"Betty Machete tried to cut a trail, but we made her stop," I said."
Rex said, "Well, as I see it, we can do a ghosts and aliens hunt or try to find a trail to the ranger's cabin."
I sighed. "When you put it that way, I know what the girls will want to do."
After cooking and dinner, five little girls filed out of the lodge, each wearing a backpack and a tinfoil hat that featured snakes. If I had to guess, Lauren's was an asp, Ava's was a rattler, Inez sported a shiny black adder, and Kaitlyn wore a viper. Betty's, on the other hand, did not feature a cobra but a rather impressive flying saucer shooting aluminum foil beams onto what appeared to be screaming, melting humans.
"We should've bought more aluminum foil at Hal's," Kelly said.
Rex knelt down eye-level to the girls. "Hey, that's a great idea. Can someone make me one?"
Lauren smiled and rooted around in her backpack. "We made you one." She held out a tinfoil cap shaped like a SWAT helmet with a badge on the front that said, in black marker, To Protect And Swerve. "It'll protect you from the alien's brain-exploding thought waves."
"Thank you!" Rex stood up and placed the helmet on his head. He looked at Kelly and me then back at the girls. "Shouldn't they have ones too?"
Lauren shook her head sadly. "They don't get it like you do."
"Besides," Ava said, her rattler wiggling on top of her head. "We're out of tinfoil."
"They're just going to have to hope we don't find brain-melting aliens," Betty added.
"Oh." Inez turned to Kelly and me. "Since we're on a mission and all that, you don't have to call us by our camp names."
"We haven't called you by your camp names this whole time," I said.
"Aaaaand." Betty rolled her eyes. "That's why you don't get hats."
"That's fair," Kelly said, even though I thought it was not fair.
"Let's go!" Kaitlyn lined up next to Ava.
Inez and Lauren were behind them. Rex lined up next to Betty. He fully understood the buddy system. We always hiked in pairs. And he was smart enough to know who was the most dangerous in the troop.
"I guess I'm with you," I said to Kelly.
And away we went.
We started out giving Rex a tour of the large lodge, the mud pit, and the lazy river. Then we took the trail that led to four different campsites, complete with wood-framed and roofed tents, bathrooms, and firepits.
"I'll bet this is where the ghosts hang out," Inez said as we hit the first campsite, named Outpost.
"We'd better check." Betty pulled out a water gun.
The other girls did the same. Rex helpfully made his finger into a gun and showed them how the police would clear each tent. It was impressive how quickly the girls picked it up. By the second campsite, called Prairie's Edge, they were tapping each other on the shoulder and using hand signals.
Betty and Rex made a good team. First, Betty would pull out a knife, and Rex would disarm her. Then, from the seemingly endless depths of her backpack, she'd pull out a crossbow, and Rex would disarm her. Unlike all the times I'd disarmed her, she didn't protest. Not even once. Well, she did complain when he took that concussion grenade from her. But that was to be expected.
At the third site, Tinder Trails, Betty had given up on weaponry and was making a Ouija board out of tree bark and twigs to commune with the spirits. Rex found a pinecone and used it as the planchette.
We didn't find any ghosts or aliens at the fourth and last campsite, Pinetree Hill, which neither had pine trees nor a hill. Instead of being dejected, the girls turned onto the trail that led to the Indian burial mounds and bluffs.
"According to the map," Rex said, "there are four mounds. A turtle, a snake, a bear, and a fish. That's kind of cool, right guys?"
The girls grinned at him and nodded. He'd become a member of the troop. As long as he didn't start doing the floss (whatever that was) or saying things like "tope" (which I've since learned is a mashup of totally and dope), our marriage would be okay.
"I did some research," Lauren spoke up as we arrived at the first misshapen, earthen lump, helpfully labeled Bear Mound. "And no one has ever seen what's inside. They think there are all kinds of skeletons under there."
"It doesn't look like a bear." Ava bit her lip.
"It's supposed to look like one from the air," Lauren explained.
"Who could see it from the air?" Inez questioned. "Native Americans couldn't fly back then."
Betty said, "They obviously built them for the aliens to see."
The other four agreed. I did too. It made sense.
Kelly asked, "Why would they want the aliens to see a bear mound?"
Betty sighed with exasperation. "Hello. So they could land here."
"Yeah," I said. "Duh."
Kelly shook her head and walked over to the snake mound on the other side of the path, followed by four of the girls.
"Normally," Betty said to me, "you're the clueless one and Mrs. Albers is the smart one."
I cocked my head to one side. "I'm not as smart as Mrs. Albers?"
"Well, you are in dangerous stuff and finding dead bodies and all that. I'm surprised you didn't find one here."
Rex uttered a silent prayer of thanks for that under his breath and went off to join Kelly and the other girls.
"It's a compliment," Betty insisted. "It's tope."
I joined the others at the snake, where a lively discussion was in progress.
"I think the mounds are actually filled with alien bodies!" Ava said. "That's why you can only see them from the sky! So they can find their grandmas and grandpas."
"I bet no one ever thought of that before!" Inez was eyeing the snakey shape.
"We could be famous!" Lauren
