One might think that, after spending three months every year for four consecutive years at the same summer camp, the odds of not picking up a single friend along the way should be nearly astronomical. Unfortunately, the odds never seemed to be on Conrad Achenleck's side.

He reflected on this as he sat alone on his duffle bag with only his sketchbook and pencil to keep him company, thinking that maybe he should invest in a load of lotto tickets on his sixteenth birthday, and find out if his complete transcendence of all rules of luck and chance could be used to his advantage. But two years was a long time to wait, and for now it brought him nothing but misery.

When I'm a millionaire they're all going to feel so stupid, Conrad thought bitterly, watching teenagers swarm the campground like ants, hugging their parents goodbye and scuttling across the parking lot to embrace old friends. A few of the shyer kids hung back with their parents until families were formally asked to leave. Mrs. Achenleck, for her part, hadn't bothered to linger more than the minute or two it took for him to unload his things from the back of the car.

She had sat primly in the front seat, adjusting her tortoiseshell sunglasses and the silk handkerchief tied carefully around her hair, muttering to herself about urchins and ill-mannered children as Conrad heaved his duffle from the trunk. After dropping his things into the dust, Conrad had walked to the passenger window to attempt an awkward but cordial goodbye, but she was already revving the engine, adjusting her mirrors, and shifting to reverse the moment the trunk slammed shut. A carefully manicured hand gestured vaguely from the window as the car sped away, leaving Conrad coughing out exhaust in its wake.

He couldn't quite bring himself to be disappointed though. He knew full well that his mother didn't dump him here every summer to ensure his own healthy socialization. No, as he'd overheard her gossiping over the phone more times than he could count, "Even past 40, a kid really puts a damper on the dating game, yanno?" His summers were her much-needed respite from motherhood, and even as miserable as camp was for Conrad, the time away from her was just as welcome.

So he sat down and waited, as he always did, for the noise and clamor and excitement to die down so he would be allowed to shuffle quietly to his new cabin and draw in peace.

"Achenleck?" said a dry voice somewhere above him. A shadow fell over Conrad's sketchbook, blotting out the half-finished dinosaur taking up most of the page. Conrad looked up to find a long, impassive, and slightly sallow face craning over a clipboard to look down at him.

"Uh, y-yes?" Conrad stammered. This man was clearly a counselor, but not one he had ever seen before. He was uncomfortably tall and graying slightly along his temples, though he couldn't have been older than his mid-twenties. A kind glimmer in his otherwise sunken and deeply lined eyes held him just short of completely terrifying.

"Conrad, is it?" the counselor asked, glancing at his clipboard. "I'm Ellis Dots. You'll be with me in Cabin 6 this summer."

Conrad nodded slowly but said nothing. He could not imagine a less fitting name for this grim, tower of a man than Ellis Dots.

"It's nice to meet you, Conrad," Ellis said, pointedly breaking Conrad's silence. Conrad swallowed.

"It's…it's nice to meet you too, Mister Dots."

The man smiled a little at this – a subtle, nearly imperceptible upward twitch of the lip that almost made him look spookier.

"It's Ellis, Conrad," he said. "You can call me Ellis."

"Awww, but Ellis is such a boring name!"

Conrad blinked and looked down from Ellis' lofty, serious face, to find a tiny, redheaded boy who looked to be around nine years old, bouncing at Elllis' side. Conrad hadn't noticed him walk over: it was as if this kid had simply blinked into existence, congealed from clouds of kicked-up dust and pure energy. He certainly looked it anyway, Conrad thought, noting the mud-caked knees and peeling sunburn on his nose and forehead. Cars had only begin arriving at the campsite fifteen minutes ago and already this kid looked as though he had just crawled out of the forest for the first time in years.

"You could go by any name you want here and you're still gonna tell people your name is Ellis?" the kid continued indignantly.

"Ellis is my name, Hanna," said Ellis, raising an eyebrow at the boy. "We talked about this, remember?"

"Yeah, but these people don't know you! You could tell them any name you want! Wouldn't being named Galahad be cooler? Or Ajax? Or Olympus?" the kid named Hanna whined. "You're definitely tall enough to be an Olympus. Look at you! You're HUGE!"

"As 'cool' as it would be, Ellis is the name have, so Ellis is the name I will use," Ellis said, with all the patience of a saint. "But you may call me Galahad or Olympus or whatever you like."

"Well I'm gonna find a name you like better than Ellis," said Hanna, his eyes glimmering with a sort of manic determination. "Mark my words! I'm gonna try a different name every day until I find the perfect name for you. Today you're Galahad!"

"Alright, Hanna," Ellis said, apparently unfazed by the boy's boundless enthusiasm. Even Conrad was feeling slightly assaulted by its intensity, and he was only a bystander.

"In the meantime," Ellis continued, tucking the clipboard under his arm, "why don't you keep Conrad company while I round up the rest of our cabin?"

Conrad started with surprise as Ellis walked away, and before he could stop himself, the question had jumped out of his mouth: "You're in my cabin? But…how old are you?"

Hanna's bright expression dimmed like a cloud passing in front of the sun, and Conrad regretted the question immediately.

"I'm eleven!" he cried indignantly. "Why does everyone think I'm so young! I mean sure I have asthma and I'm kinda short and my voice hasn't dropped yet, but still!"

"S-sorry!" Conrad said quickly. "I'm…I just thought our cabin was supposed to be mostly freshman."

"Well, yeah…" Hanna said, suddenly looking sheepish. "I was supposed to be in the younger cabin, but Galahad is my next-door neighbor and he's been babysitting me for like, a million years, so my mom says she doesn't trust anyone else to keep me out of trouble. Me and Gally are best friends!"

Hanna practically beamed with pride, the previous offence apparently completely forgotten. This kid was a veritable generator of positive energy. Conrad felt exhausted just being near him.

"Oh!" Hanna said suddenly, before Conrad could think of a reply to this announcement. "That reminds me of another name! Pythias is way cooler than Galahad, I can't believe I didn't think of it before! I've gotta go tell him! Man, I'm so glad I read that book on mythology last week!"

And with that, Hanna was off, leaving nothing but a cloud of dust behind him. As he ran, he called over his shoulder: "I'll see you around, Conrad! I'm glad we're friends now!"

Friends? Conrad gaped after Hanna as he scampered off, just as quickly as he had come. Had he just accidentally made a friend with this eleven-year-old human spark plug?

The thought, be careful what you wish for, flashed grimly through Conrad's head as the tuft of fiery, red hair bounced up the hill toward the cabins. But, he supposed as the herd of chattering kids began to thin and groups of friends started to trickle, arm in arm, up the hill after him, beggars can't be choosers was an equally appropriate adage for his situation.

Before Conrad even had time to fully wrap his head around that word, friend, something collided hard with his duffle bag, nearly sending him spilling into the dirt. His pen and sketchbook tumbled to the ground in his attempt to steady himself.

"Oi," said a voice somewhere behind him. "'Less ya yanna drag yer own shit up the hill, I'd recommend budgin' off."

Conrad craned his head all the way back to identify his assailant. His stomach dropped. Oh no. Not this guy, anyone but this guy…

Towering over him and looking more and more exasperated by the second, was none other than the last person he had expected to see this summer: Luce Worth. Even upside down, Conrad could see the change in expression when Luce realized whose luggage he had been charged with taking up to the cabins.

Luce raised an eyebrow and spat out the toothpick he had been chewing on, grinding it into the dirt with a greying sneaker like a cigarette. He crossed his wiry arms and grinned down at Conrad. His was unmistakably the self-satisfied grin of a predator toying with its cornered prey.

"Well, well, well, if it ain't Lil' Miss Temperance," he said in his thick, Australian drawl, licking his cigarette-stained teeth. "Fancy meetin' you here."

Conrad swallowed hard. That cinched it: he had to be cursed. He had to have the worst luck of anyone in the world. Of all the seniors who could have been assigned to pick up his luggage, of course Conrad had to get the one he had accidentally gotten kicked out of camp the year before.

All he had done was dutifully reported in an abandoned six-pack he had found on the outskirts of the forest! How could he have known that anyone would be so stupid as to write: "Property of Luce Worth! All others: FUCK OFF!" on the side of their illegal contraband? How Luce had gotten back into camp this summer after that debacle was a mystery to Conrad, but if the sleek, black towncar he had arrived in and the matching leather luggage he had pulled out of it were any indication, Conrad assumed that money was involved.

Conrad opened and closed his mouth like a fish, struggling to find some appropriate response or retort or apology to placate him. Luce Worth was a notorious troublemaker and complete prick: everyone knew that. But he was so goddamn witty and cool that everyone seemed to like him anyway. Plus, everyone always wants to be friends with the guy who brings the beer. Being three years younger and without any social connections to speak of, Conrad had easily slipped easily under his radar for the past several years, until this summer apparently.

Even now, no one was supposed to know who had turned over the fateful six-pack, but, as it always did in groups of teenagers left to their own devices, word must have gotten around. Conrad found himself shrinking in the shadow of Luce's long, lean form. He couldn't have been much taller than Ellis, but in this moment, he was ten times more terrifying.

"Whassamatter?" Luce said coolly, reveling in Conrad's alarm. "Cat gotcha tongue? C'mon, don't tell now me you got nothin' ta say!"

"L-look," Conrad managed to spit out, "I didn't mean to get you in trouble, okay? It was an accident, I didn't even know they were yours! If I knew they were going to kick you out, I wouldn't have said anything. I'm sorry!"

To Conrad's dismay, Luce's Cheshire cat grin only widened at his halting justification.

"Hey, don't sweat it kid," he said. "Bygones, right?"

Luce reached down and yanked the duffle bag right out from under Conrad, toppling him face first into the dust. He slung the bag over his shoulder as Conrad wiped his glasses clean and stared up at him in mute shock.

"If I wuz you though," he continued, "I'd be careful'a slip-ups like tha' in the future. Word starts gettin' around tha' yer a snitch…who knows wha' could happen?"

And with that, Luce turned around and began the steep march up the hill. Conrad summoned all his energy to call after his retreating back.

"Wait! Who told you?"

Without turning to face him, Luce barked back.

"You did!"

Conrad wilted as Luce's rough, grating laughter disappeared up the hillside with him. He felt as though all the air had been let out of his lungs. His face burned with rage as much as it did humiliation, and it took him several, long seconds before he was able to quiet his shaking hands enough to gather his dusty sketchbook and get to his feet. He brushed the dirt from his jeans and tried to carefully remove some of the grime from his ruined dinosaur sketch. Great, just great. Four summers of gloomy, but admittedly serene loneliness, and in a single day he had made his first friend and, apparently, his first enemy.

With a sigh he began the march up to the cabins along with the lingering groups of seniors doing their annual duty of dragging the younger kids' luggage up the hill. For a moment he almost thought he heard a chorus of hushed whispers pass through the groups as he passed.

"Is that him?"

"Yeah I think that's him…"

"Shhhh!"

Conrad felt his face grow redder as he became more and more certain that the whispers and covert glances weren't just the product of his paranoid imagination. Make that a friend, an enemy, and a bad reputation…He kept his eyes firmly forward as he strode past them, determined not to give them the satisfaction of knowing that he had heard.

One thing was for certain, he thought with as he reached the top, where his luggage was waiting for him in front of Cabin 6 with no leering, blonde-haired senior in sight. This summer was bound to be more interesting than any of the four before. The very thought was enough to send waves of dread and anxiety crashing through his entire body.

"Hey, Conrad!"

Conrad looked up to see Hanna frantically waving at him from just beyond the cabin, seated in a semi-circle of what Conrad presumed were other members of Cabin 6, with Ellis standing in the middle, reading from his clipboard. Hanna gestured expectantly to an empty spot on the ground beside him, leaving Conrad no choice but to trudge over and take his honored position as "new friend."

As Conrad settled in, criss-cross applesauce, listening to Ellis listing off the camp's many rules and regulations, Hanna practically vibrating with energy beside him, he couldn't help but miss the comfortable, familiar isolation of being unknown. A gaggle of seniors burst into laughter somewhere behind him, and Conrad found himself dreading every second of the long summer that was to come.