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Chapter I
Brad stared out the window of the office. He watched all the happy, smiling faces of kids run by the window, playing all sorts of summer games. He watched a group of younger girls playing duck, duck, goose. He watched as some counselors took on their boys in counselor versus camper dodgeball, and he smiled. Camp. It was his place, the thing he’d always wanted to do with his life was run a camp. It made him happy.

“Brad.” He heard someone say, but he wasn’t paying attention. He was too distracted by one particular group of kids playing tag with their counselor. The counselor kept running towards them, swooping his arm down to grab one, but purposefully missing right at the last second, not wanting to ruin his campers fun time.

“Brad!” He heard again, this time louder, more forceful. Brad suddenly snapped out of his transfixed boredom and back in his office. He looked forward and saw Monica standing over him, holding a stack of papers. “You’re the camp director, you know.” She said, “You’re allowed to go outside if you want. Nothing’s keeping you here.”

“A lot’s keeping me here, you know that.” Brad argued back, reaching for a pen and looking down at the paper in front of him. “I need to make this budget work.”

“You’ve been saying that for weeks.” Monica said, placing the stack of papers down on Brad’s desk.

“Well it’s getting done today, no more putting it off. I’m balancing this years budget, and next years budget so we don’t have to let any staff go.” He said, putting on his glasses and flipping open his laptop.

“By doing what? Getting more kids to sign up for camp? We’ve tried that three summers in a row. We don’t have the money to do it right.”

“Then I’ll find the money.”

“Where?” She asked, leaving the room as she threw her hands in the air.

“I don’t know, somewhere.” Brad declared, raising his voice in frustration.

“We have excess staff. We’re going to have to cut some of them next year.”

“That’s not going to happen.”
“Brad, you have to face reality, the camps golden years are over. We are on a decline. We can’t keep running it the way we used too, something needs to change.” Monica reinforced, frustrated by her co-directors stubbornness. “You run a business, it’s time to start acting like you know what you’re doing.”

“I do know what I’m doing, alright? I’ve managed to get the budget to work in the past, i’ll do it again. Maybe we have to cut out a week of camp or cancel the Fall or Winter vacation camps, but i’m not getting rid of our staff. They’re too valuable.” Brad argued. The staff was his pride and joy. He knew the general perception of a camp counselor, or just camp staff in general. Lazy, uncaring, non-role model type college kids who most parents wouldn’t even speak too on the street, let alone trust with their children. But Brad took pride in knowing his staff wasn’t like that. They weren’t rigorously trained, and the thinning out process to separate the good from the bad wasn’t that intense. But there was something about every single member of his Camp Fireside staff that was special too him, and he didn’t want to let any of them go due to simple budget constraints. Especially constraints he could work around.

Monica just rolled her eyes, “Fine, just please figure this stuff out soon. I don’t want the camp to start losing money. I actually like running a summer camp.”

“I do too.” Brad said, “Don’t you worry.” He finished as he pushed some papers around on his desk and prepared to get too work.

~~~

Andrew sat quietly on the stone steps, a series of retaining walls that also functioned as stadium seating for the camps own small river, slowly zoning out of reality. He was so tired, and had four more days to go. At the very least, this swelteringly hot day would be coming to an end rather shortly. Andrew sat and watched the water flow by, white ripples breaking the surface as the water flowed quickly but peacefully.

“Jaxon!” A high pitched voice shouted, bringing Andrew back out of his mind wandering state. “Jaxon! Give it too me!” The voice continued, whiney but demanding. It was an angry voice, a frustrated voice.

“No, it’s mine.” Andrew heard, a different voice this time, Jaxon’s. He turned around too see Jaxon, a small, but a little tubby, boy cowering and holding something away from Anthony, a larger, and stronger, boy. Both of them were in Andrew’s group, and he had had problems before with them.

“Anthony, stop doing what you’re doing!” Andrew demanded in a almost disinterested tone. He was almost too tired to really even care, he just wanted to avoid a bigger fight.

The older boy stopped, but looked at Andrew and said with a completely dead pan stare “I want his starbursts.” He said it as if there was nothing wrong with that. He was larger, and stronger than Jaxon anyway, why couldn’t he have his starbursts?

“No!” Andrew said, in exasperated shock. “Leave him alone, it’s his candy, not yours.”

“But I want it!” Anthony whined. Andrew, at this point, stood up. Not in the mood to even talk to a kid right now, Andrew walked over to Anthony and loomed over him.

“Leave him alone.” Andrew said. There was no threat, and it wasn’t a shout. It was a demand, and the message of the demand got through to Anthony loud and clear. But it was the glare that got through to Anthony more. Andrew’s face wasn’t twisted or anything, it wasn’t even an angry looking face. It was the kind of face that simply told Anthony it was probably a good idea to back off. The young boy looked at Jaxon one last time and then sunk back away from him, defeated, for now. Jaxon looked at Andrew, graciously, and then ran off to put his candy away in his backpack. Andrew took a deep breath and turned around to return to his mindlessness. But before he could even drift off into a state of passive ignorance, he heard another small voice behind him.

“Why didn’t you put Antony in time-out?” The voice asked. Andrew turned around and saw Seth. The young boy stood one step above him, looking down at him, trying to keep his long black hair from falling over his glasses.

“Because, it’s what I chose to do.” Andrew said, dismissively.

“But Anthony was being wrong. He tried to steal from Jaxon.”

“And I talked to him, he won’t do it again.” Andrew said, re-assuringly. But Seth looked down and kicked some dirt around with the toe of his sneaker.

“But he was just doing it again when you talked to him…” Seth said, looking up over his glasses at Andrew. Andrew sighed, and stood up, turned to the young boy and knelt down.

“Look, I did what was right. He didn’t need a time out, and if he needs to be talked to again, I’ll talk to him again.” Andrew reached out and placed a hand on Seth’s shoulder, “Thanks for the concern for Jaxon though, it means a lot.”

“You promise you’ll watch out for it?” Seth asked. Andrew just smiled.

“I promise.” He said, “I’ll watch out for all of you.”