part 15
Perilous Perfume
by Matthew Atanian
©1999 by Matthew Atanian
Perilous Perfume
by Matthew Atanian
©1999 by Matthew Atanian
Another Wednesday had arrived, and it was again time for a Scout Meeting. This was the last meeting before the annual winter event, the Klondike Derby, which was as usual being held up at Moses Scout Reservation.
Matt made his usual stop at Card and Comic on his way to the Scout Meeting, and was surprised (although not entirely so) to see Mike was there, as well.
Mike bought a couple packs of Mirage. Matt returned the Tenchi Muyo! videos he’d rented.
“Hey,” Mike asked the guy behind the counter, “what ever happened to Roy?”
“Roy?” he replied.“Oh, he was just seasonal help, and he wasn’t working out, anyway, so we had to let him go.”
“Oh,” Mike said in understanding. Then he and Matt walked outside.
Mike smelled something in the air. He pointed it out to Matt.
“Is that...?” Mike started.
“Pizza?” Matt said, finishing the question.
They both turned to look at the Pizza place next to Card and Comic. It had been closed for a while, but now seemed to be reopened.
Matt pulled out his pocket watch and glanced at it. “Time for a slice before the meeting, I believe,” he said.
“I do believe you’re right,” Mike added.
The two of them headed into the pizza shop. As they entered, the smell of pizza intensified and made their mouth begin to salivate in anticipation. They could hear someone moving about in the kitchen and went up to the counter to wait.
“Nihao!” a familiar voice said as a familiar person exited the kitchen. “Welcome to... Is you!”
“Oh, hi Perfume,”Matt said.
“Hi,” Mike added.
Clearly, the two were not particularly worried about being in the same room as a woman who wanted them dead.
“What you two want?”she asked.
“A slice of pepperoni,” Matt said.
“Make mine cheese,”Mike said.
“No pizza now,” she told them. “Closed.”
“Your door was unlocked,” Mike said. “We just want a slice of pizza.”
Perry took out a sharp kitchen knife. “We’re closed. Perfume have to get ready for Scout meeting,” she said.
At the sight of the knife, Matt and Mike became a little less unworried. “Um, fine. Okay,” Mike said as he and Matt made a hasty exit.
Once outside, the two of them turned and looked at the sign over the pizza shop. They noticed that the old sign that said “Bruno’s Pizza” was gone, replaced by one saying,“Perfume’s Pizza.”
“Well,” Mike said, “I guess she’s staying a while.”
“You know, Mike, I think you’re right.”
“This could get interesting,” Mike commented.
Matt sighed. “This could get ugly.”
The meeting progressed much as usual. Becker said, “WHAT!?” Kenny was quiet. Matt Swett said something sarcastic. Matt Atanian gazed longingly at Sarah Porter. Aaron chatted with Kirstin Porter. Will Shmuler was making an annoying little ass of himself. Bill Hughes fell down some stairs. Justy barked at everyone. Everyone except Proctor ignored Justy. Everyone told Bill Gelinas to shut up.
One little detail that was different was that this week Perry had a scout uniform.
At the close of the meeting was one part that most everyone dreaded, the SPL’s announcements and decrees.
“As all of you worthless little worms know,” Justy was saying, “we have a new member in out midst, Peon #18, Perry!”
Perry glared at Justy. “Perry is not Peon! Is amazon warrior!”
“Be quiet!” Justy exclaimed, spittle flying from his mouth. “How dare you be insolent!”
“You tell him, Captain!” Proctor said.
“You be quiet, I’m talking.”
“Yes, Captain!”
“And as for you, Peon #18, there’s only one place for insolent little worms like you.”
Mike, Aaron, the Bills, Becker, and Swett all had a bad feeling they knew what was coming next.
“Yes, you can join the Garden Snake Patrol.”
And then Justy treated the troop to some of his trademark maniacal laughter.
It was early Friday afternoon when Dan Wellington arrived at camp. The Klondike Derby was a one-day event, so Dan was quite early. In fact, he was the first to arrive. He knew he wouldn’t be alone for long. He was sure that some other staff members would show up early to set up, and some troops were known to rent cabins and make a weekend of it.
He was hiking up the camp’s recently ploughed main road, heading towards Cabin II where much of the staff was staying, when he heard a rather loud noise behind him. Perhaps loud was an understatement; it was louder then any explosions Dan had ever caused. However, unlike an explosion, this noise wasn’t momentary. It was continuous, and it was getting louder.
He turned, and immediately spotted the source of the noise. It was a car, an older Toyota by the looks of it. It was brown in colour, or maybe burgundy, and a thick plume of black smoke constantly poured out of its tailpipe. It looked to have seen better days. In fact, the only car that Dan had ever seen that was worse off was his own.
The car drew closer and pulled to a stop. The occupant rolled down the window and stuck his head out. “Hi,” he said. “Dude, do you know where Cabin II is?”
“Sure,” Dan responded. “It’s up the road a bit.”
“Wanna lift?”
Dan shrugged a half-hearted affirmative. The man got out of the car, and opened the trunk for Dan to deposit his gear. He seemed an average person, perhaps a little built up and a little hairy, but other then that nothing remarkable.
A moment later, they were on their way again. Dan was somewhat surprised by the dice hanging on the mirror. They weren’t the fuzzy type. Instead, they looked rather like the dice from the Hellraiser movies.
“I’m Dan, by the way. And you are?”
“I’m Richard Palmer. I solve problems.”
Dan arched an eyebrow. “Problems?”
“Yeah. I heard you people were putting on some kind of camp thing, and were short a guy, so I thought I’d come on over and help out.”
“Ah.” Dan pulled a thermos from his pocket. “Coffee?”
“Hell, yeah,” Richard responded.
Dan unscrewed the cap and poured some of the hot, black liquid into it. He handed it to Richard. “How do you take it?” he asked, joking of course, as he had nothing to put in it.
“Lotsa cream, lotsa sugar,” he responded regardless. Even without the requested additives, however, he immediately took a sip. He looked at Dan with surprise. “Damn it, Danny, this is some serious gourmet shit. I’d have been satisfied with some freeze dried Taster’s Choice, right? And you spring this serous gourmet shit on me!”
Dan just stared back at Richard for a moment, unsure what to say. “So, um,” he finely said,“where’re you from?” He took a sip from the thermos.
“Colorado. Quite a drive to get all the way here to Moses.”
Dan spit out the coffee in shock. “Colorado?”
Richard looked at the coffee that had been sprayed over his dashboard. He turned to Dan. “Why’d you have to do that? You just do not fuck with another man’s automobile.”
“Are you saying that you drove all the way here from Colorado just to help out at our Klondike Derby?” Dan asked, shocked.
“If my answers frighten you, my friend, then you should cease asking scary questions.”
Dan was about to reply when he noticed they were near their destination. “Pull up to this building on the left. This is as far as we can go by car. Cabin II’s just a short walk further.”
Richard parked his car in front of the Training Lodge. It gave off a loud cough as he turned it off. The two unpacked their gear and headed towards the cabin.
There was something about this guy that Dan found somewhat disturbing, and it put him off balance. Dan didn’t like to be off balance. “So, uh, Richard. Or do you like Rick?”
“Why do we feel it necessary to yak about bullshit in order to be comfortable?” Richard suddenly asked. “That’s when you know you’ve found somebody really special, when you can just shut the fuck up for a minute and comfortably share silence.”
Dan shrugged and they continued their trek through the snow. He regarded Richard, studying his back carefully, trying to discern exactly what he was dealing with here.
Without turning, Richard said, “Don’t be looking at me like that, all right? I can feel your look.”
They walked the rest of the way to Cabin II in silence.
They got there a few minutes longer, and Dan walked up the few steeps and opened the door. He threw his gear inside and turned to Richard. Richard had put his gear down on the steeps and was walking around a clearing by the side of the cabin, seemingly examining the spot.
“Hey,” Dan said.“Aren’t you going to pick out a bunk?”
“Hell, no. I’m staying in a quince.”
“Quince? What’s that?”
“It’s a shelter made out of snow.”
"Snow? Why are you going to do a stupid thing like that when there’s a perfectly good cabin right here?"
“Now I’m definitely not going to tell you, because it’s been built up too much.”
Dan turned away, and walked back into the cabin, closing the door behind himself.
Snow, Dan thought. The man lives in snow. He began unpacking, beginning with the essentials. Lighter fluid. Kerosene. Gasoline. Snow is cold. Not like fire. Fire is hot.Propane. Strike-anywhere matches. A dozen plastic disposable lighters. Fire melts snow, so it is stronger then snow. Why would he want to live in snow?A tank of jet fuel. A small bottle of nitro-glycerine. But, when snow melts, it turns into water. Water puts out fire!!!
“Snow is cold and wet. Snow is the opposite of fire,” Dan slowly said. “However, this man worships snow! He in unholy.” Dan paused briefly, as he regarded the items he had just unpacked. “He must be destroyed.”
The members of the Garden Snake Patrol (except for Will Shmuler) along with Matt Atanian had decided to stop for dinner before meeting up with the rest of the Troop at the Church. The restaurant they had chosen was none other then Perfume’s Pizza.
She had locked the door and they were her last customers of the day. After all, she was going with them this weekend, although only five of the patrol’s seven other present members were aware of this. Rather, only five of them (six, if you included Matt Atanian) knew that she and their new patrol member Perry were one and the same.
The two that didn’t know, Matt Swett and Jon Becker, were at least aware of the fact that Perfume wanted to kill Matt, Mike, Aaron, and the Bills. Thus, they were a bit confused as to why they had chosen this particular restaurant. “I know when I go out for Pizza,” Swett had said, “I like not to die.”
“Not to worry,” Matt had assured him.
Perfume brought their pizza over and set it down on the table. It was a large, half pepperoni and half plain cheese. (Mike wasn’t a fan of many toppings.)
“This smells good,”Aaron commented.
“One thing confuses me,” Billy said. “How did you learn to make pizza when you come from a rustic Chinese village? Is pizza really that big in China?”
“SHUT UP BILL!!!” the others all chorused.
“One thing confuse me,” Perfume then said. “Why you come here for pizza? You not afraid Perfume might poison it?”
“Not worried at all,”Matt said.
“Why you no worried?”Perfume demanded.
Matt nodded to Kenny. Kenny then pulled his backpack from under the table, and extracted from it his now infamous large, ancient Chinese book. He flipped through it, stopping at a specific page from which he read. “It is a further dishonourable for an Amazon warrior to use underhanded means in attempts to kill one who has dishonoured her. An example of such means would be poisoning food one is serving to the target when the target is a guest of the dishonoured one.”
Matt brought the first slice up to his mouth, confident that it would be perfectly safe to eat. His teeth came closer and closer together, and he was just about to sample his first bite of the delectable pie when the slice was snatched from his grasp.
Perfume threw the slice back in with the rest of the pizza and ran off into the kitchen carrying it with her. “Perfume cook this one wrong. Bad toppings. Be back soon with good pizza!”
“WHAT?” Becker shouted. “WHERE’D SHE GO WITH OUR PIZZA?”
“Something tells me that she needs to study up on her own laws a bit more,” Hughes commented. “Eh, Matt?”
Hughes paused for a response but none was forthcoming. “Matt?” he asked. He turned to Matt with concern, as did the others.
“Hello? Matt?” Aaron asked.
Matt was sitting there, perfectly still, hand still poised before his face as if it was holding a piece of pizza. His mouth was still just slightly ajar, ready to take that first bite.
“I think he’s stunned,” Mike observed.
An hour or so later, the Garden Snake Patrol arrived at the church. They had arrived at exactly the time that they were supposed to arrive. Predictably, no one else in the Troop had shown up yet.
Two hours later the crickets were chirping up quite a storm. Night had fallen with a vengeance. Being winter, night was not the warmest time of day. Luckily, being Boy Scouts, the Garden Snake Patrol was prepared for this.
Finely, some of the other members of the Troop started arriving, none of them making any acknowledgement or apology for their tardiness. The very last to arrive was Scoutmaster Schmuler and his son Will. The Scoutmaster was as usual dressed in a wrinkled uniform shirt with no insignia on it and a worn old pair of jeans.
“Everyone ready to go camping?” Shmuler asked with stupid enthusiasm.
“Been ready for hours,” Swett muttered.
“Really?” Justy said, appearing from nowhere like a bad penny and looming over the Garden Snake Patrol. “Well, then, if you’re so ready,” he said, waving his stick at them, “why don’t you load all of the gear? Bwa ha ha ha ha hahahahAHAHAHAHAHahahaha!!!!!”
Justy tucked his stick under his arm and wandered away, still laughing. Proctor said to them,“Well you heard the Captain, get going!” before following Justy away.
The members of the Garden Snake patrol (except Shmuler, who was burrowing into the snow while exclaiming, “Help! I’m melting!”) gave off a collective sigh as they began to load the gear into the trailer. Even Perry sighed.
“Perry kill him, too,” Perry muttered, glaring at Justy.
“That one we’d like to help you with,” Mike quipped, although unlike Perry he was only joking. Maim, maybe, but never kill.
“So, fearless leader,” Hughes asked, “what’s the general plan for this weekend?”
“Well,” Mike responded, “we get up to camp, hopefully sometime before midnight, and tomorrow we try our best to win the events at the Klondike. I especially have high hopes for the sled race.”
“Why?” Aaron asked.
“Oh, that’s right, you weren’t there,” Mike said to Aaron. “Well, Kenny whipped up a little something that might help us, but let’s not get into that now.” He grabbed a camp stove from Hughes and handed it off to Aaron, who in turn handed it off down the line to the trailer.
Soon they were finished packing and on the road.
It was late when they finely arrived at Moses. Troop 192 was staying in Cabin I, which was a short hike off of the camp’s main road.
They had gotten all of their gear unstowed and they had all gotten their bunks set up. There wasn’t much left to do after that, and when Matt, Mike, and Aaron found themselves bored, they decided to go for a walk.
It was a cold evening, yet they didn’t seem uncomfortable. “Been a while since we’ve all been up here,” Aaron commented.
“Last time was the Fall Ordeal weekend, and before that Summer Camp,” Mike remembered.
“Now that was an interesting week of camp,” Matt remarked.
They heard the crunching sound of footsteps in the snow and looked over towards the parade field. Colin Pekruhn was approaching, and they slowed down to allow him to catch up.
“Colin, hi,” Matt said.
“Hey. What’s up?” he responded.
“Not much. You up here on staff this weekend?”
“Yeah. Me and Dan are running an event tomorrow.”
“Where is Dan?” Matt asked.
“Good question. Last time I saw him, he was fiddling around with something that looked like silly putty.”
“Knowing Dan it’s probably C-4 or something,” Aaron deadpanned.
“Come on now, I know he’s crazy, but I doubt he’s that crazy,” Matt said.
Off in the distance, they heard a small explosion.
They stood in shock. They stared at each other for a moment.
They scratched their heads.
“Nah,” they all said in unison. “Couldn’t be...”
Dan sat in a newly formed clearing somewhere near Cabin III. He was covered in soot, and his hair stood on end. He began to chuckle softly as he gathered his things and headed back.
Matt made his usual stop at Card and Comic on his way to the Scout Meeting, and was surprised (although not entirely so) to see Mike was there, as well.
Mike bought a couple packs of Mirage. Matt returned the Tenchi Muyo! videos he’d rented.
“Hey,” Mike asked the guy behind the counter, “what ever happened to Roy?”
“Roy?” he replied.“Oh, he was just seasonal help, and he wasn’t working out, anyway, so we had to let him go.”
“Oh,” Mike said in understanding. Then he and Matt walked outside.
Mike smelled something in the air. He pointed it out to Matt.
“Is that...?” Mike started.
“Pizza?” Matt said, finishing the question.
They both turned to look at the Pizza place next to Card and Comic. It had been closed for a while, but now seemed to be reopened.
Matt pulled out his pocket watch and glanced at it. “Time for a slice before the meeting, I believe,” he said.
“I do believe you’re right,” Mike added.
The two of them headed into the pizza shop. As they entered, the smell of pizza intensified and made their mouth begin to salivate in anticipation. They could hear someone moving about in the kitchen and went up to the counter to wait.
“Nihao!” a familiar voice said as a familiar person exited the kitchen. “Welcome to... Is you!”
“Oh, hi Perfume,”Matt said.
“Hi,” Mike added.
Clearly, the two were not particularly worried about being in the same room as a woman who wanted them dead.
“What you two want?”she asked.
“A slice of pepperoni,” Matt said.
“Make mine cheese,”Mike said.
“No pizza now,” she told them. “Closed.”
“Your door was unlocked,” Mike said. “We just want a slice of pizza.”
Perry took out a sharp kitchen knife. “We’re closed. Perfume have to get ready for Scout meeting,” she said.
At the sight of the knife, Matt and Mike became a little less unworried. “Um, fine. Okay,” Mike said as he and Matt made a hasty exit.
Once outside, the two of them turned and looked at the sign over the pizza shop. They noticed that the old sign that said “Bruno’s Pizza” was gone, replaced by one saying,“Perfume’s Pizza.”
“Well,” Mike said, “I guess she’s staying a while.”
“You know, Mike, I think you’re right.”
“This could get interesting,” Mike commented.
Matt sighed. “This could get ugly.”
The meeting progressed much as usual. Becker said, “WHAT!?” Kenny was quiet. Matt Swett said something sarcastic. Matt Atanian gazed longingly at Sarah Porter. Aaron chatted with Kirstin Porter. Will Shmuler was making an annoying little ass of himself. Bill Hughes fell down some stairs. Justy barked at everyone. Everyone except Proctor ignored Justy. Everyone told Bill Gelinas to shut up.
One little detail that was different was that this week Perry had a scout uniform.
At the close of the meeting was one part that most everyone dreaded, the SPL’s announcements and decrees.
“As all of you worthless little worms know,” Justy was saying, “we have a new member in out midst, Peon #18, Perry!”
Perry glared at Justy. “Perry is not Peon! Is amazon warrior!”
“Be quiet!” Justy exclaimed, spittle flying from his mouth. “How dare you be insolent!”
“You tell him, Captain!” Proctor said.
“You be quiet, I’m talking.”
“Yes, Captain!”
“And as for you, Peon #18, there’s only one place for insolent little worms like you.”
Mike, Aaron, the Bills, Becker, and Swett all had a bad feeling they knew what was coming next.
“Yes, you can join the Garden Snake Patrol.”
And then Justy treated the troop to some of his trademark maniacal laughter.
It was early Friday afternoon when Dan Wellington arrived at camp. The Klondike Derby was a one-day event, so Dan was quite early. In fact, he was the first to arrive. He knew he wouldn’t be alone for long. He was sure that some other staff members would show up early to set up, and some troops were known to rent cabins and make a weekend of it.
He was hiking up the camp’s recently ploughed main road, heading towards Cabin II where much of the staff was staying, when he heard a rather loud noise behind him. Perhaps loud was an understatement; it was louder then any explosions Dan had ever caused. However, unlike an explosion, this noise wasn’t momentary. It was continuous, and it was getting louder.
He turned, and immediately spotted the source of the noise. It was a car, an older Toyota by the looks of it. It was brown in colour, or maybe burgundy, and a thick plume of black smoke constantly poured out of its tailpipe. It looked to have seen better days. In fact, the only car that Dan had ever seen that was worse off was his own.
The car drew closer and pulled to a stop. The occupant rolled down the window and stuck his head out. “Hi,” he said. “Dude, do you know where Cabin II is?”
“Sure,” Dan responded. “It’s up the road a bit.”
“Wanna lift?”
Dan shrugged a half-hearted affirmative. The man got out of the car, and opened the trunk for Dan to deposit his gear. He seemed an average person, perhaps a little built up and a little hairy, but other then that nothing remarkable.
A moment later, they were on their way again. Dan was somewhat surprised by the dice hanging on the mirror. They weren’t the fuzzy type. Instead, they looked rather like the dice from the Hellraiser movies.
“I’m Dan, by the way. And you are?”
“I’m Richard Palmer. I solve problems.”
Dan arched an eyebrow. “Problems?”
“Yeah. I heard you people were putting on some kind of camp thing, and were short a guy, so I thought I’d come on over and help out.”
“Ah.” Dan pulled a thermos from his pocket. “Coffee?”
“Hell, yeah,” Richard responded.
Dan unscrewed the cap and poured some of the hot, black liquid into it. He handed it to Richard. “How do you take it?” he asked, joking of course, as he had nothing to put in it.
“Lotsa cream, lotsa sugar,” he responded regardless. Even without the requested additives, however, he immediately took a sip. He looked at Dan with surprise. “Damn it, Danny, this is some serious gourmet shit. I’d have been satisfied with some freeze dried Taster’s Choice, right? And you spring this serous gourmet shit on me!”
Dan just stared back at Richard for a moment, unsure what to say. “So, um,” he finely said,“where’re you from?” He took a sip from the thermos.
“Colorado. Quite a drive to get all the way here to Moses.”
Dan spit out the coffee in shock. “Colorado?”
Richard looked at the coffee that had been sprayed over his dashboard. He turned to Dan. “Why’d you have to do that? You just do not fuck with another man’s automobile.”
“Are you saying that you drove all the way here from Colorado just to help out at our Klondike Derby?” Dan asked, shocked.
“If my answers frighten you, my friend, then you should cease asking scary questions.”
Dan was about to reply when he noticed they were near their destination. “Pull up to this building on the left. This is as far as we can go by car. Cabin II’s just a short walk further.”
Richard parked his car in front of the Training Lodge. It gave off a loud cough as he turned it off. The two unpacked their gear and headed towards the cabin.
There was something about this guy that Dan found somewhat disturbing, and it put him off balance. Dan didn’t like to be off balance. “So, uh, Richard. Or do you like Rick?”
“Why do we feel it necessary to yak about bullshit in order to be comfortable?” Richard suddenly asked. “That’s when you know you’ve found somebody really special, when you can just shut the fuck up for a minute and comfortably share silence.”
Dan shrugged and they continued their trek through the snow. He regarded Richard, studying his back carefully, trying to discern exactly what he was dealing with here.
Without turning, Richard said, “Don’t be looking at me like that, all right? I can feel your look.”
They walked the rest of the way to Cabin II in silence.
They got there a few minutes longer, and Dan walked up the few steeps and opened the door. He threw his gear inside and turned to Richard. Richard had put his gear down on the steeps and was walking around a clearing by the side of the cabin, seemingly examining the spot.
“Hey,” Dan said.“Aren’t you going to pick out a bunk?”
“Hell, no. I’m staying in a quince.”
“Quince? What’s that?”
“It’s a shelter made out of snow.”
"Snow? Why are you going to do a stupid thing like that when there’s a perfectly good cabin right here?"
“Now I’m definitely not going to tell you, because it’s been built up too much.”
Dan turned away, and walked back into the cabin, closing the door behind himself.
Snow, Dan thought. The man lives in snow. He began unpacking, beginning with the essentials. Lighter fluid. Kerosene. Gasoline. Snow is cold. Not like fire. Fire is hot.Propane. Strike-anywhere matches. A dozen plastic disposable lighters. Fire melts snow, so it is stronger then snow. Why would he want to live in snow?A tank of jet fuel. A small bottle of nitro-glycerine. But, when snow melts, it turns into water. Water puts out fire!!!
“Snow is cold and wet. Snow is the opposite of fire,” Dan slowly said. “However, this man worships snow! He in unholy.” Dan paused briefly, as he regarded the items he had just unpacked. “He must be destroyed.”
The members of the Garden Snake Patrol (except for Will Shmuler) along with Matt Atanian had decided to stop for dinner before meeting up with the rest of the Troop at the Church. The restaurant they had chosen was none other then Perfume’s Pizza.
She had locked the door and they were her last customers of the day. After all, she was going with them this weekend, although only five of the patrol’s seven other present members were aware of this. Rather, only five of them (six, if you included Matt Atanian) knew that she and their new patrol member Perry were one and the same.
The two that didn’t know, Matt Swett and Jon Becker, were at least aware of the fact that Perfume wanted to kill Matt, Mike, Aaron, and the Bills. Thus, they were a bit confused as to why they had chosen this particular restaurant. “I know when I go out for Pizza,” Swett had said, “I like not to die.”
“Not to worry,” Matt had assured him.
Perfume brought their pizza over and set it down on the table. It was a large, half pepperoni and half plain cheese. (Mike wasn’t a fan of many toppings.)
“This smells good,”Aaron commented.
“One thing confuses me,” Billy said. “How did you learn to make pizza when you come from a rustic Chinese village? Is pizza really that big in China?”
“SHUT UP BILL!!!” the others all chorused.
“One thing confuse me,” Perfume then said. “Why you come here for pizza? You not afraid Perfume might poison it?”
“Not worried at all,”Matt said.
“Why you no worried?”Perfume demanded.
Matt nodded to Kenny. Kenny then pulled his backpack from under the table, and extracted from it his now infamous large, ancient Chinese book. He flipped through it, stopping at a specific page from which he read. “It is a further dishonourable for an Amazon warrior to use underhanded means in attempts to kill one who has dishonoured her. An example of such means would be poisoning food one is serving to the target when the target is a guest of the dishonoured one.”
Matt brought the first slice up to his mouth, confident that it would be perfectly safe to eat. His teeth came closer and closer together, and he was just about to sample his first bite of the delectable pie when the slice was snatched from his grasp.
Perfume threw the slice back in with the rest of the pizza and ran off into the kitchen carrying it with her. “Perfume cook this one wrong. Bad toppings. Be back soon with good pizza!”
“WHAT?” Becker shouted. “WHERE’D SHE GO WITH OUR PIZZA?”
“Something tells me that she needs to study up on her own laws a bit more,” Hughes commented. “Eh, Matt?”
Hughes paused for a response but none was forthcoming. “Matt?” he asked. He turned to Matt with concern, as did the others.
“Hello? Matt?” Aaron asked.
Matt was sitting there, perfectly still, hand still poised before his face as if it was holding a piece of pizza. His mouth was still just slightly ajar, ready to take that first bite.
“I think he’s stunned,” Mike observed.
An hour or so later, the Garden Snake Patrol arrived at the church. They had arrived at exactly the time that they were supposed to arrive. Predictably, no one else in the Troop had shown up yet.
Two hours later the crickets were chirping up quite a storm. Night had fallen with a vengeance. Being winter, night was not the warmest time of day. Luckily, being Boy Scouts, the Garden Snake Patrol was prepared for this.
Finely, some of the other members of the Troop started arriving, none of them making any acknowledgement or apology for their tardiness. The very last to arrive was Scoutmaster Schmuler and his son Will. The Scoutmaster was as usual dressed in a wrinkled uniform shirt with no insignia on it and a worn old pair of jeans.
“Everyone ready to go camping?” Shmuler asked with stupid enthusiasm.
“Been ready for hours,” Swett muttered.
“Really?” Justy said, appearing from nowhere like a bad penny and looming over the Garden Snake Patrol. “Well, then, if you’re so ready,” he said, waving his stick at them, “why don’t you load all of the gear? Bwa ha ha ha ha hahahahAHAHAHAHAHahahaha!!!!!”
Justy tucked his stick under his arm and wandered away, still laughing. Proctor said to them,“Well you heard the Captain, get going!” before following Justy away.
The members of the Garden Snake patrol (except Shmuler, who was burrowing into the snow while exclaiming, “Help! I’m melting!”) gave off a collective sigh as they began to load the gear into the trailer. Even Perry sighed.
“Perry kill him, too,” Perry muttered, glaring at Justy.
“That one we’d like to help you with,” Mike quipped, although unlike Perry he was only joking. Maim, maybe, but never kill.
“So, fearless leader,” Hughes asked, “what’s the general plan for this weekend?”
“Well,” Mike responded, “we get up to camp, hopefully sometime before midnight, and tomorrow we try our best to win the events at the Klondike. I especially have high hopes for the sled race.”
“Why?” Aaron asked.
“Oh, that’s right, you weren’t there,” Mike said to Aaron. “Well, Kenny whipped up a little something that might help us, but let’s not get into that now.” He grabbed a camp stove from Hughes and handed it off to Aaron, who in turn handed it off down the line to the trailer.
Soon they were finished packing and on the road.
It was late when they finely arrived at Moses. Troop 192 was staying in Cabin I, which was a short hike off of the camp’s main road.
They had gotten all of their gear unstowed and they had all gotten their bunks set up. There wasn’t much left to do after that, and when Matt, Mike, and Aaron found themselves bored, they decided to go for a walk.
It was a cold evening, yet they didn’t seem uncomfortable. “Been a while since we’ve all been up here,” Aaron commented.
“Last time was the Fall Ordeal weekend, and before that Summer Camp,” Mike remembered.
“Now that was an interesting week of camp,” Matt remarked.
They heard the crunching sound of footsteps in the snow and looked over towards the parade field. Colin Pekruhn was approaching, and they slowed down to allow him to catch up.
“Colin, hi,” Matt said.
“Hey. What’s up?” he responded.
“Not much. You up here on staff this weekend?”
“Yeah. Me and Dan are running an event tomorrow.”
“Where is Dan?” Matt asked.
“Good question. Last time I saw him, he was fiddling around with something that looked like silly putty.”
“Knowing Dan it’s probably C-4 or something,” Aaron deadpanned.
“Come on now, I know he’s crazy, but I doubt he’s that crazy,” Matt said.
Off in the distance, they heard a small explosion.
They stood in shock. They stared at each other for a moment.
They scratched their heads.
“Nah,” they all said in unison. “Couldn’t be...”
Dan sat in a newly formed clearing somewhere near Cabin III. He was covered in soot, and his hair stood on end. He began to chuckle softly as he gathered his things and headed back.
Disclaimer
Once again, Jusenkyo curses are borrowed without permission from Ranma ½.Also, this story is not at all endorsed by the Boy Scouts of America, and if they ever found out about these stories they’d yell at me for keeping this bad“If they ever found out about these stories” joke going for as long as I have.
Also, as per usual, some members of Troop 192 are based on real persons, some of those are exaggerated for humorous effect, and some of ‘em are just completely fictitious, anyway, so get off my back!!!
Lastly, the character of Richard Palmer is based off of the real life Richard Palmer, winner of the Boy Scouts ½Website First Anniversary Contest.
Also, as per usual, some members of Troop 192 are based on real persons, some of those are exaggerated for humorous effect, and some of ‘em are just completely fictitious, anyway, so get off my back!!!
Lastly, the character of Richard Palmer is based off of the real life Richard Palmer, winner of the Boy Scouts ½Website First Anniversary Contest.