The Singing Trees Mystery by Norvin Pallas

Author:Norvin Pallas
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: mystery, young adult, detective, sleuth, reporter
Publisher: Wildside Press LLC
Published: 2017-02-27T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 13

Tin-Can Tourists

At the trailer camp they found a hundred-odd house trailers lined up in neat rows and sections suggesting city blocks. Some of the campers had even tried to stake out little yards, and early spring flowers were just beginning to push through. In one respect, however, this camp differed from many other trailer camps, for all the trailers stood on tires, rather than on blocks which is usually done when the campers intend to settle down for a while. However temporary their stay, they seemed to be doing their best to make their surroundings decently livable, and they hardly deserved the term “tin-can tourists” which was often applied to them, either because so much of their food came from tin cans or because the trailers themselves were being compared unfavorably with sardine cans.

Ted and Nelson had no trouble locating the blue convertible they were after. The first person they asked said:

“Oh, you must mean the Preston car. That’s their home, the next street over and the third house from the corner.”

“Well!” Nelson exclaimed to Ted as they started on foot toward the Preston “house,” “all roads seem to lead to Woody Preston. He’ll think we showed up here because of his fight with you, and we didn’t at all. We came the long way around.”

“I wonder why I didn’t guess that he lived at the trailer camp? He gave me enough clues, about his family not being settled down here permanently and all that. And he wasn’t expelled from school, as I thought. Mr. Dobson told me that the school board and the trailerites were having a dispute over the payment of tuition fees, and that’s why the school decided not to admit him. That makes it pretty hard on him and the other students here.”

“Do you think Woody has anything to do with this ghost business?”

“Well, if he’s the driver of that blue convertible, we know he’s been hanging around camp for something more than watching birds. He doesn’t like us, so probably he doesn’t like the camp, either, but what else he’s got in mind I can’t guess.”

Mr. Preston answered their knock, and seemed pleased to see them.

“It isn’t very often that Woody brings his friends around here. I wish he would. I’m sorry that he isn’t at home just now. He’s off with his crowd somewhere.”

Woody’s father evidently believed his son had a group of friends with whom he went around, but Woody had already denied it to Ted.

“He drives a blue convertible, doesn’t he?” asked Ted.

“Oh, yes. I suppose I really shouldn’t have bought a new car. But I thought lumbering would be opening up around here long before this. And it gave Woody something to do. He hasn’t had much to fill his time since he left school.”

“It’s too bad about that,” Ted offered, “just when he was beginning to get acquainted around school. His grades were all right, weren’t they?”

“Yes, he did all right. I won’t say he’s too much of a scholar, but he shines along mechanical and scientific lines.

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