Chapter Six
Spite, Malice, and Revenge
Ben
Ben lounged in the back of archery while the teacher put on a Robin Hood-style demonstration where he shot the bull’s-eye a bunch of times and paraded around in front of the cute girls in the front.
George leaned in and whispered, “And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the problem with having counselors three years older than the campers.”
Another camper looked Ben up and down and asked, “Do you already know how to shoot a bow?”
Ben raised his eyebrows. “Uh, no.” People were idiots. Even though it was 2017, some people assumed he was, like, Super Indian with a bow and arrow slung over his back and war ponies stashed in the woods. Ben wished he were Super Indian. He probably didn’t know much more about his own culture than the idiot camper—the downfall of losing his dad early and growing up in North Carolina.
It wouldn’t be so bad—people making assumptions about him—if he knew who he was to begin with. For now, he was busy playing Stands and Throws a Football for Bellevue. That seemed to work well enough for everyone.
After shooting at hay bales for an hour, which was pretty fun, George proposed they scrounge for food. Everyone else ate at regular times, but George had connections in the mess hall. Every time Cook Betsy saw him, she shook her head and muttered, “I’m going to put some meat on your bones this summer, George!” Then, she’d give Ben an extra roll, too. “I remember how much my boys used to eat when they were teenagers.”
Cook Betsy was quickly becoming Ben’s favorite person.
With a plate of leftover tater tots and some apples, they wandered over to a jungle gym. Ben YouTubed some clips about getting your pectorals to grow even when it seemed like they’d plateaued. George didn’t really have pectorals yet, at least that you could see, so it was going to be easy to build his up.
“Girls love defined pecs,” Ben explained, just a helpful tip. George didn’t seem to care, though. While Ben did push-ups, he started to wonder if Blake was into pecs. He mentally kicked himself. He should jam a finger into yesterday’s stab wound to remind himself of the pain she could bring. He pushed himself harder so that he didn’t have enough spare brainpower to have dirty thoughts about Blake, an unpleasant new problem. Of all the girls he could fantasize about… He didn’t know why his mind kept coming back to her. He was clearly messed up. Maybe he was going to turn into one of those dudes who liked being whipped in the bedroom.
As he punished himself with more and more reps, an idea began to take shape, he remembered the book he’d found—Spite, Malice, and Revenge. All night he’d had an idea brewing. It was almost ready to come out of the cauldron. “You got any more tots, man?” Ben asked.
“I’m sleeping. I don’t know.” George was only pretending to sleep.
Ben took that as permission to eat the rest of George’s food, but he warned him, “You’re never gonna get real pecs unless you eat more.” Maybe not tots, but details. “And work out. No pain. No gain.”
No pain. No gain. That was going to be his philosophy. The opening section of the book contained six points of general advice. He paraphrased the most important points and wrote them down in a notebook. Besides seeming a touch crazy, it seemed like solid advice. Prepare a plan. Revenge is a dish best served cold means don’t strike while your ire is hot.
Wait. Plan. Think. Learn.
Gather intelligence. Prepare a file on your mark. Make a written list of all the important things you to know about the target.
Buy away from home. The idea is for people not to remember you.
Never tip your hand. Don’t get cocky, cute ’n’ clever, and start dropping hints about who’s doing what to whom.
Never admit anything. The only cool guy out of Watergate was G. Gordon Liddy; he kept his mouth shut.
Never apologize; it’s a sign of weakness.
His first job, then, was to gather intelligence. He needed to know everything about Blake so that he could hit her where it hurt the most. That meant internet research and general observation.
From what he knew, Blake didn’t have a code of honor. She only valued beauty, status, and precious earth metals in an order determined by current market value. After reporting these thoughts out loud, George rolled his eyes at Ben.
“So basically, you know that she’s into looking good and owning stuff. That assessment probably applies to everyone at this camp.”
“No, I’ve got more. For one, she is an honor roll student, but I never see her working. Like never.”
George sighed. “Freud said that revenge is ‘at best, a childish coping mechanism to keep darker forces at bay, and at worst, a manifestation of serious psychic illness.’”
“Whoa, dude. You know a lot of random shit. How does that play with the ladies?”
“It doesn’t play with the ladies, dude,” overemphasizing “dude” to make some kind of point regarding his superior maturity. George hammered home his point. “I’m merely pointing out that you could focus on dealing with your own dark secrets instead of torturing someone else this summer. That’s why you’re here, right? That’s why we’re all here.” George moaned a little. “Actually, I just wish I had dark secrets.”
“Once you spend enough time with Blake, you’ll want to torture her, too. She’s the reigning queen of everything, but she hasn’t earned any of it.”
“So she’s your foil. You have earned everything, yet reaped nothing.”
“What is this, AP English? Pass the tater tots, dude.”
When a pack of children, a.k.a. junior campers, ran by, Ben flagged them down and hollered, “Hey, I’ve got a job for you kids.”
None of them stopped, but a girl overheard the exchange and walked over. She had mousy brown hair and an eager-to-please look about her. Ben recognized her from Bellevue, but he couldn’t remember her name. It started with an N. Or maybe an M…
“What kind of job are you talking about?” she asked.
Without answering, Ben pulled out his high-wattage smile.
She giggled and twirled her hair.
George made a weird snorting noise—part of the reason the girl wasn’t twirling her hair in his direction obviously.
“My name’s Ben. And you are?”
She smiled. “We were in history together. I’m Nelly.”
“I’m trying to…surprise Blake with something.” He thought for a minute and ad-libbed. “I want to get her a nice gift, but I’m not sure what. I don’t know what kind of stuff she already has.”
Nelly’s look went from shy and flirty to pissed-off-lady-at-the-DMV in ten seconds flat. Nelly, it seemed, didn’t like Blake. “You want to surprise her. After what she did to you?”
With a shrug, Ben said, “Yeah. Would you mind just telling me what kind of stuff she brought, what she’s interested in, and, I don’t know, anything else you think looks relevant?”
Nelly, no one’s fool apparently, looked over her glasses at him. “It’s okay with me if you’re trying to get back at her. I don’t like her, either.”
He didn’t want to admit his revenge plot out loud, per the rules.
When Ben didn’t answer right away, she said, “I’ll let you know what I see.”
As Nelly walked off, George shook his head in despair. “I thought you were going to sit on it overnight and see how you felt about getting revenge tomorrow.”
“It’s camp, George. Revenge pranks are core curriculum along with canoeing and getting laid.” At least according to Hollywood and his brother. Come to think of it, did his brother get all of his ideas from movies?
George looked a little uncomfortable. “So…what are you thinking, cellophane on the toilet seats, Vaseline on the doorknobs…the classics?”
Ben nodded. “That’s a good start, but it’s going to be more personal than that, at least if I’m going to reach the level of hell she put me through last year.” He picked up the book and started reading. “Gotta do my research, but I have an idea for my first strike. I might need Nelly’s help, but it’s going to be good.”
With his plan coming into being in his mind, Ben decided to just do it. He hated sitting on an idea. He was a trial-and-error kind of guy. He learned through getting his hands dirty, not by sitting around and thinking. He was going to hit Blake where it hurt… Something wardrobe related or maybe a makeup prank. Well, he didn’t have it all worked out yet, but he’d figure out something by nightfall.
George shook his head sadly. “Dude, I’ll be here for you when this is over and you’ve come to your senses.”
Maybe George was right, but Blake deserved some retribution, and the universe had dropped a book on revenge right in his lap.