by Lenore Look
“Alvin, you will be the Keeper of the Flame,” my dad announced. “Make sure that we have enough wood to burn. Keep our matches in a dry place. Do you think you can handle that?”
I nodded.
“Anibelly, you will be the Keeper of the Food,” said my dad. “Make sure that our food is covered and put away at all times. Do you think you can handle that?”
Anibelly nodded.
“And I am the Keeper of All of Us,” said my dad. “I will keep us safe at all times. Do you think I can handle that?”
“No,” said Anibelly.
“Why not?” asked my dad.
“Because I’m hungry,” said Anibelly. She put down her weapon. When Anibelly is hungry, she comes to a dead stop like a windup toy that has run out of windup.
“I’m starving too,” I said. “In fact, I’m so hungry I could pass out right now immediately.”
“Not a problem,” said my dad. “Your mom packed us some fried rice. It’s here somewhere. …”
“I can smell it,” said Anibelly as my dad began taking things out of the bags he had carried in.
“Me too,” I said. “I can smell it too.” It was not a good sign. Starving men can always smell their favorite food before they die, I’m sure of it.
My dad took out a lot of things. In fact, he took out everything: a skillet, a little stove, canned beans, coffee beans, plates, forks, knives and spoons. But there was no fried rice. Not one little grain.
Silence.
“I must have forgotten it,” my dad finally said. “Looks like I might have left an entire bag of food behind.”
Silence.
“No problem!” said my dad. “I’ll just open a can of beans and warm it on the stove and we’ll have beans for lunch. There’s nothing like eating beans right out of the can. No sirrreee. It’s one of the highlights of camping.”
Wow! Eating beans out of a can sounded terrific!
There was only one problem.
There was no can opener … anywhere.
“I must have left that at home too,” said my dad.
Oops.
Soon we’d have to eat maggots and drink our own pee just as Uncle Dennis had said, I was sure of it. And that’s when I saw it—the Angel of Death. It wasn’t an angel exactly, but it was close enough. It was—gasp—an ALIEN from outer space! It was standing between some trees. It was SO ugly!
Then it began coming closer … and closer! It was coming straight for me! And when it got right up to me, it stopped. It smelled like Italian sandwiches, with the works. When I looked down, I saw that the alien’s pockets were bulging with—Italian sandwiches! I drooled, just a little.
“Hello,” said a man’s voice. The alien had brought his kidnapped human dad with him.
“Hello,” said my dad.
“We saw you folks arrive and thought we’d come over to welcome you,” said the kidnapped human dad. “Your kids camping for the first time?”
“Yup,” said my dad.
“My son’s first time too,” said the kidnapped human dad.
“Beaufeuillet, why don’t you take off your gear and say hello,” said the human to the alien.
“Howdy,” said the alien. His antennae eyes swiveled to look at me. Then his big black bug eyes gave me the once-over.
I said nothing. I don’t talk to quadruple-eyed aliens.
“I’m Beaufeuillet,” said the alien. “Boo-few-LAY the Fourth. My dad is Beaufeuillet the Third.”
Beaufeuillet? If ever there was an alien name, that sure was it. And if ever I wished I had my Alien Destroyer Ultimate Decimator, it was then. But I’d forgotten to pack it.
Beaufeuillet slid off his bug eyes—they were not bug eyes, but a pair of night-vision goggles, just like mine! He was not an alien at all; he was a boy, just like me. And he was about my size except that he was so skinny he looked like a cricket.
“I sure wasn’t counting on meeting a real live alien,” said Beaufeuillet, “until I saw your head poking through the woods. Then I stopped dead in my tracks, and I said, ‘That is an alien from outer space!’ You scared the dead night-light out of me, popped my belly button right off!”
Anibelly’s eyes popped out like golf balls. She stared him smack in the eyes, then she stared at his pockets. She swallowed. “I’m Anibelly Ho,” said Anibelly. “And that’s Alvin. He’s not an alien. He’s my brother. And he doesn’t talk to strangers.”
Beaufeuillet swiveled all his eyes at me. “Okay,” he said, shrugging. “Want a sandwich?” He reached into his bulging pockets.
“We had extras,” said Beaufeuillet’s dad. “We thought you might be hungry after your drive.”
“You have no idea,” said my dad, taking the sandwiches. “Thanks very much.”
“We’re in the high-tech foil tent,” said Beaufeuillet’s dad, pointing at something in the distance that looked like it could be—gasp—a UFO! “Come by anytime.”
Then Beaufeuillet snapped his night-vision goggles back into place. “You like superheroes?” he asked.
I nodded.
“Ever hear of Night Vision Man?”
I shook my head no.
“Well, I am he!” he said, giving his chest a thump.
“Come along, son,” said his dad.
“Coming, Dad.”
But for a minute, Night Vision Man didn’t go anywhere. He stood right where he was and peered at me through his many eyes.
“Do you like camping?” he asked.
I shook my head.
“Neither do I,” he whispered. “We could die out here, you know.”
I knew.
“Well, see you!” he said. Then he ran to catch up with his human dad.
And I sat down with mine and we ate yummy Italian sandwiches together with Anibelly
And that was how we got saved from starving to death before the scary camping even got started.
this is how to pitch a tent.
1. Find a good spot. Not too high (too windy). Not too low (too wet).
2. Unfold your tent.
3. Pound some stakes into the ground.
4. Follow the directions that came with the tent.
5. Make some hot chocolate.
6. Drink the hot chocolate.
7. Reread the directions.
8. Pull the stakes out of the ground.
9. Move them around.
10. Pound them in again.
11. Try to remember how you did it two hundred years ago when tents didn’t come with directions and you could put one up anyway.
12. Scratch your head.
13. Rub your chin.
14. Walk away and work on digging a pit toilet for a while.
15. Dig hard and fast because your kids are crying that they’d rather die than use a pit toilet and Anibelly is walking off with some of the tent stuff and doing her own thing.
16. Repeat steps 3 through 16 until your tent is standing without your kids holding it up.
17. Stand back and admire.
18. Go in and check it out!
19. Don’t panic.
20. Find your way out of the collapsed tent.
21. Repeat.
When our tent was finally up for good, my dad looked pretty beat. In fact, he looked a lot like Calvin’s very old bunny with the stuffing coming out.
“I sure could use a nap,” he said, diving headfirst into the tent.
This was good news. It meant that we didn’t have to go on a scary hike up a scary mountain. Hooray!
But it was also bad news.
“Dad?” I shoved my dad a couple of times. He was safely tucked inside his sleeping bag, snoring. And Anibelly and I were not safely tucked anywhere. “Wake up, Dad!” I cried. “If you snooze, we … lose.”
“Rrrrrrrrrr,” growled my dad. “Rrrrrrrrrrr.”
That’s the problem with my dad. Once he falls asleep, he’s as hard to get started as a dead car battery.
Anibelly and I were in trouble now. The Keeper of the Fire had no f
ire to keep. The Keeper of the Food had no food to guard.
And the Keeper of All of Us was out—like a rocket into outer space. Gulp.
“Anibelly,” I said. “I think this means that I’m now the Keeper of All of Us.”
“Yup,” said Anibelly. “Let’s build traps.” “How are traps going to help us?” “Secret Trick Number Four Hundred and Fifty-two,” said Anibelly. “Traps catch monsters and bears. Just when they’re about to grab you— oops—they’ll trip and dangle, just like that!”
It sounded good to me. Plus, Anibelly was amazing at remembering Uncle Dennis’s How-to-Make-a-Trap instructions:
“First, don’t disturb nature,” said Anibelly. We tiptoed around our campsite, especially around our tent where my dad was sleeping.
“Second, wash your hands,” said Anibelly. We rubbed dirt and sand on our hands.
“Whatcha doin’?” said a voice. It was Beaufeuillet. His extra eyes were rolling around.
“Making traps,” I said.
“Want some help?” asked Beaufeuillet.
“Can you tie triple knots?” I said, unpacking the ropes and rubber cords that my dad had packed.
“Sure!” said Beaufeuillet. “My dad’s taught me all sorts of knots and traps. Square … overhand … fisherman’s … and as for the traps: mangle, tangle, dangle and strangle.”
I stopped. He knew them all, just like my uncle Dennis! “Okay, you can help,” I told him.
First, we showed Beaufeuillet how to tie a sapling and make it bend. Then Beaufeuillet showed us how to make a snare for something heavy by throwing a cord over a branch of a regular-sized tree and setting it in a spring between two branches in the ground.
Then we made more traps. After that, we covered our traps with mud and leaves and moss.
“Check your traps often,” I said, finally remembering one of the rules of trap making. “It’s important to not let anyone be surprised for too long.”
We sized up the situation. There were SO many traps around our camp, but you would never know it. You couldn’t see a single one. Uncle Dennis would be proud. Best of all, I felt a little safer and so did Anibelly
Until … I remembered something.
“Don’t traps need bait?” I asked.
“Sure do,” said Beaufeuillet. “When I go fishing with my dad, we always use bait—without it, the fish won’t bite. He’s looking for bait now so that we can go fishing.”
“Bait?” said Anibelly. “What’s bait?”
“It’s the little thing used to catch something bigger,” I said.
“BOOO-FEW-LAY,” a voice called through the woods. “Time to go!”
“There’s my dad,” said Beaufeuillet. “He must have found our bait. Gotta run.” Then he was gone.
And Anibelly and I were left alone with our traps.
We looked around at all the traps that we could not see.
We used all our senses.
Just when I’d about figured it out, Anibelly gasped. How she ever figured it out before I did, I’ll never know.
“We are the bait,” she whispered.
anibelly sprang like a rabbit from a snare.
“I may be bait,” she shrieked, “but I’m still Anibelly Ho and I’m not sitting bait, I’m fighting bait!
“C’mon, Alvin, we gotta move fast!”
Anibelly ran toward the car, and I ran after her.
“Hurry, Alvin,” said Anibelly, crawling into the back of Louise. “We gotta get our stuff and use it to protect ourselves!”
In the back, underneath an old blanket, was the portable diesel generator, the Monster Eye flashlight, mosquito netting and the rest of the stuff that Calvin had ordered.
“Calvin helped me hide this stuff in here last night,” said Anibelly “Just in case.”
If there was anything good about having Anibelly along, it was this: She’s a fantastic packer-upper.
“Aren’t you glad I came?” asked Anibelly.
I nodded. “You’re very useful, Anibelly,” I said. It sounded like something Calvin would say to her. He always has a good word for Anibelly, but I hardly ever do on account of it’s hard to be nice to a girl.
Then Anibelly stopped. “Now what?” she asked. She looked at the equipment, and then she looked at me.
“Now we … we …” I scratched my head. I didn’t know what we were going to do. Calvin had ordered everything without explaining anything.
“What would Calvin do?” asked Anibelly.
“He would test all the equipment to make sure everything works,” I said. “That’s what Calvin would do.”
“Okay!” said Anibelly. She was a regular professional tester. Often Calvin and I would ask her to be the first to try something to see if it was dangerous, or poisonous or something. And she would do it and report the facts, exactly as they were.
So we climbed out of the car and dumped everything out of its box and gave it all a trial run.
Everything was okay … except for the generator, which wouldn’t start, and the mosquito netting, which was so tangled and heavy that you could hardly see or breathe through it … we needed scissors, but Calvin didn’t order scissors, so we tried bushwhacking our way out with the Monster Eye flashlight, but it was not a good machete at all. So then I asked,
“What would Houdini do?”
“Squirm!” cried Anibelly So we squirmed like crazy It was great! But we were even more tangled than before.
Finally Anibelly unzipped the mosquito netting and slipped out, just like that.
Mosquito netting sure works up an appetite, so we tore into the energy bars, which was a wonderful idea, except that they were kind of gooey.
And they got stuck in our throats.
So then we purified a puddle right there in the parking lot, on account of we needed to wash down the sticky morsels quickly before we choked to death.
The water-purification tablets worked great!
But we still couldn’t figure out how to get the generator going so we could protect ourselves by running the portable TV, which Calvin had also packed. As everyone knows, having the TV on can keep coyotes away
“I know what Calvin would do,” said Anibelly “Take it apart!” My brother Calvin can figure out anything just by taking it apart and putting it back together. It’s the first thing he does with a new toy and it always teaches him a thing or two about how things work.
So Anibelly and I took the generator apart.
Then we put it back together.
When we were done, there were only a handful of tiny thingies that didn’t belong anywhere.
The portable diesel generator looked almost exactly the same as when it came out of the box.
But it still didn’t work. So there was only one thing left to do….
“Let’s take the Monster Eye apart to see what makes it so bright!” I said.
“Okay!” said Anibelly
So then we took apart our flashlight.
And we put it back together.
After that, our very fantastic Monster Eye Wide beam wasn’t so bright anymore. In fact, you could say it was rather dark.
“That’s a rip-off,” I said. “Calvin said that for four hundred dollars it should shine forever!”
I was really disappointed. And scared. We had nothing to protect ourselves.
But Anibelly didn’t notice. “Camping is really fun, isn’t it, Alvin?” she asked.
I stopped.
I looked at Anibelly.
Anibelly was looking at me and smiling like the crinkly top of one of my mom’s apple pies. She was so happy, she couldn’t sing. She couldn’t even be chatty. She was just kind of there, floating above the colorful autumn leaves in the golden afternoon light. You might even say that she was glowing.
“I wish that we could stay here and camp forever!” said Anibelly, hugging herself.
Then Anibelly wrapped her noodle arms around me. She breathed softly, her eyes closed.
So I closed my eyes. I sighed
. Maybe I was enjoying camping a little too … and just as I was about to tell her that …
A loud WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOSH went over the tops of the trees….
Then a belly-button-piercing scream shook the entire forest.
Silence.
“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAALVIN HOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!”
Uh-oh.
Anibelly and I had forgotten to check our traps.
We ran over to them.
“Swim with leeches!” my dad screamed. He was dangling upside down by one leg and his whole body was twisting like crazy, just like Houdini in the Great Upside-Down Escape!
“Thou bootless guts-gripping bum-bailey better have an explanation for this, or sorrow on thee! I’ll not be a mangled swag-bellied death token.” My dad was not a happy camper. And when my dad is not a happy camper, watch out—he will curse like Shakespeare.
“But it’s not a mangle trap,” I tried to explain. “It’s a dangle one.”
“WE’RE CAMPING, NOT HUNTING AND TRAPPING!” said my dad. He was very pink, almost red. Normally, he is neither.
“Hey, Dad,” said Anibelly. “You look like a great big piñata!”
“You’re definitely the biggest, fattest piñata I’ve ever seen!” I added.
Oops.
“I mean, you look great, Dad,” I said. “You’d definitely be a hit at a party.”
“Ohhhhhhhhhhhhh,” said my dad. He stopped twisting. And when piñatas stop swinging, they start spinning.
“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaiiiiiiii,” cried my dad. He went round and round.
“Uncle Dennis taught us real good traps, didn’t he, Dad?” asked Anibelly
“Uncle Dennis?” my dad began. “Why, that incurable mad-brained clack-dish!”
I held my breath.
I opened my ears.
This is when the truth comes out. Whenever someone on TV is dangling upside down and being knocked about like a human piñata, secrets spill from their mouths like coins from their pockets.
I leaned closer. My dad was about to tell me that my uncle Dennis was a secret agent, I was sure of it.
