“Do you think I packed everything I need?” Martha said as she tossed her tenth bag into Trina’s living room.
Trina’s mouth hung open. “I think you packed enough for two Marthas. You do realize you have to carry these all by yourself, right?”
“Really? Oh, I didn’t know that,” Martha said.
“Okay, so let’s narrow all of this down.” Trina sat in the pile of bags. “All you need is three sets of clothes, a swimming suit, and toiletries.”
Martha’s jaw dropped, “Only three sets of clothes! What if I want to wear something that I didn’t pack? You know me Trina, you, like, cannot do that to me.”
“You’ll thank me when you’re running up a steep hill.”
“Um, why can’t I, like, walk up?”
“Because you’ll need a running start to get up the hill.”
“Ugh! Remind me again why I agreed to go on this trip!”
Trina rolled her eyes at Martha. “You’re going camping with Dustin, remember!”
Martha smiled, “Oh, yeah!” Martha grabbed her pink backpack from the pile. As the two girls started shoving clothes into the bag, a car horn honked outside.
“Oooh! Is that Dustin?” Martha ran to the window and peeked through the curtain.
“No, that’s Mr. and Mrs. Claude and a couple of the other members. Dustin and his dad headed out early to set up the campsite.”
“Oh, okay!” Martha stuffed her last set of clothing into her bag. Trina grabbed two bags out of the kitchen.
Martha frowned at her. “Oh sure, you get two bags, but I have to suffer with one.”
“This is a water purifier. But, I can leave it behind if you want me to, you’ll just have to drink pesticide infested water. . .”
“No, no, I’ll be fine,” Martha opened the door and skipped outside. Outside, Mr. and Mrs. Claude were opening the back of the van.
“Hello, Trina!” Mrs. Claude called. She wore a long, tie die dress with tons of shinny necklaces.
“Hey, Mrs. Claude.” Trina pointed to Martha, “This is Martha.”
“Hello, Martha,” Mrs. Claude grabbed her hand, “you have a beautiful aura.”
Martha laughed nervously. “Ha ha ha, thanks?” Mr. Claude ran up behind Mrs. Claude.
“Hi, Martha,” He said, “I’m Brian Claude, this is my wife, Olivia Claude.”
“But you can call me Petunia,” she smiled at the girls.
“Alright, Petunia.” Trina grabbed Martha’s shoulders and steered her away. “Let’s go meet some other people.” Trina steered her toward the side of the van. Several boys with glasses and Buck-tooth-Becky sat in the van.
“Hey everyone,” Trina said, “This is Martha. Martha, this is Eugene, Edward-“
“You can call me E.T.,” E.T. winked at Martha.
“Oh, no we can’t,” Trina mumbled before continuing, “ that’s Albert, and of course you know Becky."
“Hi, Martha! I was so excited when Trina told me you were coming, I just can’t wait to have girl time with just the three of us, and of course Petunia, but she is sharing a tent with Mr. Claude, so there won’t be that much time with her. Oh, I can’t wait to go swimming! I-“
“We’re ready Mr. Claude!” Trina shoved Martha in the car before Martha could change her mind.

The car rolled up to the campsite, and Martha was the first one out of the van.
“Yay! Peace and quiet!” Martha sighed.
Becky snuck up behind her. “What was that, Martha, I didn’t hear that, I was still in the car, could you say that again because I would love to know what you had said, could you repeat it?”
Martha stared at her. “No.” She walked to the back of the van. Trina hopped out of the car and walked toward Martha.
“So, how was sitting next to Becky?” Trina asked as she pulled a bag out of the car.
“What did you say? I couldn’t hear you, all of Becky’s talking made me go deaf, could you repeat that?” the two girls giggled.
“Alright everyone,” Mr. Claude said, “you have five minutes to get your things into your tent, and then we are going to leave for the bird observing part of this trip!”
“What tent’s ours?” Martha asked.
“The purple one, of course!” Trina pointed to the only purple tent on the lot.
Martha gasped, “We have to sleep in that?”
“Wait until you see where you have to go to the bathroom!” Trina patted Martha on the back and headed into the tent.
“Hey roomies!” Becky said once the girls entered the tent. “I am so excited about this trip, we are all going to be best friends. Hey, what’s your favorite color? Ooooh, what’s your favorite-“
Martha and Trina tossed their bags onto the tent floor and evacuated quickly. Outside, they saw him. Dustin was standing outside, and he was gorgeous!
“Hi, Dustin!” Martha giggled. He waved in her direction. “ Omg, he waved at me!”
“Is everybody ready to go?” Mr. Claude led everyone down a trail. Trina watched as Martha weaseled her way toward Dustin. Trina grabbed her bird book out of her bag. She was so excited to be bird observing. She was hoping that she would find a cerulean warbler flying in these woods.
The group walked in the woods for hours before finding a robin.
“Oh,” Martha said a little too loudly, “I love bird watching.” She leaned toward Trina and whispered, “When are we, like, done with this stupid bird thing?”
“Two more hours,” Trina replied. Martha groaned and rolled her eyes.
“Hey, Mr. Claude!” E.T and Dustin emerged from the woods, “We found something really cool!” Everyone followed them into the woods. The boys brought the group into a clearing. In the clearing, a deep, circle shaped hole descended into the ground. Lining the hole was a slimy, green substance.
“Eeeuuuwww! What is that?” Martha squealed.
“I don’t know, but it tasted good!” E.T. licked his fingers.
“E.T., I told you not to eat something if you don’t know what it is! Remember what happened last time?” Mr. Claude said as he took a sample of the substance.
“Brian,” Mrs. Claude grabbed Mr. Claude’s shoulder. “This looks like the substance we found on our vacation to Nebraska, you know, in Nebraska where we thought we saw a-“
“Olivia, stop, this is hardly the place,” Brian responded.
“Hardly the place for what?” Eugene asked.
“Nothing,” Mr. Claude told him as he slipped the sample into his bag. “Let’s continue with the bird watch.”
“Yay! Let’s go guys!” Becky said, “Hey, Petunia, what’s your favorite bird? I can’t decide what mine is, it’s a tie between a cardinal or blue jay, but they are both so great, I can’t. . .”
Trina snapped her head behind her. She thought she heard a strange clicking noise behind her, but she figured it was part of her imagination. She followed everyone back into the woods. After the group left, two green figures emerged from the woods. One creature clicked to the other, and they followed the group at a distance.

Trina looked down at her swimming suit. It was a red surfing top with black shorts. She knew Martha would get mad at her for not wearing a bikini, but those were too . . . revealing on Trina. And they were swimming to collect water creatures, and she liked doing that with clothing that would protect her skin from bug bites more than a bikini would.
“Hi, Trina!” Becky said as Trina walked toward the spring. Becky wore a full body scuba diving suit, goggles, and arm floaters. The boys all wore swimming trunks, but the only one who looked good in them was Dustin. The rest of the boys had too many flabs, and not enough abs. Trina instantly felt a lot less self-confident about her swimming outfit. That is, until Martha walked out. Of course Martha looked like a model in her yellow and pink polka dotted bikini, and her hair blew perfectly in the air. Naturally, Dustin noticed her. He was defiantly checking her out.
“She wore an itsy bitsy, teeny weeny, yellow polka dot bikini!” Becky started singing.
Martha crossed her arms, “Thanks, Becky, for that lovely song!”
“You’re welcome! Oh, do you want me to sing another? Twinkle, twinkle little star!”
“Mr. Claude!” everyone yelled.
“I’m coming!” Mr. Clause said from behind them. He was carrying a bucket, clip board, and he wore the same scuba suit as Becky. Mrs. Claude was behind him wearing a swimming dress. Trina once again felt better about herself.
“Alright, have any of you kids found anything yet?” Mr. Claude asked.
“Um . . .” Martha looked at the ground and picked something up. “I found this!” She handed it to Mr. Claude.
“Ah, Martha, this is a rock.”
“Really? Ooops.”
“Don’t worry, Martha,” Dustin said, “You’ll find something. I’ll even help you.”
“Awww, why thank you, Dustin!” Martha giggled. E.T shot a nasty look at Dustin, but Dustin didn’t notice. Everyone stepped into the spring. Trina thought it felt refreshing and relaxing, but she didn’t have time to relax, she wanted to be the first to find something interesting. She instantly got to work. She dug into the mud, but she couldn’t find anything, and it was hard to concentrate because Martha and Dustin were flirting way too loudly. Trina searched and searched but found nothing.
“How’s the search going, Trina?” Becky said, startling Trina. She hadn’t even seen Becky swim up to her.
“Alright, I guess, but I can’t find anything.”
“Me either. It’s so hard to search because Martha and Dustin are hogging all of the tools, and I need them, and so does everyone. . . Hey, what’s that?” Becky pointed to the other side of the spring. On the other side of the spring, green slime oozed into the water. “That looks like the stuff from in the hole, doesn’t it? Hey, do you know why-“
“Mr. Claude! What is that?” Trina yelled and pointed. Everyone’s heads turned toward the slime.

“Everyone out of the water!” Mrs. Claude screamed, and everyone scrambled out.
“Why, what is that? It smells, like, totally disgusting.” Martha said.
“I don’t know,” Mr. Claude said. He had a very worried look on his face. But then it changed to an authoritative face. “And what do we know about unidentified objects?”
“We never touch, smell, or eat them,” the whole club replied.
Suddenly, two figures emerged from the woods. They were green, and had one eye in the middle of their foreheads. They clicked to each other loudly.
“Brian! I told you aliens were real!” Mrs. Claude exclaimed with a smile.
“Olivia! How can you be excited about this?” Mr. Claude yelled at her.
“What are they?” Becky said, “How do we destroy them, why are they here, how did they-“
“Shut up, Becky!” Mrs. Claude smiled, “You might upset them.” Trina couldn’t comprehend this. There were aliens that might want to eat them, and Mrs. Claude was excited?
“Click click click?” One of the aliens faced E.T. E.T. fainted. The alien turned to Mr. Claude. “Tu hablo espanol?”
Mr. Claude raised an eyebrow. “No. Do you speak English?”
“Yes we do,” the other alien said. “Sorry about the little human, we didn’t mean to frighten him.”
“That’s quite alright.” Mrs. Claude was still smiling.
“We were just trying to collect some specimens for our earth records.” One alien said.
“What kind of specimens?” Trina got the guts to ask.
“Well, we were hoping we could take your buck toothed friend who won’t stop talking.”
Becky gasped, “Really, me!”
“Oh, yes. We are disproving the alien assumption that humans don’t have strong lungs. It’s very controversial on our planet. We were hoping to take her back with us so we can show that the human lungs are very strong, and can function for long periods of time.”
“Please, Mr. Claude! Let me go, I want to do this!” Becky smiled almost as big as Mrs. Claude.
“I don’t think so. Your parents would miss you-“
“No, they won’t! They’ll be happy that I did this. My dad is always telling me he can’t wait until I leave the house, and my mom says I’m a disgrace to the family! Besides, I would be helping out the universe by doing this, and-“
“Take her!” everyone yelled.
“Thank you so much!” one alien said, “Come along, buck-toothed girl, we will show you our spaceship!”
“Okay! That sounds so exciting! I’ve never been in a spaceship before! Did you know that. . .” Becky’s voice grew smaller as she and the aliens walked farther away. There was a long silence.
“Um, like, what just happened?” Martha asked.
“I don’t know, “Trina replied, “But I know for sure that we just knocked Becky out of our lives.” There was another silence. That stood there for a while, and wondered if they were ever going to see Buck-Tooth-Becky again.