Water-Ski Wipeout Page 3

  Chet looked confused. “I don’t understand,” he said.

  “SLSG stands for Saint Lilac School for Girls,” Joe said. “The girls only got to the lake last night. So whoever left the towel in the shed was there between eight o’clock last night and ten o’clock this morning. Right when the water skis were stolen.”

  “This whole time we’ve been looking for a boy in a hooded sweatshirt,” Frank said. “And Paul didn’t even see the person clearly.”

  Chet laughed. “I can’t believe it!” he said. “We’ve been looking for a boy . . . when we should’ve been looking for a girl!”

  “Exactly,” Joe said. “We need to go back to the dock and talk to those girls again, before it’s too late.”

  Joe ran down the stairs, more excited than ever. They were getting so close to solving the case. Maybe they didn’t know who their suspect was, but at least they knew what school she went to, and who she was hanging out with. With a little luck, they’d be out water-skiing by the end of the day.

  Chapter 8

  THE NEW GIRL

  By the time the boys got back to the dock, the girls were packing up their things. One girl stuffed her towel and book in a straw bag. Another pulled some neon foam noodles out of the water.

  “Hey, Annie, can you pass me my magazines?” one of the girls asked.

  As a girl in a sundress turned to grab the magazines, she saw the boys.

  “It’s you guys again,” Annie said. “Did you find that kid?”

  “Well . . . ,” Frank started. “We may have made a mistake. We don’t think it’s a boy we’re looking for. We think it’s a girl. And we think she goes to your school.”

  Annie frowned. “What do you mean?”

  A few of her friends had climbed out of the water and onto the dock. They were drying off while they listened to what the boys were saying. One girl raised her eyebrows.

  “We might have gotten things confused,” Joe said. He stopped there, not wanting to tell them too much. There was a chance their suspect was one of the girls they were talking to.

  He looked around, studying the girls’ faces. They all seemed nice enough. Then he noticed their hair. There were eight of them standing around the dock, but only two of them had light hair. Both of those two girls were taller than most girls their age.

  Earlier, Paul had described the suspect as being short with light hair, and the boys had agreed that that was probably right, even if it was dark and the window was dirty. He still would’ve been able to see how tall she was. Was it okay to tell the girls more? Could they risk it?

  Before Joe could decide, Chet blurted out another question. “Did you see a girl with water skis?”

  Frank glanced sideways at his brother. This was sometimes the problem with having friends help during a case. They didn’t always know which parts of the story they shouldn’t share with people.

  “We think the girl in the black hooded sweatshirt may have taken a pair of water skis,” Joe explained. “Does any of this sound familiar?”

  Annie started laughing. “I knew she was up to something!” she said.

  A girl with a black braid added, “I can’t believe this is happening.”

  “What?” Frank asked. “Who are you talking about?”

  Annie sat down on the dock. “And she was being so weird last night,” she remembered. Then she turned to the boys. “I think you’re looking for the new girl . . . Trixie? No, wait, it’s Trina.”

  Joe pulled out his notebook and wrote down the names with a question mark next to each one. “Why do you think it’s her? She’s short with light hair?”

  “And she was acting so weird last night!” the girl with the braid said. “She’s always acting weird, but this was different.”

  Frank scratched his head. “What do you mean? Did you see her with the water skis?”

  “No . . . but that doesn’t matter. Everyone else was playing board games in our cabin,” Annie said. “And out of nowhere, Trina and this other girl said they had to leave. But they wouldn’t tell us where they were going.”

  Joe wrote down all the details, nodding. It did sound like strange behavior. “So the girls went together? Do you remember her friend’s name?”

  The girl with the black braid answered, “Well . . . I doubt they’re friends. The other girl is named Sara Carter.”

  A few of the other girls giggled. Frank glanced sideways at his brother. It was starting to seem like the rest of the girls didn’t like Trina very much. He felt bad that they were laughing at her behind her back.

  “It’s just . . . ,” Annie said. “Trina doesn’t have many friends. She’s only been at school a week.”

  “Do any of you know her?” Frank asked.

  The girls shook their heads. “No . . . not really,” Annie said.

  “Do you know where she is right now?” Chet said.

  A girl with pigtails told the boys, “We haven’t seen her since this morning.”

  “I saw her!” a redheaded girl said. “Right after breakfast. She was by our cabin.”

  Joe wrote down Last seen near SLSG cabin. Then he asked, “Where is your cabin? Does it have a name?”

  “We’re in the Oaks,” Annie said. She slung her polka-dotted towel around her shoulder as she spoke. Then she pointed into the woods. “It’s the red cabin. It’s a five-minute walk that way.”

  Frank looked at Chet and his brother, then back out over the lake. The sun was high in the sky, and it was close to noon. But Mr. Morton hadn’t come back yet with the boat and the rest of the group. “We should go to that cabin now,” Frank said. “We still have a lot to figure out.”

  The boys thanked the Saint Lilac girls and headed off into the woods. “There are still so many questions about the motive,” Joe said, looking down at his notebook. “Even if it is Trina, we still don’t know why she did it. What would she want with my water skis?”

  “Be careful,” Frank said. “We don’t actually know if it’s Trina, remember? The girls didn’t see her with the skis.”

  Joe flipped through his notes again. Reading through them, he realized Frank was right. They’d asked if the girls had seen Trina with the skis, but they hadn’t. The girls were only certain of a few things: that she was acting weird, that she didn’t have a lot of friends, and that they didn’t know her.

  “But if they don’t know her, why do they think she was acting weird? How would they know that?” Joe asked.

  Frank nodded. “And if they’re not friends with her or they don’t like her very much, they might think she did something she didn’t do.”

  Chet turned back to look at the lake as they walked. “We’ll get to the bottom of this,” he said. “By tomorrow we’ll be out on the lake, water-skiing with our friends.”

  “I hope,” Frank said.

  But as Joe looked back at the sun in the sky, he wasn’t so sure. How could they know if it was Trina who’d taken the skis? And even if she had taken them, where were they now? Would Joe ever see them again?

  Chapter 9

  TWISTS AND TURNS

  When they got to the red cabin, there were two girls sitting on the deck. One had a giant bowl of grapes, and another was eating the last of her cheeseburger. The one with the grapes had reddish-brown hair, and the other had dark eyes and black hair. Neither of them fit the description of Trina.

  “We were hoping you could help us,” Frank said, climbing up the stairs. “Do you know a girl named Trina? She’s new to your school?”

  The girl with black hair narrowed her eyes. “The only girl who’s new is named Tamara. Is that who you mean?”

  Before Frank could respond, the girl got up and went to the door. “Tamara!” she called inside. “Someone is looking for you!”

  Within minutes, a short girl with a blond bob came to the door. She looked confused. “Who’s looking for me?” she asked. “What’s wrong?”

  Joe stepped forward. “I’m Joe and this is my brother, Frank. We’re from Bayport Elementary,�
�� he explained. “We’re staying at another cabin on the lake, on the other side of the woods. We were hoping to ask you some questions.”

  Tamara shrugged. “Sure. I guess that’s fine. What’s wrong?”

  The two other girls went back to their snacks. They started talking about joining the Saint Lilac basketball team. Tamara came outside and sat down on the deck stairs. She put her chin in her hands.

  “We heard you’re new in school,” Frank said. “Is that true?”

  Tamara looked puzzled. “Yeah . . . why?”

  “We’re trying to solve a mystery,” Chet said. “And we’ve been going around, asking if anyone saw anything strange. Someone said you might know something.”

  “Who?” Tamara asked.

  Chet pointed back to the dock. “Just some of the girls down by the dock. They told us your name was Trina.”

  “They don’t even know my name,” Tamara said sadly. “What did they say about me?”

  “What were you doing last night after eight o’clock?” Joe asked. “Were you here, in your cabin?”

  Tamara scratched her head. “Yeah . . . I think so. We got in around eight thirty, and then everyone had dinner together. Then some people were hanging out. I took a walk, but that’s about it.”

  Joe looked at his brother. It didn’t seem like Tamara was trying to hide anything. If she had stolen the skis, it would be odd for her to admit that she’d left the cabin last night. “Did you see anything strange?” he asked.

  “No,” she said. “My friend and I were just walking and talking. I just didn’t want to be around everybody last night. I felt like people were laughing at me.”

  She looked sad when she said it. Joe was going to ask another question, but then he noticed a girl looking out the window of the cabin. She had light blond pigtails. “Is that your friend?” he said.

  Tamara turned around and waved at the girl. “Yeah, that’s Sara. She’s been really nice to me since I’ve gotten here. She’s the one I went on the walk with.”

  Frank turned back to Tamara. “We’re looking for a pair of water skis,” he said. “Do you know anything about that?”

  Tamara shook her head. “No. Who lost them?”

  “We think they were stolen,” Joe said. “They were mine.”

  “I’m sorry about that,” Tamara said. “That’s such a bummer. I used to water-ski in my old town. I used to live right on a lake. I really loved it.”

  “Yeah, it’s the best,” Joe added. He kept looking at Sara. She was still watching them from the window. She looked curious as she watched them talk.

  Then Sara opened the window. “Tamara!” she called. “We need your help with something! Can you come here?”

  Tamara turned back toward the cabin. “I guess I have to go,” she said. She smiled at the boys. “Good luck with everything. I hope you find your skis.”

  With that, she ran up the stairs. The boys walked a few feet away, where the other girls couldn’t hear them. “It definitely felt like Tamara was telling the truth,” Chet said. “She didn’t seem like she has anything to hide.”

  “I agree,” Frank said. “I’m more interested in Sara. . . .”

  Joe turned back toward the house. Sara was still at the window. She walked away when she noticed him. “Did you see she has blond hair?” Joe asked.

  “She and Tamara look very similar,” Frank said. “And she doesn’t look very tall either. Which means . . .”

  “She could’ve been the one that Paul saw!” Chet said.

  Frank walked ahead of them, into the woods. He waved for them to come hide behind a big tree. “I have an idea,” he said.

  Chet and Joe crouched down beside him. Chet peered back toward the cabin. The two girls who were sitting on the deck had gone inside.

  “If our suspicions are right,” Frank said, “Sara is worried about us. And when a suspect is worried they might get caught, they sometimes get sloppy.”

  “Like the time we caught Lester Pinks,” Joe said. Lester had been taking tickets from Fun World, an arcade in Bayport. He’d gotten so nervous after Frank and Joe questioned him that he started covering his tracks. Frank and Joe had been watching him and saw where he’d hidden all the prizes.

  “Exactly,” Frank said. “We should wait here. I have a hunch that if Sara was the one who took the skis, she’ll make her next move soon.”

  The boys sat down behind the big tree, leaning their backs against it. Time was going by. They only had an hour before they had to be back for lunch. After a while Joe got tired. His eyes started to close, and he fell fast asleep.

  “Joe! Wake up! Look!” Frank whispered.

  Joe rubbed his eyes. He wasn’t sure how long he’d been napping. He peered out from behind the tree. Sara was crawling out from underneath the deck of the cabin. “What happened?” he asked.

  “She just went under there. . . . She must be hiding something,” Chet said.

  Sara looked around the woods before she turned toward the lake. Then she took off down a trail. “Come on,” Frank said. He rushed toward the cabin. When he got to the deck he crawled underneath it, feeling around beneath the dead leaves.

  “What’s there?” Joe asked. “Did you find anything?”

  Frank moved farther under the deck. The light outside the cabin came through the slats in the deck. He could see one ski, but not the other. He pushed the dead leaves and dirt around, but he still couldn’t find the other one. It wasn’t there.

  He crawled back out and handed the ski to Joe. “My ski!” Joe cried.

  “Where’s the other one?” Chet asked.

  “It’s not under there,” Frank said. He pointed toward the path where Sara had gone. “We have to find her. She knows what happened, and she probably knows where that other ski is.”

  Joe hid his one ski under the deck again, and the three boys took off through the woods. They ran as fast as they could. By the time they saw Sara up ahead, they were almost out of breath. “Wait! Stop! We need to talk to you!”

  Sara turned back, but when she saw who was following her, she started running. She darted down the path toward the beach.

  “She’s getting away!” Chet cried. “We have to stop her!”

  The boys ran even faster. They jumped over fallen trees and rocks. They followed her left through the woods, then right.

  Finally she turned toward the beach. The dock was on one side of her, and they were on the other. Sara finally stopped and sat down in the sand.

  “We just want to ask you something,” Joe panted, out of breath from running. “We think you might be able to help us find the skis.”

  Sara put her hands up and looked sad. “I’m sorry,” she said. Her eyes were brimming with tears. “I can explain, I swear. . . .”

  THE HARDY BOYS and

  YOU!

  CAN YOU SOLVE THE MYSTERY OF THE MISSING SKIS?

  Grab a piece of paper and write your answers down. Or just turn the page to find out!

  1. Frank and Joe came up with a list of suspects. Can you think of more? List your suspects.

  2. Which clues helped you to solve this mystery? Write them down.

  Chapter 10

  A FRIEND IN NEED

  Sara put her face in her hands. For a moment, Frank and Joe almost felt bad for her.

  “I’m sorry,” she said again. “I really am. I didn’t mean to.”

  “What happened?” Joe asked.

  The boys stood there, looking at Sara. Out on the lake, they could see the light of a boat coming toward them. Joe wondered if it was Mr. Morton and the rest of the group, but they were too far away to see.

  Sara let out a deep breath. “I was just trying to help Tamara. She’s new, and she’s been having a really hard time. Some of the girls are mean to her. Last night she was upset, and we went for a walk. She was talking about her old town, and things she liked to do there—”

  “And she mentioned waterskiing,” Frank said. He remembered Tamara saying she lived on a lake.
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br />   “Yeah,” Sara said. “She said she was really good at it. And it was this fun thing she used to do with her sisters. So I had this idea to find some water skis so that when we went out on the boat today, she’d be able to show off a little. I knew the other girls would think she was really cool.”

  Joe scratched his head. Sara’s story was starting to make sense, except for one thing. “Why did you take my skis? And what happened to the other one?”

  “I didn’t realize they were yours until after you came to our cabin,” Sara said. “Tamara told me you were asking about them, and that’s when I realized. I didn’t know, I promise I didn’t. They were in the shed with all the life vests. I just thought they were part of the supplies for the different cabins.”

  Frank nodded. “Why did you take the skis late at night, though?”

  Sara put her chin in her hands. “I just wanted it to be a surprise. I snuck out after Tamara went to sleep. I brought the skis down to the boat . . . and that’s when it happened.”

  She bit her lip, like she was afraid to go on.

  “What is it?” Joe asked. “What’s wrong?”

  Sara’s eyes filled with tears. “I’m really sorry,” she said. “I brought the skis down to the boat, but when I went to put them inside it, one fell. Before I could jump in and get it, it started floating out into the lake. It was so dark . . . I lost it.”

  Joe let out a deep breath. It was even worse news than when he had found out the skis were gone. This meant one was gone forever. It wasn’t stolen, or lost . . . it was somewhere out on the lake. He’d never see it again. What good were water skis if you only had one?

  Sara started to cry now. “I’m really sorry,” she said, looking at Joe. “I really am.”

  Joe knew that she was. She looked more upset than ever. He tried to remind himself that she’d only been trying to help her friend. She’d wanted to cheer up Tamara. “It’s okay,” he said. “I know you were trying to do something good.”