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his face all painted, his clothes those worn three hundred years ago. But his hair was blond, his facial coloring fair. The picture was titled The First Blue-Eyed Mohawk .
    It’s not just hair and skin and clothing. There’s a way people hold themselves and talk and behave that makes it clear who they really are, what nation they hold in their hearts. There’s something about that one there that freaks me out. His hair, the way he’s dressed, everything about him seems unreal. Like it’s all a disguise. He’s pretending to be something that he is not. Not just pretending to be Indian. Pretending…to be human.
    He’s studying the crowd of us. Watching us the way a mountain lion might eye a herd ofdeer from a place of concealment. I’m so short that I don’t think he can see me. Then he suddenly turns his head. His eyes catch mine; I can’t look away. A little smile curls his lips.
    â€œI am doomed!” someone behind me declares. “My life is over!”
    I quickly turn my head away to look behind me.
    It’s Willy Donner. He’s holding his cell phone and frantically tapping away at its keys. He holds it up again. “Look,” he says, his voice as tragic as that of a shipwrecked sailor. “No signal!”
    â€œCell phones do not work here,” a know-it-all voice intones. “No towers in these mountains.” It’s the square-built man in the khaki uniform. He’s close enough now for me to make out the name tag on his chest.
    MR . MACK , CAMP DIRECTOR , it reads.
    â€œSo you won’t mind handing them over,” Mr. Wilbur adds. He has a box full of manila envelopes in his hand. “Write your name on the envelope, put the cell phone into it, seal the envelope, and hand it back.” He pauses and holds up his finger. “Also any other electronic devices. IPods, Game Boys, whatever. You are all officially now unplugged.”
    Mr. Mack and his assistant counselors go around collecting the electronic devices. There’s a lot of them. Enough bulging envelopes to fill a big cardboard letter file box. There’s some grumbling, of course, but everyone gives up their gadgets except for me. I just don’t own any of that stuff, especially not a cell phone. Grama Kateri firmly believes they cause brain cancer. Mom agrees with her. So there’s no one I’d be calling on one.
    While the electronic toys are being collected, I sneak a wary glance back toward the EAGLE’S NEST sign. There’s no longer anyone leaning against the wall. How could someone vanish that fast? Was he just a figment of my overactive imagination? But even if he wasn’t real, in the conventional sense of things, I am certain that I had a vision of something threatening.

5
Journal Time
    I ’m sitting in my bunk now. We have an hour for journal time. Find a quiet place. Write down your impressions of your camping experience thus far. The boys’ cabin is about as quiet as it can get because no one else is in here. That is muy cool by me.
    You might think I’d be out exploring the woods, looking for signs of animals, communing with nature. After all, I’m an Indian. Isn’t that what we are supposed to do? Not. I try to avoid those stereotypes about Native Americans that the other kids and even some of my teachers seem to have. I never wear any Indian jewelry or moccasins. (You can bet I have never mentioned the regalia stored at Grama Kateri’s that I used to wear when Mom took me to dance at powwows.) I keep my hair short—a Marine-style haircut. I can’t do anything about my skin color or my features, butmost non-Indians don’t see you as a real Indian unless you’re dressed for the part. Sneak under the radar. Fade into the background as much as possible.
    Even so, under other circumstances, I really would have been out in the forest like a shot as soon as I was given the chance. Stereotypes be danged. But