Date finished: May 7th, 2022
Amanda & Miranda Adventure Series No. 2
“Wow, this is really like nothing I imagined,” Miranda exclaimed, pulling on her twin sister, Amanda, as they walked deeper into the jungle.
“Then what have you imagined?” Amanda asked, batting away a spider web that threatened to engulf her face as she walked on.
“Dunno. I mean the Amazon is just so…wet, and thick... Those documentaries and movies show people moving through the trees, as swift as the wind and nothing could stop them, certainly not spider webs. Now, being here myself, I can’t even walk five paces without having to bat away a spider web, or having my boots filled up with water,” Miranda complained, stomping her left foot down, causing a stream of water to erupt from her boot.
“This is reality, not some fancy movies that you saw. Plus, it is called the rainforest, after all. Come on, let’s catch up with our class,” Amanda replied, picking up her pace as fast as she could.
“Fine, whatever!” Miranda said, as she too quickened her walk and followed her sister.
The twins were here on a class trip, as they neared the end of 8th grade. Although their aim here is to study ecology and plants, the sisters just considered this a huge adventure. It was just after mid-day, when the sun reached its peak; however, with trees higher than most houses, thus the fact that the leaves blocked every possible place where sunlight could shine through, it felt like evening on the ground. It seemed like the ground could never get enough sunlight. The leaves, however, didn’t stop the rain. The air was damp, accompanied by a sense of chilliness, sending a shiver through their spines. Their feet landed on mud with every step, accompanied by a squishing sound.
“Ladies, please hurry up. You don’t want to get lost here,” their science teacher, Mr. Whilder, called to them from somewhere up front. He seemed only a few paces in front, but the sisters couldn’t see him.
“Coming!” Amanda shouted back, stumbling forward as fast as the forest would allow her, with her sister close behind.
“Urrr…,” Miranda grumbled as the sisters trudged through the forest for what felt like an eternity. They were convinced that their class was just in front, but never actually caught sight of them. Being the stubborn girls they were, they pushed all the thoughts of being lost out of their minds and continued walking as if nothing was out of the ordinary. Now, as the forest floor got even darker than before, a horrible chill crept into the girls as they, for the first time, started to consider the possibility that they were lost. “Amanda, you know, we have been walking for way too long, do you think…” They both knew what Miranda was about to say. Silence filled the air as their mind whorled.
“Mr. Wilder! … Mr. Wilder! Where are you?” Amanda called, her hands cupping her mouth. The only response was the chipping of the insects and the occasional burp of a frog. The girls stopped and took in their surroundings. For all they know, they were in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by a thousand things that might seriously injure or even kill them, with nothing but a backpack containing stupid plant samples. Despair crept into the girls as they realized the sheer amount of trouble they were in. “What do we do?” Amanda whispered.
Miranda took a deep breath. “We can’t give up and just do nothing. We just…we can’t give up. We need to find the class. At least, we have to try…” Miranda’s voice trailed off.
“True. What are we waiting for then?”
Miranda and Amanda were still stumbling through the trees, gradually losing hope.
“Come on… we need to have hope,” Miranda muttered through clenched teeth, when suddenly… Amanda gasped.
“Oh my god. Miranda. You need to see this.” Miranda found her sister a few paces in front, staring into a seemingly ordinary clearing – that is, ordinary for Miranda. Amanda always had an eye for detail, and Miranda knew that all too well. If Amanda believed that something was off, then this clearing was absolutely out of the ordinary.
“What is it?”
“Those rocks,” Amanda pointed to the center of the clearing, where some rocks sat on top of each other, “they are fake.”
“Are you sure?” Miranda asked before she could stop herself.
“When was I not certain? I knew fake rocks from real ones when I see them.” Amanda glared at her sister.
“Which means—”
“—that people had been here,” the sisters realized at the same time, then looked at each other with a glimmer of hope in their eyes.
“What are we waiting for then?” Amanda questioned for the second time that day.
The twins circled the pile of rock, which they deemed as fake.
“What are these artificial rocks doing here?” Miranda wondered.
“Exactly, who would pile up rocks in the middle of the Amazon rainforest…unless—”
“They want to hide something.” Before Miranda even finished her sentence, Amanda was already busy, moving the rocks o get to the bottom. Quickly, Miranda joined her…
“And check this out,” Amanda announced, grinning at the object that the pile of rocks was trying to hide.
It was a trapdoor. This only means one thing – the sisters were one step closer to getting home.
The steep staircase that the twins found under the trapdoor was way too confined for a person to move through. Even for a thirteen-year-old girl. The rough stone walls that surrounded them seemed to be closing in every second, making the long walk down the stairs seem endless. To make matters worse, the occasional sound of a scurrying insect would make the girls jump out of their skin, and the chilly feeling that hung in the air didn’t help with anything.
“Finally,” Miranda huffed as they reached the end of the stairs. They couldn’t believe what saw as their eyes adjusted after a second. A massive table dominated the room, with all sorts of beakers,
microscopes, notebooks, and pictures scattered on top of it.
The hidden room was a laboratory.
“Wow.”
“Yeah wow.” The sisters stared in awe at the room in front of them. Despite having different thoughts flying through their heads faster than the speed of light, they were speechless. When they climbed down the stairs, this was not what they expected to find.
“Should we…um…explore?” Amanda finally managed after they finished staring.
“Definitely. I have a million questions and I want answers.”
The girls started with the table, shinning their flashlights around, at the lab materials and the open notebooks. Miranda especially took interest in a leather notebook, and she was flipping through the pages.
“So many calculations,” Miranda observed, shaking her head in wonder.
“So,” Amanda started, looking through microscope slides and Petri dishes, “Any ideas what this place is for?”
“This place is obviously a lab, filled with, uhh, lab stuff…”
“Yeah a normal lab, but the question is why would the people build it underground, in the middle of the Amazon rainforest, and hide it with a bunch of rocks,” Amanda exclaimed, pushing away the Petri dishes and focusing on the cupboards that lined the walls instead.
Amanda’s eyes widened suddenly, and her mouth gaped in shock. “Mira. Come. Look. At. This.”
“This place never ceases to amaze me,” Miranda said, shaking her head in wonder.
The cupboards were lined with blueprints, maps, plans…
The blueprints were not just any blueprints…These were detailed blueprints of their camp…
“Uhh well, at least we can are not lost now,” Amanda said, pointing towards the map of a section of the forest that featured the route from the lab to their camp.
“True, although we still need to figure out why these blueprints and maps are there.”
“Wait a moment. Miranda, come and read this.” Amanda was looking at a poster near the back of the lab, horror filling her face.
“To-do list,” Miranda read, “create the prototype. Test prototype. Mass produce nano-attackers. Destroy camp. Set nano-attackers free. Activate Mission Save-The-World. Nano-attackers? Destroy camp? This is getting way too creepy.” She let out a breath that she didn’t realize she was holding.
“Agreed. Let’s get back first. We might need to recruit some of our friends to help us. This is gonna be one big mystery to solve.”
After spending nearly a whole day there, the girls could say that they were quite accustomed to the rainforest by now. However, even the slightest sound and rustle never failed to scare them. According to the map, which Miranda had conveniently memorized, they were about half an hour away from their camp.
Somewhere behind them, a twig snapped…
Footsteps…
The girls’ breaths caught in their throats…
They ducked behind an oak tree and laid very, very still…
Soon, the sound of the footsteps started to recede. They glanced at each other, and a silent thought passed between them. Their curiosity overpowered their fear. Without a second thought, they turned around and scrambled to follow the footsteps…
The twins weaved through the trees, careful not to step on any twigs or make any sounds. Whoever they were following was an easy target. Following the sound of the person stumbling through the trees, the girls caught up easily but stayed a few dozen meters behind, invisible amongst the forest. Before long, they found themselves heading towards the lab, and they started to wonder. Who was this person? Could it be the owner of the lab?
Just then, the clearing came into view. Hiding behind a huge evergreen, Amanda and Miranda peered at the figure that was rushing toward the pile of rocks. They squinted, and couldn’t believe their eyes.
The figure, now opening the trapdoor, was their science teacher – Mr. Whilder.
Miranda gasped and lost her footing for a moment. Her foot slipped on a wet piece of grass, resulting in her tumbling to the ground. She let out a little cry before clamping her hands over her mouth.
The girls froze, their eyes glued on Mr. Whilder, who had nearly disappeared under the trapdoor. Before their eyes, they saw their teacher knit his brows as he stared at the trees – directly at where the girls were hiding. Immediately after, Mr. Whilder climbed back up the stairs and started jogging towards the girls.
“Run,” Amanda hissed, before sprinting toward the camp, with Miranda close on her heels.
The girls returned, panting, to the camp to find everyone already off to bed. The twins were told that some of their other teachers were looking for them, leaving only their survival instructor in the camp. Everyone was sent to bed early with the instructions of telling the instructor immediately if they have any information on the sisters’ whereabouts. As soon as they returned, Amanda and Miranda had crept into their cabin without anybody noticing, and woke up their roommates and best friends, Julia and Olivia. Amanda had just told them the whole story – from them getting lost to finding Mr.Whilder going inside the lab.
“I am telling you. You need to help us. Mr. Whilder is up to no good. We know what we saw,” Amanda persuaded.
“Yeah I believe you all right, but the thing is, there’s nothing we can do!” Olivia responded.
“Look, guys, on the to-do list I saw in the lab, it says that the next step is to ‘destroy camp’. I am assuming that it is referring to this camp-” Miranda started.
“And the least we can do is to stop this camp from being destroyed!” Amanda finished.
“But you are not even sure if it means this camp! Or if Mr. Whilder is actually behind all of this!” Julia put in.
“We saw the lab, the plans, and Mr. Whilder going in. Aren’t that enough proof?”
“Yeah, but…,” Julia’s voice trailed off, “fine. What can we do?”
“All right,” Amanda said, eager to explain her idea, “The next part of Mr.’s plan is to destroy the camp, and it’s going to be soon. All we need to do is keep an eye out for any suspicious movement and try to catch Mr. Whilder before he actually attacks the camp.”
“Absolutely. We should alert each other if we find anything, even the tiniest thing, suspicious,” Miranda added.
“Fine. Sounds fun. I’m in.”
“Me too.”
“Don’t you think that the campfire is going a bit too big?” Miranda whispered to her sister, Julia, and Olivia the next night as they crowded around the campfire, each with a s’more in their hands.
“Mira, you worry too much! There are too many people around here for Mr. to burn down the camp!” Olivia responded, biting into her s’more.
“Well, I really don’t want this camp to be destroyed, you—” Miranda’s voice faded away as Mr. Whilder cleared his throat. All eyes instantly snapped to the tall figure of Mr. Whilder standing on top of a log.
“Everyone,” he announced, addressing the entire middle school, “I am deeply sorry to report that a concerning amount of animal activity had been reported by our security officers, and because of that, everyone needs to be safely inside their cabins. It should be nothing. Once the officials gave the all-clear, we can resume enjoying this beautiful result of combustion.” The girls looked at each other. This was strange but not at all unusual.
“Urrr… two nights in a row being sent to bed early? How lucky,” Julia complained, sitting on top of her bed.
“Julia! You heard Mr. It will be over soon! We will be outside again before you know it,” Miranda reassured.
“What’s that smell?” Amanda asked, sniffing the air.
“Maybe it’s the campfire?” Julia suggested, but they all knew that the burning smell came form a much, much larger fire source.
“Oh no.” Olivia’s eyes widened with fear as she realized something.
“What?”
“Outside. Now. I believe this is Mr. Whilder’s real plan,” Olivia said. In the blink of an eye, everyone understood. Miranda rushed to the door, trying to open it.
“Locked,” she announced. Without wasting even a millisecond, Amanda grabbed the first thing she found – a thick hard-cover book, and threw it against the tiny window at the back of the cabin. The window shattered easily. Julia hurried to cover the sides of the window with pillows so that the glass wouldn’t hurt them before climbing out herself. It was a tight squeeze, but all the girls made it through.
The sight before them was astonishing. They watched as billowing plumes darkened to sooty black as wood was devoured. The equipment cabin was the first to go, being completely engulfed in flames. They heard someone banging on the door of a nearby cabin, crying for help, but it was quickly lost in the sound of the creak and groan of timbers contracting.
“Fire extinguishers! Quick!” Olivia commanded, running towards the far side of the camp where they keep the fire extinguishers. “Julia! There’s a hose near the equipment cabin. Use that if you can find it!”
The girls were racing against time. Any second now the fire will spread to one of the inhabited cabins. Sweat poured down the girls’ faces, and stung their way into their eyes, but they didn’t care. They have a mission, and they would accomplish it no matter what. They had never run so fast in their lives, but were they fast enough? With each of them carrying two extinguishers, the girls sprinted back to the fire, where Julia was struggling to keep it under control with the water hose.
However, with the combined effort of the four girls, they managed to tame the fire. finally, it died down to a tiny spark before taking its last breath and dying out completely.
“Now we find Mr. Whilder,” Amanda said.
The girls found their science teacher behind the ash-black equipment cabin, focused on rummaging through his sack. Their science teacher didn’t even notice them, but flinched when Amanda said his name.
“Wh-what are you girls doing here? G-go back t-to your cabin. It-it’s not safe,” Mr. Whilder stammered, standing over his bag like a lion guarding his cubs.
“Mr. Whilder,” Miranda said, “we know.”
Still, the science teacher didn’t give up. “Kn-know what? There’s nothing for you to know!”
“We know about the plan,” Olivia declared quietly.
“Girls, this is a misunderstanding. It’s not my plan!”
“Then how do you know what plan we are talking about?” Julia inquired.
“N-no. You are all mistaken. I stumbled across the lab and the plan by accident!”
“Mr. Whilder. Stop. Please,” Miranda said, crossing her arms.
“Look, girls. I know you don’t like what I am doing, but please, just trust me. This is for everyone’s good.”
Amanda snickered. “So you say that taking over the world is for people’s good?”
“I have my own reason, you know,” Mr. Whilder sighed. Before anyone could interrupt him, he continued, “You see, I was born in the countryside. I grew up in the fields, watching the horses graze. However, day by day, I watched as the urban area expanded, as the sound of the feller bunchers grew closer, until one day, the trees surrounding my peaceful fields fell. My family and I were forced to leave the place we called home. I still remember the look in my beloved horse’s eyes as I said farewell. From then on, I knew that I needed to make a difference, but I have no idea what to do. I was 20 back then, and I just heard about the new breakthrough of nanobots. At once I have an idea. I came here, to the Amazon rainforest, and set up a secret lab. Of course, I needed a cover, and being a science teacher seemed the best option. Everything that happened around me gave me a motive. I spied on the world as heat waves became increasingly frequent. In just 18 years, 8 percent of the Amazon forest was wiped clear. Now is my chance. My opportunity to make things right again. It’s your fault, it’s everyone’s fault.” He sneered out the last few words before reaching for his bag again.
“Mr. Whilder. Please. I am sure we can sort things out. Find a solution that doesn’t involve nanobots or taking over the world,” Olivia persuaded.
“You girls won’t understand. You never will. You will thank me for what I am—”
“There is another way, Mr. Whilder. If you release the nanobots, do you think you can control what happens next? You will be the brain of billions of people. Do you think you will be able to tolerate that? Then there’s your family. Do you think they want you to control them and everyone on earth?” Julia inquired, her voice quiet but demanding.
The science teacher hesitated with the mention of his family. “Well, they support me saving the world,” he answered hesitantly.
“But do they support you taking over the world?”
“Well, umm… I never asked…” Now Mr. Whilder was really apprehensive.
“Do you think they will?” Julia pressed.
The man was silent.
“Do you think anyone will?” Julia asked again, raising her voice.
“No,” Mr. Whilder whispered, his eyes downcast.
“Well, you know yourself that people will not support you taking over the world. However, there are things that you can do with other people’s support,” Amanda put in.
“Don’t ask me to join a stupid organization,” the teacher suddenly met Amanda’s eyes. “I’m telling you – I have thought about and studied those so-called ‘saving the planet’ organizations, but they are doing nothing. Nothing!” The girls believed that now is not the right time to argue about the validity of such organizations.
“We are not asking you to join an organization. Our idea is for you to start one,” Amanda said with a grin. Mr. Whilder was taken aback for a second. Evidently, he was not expecting that.
“Why?”
“You said yourself the existing organizations are ‘stupid’. Well, if they are, then why not start an organization that is not ‘stupid’? This is the perfect opportunity to do things your way.”
“Uhh…I haven’t thought of that…” the science teacher admitted.
“Well, what do you think about the idea,” Miranda prompted.
“Uh…umm…it might be worth a try…”
“Great!” Olivia chirped. “Let’s forget about the taking over the world thing, okay?”
Mr. Whilder agreed. Up until now, he hadn’t really thought about his actions and what it might mean to other people. Now that the girls brought the topic up, however, he admitted that he might have acted on impulse. He thought it through and confessed that there were quite a few cons to his plan.
“Fine. Girls, throw the bag in the trash, please. Tomorrow. Whilder for the World, or WTW, will come into existence,” Mr. Whilder said with a smirk.
Comments