Campers Rarely Drown at the YMCA

By Janna Miller

At camp, Julie told me I had to let her scratch my arms until they bled to be friends, and Julie told me to get lost in the woods or she wouldn’t talk to me, and Julie told me to do something I forget what, but I signed up for a canoe trip before she finished and I tumbled out because some counselor thought it would be funny to rock the boat and sent us into the river, where sharks ate at my feet. They sometimes swam this far inland to feed, and I screamed and tried to throw myself into the submerged boat until the other counselor told me to not be an asshole, her voice rising nearly as high as mine. After that, the sharks just nibbled on the ends of my sneakers. Someone rowed by and made us swim to the end of a private dock, and the counselor who dumped us said a manatee knocked us over, and I thought maybe it was a manatee that wanted my feet, but probably the counselor lied. When we dripped up the boat ramp, some campers clapped, but Julie laughed because I got stuck in the river like a baby and if I wanted to be her friend, I had to do a double back flip into the pool. Before the counselor yelled at me, I would have done it, but Julie hadn’t been called an asshole or fed to sharks in the river, so I swam over to some other girl she hated and we played all afternoon, Julie floating by herself, no one left to bring her ashore.

Librarian, mother, and minor trickster, Janna has published in SmokeLong Quarterly, Cheap Pop, Whale Road Review, Necessary Fiction, Best Microfiction 2023, and others. Her story collection, All Lovers Burn at the End of the World, is forthcoming from SLJ Editions in 2024. Generally, if the car overheats, it is not her fault. Visit her website and follow Janna on Twitter: @ScribblerMiller.

Photo credit: Jamin Gray via a Creative Commons license.

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