meanwhile, Patrick had found his backpack and there was the sound of fumbling with nylon straps and the sound of a zipper. After he rummaged around a little he dragged something out and rubbed himself down with it.

Fabian stripped his wet, cold swim trunks and left them lying on the floor. Then he wrapped the towel around his hips and picked up the swim trunks. With them crumpled and dripping in his hand he pattered to the door. “Hey!”, he quickly warned and opened it. A faint breeze of cool night air came in and a beam of pale moonlight fell through the door, flitting across Patrick who was just pulling down his wet speedos. “I need to wring these out”, said Fabian and stepped outside on to the wooden steps in front of the cabin. There he squeezed the cold water out of the swimming trunks, sprinkling the sandy ground.

He heard a few tapping steps of naked feet, and then Patrick came standing beside him. He wore a pink towel around his hips and held a dark wet lump in his hand. “Me too”, he just said and wrung out his trunks. As he did so, he slightly bumped against Fabian’s side several times, and the feeling of those gentle touches of soft cool skin each time let a slight shiver run through Fabian’s body.

Suddenly the pink towel around Patrick’s hips loosened and slipped down. “Oops”, said Patrick and bent down quickly for the towel and wrapped it around his waist. The towel wasn’t too big and it hardly fitted.
Fabian bit back any comment and went back inside.

Patrick followed him and closed the door behind them. Then they stood once again in the pitch-dark cabin.

“I can hang up my swimming trunks to dry over the bedpost”, said Fabian and felt carefully for the end of the bed and finally pulled the damp, cold trunks in his hands over it.

“Good idea”, agreed Patrick and felt his way along the bed, too, but collided with Fabian before he reached the bedpost.

“Already occupied here”, murmured Fabian and giggled.

“Oops!” said Patrick and then once again: “Oops! I lost my towel!”

Fabian felt the damp towel lying on his feet and for a moment he considered if he should really bend down to pick it up. Because he had an idea that Patrick had lost it deliberately. He wanted to stand stark naked in the dark by “accident”, just half a step away from Fabian. But almost automatically he bent down for the towel and promptly banged his forehead with a damp boy head.

“Ouch!” said both boys at the same time and lost their balance a little. Without really wanting it, Fabian suddenly held Patrick’s shoulders in his hands, probably to keep a little distance between them. And Patrick hesitated, he didn’t move. You couldn’t even hear him breathing.

Instead Fabian’s heart beat with a heavy pulse. This situation was so exciting and so confusing that he didn’t even know what he was doing. Almost like being under remote control his hands slid down Patrick’s upper arms and then slowly upwards again. And since Patrick still didn’t move at all, he let his hands slip even a little bit lower until he clasped the narrow waist in his hands. There he remained and gasped for air. The blood was pumping so heavily through his veins that his fingertips pulsed. The boys were so close that he could smell Patrick’s wet hair.

With a deep gasp Fabian drove the stale air out of his lungs and then breathed shallow and irregularly. What if somebody came in now, switched on the light and saw the two like that, flashed through his mind. What if Patrick didn’t want the stuff that Fabian was doing?

Suddenly, Patrick had to giggle. “What are you doing there?” he asked but didn’t move as though he wanted to get rid of Fabian’s hands.

For a few seconds Fabian felt unable to do anything. Then he had to giggle, too. “I don’t know”, he whispered.

And still Patrick stood there in the darkness without moving and let Fabian’s hands lying on his hips. Then Fabian felt some fingertips slowly moving up his left arm, and then even more fingertips on the other arm. Eventually, Patrick’s warm hands remained on his shoulders – they might have looked as if they were going to dance in the dark cabin.

“I can feel where you are”, said Patrick and remained in that manner.

Inevitably, Fabian’s hands began to move around in circles on the skin of Patrick’s hips. And this way he’d have touched probably even other body parts, if the boys didn’t hear something, suddenly.
Outside at the camp center a door slammed, and steps came up the sandy path.

At the moment the boys were unable to move.

Then Fabian said: “Hurry, get your undies!” And the two shapes in the darkness set in motion. Rather accurately, Fabian managed to grab his backpack that lay on the floor at the head end of their bunkbeds. But Patrick pattered around totally disoriented, bumped against a chair and swore quietly.
The steps came closer to their cabin, thumped quickly up the stairs, and then suddenly the door flung open and the light went on.

The sudden brightness hurt Fabian’s eyes. Blinded by the light, he blinked and tried to recognize who was standing there in the door.

It was Julio, the little dark-haired podgy one. He briefly flinched as he saw that there was somebody in the cabin. “Huh, what are you doing here?”

Fabian had managed to pull on his denim shorts in the darkness, which pinched his privates a little without his undies. He was holding two damp towels in his hands – his own and Patrick’s pink one.
Patrick himself stood stark naked behind the table and the chairs and bashfully covered his crotch with his hands.

“We’re changing”, said Fabian and blinked. “We’ve been swimming until it got too dark outside.” He hung up the towels to dry over the headboard of the bunkbeds. “And for changing we just left the light out.”
Julio’s face brightened. “Oh, I see!” Straight out he looked at the bashfully naked Patrick and giggled.

I’m sorry! Just wait, I’ll put it out again!” His hand darted to the light switch, and the cabin fell dark again. You could just see Julio’s head as a dark shape in front of the window. He still had to giggle.

The other two waited a while to see if Julio would take off again. But none of the three boys made a move.

Then Julio said: “Um, I just thought, you were probably… doing…” He chuckled in the darkness.

“Doing… what?” asked Fabian.

Julio giggled. “Ehehehe, nope, I won’t say that!”

Fabian sighed. “Oh, Julio, those dirty jokes really went to your head!”

Later on, when even Patrick had found his clothes and got dressed again, the boys played cards together. Dan and Mike came clumping into the cabin.

“Hey guys, wanna know the hottest news?” heavy Dan called out. “Some of the eagles got lost on their nocturnal ramble!” He held the door open as if to run outside again right away. “Hank freaked out completely, you should have seen that! Now the group leaders set off to search for those dudes. Oh man, if they don’t find them, they have to call the police for tracker dogs and helicopters and stuff.” He leant out of the open door and looked at what was going on outside.

There were agitated voices sounding through the camp, especially the loud, booming voice of William, the director.

Dan ran outside again not wanting to miss anything.

The other boys just sighed and drank another lemonade from Brian’s kiosk.

“Always those eagles!” said Julio rather superciliously and shook his head.

Later they lay in bed and talked a little to each other – this time without any dirty jokes. When the noise out in the camp slowly let up, Dan came back again.

“Hank and that swan-woman found them, and those runaways said they were just kidding”, reported Dan and took off his shoes. A cheese-like aroma spread over the cabin. Dan sighed relieved.

“My goodness, Dan!” squeaked Julio and held his nose.

“Did you change your socks already this year?” asked Fabian.

Dan leaned back. “I have no idea what you mean….this is just pure nature!”

It took some time until Fabian could sleep that night, though he had got somewhat used to the lousy bed with its tiny pillow. Of course he was still busy thinking about that moment, when he was alone in the dark with Patrick. Would he ever get such an opportunity once again? Or would it have ended in a disaster had he continued to fondle Patrick? The longer this moment was past, the less he was sure that Patrick enjoyed it. In the middle of the night he woke up. All that fizzy stuff he had drunk while playing cards had made him desperate. As quiet as he could, he got up and pulled on his shoes and a shirt, then snuck out to the toilets.

The lights were on in the boys’ toilets. Fabian was not alone here, though he couldn’t see anybody at first. Then he heard some quiet sobbing resounding off the bare walls.

The door to most the toilet stalls stood open, just one door was nearly closed. Carefully, Fabian peered through the crack.

There was somebody sitting on a closed toilet seat, his head bowed and weeping. Somebody with dark, slightly curly hair and a black T-shirt. And when that somebody looked up because he had noticed Fabian, it proved to be Angelo, his cheeks wet with tears.

“Get lost, leave me alone!” wailed Angelo.

Fabian could imagine that Angelo was among those jokers who vanished during their nocturnal ramble, and probably had got into a lot of trouble once again.

“But I gotta pee”, said Fabian.

“Pee somewhere else!” called Angelo and held the door closed.

A little undecided Fabian went into the next cubicle and stood in front of the bowl. But as long as Angelo was sobbing next door, Fabian just couldn’t.

“Don’t hang about there, stupid!” moaned Angelo. “Just piss and fuck off to your faggot-friends!”
Fabian started with surprise. Did anybody notice something? Did anybody see how much he liked Patrick? Did Julio say something? But he had been all night with the others playing cards!

“This is a real faggot-camp, I tell you!” swore Angelo in tears. “Just stupid bitches and old faggots all around. And such a mean ass-hole like Hank!” He wailed louder and sobbed.

Fabian just stood there and couldn’t pee though he was desperate, and he didn’t know what to say.

“Hank is a real mean ass-hole!” said Angelo again and burst into tears, even more than before.

Fabian put his head around the corner and pushed the neighboring door carefully open. Angelo’s face looked at him, twisted with pain and soaked in tears.

“This is my vacation!” howled Angelo. “This is my damned vacation! And this ass-hole lets me clean up and put away the trash all the time! All the time!!! Do you call that vacation? And last night the others did me in, after we had to clean up the barbecue. They threw a water balloon into my bed. And another one in my face. And Hank knew it! He knew it all before, the mean asshole!”

Fabian stood there and looked embarrassed. He thought that Angelo was the most popular boy of the camp. And that a little punishment couldn’t hurt him at all. He always appeared as the handsome guy with the fantastic sun tan and the sporty long-legged physique. But here, on a shabby toilet seat, sat just a tanned weeping child.

Fabian said quietly: “I thought they were your friends.”

Angelo wiped his cheeks with the back of his hand. “But one thing is sure: I’ll pay him back for it all, this ass-hole! He’ll get to know my dad, I tell you! And he’ll be in for a shock.”

Fabian hesitated a little but then he lay his hand on Angelo’s shoulder to comfort him. He was afraid that the beautiful dark-haired boy could take this wrong, but Angelo just looked up at Fabian and in spite of all his tears a slight, painful smile flitted across his face. And Fabian gave the shoulder dressed in the black fabric of the eagle-shirt a comforting rub.

Angelo nodded and swallowed a few tears. “He won’t know what’s hit him!”

Next morning after breakfast Angelo was taken away by his mother. Some of the children stood at the entrance of the camp center and watched this. His mother had come in a fancy sports car that stood now in front of the big archway with the wooden stakes. Angelo stood, his backpack casually on his shoulder, as if it was a saddle and he were John Wayne, and he strolled to the sports car. Among the spectators some youngsters roared and whistled after him, and Fabian didn’t have to look behind him to know that this was Ryan with the braces and the other pals.

Angelo showed his middle finger and called: “Fucking faggot-camp!”
Suddenly his mother appeared and slapped him in his face so hard that his backpack slipped out of his hand.

“Get into the car! And don’t say another word!” she yelled at him.

Even the children at the camp center fell silent.

And so, without a word, Angelo got into the car. And the car drove away.

Fabian remembered that Patrick had to decide this morning after breakfast if he’d stay or go home. But after Angelo’s painful departure Fabian was fairly depressed, and so he rather put it off a little. And since Patrick was so busy and happy during the paper chase that the beavers did this day, Fabian simply forgot it at last.

The days at the summer camp were great and somehow they passed by faster and faster. During the beaver’s nocturnal ramble Fabian and Patrick always kept in touch so that they couldn’t get lost in the dark. And occasionally Julio joined those two and only stopped pestering them after Fabian lay his arm around his shoulders for a while.

For the feeding at the game park the game warden gave the beaver-boys buckets and boxes full of salad and vegetables and told them to distribute it to the animals.

Patrick was totally into a wild boar that he immediately named “Snoozie”. He fed it with potatoes and stroked its dirty nose. “Snoozie” thanked him by sniffing at Patrick’s pink calves and knees, and finally even pushing him down so he landed in the mud. Patrick laughed, and could hardly stop laughing even though he had to spend the rest of the day plastered with mud.

There was no chance for the two to go swimming undisturbed. Even after supper the small beach and the landing stage were occupied either by the ex-pals of Angelo or a couple of girls, and in both cases Patrick didn’t like to swim.

And then, it was suddenly Saturday evening – the last evening at the camp and time for the lantern party. The swan-girls had made colorful lanterns and had decorated the barbecue area with them. The racoon-girls showed their polka dance with the help of the beavers, and finally it became a “disco” party. Marion and Hank had set up a small stereo that filled the night with some what overstrained chart music from the past years. At first, there were just a few girls who started to dance to the music.

Brian took care of the campfire and later made baked potatoes and spare ribs. This time the eagles served the drinks, which meant that the beavers had to clean up when the party was over.

One by one the girls managed to get the boys to dance, particularly the older ones. Even Fabian joined in for a few songs after two girls asked him at the same time and he didn’t want to disappoint them. But he found the music awful. Anyway, tonight Fabian noticed for the first time that a few couples had got together during the summer camp – mostly among the swans and the eagles, and that he had missed this, completely.

He sat down on one of the tree trunks that lay on the lawn and served as seats, and watched the couples for a while hanging around the “disco”. Didn’t he stand a chance with the girls, too? Hadn’t the girls all given him those yearning looks time after time and then giggled? But he had kept around his beavers all the time, around the small, the chubby and the shy, and this way he had hardly ever talked to any girl the whole seven days. And now he had the weird feeling that he had missed something.

Patrick and Julio came and sat down beside him. “Hi!” they said, both holding a baked potato wrapped in a paper napkin and hollowing them out with a plastic fork.

Fabian looked at his acquaintances. Julio had put ketchup on his baked potato, and some of this ketchup now stuck to his upper lip like some kind of red puberty down. Patrick had chosen tsatsiki for his potato and had stained his green beaver-shirt with it. Just because of these little losers Fabian had ignored the girls for a whole week! He sighed.

“Are you sad?” asked Julio promptly.

Fabian shrugged his shoulders. “Oh, it’s nothing.”

“And what about you?” asked Julio looking at Patrick. “Are you happy that you gonna go home tomorrow?”

Patrick looked quickly from one to the other, the fork between his lips, and then he shrugged too. “Not really.”

“Just a few days ago I had a totally different impression of you”, Julio pertly remarked.

Patrick shrugged his shoulders once again. “Just been in a bad mood.”

“Ha ha, ‘bad mood’?! You been howling and crying for your mom and dad.”

“So what?” replied Patrick. “Do you never get homesick?”

“No problem, it’s all right”, said Julio and grinned with his red moustache. He squashed up the remains of his baked potato. “Phew, I need a drink now. Come with me?”

“No”, said Patrick curtly. “I’ll stay here with Fabian.”

“All right”, said Julio and stood up. “I’ll be right back, okay?”

“Oh-kay”, said Patrick. But as soon as Julio had disappeared behind a couple of girls, Patrick leaped up and said: “Come on, let’s get lost!” And he dragged Fabian to the edge of the barbecue area, and since they could still be seen in the light of the lanterns there, they ran a little further towards the beach. They stopped behind the corner of a cabin, looked back and saw how Julio came back with a paper cup in his hand and looked around astonished. Finally, he turned away, disappointed.

“This was pretty mean, you know”, said Fabian quietly. “Do you have anything against Julio?”

“No”, said Patrick, “not really.” He said down in the grass. “Come, sit down here, too!”

A little curious Fabian sat down beside Patrick. They sat in a real dark corner of the camp, where neither the light of the lanterns nor the pale shine of the moon fell on them. But they could clearly see the figures sitting out there on the beach and on the landing stage. There sat dark silhouettes, hand in hand, arm in arm.

“It’s full of lovers, here”, whispered Fabian.

And Patrick giggled quietly.

The sound of the “disco” changed now to a soul-moving love song. Some of the boys on the lawn quickly ran away, but the others let themselves get carried away and danced real close to the girls.

“This was once my favorite song”, said Patrick and looked at Fabian; he could only see the gleam of his eyes in the darkness.

“Oh”, said Fabian a little surprised, because he found that it was typically a song for girls. “Cool.”
Patrick listened to the melody for a while, then suddenly he said: “Do you know the names of the stars? The constellations?” And he pointed up at the night sky, jet black and clear, spangled with countless stars.

“Hmm, just a few”, murmured Fabian. “One of my friends knows a lot about that. I can’t remember too many of them.”

“Can you show me some?” asked Patrick and looked again uncertainly in the direction where he thought Fabian’s face was.

“Uhh, hum, let’s see…”, said Fabian and searched the sky for known stars. “I think I can see Cassiopeia. That thing that looks more like a ‘W’, written in the sky. Up there, can you see?” Fabian pointed up to the sky.

“Huh, where?” asked Patrick and tried to follow his pointing finger.

Fabian leant over until he was practically leaning against Patrick’s back and he held his pointing arm beside Patrick’s head. “There’re five bright stars, you see?”

Patrick moved up closer to Fabian, until he sat between his legs, leaning back against Fabian’s chest and tummy. “Yeah, there it is, like a ‘W’!” He peered for a while. “Can you see another?”

“Hmm, Orion has to be quite close to Cassiopeia. Looks a bit like a cotton reel… with three
stars in a row in the middle…”

Both boys looked into the sky. While their heads moved, searching for Orion, Fabian’s nose tip stroked through Patrick’s hair – first it happened accidentally, but after the second touch, Fabian bowed his head a little so that his nose tip wandered along Patrick’s ear down to his neck. Patrick’s head stopped moving. Fabian’s arms came around the younger boy’s chest to hold him in a close embrace. His cheek slid across the warm skin of Patrick’s neck, feeling its blonde downy hair. There was always a part of Patrick’s vest sticking out of his oversized green T-shirt, and Fabian’s lips began to kiss the skin between the sandy-colored hair and the vest.

Patrick was breathing deeply and holding tightly on to Fabian’s hands.

Fabian kissed the bright pink neck, he kissed the sandy-blonde hairline above the neck, he kissed that part below the ear with the two tiny moles, he kissed the cheek with the bright freckles. And his hands felt how Patrick’s chest rose and fell in the rhythm of his excited breathing.

Firmly cuddled up they sank down into the grass, stretched out and more or less lay upon each other. Fabian’s lips couldn’t stop kissing the warm, pink skin.

The lovers on the landing stage kissed each other, too, and so nobody noticed the boys who lay just a little bit away in the grass…

The “disco” in the camp now played a terrible old, slushy song, and Fabian thought: “Now, I’ll always think of this stupid song when I remember this wonderful night!”

It was loud in the bus when it drove down the highway. The boys couldn’t stay on their seats and started wrestling on the central aisle. The girls chatted all at the same time, somehow trying to drown out each other.

Patrick and Fabian sat silently next to one another and listened to the music of Fabian’s little CD-player, each with one of its earphones. Fabian played his favorite CD, the one with the battered cover. It was probably not Patrick’s taste of music but bravely he let the powerful E-guitar-rock wash over him. His view wandered out of the window across the yellow fields of this late summer.

They had changed their addresses. And when they were sure that no-one was looking they had even changed their souvenir-shirts, the dark green beaver-shirts. Patrick had blushed when Fabian asked for the shirt, but he liked the idea. He just didn’t understand why Fabian insisted to get the one shirt spilled with tsatsiki.

Patrick would hardly write to Fabian’s address. And surely he won’t call him on the phone. Just like Jeremy. Fabian had no false hopes about this. But he was sure that he’d write or call. He just didn’t know if Patrick wouldn’t suddenly feel ashamed of what he and Fabian had done.

One of the best songs on Fabian’s favorite CD told of forgotten love, and about the regret that the singer felt when he realized that he had forgotten the special feeling of this love. Fabian suddenly knew what the lyrics meant.

Soon the houses and gardens of his small town appeared. And way too soon the bus stopped on the parking lot in front of the church. Fabian stood up and looked down once again at the sandy-haired, freckled boy. He almost lay in his seat, limp and listless. Turquoise green eyes looked up at Fabian with a sad glance.

“Take care”, said Fabian quietly.

Patrick just nodded slowly.

Fabian got out of the bus and fetched his backpack from the luggage compartment. The other children getting out here were welcomed by their mothers with hugs and kisses. Just his mother didn’t show up.

“Who cares?” thought Fabian. “I’ll walk home.”

The bus’s engine started up again, the doors closed, hissing, and that shining block of tin and glass moved around the church, heading for the big city.

Fabian looked after it until it disappeared in the narrow streets. Then he waved reluctantly.

“Hi, back from the wilderness?” asked a voice behind him.

Fabian turned around.

Niklas was there, leaning on his bike and grinning.

“Oh, Niklas!” said Fabian and all at once the feelings rose up inside him that he had swallowed during the drive home. He took his blond friend in his arms and squeezed him and after he made sure by a quick look around that the other children and parents had entered their cars and weren’t paying attention, he kissed Niklas on the cheek. And a tear drop rolled down Fabian’s face.

“Oh, good heavens!” said Niklas, rather taken by surprise. “That camp must have been HORRIBLE!”

End of this story
© 2003 by Niklas Edlund

Grammar Checked with Love… AJC