by Dave Barry
“Oh, man,” he said.
“Yeah.”
“We can’t let them see us.”
“Duh.”
We slowed down and let more people go past. We were the last ones in our group now, trailing behind everybody. I could still see the bald guy’s head up ahead. He was a really big guy. We kept as far back as we could and still see our class group. The White House was on our right now. At the end of the block the bald guy and the little guy peeled off and went to the right, toward the gate where people were lined up for the White House tour. The two guys walked a few yards, then stopped. Which meant we were going to walk right past where they were standing.
“Uh-oh,” said Matt.
“Just keep walking.”
At that moment the two guys weren’t looking our way. They were staring at the White House. The big guy pointed at the fence and said something, and the little guy nodded. They moved closer to the fence, studying it.
Matt and I were almost even with them now. We started walking faster.
We were even with them now.
The little guy’s head started to turn.
I looked away and walked even faster.
“Hey!”
The little guy had seen us. I looked: They were both coming after us.
Looking back, I still don’t know whether Matt and I handled it right. The smartest thing might have been to run to the front of the group and get next to Mr. Barto, Miss Rector, and Gene. The two guys probably wouldn’t have dared try to grab us right in front of grown-ups. On the other hand, they might have told the grown-ups about Matt taking the detonator (or whatever it was) from the little guy’s backpack, and we might have gotten in even more trouble and been sent home.
The thing is, when it happened, there wasn’t a lot of time to think. There was just these two scary weird guys coming after us looking mad.
So we ran.
We took off to the left, away from the White House, across the street, which was not brilliant because there were cars coming, but we made it to the other side okay. I looked back and saw that the two guys were waiting for a break in traffic to get across. I also saw that the rest of our class group had reached the end of the block and was heading to where the bus was parked. Nobody had seen Matt and me take off; we were on our own.
And now the weird guys were crossing the street.
Matt and I took off. We ran down a side street, still heading away from the White House. We got to an intersection. We looked back and saw the weird guys coming. I noticed two things, one bad and one good. The bad was, they looked extremely mad. Like if they caught us, they would not only kill us, but also eat us.
The good news was, they were not fast runners.
We turned right and started running again. Our plan was to circle around and get back to where the bus was parked. We ran to the end of the street and turned right again. Now we were headed back toward the White House. We crossed another street and turned left. Up ahead we could see a line of parked buses. I was praying one of them would be ours.
I looked back. The weird guys were a long ways back now.
“That’s our bus,” said Matt, pointing.
We sprinted to the bus. Everybody was already on it except Mr. Barto, who was standing next to the doorway staring at us with his arms crossed. I could tell he was about to give us a stern lecture about how he had given us one more chance to shape up and now blah blah blah. I was pretty sure our class trip was over.
But every now and then, Matt turns out not to be a complete idiot, and this was one of those times. Before Mr. Barto could say a word, he said, “I had to go to the bathroom.”
“What?” said Mr. Barto.
“Diarrhea,” said Matt. “It was really bad. REALLY bad. I had to go behind a tree.” He waved in the general direction of the White House. “I didn’t have any toilet paper, so Wyatt had to ask people if they had any Kleenex.”
I nodded. The loyal Kleenex-getting friend. Mr. Barto was frowning, trying to process this. I snuck a glance behind us. I didn’t see the weird guys.
“But nobody had any Kleenex,” said Matt, getting into the dramatic story of him having imaginary diarrhea. “But this one lady had a People magazine, so Matt brought me that and I tore out some pages and used that. It was a feature on One Direction. You know them, Mr. Barto? One Direction? It’s like this boy band. There’s five of them, so that was like five pages. But like I said this was a really messy situation, so I had to tear out another article, which was about this girl with no legs who becomes a baton twirler and tries out for her high school—”
“Diaz!” shouted Mr. Barto.
“What?”
“Shut up and get on the bus.”
Matt gave me a look. Mission accomplished.
“Hey!”
The shout came from behind us. Matt and I didn’t have to look to see who it was. We quickly followed Mr. Barto onto the bus, and the driver, who’d been waiting for us, shut the door. We scurried to our seats as the bus started moving. I looked out the window, and there were the two weird guys, running after us. They were waving their arms and shouting, and their faces were bright red. They were too far away to catch us. I sat back in my seat and whooshed the air out of my lungs. My heart was pounding and I was covered in sweat. As far as I could tell, the rest of the kids on the bus hadn’t seen the guys chasing us.
“Pretty fast thinking, huh?” said Matt. “Diarrhea? People magazine? One Direction?”
“Yeah, you’re a genius. Except you’re also the reason they’re after us. Whatever that thing is you took, maybe you should just give it back to them.”
“The detonator?”
“You don’t know it’s a detonator.”
“It’s something, Wyatt. They want it back bad. Which is why we shouldn’t let them have it.”
“Why should we care?”
“Think about it. On the plane they were looking at aerial photos of the White House.”
“So? They said—”
“I know what they said. But they’re weird guys, and I still say that was a weird thing for them to be doing. And it’s really weird that they brought a detonator.”
“You don’t know it’s a—”
“Just listen. And when we see them again, where are they? At the White House.”
“So? We were at the White House, too.”
“Right. But we were looking at the White House, because we’re tourists. They were looking at the fence. You saw them.”
I thought about it. They had seemed interested in the fence. “So what do you think they’re doing?”
“Scouting.”
“Scouting what?”
“I dunno. But maybe we should tell Mr. Barto.”
“Tell him what? That the two guys we accused on the plane because they seemed weird still seem weird? And they want us to give them back something that belongs to them? Which you stole from their backpack?”
Matt thought about that. “It doesn’t sound so good, does it?”
“It sounds like a way to get us sent home.”
“So what do you think we should do?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing?”
“Look, either they’re planning something bad, or they’re not, right?”
“Right.”
“So if they’re not, and they’re just weird guys, then doing nothing is the best thing, right?”
“Right.”
“And if they are planning something bad, and that’s why they want that thing you took, then they can’t do whatever it is, because you have the thing, and they don’t know where you are. Right?”
“I guess.”
“So we don’t have to do anything.”
“But what if they keep looking for us?”
“How’re they going to find us? In this whole giant city?”
Matt frowned, looking like he wasn’t sure.
“They’re way back there,” I said, waving in the general direction of the back of the bus
. “We’re not gonna see them again.” I hoped this was true.
Matt looked out the window. Finally he said, “Yeah, I guess not.”
We both got quiet then. Gene was back on the microphone, telling us more historic stuff about Washington. Then Mr. Barto got on and told us the schedule for the evening. Then Miss Rector got on and told us the real schedule for the evening, because Mr. Barto had actually given us the schedule for the following evening. We were going to eat dinner at a restaurant and then go to a concert by a military band.
By the time we got back to the Warren G. Harding I was feeling pretty good, like everything really was going to be okay. That feeling lasted until we got off the bus in front of the hotel, which was when Matt grabbed my arm.
“What?” I said.
“That.” He pointed at the bus.
“What?” I said again.
He went closer to the bus and pointed to writing painted on the side:
SHRODER TRANSPORTATION
NEED A BUS? CALL US!
Underneath there was a phone number.
“So what?” I said.
“So what if those guys call the bus company and find out where this bus went?”
“But how would they know which bus we…” I stopped, because I could already see the answer, painted on the side of the bus in big numbers: 147.
“This is bad,” said Matt.
“Okay,” I said. “Let’s say they call the bus company. They probably won’t tell them anything.”
“You don’t know that.”
I pulled out my phone. “Let’s find out.”
I dialed the bus company number. A lady’s voice said, “Shroder Transportation.”
“Hi,” I said. “I’m…uh…I’m a student on a class trip here in Washington, and I’m…uh…trying to find my bus.”
“You lost your bus?”
“Yeah, I got separated from the group. But I know the bus number. It’s 147.”
“Right now bus 147 is at the Harding Hotel.” She sounded kind of annoyed.
“Um, thanks,” I said.
“You people need to keep better track of that bus.”
Suddenly I had a bad feeling in my stomach.
“What do you mean?” I said.
“I mean you’re the second person to call about it. That’s how I know off the top of my head where it is.”
“Somebody else called about bus 147?”
“Maybe ten minutes ago.”
“Who was it?”
“A man.”
“A man?”
“Said he was a teacher.”
I looked toward the hotel entrance and saw Mr. Barto and Miss Rector. They were the only Culver teachers on this trip. I started to ask the bus company lady another question. “Can you tell me—”
But she had hung up.
“They’re coming here,” said Matt. “They’re gonna come here looking for us.”
We were back in our room, leaning out the window, talking quietly. Cameron and Victor were watching TV.
“They don’t know what room we’re in,” I said.
“They can just wait for us in the lobby. Sooner or later they’ll see us walking in or out.”
We both stared out the window. A taxi pulled up in front of the hotel, with two people in the back. The door opened, and we both held our breath. But it was just two lady tourists. We both exhaled.
“Seriously,” I said, “maybe we should just give that thing back to them.”
Matt shook his head. “No. Those are not good guys. Whatever they want it for, it’s probably bad.”
“So maybe we should call the police.”
He shook his head again. “You said it yourself. We really can’t prove anything about them, except they’re weird. We couldn’t even prove that thing is theirs.”
“So what do we do?”
“We keep the thing away from them, and we try to figure out what they’re up to.”
“How?”
“I dunno yet.”
“Well that’s brilliant.”
“You have a better idea?”
I shook my head. “Where’s the thing now?”
“In my suitcase. But I’m gonna keep it with me, in case they show up here while we’re gone.”
Matt ducked back into the room and went over to his suitcase. I was staring out at the street, looking for the weird guys.
“What are you two talking about?”
Suzana’s voice, which I was not expecting, made me bang my head on the window frame for the second time that day.
“You have to stop doing that,” I said. She was leaning out her window, looking amazing. Even though I had a lot of stuff on my mind at the moment, it occurred to me, somewhere deep inside my brain, that Matt was right: I had zero chance with her. Zero.
“Who are those guys?” she said. “And what is it they want?”
“What guys?” I said.
She rolled her eyes. “The guys you were just talking about with Matt. Who want the thing Matt is getting from his suitcase.”
“Oh,” I said. Because that’s how good I am at thinking up things to say under pressure.
“Is it the weird guys from the plane?” she said.
“Yeah,” I said, because I couldn’t think of a reason not to.
“What’s the thing?”
“We don’t—”
“It’s a detonator,” said Matt, sticking his head through the window and holding out the box for Suzana to see. “We think.”
“We don’t know,” I said.
Suzana was staring at the box.
“But they want it back bad,” said Matt. “They were chasing us near the White House.”
“What?” said Suzana.
So we told her about the guys chasing us around the White House, and how we got away, and how somebody called the bus company and found out what hotel we were in. When we were talking it sounded crazy even to me, but Suzana listened like she totally believed us.
When we were done, she said, “So they’re coming here.” She seemed kind of excited about this.
“Yeah,” I said. “Apparently.”
“So what’s the plan?” She said this like she was part of the plan.
“Mainly for now, don’t let them get this thing,” said Matt.
Suzana nodded. “Okay,” she said. “Give it to me.” She held out her hand.
“What?” said Matt and I pretty much together.
“They’re chasing you guys,” said Suzana. “They’re not chasing me.” Her hand was still out.
Matt and I looked at each other.
“Okay,” said Matt, handing over the box.
I said, “Are you sure…”
“I’m sure,” she said, and she disappeared with the box into her room.
Matt and I looked at each other again.
“Was that a good idea?” he said.
“Now you ask,” I said.
I looked at my phone. It was time to meet in the lobby for the evening activities. I took one last look out at the street in front of the hotel. It was getting dark. I didn’t see the weird guys.
But they were out there somewhere.
I don’t remember very much about the evening activities. We ate at a restaurant near the Capitol that specialized in feeding tour groups, as opposed to regular humans who would eat there on purpose. Our three entrée choices were The Executive, which was chicken that could have been fish; The Legislative, which was fish that could have been chicken; and The Judicial, which was meat loaf that could have been seat cushions. Then we went to a concert by a military band that played “pop music,” which apparently means music that is no longer popular. The concert was outdoors, and everybody was sweating because the weather was still pretty hot, especially for nighttime.
To be honest I didn’t pay much attention to the evening activities because I was busy getting more and more nervous. I kept looking around for the weird guys. I never saw them, but that didn’t make me feel any better. By the
time we got back on the bus to go back to the hotel, I felt like I was going to throw up. I sat down and leaned over in my seat, holding my stomach, telling myself Don’t puke in front of everybody Don’t puke in front of everybody Don’t puke in front of everybody…
“Are you okay?”
I looked up and saw that it was Suzana, sitting next to me, in Matt’s seat. Suzana Delgado was sitting on the bus next to me. This was a violation of all the known physical laws of the Culver Middle universe: A hot girl like Suzana sitting next to a nobody like me instead of with the other hot girls and popular boys. I’m sure this set off a chain reaction of staring, nudging, and texting throughout the bus. I couldn’t see, because now I was busy telling myself Don’t puke on Suzana Don’t puke on Suzana Don’t puke on Suzana…
“Wyatt?” she was saying. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” I said.
“You look like you’re gonna puke,” said Matt, sliding in behind us and leaning forward.
“I’m not gonna puke,” I said. “But I am worried about what’s waiting for us back at the hotel.”
“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about,” said Suzana. “I think we need a plan.”
“What kind of plan?” I said.
“For if those two guys show up at the hotel. Looking for this.” She pointed to her purse.
“Why would they want your purse?” said Matt, who, as I have pointed out, can be an idiot.
Suzana rolled her eyes. “Not my purse. The thing. It’s in there.”
“Ohhhh,” said the idiot.
“So here’s what we do,” said Suzana. “If they show up at the hotel, you pound on the wall to my room three times.” She sounded pretty excited about the idea of them showing up at our hotel.
“Then what?” I said.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, what happens after we pound on your wall?”
She frowned. “I don’t know yet. It depends on the situation.”
I blinked. “That’s our plan?”
“So far, yes.”
I nodded thoughtfully, because I couldn’t think of anything to say.
“I like it,” said the idiot.
“Good,” she said. “Remember, three pounds on the wall.” She got up and walked back to the hot and/or popular section of the bus.