The Alex Crow by Andrew Smith Read Free Book Online Page A

everywhere!
    We’re fit and strong, as hard as granite,
    We come from every single planet!
    So cheer and make a happy noise—
    For US, the Merrie-Seymour Boys!
    For US, the Merrie-Seymour Boys!
    When we shouted “US” in the last lines, we were supposed to clap. We looked like thirty-two (now that Bucky Littlejohn had been hospitalized) barking circus seals. I clapped, but I did not shout. I did not even sing. I moved my mouth like a beached trout and pretended. But the counselors made the boys sing the song at least a dozen times until we were loud enough to please them, all clapped with a reasonable sense of trained-seal rhythm, and had the inane lyrics permanently ingrained into our memories.
    Larry was in a good mood while we were singing, but not because of the songs. He was in a good mood because he was drunk. We didn’t find out about the bottles of vodka and other stuff Larry kept hidden in the counselors’ clubhouse until later, but he was drunk, and I could tell, even if the other boys of Jupiter didn’t notice such things.
    Before bedtime, all the planets retreated to their individual campfires. I’d heard stories from some of the boys at Camp Merrie-Seymour for Boys that when they stared into their fires they frequently hallucinated they were playing a video game.
    The boys of Camp Merrie-Seymour for Boys were seriously damaged.
    Larry told us we all needed to go take showers and brush our teeth before he’d light the fire, but we whined and complained about showering in the spider cave, so he backed off and told us we could go ahead and stink if we wanted to.
    But he added a warning: “If it reeks like ass and feet in Jupiter tonight, I’m kicking all you fuckheads out and you’re hitting the showers—dark, spiders, fucking Sasquatches, whatever.”
    I was unfamiliar with this new word—
Sasquatch
—but the other boys seemed to understand what Larry meant and take it in stride. Robin Sexton always had the same take-it-in-stride look on his face, anyway, probably on account of the toilet paper in his ears and not being confronted about masturbation, so who could tell whether that kid had any clue what Larry was talking about? Considering the preceding modifier Larry used, I assumed that a
fucking Sasquatch
was American slang for a sexual deviant who preyed on boys at summer camp.
    If so, he could have Robin Sexton, I thought.
    Larry sat in a folding chair at the edge of our Jupiter fire ring. We had to sit in the dirt.
    Larry said, “You guys got any scary stories?”
    This was also new to me. I had plenty of scary stories, but I didn’t think anyone really wanted to hear them.
    Max said, “Why? I thought we already did the Mrs. Nussbaum encounter thing once today.”
    â€œNo.” Larry licked his lips and shook his head a little too quickly. His chair nearly tipped over.
    Larry continued, “Don’t you guys know
anything
? You’re supposed to tell scary stories around the campfire.”
    Cobie Petersen raised his hand.
    Larry sighed. “What?”
    â€œDo
you
know any scary stories, Larry?” Cobie asked.
    Larry did.

SCARY STORIES
    Let me tell you this, Max: When I came out of the refrigerator, there honestly was no place for me to stay. I had to go along with the soldiers who’d come to the village after the gas attack.
    They were nice to me, anyway. I think it may have had something to do with the clown suit—how it made me look like a baby, even if I had just turned fourteen. Although they smoked, they never offered their cigarettes to me.
    It seems so long ago, Max. It’s why I tell you it was my first life, as though I had been resurrected at some point—at least once—before we ever met.
    I asked Thaddeus, the man who’d taken off his mask first, if it was the Republican Army who’d gassed the village, and he told me, no, that it was the FDJA rebels. What else would he say?