Day Camp (F/f implied?)

[goodgulf]

Day Camp

"It was still a mean trick!"

"Look, I said I was sorry, did I?"

"But what you did..."

"I made a mistake, all right? Let's drop it."

'And the backyard had seemed such a nice, peaceful place to work." Paul Bracken through to himself, mentally sighing.

It was a beautiful summer day, so Paul had brought his laptop outside. Not that he really considered what he was doing to be work, no, work was years gone. Work took place at the brokerage house, surrounded by the other traders. A combination of stress, two heart attacks, and mild nervous breakdown had aligned themselves for his early retirement. At least that's what his boss had said, but Paul knew that the real reason was his reluctance to jump on the dot com bandwagon. The rest of the firm had been completely behind it (and the fees they earned from trading those shares). Paul knew that the nervous breakdown (or the 'episode', as he liked to think about it) had been just an excuse to ease him out the door.

Not that he had made out badly. Once free of the firm he'd sold every stock in every company whose business plan eluded him. He had joined in the buy spree - mostly to keep up appearances - but once free of office politics he sold everything that he didn't understand. That had been a year before the bubble burst, and while he would never be in the Fortune 500 he had enough that wouldn't have to work again unless he lived to 734 years of age (assuming that T-Bills continued to trail inflation), which was more than enough. He had downsized his lifestyle, moving from his McMansion to a quiet residential area (that downsizing had accounted for 539 years of his savings), and played at day trading. Not that he needed the money from the piddly trades he made, but it kept busy. So far this week he was up $83.21, went meant that he up newly three thousand for the quarter.

Which was good, but the squabbling next door wasn't getting any quieter. Usually he liked the McCoys, and even when he didn't like he would generally ignore them, but Brad and June were away on vacation, leaving their college age daughter in charge of watching her much younger brother, and they had guilted Paul into promising to keep an eye on things. Paul had thought his job was, well, simply to exist, and by existing discourage Katie from throwing any wild parties.

'But the McCoys probably wouldn't want to come home and find that their kids had killed each other.' Paul reasoned. 'Especially not on the Monday after they left.'

He closed his computer with a sigh, and for the first time since his retirement he steeled himself to act in a responsible manner.

"So, what's all the fuss about?" Paul said as he approached the property line.

Katie gave her neighbour an embarrassed look, but young Ted looked triumphant. As if he has staged this argument in the backyard just to trap his sister and make her explain things to the 'adult in charge' - which he probably did. Paul had often thought that the McCoys had held off having a second child until the first one was almost old enough to babysit, which made for a wild family dynamic.

"Oh, it's basically nothing." Katie assured him.

"Nothing?" Ted exploded. "My ass is nothing?"

Paul was a bit confused by the phrasing there, and that Katie just looked embarrassed and didn't correct the boy on his language.

"Maybe a fresh set of eyes can help solve the problem?" Paul suggested.

The look that Katie shot Ted clearly said 'How could you embarrass me this way?', but then she turned to Paul and explained.

"Um, well Mr. Bracken, it's like this." Katie started. "Before my parents left they made arrangements to enrol Ted in that day camp, the one run by the Second Church of Christ the Redeemer."

Paul nodded. He didn't know what (if any) religion that Brad and June had been raised in, but whatever it was they clearly lapsed or former whatever it was. Then some of Brad's clients had started talking about this new, breakaway church, and the McCoys had started looking into it for business contacts. Personally, Paul had nothing against religions, but felt that if you were going to be part of you did it because you believed (or wanted to believe) its message, not for business reasons. He'd had talks with a few members of that church and found them... intellectually dishonest seemed the best way of putting it.

"So anyway, when I dropped him off this morning, someone said that his paperwork hadn't all been filled out, so I filled it out and ..."

"She signed me up for spankings!" Ted revealed with the indignant voice that only youth possessed.

"She did what?" Paul asked.

Not that he had ever really thought about whether the McCoys spanked their kids, but from the way young Ted was protesting it was clear that the boy hadn't expected anything like that at day camp.

"It was an accident!" Katie protested, fighting off a blush.

"Some accident! You went and signed a form. What happened? Did the pen just slip and spell out your name?" Ted taunted.

"I meant to sign so you wouldn't be spanked, but the form was confusing and..."

"And after lunch my councillor read off the list of every kid in our group that could be spanked and my name was on that list!" Ted said, talking over his sister so that Mr. Bracken would get the whole story. "That was the most embarrassing thing that could ever happen to me. I said there must have been a mistake, but they said no, that they had a signed form and everything."

Paul could think of a slightly more embarrassing way to find out something like that, but kept it to himself as he wondered if Katie had set up her little brother.

"But I didn't mean to!" Katie protested. "I thought I'd filled it out so he wouldn't get spanked."

"Sure! Right!" Ted mocked.

"Look." Katie said, fumbling for her purse. "When Ted told me what happened I got that form back and even got a fresh form. You can see for yourself, it's confusing."

"So did your parents say to fill out that form?" Paul asked, waiting for Katie to produce the form.

"Oh, they didn't know about." Katie assured him. "It was a total shock for most of the kids."

"Yeah, everyone freaked out big time." Ted gloated. "Specially the kids whose names were on the list! I don't think anyone knew. Even the kids whose parents are in that church were surprised. No one knew anything."

Katie handed some forms to Paul, and he started looking at them. Right away he spotted a mistake - they had Jesus giving the "spare the rod" quote. There was an asterisk next to it, and after a bit of searching Paul found the explanation.

"Why are you reading the back?" Katie asked in confusion. "Most of the stuff is on the front."

"Ah, but when it comes to complicated forms there's a right way and a wrong way to read them." Paul explained. "There's a trick to reading forms that are designed to deceive you."

"What?" Ted asked suspiciously.

"I haven't got to the meat of the form, but I already know that it's designed to confuse and deceive." Paul answered. "I wouldn't be surprised if most of the people signing it filled it out wrong."

"But they're a church." Katie protested. "Churches don't go around lying."

"So were the People's Temple, and look where Jim Jones took them." Paul said darkly.

"Jim who?" Katie asked.

"Never mind. Odds are you'll cover in a history class some day." Paul told her.

Second Church of Christ the Redeemer had some interesting beliefs. Since Jesus was the Word Made Flesh, he had to be the one who dictated parts of the Bible. Not all of it, just the parts that the Second Church of Christ the Redeemer decided to follow. That meant that the Chosen People were really Christians and the Jews were Deluded People who had gotten the message wrong.

'They must have gotten that from the Mel Gibson college of theology.' Paul thought to himself as he flipped the form over. 'Any group that would twist their own beliefs that much can't be trusted with a burnt match.'

"Okay, I see the problem." Paul said. "I've seen IPOs of companies that would never make a profit, and I've seen prospectus put together by boiler rooms looking to defraud investors, and I've never seen anything as screwed up as this."

"Really?" Ted sneered, not wanting to believe that it had been a mistake.

"Okay, listen to this." Paul said, reading one of the lines. "'If you don't want us to refrain from not following the teachings...' - that sentence goes on for three lines. Three lines! And there's so many negatives in that sentence that I'm not sure if means to spank or not to spank. And that's just one of the questions on this page."

"You mean it covers more than just spanking?" Ted demanded, not understanding how a form could have more than one super important question.

"The rest it deals with how, where, and who type questions." Paul explained, scanning the form. "And yes, there's fine print that says that if you answer the other questions wrong you're providing specific exceptions to the general answer for the first question."

"Override how?" Ted asked.

"Well, there seems to be some sort of sliding scale, and they want you to give specific answers for various spots on that scale." Paul explained.

"But a spanking is a spanking." Ted pointed out.

"But is it a swat, 3 - 5 swats, hand or instrument, there are a ridiculous number of choices." Paul said, skipping over the questions that talked about 'layers of protection'. "And there's who catches you in mischief. Your councillor, the chief councillor, the camp director, the pastor, the pastor's wife - so someone could fill this out saying no to spanking in general terms, but if the pastor's wife catches you doing something major there's an exception that allows her to deal with you."

"See!" Katie crowed. "I told you it was complicated."

"So did you want me to help you fill out the new form?" Paul offered.

"No, that's okay. Now that I have a chance to read through it I'm sure I can handle things." Katie assured him.

Katie's answer took Paul back to his trading days, to hearing clients who said "No, I choose my own investments, and my cousin's friend's brother's old roommate is launching an IPO that I plan to invest my kids' college funds in.". They hadn't listened, and Paul could tell that Katie wouldn't either. She was a Big Girl, with an entire year of college behind her, and she had been Left In Charge while her parents were away. The ignorance of youth mixed with the arrogance of the young and self-importance of someone given petty power.

"Are you sure?" Paul asked, knowing what the answer would be.

"Of course I'm sure. But thanks for explaining to Ted that it was all a mistake."

"Tell you what." Paul said, pulling the second last trick from his bag. The last trick was a call to Brad and June, but he would save that for bigger problems. "I've got some things to do in the morning. Why don't I drop Ted off and make sure that there's no problems?"

"Um, I guess that would be okay." Katie responded. "If you don't mind?"

"If I minded I wouldn't have offered." Paul pointed out.


It had been almost a year since Paul had been up and out this early in the day, but coffee was always there to pick him up. During the mercifully short drive Ted filled Paul in on all the latest developments. How he had called around, emailed, messaged, and otherwise contact many (if not most) of the kids at the day camp, and learned that Ted's hadn't been the only form that had been screwed up. Only (to hear Ted tell it) some of the other parents hadn't picked up new forms yet. If their schedules weren't busy then they wouldn't be dropping their kids off at a day camp run by a bunch of nuts, and they seemed too busy to fix a minor paperwork snafu for the second day of camp.

'Minor paperwork snafu.' Paul thought. 'Just wait until the first time that one of their little dears gets a warm tail and we'll see how minor it is then. That's probably why they read off that list - so no one could say that they hadn't warned people about how they planned to treat the kids.'

Ted shot off the moment the car was stopped, racing off to join up with some friends, leaving Paul to find his way to the administration building. The woman inside was in her early twenties and introduced herself as Mrs. Angus Kennedy, empathising the Mrs. part while explaining she was no relation to "the Kennedys".

Paul waved off her offer of church literature with a polite but blunt "From what little I've seen, your theology is either suspect or based on deliberate misinformation", which seemed to confuse her.

'Maybe no one ever told her that before.' Paul thought to himself. 'Or maybe it's the fact that I'm being polite.'

Explaining how he was keeping an eye out for the McCoys, Paul produced the new form, saying: "...and I'd like to verify things before I leave today."

"Well let's see." Mrs. Angus Kennedy said as she scanned the form. "Well that's surprising. You say that Katie took the old form back? Well, I'll have to update the lists so that Ted isn't on the spank list anymore. I should get it done by lunch..."

"Now would be a better time." Paul pointed out. "If something happens before lunch, if he gets spanked without a form, well, the legal repercussions..."

"Oh, the lawyer did say something about that." Mrs. Angus Kennedy nodded. "I should probably do that right now. Could you do me a favour? Could you keep an eye on things while I handle that? Just make sure that no one walks off with the desk, that sort of thing?"

"Of course. That would be no problem." Paul assured her.


Left alone, Paul couldn't help thinking that this was the first time he'd been alone in an office (even this mangy excuse of one) since 'the incident'. With nothing to do except think (or to read the trash that the so-called church passed off as literature) Paul was almost grateful when the woman returned.

"It turns out that you were right." Mrs. Angus Kennedy said as she entered the office. "Ted got into a little dispute with his councillor. He kept insisting that he was off the spank list while the councillor kept pointing out that his name was right there. Why, if she hadn't thought it was a major issue, lying and wilfully contradicting his elder, it might have been over before I got there, but she was still working at getting his shorts down when I put a stop to things."

Paul nodded, wondering how a situation could have arisen, escalated, and gotten to that point in the very few minutes since he'd dropped Ted off. Wondering, but not asking.

"So is Katie planning to fill out a new form for Ted, or is she going to leave it as is?" Mrs. Angus Kennedy inquired. "Only the lawyer said we can't really do anything without a form."

"Isn't that a new form?" Paul asked, pointing to the one he'd brought.

"This? Well, it is, but it doesn't cover Ted." Mrs. Angus Kennedy said, picking it up again. "It looks like Katie filled it out for herself. It must be because she's planning to join in with the pastor's study group for youths."

"You mean his youth group." Paul corrected.

"No, other godless churches have youth groups, we have a study group for youths." Mrs. Angus Kennedy corrected. "Here, let me show you the form."

The form that the woman showed him was slightly different from the form that Paul had seen yesterday. Oh, superficially it looked the same, but his experienced eyes were drawn to the difference. The biggest difference lay in the fine print at the bottom, which said that the form applied to the signer of the form. Searching for Ted's name, Paul saw that it was in a spot that referred to others enrolled in the church's programs, and that that spot was exactly the same place Ted's name had been on the other form.

Paul was about to say something, but his eyes picked up another difference. Where the previous form had all of the supplemental questions answered the same way, this form had differences. Important differences. While Ted (or the person that form was filled out for) was generally off the spanking list, there was a glaring exception in the form of the pastor's wife, and what that woman was authorised to do... If this form was for Ted and he'd had his disagreement with the pastor's wife (instead of the councillor) then that woman would have been able to give Ted the major punishment that 'wilfully contradicting his elder' would earn.

"How could she have gotten this form?" Paul asked, stalling for time as he tried to think things over.

"Well if she asked for another form when she picked her brother up then whoever gave it to her might have thought she wanted a form for herself." Mrs. Angus Kennedy said with practised innocence.

That was a tone that Paul had heard back in his working days. Usually by people involved with a tech IPO saying "Oh, did you want to see a business plan?" or something stupid like that. Putting one and one together, Paul reasoned that the 'whoever' in question had the initials of AK, and that the 'whoever' in question had known exactly what she was doing.

Part of him wanted to rip up the form, or at least tell Katie what it said, but another part of him considered the changes and what they meant. Putting one and one together, Paul reasoned that this time Katie had set up her brother, but only for a rare combination that involved terrible behaviour and the pastor's wife. Of course Katie had no way of knowing what these nuts considered terrible behaviour (Paul was sure that it was anything with the word "wilful" tacked on it), but on the other hand... and in another part of his mind... and if AOL was big enough to buy TimeWarner, then could TheStreet.com be anything but a winner? But there was no business plan, no revenue stream, no signed formed authorising a purchase....

Paul shook his head and thought pleasant thoughts.

"I'm sure everything will work out." Paul said, handing the form back to the woman. "The Market is usually the best judge of this."

"I'm sorry, but what market?" Mrs. Angus Kennedy asked.

Paul ignored her, turned, and walked out the door before another 'incident' could happen.

"Are you sure she doesn't want another form for Ted?" Mrs. Angus Kennedy called after him. "It just that a few people who filled them out might have planned on saying they had made a mistake when they hadn't, if you know what I mean. I mean, they tell the kid that it was filled out by mistake, when they meant...Hello? Are you listening to me?"

Paul wasn't. Returning to his car Paul drove straight home, swallowed some of those special pills the doctors had given him and washed them down with a scotch and bourbon. Then he took a nap, a nice long nap.


Paul woke up in mid afternoon. For a moment he wondered what had brought on stress in his life (napping during the day with those special pills beside his bed meant that he must have been stressed), but then forced his mind to blank.

"Whatever it was, it's not important now." Paul told himself. "Nothing's the end of the world, not even Y2K. Now where did I put that laptop? I'm sure that if I work at it I milk another twenty bucks out of the market. It's all in the timing, and in using only a tinny winny amount of money. Just enough to trade with, not enough to matter."

Content once more, Paul returned to his day trading, never realising that he was leaving Katie in ignorance on an important topic. If Ted had said something then it might have jogged Paul's memory, but the boy was too embarrassed by what had almost happened to mention it to anyone. Ted's silence, combined with Paul's pills, left Katie with the belief that Ted only had to worry about a major screw up in front of the pastor's fate, and without a reason not to attend that youth club meeting she had been invited to.

Goodgulf