1
This morning I woke up with a kitten’s backside on my face and her claws digging into my chest. Just for the record, this is not a great way to wake up.
“Get off!” I yelled. Then I remembered where I was. I couldn’t let Diablo and Bob, my tentmates, see Fang, so I pretended I was just yawning really loud. “Awwwwwwwhhh,” I fake yawned.
I whispered, “Fang, get off me!” and gently pried her claws off my T-shirt as I sat up in my bunk.
The noise of my shout must have woken Igor. He’s a light sleeper.
“Urgh, urgh, urgh?” he mumbled sleepily and scratched his bald head.
“It’s Fang,” I whispered. “Something freaked her out. Maybe we should check?”
I got up, slipped on my sneakers, put on my white evil-scientist coat and headed to the front of the tent. Igor pulled a ski hat over his head and followed, looking like a sleepwalking mountain. He’s a big guy. Fang leaped into the pocket of my coat as we left the tent.
It was only five a.m. and it was just starting to get light out there, but as soon as we looked outside, we could tell why Fang’s danger sense had kicked in. Shadows were moving around by the other tents. People in what looked like hazmat suits like you would wear to avoid contamination or something were spraying the area around the tents.
“Urgh, urgh urgh urgh?” Igor whispered.
“Good plan.” I nodded. “You go that way and I’ll go this way.”
As we panned out around the circle of tents, I overheard a couple of the people in suits talking.
“We’ve sprayed the outside perimeter. He’s not going in any of the tents, so we don’t have to worry about those,” said one of them.
“Paranoid, if you ask me,” the other guy said.
“When you’re that rich you can be that paranoid too,” the first guy added.
That’s when we saw Geeky Girl come out of a tent across the clearing.
“Hey, do you have permission to do that?” Geeky Girl shouted into a megaphone.
A very tired-looking kid who usually woke us in the morning with the megaphone (or the bugle) followed her out of the tent, saying, “Can I have my megaphone back now, please?”
“No!” Geeky Girl said into the megaphone, then winced and lowered it. “Um, sorry,” she said to the kid next to her, this time without the megaphone, “I’m still using it.”
She lifted the megaphone and turned back to the hazmat guys. “You are on private Camp Mwhaaa-haa-ha-a-watha land and you should cease and desist!” she shouted again.
Fang stirred in my pocket like she was getting ready to pounce. I held her down.
“What?” the first guy in the hazmat suit shouted back.
Ezmirelda stepped up with Lucky, her guard Komodo dragon, at her side. He was licking his mouth in that “Oooh, I’m a little hungry for trespassers” kinda way.
“She means GO NOW.” She paused. “My dragon is lookin’ kinda hungry.”
“We’re done anyway,” the second guy said and they ran off toward a van that was parked by the front entrance.
Geeky Girl gave the kid his megaphone back and ran over to Igor and me. Ezmirelda stomped over with Lucky.
“Well, that was a weird way to start the day?” I said as Fang climbed up my coat and onto my shoulder.
“Urgh, urgh, urgh, urgh?” Igor said.
“I don’t know who they were but they were saying that ‘he was paranoid’ and ‘if you’re that rich you can be that paranoid too,’” I said.
“Wait, Dr. Cyberbyte is due this morning, right?” Geeky Girl said.
“Urgh,” Igor answered.
“Dr. Cyberbyte is a complete germophobe. I’ve heard that he once decontaminated an entire fifty-story building before he would stop to use the bathroom,” Geeky Girl said.
“And since when are you all up on the Evil Scientist gossip?” I said.
“I’m not,” she said. “I just like to research who’s coming to camp so I don’t get surprised like last time.”
“Urgh, urgh, urgh,” Igor said.
“No, I don’t have any more famous Evil Scientists in my family,” she said. “One is definitely enough. But I think this week could be challenging, finally, from a tech point of view. Dr. Cyberbyte might give us a global programming problem or we might work with cutting-edge AI?”
“Wow, you have been looking up Cyberbyte,” I said. “Hey, I’m all for an epic challenge but not this early.”
“Urgh, urgh, urgh,” Igor agreed.
“Yeah, me too. I want to still be asleep,” I said.
“And not woken by some weirdos in space suits spraying the camp,” Ezmirelda grumbled and stomped off again.
“Urgh, urgh, urgh,” Igor said.
“Yeah, she’s not a morning person.” I nodded and we turned to head toward the mess tent to get a snack. “You want some breakfast, Fang?” She jumped into my pocket again and licked her mouth.
“OK, he may be paranoid about germs and stuff, but Dr. Cyberbyte is still going to be a completely epic evil judge of the week,” I said.
“He’s certainly successful,” Geeky Girl said. “He has so many computer patents and programs that he created. The man is a genius.”
“Urgh, urgh,” Igor added.
“Correct,” I said. “Evil genius.”
“Oh, somebody is talking about me,” we heard Sanj say behind us.
Text copyright © 2021 by Mo O’Hara
Illustrations copyright © 2021 by Marek Jagucki
