Attack of the Fluffy Bunnies Read online

  “Dudes,” said Jammer. “Like, welcome. This is Canoeing 101, and we’re going to have some fun. Okay, so—like—everybody get in a canoe and—like—canoe. Yeah. Hang ten!”

  It was the quickest lesson Kevin had ever had for anything, and he didn’t like it. He liked lessons that included details and planned for problems like death, destruction, locusts, and panic. He had never canoed before and really didn’t know anything about boats. A little extra information might have been useful.

  SmellyCat and Sparkletooth got into two canoes and paddled into the lake. The girls paddled along the shore, giggling and snorting after every stroke. Avery stood beside the third canoe and looked at Kevin with pure terror in his eyes.

  “No worries, Avery dude. Just get in and paddle,” said Jammer. “Surf’s up!”

  Jammer put in his earphones and started waxing his surfboard again, and the instruction was over.

  Avery seemed as nervous as Kevin, but Kevin suspected it was for different reasons. Avery stepped into the front of the canoe and Kevin stepped into the back, shoving the canoe from the shore. They glided a few feet onto the lake and started paddling. With each stroke Kevin took, Avery paddled twice. Kevin paddled faster to keep up, which made Avery paddle even faster. Avery paddled harder and harder, as if he were trying to get away from Kevin. Every few strokes, he stole a terrified glance over his shoulder.

  In minutes, they were in the middle of Lake Whatsosmelly. The air was warm and breezy. It should have been pleasant gliding through the calm waters, but a distinct chill came from Avery, who sat stiffly staring straight ahead.

  “Hey, look,” said Kevin. “I’m really sorry somebody stole your candy, but it wasn’t me.”

  Avery made a faint gasp and dug harder into the water with the wooden paddle. He did not answer.

  “Hey,” said Kevin.

  “I don’t have any more candy,” said Avery in a panic. “But I’ll give you my lunch. Just let me go!”

  “Hey! I’m not going to take your candy, and I don’t want your lunch. I’m not a thief! Really!” Kevin said. “It’s okay.”

  Avery shrunk into a ball on the front seat of the canoe and said, “Go away.”

  Kevin pulled his paddle from the water and very gently nudged Avery’s back with the handle.

  “It’s okay!” he said.

  At the touch of the canoe paddle, Avery bolted out of his seat.

  “AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!” he screamed, and jumped into the lake, sending both paddles flying in one direction and the canoe spinning in the other.

  “Come back!” yelled Kevin. “Hey! You can’t just jump out like that! I don’t know how to canoe!”

  Avery swam for the shore like a shark was after him. He was a fast swimmer, but Kevin was too dizzy from the spinning motion of the canoe to watch. The swirling twirling motion reminded him of the time the family had gone to the county fair after trying out Mrs. Rockman’s new recipe for Spaco-bagos (a.k.a. SPAM Tacos with Rutabaga). After two Spaco-bagos and a couple of cotton candies, Kevin and Joules went on the Tilt-A-Whirl. This was, coincidentally, the same day Kevin discovered the wonders of motion sickness.

  Now, in his twirling canoe in the middle of Lake Whatsosmelly, Kevin recognized the familiar feeling swelling up inside him. He clung, white-knuckled, to the sides of the canoe and clamped his eyes shut. That didn’t work. The feeling grew stronger. He opened his eyes and tried to focus on one spot in the distance. His eyes settled on the giant elm tree at Craftland. Ms. Jones sat by herself at one of the picnic tables. Kevin spun around again. Ms. Jones was still at the table, but she was not alone. Kevin spun around again and again. With each spin, the scene on the shore unfolded like panels in a comic book, though there was nothing comical about what was happening. You can see for yourself what it looked like on the next page.

  “Watch out!!!!” Kevin yelled.

  He stood up in the canoe pointing wildly at the shore, where Ms. Jones was being dragged away.

  “Help!” Kevin yelled to Jammer or anyone who might hear.

  He meant it in a There’s-a-really-weird-creature-attacking-Ms.-Jones-somebody-help-her kind of way, but it came off as more of a Help!-I-don’t-know-that-it’s-stupid-to-stand-up-in-a-canoe-and-this-is-going-to-end-very-badly kind of way because at that moment, Kevin Rockman pointed a little too far toward the shore. He realized this was a problem when he found himself pointing toward a largemouth bass swimming through the murky depths of Lake Whatsosmelly.

  Kevin tumbled down into the water but immediately bobbed back up thanks to his life jacket. Floating on his back in the middle of the lake, Kevin noticed four things:

  1. It was a very pretty day, though a dark cloud in the west threatened rain.

  2. Canoes drift away very fast when you are not in them but want to be.

  3. Jammer was a fast runner and an even faster surfboard paddler. He would do great in Hawaii.

  4. Ms. Jones was gone.

  After Joules left the tent, she headed toward Café du Lac, carefully ducking out of sight when Counselor Blech and a pair of campers passed by on the way to swim at the beach. Or at least that was what Joules guessed. The campers wore swimsuits and Counselor Blech wore a deep-sea diver’s outfit. He carried the fishbowl-shaped helmet under his arm.

  “And remember,” he said, “if you see a fish, swim for your life. Don’t worry about me. I’ll be safe on the shore.”

  The campers groaned and marched on.

  Joules slipped behind Café du Lac and saw the giant gash in the canvas. Someone had patched the rip with silver duct tape to keep mosquitoes from enjoying a meal while the campers enjoyed theirs. That was thoughtful.

  She found the large, flat footprints in the dirt and a small clump of white fur snagged on a raspberry bramble. Another tuft of fur clung to a branch a few feet away. A trail of clues.

  The trail led into the deep ferns, and Joules followed it. Bending low and constantly pushing fern fronds out of her face, she searched the ground for footprints. Eventually, the trail led to an open stand of trees that skirted the shore of the lake. Joules looked out onto the water.

  She saw three canoes in the lake and one blue-and-white surfboard on the shore. Two of the canoes were skimming the far shore, and she recognized SmellyCat and Sparkletooth in them. She could occasionally catch the faint sound of their giggles on the breeze that blew across the water and gently rustled the leaves. The third canoe paddled furiously toward the center of the lake. She recognized Avery and Kevin. Kevin had learned to canoe!

  Way to go, Kev! she thought, and turned back to the trail.

  She followed the prints a little farther along the shore, but they soon vanished. A deer trail veered into the deeper woods. Joules followed it, hoping it would lead her somewhere useful. Had she stayed close to the shore, she might have heard a cry for help, a very large splash, and someone calling, “Hey, dude! Don’t get all—like—drowned or something. Uncool!”

  Joules missed these things.

  As she headed into the woods, the wind shifted and the giggling sounds were replaced by the chittering of squirrels and the occasional caw of a crow that flew from tree to tree, its golden eyes fixed on the girl following a path used only by deer and—lately—three other creatures. Strange, white, fluffy creatures with crates of marshmallows.

  With our heroes pursuing mysteries and awaiting rescue in a large lake, let’s take a moment to enjoy these messages about our favorite products.

  Joules continued through the woods along the narrow deer path. She had seen no footprints or tufts of fur for a long time and was ready to turn back. It would be dinner soon, and she was getting hungry, though she wasn’t sure if she was hungry enough to face the whispers and sidelong glances from the campers at Café du Lac. Of course, she could always skip dinner. There was still the lunch with secret sauce Mom had packed, which had been ripening under her cot for a full day now.

  Joules thought about it for a moment and realized that the words “lunch” and �
�ripening” should never be used in the same sentence. Thank goodness for Tupperware and those airtight seals! Without them, she and Kevin might have been killed by toxic fumes in their sleep. She made a mental note to pitch the lunch before it exploded or something worse. It was the kind of toxic substance that could turn into a new life form and threaten the camp and who knows what else. Joules and Kevin had seen things like this a million times on the Late, Late, Late Creepy Show for Insomniacs, though usually the toxic substance was the accidental result of some science experiment gone terribly awry….

  Joules sighed and leaned against the trunk of a large oak to rest for a moment. The brush was very thick here, and going any farther would be too much work. She was tired and stared around lazily without paying much attention to what she was seeing. After a moment, though, she realized that she was staring at a fence. A tall chain-link fence that ran behind the line of bushes. What was on the other side?

  Joules was about to investigate when she heard:

  She ducked behind the oak tree and listened. The sound came closer and closer to Joules’s hideout. It stopped on the other side of the tree. Joules clenched the end of her stick, took a deep breath, and jumped out of her hiding place.

  “I got y—” she yelled, ready to jab whatever she found on the other side of the tree.

  What she found was Ms. Jones. Joules dropped her stick.

  “Uh—” she said. “Hi?”

  Ms. Jones stood before her wearing a pair of dark sunglasses. She swayed oddly from side to side, her cyclone-shaped hair tilting dangerously as she swayed. She looked Joules over from head to toe as if she were sizing her up. There was something very odd about her, or more accurately, about the way she appeared to Joules. Ms. Jones was fuzzy. Not a covered-with-peach-fuzz type of fuzzy, but blurry, as if Joules had just awakened and her eyes had not yet adjusted to the light. When Ms. Jones spoke, her voice was flat and expressionless. Almost robotic.

  “Are you Swedish?” she asked.

  “Uh. No …,” Joules said slowly. “I think my family is Danish and English.”

  “Danish are tasty,” said Ms. Jones. “English are not.”

  “Uh-huh,” said Joules uneasily. “Um. Are you okay?”

  “Yes,” said Ms. Jones. “I am accessing memories. You are the Rockman female camper. You are not sweet.”

  “Thanks,” said Joules. “I get that a lot.”

  “That can be corrected,” said Ms. Jones. “Then you will be useful.”

  “Are you feeling okay, Ms. Jones?” asked Joules.

  “Ms. Jones?”

  The counselor tilted her head to the other side.

  “That is a terrible name,” she said. “Call me Commander Cotton—er—Jones. Commander Jones. That is a good name. Go away.”

  “Okay,” said Joules.

  Joules was very happy to get away from Ms.—er—Commander Jones. She was giving Joules the creeps. Joules started back toward camp, but after a few steps turned around.

  “Are you sure you’re okay?”

  Commander Jones was gone.

  Kevin returned from his canoeing adventure expecting to find Joules sharpening a stick on her cot and planning her escape from Camp Whatsitooya. But the tent was empty. Perhaps she had gone back to the spa. He waited nervously for her to return. Something awful had happened to Ms. Jones and he needed to talk to Joules about it.

  To calm himself, Kevin sat on his cot and wrote in his notebook. He was adding items to his Things to Avoid list, which had grown significantly since his arrival at Camp Whatsitooya. He suspected his list might grow much longer during the week, and this secretly worried Kevin. As usual, when something worried Kevin, he calmed himself by working on his list of Things to Avoid. It looked like this:

  Kevin underlined the last item in case he was ever tempted to canoe with Avery again. Even though being towed behind a surfboard was pretty fun, canoeing had not been the adventure he had expected. But then, not much about Camp Whatsitooya had turned out as he had expected. Still, it was probably better than hanging out at the SPAMfest and being forced to taste test strawberry SPAMcake or SPAMchip oatmeal cookies or the dreaded kiwi SPAMshake.

  Kevin flipped the page to start his new chart of Annoying Movie Characters. He thought of the people he had met during the last two days. Ms. Jones would make a very annoying movie character. She was like the hobby-hound in the movie Crustacean! who was too focused on his duck-carving to pay attention to the giant lobster that was about to attack. On the upside, characters like that usually had very interesting ways of leaving the movie. (“Leaving a movie” is a nice way of saying getting wiped out, which is also a nice way of saying pushing up daisies, kicking the bucket, assuming room temperature, or taking a dirt nap, which is also a nice way of saying … well … you know.)

  In Ms. Jones’s case, it would probably involve glitter.

  Kevin felt a pang of guilt. It wasn’t very nice thinking of people he actually knew as if they were movie characters. Especially after they have just been dragged away by a ferocious-looking white beast. And yet …

  Nelson poked his head into the tent. He was carrying a tray with two plates of food.

  “I brought you some tube steaks,” he said. “You guys should avoid the café tonight. Everybody is mad at you for eating all the marshmallows.”

  “We didn’t eat all the marshmallows,” said Kevin, grabbing a plate from the tray and tearing into a hot dog.

  “That’s what I told them,” said Nelson. “But nobody believes me. It’s okay, though, because I heard that Ms. Jones ordered a whole truckload of marshmallows for tomorrow. And candy for breakfast.”

  “You saw Ms. Jones?” asked Kevin.

  “Yeah,” said Nelson. “She came into the tent as I was leaving. She told Jammer that there was not enough sugar in our diets.”

  “Really?” said Kevin. “That’s weird.”

  “I love sugar,” continued Nelson, “but Mom says it makes me jumpy. Sometimes it makes me repeat myself over and over again and again and again. Does sugar make you jumpy or repeat yourself over and over and ov—”

  Kevin tried to give Nelson the stink-eye, but he wasn’t very good at it. He jotted a reminder to ask Joules for lessons.

  “Is your eyeball okay?” asked Nelson. “It’s kind of weird and twitchy. Sometimes my eye gets twitchy if I eat too much sugar. Then I get all jumpy and repeat myself and—”

  Joules burst into the tent and flopped huffing and puffing onto her cot.

  “Where were you?” asked Kevin. “Something horrible happened to Ms. Jones. She was dragged away by some great big hairy thing! But now she’s back and she’s acting weird.”

  Joules took a big breath and grabbed the second plate from Nelson.

  “I saw her,” said Joules.

  She told them about her trip to the woods and Commander Jones.

  “That’s too bizarre,” said Kevin. “And that’s not all. Tell Joules what you heard, Nelson.”

  Nelson told her about the candy and marshmallow shipments.

  “And we’re not making any more lanyards at Craftland!” he added.

  “No more lanyards?” asked Joules. “What will the campers make with all those supplies?”

  “A three-stage intergalactic rocket with satellite communications,” said Nelson very seriously. “We’re going to need a whole lot of Popsicle sticks.”

  The next morning, the twins met Nelson at Café du Lac. There was no bacon smoke wafting through the air, and there were no counselors frying bacon or flipping pancakes on the giant griddle. Instead, the griddle had been replaced by three giant vats of sugary cereal in colors not normally found in nature. Boxes of candy bars and crates of marshmallows were stacked up to the ceiling of the tent.

  Joules and Kevin each filled two bowls with cereal and grabbed cartons of milk, then sat together at a picnic table by the door. This was a real treat for the twins who rarely had the chance to eat cereal at all, let alone cereal that was 100 percent guaran
teed to rot your teeth. Nelson filled a bowl and sat down, too.

  The rest of the campers sat at the other tables. They whispered and glared at the twins.

  Commander Jones entered. Even though the light was dim inside the tent, she wore her sunglasses. She grabbed a box of candy bars and walked to the table where SmellyCat and Sparkletooth were giggling. Commander Jones smiled a weird stiff kind of smile in which her lips moved but her teeth remained clenched.

  “Very sweet,” she said in her robotic tone. “Excellent. Excellent. Keep eating.”

  Kevin rubbed his eyes, then squinted at the commander.

  “She’s so weird and blurry,” he said.

  “She really is—,” Joules began, but she stopped when Commander Jones walked to their table. Though “walked” is not quite accurate. She reached their table in a swift half-gliding, half-hopping motion. Commander Jones looked blankly from Joules to Kevin to Nelson.

  “You are the Rockman boy and girl, and that other child,” she said, pointing slowly at Nelson.

  “Your energy readings are very low,” she said. “You must eat more. It is important to have energy so you can participate in the many fun and enjoyable camp activities available here at Camp Whatsitooya on the shores of scenic Lake Whatsosmelly. Camp Whatsitooya, providing youths exceptionally exceptional outdoor experiences. No exceptions.”

  She gave her stiff smile, which made Kevin’s face hurt just looking at her. Then she tilted her head to one side and dumped the entire box of candy onto the table.

  “Eat,” she said.

  “Uh—” said Joules. “Actually, we’re late for a hike. Gotta go! Thanks for the snacks!”

  Joules, Kevin, and Nelson grabbed some candy bars and dashed out of the tent. (Hey! Free candy is free candy. Even when it comes from a creepy, cyclone-haired craft queen with hot glue guns set to “stun”!)