19

Jordan said maybe we should raid one of the girls' cabins and steal some of THEIR deodorant, but that turned into a big debate about whether girls actually USE deodorant. But what everyone was excited about was the idea of going on a RAID. The person who was MOST excited was Emilio. But we told him it was too dangerous for him to go with us since he couldn't SEE. He said we NEEDED him because he has an excellent sense of smell and could sniff out the girls' cabins. We weren't sure if he was bluffing, so we ran him through a smell test where he had to identify a bunch of different things. And sure enough, he got every single one.

So Emilio was in. We all started getting ready, but right when we were about to head out, Mr. Nuzzi came to check on us. I guess it was pretty obvious to Mr. Nuzzi that we were up to no good, so he told us we'd all be in BIG trouble if he caught any of us sneaking out. Plus, the heard Silas Scratch was on the prowl tonight so we'd better stay indoors. Then Mr. Nuzzi left, and a few minutes later he came back with a bottle of baby powder.

He sprinkled it in a big circle around our cabin so that if we DID leave, our footprints would give us away. Everyone started to panic because they thought we were trapped in our cabin for the rest of the night. But then I remembered a chapter from my BOOK that could help us. HIDING YOUR NUMBERS Ancient ninjas had a clever way of fooling their enemies. When traveling in a group, ninjas would walk in single file, carefully stepping into the same set of footprints. Then they'd ambush their pursuers, who would be shocked to discover that they were not following the tracks of ONE person but many!

Mr. Nuzzi had left his OWN footprints in the baby powder when he was spreading it around. So all we needed to do was follow in his exact footsteps and he'd never know we left. The only problem was that Mr. Nuzzi's footprints were a lot bigger than any of ours. But Mr. Jefferson had left his hiking boots under the bed, and they looked like a perfect match. I went first. It was a little hard staying in Mr. Nuzzi's tracks, but I made it to the other side of the baby powder.

Then I tossed the boots back to the NEXT guy. We got everyone out of the cabin that way. Even Emilio, who hitched a ride with Jeffrey. Once we were all clear, we headed through the woods toward the girls' cabins. But before we knew it, we were totally lost. It was kind of scary because nobody even knew which way OUR cabin was.

Then Jeffrey made everything a hundred times WORSE by bringing up the subject of Silas Scratch. Jeffrey said Silas Scratch was probably watching our every move and was gonna pick us off one by one and eat us alive. That got my cabinmates all stirred up, and I thought they were gonna scatter in every direction. But Emilio saved the day when he picked up a scent in the air.