The morning had been uneventful, or at least the particular brand of “uneventful” that only an all‑boys cabin could produce by day three. Chaos had already left its fingerprints everywhere. Socks hung from ceiling beams like defeated flags, someone had launched something with enough force to dent one of the floorboards across the other side of the cabin, and half the beds looked as though a small tornado had passed through with personal vendettas.

Dexter’s bed, however, stood out in the wreckage like a valiant but exhausted soldier. He’d made it as neatly as he could: the pillow was deflated, the blanket pulled up but spilling unevenly over the sides, and the sheet underneath was doing its best impression of “tucked.” His mother would have sighed, deeply, but compared to the surrounding disaster zone, it was practically a showroom display.

The rest of the boys had already thundered off to breakfast, but Dexter lingered. His stomach growled with the desperation of a creature wronged, but he’d learned quickly that the first wave into the dining hall was a battlefield he had no interest in joining. Better to wait, slip in quietly, and avoid the elbows, shouting, and territorial disputes. So he sat on his bed, notebook balanced on his knee, scribbling down observations. Names of the other boys, written in an attempt to feel like he belonged, even though he absolutely didn’t. Notes about cabin dynamics. A few sketches of the cabin layout. Anything to make the place feel less alien.

Eventually, hunger won. He stepped outside and followed the crunchy stone path toward the dining hall. The closer he got, the louder the noise became, an escalating roar of voices, clattering trays, and the occasional shriek of someone who had probably been hit with something. His heartbeat rose to match the rhythm, thudding harder with every step. He paused at the door. Once. Twice. A third time.

’Okay, Dexter. Go in, sit down, get food. Normal person stuff.’
He adjusted his backpack, because unlike every other boy here, he carried his everywhere, and stepped inside.

Cabin E’s table was easy to spot: loud, messy, and already half‑abandoned by boys who had inhaled their food and sprinted off to whatever chaos awaited them next. Dexter slid onto the end of the bench and surveyed what remained. It wasn’t promising. The pancakes looked less like pancakes and more like dense, misshapen dough‑spheres. Worse, it was painfully obvious that many hands had rummaged through them. Dexter could practically see the bacteria colonies forming. He’d read enough about germs to know these things were a one‑way ticket to Deadsville, population: him. No thank you.

He reached, instead, into his backpack and pulled out one of his precious nutrient bars. He’d begged his mother to pack more than three, but she’d insisted camp food would be “perfectly fine.” The wrapper crackled loudly, too loudly. Dexter froze, hyperaware of the sound. But the dining hall was a storm of noise, and no one even glanced his way. He exhaled and peeled it open. It tasted vaguely of chocolate and overwhelmingly of disappointment. According to the box, it contained twenty‑three essential vitamins and minerals. According to Dexter, it tasted like compressed cardboard. Still, cardboard was preferable to doughballs of doom.

He opened his notebook again with his free hand. The page it fell to was titled “Camp Stuff.” A list followed:

• Why is Cabin E called Dunlop?
• Find bug spray.
• FOOD.
• Try talking to someone..?

Dexter stared at that last one. His pencil hovered, then drew a firm line straight through it. Some goals were best saved for later. Much later. Like… never.

The nutrient bar was gone and that unfortunately meant breakfast was officially over. Dexter folded the empty wrapper into a perfect little square, creasing each edge with unnecessary precision before tucking it back into his backpack. Around him, the dining hall was thinning out. Benches screeched across the scuffed floorboards as campers scrambled toward their next activity, leaving behind the smell of syrup, sweat, and whatever industrial-strength cleaner the staff used on the tables. Counselors in black shirts moved through the chaos like practiced shadows, collecting trays, stacking cups, and wiping down surfaces with the weary efficiency of people who had done this far too many times.

With the crowd dispersing, the room felt less like a stampede and more like a place where a person could breathe. The leftover noise, clattering dishes, a few lingering conversations, the hum of the ceiling fans, settled into something almost manageable. Then a familiar voice cut through it all.

“A’ight, Fireflies.”

Dexter looked up. Brody, Dunlop’s cabin counsellor, stood at the end of the table, leaning slightly to one side as if gravity itself had given up on trying to keep him symmetrical. He wore a sun‑bleached camp tee. The collar was stretched, and a tiny hole near the hem fluttered when he moved. Below that, he wore cut‑off work trousers, the heavy-duty kind tradesmen wore, except Brody had obviously taken scissors to them at some point, slicing them off just below the knee. The raw edges were uneven, threads dangling like they were trying to escape. The pockets bulged with counselor stuff: a pen, a whistle, a folded map, maybe a rock, who know. His right hand was shoved deep into the front pocket, thumb hooked through a belt loop, elbow angled out in a posture that was somehow both relaxed and authoritative. A backwards baseball cap sat low on his head, and, as always, he was chewing gum with the slow, methodical rhythm of someone who had never once been in a hurry.

Three days ago, Dexter had been convinced Brody was terrifying. Objectively terrifying. The kind of terrifying that made you sit up straighter even when he wasn’t looking at you. Now, he wasn’t entirely sure why. Maybe it was the permanent stubble that made him look like he’d slept in a truck. Maybe it was the way he rarely smiled, or the way he spoke like every sentence was optional. Maybe it was simply that he looked like someone who fixed engines, not someone who supervised children with glitter glue. Whatever the reason, Dexter had spent most of the first day trying very hard not to attract his attention.

That had lasted until the bee incident. The memory still made his stomach twist. He’d frozen the moment the bee landed on his shoulder, convinced that any movement, breathing, blinking, existing, would result in catastrophe. The bee hadn’t even been aggressive. It had just… been there. Existing. Which was apparently enough to send Dexter into a silent, wide-eyed panic. Brody had appeared out of nowhere, as if summoned by the universal distress signal of a child about to cry.

“Easy, bud.”

The bee had been coaxed away through a combination of calm words and increasingly enthusiastic hat‑waving. Afterward, Brody had asked if he had his EpiPen. Dexter had nodded, still trembling.

“Good.”

Then Brody had squeezed his shoulder, firm, grounding, not unkind. Enough that Dexter felt like saying a small ‘Ow’ but thought better of it.

“Don’t lose it.” He said with a small smile before “KYLE! GET OFF THE DAMN ROOF!” and left to deal with some other camper. And that had been that. No fuss. No dramatic warnings. No treating him like he was made of spun sugar. Embarrassing, yes. But also… helpful.

Now, Brody scanned the table, gum still working. “A’ight, Crafts first. Waterfront after. Don’t disappear into the woods.” He paused, chewing thoughtfully. “And if anybody sees a bear, don’t try making friends with it. He’s my friend, and that’s how it’ll stay, got it?” A ripple of laughter moved through the remaining boys. Brody pointed toward the door with his clipboard. “Move it.”

The Fireflies scrambled to gather their things. Dexter followed a few steps behind, adjusting his backpack straps as he stepped outside. The morning air was cool beneath the canopy of pines, though the warmth of the day was already beginning to seep in. Sunlight filtered through the branches in thin, shifting beams, catching dust motes and the occasional drifting pine needle. Campers moved along the winding paths in clusters, chattering about canoeing, archery, and the various ways they hoped to avoid sunburn.

As Dexter passed the gravel parking lot, something caught his eye. A station wagon had pulled in, dust still settling around its tires. A boy stood beside it while someone else unloaded luggage from the back. The kid looked roughly Dexter’s age, maybe a little older, with the unmistakable expression of someone who would rather be anywhere else on Earth.

Dexter slowed. ’Camp started three days ago… Nobody had mentioned late arrivals, was that allowed? Were they in trouble? Was he being dropped off as punishment?’ Dexter didn’t know, but the curiosity tugged at him. Without thinking, he pulled out his notebook and scribbled beneath his existing list.

’New kid arrived. Didn’t know that was allowed. Looks even less happy to be here than me.’

He snapped the notebook shut and tucked it away again. A few minutes later, the Craft Cabin appeared beneath a cluster of towering pines. It looked nothing like the other buildings, bright green paint, wooden wind chimes clinking softly in the breeze, and a porch that seemed to sag under the weight of decades of glitter-related trauma.

The moment he stepped inside, he forgot entirely about crafts. Every wall was a museum. Birdhouses painted in every color imaginable. Carved wooden animals with googly eyes. Friendship bracelets draped like vines. Painted signs, photographs, drawings, decades of camper creations layered so densely that the walls themselves were barely visible. Some pieces looked older than Dexter. Some looked older than his parents. The air smelled like sawdust, paint, and something vaguely lemon-scented.

He drifted away from the tables without realizing it, drawn toward a display near the back. A row of old photographs had been pinned to a corkboard, each one framed by a small wooden plaque with a year burned into it.

1982
1983
1984
1987
1988

Dexter leaned closer. Then closer still. His notebook was in his hands before he consciously decided to take it out. He scribbled quickly.

’Camp is as old as Dad said. There are no photos from 1985 or 1986’

His pencil hovered. After a moment, he added a small question mark beside the final entry. Then he looked back up at the wall. That was odd.