Read Online The Alex Crow by Andrew Smith - Free Book Online

shouting that land had been sighted, but when we came out to look, it was already too dark to see anything more than an arm’s reach from the boat’s hull.
    Imagine our disappointment and dread at Captain Hansen’s cautious decision to forgo any attempt at landing until daylight tomorrow.
    â€œWho knows where we will be at daylight tomorrow?” Murdoch wondered.

MARSHMALLOW JEFF AND THE BOYS FROM EARTH
    â€œ I ’ m going to tell you guys something, but you are not allowed to ever repeat it to anyone else as long as you live.” Larry pointed his index finger like a spear to emphasize the words
anyone else
.
    â€œThat sounds perfectly reasonable, Larry,” Cobie Petersen said.
    I wondered about Cobie Petersen. Like Max and me, Cobie Petersen just didn’t belong here; he didn’t fit in with the other kids at Camp Merrie-Seymour for Boys. At that moment, after his smart-ass comment went unnoticed by Larry, I almost wanted to talk to him, to ask him why his parents sent him here, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it.
    Robin Sexton, on the other hand, was a different story. Of the four boys of Jupiter, he was clearly in the right place.
    I watched Robin Sexton. His face was blank, and he stared into the fire with frozen eyes. His thumbs and fingers wriggled over an invisible controller. I was pretty sure he was hallucinating clearing a difficult level in some violent video game.
    â€œI’m going to tell you what happened to Earth,” Larry said.
    â€œBefore or after the asteroid that killed all the dinosaurs?” Cobie asked.
    Robin Sexton rocked back and forth.
    â€œNo,” Larry said. “I’m going to tell you about the Earth cabin, and why we don’t use it anymore at Camp Merrie-Seymour for Boys. And you fuckheads can’t say anything to
anyone
, because this is a true story. But you have to tell a scary story, too. It’s what
normal
kids do at camp, at night.”
    Max and Cobie looked warily at Robin Sexton. Then they both promised they would tell a story.
    Larry said, “What about you, Marcel Marceau? You in for telling us a story?”
    I shook my head.
    â€œYou could just act it out,” Larry said.
    I
was
acting it out. I shook my head again.
    â€œWhatever,” Larry said. “Well, two of you is better than none. We already know Earbud’s scary story, about the time he got caught jerking off at camp. So here goes: I started working here as a counselor when I was seventeen—just out of high school. My dad wanted to make me join the army, or he said he was going to throw me out of the house when I turned eighteen, which was going to be in a month and a half, so I headed east and ended up answering an ad for a live-in counselor. In those days, there were
three
alternating programs here: a camp for fat kids; this one you guys are in—the camp for fuckheads like you who don’t have any
real-life
friends; and a camp for kids with psychological disorders, you know—neurotics, compulsive liars, narcissists, kleptomaniacs, sadists, and arsonists.”
    It sounded like the future of America to me.
    â€œLucky thing I missed out on the Camp Merrie-Seymour for Psychopathic Boys cycle that summer,” Max said.
    â€œEvery day, you’d wake up and it was like Custer’s Last Stand,” Larry said.
    â€œThat’s slang for jerking off,” Max pointed out.
    â€œIt is?” Larry said,
    Max nodded his assurance.
    Larry went on, “The Earth cabin’s counselor was a guy named Marshmallow Jeff. The kids called him that because he was really, really white, and he’d use marshmallows as bribes to get the crazies to behave themselves. And he was super creepy, too. He kept marshmallows in his pockets for the kids, and tucked inside the tops of his socks, too. Nobody liked him, and he never talked to anyone.”
    For some reason, this last statement caused Max and Cobie to turn and stare at