Surprise, Surprise
Jake pulled a piece of paper out of his front pocket.
“You sent this, didn’t you?” Jake asked, waving the paper in Bruce’s face. Alexis recognized it as the latest threat letter. Bruce didn’t answer, but a large smile spread across his wide jaw.
“You did all of this! You painted my barn? You poisoned my coyotes and woke up a hibernating bear? You shot a kid with a BB gun? Bruce—you hit me in the face!”
Jake was furious now. If it hadn’t been for the music outside, Alexis was sure that everyone would be able to hear this.
That was it! Everyone needed to hear this! It was all the evidence they needed to stop Bruce Benton. The music stopped, and Misty’s voice drifted over the ballroom. Alexis had an idea.
She ran back into the ballroom, finally tossing off her heels as she leaped down the stairs. Alexis made straight for the DJ’s booth in the back. The young man running it looked at her bare feet and raised his eyebrows. Alexis ignored him.
“Jake needs another microphone,” she said. She was shocked when he simply nodded and handed her a cordless microphone.
“It’s on,” he said. “You just have to push that button to un-mute it.”
“Thanks!” Alexis said.
In a matter of moments, she was sliding through the curtains again.
“You’re being stupid, Jake! We’re talking about millions of dollars!” Bruce Benton nearly shouted.
Alexis took the earpiece out of her ear and put it up to the microphone. She propped it there with one hand. Then she took a deep breath, pushed the MUTE button, and tucked the microphone a little behind her body, where her skirt would partially hide it.
“So you admit you’re the one who’s been hurting the animals and trying to ruin the reserve?” Alex called out evenly from several yards away.
Bruce Benton turned on his heels with alarm…until he saw it was only a young girl standing there. He didn’t even notice the mic she held.
“So what if I did?” Bruce Benton said with a sneer. “It’s my word against old Jakey-boy’s here. And I have more money…. Are the police going to believe an animal nut or a fine, upstanding businessman?
“Yeah,” he said, looking at Jake. “That’s a great angle. We’ll tell ‘em this animal nut has gone nuts and is causing his own attempts at sabotage. Going crazy. Trying to get insurance money…”
“No one will ever believe that!” Jake exclaimed.
“Sure they will. It’s your word against mine. No one will listen to a little girl like this, so it’s just your word against…Hey, what are you doing?”
While Benton had been talking, Alexis had slowly edged over to the curtains and started to pull the ropes to open them. Sometime during Benton’s speech, Misty had stopped talking.
“What’s going on here?”
Now with the curtains open, Bruce Benton could hear what he hadn’t heard behind the curtains—his voice booming over the room’s sound-system speakers, through Alexis’s microphone.
News reporters dashed from the back of the room toward the stage, but a police officer who’d been stationed in the back of the room beat them. Quietly, the officer stepped up to the stage, “Mr. Benton, we’ve heard your whole conversation there, sir. You’re under arrest for willfully harming animals and destroying property. You have the right to remain silent, sir. Anything you say can be used against you in a court of law….”
Alexis’s eyes met those of Bailey’s at the head table, and both girls exchanged smiles of pure glee.
The next morning, Alexis and Bailey barely made it to the slopes in time for Angelo’s race. They had stayed out so late that they had slept right through the hotel alarm. As a result, both of them were wearing beanie caps shoved low over their leftover curly hairdos from the party.
With Bruce’s arrest, Jake and Karen had told the group about the sabotage attempts on the animal reserve.
And after the grand unveiling of what Bruce Benton had been doing, Karen and Jake had told the whole room about Alexis, Bailey, and the other Camp Club Girls solving the mystery. When they told the room about Alexis and Bailey doing the documentary, stars had literally lined up in the room, eager to help the girls by saying a few words to their camera about the reserve and why they supported it.
With all the excitement, some of the tightest of fists had opened to spur a flood of donations. Everyone attending was so inspired that they all gave something. Even the DJ slipped a twenty-dollar bill sheepishly into the donation bin. Alexis and Bailey had been blown away by the selfless giving. Karen had called that morning to tell them that they had raised enough to build an animal hospital and hire on-site veterinarian help.
Now as they stood outside in the bright sunshine, Alexis took a deep breath. A unique fragrance drifted in on the cold air. It was the smell of snow—something that Alexis had never noticed before—and it made her smile.
“Look! There’s Angelo!” Bailey was standing on the top of a picnic table to get a good look at the race course. Alexis jumped up beside her and squinted into the sun. It was a beautiful day, and the snow was as bright as a mirror reflecting the sun.
“Where?” asked Alexis.
“Up at the start!” said Bailey. “He’s wearing his green jacket and a bright yellow helmet.”
“I see him! Go, Angelo!” Alexis shouted.
Within minutes, the horn sounded, and Angelo took off down the mountain. His guide stayed well ahead of him, and the way Angelo skied made it look like he’d been born to fly over the snow. He weaved in and out of the red and blue flags, shaving so close to them he made the crowd gasp.
“You would never know he was blind if you didn’t know him,” said Alexis. She was amazed. When she had first met Angelo, she remembered feeling sorry for him and a bit protective. This week had taught her a lot of things, though, and one of them was that people and things that seem helpless almost never are. In fact, without Angelo they might not have solved this case…and she might have been eaten by a cranky bear. It had been Angelo, after all, who pulled her back onto the snowmobile when she fell off.
Within minutes, the race was over. Angelo had beaten his opponent by a wide margin, and Alexis and Bailey ran to meet him.
“Angelo! That was amazing!” said the girls together.
“You totally toasted that guy!” said Bailey.
“Did I? I thought it felt like I was alone up front,” Angelo said, but Alexis could tell by his smile that he knew exactly how badly he had beaten his opponent. “That was the semifinals. This afternoon I’ll race for first place!”
“That’s awesome, Angelo!” said Alexis. “I wish we could stay to see it, but you’ll have to email me. We have to leave after lunch. Bailey flies out from Sacramento tomorrow morning, so we have to get home tonight.”
“I’ll miss you,” said Angelo, “but I’ll send you pictures. My mom’s watching.”
Angelo pointed over to the stands, and Alexis and Bailey saw a beautiful woman waving at them. She looked just like Angelo, only prettier.
“I wanted to thank you two,” said Angelo. “I wouldn’t have been able to race without you. I had a blast yesterday practicing too. You really made this vacation great. It started off awful…but most of that was probably my bad attitude.”
“Don’t mention it,” said Alexis. “You taught me a lot too. I’ll never assume that a ‘disability’ makes someone need me. I think I needed you more than you needed me anyway!”
“I did save your life, I guess,” laughed Angelo.
“Hey,” Angelo said, looking serious. “Remember the day we met?”
“When I hit you in the head?” said Bailey.
“No, the next day, just over there on that bench.” The girls nodded. “Well, you asked me what I liked to ‘observe,’ and I was really rude. I never answered you.”
Alexis and Bailey looked puzzled.
“You see,” continued Angelo, “I observe with all of my other senses. That day I was paying
particular attention to the smell of snow.”
“The smell of snow?” asked Bailey.
“Yep!” said Angelo. “Try it sometime, and think of me.”
Bailey and Alexis each gave Angelo a hug and waved goodbye to his mother. Within an hour they had eaten and were back in the car with Alexis’s family driving Highway 89 back down toward the Valley and Sacramento.
In the back of the car, Bailey and Alexis had the laptop open and earphones on. They were editing tape for their documentary, and they were surprised to see how much it looked like a suspense movie. They had tons of information about the animals on the reserve, but they had also documented the reserve’s struggle against Bruce. Bailey had taped a lot during the party, and she had caught Bruce’s confession too.
The final two minutes of film were a huge surprise.
“Did you tape this?” Alexis asked Bailey.
“No,” she answered. “I thought you had.”
The girls sat in silence and watched. It was a close-up of Misty Marks, famous actress, speaking directly into the camera.
“The goal of the Tahoe Animal Reserve is simple,” she was saying. “Watch over those who cannot watch over themselves. This applies to our animals, but it applies to our everyday interactions as well. Everywhere we go, there are people who need. Look around you. Notice the needs and fill them when you can. The smallest good can fill the largest gap.”
Misty smiled broadly into the camera.
“Thank you, Camp Club Girls, for filling our gap. We are forever grateful.”
Alexis couldn’t see the screen anymore. The tears in her eyes were getting in the way. She wiped at them with the back of her hand and turned to Bailey, who was smiling through her own tears.
As Alexis watched the Jeffrey pines race by outside the window, she said a silent prayer: Thank You so much, God. Thanks for helping us. Thanks for helping these people. Please help me to always see the little gaps that I can help fill in people’s lives—even when they look too small to be important.
Alexis looked back at the screen. She had never been so excited about a project in her life. She knew this documentary would be a winner—whether it made it on the Discovery Channel or not.
Camp Club Girls:
Alexis and the St. Helens Screamer
That’s No Bear!
Screeeech!
The driver of the van slammed on his brakes with all of his power.
Alexis glimpsed something huge and furry disappearing into the woods. The impact of the brakes jarred her head forward. Then the seatbelt yanked her firmly back against the seat.
“What is it? What’s going on?” Alexis gasped.
But the driver was too busy to answer, frantically trying to keep the vehicle on the road.
Alexis grabbed her seat cushion and held on for dear life as the back of the van swung from one side of the highway to the other. The van almost hit three trees and another car before it finally settled on the side of the road.
The driver looked back at Alexis. His hands were shaking.
“You okay?” he asked.
“Yeah,” said Alexis. She glanced into the rearview mirror and realized her eyes were the size of dinner plates. “What was that thing?”
“I don’t know,” said the driver, “but it was huge. Looked like a bear or something.”
The driver pulled back onto the road and took off up the mountain again.
Slowly, Alexis’s heartbeat returned to normal.
To keep her mind off of the near-accident, she began to think again about the task ahead.
Alexis Howell couldn’t believe she was doing this. She couldn’t believe she was hundreds of miles from home riding in a taxi van toward a smoking volcano—without her parents.
Alexis loved to travel, and she had flown a lot, but this time she had come by herself. She had flown into Seattle, Washington, the night before, and now she was on her way to Mount St. Helens.
At first the van had been full of tourists traveling to the volcano. Some came from far away on family vacations, Alex learned from their chatter. Others were native Washingtonians who just wanted to see the mountain one last time before it was expected to change forever. That’s what had brought Alexis here. The rumor that St. Helens was about to blow.
The driver had dropped off most of the passengers in the small town below the mountain before driving Alexis up Spirit Lake Road to her destination. Alexis looked out the windshield as they wound their way up the mountain. Her ears popped. She was about to ask how much farther they had to go when she noticed that the driver kept glancing nervously at the sides of the road.
There must be a lot of wildlife up here, thought Alexis. He must be afraid of something else jumping out of the trees. I’ll have to ask McKenzie if that happens a lot around here.
Alexis was on her way to meet McKenzie, one of the other Camp Club Girls.
The Camp Club Girls were six girls from different parts of the country who’d met and shared a cabin while spending a week at Discovery Camp, a rustic camp in the midwest part of the United States. While there, the girls had solved a mystery involving jewel thieves. They had decided they liked being amateur sleuths.
Since then, by working together, they’d solved twenty mysteries. Each girl had her different strengths she brought to the team. Sydney Lincoln, from Washington D.C., was quite the sportswoman and nature lover. She’d even participated in the junior Olympics.
Kate Oliver, from Philadelphia, was dubbed Inspector Gadget by the girls because she’d introduced them to things like infrared cameras, robotic spies, and other tools to help them solve their mysteries. It helped that Kate’s dad was a professor and brought home many prototypes of inventions his students created. Kate was also the caretaker of the girls’ dog, Biscuit the Wonder Dog. Sometimes when Biscuit was on the scene or even from Kate’s home, he had a knack of helping the girls find the answer to their problems.
Bailey Chang, from Peoria, was the youngest of the girls and dreamed of being a star someday. She had an enthusiasm and a knack for coming up with nicknames that actually led to answers.
Elizabeth Anderson, from Amarillo, loved music and God and the Bible. She was the oldest Camp Club Girl and had a scriptural insight that often helped lead to answers.
McKenzie Phillips was often the heart of the group—she had a knack for figuring out motives and seeing how thoughts led to actions.
And Alexis herself, often known as Alex, was well versed in the cultural aspect of cases. Sometimes they reminded her of things she’d seen on TV or in books and helped her give valuable insight to the mysteries. She wanted to be Nancy Drew when she grew up. Or else a documentary director. Alexis was already well on the way—she frequently did A Kid’s Eye View documentaries for TV stations around her home in San Francisco, and Discovery Channel had even expressed an interest in her.
That’s what led Alexis to Mount St. Helens now.
McKenzie’s mom had a friend who lived near St. Helens. Her name was Kellie Sanderson, and she ran a small pottery shop that a lot of tourists visited. She was letting Alexis and McKenzie stay with her for almost a week while they researched the mountain for Alexis’s latest documentary.
Alexis still couldn’t believe her mom had let her come!
The driver sneezed. Alexis jumped and started paying attention to her surroundings. Tall trees called lodgepole pines reached toward a flawless blue sky. They were so tall and thick that Alex didn’t get too many glimpses of that beautiful sky. Most of the trees in the area were coniferous, which Alexis had learned meant they had pine needles and cones and stayed green all year-round, giving Washington State its nickname of the “Evergreen State.” Most were tall with their needles at the top, like the lodgepoles, but the forests also contained pine trees shaped more like Christmas trees, as well as spruce, birch, oak, and other trees. The last time Mount St. Helens had blown its top, the lava and impact had destroyed 230 square miles of forests. Alexis had seen pictures of the huge, tal
l trees toppled over like wooden toothpicks.
The driver was still looking back and forth nervously.
“I hope this isn’t the only sunny day we have this week,” Alexis said, trying to take the driver’s mind off of his apparent nervousness. “I hear there aren’t too many sunny days in Washington.”
The driver looked at her in his rearview mirror.
“No, not this time of year,” he said, beginning to put on the tour guide personality that Alexis had seen earlier. “That’s why it’s so beautiful here. Lots of rain to water all the trees!”
In minutes the driver was unloading Alexis’s duffle bag out of the back. She thanked him for the ride and waved goodbye.
As the dust from the taxi’s tires faded into the air, Alexis turned around. She was standing in front of Kellie’s shop. It was called Sanderson’s Ash Works. It looked like a little red cabin with a wooden front porch. Statues of all shapes and sizes looked out at her from shelves along the windows.
“Alexis!” cried a voice from the side of the shop. Alexis looked to see McKenzie running toward her. McKenzie’s auburn hair bounced brightly in the sun. The light brought out the red in it and the green in her eyes too. Alexis loved McKenzie for many reasons, but she really loved that they shared their pale skin and freckles.
Rawl! Ruff!
McKenzie was followed by a white and black dog that looked like it was mainly Siberian husky—she later learned with a little German Shepherd blood thrown in. The dog’s bark was deep, but he wagged his tail as he jumped around the girls.
“That’s Husky,” McKenzie explained. “He’s Kellie’s dog, and we all adore him. Sit, Husky.”
Immediately, the dog dropped his haunches to the ground.
“I’m so glad you’re here!” said McKenzie. Her bear hug squeezed Alex’s breath out of her.
“Me too!” said Alexis. She pointed at the shop. “This place looks so cool!”
“You don’t even know! Wait ‘til you see the mountain. And we have our very own cabin to stay in! By ourselves! It even has a kitchen!”
Alexis Page 29