Detectives, Espionage, and Thieves

I Wake Up Late and Overthink All Morning

-Ben

                    I had packed all my things after I got to my room that night, so in the morning I could wake up later than I normally would have, and just grab my stuff and go. It benefited me positively when Mike frantically pounded on my door, for the second time that day. I rose groggily and glanced over to my bedside clock. Crap. It was 4:55. I quickly let Mike in and discovered he had awoken in the same predicament I was in, and wanted to make sure I wasn't late too. He seemed to be more excited about this than all of my friends put together.

                      I hurriedly readied myself and rushed downstairs with Mike at 4:57. The two of us ran down to the school gate, where Erica, Zoe, Jawa, and Alexander were waiting for the rest of us to show up. Alexander checked his watch.

                       "Where's Chip?" He asked no one in particular.

                       "No idea," Jawa asked. If anyone knew the whereabouts of Chip, it would probably be him. "Ehm—do you think that we could hear a bit more about what our mission entails?"

                       "Ah, yes, yes. The folders are in the car, I'll detail you all in there."

                      Chip came running up to us, slightly out of breath and disheveled. 5:01.

                       "Sorry, sorry—slept in late," He apologized.

                       "Nevermind that," Alexander murmured quickly, he ushered us all out of the gate and over to an old green Jeep. We all squeezed in, Erica got to sit in the front next to her dad. I was surprised she even trusted Alexander with driving.

                       "Alright." He grabbed a pile of Manila folders out of the console and handed them out to us. They had the usual, 'For your eyes only' stamped on the front, that I had seen so many times before, yet I still got excited about. All us kids quickly ripped them open, they were considerably less hard to open than they usually were.

                       Alexander turned the key and started driving down the quiet early morning road. "The chaperones are meeting us at the hangar."

                       "Chaperones?" Zoe asked skeptically.

                      "I suppose I should've said, 'chaperone', singular," He replied. Erica rolled her eyes. "Catherine is coming for you girls."

                     We all were excited about this, Catherine was amazing.

                      "Anyways, the basic gist of the mission is that the animals are dying. Fast. And not just a specific type of animal, all sorts. A giant tortoise, a couple rare birds, a wildebeest, and a mama leopard and one of her cubs." Alexander rattled on, annoyed for our all immediate smiles upon learning his ex-wife was coming.

                       "I can see why someone might want the leopards, and I guess the birds, if they were rare, but why a wildebeest? We are assuming they have been murdered, correct?" Erica concluded.

                       "Yes, we're not sure what else could happen."

                      The seven of us pored over this until we got hit by a red light. Alexander nervously glanced down to his watch.

                            "C'mon. . . we're already late," He mumbled to himself. Jawa seemed to be struck by an idea.

                             "What if it's just natural causes and a big coincidence?" He questioned. I flipped to the second page of the folder.

                            "It says that Funjungle has also been getting pretty frequent break-ins to their merchandise shops whenever an animal dies." I added, showing him a chart. Of course, this could be a coincidence too, but that was unheard of. We were almost to the hangar where our plane would be waiting for us.

                            "Are the animal deaths known to the public?" Erica asked her dad.

                           Alexander nodded. "Yes, J.J. was unable to hide it after about the fourth one."

                             "Maybe the break-ins are just people messing with J.J., and they aren't related at all." Zoe suggested. Mr. Hale pulled up to the lot where the plane was, and as soon as he stopped moving, the rest of us pushed our way out of the car and started getting our luggage. A short woman who had been standing by the stairs up to the door of the plane hurried over and cupped Erica's face in her hands, kissing her all over.

                            "Mom!" Erica hissed, trying to get out of her mother's grasp. I laughed, and so did Mike next to me. I was only now realizing his shirt was neon green and had 'Snakes Alive' on the front in a jaunty font. I was surprised he would even wear the shirt, I wasn't a font fanatic and even I found it repulsing, but maybe that just showed how excited Mike was about this mission.

                        And who could blame him? I mean, this was almost a dream come true. I had heeded Erica's warning and calmed down a little bit, but I was still under the impression that this would be easy.

                      Easy. The word rang around in my head as I climbed into the ruddied private jet. It seemed to be the same model as when we went to Mexico. I thought Vail would be easy, I thought Mexico would be easy, neither of them were. I didn't want to be in that cloud of denial again, with Erica guiding us around blindly to get to her motive.

                       I gripped the faux leather arms of my seat. I wasn't going to assume this time. Then I looked over to Erica, nonchalantly flipping through a plane safety booklet. She didn't seem stressed at all. Then again, was Erica ever stressed? She was probably counting on us all assuming. Maybe I could pretend relax--

                      "Earth to Ben?" Zoe crowed, waving a hand in front of my face.

                      "Oh, sorry! I must've zoned out."

                      "Really? I couldn't tell," She laughed. "Are you excited to ride all the new rollercoasters they added now? I heard one of them is completely upside-down."

                      "Absolutely. So hyped." I said through a gritted smile.

                    I would pretend to be relaxed, I thought, sinking lower into my seat. The plane started to take off. Maybe now was the time to catch that sleep I missed.

                    And we were off to Texas.