MUTANT ALBATROSS FEATHERS

I should have known there’d be a catch. A big Mom-shaped catch.

“Of course I’m coming with you. If you think they’d let someone your age fly halfway around the world and hang out in a foreign country alone, then you have another think coming, mister!”

Well, you could have knocked me down with a feather. In fact, just as Mom doled out this shocking news, a feather from a passing mutant albatross hit me on the shoulder and I went down like a boxer in the tenth round. KO!

Okay, I might be exaggerating a little—in the sense that it didn’t actually happen—but you have to cut me some slack here. Finding out that Mom was coming with me Down Under was a big blow!

When you’re my age, going anywhere with your mom—even if she’s an awesome one like mine—is about as uncool as you can possibly get. Did I really think she’d let me fly solo halfway around the world and hang out alone in a foreign country doing exactly what I wanted, when I wanted, and where I wanted?

You bet!

So when Mom broke the news that she was going to be coming with me, I didn’t lie around whining—I stood up and did my whining like a man! I whined in the living room, I whined in the dining room, and I whined in the kitchen. I whined before breakfast and I whined at dinner.

I whined from dawn till dusk with hardly a break for breathing. I whined like no kid has ever whined before.

And I didn’t restrict myself to whining. I moaned, pleaded, begged, sulked, shouted, and whimpered… all of which produced exactly zero results. I even pulled out my secret weapon—the patented full-beam Khatchadorian Death Stare, which has been known to laser a hole in two-inch titanium—but Mom just asked me if I had something in my eye and told me to quit blocking the TV.

Eventually, by the night before the trip, I got used to the idea of Mom coming with me to Australia. It wasn’t like I was happy about it, but I moved on from whine to whatever.

After a restless night plagued by crocodile-infested dreams, I woke at dawn. I already felt jet-lagged and I hadn’t even gotten out of bed.

I’ll spare you all the details about Mom wailing like a wounded whale when she said good-bye to Georgia and Grandma Dotty at the airport. It was gross. There was enough salt water splashing around to fill the Hills Village Municipal Swimming Pool, with plenty left over. But finally, after fifty million hugs and sniffles, we were all set to board the plane. That’s when we found out that Earl O’Reilly and Mayor Coogan didn’t exactly go premium on the plane tickets.

But despite the super-cramped seats and the bumpy ride, and despite Mom coming along, I decided I was just going to enjoy this free vacation to the other side of the world. I wedged myself into the window seat and watched the Pacific unfurl below me. I was a new Rafe Khatchadorian, a globe-trotting, internationally famous artist.

What could possibly go wrong?