Mission Unstoppable

by Dan Gutman

  Suddenly, almost without noticing, they came to a simple pavilion on the south side of the street.

  And there it was.

  Nearly nine tons of twine, rolled into a forty-foot ball.

  You have to see it to believe it. The McDonalds just stopped and stared, openmouthed.

  “Wow!” marveled Mrs. McDonald.

  “It’s so . . . big,” Coke said.

  “It’s amazing,” said Pep.

  Even Dr. McDonald was impressed.

  “That’s an extremely large ball of twine,” he said.

  Mrs. McDonald got to work, snapping photos, taking notes, and interviewing tourists and locals for Amazing but True.

  Why is there a giant twine ball in Cawker City, Kansas? Excellent question.

  It turns out that in 1953 a farmer named Frank Stoeber started to roll spare pieces of twine in his barn. He never threw any away or reused it. He just kept rolling it into a ball, and the ball got bigger. After a few years, the ball was eight feet tall and weighed two and a half tons. By 1961, the year Stoeber donated the ball to Cawker City, it was eleven feet tall.

  Stoeber passed away in 1974; but the people of Cawker City kept right on rolling twine, and the ball kept growing. In fact, every August they have a Twine-A-Thon, where anyone can pitch in and help. Today, the ball has almost 1,500 miles of twine on it.

  “That’s almost as far as we drove from home!” Pep marveled.

  “They should make Frank Stoeber’s story into a movie,” Coke said, putting on his movie preview voice: “In a world of isolation and despair, one dreamer from the heartland turned his twisted obsession into a tacky tourist destination and in the process bound his small hometown together and put it on the map. How did he do it? With twine.

  “Pretty inspiring, huh?” Coke asked.

  Pep punched him and pulled him aside so she could talk without their parents hearing.

  “Get serious!” she told him. “Do you even remember why we’re here? There’s going to be some kind of attack! And we’ve got to stop it.”

  The twins looked all around nervously. Every person in the immediate area was a suspect, but they were particularly on the lookout for odd-looking characters: guys in golf carts wearing bowler hats, evil health teachers, or anyone else who appeared to be out of the ordinary. So far nothing. Just a bunch of normal-looking locals and tourists.

  The twins were on the lookout for Bones and Mya, too, but they were nowhere to be seen.

  Mrs. McDonald went into a little shop across the street and came out with—what else—two balls of twine.

  “Your birthday is in three days,” she said, handing one to each of them. “This is an early present.”

  “Gee thanks, Mom!” Coke said with fake enthusiasm. “It’s just what I always wanted.”

  He stuffed the balls of twine in his backpack with the deck of cards, Frisbee, Pez dispenser, yo-yo, and assorted junk he had accumulated.

  “Okay!” Dr. McDonald said, clapping his hands. “This was great, but we should get on the road and start heading for Washington. The wedding, you remember.”

  “No!” the twins protested. “We want to stay longer!”

  “Why?” Dr. McDonald asked. “It’s a giant ball of twine! You saw it.”

  Pep couldn’t tell her dad about the imminent attack. She looked at her brother.

  “We just want to take in the enormity of it, Dad,” Coke explained. “I mean, this thing is humongous. We’ll probably never be here again. It’s not every day you get to see the largest ball of twine in the world, right?”

  At that moment, a bicycle pulled up next to them. The rider was the old man they had seen earlier at the geographic center of the United States. He rolled to a stop.

  “Pretty big, eh?” he said, gesturing toward the ball of twine.

  “Oh yeah,” Coke said. “Biggest in the world.”

  “Maybe,” the old man said.

  “I beg your pardon?” asked Mrs. McDonald.

  “Ain’t necessarily the biggest,” the old man said.

  “What?” asked Mrs. McDonald, perking up her ears. “Are you suggesting there’s a larger ball of twine somewhere?”

  “Could be.”

  “Where?” Mrs. McDonald demanded, almost desperately. “You’ve seen a bigger one?”

  “In Minnesota,” the old timer said. “Little town called Darwin. Never seen it myself. Some folks say it’s bigger. Some folks say this one’s bigger.”

  “You gotta be kidding me!” Coke exclaimed.

  Pep suddenly realized why there was no attack in Cawker City. She knew why Bones and Mya hadn’t shown up. It was the other ball of twine that they were supposed to go to!

  “Let’s go!” she said. “We gotta get to Minnesota!”

  “Yeah, let’s go!” Coke exclaimed.

  “Are you guys crazy?” Dr. McDonald shouted. “Minnesota is probably seven hours north of here! We have to get to Washington by July Fourth for Aunt Judy’s wedding! I’m sure that other ball of twine looks just like this one, Bridge. I’m not driving—”

  “Ben,” Mrs. McDonald said, her hand on his shoulder. “I must see the other ball of twine!”

  That was all she had to say. The three of them had to physically drag him back to the RV.

  Chapter 18

  SPAM SPAM SPAM SPAM

  As they headed north on Route 81, Dr. McDonald was fuming. He was so angry, he couldn’t speak. He did not want to go see another ball of twine.

  In cartoons, animators typically have smoke pouring out of characters’ ears to signal they’re really mad. There might as well have been smoke pouring out of Dr. McDonald’s ears.

  Go to Google Maps (http://maps.google.com/).

  Click Get Directions.

  In the A box, type Cawker City KS.

  In the B box, type Lincoln NE.

  Click Get Directions.

  But he was a devoted husband and father, too. Sometimes it seemed as though he loved his family even more than he loved himself. And if his family wanted him to drive hours out of his way to Minnesota to see another @#$%^&* ball of twine, he decided, then, @#$%^&*, he would drive them there. That’s the kind of a man he was.

  Please excuse the language. This is just what was going through Dr. McDonald’s mind.

  He was so angry, in fact, that he had forgotten that the contents of the RV’s holding tank had not been emptied since the family left California. It was nearly filled to the top now.

  It crossed Coke’s mind a few times that he should do a dump, but he never did anything about it. The thought of dropping four days’ worth of human waste through a tube into a hole in the ground was not Coke’s idea of a fun morning. He figured that when the time came that they really needed to do a dump, his father would let him know.

  But Dr. McDonald wasn’t talking. He didn’t say a word to anybody for three hours. The sun was getting low in the sky, so as soon as he saw an RV CAMPING sign outside of Lincoln, Nebraska, he pulled off the highway.

  And after a good night’s sleep, at least some of his anger had subsided.

  Driving up through Minnesota could be fun, he tried to convince himself as they got back on I-80 toward Omaha.

  He’d never been to Minnesota, he reasoned. It was always good to try new things.

  Go to Google Maps (http://maps.google.com/).

  Click Get Directions.

  In the A box, type Omaha NE.

  In the B box, type Darwin MN.

  Click Get Directions.

  Minnesota was supposed to be beautiful in the summer, he said silently.

  Spontaneity makes for the best vacation memories, he decided.

  It might even be fun to see another giant ball of twine, he thought.

  But deep down inside, he didn’t believe a word of it.

  It’s 440 miles from Omaha, Nebraska, to Darwin, Minnesota. Seven hours and twenty-five minutes of driving, if you don’t stop. That’s a lot of driving.

  The RV was filled with tension.
As they passed Omaha and crossed over into Iowa, Coke didn’t even announce any useless information about the state. Mrs. McDonald pulled out an Iowa guidebook and began to leaf through it.

  “Y’know, there’s a forty-five ton concrete bull in Audubon,” she said quietly. “It’s the largest bull in the world. We should go see it. It’s not far out of the way. Its name is Albert.”

  “No!” Coke and Pep shouted from the back. “We want to get to the other ball of twine!”

  “There’s a ten-foot ear of corn in Coon Rapids,” Mrs. McDonald announced a few minutes later. “And it rotates.”

  “No!” the kids barked. “We want to see the other ball of twine!”

  “How about the Buddy Holly Monument in Clear Lake?” Mrs. McDonald suggested gently. “Buddy Holly sang ‘Peggy Sue,’ ‘It’s So Easy,’ ‘Rave On’ . . .”

  In the front seat, the grown-ups broke into an off-key version of “That’ll Be the Day.”

  “No!” yelled the kids. “We want to see the other ball of twine!”

  “How about the Hobo Museum?” Mrs. McDonald persisted. “It says here that while many people think of hobos as drunks and criminals, the Hobo Museum celebrates them as dignified men who preferred a relaxed lifestyle on the road without the pressures of owning homes and acquiring material possessions.”

  “I think I would like the life of a hobo,” Dr. McDonald said. “No schedules or deadlines. No mortgage or phone bills. No office. You can dress the way you want, go where you want, and sleep when you want. And you get to see the world. Maybe I should become a hobo.”

  “How would we put the kids through college, dear?” asked Mrs. McDonald.

  “Who needs college?” he replied. “The kids could become hobos too.”

  “No!” came shouts from the backseat. “Ball of twine!”

  Mrs. McDonald continued to leaf through the guidebook but stopped suggesting interesting places to stop.

  Dr. McDonald pulled off I-80 East at Des Moines and merged onto Interstate 35, which goes north-south and cuts Iowa almost perfectly in half. It seemed as if they had been driving forever. Heading north, it was another two hours before they crossed the state line.

  There was no cheering from the backseat. No announcements about the Land of 10,000 Lakes. The kids just wanted to get to the ball of twine in Darwin, which was another three hours away.

  “Hit the brakes!” Mrs. McDonald suddenly shouted as they approached the exit for Interstate 90.

  Dr. McDonald veered off to the shoulder of the road and screeched to a halt.

  “What is it?” he said. “What’s wrong?”

  “The SPAM Museum,” Mrs. McDonald announced. “I must go to the SPAM Museum.”

  “What?!” Dr. McDonald shouted. “You’re kidding me! There’s a museum devoted to SPAM?”

  “No!” the kids shouted. “Ball of twine!”

  “The SPAM Museum is less than a half an hour from here,” Mrs. McDonald said calmly. “Take this exit, Ben.”

  “We really have to get to the ball of twine, Mom,” Coke argued.

  “No, we really have to get to the SPAM Museum,” his mother replied sternly.

  Dr. McDonald pulled off at the exit.

  Yes, it’s true. Austin, Minnesota, is the headquarters of Hormel, the company that makes SPAM. It probably never occurred to you, reader, that there would be a museum devoted to a gooey, spiced luncheon meat. But before opening this book, you’d probably never heard of the National Yo-Yo Museum or the Burlingame Museum of Pez Memorabilia either. It’s a big country, and there’s a lot of strange stuff in it.

  The SPAM Museum is across the street from Hormel’s meat plant. Yes, they have an entire building devoted to SPAM. Reluctantly, the kids got out of the RV and followed their mother inside. They were surprised that the admission was free.

  “Of course it’s free,” Dr. McDonald told them. “The whole place is one big commercial for SPAM. They should pay us to come in here.”

  Dr. McDonald told the family that he had traumatic childhood memories of SPAM. His mother had forced him to eat it. He and his brother had called it “mystery meat.”

  The McDonalds were assigned to a tour group; and a tall, cheerful woman with a name tag that said JULIE introduced herself as their “SPAMbassador.”

  “Welcome to the SPAM Museum,” she said. “How many of you enjoy SPAM?”

  Some of the hands went up.

  Julie told the group that seven billion cans of SPAM have been sold since it was introduced in 1937. The tour included just about everything you always wanted to know about SPAM but were afraid to ask.

  “I had no idea that lunch meat had such a fascinating history,” Dr. McDonald said sarcastically as they entered the World War II exhibit.

  “Oh yes,” Julie the SPAMbassador said. “In fact, during the world war, a hundred million pounds of SPAM were sent to Allied soldiers.”

  “Did they eat it?” Coke said. “Or use it for ammunition?”

  “They should have dropped a hundred million pounds of SPAM on Hitler,” Dr. McDonald said. “Or they should have forced the Nazis to eat SPAM. They would have surrendered a lot sooner.”

  The McDonalds found it impossible to think about SPAM without giggling.

  When the tour was over, Mrs. McDonald went to the gift shop. She picked up recipes for SPAMBURGERS and tried to decide whether she should buy a SPAM hat, necktie, flip-flops, or glow-in–the-dark SPAM boxer shorts for her husband. In the end, she decided to keep it simple. She bought a can of SPAM. In case of emergency, they could eat it. It didn’t even have to be refrigerated. Coke and Pep wandered around the gift shop with their mom, snickering at all the SPAM-related products.

  A man with a mustache, dressed like an old-time policeman, was sitting by the door taking a snooze. He had a billy club in his hand.

  “Check it out,” Coke whispered, nudging his sister. “They have a guard in the SPAM Museum! Can you believe it? Do they actually think somebody would want to steal SPAM?”

  “I don’t think he’s a real guard,” Pep said. “He’s a character, like at Disneyland.”

  “SPAM was invented in the 1930s,” Mrs. McDonald pointed out. “I guess he’s supposed to be a 1930s cop.”

  The mustachioed guard woke up with a snort.

  “Say,” he said, “would you kids like to try your hand at canning SPAM?”

  “No thanks,” Pep replied. “We really need to get back on the road.”

  “Come on, kids!” Mrs. McDonald said. “It will be fun! Sure, they’d love to can some SPAM.”

  “Follow me,” the guard said.

  He led Coke and Pep out the side door of the SPAM Museum and across the parking lot to the Hormel meat plant. The factory was closed for the day, but the smell of SPAM still hung in the air.

  “This guard gives me the creeps,” Pep whispered to her brother.

  The twins followed the mustachioed guard into a huge room filled with canning equipment. All the workers had gone home. In the middle of the room was a giant vat, about the size of a water tower. It was filled almost to the brim—with liquefied SPAM, of course.

  “This is where we can the SPAM,” the guard said.

  “I figured that,” Coke said.

  “That’s a lot of SPAM,” Pep said.

  “A hundred thousand gallons,” the guard said. “Want to take a closer look?”

  There was a narrow metal bridge that went about ten feet over to the top of the vat.

  “We can see just fine from here,” Pep replied.

  “Don’t you want to can a little SPAM?” the guard asked. “Bring it back home as a souvenir?”

  “I’d really like to,” Coke replied, “but I need to get back, y’know, and poke my eyes with hot needles.”

  “You should really take a closer look.” The guard had pulled his billy club out of its holster and was rapping it against the palm of his left hand. He had a familiar smile on his face.

  “You’re not a real guard, are you?” Pep
asked.

  “No, I’m not.”

  With that, the guard reached behind one of the machines and put on a bowler hat.

  “It’s the bowler dude!” Coke shouted. “Run!”

  “Not so fast!” the bowler dude said. He grabbed both of them from behind and jammed the billy club hard against their necks.

  “That wasn’t very nice what you did to my brother,” he said, pulling them toward the giant vat of SPAM.

  “Your brother?” Pep asked, trying to get the club away from her windpipe. “Who’s your brother?”

  “The guy at Sand Mountain?” Coke asked. “You two are brothers?”

  “My brother has a nasty bump on the back of his head, thanks to you kids,” the bowler dude said, tightening his grip on the club.

  “Your brother threw us in a pit up there!” Coke said, struggling to break free. “He was going to leave us there to die! And you were the guys who were chasing us to the edge of the cliff in golf carts. You’ve been trying to kill us!”

  “And it’s too bad we failed earlier,” the bowler dude said, breathing heavily on their necks, “because now I’ll have to do it myself.”

  “What are you going to do to us?” Pep whimpered. She was crying now.

  “SPAM, SPAM, SPAM, SPAM.” The bowler dude started singing the song made famous in the old Monty Python’s Flying Circus TV show. He had an evil smile on his face.

  “No!” Pep shouted.

  “Get in the vat!” the bowler dude instructed.

  “It’s disgusting!” Pep shouted.

  “I said, get in!” the bowler dude insisted. “And don’t try anything funny, like you did with my brother.”

  “Hit him, Coke!” Pep yelled. “You know karate! Kick him! Do something!”

  But Coke was powerless. When he was taught how to punch and kick in karate, the opponents just stood there and held up soft pads to absorb the blows. They never fought back. This guy had a billy club pressed against his throat. If he tried any of the karate moves he had learned, his windpipe would be crushed in a second.