Free The Worst Class Trip Ever by Dave Barry

saw me set the sack down next to the trash can. Then we saw me walking toward the
bench and stopping behind it. Victor was right: We could still see part of the trash can at the very left-hand edge of the screen. We saw a couple of skate-boarders go past, then the lady with the
stroller. When the lady got to the trash can, she stopped for a second and bent over. We couldn’t see what she did. But it wasn’t hard to figure out.
    “The lady took it?” said Cameron.
    “Back up,” Suzana said to Victor. “And zoom in on her face.”
    He did, but we couldn’t see much, because the face was almost totally covered by a bunch of brown hair.
    “I think that’s a wig,” said Suzana.
    I was getting a bad feeling.
    “Back up some more,” I said. “Okay, stop there. Now zoom in on her feet.”
    “Her feet?’ said Victor.
    “Yeah.”
    “Okay,” said Victor, zooming.
    And there they were.
    The purple Crocs.
    “It’s him,” I said. “The little weird guy.”
    “So,” said Victor. “Now they have Matt
and
the box.”
    Nobody said anything for a few seconds. Then Cameron said, “They’re smarter than we are.”
    “Shut up,” said Suzana.
    I said, “Now we have to call the police.”
    Nobody argued. I raised my phone to call 911. I tapped 9, then 1, and then…
    And then my phone burped.
    We all crowded in to read the text.
    if u cal polic u nevr se frend agan
    “They really can’t spell,” said Cameron.
    “Shut up,” said everybody else.
    “Ask them how we can trust them,” said Suzana.
    I typed:
    y shud we beleive u?
    We waited.
    u hav no chos
    “Chos?” said Cameron.
    “Choice,” said Suzana.
    “They have a point,” said Victor.
    I was about to ask what I should text back, but before I could my phone burped again.
    we giv frend bak 2 days IF NO POLIC
    “I don’t trust them,” said Suzana. “Tell them we want proof Matt’s okay.”
    I texted:
    we want proof our friend is ok
    We all stared at the screen. I don’t think I was breathing. Thirty seconds went by, then,
burp
:
    look @ stret
    “Stret?” said Cameron.
    “Street, maybe?” I said.
    A horn honked three times.
    We looked over at the street.
    “There,” said Victor. “On the other side.”
    A silver minivan was stopped at the curb. The front driver’s side window was down. The little guy was at the wheel, holding a phone, watching us. He’d taken the wig off. When he saw
us look his way, he said something. The rear window slid down.
    And there was Matt. He looked terrified.
    I could see the big guy right next to him in the backseat.
    I waved at Matt. He didn’t wave back. The window went back up, hiding his face.
    The minivan started moving. In a few seconds it was gone.
    “What do we do now?” I said.
“What do we do?”
    “Right now,” said Victor, “we have to get back to the class trip.”
    Suzana looked at her phone. “Oh, man,” she said. “We gotta hurry.”
    We started running. I felt weird, like my brain was spinning around. I wasn’t looking where I was going. I kept thinking about Matt’s face. I stumbled over something and almost fell.
Suzana caught my arm and held me up.
    “Thanks,” I said.
    “Don’t worry,” she said. “Matt’ll be okay.”
    “We don’t know that,” I said.
    “We’ll figure this out,” she said. “We’ll think of something. But right now, we have to get back, so focus on that, okay?”
    “Okay,” I said. But all I could think about was what Cameron said.
    They’re smarter than we are.

W e made it back to the Smithsonian just in time and slipped in with the rest of the group in the gift shop. From there we went outside to a park
and the teachers gave us box lunches containing sandwiches made from some meat that nobody could definitely identify, although one kid who moved to Miami from West Virginia swore, and I don’t
think he was kidding, that it was squirrel. I gave mine to Cameron. Even if it had real food, I couldn’t have eaten it. My stomach was a mess.
    We