After Simon had finished being unconscious, Mr. Flies started the real horror of the trip.
Mr. Flies glanced at his clipboard. "Okay. My personal experience with this sort of thing is that boys tend to do better when there are incentives. We'll start at the top of the list. Jack Merridew."
Jack glanced up from that classic novel. Roger noticed that he was at the exact same place he'd been at thirty minutes ago. "What?"
"Now, your parents' reasoning for you being here is, and I quote, 'HE LIKES BOYS! HE CAN'T BE A MERRIDEW!'"
Jack turned red.
"And for your incentive…" Mr. Flies walked over and grabbed Jack's iPod off of the dock. Jack made a noise like a dying whale and said something about 'you can't just yank it off like that you have to be more careful.' "You might get this back some day."
"Roger Dressler! You… tried to kill your mother? Multiple times?"
Roger shrugged. "Yeah."
"Give me the shirt."
Roger pulled his shirt off and handed it over. Simon fainted. Roger dug through his bag until he came up with an Apocalyptica shirt.
"And that one."
Then Papa Roach.
"That one too."
Rise Against?
"Just give me all of your shirts!"
Eventually Roger sat on his bed, shirtless and scowling. Simon got used to shirtless Roger and stopped being unconscious. Maurice giggled. Life moved on.
"Maurice Machintire… you call yourself Affection Man?"
Maurice nodded and grinned. He was currently hugging Roger. Roger was having a hard time holding back his inner rage. Mr. Flies sighed.
"Okay then. And you jumped off a roof?"
"I wanted to fly," Maurice said. "I can't fly."
Jack scoffed something that sounded like, 'idiot.'
"I'll need all of your Stephen King movies."
"No!" Maurice gasped.
"Yes."
"You'll have to catch me first!" With that, Maurice grabbed the bag that presumably held the Stephen King movies and ran out the door. Mr. Flies followed.
The rest of the cabin looked at each other for a few moments and then exited the room.
Maurice was up in a tree, clutching his bag and meowing at the man. He looked over at his cabinmates and waved. Then he went back to meowing.
There was a collective facepalm.
Simon hadn't gone out with the others, but soon they came back in, a sulking, meowing Maurice in tow. At least he still had his shirt, unlike Roger. He'd just lost a bunch of movies. Movies technically weren't needed.
"Now. On with the show," Mr. Flies said. "Simon Drake 'keeps having hallucinations about dead pigs and babbles about human nature for ages afterward.' What do you have…"
Simon hoped Mr. Flies didn't see his (fake) pet lizard.
Mr. Flies saw the (fake) pet lizard.
"We'll take this fake pet lizard here," he decided, holding it by the tail. He dropped it into the large garbage bag that held all of the other stuff he'd confiscated. Jack winced at the sound of multiple Stephen King movies rolling over his iPod. Maybe he should've gotten the Classic.
The cool guy in the sunglasses walked over, dropped in his phone, and went back to his bed.
"Thank you… uh…"
"Bill."
"Oh, the woman who dropped you off has no idea who you are."
"She's my mother."
"…oh. Anyway, Ralph Roemers! I believe you're the one obsessed with keeping a fire lit at all times? I'll take your lighter-"
Ralph shoved his hand in his pocket. "What lighter? I don't have a lighter. Or matches. Nope, no lighter or matches!" he said, giggling nervously.
After a brief struggle, all of the fire-starting things were taken from Ralph, who began to sulk as well. Sulking seemed to be a common reaction.
"Who's next-"
"Percival Wemys Madison…"
"You don't say anything but your address, apparently."
"Percival Wemys Madison…"
Mr. Flies grabbed the cell phone off of the boy's bed.
"PERCIVAL WEMYS MADISON TELEPHONE."
Simon was a bit worried for everyone else's sanity. Not that he was very sane. But he was certainly more sane than everyone else. Maybe not more sane than Bill. Or that boring-looking person.
Mr. Flies skipped the boring-looking person. Simon couldn't remember what his name was, he was so boring-looking. His name was probably boring, too.
"Now! Piggy!"
"My name is-"
"Piggy, you are eating your Aunt out of house and home. I think you need to give me your duffel bag."
Piggy, after sulking for a bit, handed over the bag. It was full of candy.
Maurice accidentally drooled on Roger's head. Roger shoved him off of the bed, muttering under his breath all the while.
"Now. Get some sleep, tomorrow morning we'll have our first physical conditioning session," Mr. Flies said.
Maurice, still on the floor, asked what they were all thinking. "Uh, don't we get supper?"
"Oh, right!" Mr. Flies said. He threw each of them a package of dried fruit and a water bottle. "Have fun."
Sorry that this is a bit short and that I didn't get around to posting last week; I tried to get it done before I left for vacation, but I couldn't manage it. :P But, here you go?
I hope it's good enough.
