Attack of the Fluffy Bunnies Page 5

  “That was too freaky,” said Kevin.

  “Well, it must be freaky day at Camp Whatsitooya,” said Joules.

  “What?” asked Kevin, but one look toward the lake told him the answer.

  Walking toward them was Counselor Blech, ready for a hike.

  Joules, Kevin, Nelson, and the other campers gathered outside Café du Lac for their nature hike with Counselor Blech.

  “Nature is your enemy!” said Counselor Blech. “Remember this and you might survive. Forget this, and you’ll be wiped out faster than bacteria in a bleach factory.”

  SmellyCat giggled, but Joules noticed it was a nervous giggle without the usual snort.

  Counselor Blech was not what you could call a nature lover. He was a theoretical physicist. He loved theories. He did not love theories put into practice. That was the whole problem with nature. It was so real. So practical. Sure, it sounded good, but then there were the bloodsucking insects with their beady, buggy eyes and the poisonous plants climbing up every rock and boulder and the suspicious sounds of creatures hiding behind leaves and branches, waiting, always waiting with their sharp fangs and keen senses of smell, ready to attack when you least expect it and then so quick to devour their unsuspecting …

  … Oh, sorry …

  Got carried away there. Suffice it to say, Counselor Blech was a camp counselor not because he loved nature, but because he needed a job. He had previously been employed at a top-secret nuclear research facility somewhere in the Midwest. (451 Uranium Parkway, Batavia, Illinois. It’s disguised as a Chuck E. Cheese’s.)

  The reasons Counselor Blech left his job were vague, but they involved some kind of super-conducting, super-colliding, super-dee-duper-holy-cow-that-was-one-wicked-big-explosion kind of event that left him reading the want ads for Camp Whatsitooya.

  “My request for biohazard jumpsuits has been denied … again,” he said with an exasperated sigh. “If anyone has failed to complete a next-of-kin notification, please do so now. We will wait.”

  No one left the group, but Jack, Eric, and Avery looked like they wanted to jump out of their sneakers and hide under their bunks. SmellyCat and Sparkletooth scooted closer together and squeezed one another’s hands. They giggled in a higher pitch than usual and bobbed up and down at a frantic pace.

  “Any questions?” asked Counselor Blech.

  “Aren’t we just hiking around camp?” asked Kevin. “I mean, you make it sound kind of intense. How long will we be gone?”

  “We should be back in twenty minutes,” said Counselor Blech. “That is, if we make it back.”

  He turned on his heels, nearly smacking Nelson in the head with his giant flyswatter, and strode down the path toward the woods. For a highly overdressed scientist, he moved fast. The kids had to hustle to keep up with him as he blazed a path through the tall ferns and into the dim woods.

  “Can we slow down a little?” asked Joules.

  “That would increase our exposure to the dangerous forest fumes,” Counselor Blech said nervously.

  Joules took a deep breath of the calm forest air with its rich, earthy aroma and faint scent of honeysuckle.

  “It smells good to me,” she said.

  Counselor Blech stopped hard, sending the chain of campers colliding into one another like so many electrons in a physics experiment gone bad.

  “It smells good?” he asked in disbelief. “Do you know what’s in this air? Spores. Millions of microscopic fungal spores waiting to find a hospitable host to settle on so they can sprout into new mushrooms and decompose everything in their reach. EVERYTHING!!!! And then there’s the pollen. It’s everywhere. The plants spew it into the air and wait for unsuspecting hikers to breathe it in so it can irritate their mucus passages and sinuses, causing a facial seizure that will release millions of bacteria into the atmosphere to be breathed in by other hikers. Does that smell good to you, Miss Rockman?”

  “Uh—” said Joules. “So you are worried that we’ll grow mushrooms or maybe sneeze because of some pollen?”

  “Sure, you make it sound safe,” said Counselor Blech. “But that’s just what the spores want you to think!”

  He gave Joules a scowl, then turned away and marched even faster into the woods.

  The counselor moved so fast that the younger kids had to run to keep up. Finally, Jack, who was the smallest of the hikers, stopped and leaned against an enormous chestnut tree.

  “Wait!” he yelled.

  The hikers slammed on the brakes, and Counselor Blech pushed back through the group.

  “What are you doing?” he asked Jack in a terrified voice. “Don’t touch that overgrown Castanea dentata!” (That’s a chestnut tree, for those of you who have forgotten your Latin.) “You could push it over and crush us all, and besides, you don’t know where that tree has been!”

  Kevin looked at the enormous tree and the puny kid leaning against it.

  “It’s a tree,” he said. “Hasn’t it been in the same place a really, really long time?”

  The thought made Counselor Blech visibly upset.

  “Think of it!” he shrieked. “It might have been there for decades. Centuries even! Imagine the millions of organisms that have touched it. Crawled upon it. Chewed on it! And worse!”

  He narrowed his eyes suspiciously. His voice grew quieter. The whole forest seemed to hold its breath. Tears welled up in Jack’s eyes and Avery looked ready to faint.

  “Even now, thousands of organisms could be hiding in its branches waiting. Waiting and watching. Watching and waiting for unsuspecting prey to pass by and then …”

  A giant white creature bolted out from behind the tree and ripped through the underbrush.

  “HELLLLP!!!!” cried Counselor Blech, tearing off his mosquito netting, tossing his flyswatter into the air, and running like a maniac into the woods.

  “HELLLLP!!!!” cried Avery, Eric, and Jack, running one way.

  “HELLLLP!!!!” cried Sparkletooth and SmellyCat, running the other way.

  “Let’s go!” said Joules, picking up a stick and running after the beast with Kevin and Nelson right behind her.

  The creature tore through the brush, leaving a trail of battered ferns and shrubs in its wake. At one point, Joules caught a glimpse of the beast’s white fluffy fur and its blackened rump as it zigged and zagged through the underbrush, then it was gone.

  The kids stopped. There was something in the path. Something large and metal.

  Now imagine pulling this object out of the ground, cleaning it off, sticking it on a distant planet in another galaxy. Add some Fierce, Large, Ugly, and Ferocious Furballs, and voila!

  Ring a bell?

  “Wow!” said Nelson.

  “You can say that again,” said Kevin.

  “Wow!” said Nelson. “It’s an F-Class Intergalactic Recon Probe.”

  “A what?” asked Joules, looking at Nelson in disbelief.

  “You know. An F-Class Intergalactic Recon Probe. They were used to explore different solar systems back in the 1970s,” said Nelson. “Wow. Wait until I tell Mom!”

  He beamed.

  “How do you know that?” asked Joules.

  “I saw it on the Amazing Engineering Feats of the Universe Channel,” said Nelson. “Next to the Plumbing Channel, it’s my favorite! Mom says all the cool kids watch those kinds of shows. Maybe you should, too.”

  He gave Joules a you-could-use-a-little-improvement-in-the-cool-department kind of look.

  Joules gave him the stink-eye.

  Nelson smiled weakly.

  “Check it out!” said Kevin, yanking open a metal hatch and sticking his head inside the burned-out rocket.

  Joules and Nelson looked inside.

  “This hasn’t been here long,” said Kevin. “There’s no rust.”

  “Sweet!” said Joules.

  A gloved hand reached past Kevin and into the opening and wiped a little soot from the wall of the rocket.

  “AAAAAAAH!” yelled Kevin and Joules, jumping away
from the rocket.

  The gloved hand belonged to Counselor Blech. His goggles were darkened and he swayed slowly back and forth.

  Counselor Blech rubbed the soot on his tongue.

  “It is not sweet,” he said in a monotone voice. “It is not useful.”

  He tilted his head to one side and looked from Joules to Kevin to Nelson.

  “You must improve your energy levels. Return to camp and refuel,” he said.

  “We were just going to do that,” said Joules, tugging at Kevin’s and Nelson’s elbows.

  “Let’s get out of here,” she whispered to the boys.

  The three kids backed up a few steps, then turned and ran for camp.

  They ran until they reached the shore of the lake, then stopped to catch their breath. Nelson was on the edge of panic. He looked anxiously from Kevin to Joules. They were out of breath but calm.

  “Something has happened to Ms. Jones and Counselor Blech,” said Nelson. “Something bad. It’s like they are under some kind of spell.”

  “You’re right,” said Kevin. “We’ve seen things like this before. Reminds me of what happened in It Came from the Mall.”

  “Oh, yeah,” said Joules. “And Death Gator. Remember that one?”

  “Absolutely,” said Kevin. “And Attack of the Sponge People.”

  “That one was classic,” said Joules.

  In fact, Kevin and Joules had seen many cases like this in the movies. Cases in which normal (or mostly normal) people changed drastically in a short time. A number of things could be the cause of the transformation, but one thing was for sure: It always meant trouble. Big, big trouble.

  “We’ve got to tell someone!” said Nelson.

  “Not really,” said Joules. “It never works to tell someone.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Nelson. “We have to! Look! There’s Jammer. He’ll help. He’ll know what to do!”

  Jammer stood waxing his surfboard on the shore close to camp. Kevin and Joules watched as Nelson ran to the surfer and tapped him on the shoulder. Jammer turned slowly. He was wearing dark glasses and tilted his head to the side as he slowly swayed back and forth. Even from such a long distance, Kevin and Joules could hear Nelson yell.

  “Help!!!!!”

  “Famous Last Words,” said Joules.

  “Yep,” said Kevin. “Famous Last Words.”

  Nelson was already in their tent when Kevin and Joules arrived. More specifically, he was hiding under Joules’s cot.

  “Come out, Nelson,” said Kevin. “It’s okay.”

  “No, it’s not!” squeaked Nelson.

  “That’s true,” said Joules. “But I want to sit down, and you’ll get squished.”

  “Oh,” said Nelson, shimmying out from under the cot. “Sorry.”

  “Hey,” said Joules. “I have an idea. Grab those containers under my cot and take them to the trash.”

  “Will that help?” asked Nelson.

  “Oh, yeah,” said Joules. “Absolutely.”

  “I’ll do it!” said Nelson bravely, grabbing the containers and bolting out of the tent.

  “How is taking out your trash going to help?” asked Kevin.

  “It won’t,” said Joules, “but I didn’t want to touch it. Did you?”

  “Good point,” said Kevin.

  Kevin had been keeping a careful eye on the containers from his own cot, and they were definitely getting ripe and probably very dangerous. Mom’s lunches were bad when they were fresh. Who knew what power that sauce had after festering in a hot tent. Still, he felt a little bad for Nelson. (But not bad enough to take the trash out himself.)

  Nelson came back.

  “I did it!” he said. “But one of the containers exploded and got some goop on my shoe.”

  “Ewww,” said Kevin.

  “Try not to lick that spot,” said Joules, looking at the sizzling glob of goo on Nelson’s sneaker.

  “We need to tell someone about the counselors!” said Nelson. “We should hike to town and get help! It’s only fifteen miles.”

  “Naw,” said Joules. “That never works. That’s what they thought in Attack of the Clown People. The two kids stole unicycles and tried to warn the townsfolk about the evil clowns that were about to kill them. Of course, everybody thought the kids were just clowning around and sent them back.”

  “What happened?” asked Nelson.

  “They got stuffed into a clown car with sixty-three other bozos,” said Kevin. “They came out wearing big shoes and red noses.”

  “Oh,” said Nelson.

  “It almost worked in that movie Lagoon Man,” said Kevin in an attempt to reassure Nelson. “Everybody believed the kids, and they tried to escape in a big bus.”

  “Then what happened?” asked Nelson hopefully.

  “The bus crashed into the swamp, and they all grew gills and became Lagoon People.”

  “Oh,” said Nelson weakly. “What will we do?”

  “The obvious thing,” said Joules. “Let’s eat.”

  Kevin had opened his notebook and was furiously jotting notes as they sat in the Café du Lac.

  “Do we have to be here?” whispered Nelson from across the table. “What if the counselors come in?”

  “Look,” said Kevin, “there are things we know and things we need to find out.”

  Kevin had drawn a line down the center of the paper, creating two columns. In the left column, he had started a list of “What We Know.” The other side he had labeled “What We Don’t Know but Better Find Out Before It’s Too Late.” It was a tight squeeze, but he managed to make the title fit.

  The chart looked like this:

  “Way to take charge,” said Joules. “You guys work with your paper and stuff, and I’m going to go take my handy-dandy stick and get some answers.”

  Joules walked to the table where SmellyCat and Sparkletooth were giggling, snorting, and chatting away about crafts as usual. Jack, Eric, and Avery were at the next table laughing and talking about surfing.

  Jammer, Counselor Blech, and Commander Jones entered. They wore sunglasses, looked tired, and walked slowly toward the vats of cereal and stacks of candy and marshmallows. Kevin noticed that the store of “food” was only half as big as it had been that morning. He made a note under “What We Know.”

  Nelson was sitting with his feet sticking into the aisle. As Jammer passed, his foot brushed against Nelson’s sneaker. Jammer jerked back his foot as if stung.

  “Grrrrrrrrr, dud. That hurt,” said Jammer.

  “Don’t you mean ‘dude’?” asked Nelson.

  “That’s what I said, dud,” said Jammer.

  Commander Jones opened a crate of Marshmallow Fluff. She handed a jar to Jammer and one to Counselor Blech and took one for herself. In unison, they unscrewed the lids, raised the jars to their mouths, and gulped down the thick, white goop. They drained the jars, wiped their mouths with the backs of their hands, leaned back, opened their mouths, and …

  The burp blew through the lantern hanging from the ceiling.

  A ball of flame shot through the roof of the tent.

  Kevin and Nelson stared in amazement, but nobody else seemed to notice. The giggling and chattering campers did not even blink at the booming sound or ball of fire that left a hole in the tent.

  The counselors wiped their mouths again with the backs of their hands, grabbed new jars of Marshmallow Fluff, and started chugging. Within moments, the entire crate of Marshmallow Fluff was gone.

  Joules came back to the table and scooted into the seat next to Nelson.

  “What did you find out?” asked Kevin.

  “Nothing,” said Joules. “Absolutely nothing.”

  “Oh, c’mon!” said Kevin. “You found out something.”

  “Nothing!” said Joules. “And I mean nothing. Nobody even remembers the hike. They all say they were surfing with Jammer and making crafts with Commander Jones. It’s like they never left camp.”

  That afternoon, all the campers were summon
ed to Craftland. Even though Joules was on “craft probation,” she went to gather clues with Kevin and Nelson.

  The campers of Camp Whatsitooya squeezed onto the benches of the picnic tables, which were loaded with boxes of feathers, Popsicle sticks, and bottles of glitter glue.

  Sparkletooth sat beaming at the end of the table next to SmellyCat. Sparkletooth had a whole new supply of glitter clinging to her teeth and clothes, and she sparkled in the afternoon sun. She could hardly contain her excitement at doing a new craft project, and bounced up and down and jiggled her feet wildly under the table.

  Commander Jones and Jammer arrived.

  “We have decided that Earth—we mean Camp Whatsitooya—is a logical place to conduct our primary mission. By mission, we mean fun athletic activities such as world domination,” said Commander Jones.

  Jammer elbowed her in the ribs and mumbled something to her.

  “Oh,” said Commander Jones. “We do not mean world domination. World domination is bad.”

  She smiled stiffly.

  “Very bad,” Jammer added, smiling stiffly, too.

  “Also, we no longer require a three-stage intergalactic rocket. We now require a 103-inch plasma television with Dolby surround sound and a built-in gaming system,” said Commander Jones.

  “And a La-Z-Boy recliner,” said Jammer. “With cup holders.”

  This time, Commander Jones elbowed Jammer in the ribs.

  “What?” he asked. “Cup holders are very useful.”

  “Two La-Z-Boy recliners with cup holders,” said Commander Jones.

  “We have pipe cleaners,” said Jammer, dumping a huge box of colored pipe cleaners onto the picnic tables.

  Joules, Kevin, and Nelson watched in amazement. The other campers giggled as they grabbed at the pipe cleaners and started twisting them together and gluing feathers to the ends. They seemed to find the request to build a television from pipe cleaners completely normal.

  Counselor Blech arrived. His shirt and hair were covered with small globs of Marshmallow Fluff and candy.