Chapter 4

“The Great Owl doesn’t open its eyes or unfold its wings because it doesn’t have to for as long as it remains in its nest. As long as it is safe from predators and doesn’t have to share its food with scavengers, its talons remain dull, because it does not have to hunt for itself.”

Crying Shadow’s teachings of the Great Owl

Translated by Erik Livingtree

Crops

1

Each of the cabins that housed the teens had electricity for the lights, a couple of outlets, and they had running water for the bathrooms, but that was it. The Quartermaster building had a little more. It included vending machines (the privilege to use them had to be earned), industrial sized washers and dryers and supplies for the camp. Food was served from the mess hall, so the individual cabins didn’t need stoves or other kitchen appliances. Margrave’s office was the only place on the camp’s grounds that had any niceties of the modern world. He had a small refrigerator, a Dell computer with internet, a copier and fax machine, telephone, and even a Sony television with cable. His office had a large filing cabinet where all of the files of the campers were kept, a large oak desk with a comfortable leather chair and a Kenwood stereo system, which he kept on most of the time playing the soft melodic pieces of Bach, or Beethoven.

His office wasn’t all business. Photographs of all his “accomplishments” lined the western wall. Those accomplishments were the ‘crops’ he helped overcome their fears, or successfully killed the “vermin” inhabiting their vegetable brains. That’s how he thought of the campers and their accomplishments. The campers were the crops, and the yield was whether the campers left the camp better off than when they came.

Every week of every year, Margraves chooses a camper or two who is overcome by fear (has a weed issue), has a behavioral problem (his/her field has a vermin infestation), or is overly introverted (needs some fertilizer). That teen becomes his “project” for the week. It is his goal to help them overcome their particular issue, face their fear, or overcome their personal flaw. At the end of the week, after they have successfully negotiated the obstacle course, he has a photo taken. The teen is encouraged to smile for the camera while the Camp Master stands next to them, his arm around their shoulder, a proud look on his face.

Margraves sat at his desk with the blind and deaf girl’s folder in front of him. Campers have their own folders, containing all of the information from their admittance applications. The campers were all vetted first. Not vetted in the same way that a job applicant or a politician might be vetted, but vetting in any form was still vetting.

He opened her folder and peered at the first page. It was Whitney’s “personality” page. The purpose of this part was to identify whether a particular camper’s field was “fertile.” Margrave could tell immediately that her mother filled out Whitney’s page. Normally he would have been bothered by that alone, but in Whitney’s case, he understood it.

“Blind and deaf,” he said aloud, tasting the words, a tentative bite of liver to a mouth that doesn’t know liver’s flavor. “Now that’s a tough life,” he said. He couldn’t imagine why a girl in her condition would ever want to attend his camp. What could her parents be thinking? Not only that, but what was the girl herself thinking? She couldn’t participate in any of the events ... Could she? So why did she want to be there? And why did Mr. Leighton feel so strongly about it that he essentially donated the girl’s way in. He donated ten grand to the camp, pulling enough weight for his rejection to be overturned.

He got a little bit of a chuckle out of her personality page.

Hobbies: N/A

Favorite Sport: N/A

Likes: Spaghetti, Pizza and salads with all of the toppings along with sitting in the sun and feeling the clouds passing overhead.

Allergies: N/A

Medications: N/A

Fears: Falling down and being laughed at.

Gregory got up from his chair and walked over to his memory wall. He crossed his arms in front of him and began to stroke the mustache that all of the teens secretly teased him about. They called him a “Chubby Hitler,” or “Chitler.”

He wasn’t even sure what was bothering him about little miss Leighton, but something was and it wasn’t that he was over turned. He had accepted it. He couldn’t change it. She was here and so he might as well deal with it.

But there had been something about the way she walked up to them when she got out of the car that bothered him. He needed to think it through and staring at the wall, even though he wasn’t really even seeing what was there, always helped him do that. Just knowing he was helping his crops—weeding weeds, and killing critters—gave him confidence.

It bothered him. He didn’t know why it bothered him, but it did. He had seen his daughter use her cane much in the same way a thousand times before she died and that never bothered him. Seeing the Leighton girl use hers was like watching a pig walk backwards for some reason. He didn’t like it. It was probably because it reminded him so much of Kelsey he guessed.

He knew the Leighton girl’s file by heart. He’d looked at it enough times when he was fighting her admittance, that he could recite the thing by heart. Her doctor neatly concluded that, despite her visual and audio conditions, she was the “picture of health.” The only other thing that was out of the ordinary with the girl was her birthmark. The doctor described that as “a teardrop shape turned sideways” but as he looked at the doctors drawing of it, he pictured it as an eye.

His eyes fixed on the photograph in front of him and he smiled. He wasn’t smiling at the photograph itself, which was of Billy Taft after successfully completing the climbing wall and repelling tower.

What was written on the back of Billy’s photograph turned the edges of his lips upward.

“Billy Taft—July 18 2012: The grubs in Billy’s field were successfully annihilated and he is vermin free,” it said on the back. He knew that he could never put an inscription like that on the front, but the back? The back was a different story. On the back, he could be a little more honest about things.

Billy Taft thought he was funny. That was his problem. Not that having a sense of humor was a bad thing, but Billy took it too far. The kid was a clown that let humor run his life. He spent all day, every day, cracking jokes and trying to be the life of the party and it got to the point that his parents didn’t know what to do about it. That was okay because Margraves did. It only took that one single week to “degrub” him.

Margraves turned back toward his desk and, without realizing it, avoided seeing Kelsey’s picture in the center of his memory wall. Actually seeing that picture there had become difficult for him and over time, he had gotten used to not looking at it. Kelsey was fifteen when it was taken. Even though he didn’t spend much time looking at her, she and her dark sunglasses were always looking at him. Blind or not, Kelsey’s gaze was always in his office.

He sat down at his desk and jiggled his mouse, bringing the computer screen back to life. Mrs. Leighton was concerned about “hanky-panky” in the camp. It was a legitimate concern that wasn’t unique to Mrs. Leighton. Many parents were concerned about it and he’d successfully belayed her concerns without really going into very many of the details of how they avoided those situations.

Of course, he was honest with her about the staff spotting and handling those situations, but it didn’t stop there. Training the staff was only the main deterrent. There was a back up to that.

There were hidden cameras placed strategically around the camp’s grounds and there were three full time employees tasked with monitoring the footage. Every entranceway to every trail was covered. Every “hot spot” was also covered. Anywhere thought of as a “good place” to make out, had a camera pointed at it. Every camper was also aware that no boy and girl were allowed to be alone together. If they were seen on camera walking off together alone, the staff would be alerted to their whereabouts and they would quickly be hunted down.

Gregory logged onto the camera server and pulled up the outside of the office. He rewound the footage until he saw the Leighton twins where he left them and wasn’t at all surprised to see that they had already began making friends with the other set of twins on the camp.