Outsmart the Wild

This is Andy Wander signing off from the wilderness of England. Like, subscribe, and never forget: Stay wild. Stay wired. And keep wandering.” Andy held his cheesy smile until his sister, Eva, turned off the camera.

“Nice!” Eva said. “We got this.”

Andy sure hoped so. This video was the kids’ entry in a contest by their favorite YouTuber, Mr. Wild Wire. Mr. Wild Wire was an inventor who taught viewers how to be on the lookout for really cool things in nature and to “outsmart the wild.” He sold tons of gadgets, including a utility knife with 150 uses, bonfire-powered phone charger, and glow-in-the-dark toilet paper.

Mr. Wild Wire’s contest to find the wildest corner of the world timed perfectly with the Wander family’s camping trip in England. Mom and Dad were excited. They kept talking about something called Stonehenge, where they were going to take pictures the next day at dawn. But Andy and Eva just knew this was their opportunity to become YouTube stars.

“I’m going to bed,” Mom said. “You kids sure you’re okay in your own tent?”

“Oh, yeah.” Eva pointed to a tree near the lake. “We set up Mr. Wild Wire’s bear alarm.”

“That’s fine,” Dad said. “But I know how scary it can be the first time you’re camping on your own.”

“Please,” Andy said. “We’re wired for the wild. This isn’t pioneer camping like you did when you were a kid.”

Dad smirked and headed to his tent. “Just yell if you need us.”

The kids stayed by the fire long enough to film Andy charging his tablet with the bonfire charger, then shot a bonus video demonstrating the first aid kit after he burned himself. They left the charger by the dying fire so Andy could try on his newest gadget: the Wilderness Sleep Suit 5000. The high-tech sleeping bag came complete with arms and legs, an inflatable raft, and built-in hand warmers.

“This is so much better than an air mattress,” Andy said when he finally squeezed into the ridiculously puffy suit.

Two hours later, Andy finally started admitting to himself that perhaps an air mattress could have a slight advantage over the Sleep Suit 5000 when it comes to actually sleeping. He was cold, stiff, and a bit wet from dew soaking through the sleeping suit.

EEEeeeEEEeee

Whoa. What was that? He sat straight up.

EEEeeeEEEeee

The unnatural whistle cut through the nighttime chirps and croaks outside the tent. Andy poked his sister. “Hear that?”

Eva’s eyes snapped open. “Bear alarm?”

Andy shook his head. “Not loud enough. Something’s out there! Get the camera ready.”

This was the kids’ prize-winning moment. Eva fumbled for her camera, and Andy switched on his combination lantern/radio/Bluetooth speaker. When Eva finally hit “record,” Andy spoke directly to the camera: “Something’s whistling outside. It’s probably Bigfoot.”

Eva unzipped the tent, then whispered, “It’s coming from the lake.”

The kids tried to creep quietly, although Andy’s sleep suit swish-swished with every step. They’d almost reached the lake when an identical noise popped up behind them, harmonizing with the first.

EEEeeeEEEeee

“It’s by the fire!” Eva hissed. “We’re, uh, surrounded,”

Andy narrated with a shaky voice. “I’m going to—”

His lantern chose this moment to flicker off.

“AH!” the kids screamed. Then, the lantern itself started making the noise.

EEEeeeEEEeee

“AHHH!”

Eva fished a square of glow-in-the-dark toilet paper from her pocket for light, but Andy didn’t need it to spot a hulking figure sprinting toward them.

“AHHHHHHH!”

Art by David Leonard

Andy stumbled backward into the lake. The Sleep Suit 5000 inflated with a poof.

“I still don’t understand what happened,” Mom said the next morning as the family drove to Stonehenge.

“Turns out Wild Wire gear whistles to let you know its battery is low,” Eva said. “Andy thought the whistling was Bigfoot—”

“I said it could be Bigfoot,” Andy interrupted.

“Then he got scared when Dad came to help us.”

“I wasn’t scared! I was surprised.”

“You shouldn’t have been,” Dad said. “I told you I’d help if you yelled.”

Andy slumped in his seat. He’d spent the last few hours cold and bummed that he was going to lose Mr. Wild Wire’s contest because his gear had failed when he’d needed it most. He got even more bummed when Dad parked the car. “Wait, we came all the way here for this?”

Stonehenge turned out to be a circle of broken stones. A few were pretty tall, and several were stacked on top of each other like toddler blocks, but that was pretty much all there was to see.

“Not impressed?” Dad asked.

“It’s just rocks.” Andy shrugged.

Dad pointed to one of the smaller stones. “What if I told you that weighs 8,000 pounds.”

“Okay.”

“And it came from 140 miles away.”

“So?”

“This was built thousands of years before cranes and trucks. So how do you think they got it here?”

Andy paused, then admitted, “I dunno.”

“Nobody really knows,” Dad said. “Then there are the big stones. Those weigh as much as our house. The builders figured out how to stand them upright and keep them that way for thousands of years.”

By now, Mom was in full photographer mode, snapping dramatic pictures of the sun peeking between two enormous stones. She showed Andy her camera. “See these big arches? They’re called trilithons (TRY-la-thons). The biggest one fell over years ago, but originally the builders set everything up so the biggest trilithon perfectly framed the sunset on the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year.”

“Seems like a lot of trouble for a nice view one day a year,” Andy said.

Art by David Leonard

“It’s not for the view,” Mom said. “It’s for the calendar. The rest of the stones appear to be positioned to track the phases of the moon.”

“Wait, really?” Andy asked.

Mom nodded. “In its day, this might have been a high-tech observatory.”

While Andy stared at the massive stones with new appreciation, Dad said, “Gadgets and computers can make us feel smart, but the truth is, because God created humans with amazing intelligence, we’ve always used the technology we’ve had to understand the world around us—even our ancestors thousands of years ago.”

Eva poked Andy. “I bet these rocks never made those Stonehenge people fall into a lake.”

Andy gasped. “That’s it! I know how to win the contest!”

Eva pulled out her camera, and Andy flashed his cheesy grin. “Mr. Wild Wire, this is Andy Wander. I’m about to introduce you to technology you’re never gonna believe!”