Every scout in the meeting hall was celebrating around me. The noise of the cheers was deafening. I looked across the room and noticed that the only people not celebrating were Kyle and his kiss-butt cronies. Typical, when he doesn’t get his way of absolute control, he gets angry. What a baby. I knew that was pissing him off. He just stood there and stared right at me with pure anger on his face. Once again, he didn’t get his way. And once again, he was losing control of the meeting.
“We’re going to win this.” I said again.
Still, the others didn’t hear me. I looked around and grabbed Sawyer’s arm. I swung him around to face me.
“Listen to me.” I stared right at him. “This is what we’ve been talking about. Doing it our way. We’re not just going to this camp trip. We’re going to win it.”
Sawyer just stared at me. I don’t think he understood what I just said. Then I saw his face change. he went from from pure happiness, to confusion, to eventually that mischievous devil-inside smile he gets. He looked at me and nodded.
“Our way.” He clasped my hand then came in and gave me a big bear hug.
“Guys! Circle up.” He called for the others. We all huddled up with our arms around each other’s shoulders. “Robbie has an announcement.”
“Guys, we’re going to take this thing. We’re going to win it. We can’t just go and try our best. We need to win every competition. That will make us the best patrol in the unit. But more importantly that will make every scout and parent here take us seriously. “
Alex chimed in. “If we win this thing, all the bullshit stops. They’ll have to respect us. I’m in. All the way”
“I’m in. All the way.” Arnaub chimed in. “But we need to practice. We need to know every skill, every motto, every song. We need to memorize the handbook. Whatever they throw at us, we need to become experts. There can be no doubt that we win big.”
“You’re right.” I told the group. “From now to the camp trip, we meet every day at my house. It will be just like a study group. We learn everything to perfection. We’ll each take a different skill to study and then we practice.”
All of the guys agreed. We were going to with this thing.
“You guys are forgetting something.” Adam spoke up.
“What’s that?” Sawyer asked.
“Well, Scoutmaster Miltner didn’t mention this. But traditionally, the winner of the annual Camporee is instantly eligible to run for Sr. Patrol Leader, regardless of rank or time spent in the troop. They just never enforce that rule because the parents only let the older boys go. So it’s kind of rigged. But if we win this weekend, they have to let us to the larger competition. If we win that, Robbie, as our Patrol Leader, you’re eligible to run for Sr. Patrol Leader. You will oust Kyle from his position, if you won that election.”
“Holy shit! That’s awesome!” Sawyer yelled.
“Is that true? We need to get Scoutmaster Miltner to go on record that the winner is eligible.” Alex chimed in.
“Let’s go check” I said to the group. We headed over to Scoutmaster Miltner’s office to ask. He was standing in the doorway of his office talking to Burnside. As we headed over towards the office, Kyle saw us. His paranoid evil Spidey-sense stated tingling. He promptly started walking to head us off. And you guessed it, once Kyle started moving, his helicopter mom was right behind. And for the second time that night, we all converged in the doorway of Scoutmaster Miltner’s office.
“What’s up boys?” Scoutmaster Miltner asked.
“We have a question about the Camp competition. We understand that the winner of the competition is automatically allowed to run for Sr. Patrol Leader, regardless of rank or year. Is that true?” I asked.
“No!” Kyle shouted and interrupted. “We’re not doing that this year! I made that decision.”
“Is that your decision to make?” Burnside scowled at Kyle. I love when Burnside does that. He has our back. And it really scares Kyle.
“Yes it is.” Kyle’s mom interjected. “This is a boy led troop. The boys make all the decisions.”
“Well that’s partially true.” Scoutmaster Miltner interjected.
Kyle’s mom protested. “It’s been that way ever since we’ve been a part of that troop. You can’t change that!”
“While there is a “chain of command” within the youth leadership and also within the adult leadership. The Scoutmaster has to have a final say as the ultimate leader of the troop. The boys should understand that they have only so much authority.” Miltner asserted himself.
“You can’t change the rules like that! It’s always been this way! Only the older boys get to compete. Now you’re changing this?” Kyle was melting down in one of his temper tantrums.
“They’re not rules. More like guidelines. Let’s just say everything is rigidly flexible.” Burnside chimed in. He looked at Miltner, “Come on Bob, let’s have some fun. Mix it up a little and see what happens. What’s the worst that can happen? A bunch of first years win? You’ll still be here to mentor them.”
Miltner was clearly nervous. I realized he was stuck in a difficult place. If he crossed Kyle’s mom, he’ll feel her wrath all year. If he goes against Burnside, who knows what Miltner thought of Burnside and what would happen. Was Miltner afraid of Burnside?
“If you let these boys compete and they win, you will devalue this troop! I won’t stand for it! They are not qualified!” Kyle’s mom protested. Now I see where Kyle gets his temper tantrum gene.
Then Burnside did the most unusual thing. Burnside leaned in and whispered something in Miltner’s ear.
“Go on, take that leap. Take a chance, let it ride. I’d rather fail than never try”
I don’t know what the hell he was doing. But whatever, it caught Miltner’s attention. And he was listening.
But then Miltner’s face changed. He looked side-eyed at Burnside.
“Second album, second track. ” He said deadpan starting at Burnside.
“That’s correct.” Burnside acknowledged. Then Burnside looked at me while pointing to Miltner “He’s a fan.” Burnside smiled. “Come on Bob. Let’s have a little fun and see what happens. You’re letting them compete. Now let’s make it interesting.”
The room was dead silent as Miltner thought it over.
“OK” he decided “The tradition stands. “The winner of the competition will be eligible to run for Sr. Leadership in the next election.
The room exploded!
I rounded the guys together. “OK guys, it’s on. We’re going to take first place. Every day for the next ten days we meet after school at my house. Are you with me?”
All of the guys nodded. They were committed!
“This is it.” I thought to myself. This is the extraordinary thing I’ve been looking to do.
______________________________________________ 2 ________________________________
The next ten days were the most intense and most fun I ever had… we had… ever since we joined scouting. Every day we tested ourselves and tried to learn something new. And it wasn’t as easy as we thought. None of us knew how we should prepare. I thought we should start by memorizing every skill, motto, saying and song in the handbook. I thought we needed to be perfect. I wanted to beat Kyle at his own game. I made up a schedule. I tried getting us to memorize the handbook. I made a drill sheet of everything we needed to learn.
But Sawyer took the more casual approach. I got frustrated because I didn’t know if he was taking this a seriously as I was. Every day, Sawyer came into my room. He went straight to the box of old albums. He put on a new record.
Every day, Sawyer came into my room. He went straight to the box of old albums. He put on a new record.
Sometimes it was distracting. But it kept our meetings upbeat. And, I have to admit it was fun! The most unexpected and best thing was that the other guys really started getting into the music too. The Clash, The New York Dolls, The Pretenders. The Pistols, Generation X. Even David Bowie and Taking Heads made the playlists.
One day Sawyer and Alex were jumping on my bed. They were pretending to be playing along with the New York Doll’s first album. They ended up cracking my wooden bed frame. I’m not sure how I’m going to explain that to my mom. I’m not going to like getting busted for that. But I admit it was pretty funny. We all had a good laugh.
But I feared we were blowing it. We were working hard, but was it enough? One day we spent the entire session sewing all the patches on our uniforms. We made sure everything was in perfect shape and in the correct space.
We practiced tying every camping knot in the book. Adam was our expert here. His dad is retired Navy and still takes him out sailing on Lake Washington. So knots are his specialty.
Alex became our expert in First Aid. He used his knowledge from volunteering as the soccer team manager. He showed us how to wrap a sprained ankle. He also taught us how to apply a bandage correctly.
Sawyer and I tried to become experts in map reading and trail navigation. We think we can handle navigating a path by just looking at a topographic map.
Arnaub handled fire starting. He concentrated on making little bundles of tinder out of dryer lint. He said that made fires start faster than looking for dry kindling on the ground.
I think we had the important stuff handled.
The troop was going to leave for the camp out right from school on Friday afternoon. Thursday night we all met at my house for a last equipment check and review. But we felt confident. We had this. We spent two hours in my room listening to albums, playing guitars and goofing around.
We got this.
