by Nancy Krulik
“We could,” Genie agreed, “if I knew one. But I have no idea how far we are from camp or which way to turn to go back. I’m not even sure how we got here. It’s all sort of a blur.”
“This is all your fault, Katie Kazoo,” George snapped.
Katie stared at George. Did he know that it was she, not Genie, who had gotten them lost? Did George know about magic wind?
“If you hadn’t disappeared, we wouldn’t have had to look for you,” George continued.
Okay, so George didn’t know about the magic wind. But he was right. She was the reason the kids were lost. And now even Genie couldn’t get them back safely.
“I hate the dark. I hate it,” Suzanne blubbered. “We don’t even have a flashlight.”
“What if there really is a Science Camp monster out there? He could get us.” George’s eyes grew big. His lip quivered, but he didn’t cry. He just stared out into the woods.
Even Jeremy seemed nervous. “Do you think the other kids in our class are worried about us?” he asked.
“Maybe they’ll call the police to come look for us,” Suzanne said.
“I’ll bet Mrs. Derkman is a total wreck,” George added. “You know how she can get.”
“I doubt it,” Katie said. “I’ll bet she’s fine. She knows we’re with the head counselor. Genie can take care of us.”
Hoot!
“What was that?” Genie cried out.
Katie gulped. Maybe Genie wouldn’t be able to take care of them after all. It seemed that even the head counselor was scared to be in the woods at night.
“I think it was an owl,” Katie told her. “Tess said there were a lot of owls in these woods. Don’t worry, owls won’t hurt you.”
Grrrr. Just then, everyone heard a loud grumbling noise.
“Now what was that?” Genie wailed.
Katie giggled. “George’s stomach.”
“It always makes that noise when I’m hungry,” George moaned.
“Well, we still have all our cookout supplies,” Jeremy suggested. “We could eat. All we have to do is build a fire.”
“I don’t know how,” Suzanne said. “My dad always does the grilling at our house.”
The kids looked to Genie for help, but the head counselor was busy staring into the woods. “Where are those ribbons?” she kept saying over and over. “I need my ribbons.”
“We’re going to have to do this ourselves,” Katie told her friends. She was trying to act like a head counselor. After all, she’d been Genie—for a little while, anyway. “Jeremy, did they teach you to make a fire at your camp?”
Jeremy nodded. “I can build one. But we’re not allowed to use matches, remember?”
“Genie can handle that,” Katie said. “You just tell us how to do the rest.”
Jeremy pointed to some fallen branches nearby. “Suzanne, you and Katie go collect sticks. Start with little twigs, and then get bigger ones. Make sure the wood is dry. George, you and I will get some wood, too.”
Before long, the kids had plenty of wood. Jeremy showed them how to build a little box of twigs. Genie lit the twigs with her matches. Then she and Jeremy built up the fire, by throwing logs onto the flames.
There was plenty of food to cook. Jeremy, Suzanne, and George cooked hot dogs on sticks. Katie ate carrot sticks and potato chips. Then the kids toasted marshmallows.
Genie didn’t eat anything. She just sat by the fire, staring into the woods.
When the kids were finished with their food, Katie turned to Genie. “We should put the fire out, right?” she asked.
Genie nodded. She seemed to have finally calmed down. At least she wasn’t mumbling about the red ribbons anymore. “We shouldn’t leave it burning while we sleep,” she told Katie.
“Sleep?” Suzanne asked. “Sleep where?”
Genie emptied her canteen of water on the fire. Katie and Jeremy did the same. “We’re going to have to sleep here tonight,” Genie told the kids, as the last of the flames disappeared. It was dark now. The moon was the only light they had.
“Sleep on the hard ground?” Suzanne asked. “With all that dirt?”
“What’s the matter?” Jeremy asked her. “You didn’t bring the right clothes for sleeping outside?”
Suzanne made a face, but didn’t say anything.
Katie grabbed a paper garbage bag and began filling it with soft leaves.
“What are you doing?” Suzanne asked her.
“Making a pillow,” she answered.
That seemed like a good idea. The kids all grabbed bags and began to make their own pillows. Katie made an extra one for Genie. She felt bad for her. None of this had really been her fault.
Katie yawned. Her eyes were feeling heavy. She lay down and put her head on her pillow. Before she knew what was happening, Katie was asleep.
Chapter 10
Katie hadn’t been asleep very long when she heard footsteps in the woods. There was someone prowling around the campsite!
Katie looked at Genie. She was curled up in a ball, snoring away. She wasn’t going to be any help.
Now a quiet sniffling noise was coming from where the fire had been.
Slowly, Katie stood and walked in the direction of the sniffles.
There was George. He was wide awake—and he’d been crying.
“George, what’s wrong?” she asked him.
George wiped his nose with his sleeve. “Nothing,” he mumbled.
“Come on, George,” Katie urged. “I know something’s wrong.”
“You’re gonna laugh” he said quietly.
“No, I won’t. I promise.”
“I’m scared,” George whispered. “I’ve never been away from home before.”
Katie understood that feeling perfectly. Now she knew why George had acted so grumpy. He didn’t want anyone to know.
“You won’t tell, will you?” he begged.
“Never.” Katie looked around. Everyone else was sleeping. “I have a great idea. Let’s stay up all night and see the sun rise.
George smiled a little. “We can tell jokes and stories and stuff.”
“Okay,” Katie agreed. “Want to see a neat trick?” She put on the hood of her sweatshirt. Then she pulled the strings really tight so the hood closed around her face.
“That’s funny,” George said. “You look like a faceless monster.”
“A faceless Science Camp monster,” Katie giggled.
“Do you know what fairy tale gives a monster the shivers?” George asked her.
Katie shook her head.
“Ghoul-dilocks and the Three Brrrrs!” he laughed at his own joke.
Katie grinned. George was back to normal.
One problem solved.
Chapter 11
The next morning, the group was up early. They wanted to get back to camp right away.
“Can you find the right path now?” Jeremy asked Genie hopefully.
“I’m not sure,” she replied.
Katie could tell that her friends were getting scared again. But somehow, things seemed less frightening in the sunlight.
“I’m hungry,” George moaned. “Do we have any food left from last night? Maybe a hot dog or something?”
Suzanne made a face. “Hot dogs for breakfast? Yuck!”
“I’ll eat anything when I’m this starved,” George told her.
Katie checked the food pack. It was empty. “We don’t have any food left,”
George looked upset. Then, suddenly, he brightened. “Yes, we do,” he said. “I have those candies I brought on the hike.”
At first Genie seemed angry. “You brought candy on the hike?” Then her stomach growled. “I’ll take one,” she added.
George reached into his pocket. Then he frowned as he pulled out an empty hand. “This is terrible!”
“What?” Katie asked. “Did you finish them all?”
George shook his head. “There’s a hole in my pocket. The candies fell out.”
“Oh, no!”
Jeremy moaned. “That’s awful.”
Just then, Katie spotted a shiny round object over by a tree. A few feet away she saw another one ... and then another. Katie raced over and picked up one of the shiny things.
“It’s not awful at all,” she told the others. “George just saved us!”
“How did I do that?” he asked her.
“These are your candies,” Katie told him, holding up a shiny wrapped treat. “They must have been falling out of your pocket the whole time we were hiking. All we have to do is follow the trail of candies. They’ll lead us back to camp. And we can eat as we hike,” she added, popping a butterscotch into her mouth.
Chapter 12
The tired hikers arrived back at camp before their friends woke up. In fact, the whole camp was still asleep—except for Cookie. She was waiting for them outside the Mess Hall.
“Where have you all been?” she asked, as Genie and the kids walked onto the campgrounds. “I was up all night worrying. If you didn’t come back soon, I was going to have send out a search party.”
“It’s a long story,” Genie told Cookie.
“We got lost. We slept in the woods. And now we’re back,” Jeremy explained.
“Well, it’s sure good to see you,” Cookie told them. “Why don’t you all take showers? Then I’ll make you a special treat for breakfast. You look starved.”
That sounded great to Katie. She was really hungry.
“There’s something else I have to do first,” George said, as he ran off in the direction of the cabins.
“You know, that was actually kind of fun,” Jeremy told Katie and Suzanne as they walked.
“Wait until the other kids hear what a wimp Genie turned out to be!” Suzanne laughed.
Katie shook her head. “I don’t think we should tell the other kids about that. It’s not nice to make fun of her for being scared.”
“But she acted so tough before ...” Suzanne began.
“She was just doing her job,” Katie told her. “She had to be tough. It’s a lot of responsibility being a head counselor. You’re in charge of everything.”
Before Suzanne could argue, the kids heard a loud scream coming from one of the cabins.
“Spider... on my pillow!”
Mrs. Derkman came racing out of her cabin. Her face was dotted with big blobs of pink lotion. Her hair was wrapped up in curlers. She was wearing a polka-dot flannel nightgown and a pair of fuzzy yellow slippers. She looked awful.
“Wow, check out Mrs. Derkman!” Suzanne exclaimed.
“Oh, no!” Katie gasped.
Jeremy couldn’t say anything. He was laughing too hard.
As Mrs. Derkman stood in the middle of the campground screaming, George snuck out of her cabin with a big smile on his face. He ran off before the teacher could spot him.
Katie glanced at Genie. She was looking right in the direction of Mrs. Derkman’s cabin. There was no way she could have missed seeing George run out of there.
Katie frowned. Was Genie going to punish George?
But Genie didn’t yell or even call George over. Instead, she walked over to Katie and her friends, and laughed along with them.
Chapter 13
Katie was really sad when the time came to get on the bus and drive back to Cherrydale. Science Camp had been really fun. She was going to miss the bunnies in the nature shack and Cookie’s chocolate-chip cookies.
But mostly Katie was going to miss Genie.
It turned out that the head counselor could be really nice when she wanted to. She taught the kids how to melt chocolate and marshmallows on graham crackers to make s’mores. And she showed them how to make beads out of clay that they dug from the ground.
“Maybe we can come back here again in fourth grade,” Katie said to Suzanne, as they took seats in the back of the bus.
“That would be so cool,” Suzanne agreed. “We could teach everyone how to build a fire.”
Just then, Katie felt someone knocking on the window beside her. It was Genie.
Katie opened the window. “Thanks so much,” she said. “I really learned a lot.”
Genie grinned. “So did I. I learned that kids can do a whole lot for themselves ... if you give them the chance.”
As the bus drove off, Katie felt a cool breeze blow on her through the open window. She was pretty sure it wasn’t a magic wind. But she reached up and shut the window—just in case.
No sense taking any chances.
Chapter 14
Science Camp definitely was a fun time. The nature arts counselor had lots of great ideas for nature projects the kids could do. Everyone in class 3A came home with natural soaps that they made all by themselves.
You can make your own Science Camp soap on a rope. Here’s how.
Soap on a Rope
You will need:
3 cups Ivory Snow detergent or other
soap flakes
bowl
liquid food coloring
1 cup water
vegetable oil
a thin piece of rope
Here’s what you do: Pour the soap flakes into a bowl. Put a few drops of food coloring in the water. Pour the water onto the soap flakes. Use your hands to mix the contents of the bowl until they feel like clay or dough. Massage a drop or two of vegetable oil into the palms of your hands. Now shape the soap anyway you like. Tie the ends of the rope together. Gently push the knotted end of the rope into your finished soap shape. Let the soap stand overnight to set.
