Read Online Boot Camp by Todd Strasser - Free Book Online

thing,” Pauly goes on. “Some kids think if they wait long enough, someone’ll come save them. Like a sister or an uncle or someone. Well, it ain’t happening. Your parents signed a confidentiality agreement not to tell anyone where this place is. No one can come get you, because no one except your parents knows where you are.”
    A crow lands on the gravel a few yards to our left. The large black bird cocks its head and looks at us, then lifts its wings and flaps away. Sabrina has no idea whereI am. What would I have done if she’d been the one who’d suddenly disappeared without warning? Would I have tried to find her? Would I have simply waited for the day she’d return? How long would I have waited?
    How long will she wait?
    â€œThere’s only one answer,” Pauly whispers. “We have to get out of here. It’s our only chance. And we’re not alone. There’s another person who’ll go with us. Think it over, okay?”
    The kid has to be crazy to tell me this. Doesn’t he realize I could rat him out and score major points with Joe? Or is this a setup? A trap to see if I’d really be stupid enough to agree to try to escape? Thirty feet away, Stu clears his throat. Joe and Mr. Sparks are walking toward the parking lot. As they near us, Unibrow Robert intercepts them. “Pauly was talking, sir. He said a kid died here two years ago and that he’s going to die here. He said if his dad found out he was having a relationship with an older woman, he’d be thrilled.”
    A laugh bursts uncontrollably from Mr. Sparks’s lips, but Joe shoots him a silencing look, and the chaperone covers his mouth with his hand and pretends to cough. Meanwhile, Joe stands over Pauly, who hangs his head, awaiting his sentence.
    â€œTwenty-five push-ups, fifty sit-ups, and a hundred squat thrusts,” Joe orders.
    Pauly moves slowly away from his bucket. He steps out of his flip-flops and assumes the prone position. He manages to do five push-ups before it becomes an effort. His back dips like an old horse’s and his arms tremble.By the eighth push-up he’s dropped to his knees.
    â€œSeventeen more,” Joe barks.
    It’s a struggle. Each push-up is feebler than the last, until Pauly can barely lift his shoulders off the gravel. Next come the sit-ups, the gravel clinging to the back of his polo shirt each time he manages to rise. Like the push-ups, these become more and more pathetic until he needs to prop himself up with his elbows in order to sit.
    All the while Joe stands over him, counting. It is, of course, the perfect punishment for the boy whose father wants to toughen him up.
    Finally, Pauly completes the sit-ups. Now with bare hands and feet he starts the squat thrusts, slamming the palms of his hands down on the rough, pointy gravel, then kicking his bare feet out behind him. It must be incredibly painful, and by the twentieth squat thrust two toes on his left foot are scraped bloody. Tears run down Pauly’s cheeks.
    That’s when I realize this was no trap. Pauly
knew
he was going to get caught if he talked to me. He knew the punishment would be painful. But that’s how badly he wants to get out of here.
    Later we line up in the hall before dinner. Pauly is in front of me, shoulders slouched, head hanging, beaten down. In the flip-flops his bare feet are covered with dark scabs and smeared with dried blood. Like animals in a herd knowing instinctually that the weakest member will most likely attract a predator’s attack, the others stay as far away from him as they can.
    Joe walks down the line and stops beside me. “I hear Pauly had a lot to say this afternoon. Maybe you’d like to fill us in.”
    â€œHe said his father sent him here because he’s not the son he wanted, sir,” I reply.
    â€œWhat else?”
    â€œLake Harmony will take anyone whose parents are willing to pay, sir.”
    â€œWhat