Forces of Nature (3 page)

The Site

“W
hen Ranger Davis said it was the last campsite on this road, he wasn't kidding,” Olivia said.

“Lucky number thirteen,” Zack said, staring at the small sign with a faded and chipped
13
painted on it.

They were a good hundred yards past the second-to-last campsite. The trees soared around them, forming a dark canopy that hung gloomily over them. The sound of a nearby creek provided the only noise in the hushed surroundings.

“I think I see a bird!” Taylor shrieked and ran into the trees.

“Honey, don't run while looking through the binoculars,” Mom called out after him.

“My binoculars won't make it through the weekend,” Zack said to Olivia.

Dad was yanking the tents off the top of the car. Smokey was visiting each tree surrounding campsite thirteen and peeing on it.

Zack shook his head. They hadn't seen Amp yet, but he was here somewhere. Zack looked over at Olivia. “He'll probably get eaten by a badger.”

“There aren't badgers around here, Ranger Zack, but there are bears.” Olivia held up the sheet Ranger Davis had handed to Zack's dad. It was a warning about bears invading your campsite and directions on how to properly store your food to avoid it. There was also a set of campsite rules and a small map of the campsites. It had the number
13
scrawled on the top in thick, black ink.

“I have a bad feeling about this trip,” Zack said, staring at the cartoon of a bear with its snout stuck in a cookie jar. Drops began hitting the paper as he looked at it. A slow, steady, light rain began falling around them. Zack looked up and drops fell onto his face. “See, I told you. When it rains it pours.”

“Your dad is setting up the tents in the wrong place.”

“What? What do you mean?”

“Look, he's picked the flattest area, but that's the low point. It will fill up with rainwater and turn to mud during the night. He's got to move uphill if it's going to be raining.”

Zack stared at his dad struggling to pull the tents out of their bags. “You better go tell him. He won't listen to me if I say something. Last year both tents collapsed on the first night.”

“It's raining!” Taylor shrieked from the trees, as if he had never seen rain before.

“Don't shout, honey,” Mom called out to him from the back of the car. “You'll scare the birds.”

Zack groaned. He knew that Amp was hiding. He knew Zack would be mad, so he was making himself scarce. “Amp thinks there's a ghost in these woods.”

“You didn't read the back of the park's brochure to him, did you?”

“I wasn't thinking.”

“I'll say. You know how excited he gets about that stuff. All those old horror movies you guys
watch are coming back to haunt you. Amp told me he wants to see a vampire, a mummy, and a zombie before he goes back to his planet.”

Zack shook his head. “He knows there are no zombies and ghosts. He just hates to be left out, so he ignored a direct order. So frustrating.”

Olivia grinned. “You're starting to sound like your parents.”

“Oh my gosh!” Zack's mom shrieked from behind the car. She took several quick steps back. “It smells like dog poop back here all of sudden! Zack? Come here and smell this!”

Zack looked at Olivia. “Looks like my mom found him, or almost found him. That trick is going to get old real quick if he keeps using it.”

“I'll go talk to your dad. You help your mom and get your hands on that Erdian.”

Just then a strange, far-off animal noise filled the air. It wasn't exactly a howl, but it wasn't a grunt or a growl or a bark either. It wasn't made by a person, that was clear. Everyone stopped and looked in the direction it had come from. Smokey sniffed the air.

“What was that?!” Taylor squealed, dropping Zack's binoculars into the dirt and running to his dad's side.

“Sounded like a werewolf to me,” Olivia said.

Zack looked at Olivia in disbelief. “Now Amp will want to see a werewolf!”

Olivia shrugged. “Hey, maybe he will.” She walked off to help Dad.

Zack kept his eyes on the area of the forest where the sound had come from. Now he had to add the chance of being eaten by a werewolf to his list of concerns.

First-Night Blues

“Z
ack?”

Zack woke with a start. He blinked and saw nothing. It was as black as space inside the tent. Without stars.

But unlike space, it was not silent.

His dad's tent-shaking snore filled the air approximately every six seconds. His brother's giggles, chuckles, and random fits of laughter were more irregular. They came out of nowhere, lasted longer, and were far more disturbing than Mr. Thundersnore.

Adding to the concert of snoring and random sleep-laughing was the constant pitter-patter-pitter-patter of rain on the tent.

It was like trying to sleep inside a drum.

“Zack?”

This time there was no mistaking it. Amp was calling his name.

But that didn't mean that Amp was in the tent.

Amp could speak directly into Zack's brain, sort of like a mind-to-mind cell phone call. Zack hated when Amp communicated this way. It gave him the willies, sort of like putting on wet socks . . . if your brain had feet. Zack could never describe the feeling accurately in words.

Now he sat up and looked around like a blind man. He could talk back to Amp without speaking out loud. He just had to think the words very hard. “Where have you been hiding, Amp?” he thought. “I told you to stay home! You never listen!”

Taylor laughed in the darkness. His dad snored. Zack shook his head in frustration.

“What are you doing?” Amp said casually inside his head.

“What do you think I'm doing? It's the middle of the night! I'm trying to sleep. What are you doing here? You were supposed to stay home!”

“Which tent are you in?” Amp's voice echoed in Zack's head.

“I'm in the one making all the weird noises! Why?”

“Can I come in?”

Zack shook his head in the darkness. “We're not really entertaining guests at the moment. We're wedged in here like cats in a bag.”

“But I'm soaked and hungry and cold and covered in mud.”

“It serves you right. I told you camping was no place for an alien the size of a pear.”

Amp was quiet for a full thirty seconds before he responded. “Do you think of me as pear-shaped? That's not exactly a compliment.”

Zack grabbed his head. All this talking in his brain was giving him a headache. “It's just the first thing that came into my mind.”

“A mango would at least be less insulting. Or a short banana,” Amp said inside Zack's head. “When I stand up tall I could be almost banana-shaped, don't you think?”

Zack groaned. “Get outta my skull! It's closed for the night. I'm not discussing fruit anymore. But, frankly, you're pretty much a grapefruit.”

“Okay, now that was just hurtful.”

Zack made fists and stared up into the blackness. He clenched his teeth. Taylor snickered suddenly. His dad snored right on schedule. Zack was waiting. He knew Amp wouldn't stop. He wondered for a moment if a fourth grader could get gray hair. He just might be the first.

“Now what are you doing?” Amp asked.

Zack sat up and punched his sleeping back with both fists. “This is a disaster!” he mind-bombed Amp. “These two could wake up at any second.”

“Doesn't sound like it,” Amp commented quietly inside Zack's head.

“Oh, so now you're a sleep expert? You don't even need to sleep.”

“This isn't what I pictured camping would be like,” Amp said.

Zack simmered in the darkness. This situation was impossible. The rain seemed to have slowed down to a trickle. His sleeping bag was between his dad's and brother's, so he had to lean far over his brother's body to reach the zipper on the tent's door. He pulled it up quietly as a rush of cool, moist air entered the tent.

“Finally,” Amp said out loud.

“Shhhh!” Zack said. He could barely see Amp's tiny, muddy figure enter the tent and move to the side. Zack pulled the tent's zipper back down as quietly as he could, shutting off the flow of cool air.

“Whew! It's much warmer in here,” Amp whispered cheerfully.

“Glad you like it,” Zack said quietly.

“Say, anything to eat? Ritz Crackers? SweeTarts?”

“No,” Zack said, falling back onto his small camping pillow. “Now stay out of sight, or things will really get really uncomfortable for you.”

Amp whispered in the dark.

“Note to Erdian Council . . .”

“Now? Are you kidding me?”

Amp often recorded his observations about Earth into a tiny device on his wrist. He had explained to Zack it was one of his duties as an Erdian scout. It drove Zack crazy every single time.

Amp made no effort to talk quietly.

“When camping, humans rest their brains while inside a thin, flimsy cloth structure.”

“It's called a tent,” Zack hissed.

Amp continued.

“Still cannot determine why they go camping as the humans seem uncomfortable and miserable without the comforts of their more sturdy, wooden structures.”

“Those are called houses,” Zack moaned.

“More observations of this strange human ritual to come later. This is Scout Amp signing off.”

Zack shook his head in the dark and finally drifted off into a deep and uneasy sleep filled with troubling dreams about fruit salad and snakes.