~Chapter 2~

Numbuh Thirteen's personal log, Saturday, 12.22 A.M.

Finally the new Soopreme Leader has realized my true potential. I have been assigned a very secret and important mission to guard the old treehouse of Sector M in Gribwald Forest.

I have just been dropped off at the treehouse. I still don't understand why I had to stay in a locked box the entire trip, but probably the Soopreme Leader wants to keep it extra secret that it's the KNDs top operative that have been assigned to the task.

I have just left the box, after I heard the other operatives unlock the box, run away and take off, and I am now standing in the old hangar.

There's an old-design, partly disassembled SCAMPER at the back, and some garbage and a few oil drums along the walls, but otherwise everything seems to have been removed when Sector M left. There's a back entrance in one side of the hangar, and a door leading into the treehouse itself in the other.

It's a good thing Numbuh 5 has assigned her toughest operative to this task. I'm NOT scared at all the stories about this treehouse and why it was abandoned…like the one about the operative who fell through a forgotten trap door and was never found… but can still be heard scratching the walls and crying- or the experiment to create a race of super-hamsters that went horribly wrong…or that the whole thing is so full of booby-traps that no one who enters ever comes out again…

It sure is quiet here…

Maybe I'll start with a quick inspection of the perimeters. Yeah!

Numbuh Thirteen off.

XXX

"Wow," Barry gasped.

"I didn't know there could be so many trees in one place," Kyle said.

The O'Reilly had just gotten off the bus together with their classmates in front of Camp Gribwald and was staring, awestruck at the pine-clad mountainsides that seemed to be continuing forever in all directions. The very air itself seemed to be vaster and grander than back at Gallagher Elementary.

Camp Gribwald was a bunch of brown tree barracks next to a grassy field and a large teepee, complete with two totem poles. The grassy field ended at the bank of a river bend, where a small beach was just inviting kids to go for a swim.

If they didn't have bigger fish to fry, that is.

"I can't see a treehouse anywhere, Eggy" Kyle said nervously. "Do you think we can even find it?"

"Sure we can, Kyle. According to Jim, if we go a little bit into the forest to the east of the camp – that's over there", he pointed, "there's a small footpad, that lead directly to a side entrance to the abandoned treehouse. Let's get to work," He took a step forward.

Then a shadow fell over the gang. "Hello, friends," a cheerful voice chirped.

A tall, tanned blonde woman was standing in front of them. She was wearing a brown shirt and shorts and a benevolent and eager smile. She had the air of someone who has spent every day since she was five years old climbing trees, making beautiful things of birch wood, singing with birds, dancing with wolves and hugging bears and listening to the wisdom of wizened old natives. And who firmly believed that the world would be a better place if everybody were just like her.

She was trouble.

"I'm Miss Green, your camp counselor. Come with me so we can drop your stuff off in the sleeping barrack, we're having the welcoming ceremony in ten minutes."

"Sure, ma'am. We just – want to take a first look at the woods." Egbert improvised.

"Oh, there'll be plenty of time for that later. The welcoming ceremony is IMPORTANT. It's an ancient Native American custom that shakes people together so everybody can be friends. Come on, guys."

And then she ushered the gang towards the entrance to the camp, in a manner that, while friendly, natural and inclusive, brokered no argument whatsoever.

XXX

Numbuh Thirteen's personal log, Saturday 2:34 PM

It was a good thing I was assigned this task, because clearly something sinister is afoot. While I was inspecting the perimeters of Sector M's old treehouse I let the treehouse out of my sight for a few minutes, and the next moment it was completely gone and the entire landscape had changed.

I have now been searching for the treehouse for two hours and have found nothing, so it is clear that some very clever adult villains are behind this. I should report this development to headquarters, but my communicator got wet when I fell into a stream, and can now only say phbpyhpppssss.

My plan is now to relocate to Camp Gribwald two miles away and borrow a phone there.

Numbuh Thirteen out.