Strawberry Summer (2 page)

Other camps, Chris surmised. Which led her right back to their original dilemma: where was Camp Pinewood?

“We’re in the right place, all right. A lake that size and that beautiful just
has
to be called Lake Majestic. Now all we need to do is find Camp Pinewood.”

Feeling encouraged, the girls trudged on a bit further down the driveway, suitcases in hand. By this point, even Susan’s was starting to feel heavy. Neither bothered to try making conversation. So when the sound of the engine of a distant car or truck buzzed through the air, they both perked up right away.

“Here comes somebody,” Susan said hopefully,

“I just hope it’s not a ghost,” Chris muttered. “Or a car that’s driving itself!”

She was almost relieved to see that it wasn’t.

Instead, it was a battered-up old pickup truck— exactly the kind of vehicle she would have expected to see on a desolate road like this one. It came chugging toward them, sounding as if it might not make it to wherever it was going. When it slowed down near them, both Chris and Susan were surprised to see that its driver was a boy about their age, with straight black hair, green eyes, and a rather sullen expression.

“Can I help you girls?” he asked, leaning out the window and eyeing them warily.

“What does he think we are, cat burglars?” Chris muttered, angered by his tone.

But Susan was more forgiving—and more practical. “I’m Susan Pratt, and this is my sister, Christine. We’re looking for Camp Pinewood. Are we in the right place?”

“Yeah, you’re in the right place.”

“Oh, good! We’re camp counselors. Chris’s speciality is swimming, and I’m teaching arts and crafts....”

“Yeah, I know all about you.”

Chris and Susan exchanged glances. He was certainly one of the surlier people they’d encountered lately. That same feeling that had hit them when they’d climbed out of the taxi, that feeling of “What have we done now?” swept over them once again.

“Well, then,” said Chris, “maybe you could give us a lift to the camp.” She couldn’t resist adding, “These suitcases aren’t exactly light, you know.”

The boy just grunted. But he leaned over and opened the door of the pickup, signifying that they should get in.

Once they were on their way, their heavy suitcases in back and the scattered buildings of Camp Pinewood just starting to come into view, Susan started to perk up once again.

“So, do you work here, too?”

“Sort of,” the boy mumbled. “My parents run Camp Pinewood. They’re the owners. So I always spend my summers helping out around the place.”

“That sounds like fun.”

The boy just grunted. They drove the rest of the way in silence.

As they rode further along, deeper into the woods and closer to Lake Majestic, Camp Pinewood gradually emerged around them. Groups of cabins built from logs were nestled among the trees, along the side of the road. Then a small infirmary, a large flat building that looked like a dining hall, and a few other buildings of various sizes, all of them with the same rustic flavor of the cabins. Susan surmised that one of them must be the arts and crafts building, where she would be spending a lot of her time. She also caught a glimpse of what looked like a boathouse, down by the shore of Lake Majestic.

Camp Pinewood was beginning to show some promise. But she was still surprised by how rundown it looked. There was something almost sad about the place.

It’s just because the kids haven’t arrived yet, she told herself. Once they get here, I’m sure this will turn into a lively camp where everybody has lots of fun. Including Chris and me!

But the somber look on Chris’s face told her that her twin’s initial reaction to the camp was the same as hers.

The boy pulled up in front of a house, the first building the girls had spotted from up on the driveway. It was a friendly place, with white shingles, blue shutters, and a sagging front porch, perched on top of a small hill so that it looked out over the camp.

“This is where my folks live,” he said. “Come on, and I’ll introduce you.”

Fortunately, Jake and Olive Reed were a lot friendlier than their son. They rushed out to greet their two new counselors as soon as they heard the sputtering engine of the pickup in front of their house.

“Welcome to Camp Pinewood!” Olive Reed, a heavyset woman with her son’s coloring and features, hurried over, wearing a big smile. “Either I’m seeing double or you two are the Pratt twins, Christine and Susan. I’m pleased to meet you. Come on in and have some iced tea. Alan, dear, the girls will be staying in Cabin Four. Would you mind dropping their suitcases there when you have a chance?”

It was only then that the girls found out what the Reeds’ son’s name was. He certainly hadn’t volunteered that information, and asking him right out would have somehow seemed too much like prying.

“Now, which one of you is Chris, and which is Susan?” Mrs. Reed asked once she had sat down with them and her husband at the kitchen table, where they all had a glass of iced tea. Alan had declined to join them, saying he had too much to do, what with the opening of camp the very next day and all.

“Even more important,” said Mr. Reed with a chuckle, “how can we tell you two apart?” Like his wife, he was squarely built, with dark hair, a tanned, lined face, and large, strong hands.

The twins laughed. “Actually, we’re very different,” Chris explained. “Not only our personalities, but also the way we dress and wear our hair ...”

“Chris is right. We’re very easy to tell apart— unless we
want
to look the same, of course.” She cast a teasing glance in her twin’s direction. “As a matter of fact, we happen to be experts in the field of fooling people. We’ve got quite a bit of experience in that area.

“But don’t worry,” she hastened to add, anxious to put her new employers at ease. “We’re not about to trick anybody this summer. Right, Chris?” She gave her sister a meaningful look.

As they drank their iced tea, the Reeds told them about the camp and filled them in on the details of their duties as camp counselors. The campers, aged eight to twelve, were due to arrive at camp the next day, a day that promised to be busy if not chaotic.  Some of the other counselors had already arrived; the rest would be coming in first thing in the morning. The average day’s schedule was a full one, but there was time for relaxing—and even doing some swimming or boating on one’s own.

“How many campers are coming tomorrow?” Susan asked, wondering, once again, if perhaps she was getting in over her head.

The look that Jake and Olive Reed exchanged told her that she had touched a soft spot.

“A lot fewer than last year,” Mr. Reed said, suddenly somber. “And that was fewer than the year before....”

“Yes, it’s true,” his wife admitted. “Business has been falling off lately. But we’re still managing.”

“Just barely.” Mr. Reed stood up. “Listen, I’d better not get started on this. Alan’s right; there’s still a lot that has to get done before tomorrow. It’s an important day for us, and we’ve got to be ready.”

When he had gone, letting the kitchen’s screen door slam behind him, Mrs. Reed looked at the twins sadly. “I don’t think this is the kind of thing we should be worrying our counselors with, but Jake has good reason to be disturbed. Alan’s very upset, too. The truth is, there have been some peculiar things going on around here the last couple of years. And they’re both afraid that it’s going to start up again this summer, once the season gets rolling.”

“What exactly has been going on?” Susan asked softly.

“Well, it’s hard to describe.” Mrs. Reed toyed with her iced tea glass nervously. “Just a lot of strange things. Supplies disappearing, then turning up in some unlikely place. Dishes getting broken.

“One morning—the morning of Parents’ Day, in fact—we all woke up to find someone had cut all our boats loose. Sailboats, canoes, rowboats—-even the rafts and the life preservers. It wasn’t serious, of course. We did manage to get them all back, after spending hours going around the lake, retrieving them. But it was pretty embarrassing when all the parents showed up, wanting to see what their children had learned about boating over the summer.”

“Surely the parents understood that it wasn’t your fault!” Chris interjected.

Mrs. Reed shook her head slowly. “We’ve been losing a lot of business. With all the confusion, a lot of the kids just don’t come back the following summer. Their parents find them other camps to go to. Some of them even right here on Lake Majestic.” Her eyes had become glazed with tears. “The way things are going, it looks as if Mr. Reed and I may have to close the camp before too long. As it is, the camp itself is already beginning to suffer. You can see for yourselves how run-down things are getting. We just don’t have the money to maintain it properly.”

All three of them were silent for a while, pretending to be intent on finishing up their iced tea. Mrs. Reed dabbed at her eyes with the edge of her napkin.

“Well, enough about all that. This is supposed to be a happy occasion. After all, it’s your first day at Camp Pinewood! Goodness, what are you two going to think, with me going on and on like this?

“Now, why don’t you both scoot on up to Cabin Four and get settled in? Just follow the path, right outside. The buildings are well marked. Dinner’s at six, in the big dining hall. We always ring a bell at dinnertime; if you get lost, just follow the clanging. And I really do want to welcome you to Camp Pinewood. I’m sure you’ll both have a wonderful summer!”

But as Chris and Susan made their way up the hill, toward the cabins, the somber mood followed them.

“That sure was a strange story Mrs. Reed told us,” said Chris.

“I’ll say. Strange—and very upsetting.”

“Sounds almost like ghosts are up to something.”

“Sounds more like troublemakers to me!” Susan declared angrily. “The
human
variety! Imagine someone sabotaging Camp Pinewood like that! And imagine someone wanting to hurt Mr. and Mrs. Reed! They’re such sweet people, both of them. And they’re just trying to run a nice camp for children. Make a living for themselves.”

“It is mysterious.” Chris dug her hands into the pockets of her pink jeans. “I wish there was something we could do to help.”

“Maybe there is. But first we have to find out more about what’s going on around here.”

“Right. But even before that, we have to turn this place into a home away from home!”

The girls had just reached Cabin Four. It was a tiny, simple building, almost like a wooden tent. An elevated wooden platform, a sloped roof, and walls that were only waist-high. The only furniture was four cots. At the foot of each was an old-fashioned trunk.

“Plenty of fresh air,” Chris muttered. “I just hope the raccoons don’t get us.”

“I’d rather fight off raccoons than mosquitoes!” Susan plopped onto the bed. Its springs creaked loudly under her weight. “Not exactly the Holiday Inn, is it?”

“It looks like we’ll have company, too. Two more roommates ... other counselors, I guess.” Chris, too, sank onto one of the cots. “You know what, Sooz?”

“What?”

“I suddenly have a terrible feeling that this is going to turn out to be a long summer. Maybe even a long,
long
summer!”

For once in her life, Susan couldn’t think of anything optimistic to say.

The three-hour bus trip, the excitement and confusion
of being in a new place, and initial apprehensions about Camp Pinewood had taken their toll. Chris and Susan slept late the next morning, their sleep made even deeper than usual by all the fresh air. Even the bright morning sunlight streaming through the open walls of their cabin failed to rouse them.

It wasn’t until two girls came into Cabin Four, talking and laughing and banging their suitcases against the metal frames of the beds, that the twins woke up.

“Who’s there?” Chris, still groggy, demanded as she sat up in bed.

Susan, lying in the cot beside her, opened her eyes wide. She was awake instantly.

“Oh, sorry! We didn’t realize anybody was in here.” One of the girls who had just come in dropped her suitcase onto one of the trunks. She had curly blond hair, round blue eyes, and lots of freckles,

“What time is it?” Susan was already bounding out of bed.

“Just past nine.” The other girl, tall and thin with long red hair, glanced around the cabin, then claimed as her own the only bed that was left. She looked at Chris and Susan more carefully. “Hey, are you two sisters?”

Chris, finally awake, was climbing out of bed. “We’re twins. I’m Chris Pratt, and this is Susan.”

“Pleased to meet you! I’ve never known a pair of twins before.” The redheaded girl grinned. “It’ll be an honor to share Cabin Four with you. My name is Linda Ames.”

“And I’m Samantha Collier. But everybody calls me Sam,” the other girl piped up. “And I’ve never known any twins either!”

Susan laughed. “We’re not any different from anybody else.”

“Right,” Chris agreed. “My sister and I just happen to share the same face, that’s all!”

While Chris and Susan slipped into shorts and T-shirts, Sam and Linda unpacked.

“Is this your first camp counseling job?” asked Linda. Along with her clothes, Susan noticed that she unpacked a pile of paperback novels—including a few that she had been anxious to read herself.

“Yes. In fact, Chris and I never even heard of Camp Pinewood until a few weeks ago. How about you?”

“This is the third summer here for both Sam and me. But,” she added with a sad smile, “I have a feeling it might turn out to be our last.”

Chris and Susan exchanged knowing looks. So their two cabinmates were also aware of the mysterious things that had been going on at the camp! Before they could ask about how much they knew, Linda volunteered the information.

“Yes, Camp Pinewood has been running into some financial difficulties, all because of some strange goings-on that no one’s been able to figure out. The number of kids who come here each summer keeps getting smaller, year after year.” She sighed. “As much as I’d hate to see it, it looks like Mr.
and Mrs. Reed might even have to close down after this season.”