On his first morning at Camp Wa-Tonka, Zan stood on the beach in a long line of first-time campers. They faced a man wearing a white safari hat.

"My name is Dayton," he said, without looking up from his clipboard. "And we need to find out who can swim and who can't. Swimmers can use the diving boards and Big Bernie during morning swim. Non-swimmers can't."

All twenty campers looked past the shallow area surrounded on three sides by docks. It was lined with ropes to make a kind of swimming pool in the lake. They studied the two diving boards and a huge, hot dog-shaped yellow tube with Big Bernie painted on the side.

"Eagle Cabin is first," Dayton called.

Six of Zan's cabinmates, including Oliver, lined up facing the roped lanes. Their toes curled over the edge of the dock like Olympic swimmers waiting for the starting gun. Zan hung back. He had never really tried to swim before.

Whenever he went to a pool, he hung around the shallow end and splashed and dunked his friends. He wasn't afraid of the water, and he could hold his breath and put his head under.

But he had never dived into the water and swam to the other side. Certainly not with a bunch of people watching, and one of them holding a clipboard and a whistle. He knew that what he did in next few minutes would make a difference in the next four weeks of camp.

"Swimmers, on your mark! Go!" Dayton called.

Six boys launched their bodies into the lake, sliding in with barely a ripple. With their arms thrashing, feet kicking, and heads turning to one side, they made their way to the facing dock and back.

"Okay. Good job. All you guys are swimmers," Dayton said. "Next!"

Zan eased out onto the dock. He was buying time. Talking to himself.

You can do this. Nothing to it, he thought. You kind of jump in face first, and then you just kick like mad, like all those other guys. You pound your fists into the water and hold your head up, wiggling it from side to side so you can breathe.

Can do, Zan. Can do, he told himself.

He looked at the boy next to him, crouched the way he did, and pointed his arms straight back.

Can do, he told himself one more time.

"Swimmers, on your mark!" Dayton called. "Go!"

Zan jumped straight out over the water. He managed to close his eyes and gulp a breath of air before he landed flat on his stomach. His gut burned, his face stung, and all the air he had sucked in shot out in a huge bubble.

He clawed for the surface and took a huge gulp. Too soon. He got mostly water. Coughing and hacking, he remembered to windmill his arms and twist his head.

I'm doing just like the other guys, he thought. I'm swimming. See, I knew I could do it.

He was only halfway to the other side when the other swimmers passed him on their way back. Zan kept thrashing and churning until he reached the far dock. Gasping for air, he stood for a moment before starting back.

A few strokes into his return, he felt like a remote control car when the batteries run down. He went slower and slower and lower and lower, until he was swimming mostly underwater and his feet were bumping the sandy bottom. The dock seemed farther and farther away.

A whistle blew. "Okay, you can stop now. Stand up!" Dayton called.

No, I won't stop, he told himself, not 'til I get to that dock.

With a last burst of energy, he reached for the dock. He grabbed on and sucked air in loud, ragged gasps.

"Nice try," Dayton said. "You've got a lot of guts. But you've got to learn to relax in the water. We'll show you how."

That means swimming lessons, Zan moaned to himself as he staggered out of the water. Hours of doing the same thing over and over. One, two. One, two. Just like Step class at school. I can swim. I got from one side to the other and back. Why do I need to take lessons?

But before he could argue his case and ask for another chance, Zan felt his stomach tighten and his tongue stiffen. He ran across the beach and barely made it behind the changing cabin before heaving up his breakfast.

Zan took his time changing. Then he climbed to the middle trail carved along the side of the long hill that led from the beach to the main campground. The trail above went by his grandpa's old cabin. The trail below was busy with noisy campers heading to the mess hall for lunch.

He didn't feel good. He wanted to walk alone in the cool, quiet shade of towering trees. A familiar feeling passed over him: weak, sweaty, slightly dizzy. He recognized the beginnings of an insulin reaction. His diabetes.

Normally, he would avoid eating sweets. But because he had just exercised so hard and then lost his breakfast, he now needed food, or at least sugar. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a glucose tablet that he always carried for this kind of emergency. It would be enough to get him up the hill, where lunch waited.

"Hey, gimme that," Lazelle growled. He startled Zan, grabbing the tablet from him.

Not him. Not now, Zan moaned to himself. He looked up at the towering bully. It's like being in a dentist's chair, he thought. Looking up someone's nose, waiting for the pain.

"I need that, man," Zan pleaded. "It's, like, my medicine and I don't have any more."

"Yeah, right," the older boy mocked. "Zan Man."

"No. I mean it. I need it, or I'm going to be real sick," Zan cried, reaching for the tablet.

Lazelle half turned. "Looks like candy to me," he said, slowly unwrapping the pink pill.

Zan stumbled forward. He swiped at Lazelle's hand.

The bigger boy simply raised his hand high over his head.

"Besides," he went on, "don't you know you're supposed to share your treats, Toe Jam? Didn't anybody teach you that?"

He slammed Zan in the chest, knocking him to the ground. "You got no manners," he said as he dropped the pink tablet into his mouth.

Zan groaned.

"Yuck!" Lazelle cried, spitting the pill into the loose, sandy soil. "What kind of candy is that? Bleh!"

Zan reached in the dirt and grabbed the slimy, sticky pill coated with pine needles and sand. He wiped it on the bottom of his shirt and quickly sucked it into his mouth before Lazelle could change his mind.

The bigger boy stared, eyes wide. Zan leaned back against a tree and waited for the glucose to kick in.

"Dang, you're for real about this," Lazelle said.

With his eyes closed, Zan barely nodded, hoping he would feel better soon and the bully would be gone.

Revived after a good lunch, Zan headed down to the camp's open-air stables for the twenty minutes before rest period. He walked down the walkway between the twelve horses facing each other.

"Hey, you guys," he called out. "Remember me from last fall? Old man Jaremba let me ride every last one of you."

He stopped in front of Jamal, the black-and-white Paint. "Hey, bruiser. How ya doin'? Man, if you were a man you'd be a wrestler, sure enough."

Standing in front of Beauty, Zan laughed, shaking his head. "Beauty, I swear you got bigger since the last time I saw you, lady," he said. "You looked like a sofa on legs, back then. Now you look like the whole living room!"

Across the aisle, an older mare hung her head in a half doze. She was mostly white with a few brown spots.

"And how are you, Miz Rhody?" Zan joked. "You look like somebody's grandma who should be sitting in a rocker on the front porch instead of hauling campers up and down these hills all day."

Prince caught his eye next. "Your Highness," Zan said. He bowed. "You're the best-looking one in the bunch. No wonder Mr. Slick Nick Finazzo likes you so much."

Zan scratched Prince between the ears. He could hear Nick and Mack, the head wrangler, talking in the office.

"No, you can't take Prince on the overnight next week," Mack said.

"Why?" Nick practically whined.

"I don't like the way he acts when he's next to the highway and a truck goes by," Mack answered. "I would hardly trust myself, let alone you or a camper, to ride him along a busy road. He's too skittish."

Zan leaned against the door frame with his hands in his pockets. He said, "Maybe you should pair him up with a couple of the older horses who aren't afraid of trucks. They could teach him to relax."

Mack looked at Zan. He looked back at Nick like he was saying, Who is this kid, and what makes him think he has anything to tell me?

"This is Zan," Nick said. "Zan, this is Mack. He runs the stables."

Zan nodded hello, then went on. "If you put one of those movable pens next to the highway and put Beauty and Rhody in with Prince for a couple of hours every evening, then when—"

"Wait a minute," Mack interrupted, locking his black eyes on Zan. "Who asked for your advice? And besides, aren't you supposed to be in your cabin for rest period?"

Zan just shrugged and headed back up the hill toward the mess hall and cabins. The last thing he heard was Nick explaining how Zan had spent time with the Detroit Mounted Police trainers.

It was quiet at the top. No counselors. No campers. The only sound was the slap-slap-slap of the rope on the fieldstone flag tower.

"Late for rest period," Zan muttered. "Well, I can just hang out in the nature cabin. Who's gonna miss me?"

The nature cabin was a big closet jammed with garage-sale junk. Nature junk. Up on a shelf, a stuffed fox stared with one glass eye. His right front leg was bent, almost falling off. Three butterflies were pinned to the bottom of a dusty, glass-covered box. A brown snakeskin coiled in the corner of a dry aquarium. Three small nets on long handles stood in the corner, ready to grab more living things and put them in bottles.

Zan flopped into a wobbly chair, put his feet up on the table, and tipped his cap over his eyes. He was just about to doze off when he heard a fluttering, thumping sound.

He sat forward. He listened. A hummingbird banged against the window, trying to get to the blue sky it could see but couldn't reach.

"Take it easy, fella," Zan said to the tiny bird, hardly bigger than his thumb.

It was hiding on the sill. He studied the red breast and glowing-green head feathers of the trapped bird.

"You don't belong here," he grunted, shoving against the window sash. "You belong outside, where all the rest of these things belonged once."

The window sprang open. The tiny bird darted through and out of sight.

"Alexander Lewis!" a voice boomed over the PA system. "Report to your cabin immediately!"

Man, this place is worse than school, Zan thought, on his way past the flag tower.

"Alexander Lewis!" the voice called again.

"Okay. I'm coming. I'm going. Whatever," Zan shouted to the speaker mounted on the head counselor's cabin. "You guys got to cut me some slack. I'm supposed to be on vacation, here."

Back in his cabin, armpit-deep in his backpack, Zan was looking for a fresh glucose tablet to keep in his pocket. He heard Luat walk up behind him.

"Don't start. Okay?" Zan pleaded, without looking up. "I've been told I can't swim. I threw up. I had an insulin reaction. A guy who thinks he's King Kong sucked on my medicine. And that was before lunch. I just need to be alone for a minute. Okay?"

Luat nodded. The corners of his mouth twitched into a smile.

"You better rest up. Rope climbing and rappelling are next. With me," he added. "Oh, by the way, here's a postcard that came for you."

News from home, at last. Tanya.

Hey, little brother,

How are you doing up north? You always liked staying at Grandpa's cabin up there, so I imagine you're enjoying yourself.

"Ha! There was no Lazelle back then," Zan muttered.

Momma misses you and Uncle Clarence misses you. Not me. I'm the only one who doesn't miss you.

"Well, if everyone misses me so much, how come they shipped me all the way up here and then only send one postcard in three weeks? Huh? Answer me that," Zan grumbled.

We haven't heard from you. Did you forget how to write, little brother?

"Who's got time to write when I've got a Lazelle behind every corner, looking for a chance to jump me?" Zan asked the postcard.

Your friend Kyle called to ask about you.

"What about him and Tanesha and Corky and all those guys from the stable, like Luz and Carlos?" Zan wondered out loud. "Don't any of them know how to write, either?"

Take care,

Tanya

Zan held the postcard to his chest. He read it one more time, then slid it under his pillow.

Twenty Wa-Tonka campers crowded against the windows on the left side of the train. They were all talking excitedly about the west wall of the Agawa Canyon.

"Man, look at that overhang right at the top," someone said.

"That would be great to rappel down," another person answered.

"Look up ahead. That wall is even higher and steeper," Oliver added.

Zan stared out the window on the other side of the aisle. He was more interested in the river that flowed on the far side of the tracks. It felt like the train was running down a freeway with jumbled rocks and trees lining both sides. Instead of traffic zooming by, there was water — snarling, blue-white water — bouncing off and around rocks as big as cars.

Too bad we can't do something down there, Zan thought. It's got to be more fun than tying ropes to trees and rocks and shouting special code words like "Belay on!" and "Tension!" to each other. Just so you can ride a rope down a slope. Been there, done that. Two sessions on the climbing wall at camp was enough. Boring.

Zan yawned. Luat had dragged them out of bed at 5:00 am to take a long bus ride across the Mackinaw Bridge and on up to Sault Ste. Marie. Then they crossed the bridge into Canada and boarded the Agawa Canyon train.

Swaying to the rhythm of the rocking train, Luat called out, "Listen up, guys. The canyon starts up ahead, just past mile 110. This train is really different because it makes only one trip a day. It goes to the end of the line, turns around, and heads right back again."

He went on. "And what's special about this train is that you can ask to get off anywhere and then get back on when it comes by later. But we can't miss the return train, or we'll be camping out overnight. We're getting off at mile 113. Lazelle and Zan, grab the food. Marcus, carry the ropes. Sean, get the climbing harnesses and helmets. Nick, do a head count. We don't want to leave anyone behind before we even get started."

The train screeched to a stop to let the boys out, then chugged out of sight. The sudden quiet rang in their ears. Twenty boys huddled together. They looked up, up, up to a rock shelf that hung out over the canyon wall like a balcony on a ten-story building.

Zan studied them. He could tell that each boy was imagining himself sliding down a rope from that high ledge, wondering if he could really do it.

"Okay, here's the plan." Luat broke in like the principal making an announcement at school. "I want Marcus, Oliver, Pete, Drew, and Zack to climb the long way up with me and set up the ropes. The rest of you, wait down here. When one of them comes down, one of you can head on up for your turn. Got it?" he asked.

The campers nodded.

"And Nick stays down here to keep an eye on the rest of you," Luat said. "Remember what we taught you at the climbing wall back at camp. This is the same thing, only higher and longer."

"And just as boring," Zan said to himself.

He watched the first group wearing climbing harnesses, decelerators, and helmets climb a diagonal path to the top of the slope.

Twenty minutes later, he heard shouted commands far above. He looked up to see Oliver hang his butt out over the ledge. Oliver pushed off and slowly slid down the rope like a spider dropping from the ceiling.

"Ooow, sweet!" a camper on the ground said.

"I can't wait for my turn," said another.

Zan shook his head. He wandered across the tracks toward the sound of the rushing rapids. There was also another sound: voices. They were calling, laughing, and whooping.

Looking down and to his left, Zan saw two guys and a girl standing at the water's edge. They wore red life jackets. The girl held a helmet at her side.

One of the guys stepped forward. He paused. He waved to his friends and then jumped into the current. He bounced and twirled, sliding around rocks. One time, his head disappeared behind a wall of water.

At one point, he swam and kicked to get to one side of a huge boulder in the middle of the river. Then he relaxed and coasted to a spot of quiet water a little way downstream. He climbed out and followed a slanting path up the slope, almost to the railroad tracks. He began walking back toward his friends.

When he came closer, Zan said, "That looks like fun."

"Sure is!" the guy answered between deep breaths. Water was still running off his curly blond hair and down through his beard.

"How come you were swimming so hard at that one part?" Zan asked.

"Don't want to get sucked into the toilet bowl, do you?" the guy answered.

"Huh?" Zan asked.

"That whirlpool on the other side of the big rock," the Canadian said. "It can suck you down if you get pulled to the wrong side of the rock."

Zan studied the current that piled up the front edge of the boulder, like a big cushion that spilled off to either side.

"You have to plot a line in your mind before you start, eh?" the Canadian went on. "Like, I'm going to go on the inside of that rock and the far side of that one. Then swim like mad to stay away from the eddy on the back side of the big rock. Right?"

Zan nodded. "Can I take a run?" he asked.

"Yeah. Why not?" the Canadian answered.

Zan shrugged out of his shirt, kicked off his sandals, and followed the man.

Knee-deep in the shallows, he shivered. It was partly because the water was icy, partly because the damp life jacket was cold, and partly because the river roared like traffic on a freeway and he was about to jump into the middle of it.

Can do, Zan, he told himself. You've learned how to swim, how to relax in the water. Just because you're going to be tossed around like a sock in a washing machine is no reason to chicken out.

"Can do," he mouthed, as he ducked his head and jumped into the current.

He opened his eyes to see the riverbanks twirling around him.

"Yee Ha!" he shouted.

He was spinning and side-slipping as the powerful rush of the river pushed him around rocks and into blue valleys of white water shooting high over his head.

"Sweet!" he started to shout, when a spout of water burst in his face.

Zan gagged and coughed, fighting for breath. The big rock loomed ahead. Still coughing, Zan tried to kick and stroke for the safe side, the shore side.

Too late.

The current shoved him up against the boulder and rolled him around to the left. In the moment before he was swept into the whirlpool, Zan remembered Dayton, the swimming instructor, telling him to stop fighting the water. He needed to relax, to find the flow. So he took a deep breath, let his arms and legs go loose, and imagined he was on a tilt-a-whirl carnival ride.

Closing his eyes, he felt himself going around, banging into the side of the boulder. Another spin.

This is what bugs must feel when I flush them down the toilet, Zan thought.

Thump. Scrape. He rolled along the boulder again.

Stay calm, he told himself. It's got to end soon. I need air. I need air.

He opened his eyes, pushed down with his arms, and kicked with his legs. He rose, soaring toward the light. Then he shot out of the water, gulping huge mouthfuls of air. Before he could get his sense of direction, his feet touched bottom in the still water five steps from the bank. He had done it.

Zan sat on the shore with his knees to his chest, breathing heavily.

I don't want to try that again, he thought. But I did it! Ha!

"Hey, punk," a deep voice growled behind him.

Lazelle.

"Gimme the jacket," the bully demanded.

"You gotta talk to those guys," Zan said. He pointed upstream to the Canadians. "Besides, it's dangerous."

"Just hand it over, Toe Jam," Lazelle said.

He pushed Zan onto his back before unsnapping the buckles of the life jacket. Then he ran up the path.

Zan shook his head. He headed back to his dry clothes, next to the railroad tracks.

"Hey! Yo!" Lazelle shouted. There was fear in his voice. "Zan!"

Zan turned. Lazelle was pinned up against the big boulder. His legs and arms spread on either side of the rock like a squirrel hanging onto a tree trunk. The wave of water was pounding him.

"Luat!" Zan shouted.

The counselor's bristly, black head appeared above the ledge. Zan pointed across the tracks and out into the river.

Luat jerked his head in anger. "Nick," he shouted. He pointed to a spot fifteen yards up the track, upstream from the rock. "Belay! Over there. I'm coming down."

Nick held up his hands like, Why? What's going on?

Luat's head disappeared behind the the ridge.

"We need to throw a rope to Lazelle," Zan explained. "And Luat needs to get down the bank to the river."

"Oh, man! How did he get out there?" Nick asked. He grabbed two coils of rope and hurried along the tracks toward the spot Luat had pointed to. "We need something to anchor these ropes. Like trees, or a big rock."

Zan thought fast. He grabbed a stick and poked stones from under the railroad track farthest from the river.

"Yeah, that'll do," Nick said.

He knelt, shoved a rope under and around the track, and tied it off. Then he sat between the tracks with his feet on the rail nearest the water. He was ready to pay out rope to Luat.

Zan jogged back to the path that led to the backwater downstream. When he got to the water's edge, he stopped to watch Luat and Nick work together.

"Belay on?" Luat called out in climbing code.

"On belay!" Nick shouted back.

"Rappelling!" Luat called.

"Rappel on!" Nick answered.

Luat's body seemed to bounce off the rocks as he pushed off from boulder to boulder on his way to the water's edge. Once there, he swung the rope over his head and threw it out over the river. It landed only a few yards from shore and quickly sank.

Zan climbed over rocks and tree limbs toward Luat.

"Hey! Yo! Hurry up. I'm getting tired," Lazelle called.

Zan grabbed a hunk of driftwood the size of a baseball bat and handed it to Luat. The counselor stared at him. How had he got down so soon without a rope?

"Water ski," Zan said.

Luat stared. Then his eyes widened and he nodded. He tied the end of the rope around the middle of the stick, swung it around his head twice, then launched it far out into the current. The rope and log floated toward Lazelle the way a water skiing rope circles a fallen skier.

When the rope hit Lazelle's legs, Lazelle grabbed the stick and jammed it under his armpit. He clamped his arms back around the rock. Luat pulled in the rope until it made a straight line.

"Ready?" Luat shouted.

Lazelle nodded his head.

"On the count of three, I'll pull and you jump. Okay?" Luat called.

Lazelle nodded again.

Luat sat, bracing his feet against a large rock. "One! Two! Three!" he shouted, and tugged hard on the rope.

Lazelle jumped toward the shore. He went under and popped back up, spitting water. The rope tightened and Lazelle swung in an arc, like a water skier behind a circling boat.

Luat pulled with all his might trying to bring Lazelle in. "Help me!" he called to Zan, as he struggled against the full force of the current.

Zan shrugged. "Just let him go," he said. "He's safe now. He'll wash into the quiet water down there."

Again, Luat stared. Then he nodded and let the rope go. Lazelle rolled over backwards and came up spluttering in the shallow water.

"How come you know so much?" Luat asked Zan. "And how come your shorts are wet?"

"Maybe I wet my pants worrying about poor Lazelle," Zan teased.