Chapter 14: The Lake

The lake lay at the bottom of a pine slope, flat and dark green and very cold.

The bus let them out at two in the afternoon.

Each four got a patch of flattened grass and a canvas bag with a tent in it.

Troy tipped the bag out and held up two poles.

"I've got this," he said.

"You have never built a tent," said William.

"I'm a captain. I build things."

"You build relay times."

Henry sat on a log with the instructions open on his knee and took his glasses off to read the diagram.

"Step one is the groundsheet," he said. "Neither of you is on step one."

Troy and William were pulling the same pole from opposite ends.

Noah watched them with a roll in his hand.

It was the first time he had seen the two of them fight over something without a reason behind it.

The reason was standing between them, eating a cinnamon roll.

"Stop," Noah said.

They stopped.

"William, you do the stakes. Troy, you do the poles. Henry reads."

"Why does he get to read?" said Troy.

"Because he's the only one who can."

Henry smiled without looking up.

The tent went up in twenty minutes, crooked on one side.

William stood back with his arms crossed and looked at it for a long time.

"It leans," he said.

"It has character," said Troy.

"It leans toward your side."

"Because I'm the biggest."

"You are not the biggest."

"I'm the widest."

"Swim," William said suddenly. "To the buoy and back. Now."

Troy went still, and then his whole face lit up.

"You're on."

"Don't," said Noah. "It's forty degrees."

They were already pulling off their shirts.

Henry shut the instructions and sighed. "I'll hold the towels."

Noah stood on the shore with a hundred students watching the water and watched two grown men race to a red buoy.

Troy won by a body length.

He came out of the lake streaming, laughing, steaming in the cold.

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