The Boy Who Earned the Campout
“What did he say to that?”
“He said, I should have asked you.” Jonah shrugged one shoulder. “I said, yes, sir. He said he should have asked you too. Then he asked if you were in the car, and I said yes, and he said he’d like to say that to you himself, if you wanted. And I said that was up to you.”
I looked up the drive. Orrin was still in the barn door.
I got out. I did not know what I meant to say. I walked halfway up the gravel, and he walked halfway down, and we stopped about eight feet from each other in the dark. It was cold enough that I could see his breath.
“Mrs. Rademaker,” he said. “I should have called you first. Before the gear check. Before anything. That’s all I’ve got to say about it, and I figured you’d want it said.”
“All right.”
“He’s on the roster. He’ll be in the truck Friday.” He glanced at his hands. “I’ll take it to the committee Thursday, the way I should have in the first place. Zach will want to hear it.”
“He’s already planning to.”
“I expect he is.” Something that was almost a smile went across his face and left. “He didn’t call me. That man could have called me, and he didn’t. I take it that was you.”
“That was Jonah.”
Orrin Gannon stood there a while.
“Well,” he said. “He’s got a better hand than I do.”
I did not say that was all right. It was not all right yet. I said good night, and I walked back to the car.
On the drive home Jonah handed me the card, and I read it under the dashboard light.
It was written in pencil, in his square block letters, and it said:
Jonah’s plan. 1. A buddy on my left side. Gunnar or Tanner. 2. A tap on the shoulder, two times, instead of a whistle. 3. A flashlight with a red lens at night so I can look behind me. 4. I go second from last. I will say how I am doing at every rest stop. 5. If I say I am done, I am done, and I will wait with the trailer. Nobody has to carry me.
He had not crossed anything out. He had pressed hard enough on the last line that the pencil had gone through the first layer of the card.
The Thursday meeting was not an event. I know that people like to be told it was.
I sat in the back row by the coat rack, and Jonah sat with Fox Patrol at the third table from the left, and Orrin Gannon stood at the front with the clipboard and called the troop to order. The boys said the oath, and the Scout Law, all twelve points, in the rough, uneven chorus I have heard a hundred times. I watched Jonah’s lips. He said every word.