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  I glared. "I am still a really good rider. Someone stuck my horse in the butt with a thorn."

  She snickered a moment more before calming down. "You're lucky you went into the water. You could've broken your neck."

  "Which is what the girls probably think is going to happen to Cookie," I said.

  Kelly stifled a grin. "Yeah, that's going to haunt the rest of the trip. We'll just have to tell them some story about Cookie. Give him a happy ending." After saying that, she collapsed in a fit of giggles. She was totally hopeless.

  I turned out the lantern and rolled over on my cot, thinking about the men at Ghost Badger Bridge. Kelly had brushed it off when I'd told her that part. She seemed to think it wasn't important, and since we weren't going out there again, it didn't matter.

  I wasn't so sure.

  * * *

  I didn't sleep well and was up with the dawn the next morning. It was only then that I remembered the piece of paper I'd stuffed in my shorts the day before. Since I was wearing them again today (I kind of get the "Green Socks" song now), I pulled it out and walked over to a picnic table to sit down and read it privately.

  The paper wasn't anything special—just cheap, plain copy paper. I'd hoped for a letterhead, but no such luck. It wasn't blank, but it didn't say much. In pencil, someone had written $10,000 for twenty. And a date: July 14.

  That's today! What was going to happen today? I did a little math. Ten thousand dollars divided by twenty was five hundred dollars. What was worth five hundred dollars? Guns? You could get a decent handgun for less than that. Big guns? Like AK-47s and M-1s? That would be a good price for them.

  Could be drugs. I had no idea what you could do for that much money. The combinations and possibilities were endless. Trying to figure out what was being moved for that kind of money was useless at this point.

  I thought about the bridge. Why that location? I hadn't seen any buildings nearby, but then I hadn't gone that far. There was only one road, and it ran right through camp. With about two hundred people here right now, it would be impossible to slip a shipment of anything through unseen. So what was going to happen today?

  It would have to be at night. Maybe it wasn't even happening at the bridge—that was just a rendezvous point. If that was the case, then these were the dumbest crooks ever. Iowa was full of back roads where you could travel for miles without seeing another person.

  I looked around at the peace and quiet that would soon be interrupted by hungry little girls getting ready for breakfast. What should I do?

  Kelly said last night that it wasn't my concern. And she was right. I sure as hell didn't need one more thing.

  But on the other hand, if things went badly tonight for these men, they suddenly had access to two hundred underage hostages. I shuddered. I knew I couldn't let it get that far. Besides, these guys had attacked me and my horse. Something had to be done.

  Rex! My boyfriend was a police detective. This wasn't his jurisdiction, but I should talk to him about it. I pulled out my cell and dialed. Nothing happened.

  No cell service. Of course. We'd been warned about that. The first day Pony, the camp director, had told us that the only places with strong cell service were the dining hall and the horse barn.

  Girls started stirring in their cabins, and I shoved my phone back into my pocket. We'd be going to the dining hall soon for breakfast. It would have to wait until then.

  * * *

  "I don't know that it's anything," Rex said. He'd answered on the first ring, which obviously meant he'd missed me terribly. After asking how my cat and her kittens were and hearing that they were just fine, I told him everything I knew.

  "Granted, I don't like that you got hurt. But since there was no investigation, we can't rule out that it wasn't a falling branch or even an animal that fell from a tree."

  "It wasn't an animal, and there wasn't any debris near me," I whispered as I stood in the middle of the gravel road by the dining hall. My troop and Kelly were inside because I'd volunteered the troop for cleanup. They didn't like it, but it had bought me a few minutes with Rex.

  "I know Kelly said that," Rex said calmly. "But it was dark, and her first concern was to get you to the nurse. She's not a trained investigator, and neither are you."

  "I didn't find anything when I went back the next day," I said, my eyes on the door of the building.

  "In all the confusion it could've been moved. Or another troop was out there after you. Or a raccoon carried it off. Listen, Merry, you shouldn't think everything going on around you is a conspiracy."

  "I don't—but—" I started to say.

  "And if it is something—then the sheriff should deal with this. Not you."

  I kicked a pebble on the ground and grumbled, "Yeah, I know. It's just that…"

  "Riley didn't think it was worth checking out either," Rex cut me off.

  I stared at the cell. "How did you know that?"

  "He called me to see if I'd heard from you." Rex's voice had turned to baby talk. "Didn't he? He's a good spy, just like you!"

  "Are you talking like that to me? I was a good spy! I find your baby talk insulting," I fumed.

  "Oh! Sorry, babe," Rex apologized. "I was talking to Mata Hari."

  I couldn't think of an appropriate response to this, so I said nothing.

  "Mata Hari is one of the kittens. The little black one," Rex explained.

  "You're naming my kittens now?" I shouted.

  My boyfriend laughed. "Sorry! I just couldn't resist. This one just keeps sneaking up on me. And a spy name does sound appropriate."

  He had me there.

  "Look," he said, "I'm going to text you Sheriff Cole's number. You're in his jurisdiction. If you see anything suspicious, just call him. Don't get involved. Just call him."

  "Fine," I grumbled.

  "I mean it. Don't get involved. If it is anything bad, just stay out of it and call the sheriff. Okay?" Rex was serious now, for the first time in our conversation.

  "Whatever." I told him I missed him and promised to call tomorrow when I got back and had taken three or four showers. Then I hung up.

  Kelly and the girls joined me. "Is everything going all right at home?"

  I nodded. "Rex doesn't think this is anything either."

  "Good. Now you know for sure that I'm right," Kelly said. "Besides, we've got arts and crafts now, and I'm going to need your undivided attention."

  We hiked to the boathouse, singing songs about bubblegum and alligators, but my mind was elsewhere. Maybe everyone was right. I was seeing criminal masterminds around every bend. This was supposed to be my time with my troop and my best friend—before she became a mother, and I didn't have all of her attention. I should enjoy it.

  Rex sent a text with the sheriff's phone number, and I just shut my phone off, putting it into my backpack as we entered a one-room building on the shores of Goose Lake. The walls were covered, floor to ceiling, with shelving holding every kind of paint, paper, markers, et cetera you could imagine.

  "Hello!" A cheerful, young woman with long hair tied up into a messy bun with flecks of paint in it stepped forward. "I'm Venus…" She looked a little nervously at the girls. "…de Milo. Venus de Milo…" Upon seeing no recognition in the eyes of my eight-year-olds, she sighed.

  "It's a sculpture in…you know what? It's not important. You can just call me Venus." Our arts and crafts instructor had just deflated under the weight of her own hubris.

  Another art major who'd tried to be clever to a bunch of elementary school girls. I felt a little bad for her. Until I found out what our project was going to be.

  "So!" She went from depressed to excited so fast that it was kind of scary. "Who wants to do papier-mâché?"

  Ten hands reached for the sky, and the four Kaitlins started vibrating.

  Oh crap. Nothing could be worse on a hot day in July in a non air-conditioned building than to be surrounded by girls up to their elbows in glue and newspaper. Kelly and I watched in complete horr
or as the overly ambitious instructor explained what we'd be doing.

  "Okay!" Venus chirped. "We have boxes, balloons, and lots of other things, so we can make whatever you want!" She pointed at Betty. "What are you going to make?"

  "Cookie!" Betty shouted.

  "A cookie?" Venus happily started rooting around for a large, round-shaped object.

  "No!" Betty scowled. "Cookie! The horse they're going to kill!"

  Uh-oh.

  "Cookie!" The roar went up, and suddenly Venus was inundated with girls who each wanted to make a huge, papier-mâché horse, dried and painted, in about an hour and a half. If I could've fled I would have. But Kelly's arm had shot out and grabbed my hand. I was going nowhere.

  Have you ever tried making a papier-mâché…anything? I remember it taking about a week in art class in elementary school. But Venus was ambitious—determined to share her passion for the fine arts with these girls and turn them into sophisticated connoisseurs in one day, using paste and shredded newspaper and acrylic paint.

  It was a nightmare. Of biblical proportions.

  My troop definitely developed a passion for this project. Making goopy, giant, soggy horse replicas was their way of memorializing a horse that was, in all likelihood, only going to another farm to live out the rest of his days.

  Two hours later, the girls were laying out their weird sculptures, which kind of resembled horses in a Picasso-on-acid kind of way. One group of girls had worked together to make one horse that was nearly life-size. I wondered if it was part of a more sinister plan to smuggle the real Cookie out of camp and into one of their bedrooms. I didn't ask.

  "Shouldn't there be another troop coming in?" I asked Venus who, like Kelly and me, was covered in sticky paste. "I don't want to take up their time."

  Venus shook her head. "You're the only one today. No one else signed up."

  I looked at Kelly, desperately hoping she'd be able to stop this madness, but she said nothing.

  "I think," Venus said once the last horse was laid out to dry, "that after lunch we might be able to paint them!" She clapped her hands in ecstasy, and I began to worry about her sanity a little.

  "Why didn't you say something?" I whispered to Kelly as we led the girls to lunch.

  "I'm pretty sure we're stuck," she whispered back, just as Emily touched a caterpillar, only to have the doomed creature stick to her fingers.

  The other girls noticed this immediately, because they always do, and immediately began touching whatever was around them. When they realized the twigs, leaves, even rocks held firm, they began sticking things on each other.

  We walked into the dining room looking like snipers dressed in full camouflage ghillie suits. Only these weren't removable. These sticks and grass and entire bushes were attached to the girls.

  Surf and Reef joined us again, and the Aussies couldn't stop laughing throughout the meal. When Lauren's hand stuck to the pitcher of Bug Juice they had to excuse themselves to wipe their eyes.

  "Arts and crafts?" Pony, the camp director, stopped at our table.

  "Why yes!" I said with feigned enthusiasm. "How did you guess?"

  The woman nodded and fled, trying hard not to laugh. I could hear the girls at the other tables asking their leaders why they didn't get to glue stuff to their bodies. And I heard a few leaders whisper that they were crossing arts and crafts off their schedule.

  Kelly and I were reasonably unscathed. Fortunately, it hadn't occurred to the girls to attach things to us…yet. On the plus side, no one asked us to help clean up after lunch. So Kelly and I took our weird little troop back to the boathouse for the rest of the afternoon.

  * * *

  The girls were quieter as they painted, and Kelly asked me to look around outside to see if there were showers or even a water pump where we could wash off these kids. We weren't scheduled for another shower—our one time had been at the pool the day before.

  However, things were getting desperate. In the hot and humid afternoon, the girls were sticking to their chairs, the tables, and the paintbrushes in their hands. Their hair had turned into stiff, gluey spikes and ropy dreads. It was all getting a little too Lord of the Flies for our comfort.

  I was just starting to think we could dunk them in the lake, when I stumbled upon the water pump. I flipped the handle up and pumped a few times and was rewarded with ice cold water, gushing like Niagara Falls.

  It felt so good that I sat down on the ground and splashed it all over me, removing the arts and crafts part of the day from my skin. The clothes were hopeless. Cleaning them would require removing them, and I was pretty sure we wouldn't be allowed to walk around camp naked.

  Once I felt reasonably clean, I shut the pump off and, for a moment, looked out over the lake. Getting my bearings, I realized that we weren't far from the Ghost Badger Bridge. Whatever was going to happen would occur tonight. What was it?

  "Isn't it sublime?" Venus said behind me, and I jumped.

  "The lake? Yeah. It's lovely," I mumbled.

  She turned on the pump to fill a large bucket. When done, she shut it off and stared out at the water once again.

  "I'm so glad your troop is having fun. It's so important to introduce art at this age, don't you think?" Venus grinned dreamily at me.

  I nodded. "Of course. I just wish it wasn't so sticky…" I felt a little guilty, so I changed track. "…outside. We, um, could've set up easels and painted or something."

  Venus nodded, "That would be nice, wouldn't it?" She just stood there—smiling. It was awkward.

  "Hey," I said, trying to fill up the silence. "Isn't that haunted bridge over there?"

  "Yes. I'd like to paint that this summer. They frown on us driving through camp when we're off. But, fortunately, there's a hidden road that connects the stables to the other side of that bridge." She leaned toward me conspiratorially. "But don't tell anyone." And with a wink, she was gone.

  "Merry!" Kelly shouted. "We're almost done." The tone in her voice really said get back here now.

  I hurried back to the building, dreading what I would find. At least I could report that we had a place to wash up.

  The horses were done. I've seen a lot of weird things in my life. Like that time in Peru when I met a guinea pig the size of a small dog that could count to fourteen. Or the real live witch doctor in Cameroon who'd trained a monkey to shave him and cut his hair. But I wasn't prepared for this.

  Seven horses, which I only recognized as horses because that's what I was told they were, of varying sizes, colors, and (to be honest) shapes, stood in a bizarre parade in the middle of the room.

  Ten girls, painted up like they were in a Dr. Seuss book, stood proudly next to them. Emily was purple. Three of the girls were yellow. Inez was red, and Hannah was blue. The Kaitlins were green with white polka dots. I'm not sure how they had managed it, but if I were to guess, I'd say the four of them stood still in a line while one of the other girls painted them. It was impressive, to say the least.

  Venus was purple too, but not from the paint. Her shock made me conclude that all of this had been done in the short time she and I had been admiring the lake.

  Kelly looked at me, daring me to say something.

  "Nice brushwork," was all I said.

  Venus erupted. "You girls look magnificent!" Then she ranted in French. I'm not sure, but I think it was complimentary. We stood still while she took photos, still going on in French. What else could we do? I took her aside and quietly gave her my email so that she could send me the photos. Why not take advantage of an opportunity?

  Kelly sent the girls outside to me at the pump, two at a time. It took two hours to scrub all the paint, shrubbery, and paste off of them. They complained about the cold water, but I held them down and got them clean because I wasn't in the mood to pry sleeping bags off of sticky kids in the morning.

  We managed to lead ten shivering, freshly scrubbed, little girls back up the trail to the dining hall for dinner. Kelly and I were exhausted. My friend an
d co-leader looked like she was going to drop. I convinced Pony to let Kelly take a tray to the nurse's office to eat in silence.

  "You know," Surf said from the head of the table, "I'm really going to miss your troop."

  "I'll bet," I mumbled as I took a bite of my English muffin pizza. It wasn't half-bad. I'd have to remember to make these at home.

  "No, really!" Reef smiled. "You've been the best entertainment we've had all summer!"

  I thought about that. These two were from Australia, plunked down in the middle of Iowa for the summer. I decided it was a compliment.

  "When do you get a break?" I asked as I stopped Hannah from stabbing Emily with a plastic knife.

  "Tomorrow," Reef said. "We're getting a three-day weekend. Surf and I are going to Chicago with Venus. She goes to school there at the Art Institute."

  "So after we leave, everyone gets to go?" I asked, just to make conversation.

  "That's right," Surf said as she gently stopped Betty from painting pizza sauce on the table.

  After dinner we retrieved a slightly more rested Kelly from the office and made our way back to Raccoon Fork. The girls were singing a song they'd made up about Cookie and the many heroic adventures he'd allegedly had. There was something about him stomping to death all the snakes in camp to save a princess unicorn. I didn't catch it all.

  It was our last night and an early one. We got the girls ready for bed and tucked into their sleeping bags in their respective cabins. They giggled and chatted with me about how much fun they'd had today. I had to admit, now that it was over, that we really did have a good time.

  Venus had promised that she'd have the horses for us at check out in the morning. The paint wasn't fully dry, but I suspected she wanted to be alone with them tonight. Poor kid. This was her only cultural experience this summer. I hoped we'd made it worth her while.

  Kelly snored softly on her cot, a few feet away. She'd fallen asleep before the girls had. I'd stayed up until the last kid stopped talking. My watch told me it was about eleven at night. Why was I still up?