Applewhites at Wit's End (14 page)

Chapter Twenty-nine

E
.D. missed the whole of Plan C. When she'd arrived at Wisteria Cottage, Ginger and Lucille had been poring over a book of folk songs, comparing verses and choruses and talking about the uses of repetition in songwriting. “Code red!” she shouted as she went in. “The inspector's back—in the meadow! Plan C has started already. You need to change clothes, Ginger, and get out there as fast as you can.”

“It's okay, go!” Lucille said. Ginger turned and ran for Dogwood Cottage. “Plan C?”

“Plausible deniability,” E.D. said. “You don't want to know.”

“Nobody will get hurt, right?”

“That'll pretty much depend on Wolfie,” E.D. said as she headed for the door. She wanted to get back in time to see the action.

“Wait!” Lucille said. “I want you to look at something.”

“But I have to go—”

“Do you play a central role in Plan C?”

“No—but—”

“Okay, then. This'll only take a minute.” Lucille pulled E.D. over to Archie's laptop on the kitchen table. She didn't let go of her arm as she brought a photograph up on the screen. “I'm thinking of starting a blog about all this. Something wonderful is happening. I've already written three poems. It's not just Harley's camera. Look here!”

That was how E.D. missed what happened in the meadow. Lucille insisted on showing her all the evidence that orbs couldn't be accounted for by the camera flash lighting up dust particles or moisture in the air. Lucille and Harley had been conducting experiments. They'd stirred up dust in the storage rooms of the barn and taken pictures. Those photos had some orblike blobs, but they all were fuzzy and indistinct. None of them had the interior mandala patterns, and none of them had blue fringes. They'd run the shower in Wisteria's bathroom until the room was full of mist, and none of the photos they'd taken had orbs in them at all. There were even two photos with colored orbs that had been taken outside without a flash.
Incontrovertible evidence,
Lucille called these photographs.

“But the best thing of all,” she announced with triumph, “is that you can
call
them! At least I can. Harley refused to try.”

“Well, thanks for showing me these,” E.D. said. “But I really should get back—”

“Just a few more! Look here.”

E.D. sighed. “I don't see any orbs.”

Lucille nodded. “Exactly! There weren't any. So I closed my eyes, went into a meditative state, and asked them to show up and let us take their picture. And they came! I'm afraid Harley's a little freaked by it all. He's considering giving up photography altogether.”

By the time E.D. finally managed to get away, she found Jake and the campers at the goat pen, congratulating themselves on their success and complaining about the things that hadn't worked the way they'd expected.

It turned out that Ginger and Cinnamon had gotten themselves just as lost in the woods as the inspector until Ginger finally stumbled onto the road by accident. As soon as the man had seen pavement, he took off running, or at least limping very fast, to find his car. “I think Wolfie must have hurt the man's leg a little when he tore his pants,” Ginger said.

“So we didn't get to sic Wolfie on him again,” David said. “Too bad! I don't think he even drew blood the first time.”

“And Samantha didn't get to dump her paint,” Jake added.

“I'm just as glad,” Samantha said. “I'd finally managed to get the colors right, and I didn't want to waste the paint. Besides, I got four whole patches of the barn quilt finished. You all need to come see it!”

“Archie's gone to the pond. He's giving us an extra optional swim,” Q said. “Cordelia went to get Hal and change into her suit.” The others agreed they were more than ready for a swim.

E.D. had still not convinced herself that the pond was okay for swimming, so while the others went to change into their suits, she headed back to the air-conditioned office. She'd been thinking about Aunt Lucille and Harley looking for evidence about orbs, and realized there was still no evidence that the messages that had continued to appear in the mailbox were real. She'd never actually gotten around to checking. If the whole thing was really Mrs. Montrose trying to get revenge on her father, it could be that the woman had exaggerated the danger. Maybe the state couldn't actually shut them down at all. The thing to do was go online and check out the North Carolina Department of Environment and Natural Resources. Before they harassed a state inspector again, it would be a good idea to know for sure how much was riding on his report.

Fifteen minutes later, E.D. had found the regulations. They had not been exaggerated. Not only were they word for word what the messages had said, there were pages and pages more. On the department's home page she had also found the phone number for customer relations, and that gave her an idea. If she pretended to be someone reporting violations, she might be able to find out exactly what the state could and would do about them. And maybe, even more important, how much time it would take them to do it.

E.D. picked up the phone and put it down again. Calling a government office was scary. Then she remembered the improv exercise. As bad as she was at acting, she was really pretty good at improvising.
I can do this!
she thought. She would pretend to be somebody like Mrs. Montrose. She would call in to report violations at some anonymous camp and just see what happened. She took a deep breath, picked up the phone, and dialed the customer service number.

When a friendly voice answered, E.D. lowered her voice, doing her best to sound like her mother. “I'd like to talk to whoever is in charge of regulating camps in North Carolina,” she said.

“Resident camps?” the friendly voice asked.

“Yes—resident camps.”

“That would be Joseph Gant. He is out of the office at the moment, but I can connect you with his assistant, Daryl Gaffney. One moment. I'll put you through.”

It was working, E.D. thought. The woman hadn't acted as if she was talking to a kid. “This is Daryl Gaffney, how may I help you?”

“Mr. Gaffney,” E.D. said in her best Sybil voice, “I have some questions about possible rule violations at a summer camp.”

“What sorts of violations?”

“There are several. Vermin infestation, for instance.” She thought about Paulie in the kitchen while Aunt Lucille and her mother fixed meals. That was absolutely against the sanitary regulations. “Live animals in the kitchen during meal preparation. Unsanitary conditions in living quarters. I think your department should send an inspector to investigate this facility immediately.”

There was a slight pause before Mr. Gaffney responded. “I missed your name, Ms. . . .”

“My name is . . . Sybil . . .” E.D. looked wildly around the office for a possible last name. A dictionary was leaning against the printer. “Sybil Webster.”

“Well, Ms. Webster, our department does not actually conduct those inspections. They are done by the county health department in the county where the camp is located. Such inspections are, of course, done
for
the state, which issues the camp permits, but not
by
the state. How large a camp is this?”

“Sixteen acres,” E.D. said.

There was a muffled chuckle on the other end of the line. “I'm sorry, ma'am—I meant how many campers are served by the facility?”

“Six.”

“Six? You mean six
hundred
? On sixteen acres?”

“No. I mean six. Six campers.”

Now there was no question that Mr. Gaffney was doing his best to suppress a laugh. He wasn't quite succeeding. “I'm very sorry, Ms. Webster, but as you may know, the state of North Carolina, like most states, works under considerable budgetary restraint. We are snowed under with regulations—there's the ban on smoking in public restaurants and bars, for instance—a nightmare, that one! There simply isn't the staff to enforce them all. We do our best, but you really have no idea how many regulations we and the county health departments have to deal with! We are stretched very, very thin!
Six campers!
Has anyone become ill at this camp? Has anyone—
died
?”

“Certainly not!”

“Then, Ms. Webster, I suggest you begin by taking up the issue with the camp management. Ask them to clean up their act, as it were. Ask them to call in exterminators. And get the animals out of the kitchen. If you could see the load of casework we deal with at our end, you'd understand that a situation of this—this— Is there such a word as
minitude
? The opposite, I mean to say, of
magnitude
? Well, I mean, I just have to tell you that a camp of that size is not going to readily make its way to the top of our workload. Or that of the particular county's health department, for that matter.” Daryl Gaffney was openly chuckling now. “Is there—is there anything else I can help you with?”

“No, thank you,” E.D. said. “I appreciate you taking the time to speak to me.”

“Think nothing of it,” Mr. Gaffney said. “You've been a breath of fresh air in a very dull day.
Six campers!
”

He was laughing outright when E.D. hung up. The regulations were real. But if the state—or the county health department—didn't have the staff to enforce them,
who was the man in the suit
?

Chapter Thirty

D
estiny hadn't gotten back from the library in time to swim, so Jake had been free to swim with the campers. He'd taken Winston along, and the dog was so exhausted that once he'd gotten a drink from the pond edge, he dragged his muddy body back, flopped down in the shade, and went instantly to sleep.

Not once during the whole of optional swim did Jake catch Ginger staring at him with that look of adoration. As relieved as he was, Jake had to admit to himself that he was almost sorry. Nobody in his life had ever looked at him that way before. He pretty much doubted it would ever happen again.

With Archie overseeing the water activities, they staged individual races, most of which Q won; relay races with endless arguments over who should be on which team and whether the fastest swimmers on a team should go first or last; a diving contest, which David won with a forward front flip that Jake could hardly believe could be done without a diving board; and finally a game of Marco Polo that went badly wrong when Samantha, Cinnamon, and Ginger accused David of cheating. The argument over that got so heated that Archie kicked everybody out of the pond fifteen minutes early.

The twins said everybody should go see Samantha's mural; David stormed off to the boys' cottage by himself; and the others, except for Hal, who reluctantly went to keep an eye on David, gathered their sandals and towels and set off toward the barn.

As Jake started after them, Harley hung back. “Can I talk to you?” he said. “Privately?”

“Sure! What's up?”

“Well. Um.” Harley fiddled with the towel around his neck. “You know how I told you I don't sing?”

“Yeah.”

“See, the thing is—I sort of do. I mean, I really do—I
can—
but I don't. I mean I haven't.” He rubbed his nose. “I've spent my whole life on the road with my folks, going from concert to concert. I was ‘bus schooled,' is how my mom puts it. There were never any other kids in my life—just my parents and the band and their fans. I didn't get much chance to be a kid.”

Jake nodded. As different as his life had been from Harley's, he sort of knew how that was.

“So I decided when I was still pretty little that the way to be
me
was to not be
them
. I learned to play the guitar way back before I figured out the ‘me' thing, but I don't carry one around with me or anything. Since I didn't want to sing, I was gonna be a painter till I found out I wasn't any good at it, and then I decided to do photography instead.”

“But you
can
sing?”

“Oh, yeah. I can. So what I wanted to ask is, Is it too late to join your workshop?”

Jake laughed. “As long as you don't expect much from me as a singing coach. We just all sort of figure stuff out together.”

“It's not so much for the singing part. You know the music that came into my head for Ginger's lyrics? Well, I was thinking she and I might be able to sing a duet at the end-of-camp show. I mean, if we have an end-of-camp show. If the state doesn't shut us down or anything. Trouble is, I didn't bring my guitar—”

“Archie has one,” Jake said.

“I didn't know he plays the guitar.”

“He doesn't. He bought it a long time ago when he was going around the world on a tramp steamer. Thought he'd learn to play and use it to impress girls.” Jake chuckled. “He learned a few chords; but since he doesn't sing, the whole thing just never worked out. He's still got it though. It's in a closet in Wisteria Cottage. I'm pretty sure he'd lend it to you.”

Archie had just swum across the pond from the diving platform and was climbing onto the dock. “Go ask him,” Jake said. “We could definitely use somebody in the workshop who can play live music for us! Are you any good?”

Harley nodded. “The bass guitarist told me I was a prodigy.”

“Be careful of that word,” Jake said. “Go ask!”

After they'd all checked out Samantha's mural, which was really big, really original, a little strange, and—everybody agreed—really good, Jake, with Winston tagging behind, went back to Wisteria Cottage to shower and change. When he got there, Archie had dug out his guitar and dusted off the case.

“It's about time this old thing got some use!” he said. “So Harley's a guitar prodigy, huh? Lucille's right. This group just gets more and more interesting. Have you seen Samantha's mural?”

Jake nodded. “It seems pretty good to me. I don't know that much about art—”

“One thing's for sure: when it's done, we're going to have ourselves the most unusual barn in the state! If the government doesn't close us down, I'm thinking we could sell tickets to the end-of-camp show. Would you take this to Harley?”

E.D. was heading up the steps of Wisteria Cottage when Jake and Winston came out later. “We have to talk,” E.D. said, waving at the rocking chairs on the porch. “Sit!” Winston sat. So did Jake. From the look on E.D.'s face, there was just no point in arguing.

“So, if this guy isn't a state inspector,” Jake said when she finished telling him about her call to the department, “who
is
he?”

“That's what
I
want to know!”

“We should tell your folks. No sense letting them go on worrying that the state could come swooping down on us any minute.”

E.D. didn't answer at first. She just stared off into the trees for a while. Then she smiled in a way that looked to Jake more conspiratorial than cheery. “I'm thinking it wouldn't hurt to let them go on worrying awhile. After all, they're the grown-ups here—the talented, creative, famous grown-ups! And not one of them thought to check with the state before they put everybody to the trouble of creating the camp! And bringing in the campers! Now that
I
know we aren't in danger, I don't mind at all that they still think we are. Serves Dad right when you come right down to it. All I want is to find out who this guy really is.”

“After what happened to him today, you expect him to come back?”

E.D. shrugged. “Let's see if the messages keep turning up in the mailbox. If so, it means the charade continues. So we go on keeping watch. Then—if he comes back—instead of chasing him off, we need to catch him and get the whole story.”

Jake looked at Winston, who was asleep again, snoring noisily. “Winston's practically worn to the bone tromping around the whole of Wit's End four times a day. He's so exhausted that a butterfly actually landed on his head this afternoon and he didn't do a thing.”

“It's about time he figured out he's never going to catch one. Winston's not worn to the bone; he's just lost a little weight. That dog's in better shape than he's been since he was a puppy.”

Jake thought about what had changed since E.D. had found the threatening messages and caught sight of the guy in the suit. When they'd thought there was a threat to the camp, everybody had started pulling together. Even David and Q had begun cooperating, at least occasionally. The threat really had turned them—adults and kids alike—into an ensemble, all focused on the same thing. “Okay. So what do we do instead of distraction and delay?”

“I don't know yet.”

“Harley's joining my singing workshop, so if you bring Hal and Cordelia to the next one, we can tell everybody together.”