From the book:
"Miller!"
he muttered as he headed towards Cabin 13. "Miller!"
A
steadily increasing roar met his ears as he ran. The general noise separated
itself into individual shouting voices and falling furniture. He put on a burst
of speed, rounded the sports equipment shed and stopped short.
Cabin
13 was teeming, both inside and out, with pajama-clad boys merrily swinging
at watch other with pillows amid a snowstorm of feathers. The ruckus had grown,
and by now most of the camp was involved.
Chip's
anguished eyes caught sight of two figures sitting passively on the
grass. He charged up, howling, "Miller! What's going on here?"
"I
think it's a pillow fight," offered Rudy.
"What
are you doing out here?"
"I
don't fight," said Rudy evenly.
"What
started this?" cried Chip frantically.
"It
was all Harold Greene's fault," tattled Rudy. "He jumped on Adam for
no reason at all."
Arms
flailing wildly, Chip rushed towards his cabin. He could not get near
the door. "Break it up! Break it-!" He was hit full in the face with
a pillow which exploded and sent more feathers flying everywhere.
Chip came up sneezing and blowing short blasts on his whistle. Now on
his hands and knees, he made another attempt to get inside Cabin 13,
sneezing and howling madly.
Rudy
pointed towards the mess hall. "Look. A thundering herd of clones," he observed.
"Now the feathers will really fly."
Mike,
who had not stopped laughing since Harold Greene's fall, could not
reply.
The
ground trembled and whistles shrilled as the counselors hurled themselves into
the heart of the ruckus. For the next few minutes the area boiled like a volcano.
Pillows shot around like lightning bolts, and the feathers were so thick they
obstructed all vision. Then, slowly, the riot began to peter out. Still, it
was a full ten minutes before the air cleared and silence fell.
Slowly,
and with much effort, Chip got to his feet. His face flaming red, he walked
through the crowd, which parted in front of him, sensing the intensity of his
emotions. Still he walked, until he was directly facing the side wall of the
cabin. He stared at it for what seemed like a long time. Then he threw his head
back, roared his anger to the sky, lifted his foot and dealt the cabin a mighty
kick.
Crack!
A
large chunk of the cabin wall splintered away and fell inside the
building. A long, jagged split appeared in the wall itself, extending
from the hole all the way up to the window.
The
window frame came loose and the glass shattered. The split divided
into a number of smaller cracks which spidered through the wood up to
the roof. A lone roof single jarred loose and fell to the ground,
landing at Chip's feet with a soft thud. He looked down at it
incredulously as the breeze whistled softly through the gaping hole
in the cabin.
There
was an awful silence.
"Say,"
came the dry voice of Rudy Miller, "it looks as if we're going to
have to sleep in the trees after all."
Copyright © 1982 Gordon Korman used by permission
Rudy Miller hates camp, so when his school guidance counselor misguides his parents into sending him to Camp Algonkian Island, he is determined not to make the best of it. Thrown in with a cabin of boys who want nothing more than to play sports all summer long and a smiling robot-like counselors, Rudy sets about being his own man.
Whether by making snide comments about the camp founder's bow-legs, playing chess instead of the scheduled activities, or making a salaté for his counselor ("Its French, Chip; it means dirt!"), Rudy Miller will not fit in. Instead of singing campfire songs at night, he is plotting various ways to escape Camp Algonkian Island. When he is not serving punishment time in the mess hall or lugging garbage to the trash heap, he is working to destroy the camp.
The only time he'll participate in camp activities is when it will further his own plans for escape, plans to make the Algonkian Island counselors look like fools. And when a badly planned wager leaves Rudy in charge of the camp for a day, the campers will either kill him or laud him as a hero!