by Theo Baker
My idea was perfect. It was better than perfect. It was so good that Miss Adolf would probably go into shock upon seeing the results tomorrow. She’d go into shock and have to be taken to the hospital to be treated alongside Emily, and then my favorite teacher, Mr. Rock, would substitute for her. All. Week. Long.
Want to know my better-than-perfect idea?
Camouflage. You know, the ability to disappear into your surroundings. Camouflage, the superpower I’ve really wanted my whole life.
And it was all thanks to Katherine.
I didn’t know much about military camouflage, but I knew enough to know that it had to be new-ish. I knew that way back in the day they used to fight battles like crazy people. The two sides would wear bright uniforms, get into two lines facing each other, and then just start firing weapons.
But World War I was different. During that war, they tried to get out of the way. They dug those trenches. And during that war, they must have come up with camouflage.
After looking it up online, it turned out that they didn’t exactly invent camouflage during World War I. The idea had been around for a little while, but they had come up with the name for camouflage during World War I. The word was French, and it meant blowing smoke in someone’s eyes. But they didn’t actually use camouflage that much during the war.
“It didn’t work so well,” Papa Pete said. “But the French wasted a lot of time camouflaging outposts and painting their faces. If they had stopped all that silliness, we could have taken the Alps in the summer of ’17.”
“What do you mean, ‘we’?” I asked Papa Pete. “I thought you said you weren’t in the —”
“I wasn’t, Hank,” he said as he walked over to the window and looked out at the moon. “I wasn’t. . . .”
Normally I would have tried to get to the bottom of Papa Pete’s mysterious past, but my mind was stuck on my camouflage project. It wasn’t perfect. But I could camouflage the fact that it wasn’t perfect with a cool presentation. And with my cool presentation, I could camouflage the fact that for three weeks I hadn’t done diddly-squat on my camouflage project.
Yes, it was perfect!
But it was also a lot of hard work. Papa Pete helped me all the way through. We worked together on it, going through old encyclopedias and Internet sites, taking notes and organizing them, and then he helped me put all my thoughts into words.
I learned a ton about the war. It was fascinating and grisly. I never could understand why it started in the first place, but I learned that at the time, everyone thought they needed to fight, and that the war would be over quickly. But that’s not how it happened. It just became this gruesome stalemate, with both sides dug into their trenches. In a major battle, one side might gain only a few hundred feet.
“Why did they keep fighting, Papa Pete?”
“Because, Hank,” he said, getting up from the computer. He walked over to the window and gazed off into the moonlight again. “Because, Hank, man is an insane animal. . . .”
“You sure you weren’t in the war, Papa Pete?”
He didn’t answer. He just kept staring off at the moon and clouds. Maybe Papa Pete really was in the war! Or maybe it was just really late. We worked on the essay until two o’clock in the morning, and when that was done, I finally got started on my presentation.
Katherine sat on my pillow and watched us working in the lamplight the whole time. At one point, in a daze and my eyes blurry, I even screwed up the courage to hand-feed her a locust. I cracked open the plastic container, grabbed a prickly leg, and pulled a fluttering locust out. Katherine gobbled it right out of my hand, and I could tell she was thankful. It was almost sweet.
I slept no more than two hours. Katherine slept on my nightstand, on a nest she had made out of my undies. At least I think she was sleeping. It’s hard to tell with lizards. I’m not even sure if whatever they do at night is called sleeping. It might be called something else. I would have to ask Emily about it.
Strike that. I’ll just look it up online and then erase the search from my browser forever. Better to avoid giving Emily a chance to deliver a long-winded lecture on the living habits of lizards. It would only encourage her.
When Frankie and Ashley came by to pick me up for school, I was still asleep with Katherine, and Papa Pete told them he’d be taking me to school. Papa Pete was still grouchy about Fidel’s pizza, and all while he was making coffee and breakfast for us, and helping me double-check everything with red eyes, I could hear him muttering under his breath about the outrage of baking tropical fruit in cheese.
I felt like I was in Miss Adolf’s gas mask, with everything seeming blurry and far away. Papa Pete guided me around the apartment, helped me get my bag together, and carried my project down to his car. As soon as the back of my head touched the headrest of my seat, I was out like a light.
When he had dropped me off, I began to wake up. And seeing the project in my arms, I was feeling really good about everything. I knew the material inside out. I could hear it looping around in my brain. Camouflage was all I could think about, the only thing I’d seen all morning. I saw worms blending into the dirt, pigeons blending into buildings, kids in school uniforms blending into kids in school uniforms. And I realized something: everyone and everything was scared of being noticed, of sticking out. Because sticking out meant getting eaten. At least for animals. I really started to feel for all the animals out there, even the locusts in that disgusting tub. I mean, if you’re a locust, everything wants to eat you, just for being alive. Talk about a crazy situation.
I was so busy thinking about all this crazy stuff that I didn’t realize that I had walked right past Miss Berkson, the school administrator, and she hadn’t noticed me at all, so no late slip! Maybe I was starting to blend in?
Miss Adolf didn’t notice me either when I slipped into my classroom and over to my seat. She was squeaking something out on the board.
But my friends noticed me and my project. It would be hard not to. It was made of three pizza boxes and took up my entire desk. Maybe my camouflage powers only worked on adults?
“Wait,” Ashley said. “You actually did your project?”
“In one night?” Frankie said.
“No problem,” I said. “Papa Pete helped with the words. And it’s got a great presentation.” I patted the pizza boxes and got that gruesome plastic tub out of my bag.
“I see you brought the locusts again,” Frankie said, inching slowly away from me. “There’s no way on earth I’m holding them again —”
“Relax, Frankie,” I said. “I meant to bring them this time.”
“Why?”
“Hank?” Ashley asked. “Is there a lizard in those pizza boxes?”
“Hank?”
“She’s camouflaged. It’s great, right? That’s what my project’s on — the use of camouflage in trench warfare. It was Katherine’s idea.” I opened up the plastic container a fraction of an inch, pinched out a tiny mealworm, and slipped it through a crack in my pizza box presentation. A tongue grabbed it and sucked it in.
“Did he just say it was Katherine’s idea?” Frankie asked Ashley.
“And did he really just feed a lizard a worm?” Ashley asked Frankie.
“Like I said — great.”
Ashley reminded me of a certain fact, however. “Except in Emily’s instructions, it was written that under no circumstances should you take Katherine out of the apartment.”
“Emily says a lot of things I don’t listen to. Why start now? But I do think she’s onto something with her insect protein business. Could be the future. Right, Katherine?”
I fed the lizard another mealworm.
From the pages of Emily Zipzer’s field notebook:
April 11, 9:45 a.m.
The father has awoken to severe back pain. No surprise there, considering he slept in a chair. He smiles through the pain, but every time he so much as turns his head, I hear a sound like snapping twigs.
The doctor, Anita, just
came in to introduce herself. She is an ear, nose, and throat clinician and, one hopes, also a surgeon. I did notice, however, that the nail polish on her left hand was somewhat uneven. Perhaps she simply went to a bad manicurist. Or perhaps her hands shake, which, alarmingly, could be an early sign of a medical condition.
But it is such a simple procedure. A dentist could do it. It will take only twenty-five to thirty-five minutes, though the recovery from anesthesia lasts two to three hours. Anita was so impressed with my medical knowledge that she made a condescending remark about my becoming a doctor when I’m a grown-up.
As if! I might as well be a landscaper.
While I was imagining my future as a nuclear physicist or a quantum mathematician, the mother read Anita excerpts from her ridiculous book about how I was a very confused and emotionally fragile young girl. And then, when Mom and Dad were arguing about Mom’s pathetic obsession with her book, the doctor mentioned the word “needle,” and the father emitted a high-pitched shriek and tried to make a run for it.
He hadn’t run three feet before he crashed into the biohazard container, and splashed half the room with yellow juice.
12:39 p.m.
They have just administered the anesthetic. It was painless. The father turned green and hid his eyes in Mom’s lap while the needle went in. And then the mother fainted to the floor.
That is all I have time to mention right now. They want to take my notebook away from me. I feel sleepy. I will fight it. I will make a part of myself stay lucid and aware even under the anesthetic. This is too interesting an experience to miss completely. I must stay awake. I musssssssssssssss . . .
2:13 p.m.
I heard them working on me the whole time. Believe it or not, but I heard them. I felt no pain. I tried to communicate with the outside world by moving my eyelids in Morse code, but few medical staff, apparently, are versed in it. They were listening to Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2. Check local radio playlists for proof that I was aware during the procedure.
When I woke, I could not speak. I could only look around. So I observed.
While I was out, both parents had received extensive medical care. The mother had several bandages wrapped around her head and was leaning back with an ice pack. The father kept prodding the mother not to fall asleep, as she most likely suffered a concussion from the fall. The father, by the way, was in a back brace, with one of his arms held aloft.
I was promised ice cream. Let it be known here that when I woke up, all of my post-surgery ice cream had been eaten.
Both deny it. Both are lying. I will get my revenge.
Finally it was my turn to present to the class. Half asleep, I’d listened to kids get up and present project after boring project. None were even half as interesting as mine. Except for Ashley’s. Her presentation on trench foot was really fascinating. Did you know that all it takes to get trench foot is to expose your feet to damp and cold air for too long? And then your feet start to rot, and before you know it, they have to amputate your feet. That’s the only way to treat it. But if I got trench feet, I’d be, like, no, not me, you can’t amputate my feet. My feet are fine. Just a bit stinky. Go amputate someone else’s feet. . . .
When I realized I was becoming so fascinated with trench foot that I was forgetting my own project, I zoned out again until it was my turn.
“Henry Zipzer,” Miss Adolf said, gesturing to the front of the classroom. I felt all eyes on me and heard them whispering as I marched up there, carrying my project. Mine was by far the biggest. Miss Adolf tapped her lip and watched me with arched eyebrows the whole time.
“This is really a new low, Henry,” Miss Adolf said as I plopped my pizza-box contraption down on her desk. “You can’t really pretend that this is —”
“My presentation, Miss Adolf. You’re going to love it.”
“But, Henry, you know I despise garbage.” Her face strained into that smile again where she’s trying to smile, but her face muscles won’t cooperate. McKelty burst out laughing.
But I paid them no attention. I got out my essay from my back pocket, unfolded it, cleared my throat several times, and gazed at all the letters that would just not stay put. My voice came soft and weak. “Soldiers in World War One got the idea of cam — cam — camouflage from animals that blend into the virus — I mean, the environment . . .”
I paused. I was starting to develop a stutter, but more than that, I knew those hazy words on the page were no match for how cool camouflage really was.
I set the notes down.
“Listen, there’s some more stuff I wrote down here . . .”
“Which I will be grading,” Miss Adolf said.
“But who needs words? What I have to show you is one of the coolest things nature has ever come up with. Ever wish you had a superpower? Like the power to be invisible? We all have. But animals do it all the time. They blend in and disappear before our very eyes. Don’t believe me? Well, I have a live demonstration. See it for yourself. Are you ready?”
“Yeah!” everyone said.
I started to open the box, then stopped and vamped it up a bit. “You guys aren’t ready. Are you sure you’re ready?”
“We’re ready!” they cried.
“Open the box, Hank!” one kid named Maurice said. “Let’s see what’s in there!”
“You will.” I twirled my hands about a bit. “Or will you?”
Very slowly, and with a magician’s skill, I cracked open the box, inch by inch, revealing a diorama of a jungle scene, complete with sand and leaves and some foliage I took from Katherine’s terrarium habitat. I opened the box and made a flourish with my hands.
“Ta-da!”
Silence.
“Congratulations, Henry, it’s an empty box.”
“Exactly, camouflage. Look again, but this time concentrate. Tell me what you see.”
Miss Adolf stood from her chair. “I see a very disruptive young man who’s about to get detention.”
“You must be in shock, Miss Adolf,” I said. “Clear your mind and see the box with new eyes.”
“Hank!” Frankie stage-whispered. “It really is an empty box!”
“Nonsense, Frankie,” I replied, and came around the desk and looked in. Nope, I didn’t see a thing. “Sometimes,” I said, suddenly unsure but still projecting confidence, “these lizards are so camouflaged that they are practically invisible. You must feel for them with your hands.” I felt around, to a rising chorus of laughter. I felt nothing, other than my life force leaking out of my ear again.
“Oh, boy.”
“You aren’t fooling me, Henry.”
“We’ve got to find her!” I cried, whipping my head around. There was a swirl of laughing faces and fingers pointing at me, but no lizard in sight.
“Henry, you simply cannot camouflage the fact that you failed to complete your assignment with this ruse.”
“But it’s Emily’s lizard. We’ve got to find her! Everyone look by your feet!”
“Not even you would be irresponsible enough to bring a live lizard into this school.”
“But I so would!”
“I’m giving you one week’s detention for this ludicrous spectacle. Do you want another, for ludicrously lying about live lizards?”
“To be fair, Miss Adolf, the lizard may be dead.”
Miss Adolf glared at me, grinding her teeth to chalk.
“There he is!” McKelty shouted, and pointed at me. “Right before your eyes, the stupidest kid in all of Westbrook Academy.”
There was nowhere to hide.
All morning long, I kept my eyes peeled for Katherine. But I didn’t spot her anywhere. Not once. Emily would make my life a nightmare if I didn’t find her. But also, and you have to promise to keep this a secret, I was sort of growing a little fond of the old girl. With her scaly skin, spikes, and distant yellow eyes, she was hard not to love.
The windows in the classroom were closed, so I knew that she was still in there. When the bell rang fo
r lunch, I hung outside the door, peeking in through its window. Unlike last night, Frankie and Ashley stuck around to help, even though there was no chance they’d get a free pizza out of it.
“She was definitely in the box when class started,” I said. “She’s got to be in there somewhere.”
I peeked through the window again. Miss Adolf was seated at her desk, eating a sandwich and grading papers. My presentation was in the small trash can by her feet. It was such a small trash can that she had had to rip up my project several times to fit it in.
“Man, her sandwich is nauseating,” Frankie said. “I can smell it from here.”
I sniffed. “Pickled herring and sauerkraut. I think I’m developing super-smelling powers.” I glared again at Miss Adolf, trying to send her a telepathic message to get up, stretch her legs, walk around, or do something! “Will she stay in this room forever?” I asked in frustration.
“Impossible,” Ashley said. “If she doesn’t get up soon, she’ll get deep vein thrombosis, and maybe even —”
“Trench foot?” I said.
“Oh, Hank, you were listening! That’s so sweet!”
“Look!” I said, and pointed. “Katherine’s in Miss Adolf’s bag!”
“I don’t see it,” Frankie said. “Oh wait, now I see it. There’s a tail sticking out. Errgggh.”
“We need to get her before Adolf does,” I said. “If only we can get her out of that room . . .”
Something clicked in my brain.
It all seemed so simple and easy in my brain. But when I tried to translate what was in my brain into reality, it took a lot of paper, time, and an entire Prussian army of little erasers that I had thrown into my book bag this morning.
All three of us sat huddled on the floor in front of some lockers outside Miss Adolf’s classroom. I had laid out three sheets of paper, on which I had drawn a scale map of the hallway and the classroom.
“OK,” I said. “I’ll go over it once more. Try to listen this time, Frankie.”