Sydney and the Wisconsin Whispering Woods (13 page)

“Will do,” said Sydney.

In a little while, she returned with Biscuit trotting at her heels. “Okay, here’s what we’ll do,” she said. “We’ll put the camera on the end of your line without any bait or anything. Then you’ll cast and slowly reel it in. In the meantime, I’ll watch the hand-held monitor here. If we see a big fish, you stop reeling. I’ll cast my line as close to yours as I can get it. Then we’ll wait for the big one to bite.”

“Sounds like a plan,” said Alexis. She reeled in her line. “I’m ready.” Carefully, Sydney tied the mini-microcam to Alex’s line using a Palomar knot.

“I’m glad I took that knot-tying class at camp,” she said. “Your fishing line will loop right through this little thingy on the side of the camera and the knot will hold it tight. It’s a super strong knot.”

With the knot tied and the camera attached, Alexis stood up and cast her line as far into the lake as she could. “Don’t look now,” she said. “But you-know-who is looking at us.” Duncan was on Dock Two watching every move the girls made. He reeled in his line and then cast it near Alexis’s.

“Stay clear of my line!” Alexis shouted. “I don’t want to get tangled up with you again.”

Duncan pretended not to hear.

Sydney loaded a dough ball onto her line. She made sure that it was firmly attached to the hook and double-checked it. The last thing she wanted was for it to fall off if a big fish came along. She turned on the monitor for the mini-microcam. It showed nothing under the water but some green algae.

“Start reeling in your line,” she told Alexis. “But go really slow.”

Alexis turned the crank on the reel while Sydney watched the monitor. Some small fish swam by—blue gills, sunfish, and perch.

“Nothing but little guys,” Sydney said.

Alexis reeled her line closer to the dock. “Do you want me to cast it out again?” she asked.

“Yeah,” Sydney answered. “See how far you can throw it.”

Alexis stood and took a couple of steps backward.

“Move, Biscuit,” she said. “I don’t want you in the way.”

Biscuit sniffed the wet mini-microcam indent on the end of the fishing line. Then he sat down and watched Alexis cast the line with all of her might. It arched toward the sky and landed far into the lake.

“All right! Way to go, Alex!” Sydney exclaimed. “That was a great cast!”

She looked at the screen on the monitor in her hand. “Oh my goodness. Look.”

She held it in front of Alexis. The camera had landed in the fishing hole—the one where the big ones swam. Several muskies were circling it, probably wondering if it held some food.

“Okay,” said Sydney. “Now, I have to cast my line close to yours before they eat the minicam.”

She stood and checked the dough ball one last time. It was stuck hard to the hook.

“Wish me luck, ‘cause here I go.” She stood back, trying to avoid Biscuit. Then with all her strength, she cast her line. It flew through the air and landed with a
splash
just a few yards from Alexis’s line.

“All right!” she yelled. “Bull’s-eye!”

Duncan watched more avidly than ever.

“Now I guess we just have to wait,” said Alexis.

She had barely said the words when the end of Sydney’s pole bent sharply toward the water. Then the reel started spinning uncontrollably, unraveling yards of line. Sydney grabbed the pole and held the reel crank to stop it from spinning.

“I’ve got a big one,” she gasped.

Biscuit barked wildly,
Ruff! Ruff! Ar-roof! Ruff! Ruff! Ar-roof!

That got Duncan’s attention. “Need any help over there?” he yelled.

“We’re fine!” Sydney shouted.

By now, the other boys on the other docks were watching, too.

For fifteen minutes Sydney fought with the fish. She let it take some line, and then she reeled it in. She kept doing that until the fish was tired out. Then finally, she reeled it up to the dock.

“It’s huge!” Alexis cried. She leaned over the edge of the dock and scooped the muskie into the net. It took every ounce of her strength to help Sydney haul it onto the dock.

Biscuit ran to the fish and sniffed it as it lay there flopping.

“Careful, boy. It has sharp teeth,” Alexis warned. The little dog backed away and whined.

Sydney took out the tape measure and measured her catch.

“Thirty-nine inches!” She yelled over to Duncan. “We’re heading over to Tompkins’ to put it on ice.”

The next morning, the girls quietly prepared for another adventure in the forest. They both knew returning to the mountain man’s cave was risky.

“I think we should leave Biscuit here,” said Sydney.

“We can’t,” Alexis argued. “He’s the only one who will fit through the trap door.”

“I know,” Sydney said, as she stuffed their sleuthing equipment into her waist pack. “But if Biscuit barks, he’ll give us away. We should go to the campsite alone. Then, when the mountain man leaves, one of us can come back here and get him.”

Alexis slipped the Wonder Watch over her wrist. “And what do we do about Fang? If he senses we’re nearby, he might run to us or bark or something.”

“That’s a chance we’ll have to take,” Sydney said. “We need to be super quiet when we’re at the campsite.”

Alexis tucked the pepper spray into her pocket just in case they ran into a bear. “Scooby-Doo, where are you?” She sighed as they left the cabin.

“What?” Sydney asked.

“I was just thinking about Scooby-Doo,” Alexis explained. “He’s always nervous when he goes sleuthing, and I wondered how he would sneak into the campsite.”

“Are you nervous?”

“A little,” Alexis answered. “Let’s check out the mushrooms first and see if anyone has been digging.”

When they arrived at the spot where the mushrooms grew, they found them—
gone!

“Were there hundreds of mushrooms here yesterday or was it all my imagination?” Alexis asked in disbelief.

“They were here,” Sydney confirmed. “And now they’re not.” Someone had dug up the mushrooms, raked the soil, and covered it with dead leaves and pine needles. The shovel was gone, too.

Sydney probed the soil with her foot, looking for clues. “Check this out,” she said, pointing to a spot on the ground.

“Ésprit!” said Alexis. “It’s the mountain man’s boot print! But why would he want so many mushrooms?”

Sydney was busy thinking. “Do you know what, Alex?” she said after a while. “I’m sure he’s the one who left the
Field Guide to Mushrooms
on the ground at the resort. And I’m sure, too, that he’s responsible for the mushroom we found on the dock and the others floating in the water. And remember, the first night we were here we saw him, and then in the morning the bottom of the boat at our dock was wet, and you noticed a brown, slimy fungus at the edge of the beach.”

“That’s right,” said Alexis. “And mushrooms are a fungus. And that night, after the coyote was killed, we saw the mountain man near our cabin. He was picking at the earth with a stick and putting stuff into a bag.”

“Mushrooms!” Sydney added. “Alex, he was searching for mushrooms there in the dark, but why?”

“That’s what we have to find out,” Alexis said.

They approached the campsite cautiously, stopping briefly when the buzzing noise from the cave turned to the familiar
whop-whop-whop
followed by “Go back! Go back! Go back!”

“I’m not afraid of that anymore,” said Sydney. “It’s obviously triggered by something we step on or walk by. I think the mountain man is using spooky sounds to keep people away.”

“Like the professor in
The Wizard of Oz,”
said Alexis.

“Yeah, just like him,” Sydney agreed.

They peeked through the bushes at the campsite. The kayak was gone, and so it seemed, were the mountain man and Fang.

“I’m going to check it out,” said Sydney. “You stay here.” She walked around the campsite, staying well hidden in the brush. She passed the stinking manure pile at the edge of the clearing. Then she went toward the hole in the ground. The purple glow shot up from the hole as it had the day before, and the buzzing noise whirred down below. The fence was still padlocked shut.

“They’re not here,” Sydney said when she circled back around to where Alexis stood. “Stay put, and I’ll get Biscuit.”

Sydney sprinted back to the cabin. Biscuit was waiting for her on the screened porch. Before they’d left that morning, Sydney had attached the mini-microcamera to his collar so he’d be ready to go.

“Come on, boy,” she said, snapping his leash onto his collar. Biscuit sensed that he was on an important mission. Instead of barking and running playfully into the woods, he sniffed the ground following the trail that the girls had taken. Before long, he led Sydney right to the campsite where Alexis was.

“I have the monitor turned on and ready,” Alex said, “and I alerted the other Camp Club Girls that we’re about to go in. Kate sent a message that she’s worried. I told her we’d make sure Biscuit stays safe.”

“Good,” said Sydney. “I think only one of us should go into the cave with him.”

Alexis said nothing.

“I’ll go,” Sydney offered.

“I’ll stand guard,” Alexis said. “And Sydney, be very,
very
careful.”

“We will,” Sydney promised. Then she and Biscuit walked into the purple glow of the clearing and headed toward the entrance to the cave. Biscuit pulled and strained hard on his leash. He made a gagging, gasping sound as the collar choked him, and he dragged Sydney inside.

“Slow down, boy!” she said. But Biscuit hurried on ahead.

They went through the wide stone-cold corridor toward the secret room, and Sydney noticed that the knapsack was missing—the one with the initials J.C. They rushed past the marks etched on the wall and into the little room with the stalactites and stalagmites. Biscuit seemed to know exactly where he was going. He led Sydney directly to the corner of the room and the locked door. Then he sat and looked at her.

“Are you ready to do some exploring?” Sydney asked him. Biscuit stood on his hind legs and put his paws on Sydney’s knees. She reached for the mini-microcam on his collar and switched it on. Video of the outside appeared on the small monitor that Alexis held in her hand. First, the blue denim of Sydney’s jeans, then her white sneaker with the lace half tied, then the stone floor of the cave, and finally the wooden planks of the heavy, padlocked door.

“Here we go,” Alexis whispered into the face of the Wonder Watch. She took a deep breath and prayed. “Dear God, watch over Biscuit.”

“Okay, Biscuit,” said Sydney. “You go through this little door and check things out, and be quick about it, too.” She unhooked the leash from Biscuit’s collar and let him go. He lay down on his fluffy belly and then slithered and squeezed his body through the little trapdoor.

Sydney ran back to where Alexis was so they could watch the monitor together. “He’s in,” she said, peeking over Alexis’s shoulder.

“So far, all I can see is purple,” said Alexis.

“He must be sitting or standing just inside the door,” said Sydney. “He’s not moving. Why?”

“I don’t know,” said Alexis. “He’s just sitting there.”

Suddenly, the monitor went black.

“What’s wrong with this thing?” Sydney complained. “We just lost our picture. Wait … no … I think the camera is taking a picture of something black. Look. Whatever it is, it’s moving.”

The blackness on the screen bounced up and down and back and forth and then—

“Oh my goodness!” Sydney gasped. A huge, black nose appeared on the screen, sniffing. Then a sparkling, brown eye looked into the camera lens, and a long, pink tongue licked it. “Fang!”

The Wonder Watch jiggled on Alex’s wrist. M
ESSAGE WAITING:
K
ATE
. A message scrolled across the screen. T
HAT’S NOT BISCUIT’S NOSE!
W
HAT’S IN THERE WITH MY DOG?

Alexis held the watch toward Sydney. “You tell her,” she said.

Reluctantly, Sydney pushed the button on the watch and spoke into its face. “Fang is with Biscuit. I had no idea he was in there. But he’s friendly, Kate. I’m sure of it.”

G
ET HIM OUT OF THERE THIS MINUTE!

Alexis answered this time. “Kate, we can’t. It’ll be just fine. I promise. Watch the pictures, and if anything goes wrong, we’ll go right in to get him.”

P
ROMISE?

“I promise,” said Alexis.

Sydney looked on helplessly. “The only problem with that,” she said to Alexis, “is that we
can’t
go in and get him. The door is locked.”

“I forgot,” said Alexis. “So now what?”

“Pray,” said Sydney.

“I am,” Alexis said.
“I am!”

The picture on the screen changed to a thick, black tail wagging like a windshield wiper on a car. Then the girls saw all of Fang’s behind as he trotted ahead of Biscuit.

“What’s that?” Sydney asked.

A long table showed up on the screen. On it were jars of various sizes. Each jar was filled with a clear liquid, and each held a single large mushroom. The mushrooms seemed to glow in the eerie purple light.

“I see labels on the jars, but I can’t read them,” said Alexis. “It looks like he’s handwritten a name and date on each one.”