14

I hadn't touched my stuffed pepper, so I dumped the whole thing. I asked Mr. Healey why we put our leftovers into a pot instead of the trash can. He said at Hardscrabble Farms no food goes to waste, and everything we didn't eat for THIS meal is put into a stew for the NEXT one. He said it was the same way when he came to this camp as a kid, and they still used the exact same pot. That means there could be leftovers from thirty YEARS ago in that thing. After lunch Mrs. Graziano and the female chaperones took the girls to the other side of camp to go to their cabins.

Mom had actually wanted to volunteer as a chaperone last-minute, but she wasn't comfortable leaving Manny with Rodrick and Grandpa. That kind of stinks, though, because she could've fed inside information from the girls' side of camp. YOU DON'T STAND A CHANCE WITH LAUREN, BUT CHLOE THINKS YOU HAVE A CUTE BUTT! Us guys stayed back in the cafeteria to get our cabin assignments. Most of the groups were kids who hang out together at school, but each cabin seemed to have ONE kid who didn't belong.

The school must have decided to spread the troublemakers out so there wouldn't be more than one in any cabin. The only group that had MORE than one troublemaker was Mr. Nuzzis group. But Mr. Nuzzi works as a prison guard, so I guess they figured he could handle it. Since I registered late, I got put with the group of LEFTOVERS, which included Rowley.

I was glad I got assigned to the same cabin as Rowley, but I wasn't happy his FATHER was the chaperone. Mr. Jefferson has never really been a big fan of mine, and I wasn't looking forward to being cooped up with him for a whole WEEK. It was pretty clear whoever had our cabin last didn't bother cleaning up after themselves. One kid in my group, Julian Trimble, seemed to be taking the situation pretty hard, because his lip started to quiver as soon as we walked in the door. I was kind of surprised Julian decided to come on this trip, because I'm guessing he's never been away from his parents overnight before.

Julian was always the kid who made a big scene every morning during drop-off time at school. Once, in second grade, he had such a strong grip on his mom that the vice principal had to come down to peel them apart. I figured Julian decided to go on this trip on his OWN, but when I remembered the scene at the school this morning, I started to wonder if his mom actually tricked him into it.

Everybody started picking out their bunks, and that's when I found out why everyone had such big bags. I had just assumed the bedding would be taken care of, but I guess that was too much to hope for at a place like this. The closest thing I had to a pillow was my hoodie, which already smelled like Rodrick's ham sandwich. It was hard finding a mattress without any weird stains on it. I picked a top bunk because I couldn't risk being underneath Julian in case he wet the bed.