Read Online The Order of the Poison Oak by Brent Hartinger - Free Book Online

I asked. “There’s this great big hornets’ nest in the boathouse.” Gunnar liked bees; I think he was fascinated by how orderly they are. I liked bees too, but not as much as I liked movies like Gone With the Wind.
    “Really?” Gunnar said.
    “Yeah. I’ll show you. Meet me in the boathouse right after dinner.”
    “Cool!” he said, and I thought, Oh, this is too easy. It was just like, well, shooting fish in a bucket.
    * * * * *
    I left dinner early and went to make sure everything was ready for Gunnar and Em’s rendezvous in the boathouse. It had been built on pilings above the lake, near the camp dock. It wasn’t much to look at on the outside—pretty ratty and worn. It wasn’t much to look at on the inside, either—full of canoes and rowboats, life jackets, buoy ropes, and, unfortunately, big splotches of sparrow droppings (some a little too fresh). But the boathouse was enclosed on only three sides, with two empty boat slips that were open to the water. That meant there was plenty of privacy and a great view of the lake, which had settled into the perfect after-dinner calm. It had been a dry spring, and there were forest fires in some nearby hills (which was not a good thing), but the haze in the air made for an amazing sunset, with the feathery clouds awash in the most incredible shade of orange.
    On my way to the boathouse, I had picked some flowers from around the lodge. I’d thought I could set them somewhere in the boathouse to increase the romance factor. I immediately saw the perfect place. I tossed them gently out onto the surface of the lake, andthey lay there, slowly swirling in the filtered light. Perfect! I thought. In a setting like this, even I’d be into Em, and I was gay!
    Then I noticed a dead seagull in the corner of the boathouse. That didn’t fit into the picture I had in my mind of Gunnar taking Em in his arms and bending her backward in a confident, Rhett Butler—like embrace.
    But before I could kick the dead bird into the water, I heard wood squeak on the dock outside the boathouse. “Russ?” a voice said. Gunnar.
    Shit! I thought. He was early! I had planned to be long gone by the time he and Em arrived. If I was there, I’d ruin everything.
    One of the stored rowboats was covered by a canvas, so I slipped inside the boat and crouched down under the cover.
    “Russ?” Gunnar said, entering the boathouse. “You here?”
    What was I doing, hiding from him like this? But I couldn’t tell him I was there; otherwise he wouldn’t get together with Em. So for the time being, I decided to stay hidden under that canvas.
    I heard more squeaking as Gunnar walked around the boathouse.
    “Russ said there was a hive,” he said out loud. “But where?” Gunnar talked to himself? This was something I didn’t know about him.
    A moment later, I heard more squeaking on the dock outside the boathouse.
    “Russ?” Gunnar said.
    “No,” said a voice. “It’s me.” Em, of course. She’d entered the boathouse too. (Whatever happened to people being fashionably late?)
    “Oh!” Gunnar said. “Hey!”
    “What’s up?” Em said.
    “What? Oh, I’m waiting for someone. He was going to show me a hive.”
    “Did you find it?”
    “No. Just a lot of sparrows’ nests.”
    “Too bad,” Em said. “I love bees.”
    “Really?” Gunnar sounded surprised.
    “Oh, yeah.”
    Right on! I said to myself. This was going even better than I’d expected! Better yet, Em hadn’t spilled the beans about my setting her up to meet Gunnar.
    “Hey, look!” Em said. “Flowers in the water.”
    “Huh,” Gunnar said. “I wonder where they came from.”
    Em starting laughing.
    “What?” Gunnar said.
    “I think I know where they came from,” Em said. “Your friend Russel. I think he’s trying to set the two of us up.”
    Oops, I thought. I really should have made Em promise to be more circumspect. But this wasn’t necessarily a bad development, romance-wise. If the two of them saw me as