The Red Slippers (14 page)

“You'd have
help
,” Bess admonished her. “We'd each be assigned a CIT, counselor-in-training, who's a few years younger. And of course, we'd all be there to help each other. Besides”—she pointed an accusing finger at George—“you
like
children. You're a great babysitter! Remember when you watched cousin Gemma for the day and taught her how to code?”

George's lips turned up. “Well,
she
was an exceptional kid. She had a natural talent!”

“I guess we'd have activities to keep them busy, George,” I said, trying to imagine the three of us relaxing by the lake in the photo. “It's not like we'd be starting from scratch.”

“And the activities are
really fun
,” Bess went on. “I know neither of you went to summer camp, but it's the greatest! Swimming and hiking and playing capture the flag and . . .”

I looked at George. Bess was right, I'd never been to summer camp . . . but it
did
sound really fun. And definitely more exciting than sitting in our backyard rereading Harry Potter with my feet in a kiddie pool, which was basically last summer. (When I wasn't sleuthing, that is.) “It would only be a week or two,” I said quietly.

Bess looked at me, her eyes bulging in excitement as she realized she'd gained an ally. “Ten days,” she squealed. “The mini-sessions are just one week of camp, and three days' training. That's not so bad, right? Even if you hated it, it's
only
ten days.”

The silence that followed was broken by a
crunch!
We all turned to see Ned finishing up his waffle cone. “I'm sold,” he said after he swallowed. “But unfortunately, I'm using the summer to bang out my science requirements. You're on your own, Nance.”

Bess smiled at him. “You weren't invited anyway,” she said. “It's a girls' camp. What do you say?” she asked, looking eagerly from me to George.

“I'm . . .
in
,” I said, smiling in spite of myself. A week at camp! It was the last way I thought I'd spend my summer, and yet it was somehow perfect. I looked back down at the photo on the brochure. It looked . . .
peaceful.

Bess squealed and turned to George, squeezing her arm. “It's on you, cuz,” she said, looking George in the eye. “You
know
this would be fun. Come on. Everything I suggest for us turns out to be fun!”

I held up my hand.
“Actually . . .”

Ned raised a finger in the air. “Yeah, I'm gonna have to object to that one too.”

George laughed.

Bess pretended to glare at me. “We're still all
alive,
anyway,” she pointed out. Then she turned back to George. “Cuz, will you make my summer? Come on, say you're in.”

George took the brochure from me and looked down at the photo. A slow smile crept across her face. “Okay,” she said. “But if I get a bunkful of princessy mean girls, I am
coming for you in the night
, Bess.”

“I can live with that,” she said quickly. “I'm fast. I know how to hide. Anyway,
yay!
” She grabbed me suddenly around the waist with one hand, pulling in George with the other. “Group hug! We're headed back to Camp Larksong!”

Six weeks and endless application forms later, I sat on my bed, cramming in my last two T-shirts into my camp duffel bag. Our housekeeper, Hannah, had helped me sew labels bearing my name onto all my clothes. Eight shirts, six pairs of shorts, two pairs of jeans, pj's, one casual dress—I was officially ready to go!

And not a minute too soon, because as soon as I zipped up my bag, I heard the toot of Bess's horn in the driveway. I hefted my bag onto my shoulder—
whoa, I hope I don't have to carry this far
—and maneuvered it down the stairs and into the front hall. Dad and Hannah, having heard the horn too, were standing there waiting to say good-bye.

Dad grinned at me. “I can't believe you're going to
camp
,” he said, shaking his head. “You were never a
camp
type. You were a stick-your-nose-in-a-book type.”

“It looks really fun, Dad,” I said. “Besides, it's a great excuse to spend some time outside and get to know some new people.”

He nodded. “I know you'll have fun,” he said, and leaned in for a hug.

“Don't forget to eat,” Hannah advised as I finished up Dad's hug and went to hug her. “You'll be running around a lot!”

I chuckled. “Well, I can guarantee the food won't be as good as yours,” I promised. “I'll miss you both. Write to me?”

Dad pulled out some folded paper and a preaddressed envelope from his shirt pocket. “Ready to go,” he promised. “Don't worry, you won't miss any of the big news from River Heights.”

“I love you both,” I said, opening the door and squeezing through with my bag.

“Love you, too. Have fun,” Dad said, leaning out to take the door from me and waving in Bess's direction. “Don't get in too much trouble.”

I grinned back at him. “When have
I
ever gotten in trouble?”

I hauled my bag out to Bess's coupe and loaded it into the trunk, then climbed into the passenger seat. Bess was all smiley and pumped up, and couldn't stop talking about all the fun we were going to have at Camp Cedarbark. She explained that at Camp Larksong, each week ended with a special campout on a hill by the lake, with a sunset sing-along and ghost stories around the campfire. She'd read on Camp Cedarbark's website that they were planning to continue the tradition.

We swung by George's house, where she was waiting in the driveway with her parents. After lots of hugs and kisses (George is an only child, and her parents
love
her), George climbed into the backseat and we were off.

“Aren't you
excited
?” Bess asked, peering at her cousin in the rearview mirror when we were stopped at a traffic light. “Aren't we going to have the
best time ever
?”

“Yeeeeeeah,” said George slowly. But she didn't look like she thought we were going to have the
best time ever
. She looked a little . . . concerned.

“Is something up?” I asked.

“Not exactly,” she said. But she still wore a confused expression. “It's just . . . I Googled ‘Camp Larksong' and ‘Camp Cedarbark' last night.”

The light changed, and Bess punched the gas with a little too much force. We lurched forward. “Don't tell me you found some nasty review,” she said. “I've been looking at them every few weeks myself. Everyone says they've had an amazing time there.”

“It wasn't a nasty review,” George said, shaking her head. “It was a newspaper article. The headline was ‘Tragedy Closes Camp Larksong.' It was dated five years ago—the year you said the camp closed.”

Bess frowned. “That's strange. I never heard about any tragedy. What did the article say?”

George hesitated. “That's just the thing—I couldn't access the article. It was taken down a year ago. I just found a link to the cached page.”

Bess looked thoughtful as she pulled onto the highway. For a moment, we were all silent as she merged into traffic and we all thought our separate thoughts.

“I'm sure it's nothing,” Bess said after a minute or two, startling me. “If there were really some big tragedy, I would have heard about it, right? I kept in touch with some of my fellow campers for years. Nobody mentioned anything.”

“I guess,” George said, but she was staring out the window with a pensive expression.

Things got quiet again for a while, and I tried to lose myself in the landscape whooshing by and ignore the little worried voice inside my head.

The voice that said,
Please don't let there be a mystery to solve at Camp Cedarbark!

Read all the mysteries in the

NANCY DREW DIARIES

#1 Curse of the
Arctic Star

#2 Strangers on a Train

#3 Mystery of the Midnight Rider

#4 Once Upon a Thriller

#5 Sabotage at Willow Woods

#6 Secret at Mystic Lake

#7 The Phantom of Nantucket

#8 The Magician's Secret

#9 The Clue at Black Creek Farm

#10 A Script for Danger

#11 The Red Slippers

And coming soon . . .

#12 The Sign in the Smoke

This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author's imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

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First Aladdin hardcover edition December 2015

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Library of Congress Control Number 2015951007

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