Chapter 7. Night adventures
'Ew! That's disgusting!' Tom shivered. The next moment he rushed to his bed and abruptly pulled off the quilt. His sheet was clean. Elmo's bed also was empty.
'So it means that this present is specifically for Nick,' Tom said in a low voice. 'I guess this is a warning.'
I didn't answer, still pressing my back against the wall. I nearly threw up when I thought that I could lie into bed with these disgusting worms.
'Okay, guys, everything's okay,' Elmo said firmly. 'Fortunately we've found it before Nick got into bed. Now. Let's take it away before the worms spread all over the room.' He opened his wardrobe, took a big, plastic bag and handed it to me. I guess he wasn't going to do this work for me. Well, I couldn't blame him.
Stifling the urge to vomit, I carefully put the abhorrent snag into the bag and tied it tightly. But there were a lot of worms and grubs still wriggling on my sheet. Elmo and I carefully folded the sheet and shook worms out into the open window. Then we examined other parts of my bed and the floor underneath it. Fortunately there were no insects there any more. But the sheet was still wet and dirty. No way was I going to sleep on it. I grabbed it and stomped over to the door, intending to demand the replacement, but Tom stopped me.
'Wait,' he grabbed my hand. 'Don't be in a hurry.'
'I'm not going to sleep on it,' I snapped.
'Don't you understand that this is exactly what Wilson wanted you to do? You go to the counselors and complain. The next morning the whole camp will learn about it. And again everyone will see that it's dangerous to cross Wilson's path. And you'll look like a loser.'
I closed the door and stared at him, confused. He was absolutely right for once.
'I've got another idea,' Tom winked at me.
I stared at him. Tom was grinning all over his face.
'You'll wash your bedclothes tomorrow. Quietly and without attracting anyone's attention,' he said. 'This night you can sleep with Elmo, or with me. But tonight…' he made a meaningful pause, 'what do you think of returning this present to the presenter.'
I felt my mouth stretch into a broad smile. Yeah, that was just a brilliant idea.
###
We decided to wait till one o'clock in the morning to be sure that all people in the building were asleep. We sat in silence for a while, then I asked Tom, how he and Sunny could keep their relationship a secret. He shrugged.
'Sunny didn't want you all to know. She asked to give her some time.'
I nodded. I felt almost the same when Richelle and I started dating. It was quite weird at first. But Richelle and I are another matter. We've always been close, even before we started working with Teen Power Inc. So it was just a matter of time that we finally understood our feelings and what we both wanted. But Tom and Sunny… they're so different.
'How long have you been dating?' I asked.
Tom didn't answer.
'I'm speaking to you, Moysten,' I went on.
Silence again.
'Are you deaf?' I crossly stood up and came up to his bed. Tom was asleep.
'Some people are incredibly unreliable,' I muttered. 'Right Elmo?'
The next moment I found out that Elmo also was asleep. I felt that my eyes were about to close against my will, so I started pacing back and forth the room, keeping myself awake. Some floorboards slightly creaked under my feet.
'Be quieter,' I heard Tom's sleepy voice. 'I can't sleep because of you.'
'Oh, great,' I shook my head indignantly.
I sat down on the floor next to Elmo's bed, took my cell phone and went online to pass the time away.
###
At one o'clock I woke Tom and Elmo up.
'Ohh, to get up in the dead of night because of stupid worms,' Tom stretched.
'Don't go if you don't want to,' I snapped.
'We'll all go,' Elmo was already at the door. 'We'd better go there barefoot,' he said to me. 'It'll be much more noiseless.'
Tom and I nodded and pulled off our joggers.
'Here we go,' I whispered, grabbed the pack and quietly left the room. Tom and Elmo were close behind me.
We reached the door of Wilson's room. Elmo was left in the hall to watch. Tom noiselessly opened the door and we came in. Three persons were peacefully lying in their beds.
'They're asleep,' I whispered in Tom's ear.
He nodded and put his finger to his lips. We crept over to the first bed and Tom gingerly lifted the blanket. But instead of legs there was only a folded jacket. Tom and I stared at each other. Then we examined the two other beds. There was nothing except folding jackets either.
'They've gone out,' Tom whispered.
'At this time of night?' I came over to the window. It was open. 'Oh, I see,' I grinned. 'Then we'll leave a little surprise for them.'
Saying this, I closed the window and twisted the handle into position "Closed". Then Tom and I examined the room so as to work out which of the three beds was Wilson's. Finally we decided that his bed was the one nearest from the window. Tom pulled the blanket off the bed. I dumped the snag with worms and grubs on the bed, and we covered it with the blanket, shivering in disgust.
Then we returned into our room.
'I wonder where they went to,' I said, coming up to the window and staring out the night. Suddenly a crazy idea came into my head. 'How about looking for them?' I suggested, turning to the others.
'Nick, don't go insane!' Elmo glanced at me severely. 'You perfectly know what will happen if someone catches us.'
'No one will catch us,' I objected. 'We'll be careful.'
'I still think that it's a bad idea,' Elmo shook his head. 'There's no point in risking.'
Tom's eyes darted from me to Elmo. You could see that he hesitated. On the one hand he didn't want to be caught, but on the other hand, he liked to risk.
'Hey, listen,' I coaxed them, 'okay, suppose that someone will spot us…'
'They're likely to spot us,' Elmo hissed. 'I'm sure that surveillance cameras are installed on every pillar in this camp. The guards will spot us straightaway.'
'Hang on!' I held my hand up. 'There are no cameras here. Firstly, we would see them. And secondly, Gregory said that Wilson and his retinue often spent their holidays here. So if there were cameras here, they would know about it and wouldn't go out at night.'
'That's right,' Tom breathed loudly. 'Hey, I suggest risking. If we find out the enemies' plans, we will be able to wreck their new trick.'
'Oh okay, let's go,' Elmo sighed, showing his feet into his joggers. 'But I still don't like this.'
We put on our footwear and sweatshirts, and climbed out through the window. Then, hiding in the shadow of trees and bushes, we examined the football field, the gazebo, the ground behind the canteen and a few other places, but didn't meet Wilson or his mates.
'Maybe they are beyond the fence,' I suggested.
'Maybe,' Elmo nodded. 'But we won't go there. Okay, let's go back. I'd like to get some sleep.'
Hiding in the shadow of trees, we headed for the sleeping buildings. Our dark green and camouflage clothes helped us to stay unnoticeable. Finally we reached our building, but our window was on the other side of the building. Bent double, we crept along the wall. We almost reached the end of the building, when Tom, who was going close behind me, tripped over something and grabbed my arm, trying to keep his balance. I rocked in surprise, lost my balance and we both toppled into prickly bushes. To our unhappiness, there was a metal barrel with two spades and other garden implements behind these bushes. The barrel overturned with a terrible, rumbling noise. I wailed with pain. Tom pressed me into the bush. Its thorns scratched my hands and neck.
'What are you two doing,' Elmo hissed.
'It stings,' I groaned, trying to pull the thorns out of my palm.
'Damned spades,' Tom was crawling out of the bush, loudly crackling with branches.
'Shut up, you both!' Elmo growled through gritted teeth. 'Run! Hurry up!'
He helped us to our feet. By this time the lights had been on in many windows. We could hear approaching voices. Bent double, we rounded the building and ran over to our window. Luckily it was still open, so we at least could be sure that no one had learnt about our night walk. One by one we climbed into the room and closed the window. Then we hastily pulled off our clothes. I rolled up our jackets and sweatshirts, put them on my dirty bed and covered them with the quilt. Then I jumped into Elmo's bed. The next moment the door quietly opened a crack and Michael peered in.
'Moysten, you're a clumsy idiot!' I couldn't help muttering when Michael closed the door.
'You both were told to shut up,' Elmo suppressed the possible argument between us. 'You've woken up the whole camp. Isn't that enough? You'll get us thrown out, don't you understand that?'
'Because of Moysten we have to do sport exercises in the dead of night,' I grumbled, still panting because of so fast running.
'Anyway, I can't say that our holidays here are boring,' Tom grinned.
'Shut up and sleep,' Elmo growled.
I sighed and turned over. It was a strange experience to sleep in one bed with Elmo. It was so embarrassing. I moved as far as possible from him and closed my eyes.
###
Gradually the camp went quiet. But not for long. Hardly had I fallen into a doze, when I was jerked awake by horrible shrieks. We sat bolt upright in our beds. My heart thudded loudly. There were muffled voices and sounds of steps behind the door. We pulled on some clothes and ran into the hall. A lot of boys had already crowded there and talked in excited voices.
Michael came storming out of Wilson's room and ordered everyone go back to bed.
'What's happened?' Tom whispered
'Someone put a rotten snag with worms into Victor's bed,' a spotty guy said with visible satisfaction. 'He and his friends went out at night and when they returned, they found their window closed. So they started tapping at other windows, asking to let them in. Michael caught them when they were standing near the open window in the next room. They told him that they just wanted to breathe some fresh air. I don't know if Michael believed them or not, but they were inside the room, so he just ordered them to go to sleep. And I don't know how it happened, but Wilson lay down straight on this rotten snag and worms and, of course, screamed.'
'What did Michael say?' I asked with a grin.
'Wilson didn't tell him about the snag,' the guy replied. 'He said that he just hit his toe against something in the darkness.'
'How many times do I have to repeat?' Michael barked. 'Go to sleep!'
Giggling gaily, we came into our room and closed the door. Then, just in case, we set up the defensive barricade again and crawled into our beds. This time I fell asleep as soon as my head touched the pillow.
###
Although, no one in this building managed to sleep that night. Soon we were woken up again by a deafening noise that would have woken even the dead.
Elmo jumped first. I tripped over him in the darkness and tumbled onto the floor. A second later Tom leaped out of his bed and cannoned into me. Then we all stared at the door.
The barricade was broken. Wilson was standing in the doorway, his eyes wide in surprise. He was holding a plastic bag in his hand. For a few seconds we just stared at each other. Then Victor realised that his little joke had failed, and tried to sneak out of the room, but right at this moment Michael turned up behind his back.
'So? What's going on this time?' he growled.
'Our bag with stuff overturned,' Tom replied.
'I see that,' Michael said grimly. 'But what are you doing here?' he grabbed Wilson's shirt-collar.
'I just went to the toilet and must have opened the wrong door,' Victor answered calmly.
'Oh, is that so?' Michael said in an icy voice. 'What's that, then?' he quickly grabbed the plastic bag from Victor's hands. He glanced inside and pressed his lips together. 'What's that?' he repeated coldly.
I couldn't help smiling. This time Wilson was really deep in trouble.
'So, Victor, we're waiting for your answer,' Michael went on. 'What were you doing here with this?' he raised the packet to Wilson's nose.
Victor didn't answer. 'What's there, Michael?' Tom asked with fake astonishment.
Michael lifted the packet to Tom's face. 'Ew!' Tom's face twisted in a natural disgust.
'Okay,' Michael sighed. 'You,' he looked at Wilson, 'follow me. You three,' he turned to us, 'go to sleep. And I don't want to hear about overturned bags till the end of night.'
'Yes, sir,' Tom saluted like a soldier. A faint smile crept onto Michael's face.
'Go to sleep,' he said more friendly. 'You follow me,' he barked to Wilson, turned round and left the room. Wilson cast a furious glance at us and trailed after him. The door closed.
We turned off the light and crawled into our beds. It was already four thirty. I felt awfully tired, but at the same time I was happy. We caused troubles for Wilson. Real troubles.
'I'm sure that he won't let us get away with it,' Elmo said as if he read my mind. 'And I'm afraid we'll be sorry.'
'Don't worry, Elmo,' Tom grinned. 'I'll pour more purgative into his glass tomorrow. It must affect him.'
'Are you serious?' Elmo sat bolt upright. 'Don't you understand that if he also is sent to the doctor with diarrhoea, they'll decide that it's a real epidemic in the camp?'
'And besides, we shouldn't repeat,' I put in.
'Yeah, you're right,' Tom agreed. 'Otherwise I can begin to enjoy the process and will become a maniac, who poisons anyone with a purgative.'
'And then we'll have to call you Tom the Ripper,' I giggled.
'Not Ripper, you'll have to call me Tom the Poisoner,' Tom corrected me.
'Shut up, you both,' Elmo muttered. 'It's almost a dawn already. I want to get some sleep.'
He didn't have to say twice. Tom and I went quiet and soon we all fell asleep.
