Ziff under fire

Part 9 - Operation OzBoz

It was lunch time before I had the chance to tell Licia and Miguel about my meetings with Scott, Serge and Kozak. Then Licia asked Miguel why he had been talking to Boz's sidekick, Ozzy.

'I showed him this,' Miguel produced a tattered piece of paper. 'I told him was an old Yanomami Amerindian potion for invisibility soup. When the Yanomami drank it, they became invisible for about half an hour so their enemies couldn't find them. I told him I tried it last Wednesday when I wasn't in class.'

 Yanomami with poison dart blow-pipe.

'Are you serious?' Licia laughed. 'What are you trying to do?'

Miguel grinned lazily. 'I'm just curious about how gullible OzBoz are. I told Ozzy I found it in my grandfather's old trunk . . . he was from Venezuela . . . and Ozzy seemed completely taken in.'

I looked at the faded characters scrawled across the paper, yellowed with age. 'He won't be able to read this.'

'It's in Spanish,' Miguel agreed. 'I gave Ozzy a translation. I explained that no one would be able to see him but he would be able to see anyone else who drank the potion with him.'

'What are the ingredients?' Licia asked.

'Cacao, honey and fungi but I told him he could use hot chocolate powder and yeast,' Miguel said. I also gave him a little of what I said was Venezuelan fungus to help the yeast and told him keep the water warm while the yeast ferments for three days.'

'What did you give him?' I asked.

'The filings from my toe nails.' Miguel chuckled.

'So it's toe nail soup!' I laughed. 'Do you think OzBoz will fall for it? '

'That stuff isn't going to poison them, eh?' Licia asked.

'No,' Miguel said. 'The worst thing that can happen is that they get to taste a fizzy alcoholic, chocolate beverage.'

Licia laughed. 'I'll spread the word around,' she said. 'This ought to be good for weeks of fun. Where did you get that old recipe?'

'I wrote it,' Miguel chuckled. 'I soaked the paper in coffee and used an old ink pen.  Then I dried it in the microwave to make it look old and authentic. I just hope Ozzy persuades Boz to try it.'

Later, I looked around warily before I left the classroom for lunch. I was sure Boz was planning something, like stepping on my foot and I was relieved to see him huddled at the back of the room with Ozzy. They were peering at an empty test tube from the incubator box where Toxic kept her biological experiments.

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On Friday, when everyone else left the classroom, Ozboz remained behind whispering to each other at the back of the classroom. This was oddly out of character, they were normally the first people through the door at the end of a class.

I walked out of the room casually and peeked back through the doorway. Boz had the top off the incubator and was examining a screw capped test tube very carefully. 'You're sure this is the right one?'

Ozzy unscrewed a cap from one of the tubes and sipped. 'Not bad,' but it's a little sour. All of the sugar's been used up.'

Boz opened another tube and they each quickly swallowed the contents of several test tubes.

After a few minutes, Boz asked, 'D'you feel okay? I can still see you.'

'Miguel said if we both drank it,' Ozzy said cheerfully, 'we would still be able to see each other. Anyhoo, I'm getting a nice little buzz. This chocolate booze is good stuff.'

I watched until they sat down unsteadily and then I ran to alert the rest of the class, including Professor Anti Smolkin, that Operation OzBoz was on.

At the end of recess, Licia, Miguel and I were the first to return to our desks. We stifled our chuckles as OzBoz, both grinning like fools, staggered around the room. More students arrived and Myrika asked loudly if anyone had seen Oz. We all shook our heads.

At first Ozboz were silent and carefully avoided bumping into people. Everyone managed not to react even when Boz started gesticulating in people's faces. But, when Boz blew a loud raspberry, Myrika asked, 'Can you smell something bad? It smells like Boz . . . but he is no where insight.'

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Yanomami warriors drilling for border warfare

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