You might say I was feeling pretty good by the time I snuck back into the Muskrat Hut. The only sound I made might have been from my big, swollen head trying to fit through the door.
All the guys were wide awake in their sleeping bags and waiting for me. The lights were off, since another bed check was probably on the way. So I went right for my bunk. Stayed in my clothes. Pulled the blanket up to my chin.
“Well, gentlemen, that was awesome. Smurf, you still have the camera?” I asked.
“Yeah,” he said.
“Can I see it?”
“Rafe, we’ve got a little bit of a problem here,” he said.
Believe me, that’s not what you want to hear after a night like that.
“What kind of problem?” I asked.
“Look for yourself.”
Smurf passed the camera to Cav, who passed it to Tunz, who passed it to me in my bunk. As soon as I turned it on, I almost fainted. Turns out that even after two different art schools, I was still the world’s worst photographer.
This didn’t even put us back to square one. It was more like square negative forty-two. Doolin and his guys were going to be on the warpath more than ever now.
“What are we going to do?” Tunz said. His big body was shaking like a mountain of Jell-O.
“Pray?” Cav said. “Oh, dear Lord, I beg of you—mercy.”
“I say we hit the road,” Dweebs said. “Permanently.”
“No,” Norman said. “Don’t do anything.”
That shut everybody up. We all knew by now that if Norman bothered talking at all, it was probably worth listening to.
“What do you mean?” I asked. “Do nothing—how?”
“It’s obvious,” he said. “As long as Doolin thinks we have the pictures, then it’s the same as if we did.”
And I thought—that’s crazy.
But then, just as quickly, I thought—no, that’s genius. It was like Leo smart.
“He’s right—again,” I said. “If they’re already afraid, then we should just let them be afraid.”
“But what if—” Dweebs started to say.
“What if what?” I said. “Anyone want to walk over there and tell them we don’t have the pictures?”
The more I thought about it, the more I realized we didn’t even have a choice. We had to keep our mouths shut and fake it.