Get Lost! (6 page)

Katie checked the food pack. It was empty. “We don’t have any food left,”

George looked upset. Then, suddenly, he brightened. “Yes, we do,” he said. “I have those candies I brought on the hike.”

At first Genie seemed angry. “You brought candy on the hike?” Then her stomach growled. “I’ll take one,” she added.

George reached into his pocket. Then he frowned as he pulled out an empty hand. “This is terrible!”

“What?” Katie asked. “Did you finish them all?”

George shook his head. “There’s a hole in my pocket. The candies fell out.”

“Oh, no!” Jeremy moaned. “That’s awful.”

Just then, Katie spotted a shiny round object over by a tree. A few feet away she saw another one ... and then another. Katie raced over and picked up one of the shiny things.

“It’s not awful at all,” she told the others. “George just saved us!”

“How did I do that?” he asked her.

“These are your candies,” Katie told him, holding up a shiny wrapped treat. “They must have been falling out of your pocket the whole time we were hiking. All we have to do is follow the trail of candies. They’ll lead us back to camp. And we can eat as we hike,” she added, popping a butterscotch into her mouth.

The tired hikers arrived back at camp before their friends woke up. In fact, the whole camp was still asleep—except for Cookie. She was waiting for them outside the Mess Hall.

“Where have you all been?” she asked, as Genie and the kids walked onto the campgrounds. “I was up all night worrying. If you didn’t come back soon, I was going to have send out a search party.”

“It’s a long story,” Genie told Cookie.

“We got lost. We slept in the woods. And now we’re back,” Jeremy explained.

“Well, it’s sure good to see you,” Cookie told them. “Why don’t you all take showers? Then I’ll make you a special treat for breakfast. You look starved.”

That sounded great to Katie. She was really hungry.

“There’s something else I have to do first,” George said, as he ran off in the direction of the cabins.

“You know, that was actually kind of fun,” Jeremy told Katie and Suzanne as they walked.

“Wait until the other kids hear what a wimp Genie turned out to be!” Suzanne laughed.

Katie shook her head. “I don’t think we should tell the other kids about that. It’s not nice to make fun of her for being scared.”

“But she acted so tough before ...” Suzanne began.

“She was just doing her job,” Katie told her. “She had to be tough. It’s a lot of responsibility being a head counselor. You’re in charge of everything.”

Before Suzanne could argue, the kids heard a loud scream coming from one of the cabins.

Mrs. Derkman came racing out of her cabin. Her face was dotted with big blobs of pink lotion. Her hair was wrapped up in curlers. She was wearing a polka-dot flannel nightgown and a pair of fuzzy yellow slippers. She looked awful.

“Wow, check out Mrs. Derkman!” Suzanne exclaimed.

“Oh, no!” Katie gasped.

Jeremy couldn’t say anything. He was laughing too hard.

As Mrs. Derkman stood in the middle of the campground screaming, George snuck out of her cabin with a big smile on his face. He ran off before the teacher could spot him.

Katie glanced at Genie. She was looking right in the direction of Mrs. Derkman’s cabin. There was no way she could have missed seeing George run out of there.

Katie frowned. Was Genie going to punish George?

But Genie didn’t yell or even call George over. Instead, she walked over to Katie and her friends, and laughed along with them.

Katie was really sad when the time came to get on the bus and drive back to Cherrydale. Science Camp had been really fun. She was going to miss the bunnies in the nature shack and Cookie’s chocolate-chip cookies.

But mostly Katie was going to miss Genie.

It turned out that the head counselor could be really nice when she wanted to. She taught the kids how to melt chocolate and marshmallows on graham crackers to make s’mores. And she showed them how to make beads out of clay that they dug from the ground.

“Maybe we can come back here again in fourth grade,” Katie said to Suzanne, as they took seats in the back of the bus.

“That would be so cool,” Suzanne agreed. “We could teach everyone how to build a fire.”

Just then, Katie felt someone knocking on the window beside her. It was Genie.

Katie opened the window. “Thanks so much,” she said. “I really learned a lot.”

Genie grinned. “So did I. I learned that kids can do a whole lot for themselves ... if you give them the chance.”

As the bus drove off, Katie felt a cool breeze blow on her through the open window. She was pretty sure it wasn’t a magic wind. But she reached up and shut the window—just in case.

No sense taking any chances.

Science Camp definitely was a fun time. The nature arts counselor had lots of great ideas for nature projects the kids could do. Everyone in class 3A came home with natural soaps that they made all by themselves.

You can make your own Science Camp soap on a rope. Here’s how.

 

 

You will need:

3 cups Ivory Snow detergent or other
soap flakes
bowl
liquid food coloring
1 cup water
vegetable oil
a thin piece of rope

 

Here’s what you do: Pour the soap flakes into a bowl. Put a few drops of food coloring in the water. Pour the water onto the soap flakes. Use your hands to mix the contents of the bowl until they feel like clay or dough. Massage a drop or two of vegetable oil into the palms of your hands. Now shape the soap anyway you like. Tie the ends of the rope together. Gently push the knotted end of the rope into your finished soap shape. Let the soap stand overnight to set.