Outside of her sprawling suburban Minnesota mansion, Brooke Diamond followed a trail of strategically placed marshmallows down the driveway on the way to her car. She knew where they came from and why they were there. Her 11-year-old son, James, had placed the trail leading up to the hood of her car, where a pamphlet for "the wonkiest camp you'll ever see!" lay beneath one of the windshield wipers. She picked it up and casually glanced at it. A logo with a smiling, and somewhat homicidal-looking, donkey decorated the front cover atop a photo of three children of different races and ages holding hands and skipping together. She flipped through some of the folds and saw that James had circled, in red pen, all of the "awesome adventures you'll have at Camp Wonky Donkey" and written commentary like "see?" and "isn't this super cool, mom?" next to them. She shook her head and smiled at the excitement of the boy before placing the pamphlet in her purse and unlocking the door to her car.
From the second story window, James watched as his mom drove off to work.
"Yes," he exclaimed as his pumped his fists in a victory pose and ran down to the kitchen to pick up the phone and call his best friend. "Hey, Carlos," he shouted into the receiver, "I think my mom's totally gonna let me go to Camp Wonky Donkey. Did you ask your parents yet?"
"Not yet," the other boy responded sounding a little nervous, "I'm kinda scared. What if they say no? Then all of our plans will be ruined!"
James and Carlos had devised a plan earlier in the year. They were going to go to Camp Wonky Donkey together and while they were there, they'd become the most popular kids at camp. They'd be the best chefs, sack racers, and bird house crafters the camping world had ever seen. Then they would meet the loves of their lives and nothing would get in their way...except maybe parental consent.
"Well, hurry up!" James said with an exasperated sigh accentuating his impatience, "we only have a week left to register!"
"Okay, okay," Carlos replied, trying to keep his best friend calm, "I'll ask Papi when he gets home from work."
"Good, and make sure you make those really sad puppy eyes at him. Those always work on him," James said, thinking about the way they sometimes even worked on him.
"Do they?" Carlos asked, not exactly sure what James was rattling on about now.
"Well...yeah. They get all big and watery and sparkly and your mouth does this thing where it gets all...you know? Sad and stuff," James responded, "Your dad always falls for that!"
Carlos hadn't realized he'd ever done anything of the sort. He just figured he was really good at convincing his dad with his words and strong arguments, but now that James had brought this habit to his attention, he was going to start getting self-conscious about it.
"Oh yeah, that thing that I do," Carlos laughed nervously, "anyway, I gotta go. My mom's making me clean up the entire kitchen. I'll call you after I ask my Papi, okay? Bye!"
Carlos hung up the phone and looked around at the kitchen. Sure, he didn't have a huge mansion like James' mom did, but the kitchen was big enough for him to not want to clean the whole thing. He put his hands on his hips and huffed before taking out a garbage bag from under the sink and getting to work. James never had to worry about things like this. His mom hired a cleaning lady and they had a whole crew of people working there to make sure the house was always as spotless as possible. The only part of the house that wasn't museum-like was James' room. His door was plastered with signs that read "keep out! no cleaning allowed!" and the people who cleaned the place always managed to leave just enough clothes on the floor to make it seem like they hadn't been in there. In reality, they'd often check his bed for crumbs or leftover peanut butter and strawberry jelly sandwiches underneath. Brooke paid them extra to make sure no insect ever stepped foot inside her house. Carlos stopped daydreaming about having a maid and decided to get back to cleaning. After all, if he was going to ask his parents to send him to a relatively expensive camp this summer, it was always a good idea to make a good impression on them and suck up as much as possible.
"Wow, son. Great job cleaning the kitchen," Carlos' dad exclaimed as he stepped into the house and noticed it had been cleaned spotless from top to bottom. "Did you clean the rest of the house, too?"
"Wuh? Huh?" answered a groggy Carlos, "Oh. Yeah. I did." The boy yawned and stretched his arms. After cleaning the kitchen, he realized he might as well try to earn a few extra points with his parents if he cleaned the rest of the house, too. From the sound of it, he had, so he stood up from the couch and ran up to his dad. He stood in front of him for a few seconds with a big grin on his face.
"What is it, son?" his dad asked after a while, "You're starting to creep me out."
"Well...James and I want to go to Camp Wonky Donkey together this summer and we were wondering if you and mom and his mom and his dad would be willing to pay for the registration and stuff cause that would be really cool and if you want I can take some money out of my allowance and help you pay for it please dad please?" Carlos begged.
"We'll see," he said.
"But-"
"We'll see, Carlos," he repeated to his son as he walked upstairs to change out of his police uniform.
Carlos looked at the ground in front of him and all around the newly spotless house and sighed. "All that hard work for nothin'."
"Well, it's no fun if you're not gonna be there!" James said to Carlos as the two of them walked to the nearby park to play "water balloon dodgeball" with Kendall and Logan.
"I know, dude. But my dad just said 'we'll see' and when he says that it usually means no." Carlos pouted a little and sighed for what seemed like the fiftieth time that day. What fun would the summer be if his best friend was away for most of it? Sure, he had Logan and Kendall to keep him company, but the two of them were practically inseparable ever since they'd met and it didn't seem like that was going to change this summer, leaving Carlos feeling like the third wheel. Might as well just get married, he thought to himself, simultaneously making a sour face.
"Hey," James said suddenly, snapping Carlos out of his disappointment-induced trance, "what if we both got together and talked to your parents? We could make a presentation and everything. With charts and all that smart stuff. We could ask Logan to help us!"
"I guess we could try," he said, not exactly feeling too confident after the night before. If cleaning the entire house wouldn't convince his dad to immediately say yes, how could a dumb presentation do it?
"Well, you could start off by listing these statistics that prove that a summer at camp makes children more self-sufficient and socially active, as well as providing a strong base for a more active lifestyle in the future," Logan said. James and Carlos had brought him along (and Kendall, of course, who was seemingly attached to his hip) to James' dad's house for a meeting of the minds. In this case it was more of a meeting of Logan's mind with himself, since he ended up taking over the entire project on his own after about a minute of work. James and Carlos didn't mind, though. Logan was a smart kid. He knew things that no one in the sixth grade even knew existed yet, so the only logical thing to do was to sit back and watch him do all of the work. Besides, the two of them were fairly lazy anyway and had no idea how to even go about doing the presentation in the first place, so a "project manager" was a good thing to have.
"Yeah, sounds good," Carlos agreed from the sidelines. James nodded in silent agreement as he smoothed his hair in the handheld mirror he brought along to his dad's house in his overnight bag.
Kendall watched in amazement as Logan crunched numbers and wrote things down without even having to read a single book on the topic.
"These are all just things you know?" he asked as he sat on the couch and stared alternately at the large pad of paper and at Logan. How does he do it?
"Yep," Logan replied with a smile, "I spent an entire summer trying to convince my mom of the same thing a couple of years back and it just...stuck."
"Okay, okay," Carlos and James said simultaneously as they tried to focus the attention back onto their needs.
"Sorry," Kendall sarcastically apologized as he rolled his eyes at the two sitting on the loveseat next to him, "is it my fault Logan's brain is a fascinating thing?"
"Look we just...we just have to get this done by tonight, okay?" Carlos replied with that very same sad puppy look James had talked to him about earlier, "the deadline is tomorrow and if we don't register by then then, we're toast!"
"You are not gonna die if you don't go to this camp, Carlos," Kendall responded, "what's so great about camps anyway? They make you go poop in the woods and you get ticks and bug bites and the bears try to steal all of your food!"
"Well, I might die if I don't go. That's how bad I want it! And also, I don't care where I poop, they make bug repellent and there are no bears at Camp Wonky Donkey, see?"
Carlos removed the crinkled and worn camp pamphlet from his back pocket and pointed to the large, fluorescent orange print on the inside which read "NOW 100% BEAR FREE!"
"Can we please just focus?" Logan said as he continued to jot down camp-related facts on the large notepad which sat on an aluminum easel. Never one to be unprepared, he rushed to his house to pick up the planning supplies almost immediately after James and Carlos finished telling him about the plan.
The other three boys sat quietly for the next fifteen minutes, idly playing with their hands and the hems of their shirts as they waited for Logan to finish his presentation.
"Done!" he exclaimed, startling his friends as he suddenly interrupted the silence in which they sat.
"Thanks, Logan!" Carlos said excitedly, running over to the easel and picking up the pad. James ushered Kendall and Logan out the door, taking the fully assembled easel with him.
"W-we have to fold it first!" Logan exclaimed.
"There's no time. We have to go now!" James responded as he pushed him and Kendall and locked the door behind them.
"See you guys later! Thanks for the help!" Carlos shouted as he and James raced to get to his house just in time to greet his parents once they returned from work.
James took the large paper pad and flipped through it before setting it down on the easel.
"Jeez, how many pages is this thing?" he wondered aloud.
Suddenly, the boys heard a jingling of keys and the lock on the front door turning. They rushed to put themselves into position, flanking either side of their presentation and flashing their biggest, cheesiest smiles.
As soon as Officer Garcia stepped into the front door, he took one look at James and Carlos and shook his head in amusement.
"Look, boys," he said sternly, "if this is your way of trying to convince us to let you go to camp, it's no use."
"But-" Carlos started to argue as his face contorted once again into the sad puppy look he had relied on in the past.
"And don't give me that look because it's not going to work this time."
"Officer Garcia," James interjected, "this whole camp thing is really important to me and Carlos! We're sick of being here all summer. It's boring! Besides being in camp teaches you all about self-efficiency and stuff!"
He stepped back and placed a reassuring hand on his best friend's shoulder, seeing that the boy had become disappointed and looked like he was on the verge of tears. He knewit wouldn't work!
"James, I appreciate your concern for Carlos but you're wasting your time, son," Officer Garcia said, "because his mother and I already signed him up for camp two weeks ago."
James and Carlos both perked up at the news.
"Wait, really?" Carlos asked.
"Yep! And James, your mother also signed you up at the same time. She and Mrs. Garcia ran into each other at the mall and they talked about how much you boys wanted to go, so they decided to surprise you guys with it," he informed them with a bright smile. Then, as if anticipating this would happen, he reached into the hallway closet and took out two yellow Camp Wonky Donkey t-shirts with the camp's logo printed in front in dark brown ink. The same creepy donkey mascot gracing the center of the circle, its head sticking out of a teepee, surrounded by the camp's name.
James and Carlos ran towards Officer Garcia and grabbed the t-shirts before wrapping him up a big hug and thanking him profusely.
"Thankyouthankyouthankyou, you're the best dad ever!" Carlos said as he squeezed his father even tighter.
"Ooh, I should go thank my mom!" James said as he let go of Carlos' father and ran out the door, "see you later, Carlos!"
Two weeks later, James and Carlos sat on the front lawn of Carlos' house, double and triple-checking that they had all of the supplies in the "required" list the camp had sent along with the t-shirts they were wearing, along with a pair of khaki cargo shorts, tall socks, and grey canvas shoes.
"You boys all set?" asked Carlos' mom as she slid open the van's door.
"Yep!" they both said excitedly as they climbed into the back seats of the van.
James and Carlos were both nervous with excitement. They said their goodbyes to Kendall and Logan and threatened to tell everyone in the seventh grade their secrets if they forgot about them during the next six weeks and got new best friends. They weren't exactly sure they had any secrets, but they pinkie swore just in case.
An hour and a half later, they hopped out of the van, backpacks filled with supplies and giant smiles plastered on their faces. They gasped as they took in the sight. There was Camp Wonky Donkey. The Camp Wonky Donkey. "Wheeeeere you'll have a Wonky Donkey day. Heehaw!" they sang in their heads.
After their parents had checked them in and they had all settled down, the camp counselors were introduced and the boys and girls had been given all of their new schedules. James and Carlos stepped outside and looked for their cabin. On the way there, Carlos accidentally bumped into someone as he read the map.
"Oh, sorry," he said before looking up. He froze for a moment, staring at the person he had just apologized to. It was a girl. And not just any girl, this was the girl of his dreams. She was taller than him and had long, dark brown hair past her shoulders. Her eyes were the color of blue he only ever read about in those corny old poems he read at school. But suddenly all of those corny poems made sense. He hadn't become the champion sack racer, hadn't earned the "best chef on the lake" title, hadn't built a single birdhouse, and he certainly hadn't met anyone besides her. He had, however, decided he'd just met the love of his life.