The Worst Class Trip Ever (12 page)

He stopped, about to cry. We could hear somebody saying something to him, but we couldn’t make out what it was. Matt nodded, swallowed, and said, “Wyatt,
please
, don’t
tell the police. Promise, okay? They’re listening.”

“Okay,” I said. “I promise we won’t tell the police.”

And then Cameron’s face was gone.

I said, “Cameron? Hello?”

But the call was over.

I looked at Suzana. “Now what?”

“I don’t know,” she said, for the second time. “For now I guess we should go back to the hotel, before they figure out we’re missing.”

“We’re just gonna leave Cameron?” said Matt.

“We’re going to figure out how to get him out,” said Suzana. “But we’re not going to do something stupid now and get him hurt.”

“I still think we should call the police,” said Matt.

“You just heard me promise I wouldn’t,” I said. “We made the same deal when they had you, and we got you out, didn’t we?”

“Yeah,” said Matt. But he didn’t sound convinced.

The truth was, I wasn’t convinced either. But I’d made a promise.

“Okay, then,” said Suzana. “Back to the hotel.”

W
e made it back to the hotel and snuck up to the room without any trouble. Victor was still awake, looking worried. We told him what happened with
Matt and Cameron at the weird guys’ house, which made him look more worried.

“So now they have Cameron,” he said.

“Yeah,” I said.

“This is bad,” he said.

“What do you mean?”

“My dad called me,” he said. “Really late. He had a lot more questions about the picture of the jammer I sent him. He wanted to know where exactly on the Internet I saw it. I
made up a story about how I didn’t actually see it on the Internet myself, but somebody sent it to me and I didn’t know where they got it but I would try to find out.”

“Why’s he so interested?” said Suzana.

“The picture I sent him. He showed it to some people where he works, military intelligence people. They blew it up and enhanced it and they could read the serial number. There aren’t
many of those things. And they knew exactly which one this one was. It was stolen off a helicopter in Afghanistan, and they’ve been trying to track it down because they really,
really
don’t want this technology to get out. So according to their informants it was sold to a guy who sold it to another guy who sold it to another guy in Miami. And that’s where they lost
the trail.”

“So that’s why the weird guys were in Miami,” I said. “They were getting the box.”

“Yeah,” said Victor. “And speaking of them, I’ve been doing some more research about Gadakistan, and—”

“About whatistan?” said Matt.

“Gadakistan,” said Suzana. “That’s where those guys are from.”

“So anyway,” said Victor, “remember I told you the leader of Gadakistan is a guy named Gorban Brevalov?”

Suzana and I nodded.

“Well, guess who’s going to be visiting the White House?”

“Seriously?” said Suzana.

“Yes.”

“When?”

“Tomorrow. Actually, now it’s today. This afternoon.”

“So that’s why they’re here,” I said.

“Looks like it,” said Victor.

“Waitwaitwait,” said Matt. “What are we talking about?”

“Okay,” I said. “You missed some stuff. The box you stole from the little guy’s backpack is a jammer. It jams laser-guided missiles, so they miss their targets. We think
these two guys plan to use it to jam the missiles that protect the White House, so they can attack it.”

“Attack it with what?”

“We don’t know that,” said Suzana. “But now we know when. The leader of Gadakistan is going to be at the White House this afternoon. It looks like our guys are planning
to attack it then.”

“But they’re from Gadakistan too,” said Matt. “Why would they attack when their leader is there?”

“Because they’re against him,” said Victor. “They belong to a rebel group Ranaba Umoka. It means
Dragon Head
, which must be why they were carrying one.
They—”

“Wait a minute,” I said.

Victor looked at me.

“Suzana and I saw it tonight,” I said. “The dragon head.”

“Where?”

“At the house where they were keeping Matt. In the backyard. Attached to a dragon.”

“What?”
said Victor.

“Yeah,” said Suzana. “There’s this giant weird dragon made of nylon or something.”

“Why would they have a dragon?” I said.

“Maybe they’re going to use it in one of those Chinese parades,” Matt said. “You know, where a bunch of people march inside a giant dragon puppet.”

“Oh yeah, I’ve seen those,” I said. “Hey, maybe that’s how they’re planning to attack the White House!”

“Yeah, right,” said Suzana. “Because the Secret Service would
totally
let a giant dragon puppet with people under it march right up to the White House.”

It did sound pretty stupid when she put it that way.

Victor was staring at us.

“Is it heavy?” he said.

“Is what heavy?” I said.

“The dragon. Did you try to lift it?”

“Actually, I did, a little,” I said. “It’s not heavy at all. In fact it’s really light.”

“Why does that matter?” said Suzana.

Instead of answering, Victor tapped his computer for a few seconds. Then he said, “Okay, this is from the Wikipedia article on Gadakistan: ‘Among the most popular traditional
activities are kite-building and kite-flying. Many villages pride themselves on creating large, elaborate kites which are entered in regional and national competitions.’” He looked up
at us. “I bet the dragon is a kite.”

“It’s pretty big,” said Suzana.

“Kites can be big,” said Victor.

“Wait a minute,” said Matt. “You think they’re going to attack the
White House
with a
kite
?”

“I think it’s possible,” said Victor.

“But this is the
White House
,” said Matt. “You don’t think they’ll notice a couple of weird guys lurking around there with a giant dragon kite?”

“Maybe not,” said Victor, “if there’s a whole bunch of
other
big kites around.”

We all looked at him. I snapped my fingers.

“When we went by the Washington Monument,” I said. “Those guys were flying those big kites.”

“Right,” said Victor. “Gene said there was going to be a big kite festival on the Ellipse. It’s right next to the White House.”

Suzana said, “Okay, but how much damage can they do with a kite? Even a big one?”

“A lot,” said Victor. “If it’s carrying a bomb.”

“It could carry a bomb?”

“I bet it could,” I said. “One of the kites we saw near the Washington Monument lifted a guy off the ground.”

“So that’s their plan,” said Suzana. “They’re going to use their dragon kite to bomb the White House.”

“I think it makes sense,” said Victor.

“So we tell somebody this, right?” said Matt. “Like the Secret Service?”

“Wrong,” said Suzana. “First of all, I don’t think the Secret Service would take us seriously. I bet people are always calling them and making crazy threats.
They’re not going to believe some kids with a story about a kite. And secondly, we can’t risk having those guys hurt Cameron.”

“So what do we do?” I said.

“We stop them,” she said. “We know what they plan to do, and we know when they plan to do it.”

“Maybe,” said Victor. “But even if we’re right, how do we stop them?”

I knew exactly what Suzana was going to say, and I was exactly right.

“We’ll figure that out when we get there,” she said. “The main thing now is, we should try to get some sleep. It’s really late, and we’re going to be busy
tomorrow.”

Which turned out to be the understatement of the year.

I
fell asleep in like two seconds, but I had a bunch of dreams, all bad. In the last one I was being chased by a giant flying dragon, which caught
me in its mouth and started shaking me. Fortunately, before it could kill me, it turned into Victor. Unfortunately, Victor wasn’t in the dream; he was the real Victor, shaking me and telling
me to get up.

“Really?” I said. I could have slept for a week.

“We’re supposed to be at breakfast by eight,” he said, heading for the door with Matt.

I looked at my phone and groaned:
7:55
. I got dressed as fast as I could and ran down to the dining room, where Victor, Matt, and Suzana had saved a seat for me at a table for four. We
were all too tired to care about the fact that the entire eighth grade was now openly speculating on how it could be possible that Suzana Delgado, goddess, seemed to be voluntarily spending all her
time with the Dork Patrol.

“Nice of you to join us,” said Suzana.

“Do we have a plan yet?” I said.

Suzana looked at Victor.

“As far as I can tell from the news stories on the Internet,” he said, “Brevalov will be meeting the president at three o’clock, and after that they’re going to have
a press conference outside in the Rose Garden.”

“So they’ll be outside sometime after three,” said Matt. “Which is when those guys will use the kite bomb.”

I said, “And our plan is…”

“We go to the Ellipse at, say, two thirty,” said Suzana. “We find the kite guys, and we stop them.”

“How?”

“However we have to. Cut the kite string, tackle them…”

“
Tackle
them?”

“Whatever it takes. At that point we could probably even tell the police, since they’d both probably be there, which means they couldn’t do anything to Cameron. And
they’ll have the bomb.”

“Suzana, I don’t know. That one guy’s pretty huge.”

“But there’s four of us.”

“Yeah, but…”

“But what? Are you scared?”

I looked down. “I guess I am,” I said.

“I am, too,” said Matt. “If it makes you feel any better.”

It didn’t, but I appreciated the gesture.

“Well, if you’re afraid,” said Suzana, “you don’t have to go.”

“No,” I said, “I’m going.” At that moment I realized I had managed to do the worst possible thing, which was commit myself to maybe getting killed by the Gadakistan
maniacs and
still
look like a coward to Suzana.

Suzana looked at Victor. “What’s the class trip schedule today?”

Victor looked at his phone, where he had the schedule. “After breakfast we go to the National Zoo.”

“Why’re we going to a zoo?” said Matt. “We already have a zoo in Miami.”

“The one here has pandas,” said Victor.

“So?”

“So for some reason everybody makes this huge deal about pandas. I don’t know why. They never actually do anything except eat and poop. But they’re really famous.”

“Yeah,” said Suzana. “They’re like the Kardashians of zoo animals.”

“So after the zoo, then what?” I said.

Victor looked at his phone again. “We eat lunch at noon at the zoo. Box lunches.”

“Again?” said Suzana.

“I’d rather eat panda poop,” I said.

“Hey,” said Suzana, “judging from the other box lunches, that might be what we get.”

“Then at one,” said Victor, ignoring us, “we take the bus to our next thing, which is…a tour of the U.S. Capitol. Which is kind of like the zoo, when you think about
it.”

“Okay,” said Suzana. “We’ll ride the bus from the zoo to the Capitol. Then we’ll escape from the class trip, go to the Ellipse, and stop the kite guys.”

“Won’t they eventually notice we’re not on the Capitol tour?” said Matt.

“Yeah,” said Suzana. “But by the time they notice, it’ll be over, and we’ll be able to explain that we had to do whatever we end up doing.”

Whatever
that
meant.

We finished breakfast and got on the bus. This time Suzana didn’t even have to ask Mr. Barto to open her window; he just did it. She totally had him trained.

I almost fell asleep on the bus ride to the zoo. I felt like I hadn’t really slept since the class trip started. Which was more or less true.

The zoo was okay, I guess. It was definitely better than walking around inside another giant stone building. The day was sunny, but cooler than the past few days, with a steady breeze
blowing.

We saw the famous pandas, or at least one of them. It was eating leaves the whole time I watched. At least it didn’t poop.