“Nancy,” George whispered as she settled beside me on a bench on the edge of the sports field. “I bet you didn’t get much sleep last night.”
I kept looking ahead, watching my campers, who were having a soccer lesson with Sam. “I didn’t,” I agreed. “That mattress was kind of cold.”
“That’s not what I meant,” George scoffed, “and you know it. BESS!” She called across the field to where Bess had wandered. “Bess’s kids have wood crafts this morning,” George explained to me. “They were going to make a picture frame or something? Mine are swimming. I kind of like having these little breaks.”
Bess caught sight of us and jogged over. “Hey, guys,” she said, sliding in next to me on the bench. “Were you talking about the Great Sleeping Bag Heist?”
I cringed.
“We were,” George said, glancing over at me. “Sort of, anyway. I was trying to get Nancy to tell us her theories.”
Bess’s eyes lit up. “Nancy has theories! Awesome!”
I cleared my throat. “Actually,” I said, “I have no theories. I have no feelings about the sleeping bag situation whatsoever . . . except that I would like mine back. I hear they’re passing them out, washed and dried, after lunch.”
Bess furrowed her brows. “What?” she said. “You, Nancy Drew, have no feelings about a developing mystery?”
“It’s not a mystery,” I groaned. Please, let it not be a mystery.
George was giving me major side-eye. “You’re kidding, right?” she asked. “This is a classic mystery. Weird things happen! More weird things happen! Stakes are raised! You guys, I got, like, five hours of sleep last night.” She sighed. “I never realized how much I need my sleeping bag. I may be a little weird today.”
“How would we tell?” Bess asked with a smirk.
George shoved her.
“Someone stole some sleeping bags as a prank,” I said, trying to ignore the feeling that I was attempting to convince myself. “That’s all.”
George shook her head. “Are you serious right now?” she asked. “You’re forgetting how someone tried to drown you in the lake. Or the headlines I found about some tragedy happening here, and then Bella’s weird story about the drowning.”
I looked up at her, surprised.
“I’m not saying I believe Bella’s story,” she said, holding up her hands as though to wave off the idea. “I’m just saying, Google result and creepy ghost legend? Something is going on here. Where there’s smoke, there’s fire.”
I was quiet for a moment. I wished what George was saying didn’t make so much sense.
“What if this is all that happens?” I asked in a small voice. “The sleeping bags disappear, and that’s the last weird thing. Nobody getting pulled underwater. No weird sounds drifting over the lake.”
Bess raised her eyebrows at me. “Do you really think that’s likely, Nancy?”
I sighed. No. Obviously no. Because that never happens when I’m around. “I was going to take the summer off,” I said plaintively, and it came out sounding like a whine.
“Evil never takes the summer off,” George said resolutely, watching the soccer lesson.
I closed my eyes and rubbed my temples. The summer was going so well so far. No missing pets, no weird threatening notes . . .
“Oh look! It’s Miles! I bet he could answer some questions for us! Miles!” cried Bess. I opened my eyes to see her jumping up and waving over the camp’s codirector. He looked a little surprised, but walked up to us with a polite smile.
“Hello,” he said. “It’s George, Marcie, and Beth, I think?”
“George, Nancy, and Bess,” Bess corrected him cheerfully. “I’m actually a Camp Larksong alum, and when I heard you were reopening, I convinced my two best friends to come with me this summer and be counselors.”
“Oh, that’s great,” Miles said, fingering his scruffy beard. “Yes, Deborah always talks about how important Camp Larksong was to her. How much fun she had those summers.”
Bess kept up the conversation for a few minutes, talking about her favorite Camp Larksong traditions and asking Miles how much he knew about them. Finally, just as I was beginning to wonder where all this was going, Bess tilted her head quizzically.
“The only thing I never understood,” she said, “is why Camp Larksong closed so suddenly. It always seemed like the camp was doing so well.”
Miles nodded, suddenly looking a little uncomfortable. “Well, yes,” he agreed. “Yes, it was—”
“I heard vague things,” Bess went on, “you know, from pen pals and things, after the camp closed. . . . I heard there was some kind of tragedy that happened here.”
Miles grew quiet. He looked behind him, almost as if he expected to see Deborah there, ready to give him direction.
“Well,” he said. “Well.”
“I even found an old article,” Bess said, “in a Google search just the other day, about a ‘tragedy’ happening here. And I thought, that’s crazy, that we never heard about it! I mean . . . how tragic could it have been?”