Strawberry Summer

by Cynthia Blair

  Oh, no! Chris groaned to herself, even as she heard Tom and Pete and the woman congratulating one another and laughing over their success. I just hope it’s not too late....

  “All right, now. Everybody back to work. Pete, Doris, we’ve all got things to do before next Wednesday’s land auction.” That was Tom, who was apparently the boss. “I, for one, am going to start calling some architects. The planning of Waterfront Condominiums, the real estate development project that’s going to make us all rich, has now officially begun!”

  It was all Chris could do to keep from running back to Camp Pinewood. She was still afraid of being seen, though—by Tom or Pete or anyone else who worked at the Lake Majestic Realty Company. They were dangerous people; Alan had been right. But he had had no idea of how dangerous they were—or in what ways.

  She smoothed her dress, patted her hair, and walked away from the office building, trying to look calm. It wasn’t until she was on the main road that she broke into a jog. She was anxious to get back, to talk to her sister, to figure out what steps to take.

  She was relieved that she had finally found out what was going on at Camp Pinewood.

  Now, if only there were something she and Susan could do about it!

  Chapter Twelve

  As soon as Chris hurried into the center of camp, after stopping off at her cabin for a quick change of clothes, she knew that something had gone wrong. There was a great deal of commotion over at the arts and crafts building. The whole camp, it seemed, had gathered there—and it was obvious that it was hardly for a happy occasion.

  She spotted Alan, standing at the edge of the crowd.

  “What happened?”

  He glanced at her sadly. “Somebody got into the arts and crafts building sometime between last night and this morning and destroyed all the kids’ art projects from the whole summer.”

  “Oh, no!” Chris began to feel dizzy.

  “Smashed up their paper hats, their papier-mâché sculptures, their drawings ... everything.”

  “Oh, Alan! I’m so sorry!”

  “Yeah, me too,” he replied with a cold smile. “There goes our annual art exhibition, during Parents’ Day, at the end of next week.” He shook his head slowly. “Once again, Camp Pinewood comes out looking like some two-bit operation.”

  Just like that man said, thought Chris, so angry that she was close to tears. That ... that Pete had said he’d done something else this morning. Something that would make the campers—and their parents—very mad indeed.

  “Where’s Susan? I’d better go find her.” Suddenly, Chris’s concern was for her sister. She spotted her in front of the building, standing with a group of ten-year-olds, her ten o’clock class. And, she could tell by their faces, they were even more distraught over the senseless—and unexplained-destruction than anyone.

  Lucy Kramer, true to form, was already up in -arms. And her pouting was aggravating what was already a shaky situation. All the campers were upset, and the last thing they needed was to listen to her whining.

  “I just called my parents!” Lucy was announcing loudly. “I told them all about this horrible, stupid camp. And I told them how much I hate it here now. Boy, we won’t even be able to show off our art projects on Parents’ Day next week! And I spent hours working on my pipe cleaner zoo!”

  “I’m sure you’ll get over it, Lucy.” Susan tried consoling her. But this time her attempts at calming the little girl down were falling on deaf ears.

  “Well, they’re on their way to pick me up, right now. They’re going to take me away from this crummy old place! And I bet they’re going to want to get all their money back, besides!”

  She turned to her sidekick, Maggie. “And you’re going to call your parents, too. Right, Maggie? To have them come take you away from this awful camp?”

  “I-I guess so,” Maggie agreed meekly.

  Susan looked relieved when she spotted her twin, headed toward her.

  “Chris! There you are! I was wondering what was taking you so long!”

  Chris cast her a meaningful look. “Well, it turned out to be worth it. Especially given this latest development.” She looked around sadly.

  “Really? You mean you found out something?”

  “I sure did. But now that I’ve done my part, I need you for advice. Maybe you can figure out what you and I should do next. But first, let’s go somewhere where no one can hear us.”

  The two girls snuck away to their cabin. Fortunately, Linda and Sam were still at the arts and crafts building, trying to maintain order among the disappointed campers.

  Chris sat down on her bed and proceeded to tell her sister about the conversation she had overheard while lurking underneath the back window of the Lake Majestic Realty Company’s offices. Susan, sitting at the foot, listened to every word. Her brown eyes grew big and round as the meaning of what her sister was saying began to sink in. By the time her sister had finished, she was ready to burst.

  “Chris, we’ve got to do something! We can’t let those ... those criminals get away with this!”

  “I know,” Chris replied seriously. “But what can we do?”

  Susan thought for a minute. “I suppose we should go right over and tell the Reeds what you found out today.”

  “That’s what occurred to me, too. At least, at first. But now I’m not so sure.”

  Susan was surprised. “Why on earth nor?”

  “Because we have no real proof, that’s why not.” Chris leaned forward earnestly. “Look, if we tell Mr. and Mrs. Reed what you overheard, and they go to the police—or even to those Lake Majestic Realty people themselves—it becomes an issue of my word against theirs.”

  “That’s true. All they have to do is deny it.” Susan looked morose. “And considering the fact that they’re probably one of the town’s upstanding businesses and you’re someone who doesn’t even live around here, I suppose it’s pretty safe to assume that your credibility in these parts would be pretty low.”

  “Exactly. So we’re back to Square One. What we need here is some proof of what they’ve been doing.” Suddenly, Chris flopped across the bed and groaned. “Great! How are we ever going to manage that? I feel like we’ve just hit a real dead end. Here we know precisely what’s been going on, but we can’t do a thing about it....”

  “Don’t be so sure.” Susan’s voice was so soft that her twin hardly heard her.

  “What? You mean you have an idea?” Excited once again, Chris sat up abruptly. “Oh, I knew you’d come up with something, Sooz. You’re so good at this kind of thing! What have you got?”

  “It’s simple,” she replied calmly. “One of us will just have to sneak inside and find some evidence.”

  “Evidence?”

  “Yes. Like a letter or a memo ... something in writing.”

  Chris flopped back down on the bed again. “Oh, Sooz! That’s no good! In fact, it’s impossible]” She thought for a moment. “It also happens to be illegal. Isn’t that considered ‘breaking and entering’?”

  “I suppose it is, if you want to get technical about it. Still, it is for a good cause....”

  “Wait a minute, I think this is already getting way out of hand!”

  Susan sighed. “You’re right. It is a bit much. If only there were a way one of us could get into their offices legally, without actually picking their locks or climbing in through their windows. All we’d need is a few minutes to do some quick snooping around....”

  The two girls were silent for a minute or two, each one lost in her own thoughts. It certainly seemed as if what they wanted to do was impossible....

  And then, all of a sudden, Chris snapped her fingers.

  “I’ve got it!” she cried triumphantly. “At least, I think I’ve got it!”

  “Let’s hear it. At this point, any suggestion is bound to sound like a good one.”

  “Okay, here goes.” Chris’s cheeks grew pink as she spoke. “While I was looking around those offices this morning, I noticed that o
ne of them, just a few doors down from Lake Majestic Realty, is a temporary typing agency. It’s called Taylor Temps, I think. They supply typists by the day or by the hour.”

  “So?”

  “Well, you may recall that I took typing in school last year.”

  “So did I. Everyone does, sooner or later. It’s required at Whittington High, in order to graduate. I still don’t understand what that has to do with anything.”

  “I’ll just pretend that I work for Taylor Temps! I’ll show up at the Realty office at lunchtime and say that Tom or Pete or Doris hired me to fill in for the hour. Then I’ll have access to all their files while everyone’s out to lunch—including their receptionist!”

  “Christine Pratt, I’m surprised at you. Would you actually have the nerve to do that?”

  “Not unless we’d done some research first. I’d want to make sure everyone really was going to be out of the office, for one thing....”

  “And how do you propose we do that?”

  Chris was quiet for a minute, but it was obvious that her mind was ticking away. “We’ll just have to take turns casing the joint.”

  “ ‘Casing the joint’!” Susan burst out laughing. “Now I know you’ve seen too many spy movies!”

  “What I mean is, we’ll just watch, from behind the Okie-Dokie Inn. We can find out what the normal office routine is, just by hanging around at lunchtime for a few days and watching everybody’s comings and goings.”

  “That does sound simple. Even so, it could be risky....”

  “Of course it’s risky!” Chris cried. She was beginning to get exasperated. “But we have to do something! We agreed on that ages ago! And I’m willing to take a few risks to help out the Reeds. Aren’t you?”

  “I guess so.” Susan was surprised by her twin’s earnestness. She was also moved by it “Okay, I’m game. I suppose if anything goes wrong, we can always talk our way out of it. You and I both seem to be pretty good at that,” she added with a grin.

  “Oh, thanks, Sooz!” Chris leaned over and gave her twin a big hug. “I knew you’d come through.”

  For the next few days, Chris and Susan were busy. They took turns trekking over to the Okie-Dokie Inn around lunch time, while the twin who stayed at Camp Pinewood took on the other twin’s responsibilities—and identity. It was a good thing they already had some experience in that area, as they repeatedly told each other, laughing about their ability to become each other—at least fora while.

  And their surveillance of the Lake Majestic Realty Company’s offices told them exactly what they needed to know. Every day, at around noon, two men and a woman left the office, sometimes together, sometimes separately, but always at about the same time. The twins figured out that they were the real estate agents, Tom and Pete and Doris, the three people Chris had overheard talking during her very first “visit.” Then, about fifteen minutes later, the receptionist, whom Chris had also spotted that first day, left, locking the office door behind her. All four came back between one and one-thirty. That meant the office was completely empty between twelve-fifteen and one o’clock—a full forty-five minutes.

  “There’s something else I realized,” Susan reported to Chris one afternoon, after returning from her shift. “The receptionist never goes out to lunch with anyone from the Taylor Temps office.”

  “That’s good!” Chris understood immediately what she was driving at. “That way, when I tell her I’m a Taylor Temp, she won’t find out over lunch with the Taylor Temps people that I’m a fraud!”

  It wasn’t until Wednesday, the day of the public land auction, that Chris felt she was ready to go ahead with the plan. It was just as well, she decided; if the real estate people did figure out that something funny was going on, they wouldn’t have enough time to do anything about it. The auction was scheduled for two o’clock. That would give her just enough time to get her “proof” and hurry over to Town Hall. Susan, back at camp, would tell Alan everything at lunch, and he would drive over in his pickup truck, take her to Town Hall, and accompany her to the auction, where she would deliver the evidence—all in time to stop the Reeds from signing their land over to the Lake Majestic Realty Company. The plan sounded completely foolproof.

  Even so, when Wednesday morning dawned, Chris was nervous. There were a lot of things that could go wrong ... but she tried not to think about them. Instead, she tried to concentrate on the fact that she was doing what was best for Camp Pinewood—-and the Reeds.

  Now, if only I can carry it off successfully, she thought, glancing in the mirror one last time before sneaking away from Camp Pine wood, wanting to be certain she looked like an office worker and not a camp counselor. Acting was something that came to her easily, and she did have some experience, what with all the times she and Susan had traded places, pretending to be each other.

  But as she headed for the Lake Majestic Realty Company’s offices, there were butterflies in her stomach. This acting role was definitely the most challenging—and the most important—she had ever faced.

  Chapter Thirteen

  “Good afternoon!” Chris said heartily. “I hope I’m not late!”

  She had just strode into the front office of the Lake Majestic Realty Company, where she was confronted by a very surprised-looking receptionist. It was the same woman she had been watching for the last few days, and she felt almost as if she knew her—even though she didn’t even know her name.

  The woman behind the desk looked at her blankly. “Can I help you with something?”

  “Actually, I’m here to help you. I’m from Taylor Temps. You know, the temporary typing agency....”

  “Yes, I know the name. But I still don’t understand why you’re here....”

  “Oh.” Chris pretended to be puzzled. “Well, gee, I was hired to fill in for the receptionist here during lunch hour today. I guess that’s you, right? Apparently your office is expecting some important phone calls, and they wanted to make sure someone was here to take them.”

  The receptionist frowned. “No one said anything to me about this.”

  “Really? Well, frankly, I don’t know too much about it myself .Just that I was supposed to report to someone named Tom, at noon sharp.”

  “Oh, Tom. That figures.” The receptionist sounded exasperated. “He never tells me anything. Just keeps piling on the work, without any regard to how much I have to do....”

  “Is Tom here?” Chris asked innocently.

  “No, he left for lunch about five minutes ago. I’m afraid you just missed him.”

  “Oh, dear. That’s too bad.”

  Of course, Chris knew only too well that Tom had just left, along with the other two real estate agents. After all, she had been standing in the shadows of the Okie-Dokie Inn, next to the dumpster, for a full fifteen minutes, waiting until the coast was clear.

  “It doesn’t matter, though.” The receptionist shrugged. “In fact, now that you’re here, I can take off a few minutes early.” Conspiratorially, she added, “My lunch hour doesn’t officially begin until twelve-fifteen. But if you’re going to cover the phones, I might as well sneak out now. Hey, that means I’ll even have time to go to the bank!”

  “Take your time,” said Chris breezily.

  After a quick tour of the offices, during which Chris was able to identify Tom’s office—and the office’s key filing cabinet—and a brief lecture on how the telephone system worked, the receptionist hurried away. Her glee over getting out of the office a few minutes early kept her from asking a lot of questions-—exactly what Chris had been hoping for.

  Well, that was easy enough! she thought, greatly relieved once the woman was gone and she had the office to herself. Now, if only I can keep my hands from shaking....

  Chris got down to business immediately. She started with the file cabinet she had noticed first, right in Tom’s office. It was very organized, with a separate file, it seemed, for each of their clients, all alphabetized. She checked under “R” for Reed and “P” for Pinew
ood, but found nothing. So she began reading through the files, one at a time, hoping to stumble upon something that rang a bell.

  At first, she was nervous. Each noise made her jump. It hadn’t occurred to her until she was actually doing this—going through Lake Majestic Realty’s files, pretending to be someone she wasn’t—how much of a risk she really was taking. What if someone came back early? She could be caught red-handed!

  But that won’t happen, she kept telling herself over and over again. Susan and I already checked all that out. The real estate agents never come back before one ... so there’s still plenty of time.

  The other concern that plagued her was that what she was doing was probably illegal.

  But what they’re doing is illegal, too! she thought.

  No, this was no time to be debating the pros and cons of what she was doing. She had already come this far. Now she had no choice but to go ahead with her plan. After all, it was all for the Reeds. And reminding herself of that made it much easier to continue.

  As she became more and more involved with seeking out the information she so desperately needed, Chris forgot to be nervous. Instead, she found herself becoming angry.

  Darn! I know there’s something here! If only I could find it!

  She gave up on the large filing cabinet. But another quick tour of the offices told her there weren’t any other such files.

  That left the desks.

  Somehow, snooping around someone’s desk seemed like a real violation of privacy. But once again she reminded herself that it was for a good cause. All she had to do was think about the conversation she had overheard—Tom’s evil laugh, his plans to get rich in such an underhanded fashion, his triumph over forcing the Reeds to sell their land, and at too low a price. She forged onward, more determined than ever to expose the crooked dealings of Lake Majestic Reality. After taking a deep breath, she descended upon Tom’s desk.

  One drawer, she discovered, contained more files, like those she had found in the big file cabinet. Chris wondered why these were kept separately ... unless they were all files on unethical dealings. She pounced upon them eagerly.