by Mac Barnett
Now that was saying something.
Niles walked over to the creek and stared at the water for a while.
Then he walked back to the grass.
“Also, you can’t prank a squirrel. That’s not even possible.”
Miles nodded.
“OK,” said Niles. “I’m done. Thanks for listening.”
He sat down and picked up a book he was halfway through. But Niles read only a few sentences before he checked the time and snapped the book shut.
“Gotta go,” he said. “I’ll be back.”
Some days, when they were in the forest, Niles would disappear for an hour or two in the late afternoon. He never said where he went, and Miles never asked. Miles knew that if he did ask, Niles would tell him. But he also figured if Niles wanted to tell him, he would. Niles liked to keep secrets, even from his best friend. And although Miles was curious, he’d also learned to give Niles the privacy he needed, even if he didn’t really understand why. Anyway, during that summer they saw each other almost every day, all day. If Miles was being honest, it was nice to get a break. Niles could be intense.
He listened to the song, to the birds, and to the splashing of the brook. Soon he fell asleep.
When Niles returned two hours later, he entered the glade talking. It was like he’d never left.
Miles opened his eyes.
“You know,” Niles said, “Josh is going to come for that flag.”
Chapter
10
“Or we could just make a new flag!” said Mudflap.
Papa Company was back in their barracks, having a Squadron Meeting, or SQUADMEET. The way Mudflap saw things, making a new flag had two advantages over recovering their old one: They wouldn’t have to spend time out in the wilderness, where there were snakes, and they could put a different animal on the flag, instead of a snake.
“We could grab some art supplies and do it right here, from the comfort of our cabin!”
“Barracks,” said Splinters.
“Right. Barracks. From the comfort of our barracks!”
Their barracks was a cabin, furnished with a row of uncomfortable beds.
Josh couldn’t believe what he was hearing.
“TWENTY PUSH-UPS!” he PLOPped. “That’s an order.”
“Both of us, sir, or just Mudflap?” asked Splinters.
“Just Mudflap, and now you for asking,” said Josh.
Splinters and Mudflap got on the floor and began huffing away at their push-ups.
“There are no art supplies here, Mudflap,” said Josh. “Look at that activity board. Do you see ‘Crafts Time’ up there?”
Mudflap lifted his head to look at the schedule on the wall.
“That’s not proper push-up form!” Josh yelled. “SNAUSAGES! SNAUSAGES!”
SNAUSAGES was another military acronym Josh had made up, which in Papa Company meant “Straight Neck, Arms Under Shoulders, Angle and Get Elbows Straight,” and more generally refers to a popular brand of sausage treats for dogs.
Mudflap laughed and collapsed on the floor.
Josh glared.
The room was utterly silent, except for Mudflap’s loud giggling.
“Something funny?” Josh asked.
“Um, yes, sir,” said Mudflap. “Snausages.”
“Another acronym,” said Splinters, mid-push-up.
“Oh. I was thinking of the sausage treats,” said Mudflap, and he started giggling again.
“Thirty more push-ups. That’s an order. When you’re done, then you can look up at the activity board and see if it says ‘Crafts Time.’ ”
Mudflap started over at one.
Josh waited for him to do thirty push-ups.
Thirty push-ups is a lot.
Especially when people are staring at you.
So it took a long time.
Josh began to regret assigning the extra push-ups.
“Thirty!” said Mudflap.
“That was only twenty-nine,” said Splinters.
Josh punched his bed.
Finally, Mudflap finished, looked at the activity board, and confirmed what you’ve probably guessed: It included “Running Through a Bunch of Tires,” “Extreme Marching,” and “Holding Stuff Above Your Head for a While,” but not “Crafts Time.”
All those push-ups had disrupted the violent momentum Josh had been hoping to generate in this SQUADMEET, so he decided to whip up his troops with a speech. He strode back and forth in the barracks.
“You’re darn right it doesn’t say ‘Crafts Time.’ This is not an art camp. There are no art supplies. This is not a drama camp. There is no drama, except for the drama we are currently involved in, the dramatic war we are waging on a couple of dumb nimbuses in the forest. This is not a canoe-around-a-lake camp. Sure, there is a lake right over there, but there are no canoes! This is a boot camp. We have . . . boots! And we are going to use our boots to kick those nimbuses in their heads!”
Mudflap and Splinters whooped enthusiastically. It was a rousing speech, the kind delivered by important generals standing in front of giant flags. (Unfortunately, their flag had been stolen.)
“Those nimbuses took our flag. And when somebody takes something from you, what do you do? Do you go to an art closet and do an art project? No. Like I already mentioned, we don’t have an art closet. But more importantly, art is for nimbuses! Except for martial arts, which are awesome. Hi-yah!” Josh kicked the wall of the cabin. “When somebody takes something from you, here is what you do: You go and take that something back! And that is what we will do. Every morning before breakfast, every snack time, every activity period, Papa Company will scour the forest for those two thieves. Boys, this is a RECON mission!”
“Is RECON another acronym?” asked Mudflap.
(RECON is not an acronym. It’s short for reconnaissance, because reconnaissance is a tough word to spell correctly.)
“Um,” said Josh. “Yes. Yes, RECON is an acronym. Now—”
“What does it stand for?” asked Splinters.
Josh sighed.
“Well . . . it . . . stands for . . .”
Josh stared at the ceiling of his barracks. He felt instinctively that this was an important test of his leadership. Josh firmly believed that good leaders never admit when they don’t know something. And the fact was, Josh didn’t know what this acronym stood for. (Again, it wasn’t an acronym.) He began to blush a pale plum color. This was a tough spot. What could he do?
“RECON stands for . . . Really . . .”
He was off to a good start!
“Enormous . . . Counterstrike . . .”
O. O. O.
“On . . .”
Aha! Josh was almost there. He screwed up his eyes and willed all his blood to his brain. Josh’s face darkened and became the shade of a turnip. Just one letter left!
His eyes lit up.
The word came to him like a gift from his ancestors, inscribed in his mind with the ballpoint pen of principals past.
“NIMBUSES!”
His cadets nodded.
Brilliant! That was brilliant. Really Enormous Counterstrike On Nimbuses. It was like poetry. Heck, it wasn’t like poetry. It was poetry. Really Enormous Counterstrike On Nimbuses! That was a work of art! And not dumb art, like whatever flag Mudflap wanted to make, but cool art, like karate. The art of leadership. The art of power. The art of war. Josh had to admit, he had a real knack for acronyms. In fact, at that moment, to commemorate his great accomplishment, Josh invented yet another acronym! It was an acronym to help him remember what to do when he didn’t know what an acronym stood for: Deny Ignorance, Make Something Up, Mister, or DIMSUM, which more generally refers to a very tasty cuisine featuring dumplings and steamed buns.
Seeing the unquestioning admiration in his cadets’ eyes, it occurred to Josh that he was a genius. And like many people who think they are geniuses, Josh figured he should probably write a book. It would be a book containing all the military acronyms he had made up. And he would ca
ll it The Art of War, by Josh Barkin. But right now a bugle blew outside the barracks, which meant he had to get changed for swimming.
Chapter
11
The Art of War is already a book and has been for about 2,500 years. It was written by a genius named Sun Tzu, and Niles Sparks had read it. In fact, The Art of War was one of the books he’d brought to the prank lab west, and he was scouring the spines stacked up along the walls of the cave, trying to find it.
“Here it is!”
Of course, it was at the bottom of a column that was almost as tall as Niles, beneath books by Dumas and Pyle and Raskin and Dahl and Babbitt and Gannett and Konigsburg and Adams and Borges and Twain and Shakespeare and Scieszka and Stevenson and Shakespeare and Tolkien and Lewis and Fitzhugh and Malory and Cleary.
“Just my luck,” said Niles.
“It wouldn’t have been a problem if we hadn’t brought out so many books.” Miles was deep into a project, painting a rock white so it looked like a tooth.
“If we hadn’t brought out so many books, we might not have had the right book. This book!”
“Uh-huh,” said Miles.
“So,” said Niles, “will you lift up the rest of these books so I can grab it?”
“Ughhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh,” said Miles, and put down his paintbrush.
“Ughhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh,” Miles continued, walking over to the stack.
“Uggggggggggggggggggggggggggg,” Miles groaned, lifting up thirty-two books. It was a slightly different noise because the books were so heavy.
“Besides,” said Niles, “I don’t really feel comfortable unless I’m surrounded by my books. It helps me think. Good books are like good pranks: They challenge the powerful, they expose the truth, and sometimes they’re funny.”
“Just grab the book, Niles!”
Niles snapped out of his reverie and snatched up The Art of War.
A lot of Sun Tzu’s advice is specifically for ancient Chinese generals—there’s a lot about draft animals and shields—but there’s some good stuff for pranksters in there too.
“Listen to this,” said Niles. “ ‘Lure with bait; Strike with chaos.’ ”
“Cool,” said Miles.
He went back to work on his fake tooth.
Niles wasn’t satisfied with Miles’s “cool” but he continued: “Oh, this is so good: ‘If I do not wish to engage, I can hold my ground with nothing more than a line drawn around it.’ ”
Miles looked up. “Niles, what does all this junk mean?”
Niles walked over to a big map of the forest he and Miles had drawn and hung up in their cave. He took a pencil from behind his ear and drew a circle around their little glade.
“It means,” said Niles, “that we’ve got to build some traps.”
Miles stood up and grinned. “Now we’re talking!”
It took a flashlit night in their cave to plan the fortifications, and ten days to actually build them.
Chapter
12
The woods in summer are full of life. A sharp observer can spot raccoons, opossums, deer, skunks, coyotes, cows (moo), cougars, and, if you’re lucky, school principals.
Look, behind the bushes! There’s one now:
A wonderful specimen! Brand-new boots. Brand-new socks (bright red—power socks). Brand-new shorts and brand-new backpack. A walking stick that was a very old branch, but as a walking stick was brand-new. A brand-new sunburn (purplish).
This principal’s name was Principal Barkin. He was the father of Josh Barkin, and the principal of Yawnee Valley Science and Letters Academy, a school that is not in this book. On this morning, already warm, he leaned on his walking stick and breathed the forest air.
“Ah, wildflowers and cows!” said Principal Barkin to nobody, because he was hiking alone.
He consulted a brand-new compass and a brand-new trail map. He checked the coordinates against a Global Positioning Satellite Hiking Aid, which was very expensive and, yes, brand-new.
“Excellent,” he said. “Yes, yes, precisely as I expected.”
He surveyed the woods and smiled.
Principal Barkin was lost.
But no matter! A principal is never truly lost. In times of uncertainty, a good leader randomly chooses a direction and pursues it boldly, no matter where it leads. This was a lesson he’d learned from his own father, whom he had complicated feelings about, and a lesson he’d passed on to his son, whom he also had complicated feelings about. But enough feeling! More walking. Principal Barkin spun around and pointed his arm out. West!
He grimaced.
It was a rough path.
But west it would have to be! He pulled up his socks and marched forth, singing a new song he’d made up called “The Ballad of the Wandering Principal”:
Fi-diddlee-dee,
No school for me!
It’s summer for school principals!
Yes siree, I’m totally free.
A wandering school principal.
Summertime is here again.
School principals are free.
The birds are singing in the trees
And so are the school principals.
Not in the trees, but on the ground.
School principals cannot fly.
But what if they could? That would be neat!
A high-flying school principal!
Climbing high like state test scores
At a school with a good principal.
I’d flap my arms and fly above
The classrooms and gymnasium.
Students would look up at me
And say, “That man’s my principal.”
And don’t forget the faculty!
And staff! And PTA!
I’d be the pride of the whole school!
School, school, school,
School, school, school—
Good gracious, I miss school.
Principal Barkin was lost in more ways than one.
Over hills and through what he assumed were dales, Principal Barkin wandered through the greenwood till he reached a little stream. With his walking stick, he plumbed its depths.
He murmured disapprovingly.
“Not too deep,” he said. “But these are brand-new socks.”
He scanned up and down the bank, searching for some alternative passage.
“A log!” he exclaimed, startling a family of rabbits. “Thank you, Mother Nature!”
He wobbled as he crossed the log and had to steady himself with his stick. “Look at me!” he cried, once again startling the rabbits, who had just settled back in their burrow. “Crossing a log bridge with a great stick!” For a moment, he felt like a boy again. Not because he’d crossed a lot of log bridges, or held a lot of sticks, as a kid. No, no, nothing of the kind. In fact, Principal Barkin, then known as Little Barry Barkin, had been forbidden from the forest. His father, then known as Principal Barkin, had a saying: “Nature puts humans in contact with the limits of our power, and should therefore be avoided.” But the scene—the stick, the log, the creek—reminded Principal Barkin of the adventure novels he used to read as a boy, late at night, up in his room, books that brought him endless joy—until his father found out and ended the joy, with another saying: “Adventure stories remind us of the hurly-burly that lies beneath the order of everyday life, and are thus unsuitable for children and adults.” His father had donated the books to the library of a rival school.
“I wonder,” Principal Barkin wondered, “if some jolly fellow will emerge from these woods and try to cross this log in the opposite direction. I would knock him on the crown with my walking stick! And then he’d invite me to join his merry band!”
Of course, he wasn’t really expecting a jolly fellow to emerge from the woods, which was good, because one didn’t. The rabbits were the only living creatures within earshot, and they were digging deep into the earth, trying to get as far away from this loud man as possible.
Principal Barkin sighed wistfully and co
ntinued on his journey.
Soon enough, he reached a bramble patch.
“Blackberries!” said Principal Barkin. He checked his compass. Just as he feared: His path west led right through the thorny bushes. “It’s too bad there’s not some sort of secret path to get me safely through these brambles.” (There was one: As you’ve probably guessed, this is the blackberry patch described in chapter 9. Principal Barkin didn’t know about the secret path, though, because it was secret.)
“Ah well!” said Principal Barkin. “I will traverse this briar patch like a fox!” And this he did, suffering many painful nicks and cuts.
“Ouch!” said Principal Barkin. “I’ll just—aw yeep! OK, maybe if I turn back and oh ooh no goodness!”
He was glad to make it to the other side of the brambles, and even gladder when his path westward led him through a ravine and into a little green glade.
“Look at that brook! Look at that cave! I mean, is this Yawnee Valley Regional Park and Outdoor Recreational Area or a fairy bower?” It was a rhetorical question, which was good, because nobody was around to answer it. Still, even though he knew he was in Yawnee Valley Regional Park and Outdoor Recreational Area, Principal Barkin couldn’t help imagining a fairy queen awakening to the sound of his voice, and falling madly in love with him, and assigning several fairy children to dote on him. “Fetch me some honey,” he’d say to the fairy children, and also, “Why aren’t you in school?” And they would tell him that there wasn’t any such thing as a school for fairies. And he would say, “Outrageous!” And he would build them a school, out of sticks and acorns and things, a place where the fairies would learn, and he would be their school principal. And the fairy queen would ask him to be her king, and he would say, “No, no, my lady. A principal is all I am, and all I ever wanted to be.” But she’d make him king anyway.
“Well,” said Principal Barkin. He suddenly remembered that he should call his wife, Mrs. Barkin, if he ever found some cell service in this forest.