The Camp Crowfeather Mystery

Quinn Compton sat at the back of the yellow bus, trying not to worry. He was on his way to summer camp for the first time and he’d been told that he was going to have a great time and there was nothing to worry about. The thing was that all he could think about were things to worry about, so it was getting really hard not to worry about any of them. He looked out the window of the bus at all the trees on the side of the road and tried not to worry about all the animals with big teeth that were probably living in there. Especially bears. He was really trying not to worry about bears. He remembered seeing this huge bear on TV that was really mad for some reason, protecting its young, he thought it was. The bear had reared up on its hind legs, sticking its head way out with its mouth wide open so that you could see all its big teeth. Then it had let out this mighty roar that was so loud that he’d reached for the remote to turn the sound down. It had been amazingly scary. Bears in these woods probably had young to protect too, and he didn’t think that the remote would be much use here. And what about all the bugs? He tried to think back to all the pep talks he’d got to try to convince him that going away to camp was a good idea. His mother had mostly focused on making sure that he didn’t feel that sending him to camp was a way to try to get rid of him. He didn’t really think that anyway, so it was fair to say that her pep talk had worked. It just wasn’t very helpful when it came to animals with big teeth. So he went back to worrying. And what about all the kids? They’d probably all been to camp lots of times and there’d be no one else like him, the only one who’d never been to any kind of camp in his entire life. How was he ever going to fit in? And what about all the bugs? He reached into his jacket pocket and put his hand on the thing inside. He was tempted to take it out, but he didn’t want anybody else to see it. His tutor OnTime had given it to him when he’d told him how worried he was going to camp for the first time. OnTime was a great guy. Quinn’s Mom had hired him to try to stop Quinn from being late for everything all the time, which had been a real problem. OnTime had lived up to his nickname on that one; Quinn was never late any more and his marks had gone way up. But OnTime had shown Quinn a lot of other cool stuff too and one thing about him was that he never seemed to worry about anything. Quinn wanted to know why that was, especially at a time like this. So the day before he left for camp, he asked him. What was his secret? Why didn’t OnTime ever worry? “I don’t know. I just don’t think about it.” That was what he said and he realized right away that it wasn’t the answer that Quinn was looking for. He tried repeating it. “Seriously. Just don’t think about it.” Quinn just didn’t think that this was going to work for him. He always thought about things like that. “But what about bears?” “Just don’t think about them. If you start thinking about them, just stop.” “Okay,” said Quinn. He was thinking that this was going to be a lot easier said than done. “But did you ever go to camp? Did you ever see …” He was going to say ‘bears’ but he stopped himself. “Yeah, I went to camp every summer and I had a great time. I loved it.” He gave Quinn a look. “And I never saw any …” Then he laughed and he reached into his backpack and fished around for a while. He always had a lot of stuff in his backpack. When he found what he was looking for he took it out and handed it to Quinn. “This guy is going to help you a lot.” Quinn looked at what he was now holding in his hand. It was a bobblehead. “Do you know who that is?” Quinn shook his head. “That’s Satchel Paige. Do you know who he is?” Quinn shook his head again. “Google him. You’ll find out. Do you know what he knows?” Quinn shook his head one more time. He was starting to feel a little like a bobblehead himself. “He knows not to worry. He knows that people spend way too much time worrying about things that are never going to happen anyway. He knows just not to think about it.” OnTime pointed. “You see? He’s smiling, because he knows. He’s not worrying about anything. Quinn looked at the bobblehead. He did have a smile painted on his face. “If you start to worry about something, just ask Satchel the question.” He laughed a little. “And then tap his head. Sideways. It’s important to tap sideways.” He laughed again. “Go ahead. Try it.” Quinn looked down at the bobblehead and then he held him up a little so that his head could move. Then he said, “Should I worry about going to camp?” Then he tapped his head, sideways. Satchel Paige kept smiling as his head shook from side to side. “You see? There’s your answer! Satchel knows!” OnTime was laughing really loud now. “Now try it about the ‘you know what’.” Quinn knew what he meant. He grinned. “Should I worry about … bears?” He tapped again, sideways. When Satchel’s head started to shake, OnTime started to laugh so hard that he had to lean on Quinn’s shoulder to stop from falling over. Quinn had to laugh too. It was just so stupid. Satchel Paige didn’t laugh; he just kept smiling. “Now there’s something else that he knows. It’s something that he’s famous for saying.” OnTime touched the bobblehead. “You’ll notice that Satchel’s head can’t turn all the way backwards. That’s because of the thing that Satchel Paige always said.” “What was that?” Quinn could tell that OnTime wanted him to ask.