Read The Other Normals for Free Online

“Hey, Sam!”
    He turns around quickly without being able to control himself, the way you do when you hear your name. He sees me. His face drops. He looks away. The smaller kid with him has a flat nose and pointy ears like an evil imp. The taller two could be twins, with dreadlocks, except one is much darker-skinned than the other. I get it: these are Sam’s old friends, older than me, and he’s going to need time to catch up with them. He’ll talk to me later.
    I pull the plastic bag out of my pocket and reach inside, making sure no counselors see. It’s a pewter miniature.
    Mom! How’d you know? It’s as big as Sam’s miniature of Peter Powers. It shows a young man crouched by a forge, looking up, and you can see both the heat in the forge and the scorching heat of his eyes. It’s Pekker Cland! He has a war hammer at his side, and I instantly decide that Pekker Cland will specialize in war hammers. I can picture his red skin andyellow hair. I wrap my hand around him. With Pekker, I’ll be okay. I’ll have to write Mom a thank-you note—
    “Yo, let me see that,” a voice says behind me.
    I turn. It’s someone I’ve never seen before: an Asian kid, about my height, with flashing black eyes and a cocky snarl.
    “What is it? A doll? Let me see it, yo.” He sticks out his hand.
    “Do I know you?”
    “My name’s Ryu. Let me see the doll.”
    “Ryu like … from the video game?”
    “Yeah, exactly like from the video game. Now let me see your doll, faggot .”
    With that word, as if it’s a command, two henchmen appear at his side: one big Asian guy and one medium-sized one with hair that drapes over his eyes in two small tails.
    “It’s not a doll, it’s a pewter miniature,” I say. “And it’s mine.”
    “I didn’t say whether it was yours or not. I said I wanna see it.”
    “Why?”
    “Because you look like a bitch and I wanna see it.” He snatches at it. I pull it away. He claws at it again—I flail my arm and crack him in the temple.
    “Agh!” Ryu takes his hand away from his ear to reveal a thin red cut. The sun catches his blood against his skin.
    “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to, I just—”
    “Hey!” The counselor, Travis, runs toward us, but I feel strong arms grab me from both sides: Ryu’s henchmen. Ryu steps forward. He pushes a small tight fist right at my head.

20
    WHEN I COME TO, I SEE A BRIGHT WHITE light, very close.... Am I dead ? Have I died without having sex? Won’t that mean I’m in heaven? I reach up to check my face—
    “Ah! Ah! Stop right there!”
    A nurse tilts into view. She’s young and pretty. She blocks the light. “How’re you feeling?”
    “Pain …”
    She pulls the light away from my face. I’m in a dentist’s chair in the middle of a woodsy room. It must be the nurse’s office, with dirty windows and bins of Band-Aids and itch cream, and posters telling me how to identify poison ivy. I have an ice pack in my limp hand. “Silly! Press that against your eye. Keep holding it.”
    A man enters the room. He’s tall and sturdy, with a ponytail and a wide, dark mustache; he looks like an environmentalist trucker.
    “Peregrine Eckert,” he says. “I’m Dale Blaswell, Washiska Lake camp director. The head honcho here, buddy.”
    “My name’s not Peregrine. It’s Perry.”
    “Says here ‘Peregrine.’”
    “Peregrine’s my birth name. My mom wanted to try something natural. They legally changed it when I was six.”
    “You’re Peregrine on my forms, so you’re Peregrine to me. Your head hurt?”
    “Yeah.”
    “That’s because you were punched in the face. You care to get litigious about it, or can you read signs?”
    “What is this place? Nothing here is like the brochure—”
    “You can’t learn about life from a brochure!” Dale comes close. “At Camp Washiska Lake, we live in pods. And Hideaway Village is your pod. That’s your unit. Your clan. Your brothers. And one of the things you don’t do with members of your pod