Cool Campers Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Chapter 1 - Party Time?

  Chapter 2 - Cabin Sweet Cabin

  Chapter 3 - Weenie and Freckles

  Chapter 4 - Toad Claws

  Chapter 5 - Smashed Toes and Cannonballs

  Chapter 6 - Extra Tighty Whities

  Chapter 7 - Campfire Chat

  Chapter 8 - Flying Toilet Paper

  Chapter 9 - A Grizzly Hike

  Chapter 10 - Marshmallows with the Ladies

  Chapter 11 - Raging Raymond

  Chapter 12 - Let the Games Begin

  Chapter 13 - Humiliating Hats

  VIKING

  Published by Penguin Group

  Penguin Young Readers Group, 345 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A.

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  Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  First published in 2010 by Viking, a division of Penguin Young Readers Group

  Text copyright © Mike Knudson, 2010

  Illustrations copyright © Stacy Curtis, 2010

  All rights reserved

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA Knudson, Mike.

  Raymond and Graham, cool campers / by Mike Knudson ; illustrated by Stacy Curtis. p. cm.

  Summary: Best friends Raymond and Graham decide to reinvent themselves when they go to Camp Grizzly over the summer.

  eISBN : 978-1-101-52881-5

  [1. Camps—Fiction. 2. Popularity—Fiction. 3. Best friends—Fiction. 4. Friendship—Fiction.] I. Curtis, Stacy, ill.

  II. Title. III. Title: Cool campers.

  PZ7.K7836Rao 2010

  [Fic]—dc22

  2009024899

  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

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  To Randy Evans and David Cope, two cool campers!

  —M.K.

  For Michael, Mason, and Shana

  —S.C.

  Prologue

  THE FINAL BELL rang, and the school year was officially over. We grabbed our backpacks, said good-bye to Mrs. Gibson, and ran for the front doors. Summer was here! The air smelled more like summer than it had even an hour ago at recess. I couldn’t wait for sleepovers, staying up late, and best of all . . . SUMMER CAMP.

  1

  Party Time?

  IT WAS MONDAY afternoon. School had ended over a week ago. I heard the doorbell and ran down the stairs. I knew it was my best friend, Graham. I jumped down the last three stairs only to find my sister already opening the door.

  “Why hello, Geri,” I heard Graham say from the front porch. “It’s so lovely to see you.”

  “Oh, it’s you,” she said in her you’re-even-dorkier-than-my-brother voice. And without another word she turned and walked away.

  “Have a nice day,” Graham called after her, with a big smile stretched across his freckly face. He was always saying stuff like that to my sister.

  “How come you’re so nice to her?” I asked. “She’s just as mean to you as she is to me. She thinks we’re both dorks.”

  “Yeah, but I think she’s been nicer to me lately. She probably thinks I’m cool now.”

  I looked down at Graham, who was much smaller than me. His legs were whiter than his socks, and his T-shirt was tucked into the front of his underpants. “I’m not so sure about that,” I said.

  “Well, she’s still an older lady.” Graham smiled. “And she’s pretty cute.”

  A shiver went down my spine. “Geri? Are you serious? First of all, she’s no lady. She’s just my mean thirteen-year-old sister. Second of all, have you ever heard her burp? There’s definitely nothing ladylike about that! And thirdly . . . don’t ever say she’s cute. That’s just plain sick.”

  “Okay, okay, don’t have a heart attack,” Graham said, shaking his head.

  We went up to my room and took turns shooting my little foam ball through the plastic rim on the back of my door. “So what should we do tonight? We need to celebrate,” Graham said.

  “I know. This is going to be the best week ever!” The next day we were going to Camp Grizzly for four days. We had been looking forward to this forever. “Finally, we get to go to the real Camp Grizzly instead of Grizzly Cub camp.” Grizzly Cub camp was always in August, but the camp for bigger kids was at the very beginning of the summer. It was so much cooler to be leaving right after school ended instead of having to wait.

  Graham smiled and moved his eyebrows up and down. “I heard we get to have a marshmallow roast with the girls from Camp Wildflower. Diane told me that Kelly is going to camp this year too.”

  Graham had liked Kelly since the first grade, back when all of us boys thought girls had cooties and all the girls thought boys were gross. It was weird. I kind of liked Heidi, another girl in our class, but I would never have told her. Graham didn’t care if people knew how he felt about Kelly. And even though she didn’t like him back, he didn’t mind. He just kept liking her anyway.

  “Well, we should definitely do something fun tonight, since it’s our last night at home for the rest of the week,” I said.

  Graham’s face lit up. “Let’s have a party! We can invite people over and play hide-and-seek outside.”

  “Great idea!” We hadn’t really played any games with the neighborhood gang since school ended. Graham lived next door to Heidi, and Diane’s house was on the other side of Graham’s backyard fence. A lot of our other friends lived within a block or two. I lived about two blocks up the road from Graham, but I always wished I could live next door to him.

  We called a few people, but only Zach answered, and he was busy. We decided to walk over to Diane’s house, and we found her and Heidi jumping on Diane’s trampoline.

  “Hey, can we jump with you guys?” Graham asked. He already had his shoes off and was on the trampoline. Diane jumped really high and landed next to him. He fell onto his stomach. She and Heidi kept jumping, making it impossible for him to stand up.

  “What’s this all about?” Diane said. “You ask if you can jump, and before we even answer you just climb right on.”

  “Yeah, where are your trampoline manners?” Heidi added, laughing.

  “May we please jump with you?” I asked. My shoes were still on.

  “Why yes, yo
u may,” Diane answered politely. I kicked off my sneakers and climbed up.

  After bouncing around for a while we all lay down on the trampoline to rest.

  “Hey, we were thinking of getting everyone together tonight for a party. Maybe we can play hide-and-seek or capture the flag. Do you guys want to come?” I asked.

  “Tonight? We’re going to Eden’s birthday party,” Diane said. “This summer is going to be filled with parties. Tonight it’s Eden’s, then next Saturday is Brad’s pool party.”

  Graham and I looked at each other. “What pool party?”

  There was a big pause, and then Heidi said, “Oh, it’s nothing.” I could tell by the way she looked at us that she was lying, like she felt sorry for us. “I think it’s only for a few people—”

  “You guys weren’t invited?” Diane interrupted. “Everyone’s going. I know for a fact that Luke, Matt, and Kelly will be there. Even Lizzy.” Heidi jabbed Diane in the ribs. “Oh, I mean, just a few of us.”

  But it was too late—we’d heard her loud and clear.

  Now the confused look on Graham’s face turned to anger. “You’re saying that everyone was invited to a pool party at Brad’s except us?”

  The girls didn’t know what to say, so we just sat there for a minute or two in silence.

  “Even Lizzy?” I asked. Lizzy was the most annoying person in the world. She was the biggest teacher’s pet, and she was so snooty she drove me nuts. I shook my head in disbelief.

  “Don’t worry about it. I’m sure it won’t be fun,” Heidi said.

  Graham and I didn’t feel like jumping anymore after that, so we climbed off the trampoline and walked over to Graham’s house. We sat down in his front yard.

  “I just can’t believe this, Raymond. Did you know we were so unpopular?”

  “No way. I mean, I know David kind of picks on me, and Lizzy and I have been enemies forever. And sure, my sister thinks we’re dorks, but I always just thought that’s the way sisters are. I didn’t know everyone else agreed with her.”

  Graham lay down in the grass and looked up into the sky. “So this is what it all comes down to. We’re just two dorks who are so unpopular we can’t even get invited to a party that Lizzy got invited to. Even Matt Lindenheimer is going.”

  “Yeah, I always thought we were more popular than Matt—except last summer at Grizzly Cub camp. Remember how everyone thought he was so funny?”

  Graham sat up. “You’re right. Somehow Matt went from being plain old regular Matt to being the coolest kid at camp. But when camp was over, everything went back to normal, and he was the same old Matt ‘The Brain’ Lindenheimer again.”

  “Yeah, but now he gets invited to parties,” I said. “Now he’s Matt ‘The Party Brain’ Lindenheimer.” Graham nodded in agreement. We sat there quietly and felt sorry for ourselves. Then suddenly Graham stood up.

  “That’s it! At school Matt’s just the smart kid who always sits in the front row. Then at camp he was suddenly Mr. Popular. It’s like no one knew who he really was.”

  “Yeah, so what?” I said.

  “Well, no one really knows who we are at camp either,” Graham said, rubbing his chin as he thought. “I say this year we become the Mr. Populars at camp.”

  “You’re right,” I said. “That’s the best thing about camp. You can be anyone you want to be. It doesn’t matter how dorky you are in real life.” We both smiled.

  “Who cares about the stupid party?” Graham said. “Tomorrow we’ll be the most popular kids at Camp Grizzly. And who knows? Maybe the coolness will stick when we come home.”

  We high-fived. This was one of Graham’s best ideas yet.

  2

  Cabin Sweet Cabin

  THAT NIGHT MY mom and I packed all of my stuff. She wrote my name on the tag of my underwear with a black marker. I have no idea why she does that. I mean, of all the pieces of clothing that you could lose, why are moms so worried about underwear? I’ve lost a lot of jackets and sweatshirts because I take them off when I’m hot and then I forget about them. But how could you ever lose your underwear?

  Everything fit into one big blue duffle bag. I was also bringing my backpack from school. It was packed with some snacks and a drink.

  I could hardly sleep. I felt like my entire life was going to change the next day. When Tuesday morning finally came, I jumped out of bed, put on my shorts and T-shirt, and ran into the kitchen. No matter what time I got up, my mom always seemed to be in the kitchen making breakfast.

  “Good morning, sweetie,” she said. “Just in time.” She set a plate piled high with French toast in the center of the table. I sat down in my usual spot and stuck my fork in the pile, pulling off about half of the toast.

  Just then Dad walked in. He gave me a gentle pat on the head with the newspaper. “Whoa, slow down, big fella. Save some for your old man.”

  “Oh, let him eat,” Mom said. “Who knows what they’ll be feeding him at camp.”

  Dad grabbed a piece of French toast from my plate and put it on his. “He’ll be fine. I’m sure they’ll be eating bear steaks, squirrel stew, and other good camp food.”

  A terrible image of Graham and me sitting around the campfire roasting a squirrel on a stick filled my mind. I suddenly thought maybe I should eat as much as I could before leaving.

  After breakfast Dad gave me a hug and told me to be good. He also pulled out his wallet and gave me a five-dollar bill. “Here’s something extra for a treat,” he said. Then he left for work.

  “Go tell your sister good-bye,” Mom ordered. I ran up the stairs. Geri was still asleep, and I really didn’t want to wake her up. She’s not too pleasant in the morning. But I took a deep breath and opened the door.

  “Um . . . good-bye, Geri. I’m leaving for camp.” Without waiting for her to answer, I turned to leave. But Mom had come up the stairs and was standing right behind me.

  “Geri, wake up and tell your brother good-bye.” Mom carefully put her hand on my sister’s shoulder and gave it a little nudge. Then we both stepped back quickly. Waking Geri up is like playing with a bomb. If you don’t do it just right, she’ll explode.

  “Go away!” She rolled over and pulled her pillow over her head.

  “You’re not going to see Raymond until Saturday. Don’t you want to say good-bye?” Mom said. Geri let out an awful groan and sat up. Her hair was in a big snarly mess. I took another step back.

  “Fine!” she said, putting on her biggest fake smile. “Good-bye, Raymond. I will miss you so much. What will I ever do without you?” Then she collapsed back onto her bed and pulled the covers over her head.

  “See, she’s going to miss you,” Mom said with a smile. I wasn’t too sure about that.

  We loaded my bag into the car and headed over to Graham’s house. We pulled into his driveway and honked. My mom got out and chatted with his mom while we put his bag in the trunk with mine.

  “This is going to be so awesome!” Graham said. “You should see how much candy I brought.”

  “Cool, I’ve got a bunch too. Hey, what’s that smell?” I sniffed around closer to Graham.

  “It’s probably either the sunscreen or the bug spray, or maybe a combination of the two,” Graham said. “My mom covered me in both. She said the sun is stronger in the mountains and the mosquitoes are everywhere.”

  I plugged my nose. “I think the smell will scare away all of the mosquitoes.” The sunscreen was probably a good idea. Graham has a million freckles, and when he gets sunburn they turn green. I think it’s cool, but he doesn’t like it. We climbed into the backseat, and then we were officially on our way to camp.

  “I’ve been thinking about the coolness situation,” I said. “Last year, part of Matt’s coolness was the cub pack he was in. Most of the kids in his group were pretty cool. Plus, his leader was the best. So whatever happens, we need to get into the best group.”

  “Yeah, you’re right,” Graham said. “But the problem is they just assign you to your group. We can’
t do anything about it. What if you and I don’t even get in the same group?” He was right. I guess we would just have to hope for the best. We tried to think of some other things we could do to be really cool, but we couldn’t think of much.

  “I know,” Graham said. “We need to say funny things. I don’t know how Matt got so funny, but he was a crazy man at camp.”

  I agreed. “Okay, what should we say that’s funny?” We thought for a while but couldn’t come up with anything.

  Graham shrugged his shoulders. “I’m sure we will think of funny things when we need to.” I hoped he was right.

  The rest of the ride up we played every car ride game we could think of. You know, like the license plate game where you try to find the most different states, or the alphabet game where you try to find every letter from A to Z on billboards and signs. And finally, we played ninety-nine bottles of pop on the wall. My mom made us stop after we counted down to forty-seven bottles. She said it was a fun song, but it was driving her crazy. I could tell from her voice that she meant it. But I didn’t mind, because just as we stopped singing we passed a sign that read CAMP GRIZZLY NEXT RIGHT.

  We turned under a giant arch made of logs. On the side of the road there was a big grizzly bear carved out of wood, and it was holding a sign that read CAMP GRIZZLY STRAIGHT AHEAD. Graham and I bounced up and down in our seats.

  “We’re here! We’re here!” we shouted together.

  “There’s the lake.” Graham pointed.

  “Wow, it looks even bigger than last year!” I said. “And there’s Camp Wildflower way over there.” Camp Wildflower was the girls’ camp. Heidi, Diane, and a bunch of girls from our school go there every summer.

  We pulled into the dusty parking lot, where some friendly camp people directed us to a free space. One thing I like about camp is that everyone is always so happy to be there.

  Mom walked us up to the lodge to check in. A guy in a yellow Camp Grizzly T-shirt was sitting at a table. Mom told him who we were, and he thumbed down a list and put a check mark by each of our names. Then he gave us name tags, a map, and a list of rules. He also handed us each a card with our name and cabin number on it.