Disruption by Steven Whibley Page B

even though I hadn’t spoken, and then tapped his ear. He locked eyes with me and spoke, mouthing each word carefully. “Well done.” He raised his hand and brought it down in a quick movement. The fabric wall around the field dropped in a blink, and a dozen or so campers who had been near the barrier scattered back to their cabins like startled cockroaches.
    I glanced at the field. It was as though I’d never set foot on the turf. There were no signs of paint explosions or burned grass. There were no bits and pieces of debris, at least none that I could see. The only thing on the field was an official-looking soccer ball, on the exact spot it had been when I had arrived.
    What was going on here?
     
     

Chapter 11
     
     
    My senses trickled back as I trudged toward the cabin.
    At home, Jason and I used to watch all kinds of reality shows about SWAT teams and prison guards. I remembered a few episodes where they used things called flashbangs and stun grenades to take care of criminals. Flashbangs are essentially really loud bangs accompanied by bright flashes of light. The idea is to disorient without hurting anyone. Jason and I had wanted to get a couple to set off in school during study hall, but they’re surprisingly hard to come by. Even for a kid with as much money as Jason.
    I wondered if the mines under the soccer ball had been flashbangs. In the TV shows I’d watched, I was pretty sure they’d called them harmless. My hand went to my head, and the singed ends of my hair crunched. I’d been torched. There was nothing harmless about getting torched.
    Still, the reaction from Dalson and the linesmen had made it clear they’d intended those mines to go off that way, which meant they were okay with the possibility I wouldn’t have ducked and so . . . what? They had waited until I was clear before setting them off? Otherwise, they were okay with the possibility that I’d be killed or, at the very least, maimed.
    I cursed my dad for sneaking my name onto a camp roster without checking it out first. What kind of parent does that? I thought about it for a second and then considered the possibility that he had looked into it and had decided to send me anyway. That thought morphed out of control, and by the time I was halfway back to the Delta cabin, I had concocted a massive conspiracy where Dad had taken out a major life insurance policy on me and was looking to rid himself of his troubled kid once and for all. Not sure Mom would be happy with that, but then again, she had been wanting to remodel the kitchen.
    “Focus, Matt,” I told myself. Obviously, this camp wasn’t what it seemed; I’d had that much sorted out before the first challenge. Now, though, I was starting to realize just how different it really was. I clenched my fists and reminded myself that if things got any worse, I’d just bolt. I’d find a way to call Jason, he’d help me get back home, and if it cost my dad his job, so be it.
    But there was something else. Something tickled the back of my mind, and it was a feeling I knew I wouldn’t be able to ignore—curiosity. This camp was different—crazy different. And that made me want, no, need to figure it out more. They had competitions where kids could get blown up. I wasn’t even beginning to make sense of everything, but I had to try. There was something more to this place. I just had to stay alive until I figured out what it was.
    It was like when Jason and I were little and some older kids told us about the bogeyman who lived in closets. Jason believed them and decided night-lights were the answer, but even though I mostly believed them, too, I wasn’t satisfied with night-lights. If there was some crazy monster in my closet, I had to know for sure. Jason took some convincing, but eventually he was on board, and together we spent the next few weekends having sleepovers where we’d try to bait that sucker out of our closets with food, shiny things, or money. Twice Jason and I even