“Whatcha waitin’ for, Wacko?” Moriarity jeered. “Ya gonna take the jump or do we make ya walk the plank?” Worse, much worse, were Phil’s contemptuous words: “Come on, Wackeem, don’t make any more of a fool of yourself than you have to. Get it over.” Leo looked from Phil’s red, aggressive face to Wally’s pale, pimply one and hated them both. And Monkey, where was he? Down below, twiddling his thumbs. "Watch out you don’t crack your skull on the cable,” Phil added. “Go ahead, I dare you.”
Leo could see the thick steel rope receding at an angle to the bottom of the lake and the heavy cement block that held both the float and its tower fast, and it seemed to him that if he were to jump he would hit it. Yet the watery abyss pulled at him like a magnet. He must go over… must fall…
Feeling Moriarity’s hand pressing the small of his back, he gasped, then clutched the railing tighter. Go on, coward, the piggy eyes seemed to say, go ahead and jump. Ashamed, Leo lowered his head; he could feel the sickish heave of his insides. His stomach gurgled and turned over, and then, losing all control, he threw up his breakfast. Moriarity, the recipient of this unexpected eruption, let out a roar of indignation, and with a bellow flung himself from the platform and plummeted into the water below.
On the platform, still shaking with fright and mortification, Leo turned to face the rest of his tormentors. It was clear to them all – to Leo himself – that he had no intention of jumping, and so must take his punishment. They stepped aside as he moved toward the ladder and began his slow descent into shame. At the bottom, he dived from the raft and stroked for the dock, where he could see Reece hopping down from his perch, while excited campers, shouting and capering with gleeful anticipation, came skittering from everywhere: Wacko was going to get the paddle!
There was no rhyme and little reason to the business, organized as it was according to long-standing custom. The paddle, broad and thick as a breadboard, was borne aloft from the hook where it was hung, and Leo was bent over the paddling barrel and held in place. Then Moriarity – first in line by virtue of the indignity he had suffered – stepped up, spit on his palms, drew the board back, and swung.
As the blow fell, hard, Leo jerked forward on the barrel and a cheer went up. Then Reece took the paddle and handed it to the next boy, itching to have a go. Before long what had begun as a sporting affair, the traditional camp chastisement for lack of nerve, had turned into an ugly demonstration of camper brutality. Pain, humiliation, and shame: Leo suffered all without a whimper. How could he whimper? He had passed out.
“Hey, you guys – he’s out cold!” cried Ratner, looking down at the limp form drooped over the barrel. As the clamor slowly died and a guilt-laden silence ensued, Fritz Auerbach pushed his way through the gathering to emerge at the head of the line. “All right, that’s enough!” he said, grabbing the paddle from Bosey.
“Hey, what’s the big idea?” Reece demanded, stepping up. “What d’you think you’re doing?”
“Putting a stop to this sadistic business, what does it look like?” He shoved Reece aside, then leaned over and lifted
Leo up in his arms. “This boy is hurt. I will take him to the infirmary. Get out of my way, please.”
Reece wasn’t about to let him pass. “That kid’s not really hurt. Why don’t you just stay out of this, Fritzy? I’m in charge here.”
Fritz stared. “What kind of man are you, to allow such a thing to be done to a boy? What kind of place is Friend-Indeed that it would permit this to happen?” Reece was at his most condescending. “Look, Fritzy, you’re new around here. This happens to be a camp tradition, it’s been going on for years – right, boys?” He glanced around, from Phil to Moriarity to Ratner to Bosey, all of whom exchanged sheepish looks but had nothing to say.
“Then it is time it stopped,” Fritz replied forcefully. “Such childishness. Now, step aside, please; otherwise I shall be obliged to knock you down.”
Everybody stood silently by while Reece reconsidered matters, and when he finally gave way Fritz pushed past him, carrying Leo’s limp form from the dock, passing along the waterfront in the direction of Three Corner Cove.
By siesta time, after lunch, the waterfront lay tranquil and serene, the lake lapping the shore with its meekest touch, boats docked, canoes beached in squads, the punishment paddle hung on its hook. It was as if the camp could stand only so much of violent activity, of clamorous voices and hypertense confusion, before it must retreat again into order and serenity, to catch its breath before the next upheaval should occur.
Whatever Fritz Auerbach (a foreigner, after all, and not privy to Moonbow traditions) might have to say about it, the paddling of a camper who had failed to go off the tower after having climbed it was a tradition, and even though everyone had witnessed the way Moriarity had boldly goosed Leo up the ladder, that fact was already being overlooked. Notice had been served that this kind of “differentness” would not be tolerated at Camp Friend-Indeed, and Wacko Wackeem had better shape up or else. Nor did the fact that Fritz had opposed Reece in the matter do Fritz’s own case much good. Taking public issue with the counselor universally regarded as the best Friend-Indeed ever had, had only served to place him together with Leo in the same camp, so to speak.
Fritz did have two allies in the matter, however. At the infirmary, to which he had conveyed the sufferer, Wanda Koslowski, the camp nurse, had been outraged. Leo’s “baganza,” she declared, looked like “an Italian sunset,” and in short order she had popped him into a fresh, clean-smelling white bed, applied soothing lotions, given him a pill to relieve the pain, and positioned a pillow to jack up his hips and an ice pack to cradle his backside. Indeed, so tenderly did she treat his wounded posterior (without further injury to his dignity) that the grateful beneficiary of her ministrations decided he was considerably better off than Emerson Bean, who had acquired a case of poison ivy during the Snipe Hunt and lay four feet away in the adjoining bed, looking wretched and uncomfortable under a chalky pink coating of calamine lotion.
Fritz’s other ally was Doc Oliphant, whose arrival at the infirmary just as Leo was getting settled required that the ice pack be removed. “Good God, man,” he muttered to Fritz, “what have they done to this boy?”
“Paddled him,” came Fritz’s flat reponse.
“I should say they did! Blast those savages!” snapped the doctor. “Why didn’t Rex stop it?”
“Rex wasn’t there, I’m afraid. He had to take a phone call.”
“Then who had charge of the waterfront?”
"Reece Hartsig was on the bench. He said it was the tradition.”
“So it is.” The doctor sighed. “But they went too far this time. You’d better keep the lad here overnight, give him a good shoring up, then send him back. Slip him a little mickey, so he’ll rest. Here’s Honey; she’ll cheer him up.” He smiled at his daughter, who had just appeared in the doorway. She kissed him, then came into the room, looking down at Leo, who turned red to his ears at being viewed (by Honey Oliphant!) in such an ignominious position.
“Goodness,” she said, “that looks awfully sore. And Emerson – you poor thing-”
She clucked sympathetically and made the sort of mothering sounds that went straight to Leo’s heart. Having Honey Oliphant in the same room with him was almost worth getting paddled for. Of course he couldn’t really talk to her; he wasn’t given to conversing with goddesses, or maybe not a goddess, maybe just an angel with a halo -all that bright-yellow hair that reminded him of Emily’s.