by Jean Fischer
Sydney and Alexis explained about being in the forest and seeing the purple glow and hearing strange sounds coming from the cave. They told him about seeing the hole in the ground with the padlocked fence and the old knapsack inside the cave and the marks on the wall. And finally, about their theory that he, somehow, had found Jacques Chouteau’s treasure.
“We know you’re a scientist who’s sneaking around in the woods,” said Sydney. “And that must mean that you’re doing something wrong.”
“Girls, girls, girls,” the professor said, scratching Fang’s ears. “I’m not doing anything wrong.”
They heard a rustling in the brush nearby. Then Aunt Dee and Mr. Miller stepped into the clearing.
“Are you girls all right?” Aunt Dee wailed. “Bailey called me and said a man in the forest kidnapped you! I’ve been frantic!”
“Hello, Charlie,” said Professor Cantrell.
“Hi, Josh,” said Mr. Miller.
“You two know each other?” Sydney said.
“We do,” Professor Cantrell answered. He hesitated. Then he looked at the girls. “Charlie, can they be trusted?”
“I think so,” Charlie Miller answered. “I know so!” he added, winking.
The professor took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Girls, if I tell you a secret, do you promise not to tell anyone, ever?”
Alexis switched off the mini-microcamera on Biscuit’s collar.
“Wait a minute, Alex,” said Sydney. “Can all of you be trusted not to tell if we share a secret?”
The professor, Aunt Dee, and Mr. Miller all gave their word not to tell.
Sydney explained about the camera and the Wonder Watch and promised that the other Camp Club Girls wouldn’t tell if they, too, could hear the professor’s story.
“That’s quite a gadget,” Professor Cantrell said, inspecting the watch. “As long as the other girls promise, I’ll tell all of you what’s going on.”
“You’ll have their word,” said Sydney. She pushed the button on the watch.
“Girls,” she said. “Everything is fine here. This is Professor Cantrell. Listen to what he has to say. All of this is top secret—not to be shared outside of our group, ever. Do you absolutely, positively promise never to tell another living soul?”
ELIZABETH: I PROMISE.
KATE: ME, TOO.
MACKENZIE: PROMISE.
BAILEY: DITTO!
Sydney handed the watch to the professor and reminded him to push the button so it would pick up his voice.
He held the watch near his lips. “It’s true that I’ve been out at night picking mushrooms at the resort,” said the professor. “Very rare mushrooms grow under the trees near the cabins. They only sprout up from the ground in the dark, and I’ve been harvesting them secretly. You see, these mushrooms might someday be a cure for certain kinds of cancer.”
“Kate was right!” Sydney interrupted.
“I’ve been growing and synthesizing them, and other mushrooms from the forest, in my laboratory. But for now, I need to keep it all a secret. If the press discovers what I’m doing, they’ll be all over the place out here.”
“So that’s why you’ve been so sneaky,” said Sydney. “It all makes sense now. Strobilomyces floccopus. Wow, a cure for cancer right here in the Northwoods!”
Suddenly, the buzzing from the cave turned to a whoosh, followed by whop-whop-whop and “Go back! Go back! Go back!”
“What about those noises?” Sydney asked. “We keep hearing them coming from the cave.”
“I’ve put two huge fans in the cave,” said the professor. “They exchange the air every forty-five minutes to keep the climate controlled. Come on, let me show you.” He led the group to the fence and unlocked the padlock.
“This is the exchanger,” he said, pointing into the hole in the ground. “One fan blows the air up and out of the cave, and the other sucks fresh air in. I keep it locked up so animals don’t get curious and fall down into the fans. If you looked carefully, you’d see six other smaller vents covered with metal grates out here in the forest floor.”
Alexis set Biscuit down so he could play with Fang. The two dogs ran off together into the cave.
“The purple light is part of my experimenting,” the professor explained. He took off his knapsack and laid it on the ground. “I’ve found that the cultures I grow from the mushrooms need a special kind of light. With a combination of the purple light and certain chemicals, I’m close to finding a substance that might be the cure.”
“That’s amazing,” said Aunt Dee. “I can understand why you’d want to keep it quiet for now. So, the Millers have known about you living and working here in the woods?”
“Betty and I have known Josh for years,” said Charlie Miller. “He spends summers working in the cave and harvesting mushrooms from our property.”
Just then, Biscuit came running from behind a stand of pine trees.
“Hey,” said Sydney. “Where did he come from? I saw him go into the cave a few minutes ago with Fang.”
“I dug out a back door in the mushroom-growing room,” said the professor. “Putting a door close to the manure pile made it easier for me to get the trays ready for planting.”
Fang trotted out of the cave’s entrance. He sniffed the professor’s knapsack where it lay on the ground.
“Do you want a treat, boy?” he asked, picking up the knapsack. He opened it and took out two dog biscuits. “Here’s one for you and one for your friend.”
“So that’s your knapsack, then, and not Jacques Chouteau’s,” said Sydney.
“Jacques Chouteau’s! Why would you think it belonged to Jacques Chouteau?” the professor asked.
“Because of the initials J.C.,” Alexis responded.
“Oh, goodness, no.” The professor laughed. “But I’ll tell you another secret, and this is a good one. A cave-in happened way back in the mine, and I think, behind all those rocks might lay the body of poor old Jacques. There are tick marks on the walls just inside the cave. I think Jacques made those, counting off the days that he was trapped inside. When I first discovered the cave, the front entrance was blocked. So I had to dig my way in.”
“We thought the same thing about the marks,” said Sydney. “Our friend, Elizabeth, said that there was probably a logical explanation for everything, and there is. And Alexis always assumed that you were a nice man.”
“Why, thank you, Alexis,” said the professor.
Aunt Dee looked puzzled. “Who’s Jacques Chouteau?” she asked.
Sydney grinned. “Oh, just some old ghost that haunts the Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest. I’ll tell you about it when we drive home tomorrow.”
“Well, you’d better,” said Aunt Dee. “I need to know everything about this forest because I just found out that I got the job.”
“Oh Aunt Dee, that’s great!” said Sydney, hugging her. “I’ll miss you living with us in Washington, but how cool is it that I can visit you here all the time. And can Alexis come, too?”
“Alexis and all the other Camp Club Girls,” Aunt Dee said. “And tonight we’re going to have a long talk about how dangerous it was for you girls to be sleuthing in the woods!”
“Over and out,” Sydney said into the Wonder Watch. “We’ll head for Tompkins’ in a little while and chat online.”
BETH: OVER AND OUT.
KATE: OVER AND OUT.
MACKENZIE: OVER AND OUT.
BAILEY: DITTO!
They left Mr. Miller and the professor talking about the wolf that killed the coyote on the beach.
“Well, that’s another mystery solved,” Sydney said as they walked through the woods.
“You girls and your detective work,” Aunt Dee complained. “One of these days, you’re going to get yourselves into trouble, and then what?”
“Then the Camp Club Girls will come and rescue us,” Sydney replied. “But, for now, Alex and I have some fishing to do.”
When they got back to the resort, Du
ncan was fishing on Dock Two.
“Catch anything?” Sydney yelled to him. He ignored her.
Alexis took out her cell phone and punched in the number for Tompkins’ Ice Cream Shop. Then she texted the word FISH. In a few seconds, her phone rang. “Thirty-nine inches,” she said. “We’re still in the lead.”
“Awesome!” Sydney exclaimed. “And I plan to keep it that way. Let’s get our poles.”
Biscuit pulled and strained against his leash. Sydney bent down to set him free.
“No,” said Aunt Dee. “You need to keep him on the leash. Otherwise, he’ll run right back to the campsite to play with the professor’s dog.”
“You’re right,” Sydney agreed. “Sorry, Biscuit.”
In a few minutes, Sydney and Alexis were on their dock fishing. This time, they knew where to cast their lines.
“I sort of feel bad that we’re beating Duncan,” Alexis said as she sat on the end of the dock with her bare feet dangling in the water.
“You do?” said Sydney. “Why?”
“I don’t know,” Alexis answered. “Something about him is just so sad.”
“Sad!” Sydney exclaimed. “He’s a bully.” She reeled in her line and cast it out again.
“That’s not a very Christian attitude, Sydney. Remember what McKenzie always says, ‘Mad is usually a cover up for sad.’ She might be right. Mr. Miller said that Duncan doesn’t have many friends.”
“Yeah, and I can tell you why,” Sydney answered.
“We promised to be nice to him,” Alexis continued. “I mean, look over there. Boys are fishing on every dock, and none of them seem to know Duncan. You’d think that since he and his dad come here every summer he’d know some of the kids and hang out with them.” She reeled in her line just a little.
“Maybe they’re first-time visitors, like we are,” said Sydney.
“Maybe,” Alexis said. “And maybe not.” She fished silently for a while. “I’d be really sad if my mom and sister died in an accident,” she continued. “He’s gotta be sad, Sydney. You don’t just forget about something like that.”
“You’re right,” Sydney answered. “But, Alex, I really want us to win this contest. If we don’t, he’s going to think that girls can’t fish. If nothing else, I want him to learn that he’s wrong about that.”
The tip of Alexis’s pole bent down. She grabbed tight to the reel and started turning the crank. “I don’t think it’s very big,” she said. “It doesn’t feel like the other fish we caught.”
Duncan watched them from his dock.
Alexis reeled in her line and found a small sunfish dangling from the hook. Carefully, she removed the hook and set the fish free.
“Ah-ha-ha!” Duncan laughed loud enough for the girls to hear. “Nice one, Alex,” he called to them. “That’ll win the prize for sure.”
“See what I mean?” said Sydney.
Just then, Duncan’s pole jerked in his hands. He stood up and pulled back, setting the hook in the fish’s mouth. Then he tried to reel it in. The fish was strong, and it put up a gigantic fight. While the girls watched from their dock, Duncan pulled hard. He let the fish run with the line. Reeled it in. Let it run. Reeled it in, again and again. The fish kept fighting. Duncan pulled and yanked and reeled, but he made little progress.
“Do you think we should go help him?” Alexis asked.
“Goodness no,” said Sydney. “He’d never accept our help anyway.”
Then it happened—something the girls could never have imagined. They heard Duncan scream, “Ah-ah-yeeeeeeahhhh!” The scream was followed by a humongous splash! The strength of the fish pulled Duncan right off the end of the dock and into the water.
The girls’ first instinct was to laugh. There he was, soaking wet, thrashing around near the dock. Sydney saw his pole in the water, flying toward them. She reached down and grabbed it. Alexis set her pole on the dock and grabbed Sydney’s ankles just in time, or she would have been thrown into the water, too.
Sydney managed to get herself upright. Then, just like Duncan, she fought the fish with all of her might.
“Help me! Help me!” Duncan screamed. “I—I c-can’t sw-swim!”
The other boys didn’t notice, or they didn’t care.
“Oh my!” Sydney gasped. She handed her pole to Alexis, and then she sprinted to Duncan’s dock.
She jumped into the water, wearing all of her clothes, and grabbed hold of Duncan’s shirt just before his head disappeared under the water. He sputtered and spit and flogged around.
“Duncan, calm down!” Sydney demanded. “You’re fine.”
She pulled him to the side of the dock into shallow water.
“Put your feet down. You can reach the bottom now.”
Duncan did as he was told, and the two of them walked up onto the shore.
By now, everyone on the docks was watching. “Everything all right?” a boy shouted from Dock Three.
Duncan stuck his hand in the air and waved him off.
“How come you embarrassed me like that?” he said to Sydney. “All the guys are lookin’ at me now.”
“Embarrassed you!” Sydney said, standing there dripping wet. “If I hadn’t embarrassed you, you’d be dead!”
Duncan hung his head.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I guess you saved my life.”
“Hey! Hey! Come here!” Alexis shouted from Dock One. She’d managed to reel the big fish in. “I need someone to net this monster.”
Sydney and Duncan hurried over to help her. It took all three of them to pull the muskie up onto the dock. The fish’s gaping, tooth-filled mouth swung open and shut as it still fought against the hook. Sydney took out her tape measure and measured it.
“Forty inches,” she announced.
Duncan stood there red faced. “Well,” he said. “I guess you guys won. The contest ends in an hour, and I’m done fishing.”
Alexis wiped her wet hands on her jeans. “What do you mean, Duncan? You won,” she said. “You did all the work. I just helped you to pull it in.”
Duncan’s face brightened.
“Do you mean it?” he said. “I won?”
“It’s your fish,” said Sydney. “Congratulations.” She put her hand out, and Duncan shook it. “There’s just one thing,” she said.
“What’s that?” Duncan asked suspiciously.
“I want you to say that girls can fish and mean it.”
Duncan looked down at the dock. “Girls can fish, I guess.”
“You guess?” said Alexis.
“Naw,” he replied. “Girls can fish.”
When Duncan’s dad heard about Sydney rescuing Duncan from the water, he insisted on treating them and Aunt Dee to supper at The Wave Restaurant. As it turned out, Duncan and his father were good company. Mr. Lumley knew a lot about the lake, and he seemed eager to find out more about Aunt Dee’s job as a forest ranger.
“I had fun tonight,” said Alexis, as she and Sydney got ready for bed. “Duncan and Mr. Lumley turned out to be all right.”
Sydney sat on her bed reading her Bible. “They did,” she agreed. “Alex, isn’t it strange how sometimes you can read the Bible and it seems to speak to you about what’s going on right now? Do you want to hear the verse I just read?”
“Sure,” Alexis answered.
“I found it in Leviticus 19:18,” said Sydney. “It goes like this. ‘Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against one of your people, but love your neighbor as yourself.’ Duncan’s not the only one who learned a lesson this week. I learned that revenge isn’t good. During supper tonight, I realized that Duncan might have been a friend. We could have had fun indent out with him all week.”
“Well,” said Alexis. “Maybe next summer. With your aunt working here, you can come back anytime.”
“That’s true,” said Sydney.
Darkness had fallen on the Wisconsin woods. Sydney reached across her bed to shut the curtains on the window. A dark, shadowy figure moved about
near the beach.
“Professor Cantrell is out there searching for mushrooms,” she said.
Alexis climbed into Sydney’s bunk and looked.
“No, Syd,” she said. “It’s not the professor. Look again. It’s a bear! Isn’t that cool?”
“Cool?” Sydney asked. “I thought you were afraid of bears.”
“I was,” said Alexis. “But after what we’ve been through this week, a big, old bear doesn’t scare me at all.”
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