This not-so-little story (sorry, Motley Fool) is loosely based on my experiences on camping trips when I was twelve. My team, the Cheetahs, were the rivals of the Zebra club. This story has a few things that are taken from truth, but is mostly made up, but based on real events. The clubs in this story were sneakier than the Cheetahs would ever be. So, without further ado, or however you spell it, I present...
CODESWORN
[Narrator 1, first day]
I arrived at the campsite after two days of riding in the car. Finally. I had enough to keep me busy, but I don’t really like to do things in the car. I think it’s the background, constantly going by. It really distracts me. I’ll just sit for hours, looking at the nothingness rushing past. We were driving westward, so there was not much to look at. Sure, there were the national parks; in fact, that’s where we were heading, but besides that, it was just the asphalt and the grass on either side. Occasionally there would be a tree or something, and sometimes even another car, but other than that, the only thing to look at was the dust swirling behind the back tires. The road was single-lane for each side, but for the number of cars I saw, they probably only needed one lane, period. When I started seeing trees more often, I knew we had finally arrived.
I stepped out of the car and stretched. I looked around for a minute, then started following the rest of my family up into a single-story building. I didn’t see many kids my age. I hoped that maybe we were early, that the others hadn’t arrived yet. I saw a lot of tents set up, thinking that if there were any kids my age, they sure wouldn’t stay in the tent for long. The building that we were walking to seemed to be the only one around. There was a place for a campfire, and a few trails stretching into the small forest. I walked seemingly on auto pilot, thinking only of the horrible time that I knew I would have these two days. I walked up the small ramp into the building. For some reason, the building’s air conditioning was on. How strange. It was only the beginning of May. I suppose it was hotter than most days, but it still wasn’t over 70 degrees. Maybe they were just trying to get people in the mood of summer. Or maybe there were a lot of runners here that got hot, and needed somewhere to rest.
My parents signed a piece of paper. I realized that it was the list of people that were coming. I caught a glance at it, and saw that there were only two more groups that hadn’t arrived. Well, that was something. It was almost nothing, but it was something. The woman behind the desk gave us a map showing us where our campsite was, and we drove the car over to the parking lot of the houses. But I walked. I couldn’t stand another minute in that cursed vehicle.
We set up the tent and hauled our luggage and sleeping bags in. I carried my box over and opened it. I dumped it out on my sleeping bag. I had some walkie-talkies with me. I was hoping I could find someone to make bringing them worthwhile.
"I’m gonna just look around," I called back to the tent.
"Okay, I think dinner’ll be at six," said my mom. I checked my watch. It was about 3:30. How long did she think I would be gone?
I first walked over to the building, and got a map. I checked where our campsite was, and wrote in pencil, "home." I checked the compass rose on the map, then took out a real compass and started walking toward the woods. I came to a campsite where an oversized van was parked. I walked up the stairs to the tree house-cabin and knocked on the door. A guy who looked to be my age scrutinized me, then his eyes went wide for a moment.
"Hey, Pete, we have anything yet?" said the guy to someone else in the room I couldn’t see.
"No, but they aren’t called the Night Stalkers for nothing," came a reply.
"True, but we’ve blocked off all possible entries. He’s fine," the guy at the door said. He looked at me again. "Sorry," he said. "You see, we are part of this team called PanOps, and the Night Stalkers, our rivals, haven’t shown up yet. We were waiting for them. We were afraid they might have slipped our guard, and that you might be one of them."
"Oh," I said. "So, um, how long has this been going on?"
"Well... I think four years."
"Oh. What do the administrators here think of this?"
"Nothing... You see, we have agreed to a code. Neither side can physically harm, or attempt to harm, a member of the other side. If one does, then the opposing team can tell anyone they want about what happened."
"Sounds good. Can I join?" I asked. I was not about to be left out of this. I had not come here to eat and sleep. Well, okay, I had come here to see the sights, but that wasn’t my big intention. I actually had no idea what I would do here, but I figured I’d think of something. Turned out I didn’t have to.
"Well," said the guy, "You can’t just join. You can definitely help us out, and at the end of the two days, if you have helped us enough, you can become a member."
"Good enough for me," I said. He stood aside and I walked in the cabin. The inside was bigger than it looked from outside. "What’s your name?" I asked.
"Trevor. What’s yours?"
"Robert. Hey, how did you all get here? Did you all come in that van?"
"Yeah, my parents drove me and three of my friends here. The other two members came... somehow."
"Okay. So, anyway, what’s the plan?"
"Well, there are three tents set up at the two ways you can get in here, and one is in the middle. It’s our secondary base. Sooner or later, we will get notification that the Night Stalkers’ car has arrived, and then we will enact Operation One." He picked up some papers off a desk, and pointed to the first paragraph. I laughed when I saw it. "Great idea!"
The call came. I heard it on Trevor’s walkie-talkie: "Here they come! Here they come! Battle stations! Battle stations!"
"Okay, Robert, you know what to do!"
We ran down to a small compartment under the cabin, and pulled out more water guns than we needed. A few seconds later, two boys and a girl ran up the path, who I had been told were the other PanOps members, grabbed the water guns, and then the boy yelled, "Follow me!" We ran to catch up with him; even though he had sprinted all the way up, it was still hard for the others to catch up. A minute later we caught up to the car and opened fire, preventing the occupants from escaping. We kept it up for about two minutes, people frantically trying to reload the guns and dropping them, while others filled in by using as mundane methods as throwing the contents of water bottles at the windows.
That’s when it happened. I didn’t know what exactly had happened at the time, except that I felt something land on my head, and then my eyes stung. I rubbed them hard, dropping my water gun. I stumbled back and heard car doors opening. Then I tasted soap in my mouth. I patted the ground for my water gun. It didn’t take long to find. I shot in the direction of the voices, hoping to hit one of them. Then I shot water in my hand and rubbed the soap out of my eyes. I looked around. I saw someone else rubbing soap out of his eyes, too. It was probably for the best that they escaped. It was funny, but it sure would have been a dishonorable way to win.
We regrouped and trudged up the hill to the camp. The other boy who got soap in his eyes and I walked into the bathroom to get the rest of the soap out.
"What happened with that whole soap thing?"
"I have no idea. I think it came from above. It’s the only thing that would make sense. One person alone would have to do it; if there were any more, we’d see them. Or someone else in our club would have. But it would be very hard for one person to hit two people that are on opposite sides of the car." The guy was very well spoken. His voice made him sound smart, somehow.
"Yeah, that make sense. But it could have been two people."
"Yeah, that’s probably the only way. They must have been very sneaky. They might be able to do it if they did it at exactly the same time."
"Yeah... Hey, what’s your name? I’m Robert."
"Danny. Trevor didn’t tell you?"
"He told me there was a Danny and a Ben. I didn’t know who you were."
"Oh, okay."
As we were leaving, he got a call on his walkie-talkie. It was in some code that I didn’t understand. Something like "B-2-H!" Danny told me, "We’re meeting at the communications headquarters. Let’s hurry!" We ran as fast as we could, which wasn’t very, as we were now with no incentive of blasting the hack out of some car. He lead me to it, and I pulled out my map to make a note of where it was.
When we got there, the other one, who I guess was Ben, and one of the girls, were standing guard behind some trash cans. I didn’t even notice them until they said, "You can pass," which scared me for a second. I turned around and rolled my eyes. I guess Danny was expecting it; he didn’t say anything. Maybe it was part of that coded message. Or more likely, this is how they always guarded the base. We stepped inside, and the rest were already there.
"So, Danny and Robert, what exactly happened?"
"I can tell you what happened, but not how it happened," Danny said. "We were shooting the car, when I felt something fall on my head, and then soapy water ran into my eyes and mouth, and I dropped my weapon and–"
"Did I hit anyone when I shot at them?" I asked.
"Yeah, I think you did," said Trevor.
"Well," said Pete, "Probably not all of the Night Stalkers showed up in that car. They probably had a few extras in case something went wrong. They probably had some water gun loaded with soapy water."
"There were six, plus the driver, that got out of the car. There are only six members that we know of," said Trevor.
"‘That we know of,’ yes," said the girl, "They probably brought more recruits as backup."
"Yeah, that’s an idea, but– "
"Wait a minute, Eve," Danny said. Okay, so that one was Eve, so the other guard must be Ashley. "I forgot about his earlier, but there was another car that pulled in with them. That’s probably who it was. We have to find whose car that is." I assumed from the fact that Danny knew this that was the one who delivered that "battle stations!" message.
"Did you see where the car went?"
"No, Ashley stayed behind." Pete got out of the tent. "Ashley, guard swap." Ashley came in and Pete took her place.
"Ashley, what do you know about that car that pulled up with the Night Stalkers’ car?"
"Well, after I delivered the message to Danny, I followed the car, and when the driver got out, I asked if she had ever been to this campsite before. She said no."
"Well, all that means is the people in the car could be recruits."
"Just a second. I also asked the driver if she was with anyone. That seemed to make her nervous. She thought I was up to something... But she did say no, she came here alone– that is, without any other car. I asked her if I could ask her one more question. Then she said, ‘why are you asking me all this?’ and I said, ‘I thought I recognized that other car from school.’ You see, that story wouldn’t have worked if the Night Stalkers’ car didn’t have that vanity licence plate. She seemed to take this well, and she said, ‘go ahead.’ And I said, ‘Do you know what the Night Stalkers are?’ Then she looked at me really weird. I said, ‘No, huh?’ She looked at me weird again and said, ‘no...’" I could tell Ashley could think very fast. Too fast for her own good.
"If they were recruits in a second car, they might have different parents who wouldn’t know about the Night Stalkers."
"Don’t worry, I got it covered. Besides, the other things I said cover it pretty well, huh? Anyway, after I walked away and I saw the driver wasn’t looking, I ran behind the car and waved to a girl in the car and did this." She pretended to roll down a window. "Then she put the window down and I said, in a slightly lower voice so the driver wouldn’t recognize me..." Ashley still scares me. She really can think too fast and act in any situation really well. "And I said, ‘Hey, do you know what the Night Stalkers are?’ And she said, ‘Are you crazy, or what? Is this forest haunted or something? What are you talking about?’"
"Okay, okay," said Trevor. She’s not with the Night Stalkers. Good job, though. You needed to act then, and you solved the problem. Of course, we still don’t know who did it."
"Okay. It’s time for a PanOps mission. We aren’t called PanOps for nothin’," said Trevor.
"We aren’t?" I said.
"No... See, it come from the word ‘panoptic,’ meaning, "all-seeing. That was shortened to ‘PanOps’, so the ‘Ops’ could mean ‘operatives.’"
"Okay. Hey, you all know this area pretty well, huh?"
"Yeah, of course, why?"
"Well, what does this place have to offer that we could use?"
"There are some rocky hills through the forest– it’s not that far– that are perfect for a surprise attack."
"I assume those have already been used in the plans?"
"Oh, yeah. We have some nice stuff planned. That reminds me, I am going back to the base. Hey! Guards! You can come in. Who’s coming?"
"I’ll come," Danny and I said.
"Okay," said Trevor. "The rest of you stay here. I’ll need to take a guard, too.
"Yeah... I’m next," said Danny.
"Okay. We need to draw up some new plans to find out what happened with the soap attack."
Danny picked up a water gun and walked out of the tent. We walked towards the cabin base. "Look out!" said Danny. A water jet sprayed to my left."Run! I’ll meet you there!"Danny said, as he shot the trees so the Night Stalker member couldn’t come out. We raced toward the base, and slammed the door after frantically searching for the right key. Then Danny ran in, and we locked the door.
"Hey, toss me the snack bag, Trevor," Pete said.
"Sure... Hey, where is it?"
"It’s by the window..." He looked up and saw it wasn’t there. The window was open.
"Maybe it blew out." He opened the window and looked down. "Ah-ha! There it is." Pete ran outside and got it, and ran back in before any Night Stalkers might pop out and shoot him.
"Hey... The window was closed... I’m sure of it. I always close the window to prevent grapplers from getting in," said Trevor.
"Do you think someone got in?" I asked.
"I don’t see how. The door was locked, and the window was shut. And it’s even a sliding window, so there is no way anyone could have opened it.
"What about your parents?"
"Actually, they have another cabin. I don’t even know if they have a key. Well, they probably do, but I don’t think they would have come in here to open a window."
We looked around in silence for a while, when Trevor said, "Darn it! What are they up to? What’s going on here? They are totally slipping our guard! We have to do something!"
"I can help. Go get your plans, let’s see what we already have. By the way, why do you think they just pulled the snack bag out of the window? They didn’t even take anything?"
"They’re not allowed. It’s part of the code to steal anything other than... Uh-oh."
"What?" said Pete and I.
"Other than paper and information," he completed. He picked up the plans. "Yep, the first page is missing. Anything else? Let’s see... No, I think that’s it. That’s still not good. We are going to have to either scrap or completely reform Operation Lemonade Stand."
Pete picked up his Walkie-talkie. "They somehow broke in and stole a page off the battle plans... (pause) No, just the first page... (pause) Lemonade stand. I think that’s it... (pause) Why?... (pause) Really? That might just work, yeah... (pause) Okay, over and out." Their walkie-talkies prevented anyone but them from hearing.
"Okay!" said Pete. "They might have used a rope– but from above! They might have climbed a tree." I looked out. The tree closest to the window, the only one that they could have used, was probably forty feet high, it seemed. I told them.
"Yeah. Oh well. I guess it’s possible, but that’s a pretty dangerous thing to do just for a piece of paper," Trevor said.
"Well, those Night Stalkers are crazy like that."
"Hey, the alarms on the floor haven’t gone off... so no one got inside. Sorry, Trevor, don’t want to add any more mystery, but it’s true."
"Well, that’s good, it means they didn’t read through all our plans."
I looked at my watch. It was about 5:30. Wow, I guess I was going to be gone a while.
There was a brief silence, then Trevor said, "Okay, we are going to have to just do a normal attack now. I have a few strategies that can help us, but... Hey, if they stole the Lemonade Stand plan, maybe we can use that against them. They might be all camped out there right now and we..."
"What, exactly, is this ‘Operation Lemonade Stand?’" I asked
"Well, there is this booth that used to be a lemonade stand from the opposite side of the cabins, that have high pressure sinks that we can attach these..." he said, pulling out some tubes from a suitcase, "to make some high-powered water guns!"
"Okay, let’s stay in contact," said Trevor, "and it will be a free-for-all. If you get the sink set up, call me." He gave me a tube and I gave him my second walkie-talkie. He said he’d give it to Eve, who could then relate my messages to other PanOps members. She was the next one in line to be in communications. We all got water guns and headed toward the communications base, while Pete told them what they were going to do.
Dinner was called after the free-for-all battle, and Trevor told me that after marshmallow roasting, there was a cease-fire until the next day. Oh well, I thought, I could live with that. We stashed the weapons in the communications base, and headed toward the pavilion for dinner. I finally met up with my parents.
"Wow, you’ve been gone a while," said my dad.
"Yeah, I had a good time. There were water guns."
"Yeah, that would do it," said my dad. "Go grab a hamburger or something. They have some potato chips by the sauces." I got some food, and even some soda, and went over to eat with the rest of my team. The PanOps files had pictures of the Night Stalkers in it for some reason, taken with some cheap camera that uses 110 film. I had been all over the camp... Anyway, as I walked over to the PanOps members, I saw a girl who looked to be about eleven or twelve that I hadn’t seen before. Her arms were all scraped, and she was holding a small machine that looked like a toy gun.
"Who’s that?" I asked.
Ashley answered, keeping her voice low, "That’s the girl who was in the car that showed up the same time as the Night Stalkers’."
"What’s she doing with that?"
"What?"
"That gun thing." The girl looked over. Ashley, able to get out of any bad situation, said, "Eve always carries around that water gun, don’t you know?"
"Oh," I said. I looked at the strange girl out the corner of my eye, she seemed as though she did something wrong by looking over. We both looked up and looked around. She was back to pretending to be not listening. "Well," I said, "I think I need to get some more soda." Ashley stood up with me. Once out of earshot, I said, "We should try to get her on our team."
"Yeah, why don’t you do that?" said Ashley.
"Me?" I said.
"Yeah, why not?"
"Because... Because I..."
"Okay, I get it. I’ll do it. Fine."
Everyone in the two clubs finished eating very fast. Ashley secretly followed the girl while I was the guard. The girl was walking toward her campsite, and Ashley started walking from behind some tents toward her. I could just barely hear them, from my hidden spot.
"Hey, I’ve seen you around the camp before... What’s your name?"
"Marcia, why?"
"What’s your problem? Is that confidential information?"
"Sorry..."
"Well, do you want to help our team out? PanOps? We search for spies, and shoot them with water guns, plan missions and defenses..."
"No, I don’t know if I want to get involved."
"Oh, now, you have to pick a side. You can’t stay neutral, otherwise both sides might shoot you!"
"That’s okay, I can handle it."
"Okay, fine. See you around." Marcia walked past. I heard her mutter something. It sounded like, "You can try, but I don’t think that will work..."
* * *
[Narrator 2]
The car that was ahead of ours turned into the same place that we were going to. We had been following it for a while, and at least one person had joked that, wouldn’t it be funny if they were going to that same Yellowstone Park camp, too? Everyone was shocked when it actually did.
My parents got out of the car and walked into the building, and so did the driver of the other car. They got back first and drove to the campsite. As my mom was walking out, a girl who looked about my age stopped her and talked to her for a few minutes. Then she ran around to my side of the window and motioned for me to roll it down. "Hey, do you know what the Night Stalkers are?" she said.
"Are you crazy, or what? Is this forest haunted or something? What are you talking about?"
"Never mind. I’ve just been hearing stuff, something like that. Was wondering if you know."
"Um, no..."
"Okay, see you around!" Huh. I wonder what all that was about.
I was watching the car that was ahead of us. It was behaving weird. I went to follow it. I caught up to it; it was moving very slowly. When it stopped, I hid behind a tree and looked out. Six or seven people ran from all directions, surrounded the car, and opened fire with water guns, preventing the car’s occupants from escaping. They could refill their guns, as I saw, from a water pump. They probably could keep the people in the car there as long as they wanted. Well, until they call the police. Someone in that car had to have a cell phone.
Now, here was a perfect situation. Whose side would I join? Well, it seemed obvious: the water gunners had the clear advantage, but I almost never support the ones in the lead. It seems cowardly. So somehow, I had to stop them. Somehow. I couldn’t just blatantly try to distract them– they probably would not pay any heed anyway. If I had a water gun, I might be able to get one or two to chase me– that might work, if I did it at a time when enough people were running out of water. But I had to use only what I had, obviously– which was not much. I pulled out what was in my small carrying bag. Rubber bands, paper clips, some balloons from the birthday party I was at yesterday. Anyway, I thought I could use them as water balloons, but then I would only be able to get one hit in, and probably distract only one person. I didn’t know if they would even break like water balloons. It was the only thing I had, though. It would have to work. I ran into the bathroom and started filling it up. As I did, I noticed the soap dispenser on the wall. Soapy water was good. If I could hit them in the face, I could temporarily blind them. But I would have to hit them in the face. I had no idea how to do that. I filled them both up with soapy water, and ran outside.
Now, how to hit them? I looked around, trying to find anything I could use to my advantage. Then I noticed a tree that was above me. Maybe if I could climb the tree and drop them from there? That might work. I was taking a mountain climbing class, so this couldn’t be too different. I put the balloons in my carrying bag– sort of like a purse although I don’t like to use that word.
I ran at the tree, jumped onto a branch and pulled myself up. There were some more branches above that I could use to step on. I got high enough over them, maybe about twenty feet, then crawled out along a branch, holding onto a branch above to take some of the weight off the one I was standing on. I slowly opened the bag with one hand– it wasn’t easy– and took out a balloon. I carefully looked straight down and aligned the balloon with someone’s head. I let it go, and it fell right onto the person’s head. He stopped to rub his eyes. I walked further out, lined up the two objects, and one more was down. I started to walk back toward the tree when it finally occurred to me, "hey, it actually worked!"
I heard car doors opening and the yelling increased as the people in the car ran off. Some of them got shot with water guns, but surprisingly, most of them didn’t. They all ran in one direction, so I guess only the ones in the back got hit. I stayed up in the tree until the "gunmen" had walked away. Then I climbed down and followed the group that was in the car. They were not going to be saved without me receiving some reward. Letting me join their team would be good enough.
They all went to a cabin that was in the forest, held about ten feet up in the air by a large base. I waited until they were all inside, then walked up the stairs and knocked on the door. I heard frantic whispering. Then the door was whisked open and a boy with a water gun said, "Step away, operative!" I just laughed. "You think something’s funny?"
"Yeah," I said. "I’m the reason you are in this cabin right now, and you’re about to shoot me."
"What are you talking about? Stop playing games here!"
"Remember when you got out of the car? Remember when they trapped you inside and weren’t going to let you out? Do you know how you got out? You didn’t just get lucky."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, I climbed up a tree and threw soapy water balloons down on them so you would have a chance to escape."
"So you aren’t on their side?"
"That would be a logical conclusion."
"Why did you do that?"
"Well, it was an unfair fight with that little strategy they had there, wasn’t it?"
"Yeah, I guess so. I’m not used to people just helping our side. They usually join PanOps ‘cause they got walkie-talkies."
"PanOps?"
"Yeah. The name of the group that was shooting our car. I think this club, the Night Stalkers, that is, well, yeah, we don’t have walkie-talkies and stuff like that, but we have more fun. We don’t need walkie-talkies. We need to be silent. We get to make PanOps frustrated. They can’t stand not knowing what’s going on. Everything must be explained to them. We make the best of what is given to us. If something goes wrong, we build it into the plan. If something goes wrong for them, they have to right up all these new plans..."
I just kept staring at him as he said this. It seemed to make him uncomfortable, which was my goal. "Okay, come in..." he said.
I spent the next twenty minutes or so learning about the club, the plans, and everything I needed to know. I learned the code of the club, some of the plans that PanOps had used in the past, and they even had this book with pictures in it of all the PanOps members and some pictures of the cabin and other things. I also learned the names of all the Night Stalkers members: Harry, Sam, Billy, Elliott, Val, and Susan. The apparent leader, Sam, started off the official meeting, with me included, about what the first plan was. "Okay," he said. "As you have noticed, not everyone is here. They are either checking the PanOps base or sneaking up and shooting people with our new water guns. Anyway, we are going to try to steal their plans. Of course, it needs to be done without anyone knowing. They probably will realize this before they start doing the plans because they always have to have their precious little files with them."
"Well," said Harry, "The plans, I think, would be in the cabin. It’s locked, of course. The window’s closed, and there are probably motion sensors in there. What’s your idea?"
"Ha, ha," said Sam. "Think that’s too good for us? You’re forgetting something– we have a new member, Marcia, now."
"Oh? Yeah? So what’s your idea?"
"Well," I said, "I do have some ropes and harnesses that we use for rock climbing."
"Okay, you think you could climb the tree by the cabin? It’s thirty feet high. From there, lower down on a rope, open the window, and," he said, pulling out a small machine, "snatch the papers." He pulled the trigger and a small elastic string shot out and hit a paper, which stuck to it, and shot back.
"What happens if I fall?" I said. I could tell they were hoping I wouldn’t say that.
"You probably will live. Unless you fall upside–"
"Shut up, Billy!" said Sam.
"That’s okay," I said. "I know the answer. I’ll do it. Sounds fun. We're planning to go rock climbing in the mountains after we leave Yellowstone, so I have a harness and a rope that I think will work.
Thirty feet, huh? I’ll bet it was more than that. Fortunately, it was fairly easy to climb. I finally made it to the top. Physically, it was pretty easy, but mentally it was impossible. It was the highest I had climbed without being strapped to some pulley system. I crawled upside-down, out across the limb, and attached the rope to the branch. I grabbed the rope and slowly slid down. The rope was attached to a harness with a rachet on it, so from here I couldn’t fall unless the rope broke, so I descended as quickly as possible so if it did break, I wouldn’t have far to fall. I got close to the window, but I was still about four feet away. I swung on the rope until I could grab hold of the side of the window. The thought just occurred to me, "No PanOps members better be watching." Then, even worse, I thought, "My parents better not be, either." I thought I probably shouldn't be using the rock climbing equipment before going rock climbing. They didn't actually say anything, but they didn't have to.
I looked both ways, not that it would have mattered then, and opened the window. I reached inside my pocket for the frog tongue gun. I pulled it out, found the papers, and was about to shoot when... "Oh, yeah, something about motion detectors?"
I looked around in the room. I didn’t hear any alarm now, so there wasn’t anything by the window. I looked around the papers. Nothing. I didn’t see anything that resembled a motion sensor, so I shot the paper with the frog tongue gun. There was a loud sound of paper crinkling, and the paper shot back toward me. I folded it, then put it in my pocket. Then I thought, "It’s always a good idea to steal two things, that way, when the enemy finds one is missing, they will be too distracted to notice the other." I saw a bag with some food in it. That would work. I turned the crank on the frog tongue gun to power it back up, and then I heard someone coming toward the house. I looked behind me. No one. I guess if there had been someone there, I would have heard someone say, "What the heck are you doing, girl?"
I quickly snatched the bag, and dropped it on the ground. The door opened just as I had dropped out of sight. Of course, there was still a rope hanging out the window.
I ran to the tree and started climbing it again. This time, as I ascended, I reeled in the rope so if I did fall, I would just swing out into the air. I got to the top, carefully detached the rope from the clip, climbed back to the tree and waited a few minutes before climbing down. I wanted to see if the people in the cabin would do anything.
I had a nice view, so I didn’t mind staying up there for the ten minutes or so. Eventually, someone ran around outside, collected the snack bag, and ran back in. A few minutes later, someone stuck his head out of the window, looked up at the tree, shook his head, and I could faintly hear something like, "The thing’s forty feet high!"
Once I was back on the ground, I ran back to the Night Stalkers base. The members were filing out as I got there. "PanOps is planning a huge attack! Get ready!"
I threw the rope in the base, and Sam threw me a water gun. "Just do your best!" he said.
"Wait, here’s the plans! I got them!"
"Oh, good job! We’ll have to do something later. We gotta run!"
* * *
[Narrator 1]
"Who else is coming with me?" I said.
"I’ll come!" said Eve and Ben.
"Good. You can guard the area while I set up this... ‘suicide mission.’"
"Those Night Stalkers operate alone," Eve said. "The one who comes to the sinks will probably be the one who stole the plans."
"But they share info," said Ben.
"I don’t know... last time they stole the plans ‘cause they overheard someone, and we still used that plan against some of the others."
"Well, we gotta try the plan no matter what. There’s nothing better to do. I don’t just want to run around and shoot."
"Right. We have to outsmart ‘em," said Eve. "We aren’t called PanOps for nothing."
* * *
[Narrator 2]
I started out by hiding behind a cabin. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do here. I don’t like having to use quick thinking to get out of bad situations. I have to have a strategy. I took out the stolen plans and unfolded them.
Operation One... Get water guns... When the car comes... Ha! This plan failed. Because of me. I’m so proud of myself. I laughed.
"Did you hear that?"
"Yeah! Behind that house!" Darn it! I stuffed the plans in my pocket and pointed my water gun to the left side, where I heard them from. Then I got shot in the back. I turned around just to get shot in the back again. They must have come from both sides. I ran away, shooting backwards as I ran. I’m no good at this! I need a real strategy. I tied the trigger guard of my gun to my bag and climbed a tall tree to decide what my next plan would be. I opened the plans back up. "Operation Two, ‘Lemonade Stand,’" it said.
* * *
[Narrator 1]
"How’s it look? Anyone coming?"
"No, Robert, you’re fine," said Ben.
"We’ll tell you if we see anything, okay?" said Eve.
"Okay... Almost done..."
I guess they hadn’t taken measurements of the sink. I guess that’s why we brought duct tape. I couldn’t get it to work very well. I tore off all the duct tape and went over to a new sink. I tried forcing it onto the tap as best I could, then I wrapped duct tape around about seven or eight times. "This better work..." I mumbled. I turned it on. Water shot out of the tube. Pretty good, I thought. "Got it!" I yelled.
"Good," said Ben. "Time to do part two of Operation Two."
"Eve, you go try to get someone up here. I’m going to guard the back."
"Okay, there’s got to be someone around," said Eve as she ran off.
We spent about five minutes behind the "lemonade stand" before Ben yelled, "There! Go!" I turned and shot where he was pointing. I didn’t even see what I was shooting at; the blast was so powerful.
* * *
[Narrator 2]
I guess I asked for it, I thought. I guess trying to stop a known enemy plan after it’s been a while since you stole it is a bad idea. It took me being completely soaked to find that out. I changed my clothes, and checked my watch. Almost six, so I headed over to the pavilion for dinner.
* * *
"Shhh! He’s right there! Do you want him to know we’re here?"
"Okay, okay. Go!" I shot at him with my water gun. He barely dodged it. He looked for the source of it. I kept shooting. He dodged most of it. Then Susan and I rushed at him and kept shooting. He ran away and we chased him. Eventually he slowed down and said, "Okay! Go! Now!" We looked around, afraid to advance. Everyone was completely still for what seemed like three minutes but it probably was much shorter. Then we charged him again and he started running. He kept shouting. "Go! Go! Remember everything? C’mon! Go!" We looked both ways but we persisted running. We didn’t think anything was going to happen, and nothing did.
A second party of Night Stalkers ran out of the bushes, camped out for anything that might happen, and joined us in the chase, shooting as they ran. The one we were chasing gave up trying to get his hidden comrades to help him. We were getting pretty tired now. He ran up a rocky hill that was strangely smooth. Then he ran down another hill, with walls of stone on both sides. It was a surprisingly long hill that was preceded by an equally long hill going up, out on top to the forest. Once at the point where the hill going up and the hill going down met, the boy that we were chasing started running almost twice as fast. He made it to the top by the time we just started up the second incline.
* * *
[Narrator 1]
"Three... two... one... go!" Sam and I, the last members of the clubs at the pavilion, ran as fast as we could. They let me be the representative of PanOps since I was new, and Sam was the one for the Night Stalkers since he was the leader. We were the last ones to leave, so as soon as we had left the pavilion, the fighting would start again. I raced to the PanOps cabin and the door opened before I was up the stairs. Trevor slammed it behind me and locked it.
"Okay. Here is Operation Three. The one after Lemonade Stand, since we obviously can’t use that anymore..." The files were passed around the room.
"Any questions?" said Trevor. The members shook their heads. "Okay, Robert, you are going to lead this one, okay?"
"Me? But I just–"
"It’s a test. Let’s see how well you can do this."
"Okay," I said. "Looks pretty fun, anyway."
"Oh, yeah, it’s gonna be," said Danny.
Danny and I were stationed by the rocky area behind the forest. He was supposed to be my guard; I had the necessary materials and he had the gun. I was in charge of set up. There was a perfect spot for the plan right here. There was a water pump, always good, and enough trees to support the main attraction...
* * *
Everything was in place now. There were four that I could see chasing him. Pretty good. Trevor ran up the ramp, then down the ramp, as we crouched behind the low wall, sweat loosening our grip on the ropes. He ran up the last hill. "NOW!" he shouted, and the Night Stalkers, conditioned to this, kept chasing. We pulled the ropes. Barrels of water that were attached to pulley systems in the trees turned, dumping water onto the two ramps, so they couldn’t run up either hill. Then the other PanOps members behind the wall threw buckets of water down on the trapped Night Stalkers.
When the barrels had run out of water, we ran from the scene as fast as we could, leaving all the buckets there. Pete, currently in communications, said he’d pick them up later, after we called him when the Night Stalkers had left.
"Don’t worry," called Trevor, back to the Night Stalkers, "You can use a dryer on sneakers!"
After Pete had collected the supplies, everyone made it back to the communications base, where there was much excitement, cheering, and many high-fives. People were saying, "are you sure that wasn’t against the code?" and "Ha, did you see them when the two barrels dumped water on the ramps?" and "I really had ‘em going with yelling, ‘now!’ and all that."
The flap on the tent opened. I thought it might be a Night Stalker for a minute, but part of the code was "no using weaponry inside bases." It was someone’s father, saying, "S’more time, so, um, I guess you’d better put down your arms for the day." I guess he had picked up on the code.
* * *
[Narrator 2, second day]
Yellowstone park was fun. I’m sure it would have been more fun if my subconscious mind had not been throwing out vengeful plans into my conscious mind. Someone would always be showing me something incredible just as I thought of some devious plan and I would just stare, frozen in place as if short-circuited. It was a delayed reaction. I’d turn to look, but it would take me five or so seconds. People were always asking me if I got enough sleep, of if I was okay and what not. Worst of all, I knew my plans would never work. I'm good of thinking of plans, but I never take into consideration the fact that it's not a perfect world. There's always someone behind you, shooting you with a water gun.
Finally, we got back to camp. Now I was ready. Three hours back at camp before dinner, after which everyone would leave. It was time for redemption.
I called everyone back to the unofficial base– we aren’t supposed to have a base, we are supposed to be always on the move, but we wanted to take advantage of the part of the code that involved a base. We don’t want to be constantly watching our backs. Of course, our job is to make people fell the need to watch their backs.
"We have three hours left! And we haven’t been doing too good, what with that little, um, chase scene," I said.
"Oh, definitely. We will get our revenge. We need to," said Harry.
"Yeah. Like she said, we have three hours. We have to plan something that’s good. And fast," said Val.
"Any ideas?" asked Sam.
"Hey! I think I have an idea. It’s not something the Night Stalkers would be known for, but hopefully it could be!" said Billy.
"What? Does it involve a really high tree?" I said.
"No! That’s the best part!"
"Well, if that’s the best part–"
"Just what is it?" asked Susan.
"Okay– here’s the plan..."
* * *
[Narrator 1]
"Okay," said Trevor. "We have less than three hours left. It’s time for the last and best plan in the book."
"Nothing could be better than that last one," I said, and many laughed.
"Maybe not. It’s not so much action, but it won’t be as chaotic. It will be fun, though." He passed around the files again.
* * *
I sat in the modified garbage can, waiting for prey to arrive. I held a remote in my hand that controlled a small sound player. I pressed the button every now and then to see if there was anyone around that I didn't know about. The sound recorded on my machine was of a weather reporter. It was different for everyone else. I silently pulled out my walkie-talkie and whispered, "Communications?"
"Yeah. This is Danny. How’s it going?"
"I gotta be quiet. Nothing yet, though."
"Okay. What is it?"
"Anything from anyone else?"
"Trevor got someone. I don’t know details."
"Just wondering if they know what we’re up to."
"After two times, yes. It’s only been once, so far. But those Night Stalkers are solitary, so you never know."
"Okay. Over and out."
I looked through the peep hole at the mirror that hung on the tree. No one behind me. Then I heard something. I could feel my heart rate increase. I looked through the peep hole. In the mirror I saw someone. They got closer. I clutched my weapon. When she got close enough, I punched the button on the remote. "And that concludes our latest weather report," said the machine. "What?–" I heard her say. She moved over to the tree and looked behind it. I couldn’t see who it was, only that I knew it wasn’t a PanOps member. They were instructed to say, "clock tower" to let me know not to shoot. Some random phrase Trevor thought up. I shot her with my water gun through the peep hole. "Hey! What is–" She looked around. The fake trash that was glued onto a set-in platform on the trash can would throw suspicion off me. I fired off another quick burst. I think she noticed me this time. She walked to the can. When she was two feet away, I blasted out of the trash can and threw a water balloon at her. I was shocked to see who it was. I jumped out of the trash can in case I had to run away.
"Marcia! You– you–"
"Are a Night Stalker?"
"Yeah..."
"What was–"
"What do you think? I wanted you to know?"
"But– so were you–"
"The one who threw soapy water balloons down on you? The one who stole the papers out of your club? Yes, that was me. I did use that tree, by the way. And a rope."
"You filthy liar!" I yelled, chasing after her. She’d had it. I threw my water gun at her as hard as I could. Somehow she saw it coming and caught it. She just barely kept it from falling out of her hand. She turned around and pointed it at me.
"Wait– that was attempted physical harm. Don’t you go anywhere. This leaves you with a choice," she said, darkly.
"What?" I spat.
"You do nothing– and I get to tell anyone I want that you hurled your huge gun at me–" I looked at the gun in her hands– "or you forfeit– that is, your team does, for this time."
What kind of a choice was that? Lose temporarily or permanently? "Perhaps you’d like to tell them the bad news?" she said, gesturing to my walkie-talkie.
"No, I wouldn’t!"
"Fine, fine. I’ll tell them. You’d better tell them there is a special guest coming, then?"
"Okay, I will. I’ll do that," I said. If she got shot on her way there, I'd be as good as dead. "In case you didn’t know, I chose to forfeit."
"Yes, I figured as much. Okay, then. So long." I said nothing. Then I turned and yelled at her, "See you next year! And you’d better be here, or be a coward! That is, more so than..." I quit. She wasn’t being a coward. The code had to be honored. I pulled out my walkie-talkie. "Won the battle, lost the war, Marcia," I mumbled, and flicked the walkie-talkie to speaking mode.
THE END
By the way, the "Lemonade Stand" was a real plan of the Cheetahs. We didn't have plastic tubes, we just bent the stream with our fingers. The water gun car trap was taken completely from fact, minus the water balloon bombing. We eventually gave up. We had less real water guns. My weapon was a water bottle with a nozzle that I held upside-down and squeezed to shoot them.
Comments: I never felt like I got drawn in to your story- there wasn’t a hook, and you introduced a bunch of characters at once without providing any description of them. A story like this would really benefit from a lighthearted touch- since it’s a bunch of kids who are the main characters, it could be fun to have them act over-the-top serious while balancing with a knowledgeable narrator…you’ve made them all basically into adults. What sort of kid knows the word panoptic, and where are the parents in all of this? You seem to acknowledge that they exist, but they don’t have any real role. Also, where was your tragic/antihero? Every character seemed likable to me. Although this story needs a lot of work in the execution, I actually really like the concept of exaggerating a personal memoir into fiction- I’m sure if you work on developing your characters further and add a really compelling plot it could turn into something spectacular and fun to read. Right now I’m sure it’s exciting to you, because you experienced this sort of thing, but to an outside reader we need more information about the characters and a firmer plot.
Adherence to Prompt: 2
Spelling and Grammar: 2.5
Characterization: 4
Plot and Structure: 4
Style: 4.5
Creativity: 8
Total: 25
Comments: I never felt like I got drawn in to your story- there wasn’t a hook, and you introduced a bunch of characters at once without providing any description of them. A story like this would really benefit from a lighthearted touch- since it’s a bunch of kids who are the main characters, it could be fun to have them act over-the-top serious while balancing with a knowledgeable narrator…you’ve made them all basically into adults. What sort of kid knows the word panoptic, and where are the parents in all of this? You seem to acknowledge that they exist, but they don’t have any real role. Also, where was your tragic/antihero? Every character seemed likable to me. Although this story needs a lot of work in the execution, I actually really like the concept of exaggerating a personal memoir into fiction- I’m sure if you work on developing your characters further and add a really compelling plot it could turn into something spectacular and fun to read. Right now I’m sure it’s exciting to you, because you experienced this sort of thing, but to an outside reader we need more information about the characters and a firmer plot.
Yeah, that's pretty much it: I can think of a good story, but not necessarily write it that well. I focus too much on the plot. I'll have to work on it. My tragic hero was somewhat of a stretch, I admit. It was supposed to be Robert, who lost the battle for his team because he acted too fast.
It seemed to me that everyone has a few big words that they know, even at a young age. They mostly seem to be words that are very specific, and aren't even used by adults. It was sort of a competition, who knew the most complicated word. At least, that's how it was where I went to school. I thought I might be critized for using big words, I did try to use simple words and weird grammar in the spoken parts to emphasize this. I actually think the story holds up better if you think it's corny.
I also ran out of room;I tried to put more emphasis on the action than on the characters. Probably not a good idea. I usually write in a stream of consiousness style- as you can see by the first few paragraphs. Stream of consiousness is very time consuming and wordy, so probably not a good thing to try on a short story contest. I'll try to use a different style next time, and I'll try to think of a shorter plot so I can work on the characters more. Sorry if I'm critiquing your critique.
EDIT: I think I am going to rewrite this story and just post it here so people can critique it, and this way it can be longer so I can have more detail, etc.
Characterization: 4/10
Anti-hero? No! Tragic hero? Not really. Robert lost control, but that’s not tragic at all. There’s no reason the reader should even feel pity for him, let alone horror for the end. Plot and Structure: 7/10
I like the general layout with those two different narrators, and the story develops nicely up to the final climax – the meeting of the two protagonists. Too bad that it didn’t quite turned out as I expected.
Sorry, I really couldn't find a very good way to have a tragic hero and still keep it a game. I probably should have tried to go for a anti hero.
Yeah, an anti-hero would probably have worked quite well. Marcia was already half-way there - a stronger focus on her and a little more malice/pride/arrogance, and it would have fit into this contest much better. On the other hand I'm not quite sure if it wouldn't have destroyed the whole fun of your story. I for one like it the way it is, but when judging I had to accept the criterias the way MoFo defined them in the first post of the main SSCIII-thread.
Yeah, I unfortunately kind of thought of trying to make Marcia an anti hero after the deadline. Oh, well.
Ha ha. MoFo. I hope it sticks. (Sorry, MoFo (I mean Motley Fool.))
First, the general comments. This story suffers from real-life syndrome. Whenever you take a story from real life there is a temptation to tell everything that happened no matter wheter it helps build the story or not. It all happened so it should be in the story right? Wrong. A good story builds on itself and contains nothing that doesn't push the plot forward or illuminate the characters in some way. It also pulls the reader in from the beginning and moves constantly forward to the end. This story just takes too long to get going and bogs down all the time with items that don't really help the story. Too much real life. There is some interesting stuff here, but I think you need to figure out what kind of story you are writing. Is it a coming of age? An adventure? A friendship or buddy story? What is the theme? Figure out some of that and then choose the details and actions that highlight the story you are trying to tell while discarding the rest.
Okay, onto the scores.
Adherance: 1. It is really told almost completely linearly except coming from two different narrators so there are overlaps in time as we get informaiton filled in. I never felt this was an out of sunch story at all.
Spelling/Grammar: 3. Not horrible, but there were some typos and some wrong words (right instead of write).
Character: 0. Where was the tragic hero in this story. I did not see one. Also, the characters are all pretty much the same, and since there are so many of them and we get little to no characteristics to help tell them apart, I never had a clue who anyone was except maybe Robert and Trevor. All the rest of the characters were just an amalgam.
Plot/Structure: 5. As I said above, this story just doesn't move forward very well because we get way too much information we simply don't need. Trim this story down to about half the size and you will have a much stronger story.
Style: 5. Too many repeated words bogged down the style. Plus, again, it seemed to drone on about stuff I didn't care about (as I had no investment in the characters or their problems). It all just needs to be cleaner and leaner.
Creativity: 0. Sorry, but since this story didn't really follow the prompt of being told out of sequence, I can't score you higher here. Also, it's simply a story told from memory as you mentioned. It would have scored a little higher if you had taken that memory and done something with it other than transcribe it for us. Use the memory, don't dictate it into the computer.
Total: 14
Now, so you don't get completely disheartened, I did see good things in your writing. It is pretty clear. I got confused in some of the action sequences, but for the most part, the writing is sound. You just need to trim away the fat so the meat of the story can be enjoyed.
Creativity: 0. Sorry, but since this story didn't really follow the prompt of being told out of sequence, I can't score you higher here. Also, it's simply a story told from memory as you mentioned. It would have scored a little higher if you had taken that memory and done something with it other than transcribe it for us. Use the memory, don't dictate it into the computer.
This is really the only thing I think is weird. Not because I got a 9 and 8, then a 0, well, okay, that too, but because this story is *loosely* based on a true story. I am surprised how much people comment on this. The only thing that really happened was the shoot-the-car strategy. And it ended differently. The sink-gun never actually worked very well for us. Everything else was completely made-up. It also seems to me that you are using the Creativity section to score the Adherance to Prompt section. And what is the "fat" you are referring to? It was supposed to follow the character's thoughts; the action sequences are fast because the characters have to think quickly, and in-between it is slow, because they have more time to decide what to do next. I can think of some parts that don't contribute to the plot, but they are just supposed to be the character's thoughts.
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I arrived at the campsite after two days of riding in the car. Finally. I had enough to keep me busy, but I don’t really like to do things in the car. I think it’s the background, constantly going by. It really distracts me. I’ll just sit for hours, looking at the nothingness rushing past. We were driving westward, so there was not much to look at. Sure, there were the national parks; in fact, that’s where we were heading, but besides that, it was just the asphalt and the grass on either side. Occasionally there would be a tree or something, and sometimes even another car, but other than that, the only thing to look at was the dust swirling behind the back tires. The road was single-lane for each side, but for the number of cars I saw, they probably only needed one lane, period. When I started seeing trees more often, I knew we had finally arrived.
I stepped out of the car and stretched. I looked around for a minute, then started following the rest of my family up into a single-story building. I didn’t see many kids my age. I hoped that maybe we were early, that the others hadn’t arrived yet. I saw a lot of tents set up, thinking that if there were any kids my age, they sure wouldn’t stay in the tent for long. The building that we were walking to seemed to be the only one around. There was a place for a campfire, and a few trails stretching into the small forest. I walked seemingly on auto pilot, thinking only of the horrible time that I knew I would have these two days. I walked up the small ramp into the building. For some reason, the building’s air conditioning was on. How strange. It was only the beginning of May. I suppose it was hotter than most days, but it still wasn’t over 70 degrees. Maybe they were just trying to get people in the mood of summer. Or maybe there were a lot of runners here that got hot, and needed somewhere to rest.
My parents signed a piece of paper. I realized that it was the list of people that were coming. I caught a glance at it, and saw that there were only two more groups that hadn’t arrived. Well, that was something. It was almost nothing, but it was something. The woman behind the desk gave us a map showing us where our campsite was, and we drove the car over to the parking lot of the houses. But I walked. I couldn’t stand another minute in that cursed vehicle.
We set up the tent and hauled our luggage and sleeping bags in. I carried my box over and opened it. I dumped it out on my sleeping bag. I had some walkie-talkies with me. I was hoping I could find someone to make bringing them worthwhile.
"I’m gonna just look around," I called back to the tent.
"Okay, I think dinner’ll be at six," said my mom. I checked my watch. It was about 3:30. How long did she think I would be gone?
I first walked over to the building, and got a map. I checked where our campsite was, and wrote in pencil, "home." I checked the compass rose on the map, then took out a real compass and started walking toward the woods. I came to a campsite where an oversized van was parked. I walked up the stairs to the tree house-cabin and knocked on the door. A guy who looked to be my age scrutinized me, then his eyes went wide for a moment.
"Hey, Pete, we have anything yet?" said the guy to someone else in the room I couldn’t see.
"No, but they aren’t called the Night Stalkers for nothing," came a reply.
"True, but we’ve blocked off all possible entries. He’s fine," the guy at the door said. He looked at me again. "Sorry," he said. "You see, we are part of this team called PanOps, and the Night Stalkers, our rivals, haven’t shown up yet. We were waiting for them. We were afraid they might have slipped our guard, and that you might be one of them."
"Oh," I said. "So, um, how long has this been going on?"
"Well... I think four years."
"Oh. What do the administrators here think of this?"
"Nothing... You see, we have agreed to a code. Neither side can physically harm, or attempt to harm, a member of the other side. If one does, then the opposing team can tell anyone they want about what happened."
"Sounds good. Can I join?" I asked. I was not about to be left out of this. I had not come here to eat and sleep. Well, okay, I had come here to see the sights, but that wasn’t my big intention. I actually had no idea what I would do here, but I figured I’d think of something. Turned out I didn’t have to.
"Well," said the guy, "You can’t just join. You can definitely help us out, and at the end of the two days, if you have helped us enough, you can become a member."
"Good enough for me," I said. He stood aside and I walked in the cabin. The inside was bigger than it looked from outside. "What’s your name?" I asked.
"Trevor. What’s yours?"
"Robert. Hey, how did you all get here? Did you all come in that van?"
"Yeah, my parents drove me and three of my friends here. The other two members came... somehow."
"Okay. So, anyway, what’s the plan?"
"Well, there are three tents set up at the two ways you can get in here, and one is in the middle. It’s our secondary base. Sooner or later, we will get notification that the Night Stalkers’ car has arrived, and then we will enact Operation One." He picked up some papers off a desk, and pointed to the first paragraph. I laughed when I saw it. "Great idea!"
The call came. I heard it on Trevor’s walkie-talkie: "Here they come! Here they come! Battle stations! Battle stations!"
"Okay, Robert, you know what to do!"
We ran down to a small compartment under the cabin, and pulled out more water guns than we needed. A few seconds later, two boys and a girl ran up the path, who I had been told were the other PanOps members, grabbed the water guns, and then the boy yelled, "Follow me!" We ran to catch up with him; even though he had sprinted all the way up, it was still hard for the others to catch up. A minute later we caught up to the car and opened fire, preventing the occupants from escaping. We kept it up for about two minutes, people frantically trying to reload the guns and dropping them, while others filled in by using as mundane methods as throwing the contents of water bottles at the windows.
That’s when it happened. I didn’t know what exactly had happened at the time, except that I felt something land on my head, and then my eyes stung. I rubbed them hard, dropping my water gun. I stumbled back and heard car doors opening. Then I tasted soap in my mouth. I patted the ground for my water gun. It didn’t take long to find. I shot in the direction of the voices, hoping to hit one of them. Then I shot water in my hand and rubbed the soap out of my eyes. I looked around. I saw someone else rubbing soap out of his eyes, too. It was probably for the best that they escaped. It was funny, but it sure would have been a dishonorable way to win.
We regrouped and trudged up the hill to the camp. The other boy who got soap in his eyes and I walked into the bathroom to get the rest of the soap out.
"What happened with that whole soap thing?"
"I have no idea. I think it came from above. It’s the only thing that would make sense. One person alone would have to do it; if there were any more, we’d see them. Or someone else in our club would have. But it would be very hard for one person to hit two people that are on opposite sides of the car." The guy was very well spoken. His voice made him sound smart, somehow.
"Yeah, that make sense. But it could have been two people."
"Yeah, that’s probably the only way. They must have been very sneaky. They might be able to do it if they did it at exactly the same time."
"Yeah... Hey, what’s your name? I’m Robert."
"Danny. Trevor didn’t tell you?"
"He told me there was a Danny and a Ben. I didn’t know who you were."
"Oh, okay."
As we were leaving, he got a call on his walkie-talkie. It was in some code that I didn’t understand. Something like "B-2-H!" Danny told me, "We’re meeting at the communications headquarters. Let’s hurry!" We ran as fast as we could, which wasn’t very, as we were now with no incentive of blasting the hack out of some car. He lead me to it, and I pulled out my map to make a note of where it was.
When we got there, the other one, who I guess was Ben, and one of the girls, were standing guard behind some trash cans. I didn’t even notice them until they said, "You can pass," which scared me for a second. I turned around and rolled my eyes. I guess Danny was expecting it; he didn’t say anything. Maybe it was part of that coded message. Or more likely, this is how they always guarded the base. We stepped inside, and the rest were already there.
"So, Danny and Robert, what exactly happened?"
"I can tell you what happened, but not how it happened," Danny said. "We were shooting the car, when I felt something fall on my head, and then soapy water ran into my eyes and mouth, and I dropped my weapon and–"
"Did I hit anyone when I shot at them?" I asked.
"Yeah, I think you did," said Trevor.
"Well," said Pete, "Probably not all of the Night Stalkers showed up in that car. They probably had a few extras in case something went wrong. They probably had some water gun loaded with soapy water."
"There were six, plus the driver, that got out of the car. There are only six members that we know of," said Trevor.
"‘That we know of,’ yes," said the girl, "They probably brought more recruits as backup."
"Yeah, that’s an idea, but– "
"Wait a minute, Eve," Danny said. Okay, so that one was Eve, so the other guard must be Ashley. "I forgot about his earlier, but there was another car that pulled in with them. That’s probably who it was. We have to find whose car that is." I assumed from the fact that Danny knew this that was the one who delivered that "battle stations!" message.
"Did you see where the car went?"
"No, Ashley stayed behind." Pete got out of the tent. "Ashley, guard swap." Ashley came in and Pete took her place.
"Ashley, what do you know about that car that pulled up with the Night Stalkers’ car?"
"Well, after I delivered the message to Danny, I followed the car, and when the driver got out, I asked if she had ever been to this campsite before. She said no."
"Well, all that means is the people in the car could be recruits."
"Just a second. I also asked the driver if she was with anyone. That seemed to make her nervous. She thought I was up to something... But she did say no, she came here alone– that is, without any other car. I asked her if I could ask her one more question. Then she said, ‘why are you asking me all this?’ and I said, ‘I thought I recognized that other car from school.’ You see, that story wouldn’t have worked if the Night Stalkers’ car didn’t have that vanity licence plate. She seemed to take this well, and she said, ‘go ahead.’ And I said, ‘Do you know what the Night Stalkers are?’ Then she looked at me really weird. I said, ‘No, huh?’ She looked at me weird again and said, ‘no...’" I could tell Ashley could think very fast. Too fast for her own good.
"If they were recruits in a second car, they might have different parents who wouldn’t know about the Night Stalkers."
"Don’t worry, I got it covered. Besides, the other things I said cover it pretty well, huh? Anyway, after I walked away and I saw the driver wasn’t looking, I ran behind the car and waved to a girl in the car and did this." She pretended to roll down a window. "Then she put the window down and I said, in a slightly lower voice so the driver wouldn’t recognize me..." Ashley still scares me. She really can think too fast and act in any situation really well. "And I said, ‘Hey, do you know what the Night Stalkers are?’ And she said, ‘Are you crazy, or what? Is this forest haunted or something? What are you talking about?’"
"Okay, okay," said Trevor. She’s not with the Night Stalkers. Good job, though. You needed to act then, and you solved the problem. Of course, we still don’t know who did it."
"Okay. It’s time for a PanOps mission. We aren’t called PanOps for nothin’," said Trevor.
"We aren’t?" I said.
"No... See, it come from the word ‘panoptic,’ meaning, "all-seeing. That was shortened to ‘PanOps’, so the ‘Ops’ could mean ‘operatives.’"
"Okay. Hey, you all know this area pretty well, huh?"
"Yeah, of course, why?"
"Well, what does this place have to offer that we could use?"
"There are some rocky hills through the forest– it’s not that far– that are perfect for a surprise attack."
"I assume those have already been used in the plans?"
"Oh, yeah. We have some nice stuff planned. That reminds me, I am going back to the base. Hey! Guards! You can come in. Who’s coming?"
"I’ll come," Danny and I said.
"Okay," said Trevor. "The rest of you stay here. I’ll need to take a guard, too.
"Yeah... I’m next," said Danny.
"Okay. We need to draw up some new plans to find out what happened with the soap attack."
Danny picked up a water gun and walked out of the tent. We walked towards the cabin base. "Look out!" said Danny. A water jet sprayed to my left."Run! I’ll meet you there!"Danny said, as he shot the trees so the Night Stalker member couldn’t come out. We raced toward the base, and slammed the door after frantically searching for the right key. Then Danny ran in, and we locked the door.
"Hey, toss me the snack bag, Trevor," Pete said.
"Sure... Hey, where is it?"
"It’s by the window..." He looked up and saw it wasn’t there. The window was open.
"Maybe it blew out." He opened the window and looked down. "Ah-ha! There it is." Pete ran outside and got it, and ran back in before any Night Stalkers might pop out and shoot him.
"Hey... The window was closed... I’m sure of it. I always close the window to prevent grapplers from getting in," said Trevor.
"Do you think someone got in?" I asked.
"I don’t see how. The door was locked, and the window was shut. And it’s even a sliding window, so there is no way anyone could have opened it.
"What about your parents?"
"Actually, they have another cabin. I don’t even know if they have a key. Well, they probably do, but I don’t think they would have come in here to open a window."
We looked around in silence for a while, when Trevor said, "Darn it! What are they up to? What’s going on here? They are totally slipping our guard! We have to do something!"
"I can help. Go get your plans, let’s see what we already have. By the way, why do you think they just pulled the snack bag out of the window? They didn’t even take anything?"
"They’re not allowed. It’s part of the code to steal anything other than... Uh-oh."
"What?" said Pete and I.
"Other than paper and information," he completed. He picked up the plans. "Yep, the first page is missing. Anything else? Let’s see... No, I think that’s it. That’s still not good. We are going to have to either scrap or completely reform Operation Lemonade Stand."
Pete picked up his Walkie-talkie. "They somehow broke in and stole a page off the battle plans... (pause) No, just the first page... (pause) Lemonade stand. I think that’s it... (pause) Why?... (pause) Really? That might just work, yeah... (pause) Okay, over and out." Their walkie-talkies prevented anyone but them from hearing.
"Okay!" said Pete. "They might have used a rope– but from above! They might have climbed a tree." I looked out. The tree closest to the window, the only one that they could have used, was probably forty feet high, it seemed. I told them.
"Yeah. Oh well. I guess it’s possible, but that’s a pretty dangerous thing to do just for a piece of paper," Trevor said.
"Well, those Night Stalkers are crazy like that."
"Hey, the alarms on the floor haven’t gone off... so no one got inside. Sorry, Trevor, don’t want to add any more mystery, but it’s true."
"Well, that’s good, it means they didn’t read through all our plans."
I looked at my watch. It was about 5:30. Wow, I guess I was going to be gone a while.
There was a brief silence, then Trevor said, "Okay, we are going to have to just do a normal attack now. I have a few strategies that can help us, but... Hey, if they stole the Lemonade Stand plan, maybe we can use that against them. They might be all camped out there right now and we..."
"What, exactly, is this ‘Operation Lemonade Stand?’" I asked
"Well, there is this booth that used to be a lemonade stand from the opposite side of the cabins, that have high pressure sinks that we can attach these..." he said, pulling out some tubes from a suitcase, "to make some high-powered water guns!"
"Okay, let’s stay in contact," said Trevor, "and it will be a free-for-all. If you get the sink set up, call me." He gave me a tube and I gave him my second walkie-talkie. He said he’d give it to Eve, who could then relate my messages to other PanOps members. She was the next one in line to be in communications. We all got water guns and headed toward the communications base, while Pete told them what they were going to do.
Dinner was called after the free-for-all battle, and Trevor told me that after marshmallow roasting, there was a cease-fire until the next day. Oh well, I thought, I could live with that. We stashed the weapons in the communications base, and headed toward the pavilion for dinner. I finally met up with my parents.
"Wow, you’ve been gone a while," said my dad.
"Yeah, I had a good time. There were water guns."
"Yeah, that would do it," said my dad. "Go grab a hamburger or something. They have some potato chips by the sauces." I got some food, and even some soda, and went over to eat with the rest of my team. The PanOps files had pictures of the Night Stalkers in it for some reason, taken with some cheap camera that uses 110 film. I had been all over the camp... Anyway, as I walked over to the PanOps members, I saw a girl who looked to be about eleven or twelve that I hadn’t seen before. Her arms were all scraped, and she was holding a small machine that looked like a toy gun.
"Who’s that?" I asked.
Ashley answered, keeping her voice low, "That’s the girl who was in the car that showed up the same time as the Night Stalkers’."
"What’s she doing with that?"
"What?"
"That gun thing." The girl looked over. Ashley, able to get out of any bad situation, said, "Eve always carries around that water gun, don’t you know?"
"Oh," I said. I looked at the strange girl out the corner of my eye, she seemed as though she did something wrong by looking over. We both looked up and looked around. She was back to pretending to be not listening. "Well," I said, "I think I need to get some more soda." Ashley stood up with me. Once out of earshot, I said, "We should try to get her on our team."
"Yeah, why don’t you do that?" said Ashley.
"Me?" I said.
"Yeah, why not?"
"Because... Because I..."
"Okay, I get it. I’ll do it. Fine."
Everyone in the two clubs finished eating very fast. Ashley secretly followed the girl while I was the guard. The girl was walking toward her campsite, and Ashley started walking from behind some tents toward her. I could just barely hear them, from my hidden spot.
"Hey, I’ve seen you around the camp before... What’s your name?"
"Marcia, why?"
"What’s your problem? Is that confidential information?"
"Sorry..."
"Well, do you want to help our team out? PanOps? We search for spies, and shoot them with water guns, plan missions and defenses..."
"No, I don’t know if I want to get involved."
"Oh, now, you have to pick a side. You can’t stay neutral, otherwise both sides might shoot you!"
"That’s okay, I can handle it."
"Okay, fine. See you around." Marcia walked past. I heard her mutter something. It sounded like, "You can try, but I don’t think that will work..."
The car that was ahead of ours turned into the same place that we were going to. We had been following it for a while, and at least one person had joked that, wouldn’t it be funny if they were going to that same Yellowstone Park camp, too? Everyone was shocked when it actually did.
My parents got out of the car and walked into the building, and so did the driver of the other car. They got back first and drove to the campsite. As my mom was walking out, a girl who looked about my age stopped her and talked to her for a few minutes. Then she ran around to my side of the window and motioned for me to roll it down. "Hey, do you know what the Night Stalkers are?" she said.
"Are you crazy, or what? Is this forest haunted or something? What are you talking about?"
"Never mind. I’ve just been hearing stuff, something like that. Was wondering if you know."
"Um, no..."
"Okay, see you around!" Huh. I wonder what all that was about.
I was watching the car that was ahead of us. It was behaving weird. I went to follow it. I caught up to it; it was moving very slowly. When it stopped, I hid behind a tree and looked out. Six or seven people ran from all directions, surrounded the car, and opened fire with water guns, preventing the car’s occupants from escaping. They could refill their guns, as I saw, from a water pump. They probably could keep the people in the car there as long as they wanted. Well, until they call the police. Someone in that car had to have a cell phone.
Now, here was a perfect situation. Whose side would I join? Well, it seemed obvious: the water gunners had the clear advantage, but I almost never support the ones in the lead. It seems cowardly. So somehow, I had to stop them. Somehow. I couldn’t just blatantly try to distract them– they probably would not pay any heed anyway. If I had a water gun, I might be able to get one or two to chase me– that might work, if I did it at a time when enough people were running out of water. But I had to use only what I had, obviously– which was not much. I pulled out what was in my small carrying bag. Rubber bands, paper clips, some balloons from the birthday party I was at yesterday. Anyway, I thought I could use them as water balloons, but then I would only be able to get one hit in, and probably distract only one person. I didn’t know if they would even break like water balloons. It was the only thing I had, though. It would have to work. I ran into the bathroom and started filling it up. As I did, I noticed the soap dispenser on the wall. Soapy water was good. If I could hit them in the face, I could temporarily blind them. But I would have to hit them in the face. I had no idea how to do that. I filled them both up with soapy water, and ran outside.
Now, how to hit them? I looked around, trying to find anything I could use to my advantage. Then I noticed a tree that was above me. Maybe if I could climb the tree and drop them from there? That might work. I was taking a mountain climbing class, so this couldn’t be too different. I put the balloons in my carrying bag– sort of like a purse although I don’t like to use that word.
I ran at the tree, jumped onto a branch and pulled myself up. There were some more branches above that I could use to step on. I got high enough over them, maybe about twenty feet, then crawled out along a branch, holding onto a branch above to take some of the weight off the one I was standing on. I slowly opened the bag with one hand– it wasn’t easy– and took out a balloon. I carefully looked straight down and aligned the balloon with someone’s head. I let it go, and it fell right onto the person’s head. He stopped to rub his eyes. I walked further out, lined up the two objects, and one more was down. I started to walk back toward the tree when it finally occurred to me, "hey, it actually worked!"
I heard car doors opening and the yelling increased as the people in the car ran off. Some of them got shot with water guns, but surprisingly, most of them didn’t. They all ran in one direction, so I guess only the ones in the back got hit. I stayed up in the tree until the "gunmen" had walked away. Then I climbed down and followed the group that was in the car. They were not going to be saved without me receiving some reward. Letting me join their team would be good enough.
They all went to a cabin that was in the forest, held about ten feet up in the air by a large base. I waited until they were all inside, then walked up the stairs and knocked on the door. I heard frantic whispering. Then the door was whisked open and a boy with a water gun said, "Step away, operative!" I just laughed. "You think something’s funny?"
"Yeah," I said. "I’m the reason you are in this cabin right now, and you’re about to shoot me."
"What are you talking about? Stop playing games here!"
"Remember when you got out of the car? Remember when they trapped you inside and weren’t going to let you out? Do you know how you got out? You didn’t just get lucky."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, I climbed up a tree and threw soapy water balloons down on them so you would have a chance to escape."
"So you aren’t on their side?"
"That would be a logical conclusion."
"Why did you do that?"
"Well, it was an unfair fight with that little strategy they had there, wasn’t it?"
"Yeah, I guess so. I’m not used to people just helping our side. They usually join PanOps ‘cause they got walkie-talkies."
"PanOps?"
"Yeah. The name of the group that was shooting our car. I think this club, the Night Stalkers, that is, well, yeah, we don’t have walkie-talkies and stuff like that, but we have more fun. We don’t need walkie-talkies. We need to be silent. We get to make PanOps frustrated. They can’t stand not knowing what’s going on. Everything must be explained to them. We make the best of what is given to us. If something goes wrong, we build it into the plan. If something goes wrong for them, they have to right up all these new plans..."
I just kept staring at him as he said this. It seemed to make him uncomfortable, which was my goal. "Okay, come in..." he said.
I spent the next twenty minutes or so learning about the club, the plans, and everything I needed to know. I learned the code of the club, some of the plans that PanOps had used in the past, and they even had this book with pictures in it of all the PanOps members and some pictures of the cabin and other things. I also learned the names of all the Night Stalkers members: Harry, Sam, Billy, Elliott, Val, and Susan. The apparent leader, Sam, started off the official meeting, with me included, about what the first plan was. "Okay," he said. "As you have noticed, not everyone is here. They are either checking the PanOps base or sneaking up and shooting people with our new water guns. Anyway, we are going to try to steal their plans. Of course, it needs to be done without anyone knowing. They probably will realize this before they start doing the plans because they always have to have their precious little files with them."
"Well," said Harry, "The plans, I think, would be in the cabin. It’s locked, of course. The window’s closed, and there are probably motion sensors in there. What’s your idea?"
"Ha, ha," said Sam. "Think that’s too good for us? You’re forgetting something– we have a new member, Marcia, now."
"Oh? Yeah? So what’s your idea?"
"Well," I said, "I do have some ropes and harnesses that we use for rock climbing."
"Okay, you think you could climb the tree by the cabin? It’s thirty feet high. From there, lower down on a rope, open the window, and," he said, pulling out a small machine, "snatch the papers." He pulled the trigger and a small elastic string shot out and hit a paper, which stuck to it, and shot back.
"What happens if I fall?" I said. I could tell they were hoping I wouldn’t say that.
"You probably will live. Unless you fall upside–"
"Shut up, Billy!" said Sam.
"That’s okay," I said. "I know the answer. I’ll do it. Sounds fun. We're planning to go rock climbing in the mountains after we leave Yellowstone, so I have a harness and a rope that I think will work.
Thirty feet, huh? I’ll bet it was more than that. Fortunately, it was fairly easy to climb. I finally made it to the top. Physically, it was pretty easy, but mentally it was impossible. It was the highest I had climbed without being strapped to some pulley system. I crawled upside-down, out across the limb, and attached the rope to the branch. I grabbed the rope and slowly slid down. The rope was attached to a harness with a rachet on it, so from here I couldn’t fall unless the rope broke, so I descended as quickly as possible so if it did break, I wouldn’t have far to fall. I got close to the window, but I was still about four feet away. I swung on the rope until I could grab hold of the side of the window. The thought just occurred to me, "No PanOps members better be watching." Then, even worse, I thought, "My parents better not be, either." I thought I probably shouldn't be using the rock climbing equipment before going rock climbing. They didn't actually say anything, but they didn't have to.
I looked both ways, not that it would have mattered then, and opened the window. I reached inside my pocket for the frog tongue gun. I pulled it out, found the papers, and was about to shoot when... "Oh, yeah, something about motion detectors?"
I looked around in the room. I didn’t hear any alarm now, so there wasn’t anything by the window. I looked around the papers. Nothing. I didn’t see anything that resembled a motion sensor, so I shot the paper with the frog tongue gun. There was a loud sound of paper crinkling, and the paper shot back toward me. I folded it, then put it in my pocket. Then I thought, "It’s always a good idea to steal two things, that way, when the enemy finds one is missing, they will be too distracted to notice the other." I saw a bag with some food in it. That would work. I turned the crank on the frog tongue gun to power it back up, and then I heard someone coming toward the house. I looked behind me. No one. I guess if there had been someone there, I would have heard someone say, "What the heck are you doing, girl?"
I quickly snatched the bag, and dropped it on the ground. The door opened just as I had dropped out of sight. Of course, there was still a rope hanging out the window.
I ran to the tree and started climbing it again. This time, as I ascended, I reeled in the rope so if I did fall, I would just swing out into the air. I got to the top, carefully detached the rope from the clip, climbed back to the tree and waited a few minutes before climbing down. I wanted to see if the people in the cabin would do anything.
I had a nice view, so I didn’t mind staying up there for the ten minutes or so. Eventually, someone ran around outside, collected the snack bag, and ran back in. A few minutes later, someone stuck his head out of the window, looked up at the tree, shook his head, and I could faintly hear something like, "The thing’s forty feet high!"
Once I was back on the ground, I ran back to the Night Stalkers base. The members were filing out as I got there. "PanOps is planning a huge attack! Get ready!"
I threw the rope in the base, and Sam threw me a water gun. "Just do your best!" he said.
"Wait, here’s the plans! I got them!"
"Oh, good job! We’ll have to do something later. We gotta run!"
"Who else is coming with me?" I said.
"I’ll come!" said Eve and Ben.
"Good. You can guard the area while I set up this... ‘suicide mission.’"
"Those Night Stalkers operate alone," Eve said. "The one who comes to the sinks will probably be the one who stole the plans."
"But they share info," said Ben.
"I don’t know... last time they stole the plans ‘cause they overheard someone, and we still used that plan against some of the others."
"Well, we gotta try the plan no matter what. There’s nothing better to do. I don’t just want to run around and shoot."
"Right. We have to outsmart ‘em," said Eve. "We aren’t called PanOps for nothing."
I started out by hiding behind a cabin. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do here. I don’t like having to use quick thinking to get out of bad situations. I have to have a strategy. I took out the stolen plans and unfolded them.
Operation One... Get water guns... When the car comes... Ha! This plan failed. Because of me. I’m so proud of myself. I laughed.
"Did you hear that?"
"Yeah! Behind that house!" Darn it! I stuffed the plans in my pocket and pointed my water gun to the left side, where I heard them from. Then I got shot in the back. I turned around just to get shot in the back again. They must have come from both sides. I ran away, shooting backwards as I ran. I’m no good at this! I need a real strategy. I tied the trigger guard of my gun to my bag and climbed a tall tree to decide what my next plan would be. I opened the plans back up. "Operation Two, ‘Lemonade Stand,’" it said.
"How’s it look? Anyone coming?"
"No, Robert, you’re fine," said Ben.
"We’ll tell you if we see anything, okay?" said Eve.
"Okay... Almost done..."
I guess they hadn’t taken measurements of the sink. I guess that’s why we brought duct tape. I couldn’t get it to work very well. I tore off all the duct tape and went over to a new sink. I tried forcing it onto the tap as best I could, then I wrapped duct tape around about seven or eight times. "This better work..." I mumbled. I turned it on. Water shot out of the tube. Pretty good, I thought. "Got it!" I yelled.
"Good," said Ben. "Time to do part two of Operation Two."
"Eve, you go try to get someone up here. I’m going to guard the back."
"Okay, there’s got to be someone around," said Eve as she ran off.
We spent about five minutes behind the "lemonade stand" before Ben yelled, "There! Go!" I turned and shot where he was pointing. I didn’t even see what I was shooting at; the blast was so powerful.
I guess I asked for it, I thought. I guess trying to stop a known enemy plan after it’s been a while since you stole it is a bad idea. It took me being completely soaked to find that out. I changed my clothes, and checked my watch. Almost six, so I headed over to the pavilion for dinner.
"Okay, okay. Go!" I shot at him with my water gun. He barely dodged it. He looked for the source of it. I kept shooting. He dodged most of it. Then Susan and I rushed at him and kept shooting. He ran away and we chased him. Eventually he slowed down and said, "Okay! Go! Now!" We looked around, afraid to advance. Everyone was completely still for what seemed like three minutes but it probably was much shorter. Then we charged him again and he started running. He kept shouting. "Go! Go! Remember everything? C’mon! Go!" We looked both ways but we persisted running. We didn’t think anything was going to happen, and nothing did.
A second party of Night Stalkers ran out of the bushes, camped out for anything that might happen, and joined us in the chase, shooting as they ran. The one we were chasing gave up trying to get his hidden comrades to help him. We were getting pretty tired now. He ran up a rocky hill that was strangely smooth. Then he ran down another hill, with walls of stone on both sides. It was a surprisingly long hill that was preceded by an equally long hill going up, out on top to the forest. Once at the point where the hill going up and the hill going down met, the boy that we were chasing started running almost twice as fast. He made it to the top by the time we just started up the second incline.
"Three... two... one... go!" Sam and I, the last members of the clubs at the pavilion, ran as fast as we could. They let me be the representative of PanOps since I was new, and Sam was the one for the Night Stalkers since he was the leader. We were the last ones to leave, so as soon as we had left the pavilion, the fighting would start again. I raced to the PanOps cabin and the door opened before I was up the stairs. Trevor slammed it behind me and locked it.
"Okay. Here is Operation Three. The one after Lemonade Stand, since we obviously can’t use that anymore..." The files were passed around the room.
"Any questions?" said Trevor. The members shook their heads. "Okay, Robert, you are going to lead this one, okay?"
"Me? But I just–"
"It’s a test. Let’s see how well you can do this."
"Okay," I said. "Looks pretty fun, anyway."
"Oh, yeah, it’s gonna be," said Danny.
Danny and I were stationed by the rocky area behind the forest. He was supposed to be my guard; I had the necessary materials and he had the gun. I was in charge of set up. There was a perfect spot for the plan right here. There was a water pump, always good, and enough trees to support the main attraction...
When the barrels had run out of water, we ran from the scene as fast as we could, leaving all the buckets there. Pete, currently in communications, said he’d pick them up later, after we called him when the Night Stalkers had left.
"Don’t worry," called Trevor, back to the Night Stalkers, "You can use a dryer on sneakers!"
After Pete had collected the supplies, everyone made it back to the communications base, where there was much excitement, cheering, and many high-fives. People were saying, "are you sure that wasn’t against the code?" and "Ha, did you see them when the two barrels dumped water on the ramps?" and "I really had ‘em going with yelling, ‘now!’ and all that."
The flap on the tent opened. I thought it might be a Night Stalker for a minute, but part of the code was "no using weaponry inside bases." It was someone’s father, saying, "S’more time, so, um, I guess you’d better put down your arms for the day." I guess he had picked up on the code.
Yellowstone park was fun. I’m sure it would have been more fun if my subconscious mind had not been throwing out vengeful plans into my conscious mind. Someone would always be showing me something incredible just as I thought of some devious plan and I would just stare, frozen in place as if short-circuited. It was a delayed reaction. I’d turn to look, but it would take me five or so seconds. People were always asking me if I got enough sleep, of if I was okay and what not. Worst of all, I knew my plans would never work. I'm good of thinking of plans, but I never take into consideration the fact that it's not a perfect world. There's always someone behind you, shooting you with a water gun.
Finally, we got back to camp. Now I was ready. Three hours back at camp before dinner, after which everyone would leave. It was time for redemption.
I called everyone back to the unofficial base– we aren’t supposed to have a base, we are supposed to be always on the move, but we wanted to take advantage of the part of the code that involved a base. We don’t want to be constantly watching our backs. Of course, our job is to make people fell the need to watch their backs.
"We have three hours left! And we haven’t been doing too good, what with that little, um, chase scene," I said.
"Oh, definitely. We will get our revenge. We need to," said Harry.
"Yeah. Like she said, we have three hours. We have to plan something that’s good. And fast," said Val.
"Any ideas?" asked Sam.
"Hey! I think I have an idea. It’s not something the Night Stalkers would be known for, but hopefully it could be!" said Billy.
"What? Does it involve a really high tree?" I said.
"No! That’s the best part!"
"Well, if that’s the best part–"
"Just what is it?" asked Susan.
"Okay– here’s the plan..."
[Narrator 1]
"Okay," said Trevor. "We have less than three hours left. It’s time for the last and best plan in the book."
"Nothing could be better than that last one," I said, and many laughed.
"Maybe not. It’s not so much action, but it won’t be as chaotic. It will be fun, though." He passed around the files again.
"Yeah. This is Danny. How’s it going?"
"I gotta be quiet. Nothing yet, though."
"Okay. What is it?"
"Anything from anyone else?"
"Trevor got someone. I don’t know details."
"Just wondering if they know what we’re up to."
"After two times, yes. It’s only been once, so far. But those Night Stalkers are solitary, so you never know."
"Okay. Over and out."
I looked through the peep hole at the mirror that hung on the tree. No one behind me. Then I heard something. I could feel my heart rate increase. I looked through the peep hole. In the mirror I saw someone. They got closer. I clutched my weapon. When she got close enough, I punched the button on the remote. "And that concludes our latest weather report," said the machine. "What?–" I heard her say. She moved over to the tree and looked behind it. I couldn’t see who it was, only that I knew it wasn’t a PanOps member. They were instructed to say, "clock tower" to let me know not to shoot. Some random phrase Trevor thought up. I shot her with my water gun through the peep hole. "Hey! What is–" She looked around. The fake trash that was glued onto a set-in platform on the trash can would throw suspicion off me. I fired off another quick burst. I think she noticed me this time. She walked to the can. When she was two feet away, I blasted out of the trash can and threw a water balloon at her. I was shocked to see who it was. I jumped out of the trash can in case I had to run away.
"Marcia! You– you–"
"Are a Night Stalker?"
"Yeah..."
"What was–"
"What do you think? I wanted you to know?"
"But– so were you–"
"The one who threw soapy water balloons down on you? The one who stole the papers out of your club? Yes, that was me. I did use that tree, by the way. And a rope."
"You filthy liar!" I yelled, chasing after her. She’d had it. I threw my water gun at her as hard as I could. Somehow she saw it coming and caught it. She just barely kept it from falling out of her hand. She turned around and pointed it at me.
"Wait– that was attempted physical harm. Don’t you go anywhere. This leaves you with a choice," she said, darkly.
"What?" I spat.
"You do nothing– and I get to tell anyone I want that you hurled your huge gun at me–" I looked at the gun in her hands– "or you forfeit– that is, your team does, for this time."
What kind of a choice was that? Lose temporarily or permanently? "Perhaps you’d like to tell them the bad news?" she said, gesturing to my walkie-talkie.
"No, I wouldn’t!"
"Fine, fine. I’ll tell them. You’d better tell them there is a special guest coming, then?"
"Okay, I will. I’ll do that," I said. If she got shot on her way there, I'd be as good as dead. "In case you didn’t know, I chose to forfeit."
"Yes, I figured as much. Okay, then. So long." I said nothing. Then I turned and yelled at her, "See you next year! And you’d better be here, or be a coward! That is, more so than..." I quit. She wasn’t being a coward. The code had to be honored. I pulled out my walkie-talkie. "Won the battle, lost the war, Marcia," I mumbled, and flicked the walkie-talkie to speaking mode.
THE END
By the way, the "Lemonade Stand" was a real plan of the Cheetahs. We didn't have plastic tubes, we just bent the stream with our fingers. The water gun car trap was taken completely from fact, minus the water balloon bombing. We eventually gave up. We had less real water guns. My weapon was a water bottle with a nozzle that I held upside-down and squeezed to shoot them.
Comments: I never felt like I got drawn in to your story- there wasn’t a hook, and you introduced a bunch of characters at once without providing any description of them. A story like this would really benefit from a lighthearted touch- since it’s a bunch of kids who are the main characters, it could be fun to have them act over-the-top serious while balancing with a knowledgeable narrator…you’ve made them all basically into adults. What sort of kid knows the word panoptic, and where are the parents in all of this? You seem to acknowledge that they exist, but they don’t have any real role. Also, where was your tragic/antihero? Every character seemed likable to me. Although this story needs a lot of work in the execution, I actually really like the concept of exaggerating a personal memoir into fiction- I’m sure if you work on developing your characters further and add a really compelling plot it could turn into something spectacular and fun to read. Right now I’m sure it’s exciting to you, because you experienced this sort of thing, but to an outside reader we need more information about the characters and a firmer plot.
Adherence to Prompt: 2
Spelling and Grammar: 2.5
Characterization: 4
Plot and Structure: 4
Style: 4.5
Creativity: 8
Total: 25
Yeah, that's pretty much it: I can think of a good story, but not necessarily write it that well. I focus too much on the plot. I'll have to work on it. My tragic hero was somewhat of a stretch, I admit. It was supposed to be Robert, who lost the battle for his team because he acted too fast.
It seemed to me that everyone has a few big words that they know, even at a young age. They mostly seem to be words that are very specific, and aren't even used by adults. It was sort of a competition, who knew the most complicated word. At least, that's how it was where I went to school. I thought I might be critized for using big words, I did try to use simple words and weird grammar in the spoken parts to emphasize this. I actually think the story holds up better if you think it's corny.
I also ran out of room;I tried to put more emphasis on the action than on the characters. Probably not a good idea. I usually write in a stream of consiousness style- as you can see by the first few paragraphs. Stream of consiousness is very time consuming and wordy, so probably not a good thing to try on a short story contest. I'll try to use a different style next time, and I'll try to think of a shorter plot so I can work on the characters more. Sorry if I'm critiquing your critique.
EDIT: I think I am going to rewrite this story and just post it here so people can critique it, and this way it can be longer so I can have more detail, etc.
Sorry, I really couldn't find a very good way to have a tragic hero and still keep it a game. I probably should have tried to go for a anti hero.
Yeah, I unfortunately kind of thought of trying to make Marcia an anti hero after the deadline. Oh, well.
Ha ha. MoFo. I hope it sticks. (Sorry, MoFo (I mean Motley Fool.))
Okay, onto the scores.
Adherance: 1. It is really told almost completely linearly except coming from two different narrators so there are overlaps in time as we get informaiton filled in. I never felt this was an out of sunch story at all.
Spelling/Grammar: 3. Not horrible, but there were some typos and some wrong words (right instead of write).
Character: 0. Where was the tragic hero in this story. I did not see one. Also, the characters are all pretty much the same, and since there are so many of them and we get little to no characteristics to help tell them apart, I never had a clue who anyone was except maybe Robert and Trevor. All the rest of the characters were just an amalgam.
Plot/Structure: 5. As I said above, this story just doesn't move forward very well because we get way too much information we simply don't need. Trim this story down to about half the size and you will have a much stronger story.
Style: 5. Too many repeated words bogged down the style. Plus, again, it seemed to drone on about stuff I didn't care about (as I had no investment in the characters or their problems). It all just needs to be cleaner and leaner.
Creativity: 0. Sorry, but since this story didn't really follow the prompt of being told out of sequence, I can't score you higher here. Also, it's simply a story told from memory as you mentioned. It would have scored a little higher if you had taken that memory and done something with it other than transcribe it for us. Use the memory, don't dictate it into the computer.
Total: 14
Now, so you don't get completely disheartened, I did see good things in your writing. It is pretty clear. I got confused in some of the action sequences, but for the most part, the writing is sound. You just need to trim away the fat so the meat of the story can be enjoyed.
This is really the only thing I think is weird. Not because I got a 9 and 8, then a 0, well, okay, that too, but because this story is *loosely* based on a true story. I am surprised how much people comment on this. The only thing that really happened was the shoot-the-car strategy. And it ended differently. The sink-gun never actually worked very well for us. Everything else was completely made-up. It also seems to me that you are using the Creativity section to score the Adherance to Prompt section. And what is the "fat" you are referring to? It was supposed to follow the character's thoughts; the action sequences are fast because the characters have to think quickly, and in-between it is slow, because they have more time to decide what to do next. I can think of some parts that don't contribute to the plot, but they are just supposed to be the character's thoughts.