Happy Birthday Max! (Camp Camp Fanfic)

Chapter 2

David's POV:

I walked around the mess hall, seeing everyone enjoy the cake we brought for Space Kid.

I suddenly heard a loud thud coming from one of the tables and quickly turned around.

It was Max's group and I saw him storm out of the mess hall with both anger and sadness in his eyes.

I walked over to the table and saw Neil and Nikki with stunned looks in their eyes.

"What happened?" I asked them as I tried to remove the fork shoved into the table.

"I'm not sure." Nikki replied, "I just asked him why he wouldn't sing happy birthday to Space Kid."

"He wasn't singing?" I asked.

They both shook their heads no.

"It's normal for Max not to want to do things, but we're celebrating a BIRTHDAY!" I said, "Max needs to know that he needs to respect people on their special day!"

I was about to walk away when Neil suddenly tugged on my shirt, "I don't think you should go after him David."

"And why not?" I asked him.

"Well I've never seen Max so angry or upset before." Neil replied, "He didn't really act like himself today, maybe you should just leave him alone."

"No." I said, "I'm a camp counselor and it's my duty-"

Nikki cut me off with her giggling, "He said 'duty.'" she whispered to Neil.

Neil just rolled his eyes and I continued, "It's my job to make sure that all the campers are respectful to others."

I walked out of the mess hall and started heading to the tents where the campers slept.

As I looked for Max's tent, I heard a slight sniff coming from one of the tents.

I peeked inside the tent where the noise came from and saw Max curled up on his bed with his hood over his head and was hugging what seemed to be a... teddy bear?

"Max? Are you all ri-"

"fuck" I heard him whisper under his breath.

"Max, language." I told him.

"GO AWAY DAVID!" he shouted at me.

It startled me a bit but I wouldn't leave, "Max, what's wrong?"

"I fucking said to GET OUT DAVID!" he yelled as he lifted up his head.

Instead of seeing the normal anger in his eyes, I saw sadness and tears falling down his face.

"Oh my goodness Max are you crying?" I said as I rushed into the tent.

I was about to try to give him a hug when he slapped my hand away from him.

"Just-" Max said, choking a bit, "Leave me alone. You wouldn't care anyway."

"Of course I would care!" I said, "As your counselor I have to make sure that all the campers are happy and alright."

"EXACTLY DAVID!" he shot back, "It's your JOB! You just do it cause you have to! Just go make sure Space Kid is having fun at his shitty balloon party or whatever."

Balloon party? Wait...

"Do you mean birthday party?" I asked him.

Max's eyes grew wide and hid his face again, "Sure whatever, just leave."

He threw his bear at me, clearly saying he wanted to be alone. It hit my face and I got the message. I decided to respect his wishes and left the tent.

Just as I left, I heard him get off his bed to get his bear back. Once he got back on his bed, I started to hear him cry even louder.

I wanted to go and try again, but I bit my lip and headed back to the mess hall.

~

After everyone was done with their cake, it was time for bed so me and Gwen told them to go to their tents.

We started cleaning up the the mess hall and I decided to ask Gwen for advice.

"Gwen, did you notice anything off about Max today?"

"Yeah, but I didn't really think much of it." she replied, "He's grumpy pretty much every day."

"I know, but right now I just caught him-" I stopped myself and came closer to Gwen so no one else could hear, "I saw him crying in his tent." I whispered.

Gwen dropped the broom she was holding and looked at me, "Ok there's something DEFINITELY wrong." she said.

I nodded and we tried to think of what could be wrong.

All of a sudden, Gwen's eyes widened as if a light bulb turned on in her head.

"This morning, when we were putting up the banner." she started.

"Yeah..."

"He asked us something that I didn't really believe he said."

"Oh yeah! What was it?" I asked.

"It was a little muffled but I think he asked what a birthday party was."

I gasped at the thought of not knowing what a birthday party was.

"Actually, now that you mention it, Max didn't really seem to understand what we were doing all day. And just earlier he called it a 'balloon party.'"

I could then see Gwen's face get worried, "You don't think..."

I suddenly remembered what happened on Parent's Day.

"I told you.." Max said, sounding upset, "They didn't care."

I remembered how sad Max looked at the time. It broke my heart knowing that his parents didn't care enough to fully fill out his form.

"We have to do something." I told Gwen with full determination.

"Wait but we first need to finish-" I ignored what she said and grabbed her arm.

Note to self: make sure to go back and finish cleaning mess hall.

I rushed us to our cabin and closed the door slowly, not to hurt it.

"Where's Max's file?" I asked Gwen.

Gwen nodded and looked through all the campers files. Finally she found Max's and pulled it out.

She opened it and and shook her head, "Those sick bastards." she said under her breath. She closed it and handed it to me

"Now Gwen, I know they're not very nice people," I said as I opened the file, "but you can't call them-"

No.

They couldn't.

But they did.

"They didn't even care to fill out his date of birth." I said aloud.

"So what are we gonna do?" Gwen asked me.

I shut the file and hid it under Gwen's desk.

I looked at her and smiled, "We're gonna give Max the biggest birthday party Camp Campbell will ever see."