Babes in the Woods

By Chris Lynch

The He-Man Women Haters Club is about to discover something more terrifying than girls: camping!In this follow-up to Johnny Chesthair, thirteen-year-old Steven has been ousted as the leader of the club he formed for boys only. As the members reorganize under new leader Jerome, Steven’s father and uncle decide to take the boys into a real man’s world—a place where men can be men: the deep woods! Now, Steven, Ling-Ling, Wolfgang, and Jerome must deal with eating bugs, a paintball war, and a wild storm. To make it through the weekend, the He-Men will need to man up!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Media
• Release date: Mar 26, 2013
• ISBN: 9781480404625

Chris Lynch

Chris Lynch is the award–winning author of several highly acclaimed young adult novels, including Printz Honor Book Freewill, Iceman, Gypsy Davey, and Shadow Boxer—all ALA Best Books for Young Adults—as well as Killing Time in Crystal City, Little Blue Lies, Pieces, Kill Switch, Angry Young Man, and Inexcusable, which was a National Book Award finalist and the recipient of six starred reviews. Chris is the author of middle grade novel Walkin’ the Dog. He holds an MA from the writing program at Emerson College. He teaches in the creative writing MFA program at Lesley University. He lives in Boston and in Scotland.

Book preview

Babes in the Woods

The He-Man Women Haters Club

Chris Lynch

Contents

1 Me and the Boys

2 Man’s World

3 Jerk Chicken

4 If and When

5 I’m Game

6 Big Shots

7 Slugfest

8 Lundquist Lodge

9 Power Play

10 Party till You Drop

11 The Posse

12 The Code

A Biography of Chris Lynch

Preview: Scratch and the Sniffs

1 Me and the Boys

FIRST OFF, LET’S SET the record straight: We don’t truly hate women. We just don’t really know any up close and personal.

And we don’t want to know any.

Steven came up with the name. Steven used to be in charge of the He-Man Women Haters Club until the strain of command broke him like a twig and I had to take over. It was the saddest thing you ever saw, Steven falling apart and heaving up his guts right there on TV. We were invited there to show the world just how butch a group of thirteen-year-olds could be, and then, he just lost it.

He used to be one of the greats. He was the inspiration for the whole club (even though I was the actual idea man, but we’ll get to the whole brains-brawn thing in a minute). Then he was publicly, sadistically pulled apart by a girl. It was enough to make a He-Man cry, except that we He-Men do not, under any circumstances, cry.

Okay, one of us does. His name is Ling-ling. But we’re working on him. Ling’s a great big guy who wears military getup and reads The X-Men and Soldier of Fortune, but he’s really a toasted marshmallow—singed and crusted on the outside, pure sticky goo on the inside. Like I said, Ling’s a project.

He-Man Wolfgang is not a project. Wolfgang is a kid in a wheelchair who has a pretty good attitude about being in a wheelchair, and a pretty bad attitude about everything else. He doesn’t obey our phony-baloney rules (we’ve got millions of them), he doesn’t admit to liking any of us, he always seems like he’s not more than two insults away from the next fistfight, and it is clear within three minutes of meeting him that nothing about the kid is likely to ever change even if he lives to be thirty or forty years old.

I’m set, I’m finished, I’m complete, was Wolf’s response when I asked him to try and become more of a team player under my leadership than he had been for Steven. I’m just waiting on some body hair right now, and once that kicks in, I’m all through developing. (Oh ya—body hair is a sort of unofficial club obsession. But again, more on that later.)

By now you might want to know who I am.

Well, I’m going to tell you anyway.

I’m Jerome. I’m the brains of the operation. Now, before we get all excited about that, I should say that being the brains of the He-Man Women Haters Club is sort of like having the best tan in Siberia. We’re not going to compete on College Bowl, I can tell you that. On the other hand, the club does specialize in something I, Jerome, have never specialized in.

Macho.

Whatever the heck that is. These guys are just dripping with it.

But I’m desperate for it. Wolf is hard and mean, Ling is big and military, Steven is—

I can’t even say it. I want to be like him, but then, I don’t. I’ve always had trouble with this part.

No, Steven, I cannot bring myself to say it.

Sure you can. Jerome, you’ll never achieve it if you can’t even say it. Say it.

We were on the phone. I was newly elected as leader of the club—a hostile takeover—and I was trying to bring Steven back into the fold. He was making me work for it.

Is this really necessary, Steven? I asked. We all know what you are.

I’m waiting.

Fine. Johnny Chesthair. You’re a real Johnny Chesthair kind of a guy, all right?

All right, he said. I’ll be at the clubhouse tomorrow.

As soon as I hung up, I spun around to my computer keyboard and keyed in one more note on my Rules file: There will only be one Johnny Chesthair at a time. As soon as I, Jerome, become a Johnny Chesthair kind of a guy, I will forbid anyone to call me Johnny Chesthair, thus, retiring the name Johnny Chesthair forever.

2 Man’s World

YO, CHILDREN, C’MERE AND see something special, Lars called.

Lars is the owner of the auto body shop that houses the immobilized black 1956 Lincoln that is the home office of the He-Man Women Haters Club. Lars is also Steven’s uncle, and something of a caveman.

No, we don’t want to see any more of your magazines, Lars, I called.

It ain’t magazines.

Well, we don’t want to see your new metal shears, either.

Wolf, lying on a dolly, slid himself out from under the Lincoln. You got new metal shears? he called. Of course we want to see new metal shears.

No, I don’t have any new shears, Lars called. I got something much deadlier and more fun.

Ha, I said, mocking him. "You’ll have to do better than that to lure my men away from …"

Ling was out of the car and practically sprinting toward the office. Wolf, still lying on the dolly, was cruising, backstroking, across the garage just as fast.

Steven walked up to me, grinned in my face, and slapped me harder than necessary on the back.

Don’t you love being in charge? he asked before joining the group.

They were all still getting used to my quiet leadership style.

Come on, guys, I whined as I reluctantly followed them. "Come back now. You’re supposed to follow me."

When I got to the office I froze right there in the doorway. Lars held it up in the air, and my guys stared up at it like they were worshipping.

Awesome, Wolf said.

That is about the coolest thing I ever saw, Steven said.

Give it to me, Ling said, spooky serious, taking one semi-lunging step toward Lars. Lars looked worried for a second.

"Is that … a crossbow?" I asked in amazement.

Lars smiled, took a seat behind his desk, and propped the thing up in his lap. As he spoke, he stroked the weapon like it was a big bony dog.

It is a crossbow, he pronounced.

I didn’t even think they made those anymore. What did you have to do to get it, time-travel back to the Dark Ages? Visit some frozen-in-time country in Europe?

Lars looked up at the thing as if he were speaking to it instead of to me. New Hampshire, he chirped.

Can we play with it? Steven asked.

Ya, Wolf said. Let us shoot a car or a cat or something.

Lars just shook his head, jokingly putting the crossbow behind his back.

Ling followed it everywhere with his eyes. "Give it to me," he said. Even Wolfgang stared at Ling a little nervously now.

Lars, I said, trying to pull things back to sanity. (I was the leader, after all.) "Can you tell me something: What do you do with a thing like that?"

He shrugged, as if the question were so ridiculous it was a shock to even hear it. Ya shoot with it, little man.

Can I shoot something? Wolf pleaded.

Give it to me, Ling suggested strongly.

But myself, Lars said, ignoring everybody but him and his little pointed friend, I like to fish with it.

Fish-kabob, Wolf laughed.

Exactly, Lars said. "I knew you’d understand. You’re a pistol, kid."

"I am. But