The Worst Class Trip Ever

The Worst Class Trip Ever is a middle grade novel written by American author and columnist Dave Barry and published in 2015. The story is narrated by eighth grader Wyatt Palmer, who recounts the events from his class trip to Washington, DC, during which he and his friends uncover a plot to assassinate the US president. The novel depicts increasingly exciting, fantastical situations leading up to the climactic moment in which Wyatt heroically saves the president and becomes famous.

Following the book’s success, Barry published a sequel in 2016 titled The Worst Night Ever, which follows Wyatt and his best friend, Matt, on a new adventure. The Worst Class Trip Ever mixes a tone of adventure with Barry’s characteristic humor to explore a range of themes and lessons relevant to his middle grade readers.

This guide refers to the 2015 Kindle edition.

Content Warning: The source text features overgeneralized characterizations that potentially reflect racist attitudes and biases.

Plot Summary

The novel begins with narrator and protagonist Wyatt Palmer introducing himself and explaining that because he is from Miami, he is accustomed to encountering strange situations, such as the time his father found an alligator in their yard and ran down the street in his pajamas. Wyatt warns that the events he is about to recount are even more unbelievable.

He and his best friend, Matt, are about to embark on their school’s annual eighth-grade trip to Washington, DC. The teachers, Mr. Barto and Miss Rector, help the students to board the plane and warn them that if they cause any trouble during the trip, they will be sent home. While Wyatt starts thinking about ways to approach his crush, Suzana, the school’s most popular girl, Matt notices that the two men sitting behind them are acting suspiciously. Matt convinces Wyatt that they must be terrorists because they are looking at aerial pictures of the White House. During some turbulence, Matt grabs one of the men’s bags, and the flight’s air marshal comes to investigate the commotion. The men explain that they are from Gadakistan and show the air marshal that the bag only contains a sculpted dragon head. The two boys get a lecture from their teachers, but after the plane lands, Matt reveals that he stole an electronic device from the men’s bag. Wyatt and Matt believe that it is a detonator, and they intend to keep it away from the men.

The class reaches the hotel, where Wyatt and Matt share a room with two other boys, Cameron and Victor. They soon leave to take a guided tour of the city, and they notice the same two men from the plane loitering near the White House. When the men notice Wyatt and Matt, they start running after the boys, looking angry and threatening. The boys evade them and return to their bus just in time, but they soon realize that the men will be able to find them by tracking the vehicle. That night, the two strange men find the boys at the hotel and barge into their room to demand the return of their device. However, Wyatt and Matt have already given it to Suzana for safekeeping. The two men threaten the boys, and although they leave without recovering the device, they do kidnap Matt in the process. They leave Wyatt a phone, warn him not to call the authorities, and tell him to await their instructions.

Wyatt has no choice but to bring Cameron and Victor up to date on the situation. Following the two men’s instructions, which they receive by text, the children agree to exchange the device for Matt. However, they come up with a plan to intercept the two men during the exchange. While Wyatt waits at the location they have agreed upon, he notices a man in a disguise. However, the man turns out to be an unhoused person whom the kidnappers paid to be a distraction. The two men have now collected the device, but they refuse to release Matt because the children tried to trick them.

Back at the hotel, Wyatt, Suzana, and Cameron use the Find My iPhone app to locate Matt. Meanwhile, Victor finds more information about Gadakistan, where the men are from. He learns that the country is allied with the United States, but he also discovers that a rebel faction called the Dragon Head has been working against the Gadakistani president, Gorban Brevalov. Victor contacts his father, who works in intelligence, and although he does not tell his father about the current situation, he asks him about the mysterious device. Victor’s father says that the device is in fact a missile jammer. The children therefore deduce that the two men are members of the Dragon Head. They surmise that the men are trying to assassinate the US president and to stop the White House missiles with their jammer.

Having used the iPhone to find Matt’s location in a nearby house, Wyatt and his friends go on a mission to rescue him from his abductors. While Cameron creates a distraction at front of the house, Wyatt and Suzana sneak through the backyard, where they find a giant dragon-shaped kite. They later realize that the men are planning to use the kite to fly over the White House fence and attack the president during a ceremony with Brevalov. Once inside the house, Wyatt and Suzana successfully help Matt to escape. However, Cameron is kidnapped instead.

Wyatt, Suzana, Matt, and Victor decide to stop the men from attacking the president. During another class tour, they try to get away from the rest of the group in order to head to the White House, but Mr. Barto stops them. Because Wyatt and Matt already got into trouble on the plane, they are to be sent home immediately. However, when they get to the airport, the two boys trick Mr. Barto by planting a fake gun on him and having him arrested. This ruse allows them to sneak out of the airport and take a taxi to the White House.

There, they meet with Suzana and Victor, who have found the two men. The men are preparing their kite and equipment; the kite is big enough to launch the small man into the air. Wyatt and Suzana decide to stop them. Wyatt jumps on the man hiding in the kite just as he is taking off, accidentally breaking the man’s arm in the process. Cameron then runs toward them and explains that the two men, Woltar and Lemi, are actually trying to save the president. Brevalov is in fact a traitor and is planning to kill the president, and the Dragon Head has been trying to stop him. However, with Lemi incapacitated, Wyatt is the only one light enough to take his place in the kite.

Wyatt gets in the kite and takes off. Once in the air, he narrowly evades White House defensive missiles thanks to the jammer and eventually crashes into the president and his Secret Service agents. Before he is knocked out, he manages to kill the poisonous snake that Brevalov had just set free to kill the president. Wyatt later wakes up in the hospital. The president personally visits him and thanks him for saving his life. Wyatt and his friends have become famous, and Woltar and Lemi are now hailed as heroes, while Brevalov has been arrested. At the end of the story, Wyatt returns to Miami and gets ready for his eighth-grade prom. He finally asks Suzana out, and she kisses him.