Camping Chaos (5 page)

It’s just a dumb made-up story,
he told himself over and over again. Still, he wished there weren’t a full moon tonight.

He had almost fallen asleep when he heard a scream outside.

It sounded like Chet!

7

F
rank bolted up in his sleeping bag at the sound of the scream. For a second he didn’t know where he was. “Where are we? What’s happening?” he demanded.

“Someone’s in trouble. I think it might be Chet!” Joe said, scrambling to his feet.

“Oh!”

Frank grabbed a flashlight, and the two boys rushed outside in their pajamas and socks. Mr. Hardy was already outside with his own flashlight.
Miniature glow-in-the-dark UFOs and martians shone eerily on Phil and Chet’s tent.

“Everything’s fine,” Mr. Hardy told Frank and Joe immediately. “I think our poor Chet had a nightmare.”

“But it
wasn’t
a nightmare, Mr. Hardy,” Chet said, pulling a hoodie over his T-shirt and sweatpants. “I heard a noise outside, and I peeked out. I saw a headless ghost! I swear it!”

“It could have been an animal,” Frank suggested.

Chet shook his head. “No way. It was definitely a ghost!”

“Did you see it too?” Joe asked Phil.

“Nope. I was fast asleep—until Chet started yelling, anyway,” Phil replied, zipping up his parka.

“What did this ghost look like?” Frank asked Chet.

Chet shuddered. “It was white and superscary. You know, like a ghost! And it was moving around!”

Frank waved his flashlight around. Leaves stirred, and a small animal skittered away.

And then Frank noticed something on the ground—something white. He walked over and pointed his flashlight at it.

“Here’s your ghost, Chet,” Frank announced, holding up a blanket. “I think you got pranked.”

•  •  •  •

The next morning Frank, Joe, Phil, and Chet built a campfire in the fire pit by their tents and drank hot chocolate with little marshmallows in it while Mr. Hardy went for a jog. They inspected the blanket they’d found the night before.

There was a label sewn onto one corner of the fabric. It had three letters on it:
HOF
.

“What’s ‘HOF’?” Chet asked. He pronounced it like “hof.”

“Maybe it’s the name of the company that made the blanket?” Phil guessed.

Joe pointed to the letters. “They’re written in Magic Marker. So maybe they’re initials?”

“Like the initials of the person who owns the blanket,” Frank spoke up. “Aunt Gertrude sometimes sews labels onto our clothes. She writes our initials on them.”

“Yes!” Joe said eagerly. “Now all we have to do is figure out which camper has the initials
H-O-F
.”

The boys mulled this over. “Let’s make a list of everyone who’s here for the weekend,” Frank suggested. “Okay, so there’s the four of us, Beatrice, and Lina . . .”

“And there’s Zack and Zack’s sister, whose
name begins with a
C.
 . . . I can’t remember what it is. . . . Oh, and don’t forget about my buddy Garrett,” Joe added.

“Zack’s sister’s name is Caitlin. Plus there’s those five kids from Hudson Falls. I think their names are Grey, Liam, Ethan, Padma, and Dev,” Chet went on.

“So, no
H
s,” Phil concluded.

They sat in silence for a long moment.

“Maybe the blanket belongs to one of the parents,” Frank said finally.

“You think a parent decided to pull a prank and pretend to be a ghost? That doesn’t make any sense,” Joe replied.

Just then Frank heard a twig snap. He glanced up sharply. Was it an animal—or a person?

“What’s that noise?” Joe whispered.

“Maybe it’s a bear or a panther,” Chet replied nervously. “We should hide!”

Bushes rustled. As the boys looked over, they caught a glimpse of dark brown hair disappearing back behind the bushes.

Frank and Joe glanced at each other. Someone was spying on them!

8

W
ho’s there?” Joe called out.

There was no reply.

Joe put his finger to his lips, signaling to Frank, Chet, and Phil that they should be quiet. He moved quickly in the direction of the bushes, trying to make as little noise as possible.

When he got there, he leaped forward and grabbed a handful of leaves—and then a mass of dark brown curls.

“Ow!”
a voice cried out.

“Come out of there, whoever you are,” Joe ordered.

A moment later Garrett stepped out, his cheeks flushed red. He clutched a stuffed animal to his chest and glared at Joe.

“You’re
mean
!” he complained, rubbing his head. “I’m telling my daddy, and you are going to be in so much trouble!”

“Well, you’re going to be in so much trouble
too,” Joe snapped. “Didn’t your daddy tell you that you shouldn’t spy on people?”

Garrett pouted. “But I was so
boooored
! And you guys were talking about awesome stuff, like ghosts!”

Frank, Chet, and Phil joined them. Frank held up the white blanket. “Did you wear this last night and pretend to be a ghost?” he asked Garrett.

Garrett shook his head. “No way!”

Joe eyed Garrett’s stuffed animal. It looked like a tiger!

“Where did you get that?” Joe demanded.

Garrett hugged the tiger protectively. “It’s mine! I found it by the frog pond this morning! Finders, keepers!”

Joe reached over and peered at the tiger’s collar. A rhinestone nametag read:
MR. TRUFFLES
.

“It’s Lina’s missing tiger!” he told Frank. “Mystery solved!”

“We haven’t solved the mystery
yet
,” Frank corrected Joe. “We still have to figure out who our thief is—and our ghost, too!”

•  •  •  •

“It’s got to be Garrett,” Joe said to Frank.

The two boys sat in their tent, updating their six
W
s. Phil and Chet had gone to the lodge for breakfast along with Mr. Hardy. Frank and Joe had promised to catch up to them.

Frank flipped to the page they’d started yesterday and filled in all their new information. He missed their whiteboard system back home. It was hard keeping up the six
W
s with only a paper and pencil!

WHO: Lina?

Beatrice?

Garrett?

A person with the initials HOF?

WHAT: Someone stole three of our snakes and put them over by Lina’s tent. The same person (?) stole her toy tiger, Mr. Truffles, and Beatrice’s Princess Petunia doll.
They’re still missing.

Plus, the same person (?) wore a white blanket with the initials HOF and pretended to be a ghost.

WHEN:
Sometime between Friday bedtime and Saturday morning.
The snakes were stolen sometime between Friday bedtime and Saturday morning. They turned up on Saturday morning.

Princess Petunia and Mr. Truffles were stolen sometime between Friday bedtime and Saturday morning too.
Princess Petunia turned up on Saturday afternoon, and Mr. Truffles turned up on Sunday morning.

The ghost thing happened Saturday night.

WHERE:
At our campsite and Lina’s and Beatrice’s campsites.
Our snakes were stolen from our tent and turned up near Lina’s tent. Princess Petunia was stolen from Beatrice’s tent and turned up on a rock in the middle of the creek. Mr. Truffles was stolen from Lina’s tent, and Garrett found it by the frog pond.