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anyone. It was a strange feeling.
    One of the counselors blew a whistle. It was time for what they passed off as food.
    The worst thing about the meals in this place was that we got dessert three times a week. The dessert was fruit syrupsoup or powdered pudding.
    It was okay, but we were forced to eat it from the same plate we’d had our supper on, and since you could hardly eat the supper in the first place, it was even worse once it got mixed with the dessert.
    Today we had pig’s liver and boiled potatoes for supper. I had put a lot of effort into training myself to eat whatever was put in front of me, but sometimes it was hard. The worst part was trying to eat with so many people around you. It was against the samurai rules. You were only allowed to eat in a big group when the samurai gathered for battle. Otherwise you were supposed to eat alone or together with just one other samurai.
    The most important food for a samurai was rice. They had served us rice only once this summer, and that had been boiled in snot. If the camp cook had entered the world championship of disgusting cooking, she would have won as easy as pie. Sometimes she would look out from the kitchen to see for herself how many of us she was torturing at the two long tables. Then she’d go back inside and prepare dinner for Matron and the counselors and herself: pork chops, grilled fish, a baked potato, and ice cream. We could smell it. And chocolates from a bag of Twist, with coffee.
    One of the counselors set down a pot of fruit-syrup soup at our table and started to ladle it onto our dishes that stillcontained scraps of liver. The soup looked like nosebleed mixed with little white worms. The blood was thin like it had been filched from someone who was already anemic; the worms were grains of tapioca and tasted like boogers. Or maybe the other way around.
    The slimy tapioca grains were used in almost every dessert. They must have gotten a deal on them at some market for reject cattle feed.
    I looked down at my plate. I had tried to eat some of the potato, but it had gotten sticky and wet from the sauce.
    The bits of liver looked like leather.
    The counselors approached with the pot of soup.
    “Aren’t you going to eat up?” Sausage asked and looked at my plate. He had even licked his plate so that it would be clean for the dessert. You really had to admire him.
    “I don’t know what I’m going to do,” I said.
    Once I poured everything onto the floor under the table. I acted like I’d knocked the plate over by accident.
    But the counselors had looked at me suspiciously.
    “You can’t chuck it on the floor again,” said Sausage. “They’ll kill you.”
    “I could say you did it,” I said, and I reached for Sausage’s gleaming plate. It shone like a beacon as the sunlight broke through the window and hit it.
    Sausage tightened his grip on the plate. He looked scared.
    “W-would you really do that, Kenny?”
    “I was only joking,” I said as I pulled my hand back.
    Sausage looked at me like he didn’t quite believe it.
    “You know I wouldn’t be able to do something like that, Sausage.”
    They had reached us with their pot of fruit slop. Sausage held out his plate.
    “I don’t want any dessert,” I said.
    “You haven’t finished your dinner,” said one of the counselors.
    “I’m still eating.”
    “You have to eat up your food, Tommy.” She nodded at the pot. “Otherwise you don’t get any dessert.”
    “I said I don’t want any.”
    I raised my head and looked at her. She didn’t look retarded. She smiled a strange smile, knowing she was annoying me.
    “I really want to take my time eating this delicious liver stew,” I said. “I really want to enjoy the taste.”
    “When we come back you’d better have eaten everything,” she said, and the smile was gone.
    “What are you gonna do now, Kenny?” asked Sausage when the counselors had headed off down the table looking for fresh victims.
    “Enjoy the food,” I