The Kids Aren't Alright

Chapter 55: Finn

"Well, before that, I was talking about how this is all our faults, and if I hadn't taken credit for Becca's prank and you hadn't beaned Clancey with a stick and left him in the woods—"

"There!" Ronan throws his bar of soap down on the counter, a frenzied glint to his eyes. He slaps his palm down loudly next to the soap and blurts out, "Right there. What you said about me beaning Clancey and leaving him in the woods."

"Yeah, what about it? I don't understand why you're getting so worked up over this—"

"Shut up, Finn, I'm having a moment of brilliance!" The glint in Ronan's eyes intensifies. This is beginning to remind me of the time when the counselors served coffee at breakfast and Ronan went overboard and drank three cups and for the rest of the day he was so hyped up, I could see his hands vibrating. "It all makes sense now!"

Ronan's erratic behavior is starting to worry me. Maybe Clancey's accident finally drove him over the edge. Maybe this is the beginning of his inevitable mental breakdown...

I turn down the radio, the Guns N' Roses song fading into silence. "What's wrong with you—?"

"Don't you see, Finn?" Ronan demands, cutting me off once again. "What you said doesn't make sense. Even if I did bean Clancey with a stick and left him unconscious, Sean and Eric would have gone back for him. They would have dragged him back to camp, not just left him in the woods alone!"

"But they didn't—"

"Exactly! Which means someone got to Clancey before they did!" Ronan lifts his palm off the counter and claps his hands together, the sharpness of the noise making me flinch. He smiles at me— actually smiles, dimples and all— and says in a rush, "I can't believe I didn't realize this until now. I was right, I was right all along. Someone wanted you to fall into the lake, and when you didn't, they used Clancey instead!"

"Used him for what?"

"The monster, Finn, the monster. Clancey was babbling on about a monster 'in the water' when we found him; we thought he was crazy, of course, or confused. But maybe he was telling the truth."

"About... a monster?"

Ronan rolls his eyes. "God, I forget how dull you can be sometimes. Please try to keep up. There is clearly something in the lake, and somebody here at camp is trying to draw it out. Clancey was just the bait."

"This is crazy. You do realize you sound absolutely crazy, right?"

"Finn! That's why they took Clancey away so quickly afterward. It was a cover-up. This is all part of some plan, some scheme—"

"No!" I grab Ronan by the shoulder. I want to shake him, to force the sense back into him; I want to get rid of that feverish gleam in his eyes and make him act normal again. "No, Ronan. There isn't any monster. There isn't any conspiracy. Clancey is just gone, and it's our fault."

Ronan shakes his head. For once, he looks completely unperturbed by me touching him. "You're wrong, Finn. This isn't our fault at all. There's something in the lake and I'm going to prove it to you."

"How?"

He shrugs away from my grip. Yanking his rubber gloves free from his hands, he stalks off to the other side of the kitchen and towards one of the industrial-sized metal fridges lining the walls.

"Where are you going?"

He flings open the door to the fridge and begins rummaging around inside. "I'm making myself a celebratory grilled cheese."

"You're doing what?"

"I said I'm making myself a grilled cheese," he repeats, reemerging from the fridge with a loaf of bread in one hand and a few slices of precut cheddar cheese in the other. "Isn't that obvious?"