by T. R. Burns
#2: Why didn’t Miss Parsippany say what she actually does?
#3: Has too much time at Kilter made me super paranoid and suspicious of all adults?
The last question is the only one I can answer.
Yes. Too much time at Kilter must be messing with my head.
“Rise and shine, campers!”
I jump and drop my K-Pak. Annika’s face fills the flat-screen TV on the wall opposite my bed. Standing before the lake, she shouts into a silver megaphone.
“You have exactly three minutes to drag your lazy bones out here! One second late and you’ll join Kamp Kilter’s brand-new sewage sorting committee!”
The screen goes black. I fling off the covers and throw on clothes. Then I swing by the bathroom, taking a few extra seconds to comb my hair and tame my eyebrows so that Elinor doesn’t confuse me with a wild forest animal. After that I book it to the kitchen and grab a blueberry muffin. I scarf down breakfast as I sprint to the elevator, where Abe’s already waiting.
“About time,” he says.
“I’m the second one here,” I say.
“I’ve been here twenty minutes.”
I remind myself that we’re on the same team. Then my K-Pak buzzes, stopping me from reminding him, too.
TO: [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected]
FROM: [email protected]
SUBJECT: Good Morning!
Hello, my talented Troublemakers!
I hope you enjoyed the rest of the party! I also hope you got a great night’s sleep. You’ll need it today.
This note is to confirm that your top secret mission begins NOW. You are to be on the lookout for odd behavior, strange signals, weird conversations, unfamiliar hand gestures, sneaked glances, and any other sign that something’s amiss with Kilter parents. Additional indications of my sister’s involvement include random piles of dirt, a nauseating stench, and the unshakeable feeling that evil eyes are watching your every move. (Think a mobile IncrimiNation.)
I expect detailed reports in my in-box by six p.m. this evening. Of course, should anything particularly alarming arise throughout the day, please let me know right away.
Hugs!
Annika
“Sixty seconds!” a male voice booms from the speakers scattered throughout our underground house. It sounds like Houdini.
I pocket my K-Pak as Gabby races down the hall. Elinor follows behind her, somehow looking even prettier in the morning than I’ve seen her any other time of the day.
“Forty-five seconds!”
“Hinkle,” Abe says. “You need to go squeeze the sleep from your friend. Fast.”
Lemon. I peer down the hall. His door’s still closed.
“Annika might not be serious about the sewage sorting,” Gabby says, “but she’ll still be mad if we’re late.”
She’s right. I dash down the hall.
Having shared a room with Lemon my first few months at Kilter, I know he’s not exactly a morning person. When his alarm goes off, he hits the snooze button. Then, when it goes off again, he grabs the clock and yanks the plug from the electrical outlet. A few minutes after that, the alarm on his K-Pak clock—which he sets because he knows he’ll need backup—goes off. That alarm eventually works, but because it sounds like a wind chime in a gentle breeze, he’s able to ignore it for as long as half an hour.
And today, we don’t have that kind of time.
I knock on his bedroom door. “Lemon?”
Nothing.
I knock again, then crack open the door. “You awake?”
The middle of the long lump lying in bed rises and falls. He’s breathing, but that’s about all he’s doing.
“Twenty-five seconds!”
I dash across the room, dodging paper airplanes and arrows covering the floor, and nudge his shoulder. He throws off the pillow and shoots up. I jump back.
“Finn?” His eyes are wide, unfocused. “What happened? Are you okay? Did I—”
“Lemon.” I step toward him. “It’s me. Seamus.”
His eyes find mine, return to normal size.
“I’m really sorry to barge in, but—”
“Twenty seconds!”
“We need to go. Like now. Annika’s waiting. Our mission’s starting. We have—”
“Eighteen seconds!”
“—to get in the elevator and up to the beach. Just put on some clothes while I find your shoes and . . . Lemon?” I stop sifting through paper stars for his worn moccasins. “What are you doing? Why are you lying down?”
“Not going.” Lemon pulls the pillow over his head.
“You have to go. We all do. You heard Annika. She needs us to help—”
“Thirteen seconds!” Houdini shouts.
“Hinkle!” Abe shouts.
I stare at Lemon’s motionless body, torn. He’s my best friend. Whatever he needs—sleep, space, no questions asked—I want him to have. But this mission is important. And Capital T can’t do it without him.
Then it hits me.
“What about Finn?” I ask. “He’s here, isn’t he? Don’t you want to see him?”
Jackpot. Lemon flings away the pillow, grabs his moccasins from under the bed, and sprints from the room.
“Ten seconds!”
I’m the last one inside the elevator. Abe hits the up button. The glass door slides shut. During our ride I sneak glances at Lemon, who’s now wide-awake and staring at the glowing red arrow above the door.
The elevator stops. The door slides open. Abe and Lemon elbow and nudge each other to be the first one out.
We reach the beach just as Annika, who’s standing before the lake with our teachers, holds an air horn overhead and lets it rip. The noise sends birds flying from the trees. Once every living thing within a ten-mile radius is awake, she swaps the air horn for a megaphone.
“Reed Jenkins! Natalie Warner! Liam Jones!”
There’s a scuffle behind us. I look over my shoulder and see three Troublemakers pop out from under three different tarp tents.
“You’re late!” Annika says. “Tardiness suggests that you feel your time is somehow more valuable than mine! And this suggests that at home, you feel your time is somehow more valuable than your parents’! Neither is ever the case!”
“Sorry,” Reed says, his face turning red. “I couldn’t find my K—”
“Wyatt,” Annika barks into the megaphone. Our art teacher steps out from the line. “Please take these troubling truants to the sewage sorting lair.”
Reed’s face goes white. Natalie and Liam exchange worried looks. I want to assure them that this show is for our parents’ benefit, since they must be listening on speakers across the lake, but don’t. Partly because doing so might really annoy Annika, and also because Wyatt takes them by the ears and whisks them away before I can.
“As mentioned yesterday,” Annika continues, “you’ll have ten minutes to forage for breakfast in the woods. After that you’ll transport yourselves across the lake. On shore, Kamp Kilter staff members will give you your assignments. Any goofing off and you risk permanent ejection from Kamp Kilter. In the event of such punishment, your families will be forced to end their vacations early. And you don’t want that, do you?”
There’s a low murmuring throughout the group.
“I can’t hear you!” Annika yells.
“No!” we shout.
“Good. Now, I assume you have your K-Paks. Keep them on you at all times! You’ll soon receive e-mails about Role Reverse, a fun new activity.”
“Fun?” Alison Parker asks. “But I thought—”
“That may have been an exaggeration!” Annika yells into the megaphone. “I should’ve been clearer and said a not-entirely-miserable activity. But if all goes well, it’s one that should help you and your families have fun together upon your return home.”
“Role Reverse?” Abe asks. “Is that like role playing?”
“Precisely,” Annika says. “Additional information is forthcoming. For now, go! Eat! Try to be the children your parents wish you were!”
The group bolts for the trees. Some Troublemakers actually search for edible twigs and berries. Others down granola bars, bagels, and other breakfast items they must’ve taken from their kitchens. Then they all moan and groan when they realize they should’ve saved their appetites.
“Oh. My. Goodness!” Gabby squeals. “That’s the most food I’ve ever seen!”
When I see what she means, I’m impressed too. A long table has been set up in a large clearing. It looks like it should be in a fancy restaurant, not in the middle of the woods. It’s covered by a white tablecloth and holds real plates and silverware, candles, and vases of flowers. It also holds towers of food. There are pancakes. Waffles. Eggs. Bacon. Sausage. Toast. Fresh fruit. Glass pitchers of orange juice, hot chocolate, and steaming maple syrup. Crystal bowls filled with cream cheese, jam, and peanut butter. Behind the table, three Kanteen chefs man three silver stoves on wheels, occasionally dashing to an oversize refrigerator for more ingredients.
“We have eight minutes!” Abe announces.
“Then we better get eating!” Eric Carle says.
“Are those fish sticks?” Elinor asks from across the table. “Covered in maple syrup?”
I smile, not sure what makes me happier: that my favorite Kilter breakfast is on the table . . . or that Elinor remembered what my favorite Kilter breakfast is.
“Looks like,” I say. “Thanks.”
Mouth watering, I aim a fork at the fish stick at the top of the tower.
But it disappears before I can stab it. So does the one underneath it. And the two underneath that. And the four underneath that. In case I missed something, I look down at my plate. But it’s empty. So is the fish-stick platter when I look at it again.
“Does someone else—”
Love fish sticks? That’s what I try to ask. But the question’s cut short.
Because I’m grabbed by shirt collar. Yanked off the ground.
And sucked into the sky.
Chapter 11
DEMERITS: 1430
GOLD STARS: 650
Maple-syrup-soaked fish sticks? No offense, but that has to be the grossest thing I’ve ever heard of. And smelled.”
“They’re not soaked,” I correct Ike. “They’re dipped. Soaking would make them soggy—and that would be gross. Since the crunchy coating is what makes them so delicious!”
My tutor and I are sitting in a tree above the long breakfast buffet table. This is where I landed after he snagged the back of my shirt with a super-strong fishing hook and reeled me in. We’re so high up I can barely hear my classmates talking below.
Holding his nose now, Ike frowns and examines a fish stick.
“How do you know you won’t like it?” I ask.
“If I feel sick just thinking about it, I’m pretty sure it’s not for me.”
I grin. “One bite. For me.”
Ike releases his nose. “Fine. If you do something for me.”
“Deal.”
He reaches behind him and holds up a long stick. “Ever seen one of these?”
“A fishing pole?”
He turns over the stick so I can see the writing on the other side.
“The Kilter Katcher 5000,” I read aloud.
“Guaranteed to elevate your camping experience by ensnaring any target—hook, line, and sinker. Allow me to demonstrate.” He jumps to his feet and crouches down like the branch is a surfboard. “See that donut Abe’s holding?”
“Nope.” Abe, and the rest of the Troublemakers, are not only far away, they’re hidden by the tree’s thousands of leaves.
“Look.” Ike points to the Kilter Katcher.
I lean closer. “Is that a radar screen?”
The small square is attached to the top of the pole. As I watch, Ike adjusts the silver reel on the underside of the pole. The image on the screen grows larger. My Capital T alliance mate brings a huge, sugary ball toward his mouth.
“That’s Abe,” I say. “And that’s definitely a jelly donut.”
Ike spins the reel. On the screen, the red bull’s-eye moves. When it’s centered on the donut, Ike squeezes the reel. The bull’s-eye freezes. The Kilter Katcher releases silver fishing line.
“Now this is breakfast.” Ike bites into the jelly donut, which has gone from Abe’s hand to his in about a second.
My chin drops. “That’s how you stole my fish sticks so fast? And got me up here?”
“Yup.” He shoves the rest of the donut into his mouth, chews, and licks the powdered sugar from his fingers. “Your turn.”
I sit up straighter on the tree branch. Ike hands me the Kilter Katcher. For such an impressive weapon, it’s surprisingly light.
“What should I catch?” I ask.
“We’ll start easy. I’ll give you ten demerits for that caterpillar two branches down.”
I frown. “Won’t I hurt him?”
“Were you hurt when I caught you?”
No, but Ike’s obviously had practice. So I’m still nervous as I spin the reel and move the bull’s-eye over my furry target.
“Good,” Ike says when the radar’s locked in place. “See the handle on the side of the reel? That’s your firing lever. Pull it down to let ’er rip.”
“Sorry, little guy,” I whisper. Then I pull down the lever and cringe.
“Missed.”
I look down. “How? The bull’s-eye was locked right over it.”
“The line’s tangled in leaves.” Ike leans against the tree trunk and clasps his hands over his stomach. “Sorry. I should’ve mentioned that the Kilter Katcher can’t do your job entirely. Once it’s released, you have to guide the line toward its target. The instant you pull down the lever, the screen will change. It’ll show you the line’s route as well as obstacles in its path. Using the reel like a video-game controller, you have to watch the screen and move the line around those obstacles.”
“But it’s so fast,” I say.
“That just means you have to be too.”
I consider this, then give the Kilter Katcher a strong tug. The line rips free of the leaves and flies back up into the pole. I find the caterpillar on the screen and refocus the bull’s-eye. I lock it in place, take a deep breath, and pull down the lever.
The screen changes instantly. I pretend I’m playing video games in my bedroom back home as I stare and adjust the reel. The tiny digital hook moves around tiny digital limbs and leaves.
“It made it.” I look at the screen, down at the target, and back at the screen. “I think it—”
“Voila.” Ike nods to the end of the pole, where the fuzzy caterpillar is now cradled in the hook like a baby in a swing. “You just earned ten demerits. Congrats.”
“Thanks.” I lower the pole, remove the caterpillar, and gently place it on the branch. “And congrats to you—you just earned a bite of maple-syrup-dipped fish stick!”
“Not so fast. That was just a warm-up. Your real challenge is next.”
“Bring it on.”
“Annika.”
“You want me to catch her?”
“No—although that’s tempting.”
For a second, I forget about the Kilter Katcher. Because Ike’s probably the happiest guy I know. He smiles a lot. I’ve seen him serious and focused—but never in a bad mood. But now? When he talks about catching Annika? He sounds different. He looks different. As if he thinks trapping our director is a good idea . . . but for bad reasons.
But then he shakes his head and smiles, and he’s happy Ike again.
“I want you to catch her sunglasses. Snatch them right off her face. For a hundred demerits.”
I smile too. “No problem.”
“Don’t be so sure. The caterpillar was close. Annika’s a quarter of a mile away—and she’s a moving target. Even if the hook reaches her, it has to find her face. And there’s always a chance she’ll see
the hook and dodge it.”
“Hinkle!” a male voice shouts far below us. “Where are you?”
Abe. Our top secret mission.
I look at Ike. “Annika gave us ten minutes for breakfast. Can I take a rain check? And catch her sunglasses later?”
“If you do it right it won’t take long.”
“Hinkle!” Abe hollers. “We will leave you!”
My pulse quickens. Not wanting to disappoint Ike, I adjust the reel and study the screen. After a few tries, I zoom in on the beach and see Annika talking on her K-Pak. She walks as she talks, which makes it hard to lock the bull’s-eye on her sunglasses.
Annika pauses. The bull’s-eye hovers over the right lens of her sunglasses. My breath catches. I lock the bull’s-eye, yank the lever, and release the line.
Two seconds later, I’m smiling at my reflection in Annika’s mirrored sunglasses. Which Ike’s wearing as he chows down on a maple-syrup-dipped fish stick.
“Pretty good, right?” I ask.
He swallows. “Don’t know if I’d order it in a restaurant . . . but it’s staying down. So that’s good.”
I hand him the Kilter Katcher. “Thanks! This was fun. But I kind of have to go.”
“Understood.”
I wait. He licks his fingers.
“Sorry,” I say, “but do you think you could . . . ?”
“Oh! Sure.”
I turn slightly so he has a better shot at my back. He lifts the Kilter Katcher and casts the line in one quick motion. The hook latches onto my shirt. The line lifts me from the branch and begins lowering me down.
“Thanks again!” I smile and wave.
The line stops. My body jerks.
“Seamus?”
I look up at Ike. He’s looking down at me. His mood seems to have changed again. But he’s not mad. Maybe sad? Definitely serious.
“Annika has you working on a special project . . . doesn’t she?”
My mouth opens. Nothing comes out. Because I’m not sure what to say. Ike’s my honorary big brother so I don’t want to lie to him. But Annika’s Kamp Kilter mission is top secret and I don’t want to disobey her.
Fortunately or unfortunately, my silence must answer for me. Because Ike leans down and whispers three words.