Chapter 20 Wednesday, 1130 hours (11:30 AM)

When Rom left, Jungle World didn't feel the same. It wasn't our own private world anymore. We were just visitors, waiting to be taken away. I think all of us felt that way, and none of us wanted to play anymore. Some of the kids went to the classroom to eat more snack cakes. I was pretty full though, so I went exploring through the building.

After a while I came to the place where Rom had climbed in. I looked out the window down onto the zoo. It was nice. Our artificial world was pretty nifty, but the real world out there was better. It's bigger too. As I looked to see if I could find some tigers wandering around, I saw some Calfers in an open zoo cart. One of them looked up toward me. I pulled my head back inside, fast. I didn't think he saw me.

I went down to the classroom to have a last snack cake. I saw my canteen that I'd left there and decided I didn't want to worry about Lycanthrozine any more. The canteen was almost empty anyway. I was about to pour what was left down the sink and refill it with orange soda, but then Wolfred called me to come quick. I left the canteen on top of the fridge.

They'd heard noises from downstairs and thought it was Rom coming back. I should have known better. Rom moves very quietly. 

We ran downstairs and saw that it wasn't Rom. It was a whole lot of Calfers, and they had guns.

"So this is where you guys have been hiding," said a Calfer. "Well, come on. We have to take you back."

"We can't," said Paul "Our scoutmaster's coming back for us soon."

"Shut up, Paul," I shouted, but it wasn't really Paul's fault. He's so used to telling the truth, he couldn't help himself.

"Oh yeah?" said the Calfer. "We'll wait for him, then."

The Calfers told us that when Rom came back, we'd better be quiet or we'd be in big trouble. They made us all go into the classroom and they closed the door behind us.