Solve all her problems, win her heart, and embark on a lifelong campaign to fulfill her every desire (starting with multiple orgasms)
By evening, this had been replaced with a single item:
Finish the summer with the same number of campers
Conleth was starting to think even that might be overly ambitious. If he could make it to the end of thedaywithout any of the children falling to their doom, murdering each other, or running away, he was going to count it as a rousing success.
“Thanks, Conleth!” Nancy hopped out of his arms, returning to solid ground once more. She brushed at the fresh smudges on her camp t-shirt. “Wow, it sure is dusty up there.”
“I’m afraid the camp cleaning rota does not currently include the dining hall rafters.” Conleth closed the stepladder. “An oversight I am clearly going to have to rectify, if you’re going to keep inspecting them quite so closely.”
“Sorry.” Nancy looked sheepish, which was quite a feat for a goat. “I couldn’t help it. That bell at the end of dinner was really loud.”
“Yes,” Conleth said. “The camp bell is loud. It also rings at least six times per day. Please,pleaseattempt to get used to it.”
“I’ll try,” Nancy said cheerfully. “Though my goat is kinda nervous at the best of times, let alone when we’re in a strange new place. Can I go join the others at the bonfire?”
Conleth had a brief vision of Nancy, a noisy crowd, and a large pit of open flames. “As long as you promise to stay more than twenty feet away from it at all times.”
Nancy trotted out of the dining hall. Conleth contemplated the stepladder, and decided against putting it away again. Instead, he took a brief detour to his office before heading back into the central square.
What with getting Nancy down from her latest inadvertent elevation, he’d missed the opening ceremony. The whole camp had gathered around the bonfire for Zephyr’s welcoming speech and the senior staff introductions. Now the crowd was breaking apart, separating back into individual packs.
It was easy to pick out his own group. They were the only campers who weren’t smiling.
Paige wasn’t smiling either. She hovered a little way off from the campers, the worried line in her forehead deeper than ever. When he joined her, she did not appear notably relieved.
“I take it they were not inspired by Zephyr’s usual speech about friendship and teamwork,” he murmured to her.
“Hetta kept bursting into tears, Ignatius looked like he might vomit, and Beth applauded after every sentence,” she muttered back. “It was all I could do to stop Archie from going on a full-on grizzly rampage. Conleth, we have to do something. This is a disaster.”
Surveying the scene, Conleth thought that ‘disaster’ was putting it mildly. While all the other packs of kids were happily chattering away, getting to know each other and their counselors, their own campers sat in frigid silence. Then again, given what Beth and Archie looked like theywantedto say to each other, this was possibly a blessing.
“Let me talk to them,” he said. “I think I can cheer them up.”
Paige gave him a deeply skeptical look. “How?”
“I’d like to claim they’re going to be won over by my irresistible charm.” He reached into his pocket. “Alas, it would be a lie.”
He went over to the kids. “Who wants some candy?”
Nancy perked up. “I thought candy wasn’t allowed on site.”
“Perks of being senior management. Former senior management,” he corrected himself. He handed her the bag of gummy bears. “I have issues with blood sugar crashes, so I always keep a secret stash in case of emergency. And no, I’m not telling you where. Take some and pass them on.”
As he’d hoped, most of the kids brightened at the prospect of contraband treats. Archie, however, did not. When Finley offered him the bag, he just turned his head, pointedly ignoring it.
“Don’t you want any?” Nancy asked, mouth full.
Archie’s jaw set. “I’m not hungry.”
“Archie, you’re always hungry.” With a hopeful smile, Finley shook the bag at the other boy, as if attempting to entice a feral cat. “Go on. You love candy.”
