“But it was all my fault! I didn’t hold on to Comet and that made—”
“Stop, Luke; look at me. Accidents happen. No one blames you. I learned many years ago you can’t go back and change the past, no matter how much you want to, so it’s best to move on.”
Luke didn’t know how he was supposed to do that.
George Michelson came into the room. “Sir, we’re ready.”
“All right, I’m ready. Luke, I’ll see you tomorrow.” He ruffled Luke’s hair and then strode out of the room.
Luke turned back to the window. The sergeant on the lawn looked like a statue. Luke wondered what would happen if a fly landed on the man, or he had to sneeze.
“Surprise!”
Comet barked and Luke whirled around. Callie and Theo stood in the doorway, Adam behind them.
“What are you doing here?”
“Aren’t you glad to see us?” Callie asked.
“Your mom arranged for Callie and me to visit you,” Theo said. Luke was relieved Theo looked normal again.
“You should feel special,” Callie said. “I put on a dress and everything.”
“Uh, you…you…It’s nice.” She looked kind of odd wearing cowboy boots with a dress, but Luke decided not to point that out.
“I was in to pick up some forms”—Adam held up a briefcase—“when I saw these two at the security desk. I told the guard I’d bring them up and say hello. Everything okay with you?”
“Everything’s good.” Luke realized he actually meant it.
Comet bounded over to Callie and jumped up on her, making the pocket of her dress squeak.
“Callie!” Luke said.
“Please don’t tell me you sneaked a kitten into the White House.” Adam shook his head as if willing her to say no.
“Of course not. I think Tocho’s already grown too big for my pocket just from feeding him for a few days.” Callie pulled out a dog toy, a fuzzy rabbit that squeaked when she squeezed it. “I brought a present for Comet. He’s not such a bad dog after all.” She tossed the rabbit up in the air and Comet caught it before it hit the ground.
“That’s a relief,” Adam said. “The other agents would never let me forget it if they saw me escorting an unauthorized kitten off the property.” They watched as Comet carried his captive under a desk so he could chew on it undisturbed. Adam checked his watch. “I think I’ll leave you three to talk. I have a feeling I need all the rest I can get before I come back to work.”
“Okay,” Luke said. “See you soon.”
After Adam left, Luke wasn’t quite sure what to do, especially with Callie here. He hadn’t had a girl visit him before, even though Callie wasn’t like a regular girl. One of his temporary agents came in.
“Luke, your mother arranged for some ice cream to be sent up from the kitchen for the three of you. It’s all set up in the dining room.”
“Ice cream! Nice!” Theo said.
Luke was relieved. Even though he wasn’t hungry, ice cream would keep Theo and Callie busy for a while. “I bet they sent up all sorts of toppings too,” he said. “They know I like to experiment. Come on, I’ll show you the way.”
“You don’t mean we’re going to eat ice cream in one of the big rooms they show on TV?” Callie asked.
“No, we have our own dining room in the living quarters. Those rooms are only used for special occasions.”
“That’s good,” Callie said. “So if I spill something, it won’t matter, right?”
“Right,” Luke said. “Comet, here, boy. Bring your rabbit.”
The kitchen staff had outdone themselves. There were six kinds of ice cream all displayed in big bowls of crushed ice, and in front of those were dishes and dishes of toppings and syrups. Theo filled a bowl up with cherry ice cream and then topped it off with crushed-up candy bars, bananas, and chocolate sauce, adding mounds of whipped cream.
“Callie, I just found out you are going to our school.” Theo took a huge bite.
“I didn’t know that,” Luke said.
“You didn’t know your mom arranged for me to get a scholarship?” Callie asked. “Hmm…I think I want strawberry with chocolate sprinkles and bits of mint cookie. Anyway, that’s why I’m going there. My dad could never afford to pay tuition to a fancy private school. It seems weird I need a scholarship to go to seventh grade, and I’m probably not going to like it. My dad says I can still go back to the ranch if it doesn’t work out.”
“You’ll like it. Won’t she, Luke?” Theo took another bite, and a bit of candy bar fell to the floor. Comet shot out from under the table, dropped his rabbit, and licked it up. “They have lots of clubs and activities. Since you like photography, you should join the photography club.”
“That might be fun,” Callie said doubtfully.
“Luke and I really like the robotics club. Guess what? I’m getting a robot kit tomorrow. My mom promised. Are you going to get a new one?” Theo asked Luke. The tree house had burned in the fire, along with the extra robot pieces they had left there. The snake-catcher robot survived the fire, but the microprocessor was too damaged to be used again.
“I haven’t asked.”
“You should. I’m sure you’ll get one. You can help me with mine too. We can build a robot that walks, and then program it to talk.”
“What would we make it say?” Luke asked. “Wait, I have an idea, a great idea! We could program it to stop when it came to a door and start again when the door opened. That way if we sent it down the elevator, it would come out by itself when the doors opened. The Secret Service agents would be really surprised.” Luke was so excited he almost drummed on Theo. “Oh, and I know what else we could do. We could program it to say, really slowly, like the aliens in those old cartoons, ‘Take…me…to…your…leader.’ That would be so funny!” He took a quick breath of air. “But we’d need to see the agents’ expressions. We could—”
“Hold on,” Callie said. “I can already tell the two of you are going to get into trouble with all your crazy ideas.”
“Since when have you ever worried about getting into trouble?” Luke laughed. “Besides, it won’t just be the two of us. We’ll need you to help us. You know, come up with the practical bits to make our plans work better.”
Callie frowned. “If I help you, will you promise not to boss me around?”
“I don’t boss you around. You’re the one who’s bossy.”
“I am not!”
“Guys, guys, the ice cream is melting. Why don’t we eat it while we’re planning how to do this?” Theo asked.
“Good idea,” Luke said. He decided he was hungry, and nothing would taste better than a bowl of chocolate ice cream with chocolate sauce and bits of milk-chocolate candy bars, all topped off with fresh raspberries.
Author’s Note
While this story is fiction, Camp David is a real place. Presidents and their families have used it since the 1940s as a way to vacation away from the pressures of living in the White House. Even on vacations, though, a President’s safety and that of the First Family are still major concerns. Like Luke Brockett in this book, children of U.S. presidents have their own teams of Secret Service agents who accompany them almost everywhere. The children often spend more time with the agents than with their parents.
The agents are trained to guard their charges under any conditions, no matter how strange. When Amy Carter, the daughter of President Jimmy Carter, was living in the White House, she attended an animal show where an elephant named Susie charged toward her, so a Secret Service agent picked her up and carried her over a fence to safety, breaking his hand in the process. Agents also sat in the back of Amy’s fourth-grade class every day and went with her to the playground for recess. Older presidential children must have agents go with them to college, where new friends and potential dates are often screened to determine if there is a safety risk. Protecting the President, by Dennis V. N. McCarthy, and Standing Next to History, by Joseph Petro, both former Secret Service agents
, were major sources for this story.
The layout of the real Camp David and the security systems there today are not public knowledge. All those aspects in this story are fiction. Almost all of the historical detail, however, is factual. The swimming pool was indeed built over the old bomb shelter, and the expense to reinforce the roof of the shelter was reported to cost as much as the pool itself. The one fictional addition is the boarded-up bomb shelter steps. I am indebted to W. Dale Nelson, the author of The President Is at Camp David, for his very detailed history of the facility.
Acknowledgments
Major thanks go to my agent, Caryn Wiseman, and my editor, Barbara Lalicki, for taking a chance on an unknown and unpublished writer.
My family played many parts in bringing this story to life and so deserve many thanks. I couldn’t have done any of this without my husband, Dean, and his unflagging support of my writing over the years, and his willingness to try to come up with an answer to every question, no matter how strange. This is a good place to apologize to him as well, for all the research I do on the internet about subjects that probably put me on a few watch lists. Thanks go to my children, Garret and Hope, who not only suggested ideas, but were willing guinea pigs and helpers in my quest for accuracy; to my brother, Kim Garretson, who helped add some excitement to the story; to my sister, Terri Bruch, who managed to catch some glaring errors; and to my niece’s husband, Ryan Gillmore, and my brother-in-law, Chris Bruch, who patiently answered my questions.
I also want to thank Dr. Julie O’Connell and Shelli Caskey for their help with my animal questions. And finally, thanks to Michael Neff, who made me realize I needed to push my imagination as far as it could go.
About the Author
DEE GARRETSON spent her childhood helping her father build his offbeat inventions and playing adventure games in the woods. After searching for tween adventures for her son, Garret, and her daughter, Hope, she created www.kidsadventurebooks.com to share recommendations with other parents. But it was seeing all the young children and grandchildren of the 2008 presidential candidates and wondering about their lives that led her to write WILDFIRE RUN. To research the story, she and her children did everything from building the robot Luke and his friends use in the book to making models of the obstacles the characters have to overcome. Dee and her family live in Cincinnati, Ohio. Find out more about Dee at www.deegarretson.com.
Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins author.
Credits
Jacket art © 2010 by Gene Mollica
Jacket design by Erin Fitzsimmons
Copyright
WILDFIRE RUN. Copyright © 2010 by Dee Garretson. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Garretson, Dee.
Wildfire run / Dee Garretson.—1st ed.
p. cm.
Summary: A relaxing retreat to Camp David turns deadly after a faraway earthquake sets off a chain of disastrous events that trap the president’s twelve-year-old son, Luke, and his two friends within the compound.
ISBN 978-0-06-195347-7
[1. Presidents—Family—Fiction. 2. Camp David (Md.)—Fiction. 3. Earthquakes—Fiction. 4. Forest fires—Fiction. 5. Survival—Fiction. 6. Adventures and adventurers—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.G18443Wi 2010 2009049482
[Fic]—dc22 CIP
AC
FIRST EDITION
EPub Edition © July 2010 ISBN: 978-0-06-200961-6
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
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