Disruption by Steven Whibley Read Free Book Online Page A

if that’s what those are, are worse than almost everyone’s, not higher.”
    “Um, yeah,” Angie said. “Those numbers are errors. Higher numbers mean more errors. You hardly have any. You messed up less than everyone else.” She leaned over and examined the screen. “This isn’t your first camp, Matt Cambridge. In fact, I bet this isn’t even your first command.”
    Rylee started in on me next, grumbling about how I’d lied to her and how it didn’t make any sense. However, I wasn’t really listening. I just kept shaking my head. Low numbers were good? It was suddenly very obvious what had happened. When my dad put my name on the roster, he must’ve seen the other kids’ scores and thought he’d help me fly under the radar by giving me scores that would be below average.
    “Blend in, Matt,” Dad had said when he dropped me off. Yeah, thanks, Dad. Not enough that you put me in this situation to begin with, but now you’ve made it so I’m expected to be an overachiever. Great, just great.
    I turned back to my team. In the time it had taken for me to consider my dad’s lies, they’d gone back to unpacking. They kept glancing at me, as if each of them had a question they wanted to ask, but no one spoke.
    I opened my mouth to say something, yet words didn’t come. What could I say? That my dad had manipulated some records to get me into this camp and screwed up? I’d already told the truth that this was my first camp and it was part of my punishment to be here, so they must’ve thought I’d lied about at least one thing already. Besides, I didn’t know these guys. Even if I trusted them, and even if I managed to convince them of the truth, I still had to consider the possibility they’d tell someone in the camp. Then maybe that person would tell someone else, and before long it would get back to whoever was in charge—probably Dalson—and I’d be kicked out. I wasn’t sure what would happen to my dad if I got booted from camp—until that moment I wasn’t entirely sure I’d cared—but I guess I didn’t actually want him getting fired or anything.
    Pull yourself together, Matt.
    Expectations are high, but who cares? It’s a camp. A weird camp, with strange rules and bizarre campers, but it’s just a camp. I probably was better than most of these freaks anyway. If I had gone to a bunch of camps, I probably would’ve gotten better scores. Besides, it was this or Alaska. I took a deep breath and blew it out in a single breath.
    It was just a camp. I could do this.
     
     

Chapter 9
     
     
    We spent the next hour or so unpacking.
    Angie, who had seemed like such a laid-back and free-spirited girl, became almost compulsive with the way she transferred her belongings into the plastic chest. She even had cardboard dividers so she could keep things organized. In contrast, Juno just unzipped his bag and shook the contents into the bin, and Yaakov, well, he didn’t unpack anything. He just put his whole bag into the plastic bin. I think he might have been copying me. Poor kid, no one at this camp should use me as a role model.
    There was a sharp rap at the door.
    “Sir?” a girl’s voice called.
    Everyone in the room looked at me. I guessed I was the sir.
    I cleared my throat. “Um, come in.”
    The door swung open, and a girl a year or two younger than me and about as thin as a javelin stood in the opening. Her bony arms were pressed firmly to her sides, and a serious expression was etched into her face. She had brown hair pulled back in a ponytail and a red T-shirt with a graphic picture of a bear on the chest and the words CAMP FRIENDSHIP written below it. Please tell me those aren’t our team uniforms , I thought.
    “Captain,” she said, her words coming out in a quick burst, “I’m to tell you that the preliminary rankings challenge will begin in ten minutes at the soccer pitch.” She glanced around the room. “It’s a Delta event.”
    Preliminary rankings? Delta event? I was pretty