The Worst Class Trip Ever by Dave Barry Page A

looked at me.
    “Suzana and I saw it tonight,” I said. “The dragon head.”
    “Where?”
    “At the house where they were keeping Matt. In the backyard. Attached to a dragon.”
    “What?”
said Victor.
    “Yeah,” said Suzana. “There’s this giant weird dragon made of nylon or something.”
    “Why would they have a dragon?” I said.
    “Maybe they’re going to use it in one of those Chinese parades,” Matt said. “You know, where a bunch of people march inside a giant dragon puppet.”
    “Oh yeah, I’ve seen those,” I said. “Hey, maybe that’s how they’re planning to attack the White House!”
    “Yeah, right,” said Suzana. “Because the Secret Service would
totally
let a giant dragon puppet with people under it march right up to the White House.”
    It did sound pretty stupid when she put it that way.
    Victor was staring at us.
    “Is it heavy?” he said.
    “Is what heavy?” I said.
    “The dragon. Did you try to lift it?”
    “Actually, I did, a little,” I said. “It’s not heavy at all. In fact it’s really light.”
    “Why does that matter?” said Suzana.
    Instead of answering, Victor tapped his computer for a few seconds. Then he said, “Okay, this is from the Wikipedia article on Gadakistan: ‘Among the most popular traditional
activities are kite-building and kite-flying. Many villages pride themselves on creating large, elaborate kites which are entered in regional and national competitions.’” He looked up
at us. “I bet the dragon is a kite.”
    “It’s pretty big,” said Suzana.
    “Kites can be big,” said Victor.
    “Wait a minute,” said Matt. “You think they’re going to attack the
White House
with a
kite
?”
    “I think it’s possible,” said Victor.
    “But this is the
White House
,” said Matt. “You don’t think they’ll notice a couple of weird guys lurking around there with a giant dragon kite?”
    “Maybe not,” said Victor, “if there’s a whole bunch of
other
big kites around.”
    We all looked at him. I snapped my fingers.
    “When we went by the Washington Monument,” I said. “Those guys were flying those big kites.”
    “Right,” said Victor. “Gene said there was going to be a big kite festival on the Ellipse. It’s right next to the White House.”
    Suzana said, “Okay, but how much damage can they do with a kite? Even a big one?”
    “A lot,” said Victor. “If it’s carrying a bomb.”
    “It could carry a bomb?”
    “I bet it could,” I said. “One of the kites we saw near the Washington Monument lifted a guy off the ground.”
    “So that’s their plan,” said Suzana. “They’re going to use their dragon kite to bomb the White House.”
    “I think it makes sense,” said Victor.
    “So we tell somebody this, right?” said Matt. “Like the Secret Service?”
    “Wrong,” said Suzana. “First of all, I don’t think the Secret Service would take us seriously. I bet people are always calling them and making crazy threats.
They’re not going to believe some kids with a story about a kite. And secondly, we can’t risk having those guys hurt Cameron.”
    “So what do we do?” I said.
    “We stop them,” she said. “We know what they plan to do, and we know when they plan to do it.”
    “Maybe,” said Victor. “But even if we’re right, how do we stop them?”
    I knew exactly what Suzana was going to say, and I was exactly right.
    “We’ll figure that out when we get there,” she said. “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.

I fell asleep in like two seconds, but I had a bunch of dreams, all bad. In the last one I was being chased by a giant flying dragon, which caught
me in its mouth and started shaking me. Fortunately, before it could kill me, it turned into Victor. Unfortunately, Victor wasn’t in the dream; he was the real Victor, shaking me and telling