The Worst Class Trip Ever: Chapters 6–16

The door banged open and Cameron staggered backward as the big guy, wearing the hat and overcoat, shoved him into the room.

He emphasized those last three words by pounding the wall right next to my head, BANG, BANG, BANG.

“My dad’s an intelligence analyst with the Southern Command,” he said.

I got dressed and ran downstairs to the dining room and got on the end of the line for the buffet, which featured scrambled eggs from like 1950.

I was keeping an eye on Suzana, who was slowly drifting back farther and farther from the front of the group, pretending to be fascinated by museum stuff we were passing.

It took me a couple of minutes to reach the Boy Scout statue, which was on a big stone pedestal next to a round water pool that didn’t have any water in it.

This particular giant stone building was the National Archives, which is where they have the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and a bunch of other historic important things.

We didn’t have much time when we got back to the hotel, because we had to get ready to walk to dinner, which was at an allegedly Italian restaurant near the hotel.

Suzana looked at him, and I could tell what she wanted to say, which was something like, We’d really rather you didn’t go, because you’re kind of an idiot and a lot of the time you smell like a badly maintained public restroom.

Suzana veered down a street to the right.

What I said was, “What kind of diversion?”
“Like we pound on the front door, make some noise out there. While they’re checking to see what it is, we sneak in and let Matt out of the basement.”

You know how, in like every horror movie, there’s a scene where the people who are about to get hacked apart by a chain saw maniac or turned into human lobsters in the secret basement laboratory come to a creepy house, and everybody watching the movie is thinking DON’T GO INTO THAT HOUSE YOU IDIOTS but they always do anyway?

We pondered the weirdness for a few more seconds, then Suzana said, “Okay, let’s see how we get inside.”

Sweat was trickling into my eyes and I don’t think I was breathing at all.

It was insane to be deliberately trying to wake up a pair of crazy guys who…
BANG

We followed Suzana, running to the door at the back of the house. It was also locked, but it was the kind of lock you could open without a key, just by turning a knob. Suzana fumbled with it.

“Texting from your phone.”
And right on cue my phone rang.

Many villages pride themselves on creating large, elaborate kites which are entered in regional and national competitions.

“You don’t think they’ll notice a couple of weird guys lurking around there with a giant dragon kite?”

“The main thing now is, we should try to get some sleep. It’s really late, and we’re going to be busy tomorrow.”
Which turned out to be the understatement of the year.

We were all too tired to care about the fact that the entire eighth grade was now openly speculating on how it could be possible that Suzana Delgado, goddess, seemed to be voluntarily spending all her time with the Dork Patrol.

“Won’t they eventually notice we’re not on the Capitol tour?” said Matt.

After the movie we got an official guide, who led us up some stairs into the Rotunda, which is the inside of the big dome of the Capitol.

None of us—not even Suzana—had ever actually hailed a taxi before. We stood on the sidewalk and kind of waved our arms randomly at every taxi we saw, but none of them stopped.

Victor, Suzana, and I scrambled out of the backseat.