The Clue in the Trees: An Enchantment Lake Mystery by Margi Preus

Author:Margi Preus [Preus, Margi]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Tags: FIC019000 Fiction / Literary
Publisher: University of Minnesota Press
Published: 2017-09-19T04:00:00+00:00

17

Halloween

“YOU REALIZE WE HAVE A PARTY to get ready for, right?” Jay said, as the three friends walked past cobweb-festooned shrubs and trees hung with little plastic ghosts. Jack-o’-lanterns leered at them from front porches. “Costumes? Makeup?”

“I know, I know,” Francie said. “This shouldn’t take long. You’ll still have time to get to the party.”

“Dance,” Raven put in.

“Whatever it is.”

“What do you mean, ‘You’ll still have time’?” Jay squawked. “Aren’t you going?”

“Sure,” Francie said, unconvincingly.

“What’s your costume?”

“Costume? I have to have a costume?”

“Uh, hello?” Jay said. “It’s Halloween!”

“Are you going?” Francie asked Raven.

Raven shook her head.

“If you’re not, then I’m not,” Francie said.

“You gu-uys!” Jay said. “You have to!”

The giant muskie that served as the entrance to the closed-for-the-season Muskie Bait shop loomed. The peeling green and white exterior gave the impression of a half-scaled fish. Its faded pink gums and once white but now yellow-brown teeth were so convincingly decayed you could practically smell bad fish breath.

“So,” Raven said. “What are we doing here?”

Francie sighed. “The first day of school, if you remember, everybody thought Muskie Bait was vandalized. It wasn’t.”

“And you would know this because . . . ?” Jay said.

“You cannot—cannot—tell anyone this. Not anyone,” Francie said.

“Sworn to secrecy,” Raven and Jay crossed their hearts and did an impromptu secret handshake.

“That night, I was with Theo. Here. We were chased into this place.”

“Chased!”

“By I don’t know who—some wing nut in a trench coat. I don’t know why, either.”

“Was this guy chasing you or Theo?”

“Why would anyone be chasing me? I’ve been thinking about it, and I think Theo had something with him, something he may have hidden inside here somewhere,” she said. “He gave me his backpack,” Francie handed Raven her schoolbag, “and he groped around along the muskie’s teeth for a while . . .” Francie ran her hands along the teeth, not knowing what she expected to find. “With everything that was going on, I didn’t really stop to wonder why he was doing that. And it was dark, so I couldn’t see much.”

“What does your brother do, Francie?” Raven asked.

“Do?” Francie said.

“Like, for work?” Raven said. “Is he a student, or what?”

“I don’t know,” Francie said. “He travels a lot. Something with archaeology.”

“He’s an archaeologist?”

“Sort of? Not really? I guess I don’t really know.”

“Did he come back because of the dig?”

Francie paused midtooth and turned to Raven. Had he? She had been trying to force herself not to think of his argument with Digby. Now she forced herself to think of it. How did he know Digby? And why had they argued?

Francie took Raven by the shoulders, staring at her. “Something’s going on. Something we have no idea about.”

“Obviously,” Raven said.

“No, Raven. I mean something big. Bigger than mastodon bones—it has to be.” A familiar fear—the fear that Theo was in trouble—seized her again. “Theo is tangled up in it somehow. Oh, if only I knew what was going on!” she cried.

“He’s your brother, by the way,” Raven said. “Why don’t you just ask him?”

“He won’t tell me.

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