Soon the school camping group make it to the cabin and the children let out surprised gasps at the sight of it. The cabin was as big as a house and even had dormer windows projecting out of the roof. The logs that made it up, while covered in a few patches of moss, showed no signs of rotting or deterioration. It was surrounded by a wooden fence and sported several glass windows while a single brick chimney protruded from the roof. Supporting it were wooden beams and growing under it were yellow blossom bushes.
"Woah! That's where we're staying?" Eddie asked with his mouth hanging open.
"I thought this was someone's house at first!" exclaimed Alex.
"And here I was expecting some rundown shack, but THIS is something else." Marveled Megan. "Maybe this trip was worth signing up for after all!"
"Come on guys, Mr. Johnson wasn't going to make us stay in an unsuitable accommodation. Of course it's nice." Chelsea pointed out, trying to sound mature when even she was astounded by the cabin's appearance.
"Thank you, Miss Suzuki! All it needs is a little tidying up inside and it'll be even more suitable!" Mr. Johnson assured. "However, before we do that you all should choose who your camping partners are going to be. Since there's eight of you we'll do groups of two. Sound good?"
"Sure!" All the children agreed in unison before conversing with one another.
"Hey Chelsea, you're the most responsible person here. I think it would be great if we teamed up, don't you?" Megan asked while smiling with her eyes closed.
Chelsea gave her a look of suspicion and replied with: "Alright, but I'm not going to hold your hand and do everything for you while you feign ignorance if that was your plan."
Megan let out a nervous chuckle as a sweat drop appeared on the side of her head. "No, of course not."
Eric was scratching his face with his index finger while pondering to himself: "Hmm, who should I pick?"
Suddenly someone put their arm around him by surprise causing him to jump. It was just Alex who smiled and asked him: "Whaddya say Eric? Wanna be partners?"
Eric almost immediately began sweating as a blush ran across his face and was only able to let out an awkward: "Uhhh, sure I-I guess."
Alex tightened her hold around him and happily exclaimed: "Awesome! Let's do our best!"
Eric's face became as red as a tomato. This was the closest he's ever been to a girl he wasn't related to.
Things were even more awkward with Nate, Eddie, and Bear who were standing in a circle, looking into the other's eyes with fierce determination and beads of sweat running down their foreheads. Their arms were raised above their chests, and their fists clenching tightly. To any passersby, it would have looked like a fight was about to break out between the three.
"Sorry Eddie and Bear, but I won't lose." Nate thought to himself. "Katie needs someone dependable to be her partner."
"Someone who's strong and can protect her if she gets in trouble." Thought Bear.
"Someone who's smart and can help her avoid poisonous plants and harmful materials." Thought Eddie.
The boys raised their right arms into the air. "Rock, paper, scissors!" They all exclaimed as they quickly brought down their hands in different shapes. Nate chose scissors, Eddie chose paper, and Bear chose rock. Needless to say, no one won, and no one lost. "Again!" they all exclaimed, ending up with another tie. "Again!"
Katie herself was too lost in her own thoughts to even worry about pairing up with any of them.
Baddinyan's halfhearted response echoed through her mind: "Nyah, I'm good. Smell nya later."
"What's going on with you?" She mumbled under her breath.
"So, who are you going to partner with, Katie?" Whisper asked, bringing her back to reality.
"Huh? Oh, I was thinking Alex."
"But Alex already partnered with Eric."
"Eh!?"
Whisper pointed to them. Alex's right arm was still around Eric and they both seemed to be chanting something while fist pumping. "And judging by how happy they both look I don't think they'd be willing to trade, whis~."
Katie groaned. "Oh well. I guess Chelsea would make a good partner too."
"I'm afraid Megan already asked her." Whisper pointed to them. Chelsea had her index finger raised while her eyes were closed and appeared to be lecturing Megan who was still smiling nervously. "To be honest I'm not sure if I'm more worried for her or Megan."
"Oh geez. So that leaves…" Katie looked over at Nate, Eddie, and Bear who were still in the middle of their hand game. A sweat drop promptly appeared on the back of her head.
"They seem to be playing to decide which one of them gets to be your partner, but really it's up to you."
Katie sighed. "Plus, if I don't choose it'll never end."
"Again!" They shouted, getting another tie.
"Aw man, this is hopeless!" complained Bear.
"One more time!" ordered Nate.
"All or nothing!" shouted Eddie.
All three boys raised their hands in the air again and chanted: "Rock, paper, sci…"
"Hey Nate! Wanna be partners?" Katie suddenly asked while smiling with her eyes closed before the boys lowered their hands.
Nate's face lit up with euphoria as if he had won the lottery. "YES! A thousand times yes!" He immediately answered, shoving Bear and Eddie out of the way to run to her. "I promise I'll be the perfect worker! You won't even have to lift a finger as long as I'm around!"
Katie giggled. "That's gallant of you, but we are supposed to work together you know. Besides I'd feel awful letting you do everything."
Nate put his hand behind his head. "Oh yeah. I forgot hehe."
Both Bear and Eddie looked at them with blank expressions.
"W-what the?" sputtered Bear.
"So, I guess that means…" started Eddie.
"…You and I are partners then."
Both boys sighed in disappointment.
"Excellent! Now that everyone's partnered up, let's go inside and get situated, shall we?" Mr. Johnson suggested.
The children all agreed.
"If the outside looks this delightful I can't wait to see the inside!" Smiled Chelsea.
"I hope it has air conditioning. That'd be the icing on the cake." Added Bear.
Mr. Johnson took the key out of his pocket and used it to unlock the front door. As he entered the cabin and flipped the light switch on he said: "I assure you, the inside is just as marvelous as the out-What the!?" He winced at the sight before him.
"What's wrong mister-Oh my god!" exclaimed Chelsea when she saw the inside as well. The rest of the students had similar reactions.
The place was littered with trash, roaches were crawling all over, and there was noticeable damage done to the walls and furniture.
"This is where we're staying?" Eddie asked with a horrified expression.
"Only a recluse would live in a place like this." Alex grimaced.
"I knew I shouldn't have signed up for this trip." Megan murmured with her eyes closed as small tears appeared in the corners.
"What's the big idea, Mr. Johnson? We can't stay in a place like this!" complained Bear.
"I-I know that Barnaby, but it wasn't like this when I rented it last weekend." He replied. "So how in the world did it end up in this state?"
"A wild animal perhaps?" Guessed Nate.
"That would be a logical answer but the only way in and out of the cabin is through the front door which was left unscathed."
Eric inspects the trash up close. "Well who or whatever was in here sure loved chocobars and sweets from Banter Bakery. Look at all these wrappers."
Bear notices something sticking out from under the rug in the middle of the room and takes a closer look at it. "What's this?" He pulls the item from under the rug and gasped as a blush started to form on his face. "Next HarMEOWny's newest swimsuit photo book!" He then decides to flip the rug over which reveals a plethora of other suggestive Next HarMEOWny printed matter. "Holy cow! It's a scantily clad smorgasbord under here!"
All the other boys blushed at the sight of so many risqué books in one place. Nate broke the silence with: "At least we know it was definitely a person now."
Alex and Megan gave Mr. Johnson judgmental glares.
"Hey, don't look at me like that! I told you all this wasn't here when I came last week!" Mr. Johnson sputtered while blushing and moving his hands left and right.
Katie and Whisper gave each other knowing looks.
"Do you suppose…?" Whisper asked.
Katie nodded and replied with: "It's pretty obvious."
"Well it doesn't matter who or what left the cabin in this state. This is where we're staying for the weekend; so all that matters is getting it cleaned!" Chelsea stated while tying a bandana around her hair. "Meg and I will take care of the sweeping, Eric and Alex you both handle the dusting, Eddie and Bear, you're both boys so take care of the roaches, Nate, you vacuum and Katie, dispose of all that obscene material."
Nate raised his index finger and cheekily asked while blushing: "But wouldn't it be easier on Katie if I got rid of the photo books and stuff instead?"
"As if!" Chelsea barked, causing Nate to wince. "You'll just hide it somewhere where you can find it later!"
"No worries, Nate. I can handle it." Katie smiled, though secretly she was a little disappointed in him knowing what his true intentions were.
Soon the cleanup process started with everyone performing their assigned tasks, in addition to Mr. Johnson using duct tape to patch up the damage done to the furniture and the walls as best as he could, praying he could convince the property owner that it wasn't his fault.
"Geez, who can eat this many sweets without getting a stomachache or a mouth full of cavities?" Chelsea asked as she swept up a mini-mountain of wrappers that barely fit into the dustpan Megan was holding.
"I wish I could, that's for sure." Megan replied as she emptied the dustpan into a garbage bag. She then groaned and mumbled: "A stomachache would come in handy right about now."
Eddie and Bear stood side by side holding nets and containers.
"Heh! This'll be a piece of cake!" boldly stated Bear.
"Yeah, all the bug catching we did during summer break has led up to this!" Eddie added. "These roaches don't stand a chance in hell against us!"
The boys swung their nets with great precision, capturing any roaches unlucky enough to cross their paths and then depositing them into the plastic containers they both carried so they couldn't escape. Even ones that tried to make a break for hard to reach areas such as small cracks in the walls could not escape Bear and Eddie.
"This is too easy!" bragged Bear. "We'll have this place roach-free in no time!"
"Totally!" Eddie exclaimed. He then looked over at a wall and saw a big roach climbing it up. "Lemme grab this one and we can release all we have outside." Eddie walked up to it and raised his net but before he could swing it, the roach surprised him by flying away to another wall. "Ugh! Looks like we've got fliers!"
The same happened to Bear who exclaimed: "Crud! They're fast ones too!" The two swung their nets wildly trying to catch the flying roaches which caused them to accidentally interfere with Alex, Eric, and Nate's work whether it was bumping into them or hitting them with their nets.
Katie was able to steer clear of their chaos as she stuffed all the racy Next HarMEOWny merchandise into a large trash bag. No matter how many books she put into the bag, the pile didn't seem to get any smaller. Though in the end, through some miracle, all the books were able to fit in it and she was able to tie it up just fine. She then began to carry it a fair distance from the cabin. Unfortunately, the bag proved to be heavier than she expected causing her to have to drop it and take a break.
"Phew! Maybe Nate and I should have swapped jobs after all." She huffed while bending over and resting her hands on her knees.
"We're not really going to throw all of this away, are we?" asked Whisper. "I don't imagine Baddinyan would be too happy about that."
"Don't worry I have an idea." Katie replied before sighing. "It's an unconventional idea, but an idea nonetheless." Katie got on her knees and sat her backpack on the ground before taking out her red Medallium.
"Oh, I see. You're going to call a Yo-kai friend to hide it. This should be exciting, whis~!"
Katie took a medal out of the Medallium and stood back up, dusting off her knees. "Well… Come on out my friend! Calling Manjimutt! Yo-kai Medal do your thing!" She inserted the medal into the normal watch's slot.
"Summoning, Eerie!" The watch announced as a bright purple spiral emitted from its center.
As the Eerie Tribe's summoning song played, Manjimutt danced along to it trying to look cool. (As cool as a dog with an old man's face could anyway.)
"Manjimutt!"
"HIM!?" exclaimed Whisper.
"Hi Manjimutt! Could you do me a favor?" asked Katie.
"Hey for you Katie, anything!" Manjimutt smiled while giving a thumbs up.
"Could you take that bag and bury it somewhere far into the woods? Please don't open it though under any circumstances."
Manjimutt's smile suddenly disappeared. "Eh? I don't know about that. Sounds suspicious and I don't wanna go back to jail after just getting out."
"Huh? What do you mean?"
"I've seen this before in movies. Someone asks someone else to bury something in a bag or a box far away without opening it. Halfway there they get curious and open it up anyway revealing that it contained stolen goods or someone's severed body parts, and in the end the person burying the contents gets sent to the slammer even if he wasn't the one who committed the crime."
Katie frowned. "Oh get real! Do I look like I would have any of that stuff on me!?"
Manjimutt looked to his right. "No, I suppose not."
"Suppose?" Whisper quietly chimed in.
"However, I can't help but feel a little skeptical about doing this since you won't even tell me what's in it."
Katie sighed. "Look I understand where you're coming from, but I promise you there's nothing in here that would get you sent to jail if the police were to hypothetically see you burying it."
Manjimutt folded his arms. "Hmmm. I don't know."
"Alright, fine. If you do this for me then I'll grant you one request. One."
Manjimutt looked up at Katie with widened eyes. "Huh? Really? Can it be anything?"
"Yep! A meat croquette from the butcher shop, a tummy rub, whatever you want!"
Manjimutt blushed, panted, and wagged his tail as he thought about each of those responses, with his panting and wagging getting faster and his face becoming redder with each thought.
"Stop getting so excited!" yelled Whisper.
Steam then started to blow out of Manjimutt's nose. "I'll do it! I'll bury it so deep underground that not even the strongest drill would be able to unearth it!" He then snatched up the bag with ease as if there were cotton in it instead of 20+ pounds of ribald material and quickly took off while giggling to himself.
"Thank you!" Katie shouted.
"What a weirdo." Grumbled Whisper. "That wasn't exciting at all, whis~."
"Nope, but at least that's taken care of." Katie replied.
"Yeah, but what's Baddinyan going to say when you tell him all of his naughty books are more than six-feet underground?"
Katie smiled. "Oh he'll find a way to get them back. Trust me. His love for Next HarMEOWny is too strong."
"Yep, just like Jibanyan's." Whisper thought to himself.
Katie's smile then turned into a look of concern. "Still, what was up with him leaving so abruptly earlier? It's like he didn't want to be around me for some reason. He didn't even want to come back home after I told him my room was back to normal. Do you think he might have gotten into some kind of trouble?"
Whisper put his hands behind his head and sarcastically replied with: "Gee, what makes you think that? The fact that his name is 'Baddinyan' or the fact that he's been on his own for a good while with no supervision?"
Katie put her fingers on her chin. "I mean clearly he's using the cabin as a hideout of some sort, right? If he really needed a place to stay that wasn't my room, he would've chosen some old abandoned building in town. Not some cabin way out here in Mt. Wildwood. He's not a nature lover."
Whisper began picking his nose. "Maybe he's on the run from the Yo-kai Mafia after devouring all of the kingpin's confectionary gold."
Katie gave Whisper a look of annoyance and asked him: "Honestly Whisper, could you at least pretend you're worried about him? For me at least?"
"What's there to worry about? This is all just part of his typical tough guy act isn't it? Not wanting to come back home, pretending to not want anything to do with you, commandeering someone's property, it's all just to show you how independent he's become so you won't worry about him."
"I don't believe that for a second." Katie took his medal out of her Medallium. "Maybe I should summon and ask him myself."
"That won't work. If anything, he'll just lie about it and act more resentful towards you."
Katie groaned and put the medal back. "Yeah, you're right. Plus, we can't really do anything about it right now and I'm sure we'll run into him again now that we're staying in his hiding place."
"Whis~." Whisper nodded.
"Though there is something on my mind that's been bothering me…"
"Oh? What's that?"
Katie grabbed Whisper and locked her arm around him while aggressively grinding her knuckles on the wisp on his head. "Why didn't you help me with the bag when you saw that I was struggling with it, you dork!?" She agitatedly asked. "You're supposed to be my butler!"
"Ow! Ow! Ow! Stop! I'm sorry! My mind was somewhere else! OUCH!" Whisper cried while flailing his arms and trying to break free of her grasp.
Katie applied even more force to his head. "And why did you lie about being knowledgeable about camping!?"
"Ow! You're mad about that but not the fact that he stole my diary in the first place? YOWCH!"
"Stop trying to change the subject!"
"Oh my, what a strange sight." A voice behind them said, causing them both to flinch.
"kukkukku… Isn't it though?" another voice behind them chuckled.