"Come and get it!" announced Cookie.

That meant it was time for dinner.

He ladled up some trays with what appears to be mystery meat and served them to the crew. "For the appetizer, Caesar salad, escargot, and your Oriental spring rolls."

"Yuck." commented Audrey.

"I wanted the escargot." complained Moliere.

"Knock yourself out." said Audrey as she reluctantly gave her tray to Moliere.


At another side of the cave, Cookie came to where my group and Milo were and handed us some trays of that mystery meat.

"Here you go, partners." he said. "Put some meat on them bones."

Sherman tried not to look disgusted as he said. "Thanks, Cookie. That looks..."

"Greasier than usual." Penny concluded.

"You like it? Well, have some more." said Cookie as he poured more mystery meat into our trays. "Y'all so skinny, if you turned sideways and stuck out your tongue, you'd look like a zipper."

As Cookie rolled away with his mystery meat, I turned to my group. "Let's look over what we have so far, shall we?"


"You know, we've been pretty tough on the kid." Dr. Sweet said to those sitting with him. "What do you say we cut him some slack?"

"Yeah, you're right." agreed Audrey. "Hey, Milo! Why don't you come sit with us?"

"Really?" said Milo.

"Can we, Mr. Peabody?" asked Sherman.

"Mmm, I suppose so." I replied. "Do you have room for three more?"

"Nah. Park it here." said Audrey.

"Why, thank you, Miss Rameriz." I said as my group and Milo walked up to join Audrey, Dr. Sweet, Moliere, Vinny and Mrs. Packard by the fire.

"Gee, this is great." said Milo. "I mean, you know, it's an honor to be included in your..."

As Milo sat down, however, Moliere placed a whopee cushion on his rear end, making him look like he...well, let's just say it was inapporaiate, especially when it comes to making a first impression.

The crew was annoyed with Moliere's joke. "Mole!"

"Ah, forgive me. I could not resist." confessed Moliere.

"Hey, Milo, don't you ever close that book?" asked Audrey upon seeing Milo still reading the Shepard's Journal.

"Yeah, you must've read it a dozen times by now." agreed Dr. Sweet.

I know, but this...this doesn't make any sense." said Milo. "You see, in this passage here, the Shepherd seems to be leading up to something, he calls it the Heart of Atlantis. It could be the power source the legends refer to. But then it just...it cuts off. It's almost like there's a missing page."

"Really?" asked Sherman.

"Kid, relax." assured Vinny. "We don't get paid overtime."

"I know, I know. Sometimes, I geta little carried away." said Milo. "But, hey, you know, that's whatt his is all about, right? I mean, discovery, teamwork, adventure...unless...maybe...you're just in it for the money."

One by one, those sitting with us all said the same answer.

"Money."

"Money."

"Money."

"Money."

"I'm gonna say money."

"Yes, well, my group are mostly here for eduactional purposes." I explained. "Sherman?"

Sherman pulled out the notes we have and handed them to each of the crew.

Milo let out a sigh. "Well, I guess I set myself up for that one."

"Is something wrong with your neck?" asked Dr. Sweet.

"Oh, yeah," said Milo. "I must've hurt it when..."

Before he could continue, though, Dr. Sweet grabbed his neck and rocked it back and forth.

"Better?"

"Yeah!" replied Milo, relieved that pain was gone from his neck. "Hey, how'd you learn how to do that?"

"An Arapaho medicine man." explained Dr. Sweet.

"Get outta here."

"Born and raised with 'em. My father was an army medic." said Dr. Sweet as he pulled out a picture of his own family from his shirt pocket. "He settled down in the Kansas Territory after he met my mother."

"No kidding." said Sherman.

"Nope. I got a sheep skin from Howard U and a bear skin from old Iron Cloud." Dr. Sweet went on. "Halfway through medical school, I was drafted. One day I'm studying gross anatomy in the classroom, the next I'm sewing up Rough Riders on San Juan Hill."

"Looks like you've got some competition there, eh, Mr. Peabody?" asked Penny.

"Don't start, Miss Peterson." I replied.

"Main course." Cookie called out.

One by one, we all said we couldn't eat another bite of that mystery meat.

"Ha ha ha, don't you worry." said Cookie. "It'll keep and keep and keep."

"Thank God I lost my sense of taste years ago." said Mrs. Packard as we all dumped the mystery meat into the fire.


By now, it was time to get ready for bed. But while the crew pitched our tents, my group will be sleeping inside the WABAC.

"Aren't you going to pitch up your tent?" Penny asked Milo, who replied. "Uh, I did."

"Allow me." I said as I properly fixed up Milo's tent.

"Guess I'm still a little rusty at this." confessed Milo. "I haven't gone camping since...well, since the last time my grandpa took me."

"I never got to meet your gradnfather." said Audrey. "What was he like?"

"Where do you start? He was like a father to me, really." explained Milo as he unrolled his sleeping pad. "My parents died when I was a little kid and...he took me in."

"I know just how you feel, Milo." I said. "When I found Sherman, he reminded me of how I started out in life. So, I gave him the one thing I always wanted, a home."

Milo chuckled a little bit.

"What?" asked Audrey.

"Well, I was...just thinkin'. One time, when I was eight, we were hiking along this stream and I saw something shining in the water. It was a genuine arrowhead." said Milo. "Well, you'd think I'd found a lost civilization the way Grandpa carried on about it. It wasn't until I was older that I realized that the arrowhead was just some compressed shale mixed with zinc pyrite that had fractured into an isosceletic triangulate."

Moliere giggled. "That is so cute!"

"Say, Audrey, uh, no...no offense, but how does a teenager become the chief mechanic of a multimillion dollar expedition?" asked Milo.

"Well, I took this job when my dad retired." replied Audrey. "But the funny thing was he always wanted sons, right? One to run his machine shop and the other to be middleweight boxing champion. But he got my sister and me instead."

"So, what happened to your sister?" asked Penny.

"She's 24 and 0, with a shot at the title next month." said Audrey "Anyway, I'm saving up so my Papi and I can open another shop."

"Forget your jammies, Mrs. Packard?" asked Milo.

"I sleep in the nude." explained Mrs. Packard as she walked to her tent.

"You might want a pair of these, Sherman." I said, handing Sherman an eye mask. "I hear she sleepwalks."

"Well, as far as me goes...I just like to blow things." said Vinny, already wearing his eye mask, until Dr. Sweet pulled on it, saying. "Come on, Vinny. Tell the kid the truth."

So Vinny did.

"My family owned a flower shop. We would sell roses, carnations, baby's breath, you name it. One day, I'm making about three dozen corsages for this prom. You know, the one they put on their wrist. And everybody, they come, 'Where is it?' 'When is it?' 'Does it match my dress?' It's a nightmare. Anyway, I guess there was this leak next door of gas or what...BOOM! No more Chinese laundry. Blew me right through the front window. It was like a sign from God. I found myself that boom."

At that moment, we heard some grunting. We turned around to see Moliere digging himself into the dirt.

"What's Mole's story?" asked Milo.

"Trust me on this one. You don't wanna know." said Dr. Sweet. "Audrey, don't tell him "You shouldn't have told me, but you now I'm telling you, you don't wanna know."