by Dave Barry
“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.
I can’t tell you much about the other animals we saw. I was too tired, and too worried about what might happen, to pay attention. I stumbled around the exhibits like a zombie. When it was finally time for lunch we sat at some picnic tables and they handed out the box lunches, which contained something called “veggie wraps.” They looked like some kind of poisonous sea creature that attaches itself to an underwater rock with suckers.
After we finished mostly not eating our box lunches, it was time to get back on the bus. We rode to Capitol Hill and parked near a bunch of other buses. Then we walked to the Capitol and got on a long line to go through security. Suzana, Victor, Matt, and I stood together so we could figure out our plan, by which I mean so we could listen to Suzana tell us our plan.
“Okay,” she said. “We’ll do what we did in the Smithsonian museum.”
“I wasn’t there,” said Matt. “What’d we do?”
“We hung back at the end of the group,” said Suzana. “Then when the group went around a corner, we took off.”
“And that worked?”
“Yup.”
“How do we get to the Ellipse?” said Victor.
“We’ll take a taxi,” said Suzana. “I have money.”
So that was our plan.
The security line inched forward until finally we got into the visitors center, where we watched a movie about how historic the Capitol is. I kept looking at Suzana to see if it was time to escape, but she kept shaking her head, and she was right. The group was too clumped together for us to get away.
After the movie we got an official guide, who led us up some stairs into the Rotunda, which is the inside of the big dome of the Capitol. It’s really big, and according to the guide many historical things happened there. I realize I’m sounding pretty stupid here, but that’s basically all I can remember. I kept looking at Suzana, and she kept shaking her head. We couldn’t move to the end of the line because the whole group was still more of a clump than a line. Plus every time I turned around, Mr. Barto seemed to be there.
From the Rotunda we went into Statuary Hall, which is a big room with a bunch of statues of famous dead historical people. When the guide started giving her talk, Suzana motioned for me, Victor, and Matt to come over to her.
“This is the last stop on the tour,” she whispered. “We have to go now.”
“How?” I said.
She looked around. “One at a time. Go back the way we came in. We’ll meet in the visitors center and go back out from there.”
Matt started to ask a question, but Mr. Barto was giving us the eyeball.
“I’ll go first,” whispered Suzana. “Then Wyatt, Victor, and Matt.” She turned away, pretending to listen to the guide telling us about the statues. She also started drifting to the outside of the clump. A minute later a big tour group came by, and as they passed Suzana detached from our clump and let herself get absorbed into theirs. In another minute she was on the other side of Statuary Hall, on her way back toward the Rotunda.
My turn. I decided to do what Suzana did, and it worked. I slid into a passing group and slid out the other side. I walked quickly to toward the Rotunda, kind of hunched over, expecting any second to hear Mr. Barto yell my name. But nothing happened, and in a couple of minutes I was back downstairs in the visitors center, where Suzana was waiting. Victor was there a minute or two later, and then Matt.
We were off the class trip now. Outlaws.
We left the visitors center and headed for a major-looking street in the distance, figuring we could get a taxi there. We passed a couple of Capitol police officers, but they didn’t pay any attention to us outlaws. To them we were just four kids on a class trip. They’d seen a million like us.
The street turned out to be called Independence Avenue. It was pretty busy. None of us—not even Suzana—had ever actually hailed a taxi before. We stood on the sidewalk and kind of waved our arms randomly at every taxi we saw, but none of them stopped. Sometimes this was because the taxi already had a passenger; sometimes I think it was because the driver didn’t want to stop for a bunch of obviously clueless kids making random arm movements.
Finally a taxi pulled over and we piled in, all four of us in the back. The driver didn’t look thrilled.
“We want to go to the Ellipse, please,” said Suzana. “Near the White House.”
“You have money?” said the driver.
“Yes,” said Suzana.
The driver looked like he was hesitating, then he put the taxi in gear and started moving.
Then we heard shouting.
Then a crazy person jumped in front of the taxi, yelling at the driver to stop. The driver shouted something in a foreign language and jammed on the brakes, or else he would have hit the crazy person.
The crazy person was Mr. Barto.
He must have seen us sneaking away. His face was red and sweaty. He looked like his head was going to explode.
“Oh, no,” said Victor.
Mr. Barto ran around the left side of the taxi and yanked open the back door.
“GET OUT OF THAT TAXI!” he yelled. “NOW!!”
He reached in and grabbed the closest person, which happened to be Matt, and yanked him onto the sidewalk.
“OUT!!” he shouted again. “GET OUT!!!”
Victor, Suzana, and I scrambled out of the backseat. The taxi driver was yelling something about money. Mr. Barto yelled something back about calling the police. The driver made a really unfriendly gesture and shouted something in a foreign language, which I doubt was a compliment, then stomped on the gas and roared away.
Mr. Barto turned his red face to us, the four runaways, and said, “JUST WHERE DID YOU THINK YOU WERE GOING?”
We all looked at each other. Nobody, not even Suzana, knew what to say.
“I WANT AN ANSWER RIGHT NOW!!”
We looked at each other some more, and then Matt said, “Back to the hotel?” Which, give him credit, was not a bad lie to come up with on short notice, especially for an idiot like Matt.
“That’s right,” said Suzana, picking up on it. “I wasn’t feeling well, so I asked these guys to take me back to the hotel.”
“Really,” said Mr. Barto.
Matt, Victor, and I nodded hard, like bobbleheads in an earthquake. Suzana made the same helpless-girl face that she used on Mr. Barto when she was pretending she couldn’t open the bus window.
This time it didn’t work.
“All right,” he said to Suzana. “You want to go back to the hotel, you’ll go back to the hotel. And you’ll stay in the hotel for the rest of the day. You’re grounded.” He pointed to Victor. “You’re grounded, too.”
Then he turned to Matt and me.
“I already warned you two, at the airport,” he said. “You had your chance. You’re off the trip.”
“What do you mean?” I said.
“I mean you’re going home. Now.”
I stood there with my mouth hanging open like an unusually stupid fish, staring at Mr. Barto, telling myself Do NOT cry in front of Suzana Delgado.
If I got sent home my parents would kill me. Especially my mom. She would kill me, then she would rush me to the hospital so the doctors could miraculously bring me back to life, and then she would kill me again.
Not to mention the problem of the two weird guys who were holding Cameron prisoner and planning to blow up the White House.
I couldn’t get sent home. I just couldn’t.
“I can’t,” I said.
“You can’t what?” said Mr. Barto.
“I can’t go home,” I said.
“You don’t have a choice.”
I looked at Suzana and said, “We have to tell him.”
She nodded.
“Tell me what?” said Mr. Barto.
So we told him everything—about the two weird Gadakistan guys, and how Matt took their laser jammer, and how they came to the hotel and took Matt, and how they got their las
er jammer back at the Boy Scout statue, and how we went to their house and got Matt out but they got Cameron, and how we saw the giant dragon kite and figured out what the weird guys planned to do, and when.
While we were talking, the rest of the class trip came out of the Capitol. Miss Rector came over and joined our little group; the rest of them stood a couple of yards away from us and pretended they weren’t eavesdropping, although of course they were. Nobody knew exactly what was going on, but it was obvious that we had done something seriously wrong, so everybody was pretty excited; there’s no entertainment like the entertainment of watching somebody else get in trouble.
Mr. Barto and Miss Rector listened to our whole story without saying a word. When we were done, Suzana said, “So we need to go to the Ellipse and stop those guys, and we might not have a lot of time. But we can’t go to the police, at least not yet, because they said they’d hurt Cameron.”
Mr. Barto and Miss Rector looked at each other.
“Miss Rector,” said Mr. Barto, “what do you think of their story?”
Miss Rector looked at us, and I could see the disappointment on her face. “I think it’s the most ridiculous thing I ever heard.”
Mr. Barto nodded. “Me, too.”
“No!” said Suzana. “It’s all true!”
“Really!” I said. “Those guys—”
“QUIET,” said Mr. Barto. “I don’t want to hear any more about that from any of you. It’s bad enough that by sneaking off you could have ruined this whole trip for everybody else. I won’t have you insult my and Miss Rector’s intelligence with this unbelievable story about mysterious men and their giant attack kite.”
Miss Rector was looking around, frowning. “One thing they said was true,” she said. “We are missing Cameron Frank.”
Mr. Barto looked at us. “Where is he? Did he go back to the hotel?”
“We told you,” I said. “The two Gadakistan guys have him.”
He glared at me. “Covering for your friend is only going to make it worse.”
“I’m not covering for him! It’s the truth.”
He shook his head, then turned to Miss Rector. “Obviously we need to locate Cameron. I’ll notify the Capitol police, but I have a feeling he probably went back to the hotel. Until we find him, I’m canceling the rest of the day’s activities.”