Revenge of the Happy Campers Read online

  Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Chapter One: Dawn’s Early Light

  Chapter Two: Space Race

  Chapter Three: Civil Liberties

  Chapter Four: Antagonize

  Chapter Five: Establishment

  Chapter Six: Association

  Chapter Seven: Cooling-Off Period

  Chapter Eight: Operation Cheer Up Aunt Jane

  Chapter Nine: Melting Pot

  Chapter Ten: American Dream

  Chapter Eleven: Citizenship

  Chapter Twelve: Checks and Balances

  Chapter Thirteen: Flag Poll

  Chapter Fourteen: Special Session

  Chapter Fifteen: Public Works

  Chapter Sixteen: Assembly

  Chapter Seventeen: Unrest

  Chapter Eighteen: Canvassing

  Chapter Nineteen: Pole Results

  Chapter Twenty: Unknown Threat

  Chapter Twenty-One: Eminent Domain

  Chapter Twenty-Two: Rain of Terror

  Chapter Twenty-Three: Great Depression

  Chapter Twenty-Four: Crossfire

  Chapter Twenty-Five: Internal Affairs

  Chapter Twenty-Six: Clean Air Act

  Chapter Twenty-Seven: Preamble

  Chapter Twenty-Eight: Searches and Seizure

  Chapter Twenty-Nine: Cliffhanger

  Chapter Thirty: Outcome

  Chapter Thirty-One: De-Escalation

  Chapter Thirty-Two: Fireside Chat

  Chapter Thirty-Three: This Land Was Made for You and Me

  Revenge of the Angels Preview

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Also by Jennifer Ziegler

  Copyright

  Dear Mom and Dad,

  I hate camping.

  Why are you making me do this? Don’t I get a vote in what happens to me? This is tyranny at its worst.

  You tell me I should love camping because I’m a history buff, and that I should find it interesting to get away from modern society for a while. Well, it’s true that camping is like traveling back in time, but to a very boring place.

  And not just boring — dangerous!

  I’m sending you this email before we leave so that there will be official documentation — and because there won’t be wifi or computers where we’re going.

  So once again, allow me to make my position clear — I HATE CAMPING!

  Your oppressed daughter,

  Dawn

  Maybe if Darby hadn’t been so foolhardy, our camping trip wouldn’t have turned into a disaster. The thing was, I knew we’d end up in a real predicament. That very notion woke me up our first morning at the campsite.

  It was so early the sun wasn’t even up yet. I know because I peeked out the window of our pop-up trailer and could see only a tiny bit of light in the distance, turning the charcoal sky a dark blue color. It seemed like the whole world was sleeping.

  I carefully climbed over Darby, slid off the bunk we shared, and tiptoed over to where Delaney slept. Her blankets were all tangled up and her feet were on her pillow, so it took a while to figure out where her head was. I pulled back the sheet and poked her shoulder. “Are you up?” I asked. I had to say it loud enough to be heard over Aunt Jane’s snores, but not so loud that it would wake everyone.

  Delaney’s eyes fluttered. She mumbled, “Chicken,” and turned onto her side, away from me. Delaney talks a lot, even in her sleep. But her sleep talking usually doesn’t make any sense at all.

  “Delaney?” I said a little louder. She didn’t move. It’s strange watching Delaney be quiet and still, because normally she’s a loud blur.

  I tried putting my hand on her shoulder and shaking it a little.

  “Put it in the chicken,” Delaney muttered, and rolled over even farther so that her nose pointed down into the bench cushion.

  I sighed and stamped my foot, making the whole trailer tremble slightly. Then I cupped my hands over my mouth and whisper-yelled “Delaney!” right into her ear.

  She sat up immediately, her head bonking my chin. “What’s going on?” she asked, looking all around her.

  “Shhh! Follow me,” I said. “And be quiet. We don’t want to wake up the others.”

  We tiptoed to the door of the camper, unlatched it, and stepped outside as silently as possible. It was chilly, and the gravel underneath my bare feet was sharp and pointy in places. Slowly we made our way over to the concrete slab where the picnic table stood. I sat on one of the benches, while she stayed standing, staring off into the distance.

  “It’s hardly even light out yet,” Delaney said as she blinked toward the horizon. “Do you feel okay, Dawn? You haven’t been the first one up since the day we were born.”

  My sisters tell me that if I want to be president of the United States, I’ll have to learn how to get up early. I say that’s no problem, because when something important is happening, I do get up early — without being grouchy. And when you are president, every day you have something important to deal with.

  Just like today. Today I was dealing with something important.

  “Why are we out here?” Delaney asked.

  “I’m calling an emergency meeting,” I said.

  “But we forgot Darby.”

  I shook my head. “No, we didn’t. I left her out on purpose. She’s the reason we’re having the emergency meeting.”

  “Is this because of what happened right after we arrived?” she asked.

  “No,” I replied. But I could tell by the way her eyebrows became high half circles that Delaney didn’t believe me. “We need to have a plan of action. A way to avoid more calamities. While we’re here, Darby’s going to come up with all sorts of harebrained schemes. And whenever that happens, we always get mixed up in it. You know how she is. If we don’t take preventative measures, she’ll end up getting us killed. Mom will never forgive us.”

  “But what can we do?” Delaney asked. She had started jumping off the other concrete bench of the picnic table, over and over, watching her nightgown flare out as she did it.

  “We need to get the details down,” I said. “Like we always do.”

  “But Darby usually types up the notes. And we don’t have a computer. Or Darby.”

  I let out a growl-sigh. I know it isn’t fair of me, but sometimes I find the facts of a situation annoying.

  “Fine,” I said. “How about I review recent events out loud and you bear witness. If anything seems wrong, you can tell me.”

  “Okay. That’s probably best anyway. We aren’t going to want to vote on these meeting minutes and file them away. Not if you don’t want Darby to see them.”

  “Now, if you are going to listen and corroborate the facts, you have to stay relatively still. You can bounce and change positions, but no twirling or jumping, okay?”

  “Fine,” she said, sounding all droopy.

  “All right. Here goes.” I cleared my throat and made the following official statement:

  Yesterday at approximately 1800 hours, the four of us — Darby, Delaney, Aunt Jane, and I — arrived at Lake Lewis after driving for four straight hours in the van.

  “That was only four hours? It felt like four thousand.”

  “Delaney, you have to be quiet and bear witness.”

  Let the record state that we shouldn’t even be here. It’s spring break of our sixth grade school year and three weeks ago Mom told us Aunt Jane was coming to Texas to visit. This made us go yippee because Aunt Jane is just about our favorite person in the world — only we found out that because Mom was busy with tax season, Dad was going to a work conference, and Lily’s spring break wasn’t until the next week, Aunt J
ane was mainly coming to babysit us.

  We are almost twelve years old and don’t need a babysitter. But apparently our family is afraid that if we are left unsupervised for long stretches, there will be shenanigans.

  “That’s probably because of what happened at the —”

  “Delaney! Just bear witness.”

  “Okay. Sorry.”

  So Aunt Jane decided to take us to Lake Lewis — where she and Mom used to camp all the time while growing up. We’d never been to the lake, but she promised it would be great. Besides, our parents were making us go.

  Thus and ergo, we came. And as soon as we arrived and set up the camper, Darby got a wild look in her eye and set off exploring. Delaney and I went after her. For a while, we lost her, and then we heard her calling to us. She told us she’d found the most amazing thing and we had to come see it. Like dummies, we followed.

  Darby took us down to the creek. To our right, it disappeared around a bend. To our left, way in the distance, was a wooden bridge, but there didn’t seem to be anything but rocks on the other side. And all I saw in front of us were weeds and stinky water. “What’s so amazing?” I asked. That’s when she pointed to a rope hanging from the bough of a live oak. “Watch,” she said. Then she jumped on the rope, swung way out over the water, came back, and jumped off. Her eyes were all gleamy and she had a huge smile on her face. That’s when she held the rope out to me.

  Let the record also state that she said, and I quote, “I promise you’ll love it.”

  It looked so simple when she did it, and I figured it had to be easy. But I was duped. It was not fun and I did not love it.

  “You were screeching like a barn owl.”

  “Ding-dang it, Delaney! For the last time —”

  “I know, I know. Just bear witness.”

  We can skim over the exact details, but in summary, the rope hurt, the swing took me way out farther and higher than I’d expected, I didn’t have enough momentum to get back, I tried to shift positions, I lost my grip, and I fell into the water below. The water was warm and mossy and stinky because the campground hadn’t had real rain in a long time. Now one of the three outfits I packed is all wet and the only shoes I brought are squishy.

  At this point Delaney started laughing. I glared at her until she stopped.

  Okay, so maybe I was still steamed about what happened. But that was beside the point.

  “That’s pretty much my whole statement,” I said. “Now that we’ve reviewed the facts, we need to come up with a plan.”

  “For what?” Delaney asked.

  Sometimes it’s difficult to believe Delaney has an exact copy of my DNA. “For Darby!” I said. “We need to make sure she doesn’t lead us down a path of senseless and risky behavior.”

  “How are we going to do that?” Delaney was twirling again — which annoyed me. As did the absence of worry in her tone. The whole point of getting up early was to solve this problem.

  Only I didn’t have any ideas, either. I was tired and peevish and still reeked a bit of stagnant creek water. So I was just about to table the discussion for a future emergency meeting when we heard noises.

  First there came a creaking sound, followed by the bang of a door. After that came footsteps crunching on gravel, the rustling of people moving through bushes, and, eventually, silence.

  Then, out of the darkness, we heard a voice say, “I call this meeting to order.”

  That first morning at the campsite, I woke up with Dawn and Delaney shaking me and saying that we’d been infiltrated. It took me a moment to remember where I was and realize I wasn’t dreaming.

  “Get dressed!” Dawn said, pushing clothes at me. “We have to do surveillance!”

  “There’s a meeting. Only it’s not our meeting. Our meeting is finished. I mean we didn’t have a meeting,” Delaney was babbling.

  Over the years, I’ve learned to just do what they say. If it had been one sister, I might have asked a lot of questions. But when it’s both, I figure I’ll be safe just going along with them. At least, probably.

  So even with my brain still half asleep and the trailer all cramped and crowded, I managed to put on my shorts and shirt and shoes — and none of them were inside out or backward. Plus, we didn’t wake up Aunt Jane, which was amazing.

  I followed Dawn and Delaney out of the camper, and Dawn put her finger against her lips to signal that we had to be super silent. Then the three of us crept toward a clump of trees near the picnic table.

  As we came closer, muffled voices grew louder. I heard a boy’s voice saying, “You mean you already got into the provisions? Why?” followed by another’s voice saying, “I couldn’t help it. I was hungry.”

  We got to the grove of oaks and mesquites and carefully picked our way through it for several yards. When we got to the last part of the brambles, Dawn motioned that we should all stop walking and hunker down.

  At first, I couldn’t see anything. The sky was slowly filling with a pink light, but there were still lots of shadows. And my eyes were all blurry with sleep. Eventually, I could make out shapes and slight movement through the branches.

  There were three boys — all different shapes, heights, and colors. The tallest one looked around thirteen. He was skinnier than the other boys and his black hair was curly. The medium-height boy seemed like he was our age. His dark hair was straight and he was a rounder shape than the tallest boy. I guessed the third boy, who was the shortest of all, to be around nine or ten. He had red hair — not gold-red like ours, but red like my red-orange crayon. It glowed like fire in the sunrise.

  The tallest boy was the one talking. “In approximately one and a quarter hours we will have breakfast. The food we brought is for scheduled meals only. If you get hungry between meals, you have to eat off the land.”

  “Eat off the land?” repeated the boy with bright red hair. “How?”

  “By looking for berries,” the tallest boy replied. “Or catching fish.”

  “Fish is grody,” the red-headed boy said, making a face. “What if I hunted and roasted a rabbit?”

  Delaney let out a huge gasping sound, lost her balance, and fell forward, snapping a few twigs on her way down. Dawn and I froze like worried statues.

  “What was that?” asked the tallest boy.

  “I think it came from over there,” said the medium-tall boy, pointing in our direction.

  I groaned. We should have realized Delaney would be incapable of staying still and quiet.

  “Think it’s a wild animal? Should I go get my bow and arrow?” asked the shortest boy.

  Dawn and I exchanged scared looks. “Nope! Not wild animals,” she called out. She held her hands up in surrender and stepped forward through the brush into the clearing where the boys stood. “It’s just us.”

  Delaney scrambled back onto her feet and pushed past Dawn. “And speaking of animals, you really shouldn’t eat rabbits. They’re fluffy and bouncy and cute and don’t hurt anyone — which means it wouldn’t be a fair fight. I have a pet rabbit named Mynah and she’s the sweetest ever, so I should know.”

  For a moment, the boys just stood there, blinking at Dawn and Delaney.

  “Um … who are you?” asked the tallest boy.

  “I’m Delaney. This is Dawn and … Darby’s around here somewhere. Oh! Over there, trying to hide behind that bush.”

  I let out another annoyed groan.

  See, I’m shy around people — especially people I don’t know. And now these guys knew I was trying to hide from them, which made me feel even more bashful.

  When Delaney pointed me out like that, I wanted to run back to the trailer and duck back under the covers. Or climb a tree. Or disappear in a puff of smoke like a genie. But I don’t want to be shy anymore. Someday I want to be chief justice of the United States Supreme Court. And to do that, I have to be able to look people in the eye — even people I don’t know.

  So I took a deep breath and waited until I didn’t want to run away. Then I stepped
out from behind the bush and stood right behind Delaney, hiding only a little bit.

  “Are you triplets?” asked the medium-height boy.

  “Yeah,” Dawn said.

  “How’d you get to be that way?” the short, red-headed boy asked. He took a cautious step forward and kept looking back and forth, from me to Delaney.

  Delaney shrugged. “We were just born that way.”

  “And who are you guys?” Dawn asked.

  The tallest boy put a hand on his chest. “I’m Jayden. But everyone calls me Jay. This is Roberto.” He pointed to the boy around our age, who was standing behind him.

  “Everyone calls me Robbie,” said Robbie.

  “And this is Nelson,” Jay gestured to the red-haired boy.

  “What do people call you?” Delaney asked.

  “Nelson,” he said. He looked at us, rubbing his chin as if he had a beard — which he didn’t. “So how come you guys are trespassing and spying on us?”

  “Hold up there, mister. We might have been spying, but we weren’t trespassing,” Dawn said, putting her hands on her hips. “This is part of our campsite.”

  “No, this area is part of our campsite.” Jay shook his head fast, making his hair bounce.

  “Uh, no,” Dawn countered. “As I said, this is our site. We heard you encroaching and had every right to investigate.”

  “Like I said, this is our area,” Jay said. “You are the ones encroaching.”

  “Oh yeah?” Dawn said. “Prove it.”

  We all looked around to see if there were markers indicating where one campsite ended and the other began, but we couldn’t find anything. By now the sky was full of a thin white light — like stretched-out tissue. Birds were starting to wake up and sing.

  We all reassembled back near our original spots and stood there, not knowing what to say.

  “Obviously, we need to come up with an understanding,” I said. Only I said it softly and Delaney had to repeat it.

  “Like what?” Nelson asked.

  “How about we divide the area in half?” Dawn suggested.

  “Or we can share it,” I said.