The Second Adventure (6 page)

The
“Aaaahhh!”
of recognition from the campers soon faded as the pleasant surprise of meeting a celebrity turned sour. Mickey Bonaventure had the power to decide the winner of tomorrow's contest — and Logan had broken into his house and called him a low-down, slimy dognapper. What if that cost them the Showdown? Dozens of angry faces sought out the guilty party, who was lying face-first in the dirt, where Melissa had leveled him.

Logan could feel the hostility roiling around him. All actors, he knew, had to suffer for their art.

But this was ridiculous.

* * *

The infirmary was a small white building next to the mess hall. Logan lay on one of the cots, a cold cloth on his forehead and a hot water bottle under his feet. He had taken this treatment upon himself. The nurse had not done anything for him. She was not talking to him, like everyone else in the camp. He had prejudiced the judge against Ta-da!, spoiling their best chance ever to snap the Showdown losing streak. He was not a camper anymore. He wasn't even a human being. He was something to be put out with the trash.

The only person who stuck by him was Melissa. “Maybe it'll be okay,” she told him, trying to cheer him up.

He was inconsolable. “Nothing is ever going to be okay again. Mickey Bonaventure! Why didn't I know? I should have felt the aura of a fellow actor!”

“Maybe it was the beard that threw you off,” she suggested lamely. “He looks pretty different now.”

“He's the only person I've ever met who's got connections in Hollywood! Someone who could have recognized my talent, taken me under his wing, introduced me to the right people! And what did I do? I called him a low-down dognapper!”

“A low-down,
slimy
dognapper,” Melissa amended.

“He'll never work with me now!” Logan lamented. “He hates me. I mean, everybody hates me, but I only care about him! He's probably already phoned all the big movie studios and warned them never to hire me!”

“That's okay,” Melissa reasoned. “Because he thinks your name is Ferris Atwater, Jr. Logan Kellerman is still clean.”

“My life is over.”

“It is not,” Melissa said stoutly. “You have plenty to be thankful for. You're not kicked out of camp. You're not even kicked out of the Showdown.”

“Only because it's too late to train a new warthog,” Logan mourned.

“There's only one thing that bothers me,” Melissa mused.

“You're lucky,” Logan moaned. “There are about six hundred that bother me.”

“Believe it or not, Logan Kellerman, this isn't all about you. Think! If Mickey Bonaventure is innocent, we could still have a dognapper on the loose. And whoever it is has had all the time in the world while we focused on the wrong person.”

Over the years, Melissa Dukakis had sent tens of thousands of texts, e-mails, IMs, tweets, and electronic communications of every possible variety. But this one was the hardest by far.

She had let down her friends.

T
he banner stretched between two trees high across the dirt drive that led into Ta-da! Campers lined both sides of the road, cheering and calling greetings as the buses roared into the compound.

Logan could barely raise his head high enough to get a look at the arriving competition. This should have been the greatest day of his life, the day that he'd prove his talent in front of a real Hollywood insider. But now the Showdown was already lost, thanks to him, and he was Public Enemy Number One. How could it be any worse?

Over the excited shouts, he distinctly heard the muffled sound of a dog howling.

His head snapped up, and he looked at Melissa. “Was that what I think it was?”

She nodded gravely. “The counselors were patrolling the compound last night. I couldn't get Luthor any food or take him for his walk.”

“He won't starve up there, will he?”

“I checked some online dog sites this morning,” Melissa replied. “He's okay for now. The problem is that, the hungrier he gets, the louder he's going to be. And it's only a matter of time until someone figures out where all that howling is coming from.”

The buses unloaded, and the host campers greeted the competition and began to escort them toward the main compound, where burgers and hot dogs already sizzled on charcoal grills.

One of the drivers approached the Spotlight head counselor. “Hey, lady, we're done here, right? You don't need us till it's time to leave?”

The woman said something about the drivers being invited for lunch, but Melissa's whirling mind missed all that.

“Logan!” she hissed. “That bus driver — he doesn't know the name of his own boss!”

Logan glared at her. “My career is ruined, and you expect me to care that some total stranger is a little forgetful?”

“Think of the Ta-da! drivers,” she persisted. “Most of them have been working here for years. They not only know all the counselors' names, they remember most of ours!”

Logan shrugged. “So the regular driver got sick, and they had to hire a new guy. Happens all the time.”

The driver brushed past them, and it was all Melissa and Logan could do to keep from crying out. Folded in the man's shirt pocket was a newspaper clipping they both recognized instantly. Logan had a copy of it taped to his bedroom mirror; Melissa used it as wallpaper for several of her computers and mobile devices. It was an article about the Global Kennel Society Dog Show, and the picture was of Luthor.

“It's him!” Melissa breathed. “The dognapper!”

The fact that the enemy was upon them for real jolted Logan out of his funk. “We've got to keep him from finding out Luthor's here!”

A mournful canine howl wafted on the air.

The man stiffened, trying to pinpoint the direction of the sound. The other driver rushed over, and they held a whispered conference, scanning the various buildings.

“I'll bet
he's
in on it, too,” Logan concluded. “Swindle couldn't get Luthor with one dognapper, so he sent two guys this time.”

“We have to stop them,” Melissa said with determination.

They joined the barbecue, socking away as many burgers as they ate. Luthor was going to be extra hungry today. But their eyes never left the two bus drivers. On the surface, the men were eating lunch, helping themselves to hot dogs and drinks. But it was obvious that they were scouting out Camp Ta-da!, wandering on the periphery of the party, peering into cabins and other buildings. Every now and then, one of them would drop a napkin and stoop to pick it up, checking the crawl spaces under the structures. And, Melissa noted with a sinking heart, they were working their way closer and closer to the performance center. Sooner or later they'd get to a place where the dog's barking would betray his location in the barn.

“Ferris — can I have a word?”

Logan had been so wrapped up following
today's
dognappers that he hadn't given a thought to
yesterday's
. He turned to find himself staring into the famous features of Mickey Bonaventure.

Face-to-face with the Hollywood connection he'd let slip away, Logan just started babbling uncontrollably. “Mr. Bonaventure, I'm so sorry! I didn't mean to call you slimy! I mean, I meant to call you slimy, but in a good way! Not that it's good to be slimy! And anyway, you're not slimy anymore, not that you ever were —”

The Hollywood star looked impatient. “I've heard a rumor that Camp Ta-da! thinks I'm going to decide against them because of what you did. I want you to know that nothing could be further from the truth.”

Logan wanted to pay attention, but the bus drivers were right outside the barn now. And — was that a bark?

“I take my judging very seriously,” Bonaventure went on. “And I intend to be fair and impartial . . . Are you even listening to me?”

“Fer-ris,” Melissa prompted meaningfully.

“Not now!” Logan hissed.

The dognappers stepped through the rear door of the performance center, and Melissa broke into a run after them.

“I would never let a personal bias interfere with my responsibilities,” the actor droned on. “I'm willing to let bygones be bygones.” He held out his hand.

Logan barely noticed it. All his attention was focused on the barn, and the fact that Luthor was trapped there with two dognappers. “I — ” he stammered. “I — I gotta go!” He turned his back on his only Hollywood connection and sprinted for the performance center.

He ran into the barn, and was about to burst into the main theater section when he heard soft footsteps creeping up the back staircase. Melissa. And another sound — the growling of a dog. He caught up with his partner on the stairs, and a knowing glance passed between them: Maybe Luthor could take care of himself.

Then a voice from above said, “Hold still, mutt. You won't feel a thing.”

Logan remembered Griffin's description of the incident at Ebony Lake. Tranquilizer darts! No one could take on Luthor straight-up. But if the dog was out cold . . .

They blasted up the stairs and arrived in the hayloft to behold a horrible sight. The two bus drivers were trying to corner a nervous Luthor. The younger man with the spiky hair waved a dart gun, struggling to get a bead on the pacing Doberman.

“Get away from our dog!” Logan ordered in his most commanding tone.

“
Your
dog? This dog belongs to a man named Palomino!” growled the older man. “Now get lost! This is none of your business.”

Melissa picked up Luthor's water dish and wielded it like a Frisbee.

Spiky Hair laughed. “What are you going to do — knock us out with a plastic bowl?”

In answer, Melissa flung the dish, not at the drivers, but at the upstairs control for the electric lift mechanism.

T
he spinning dish bounced off the wall switch. With a click, followed by a loud hum, the trap door began to descend, lowering the two shocked men down to the theater below. To them, it seemed as if the very floor beneath their feet was falling away. Spiky Hair, struggling to maintain his balance, fired one shot from the tranquilizer gun. The dart nicked Luthor on the neck and sailed beyond him, burying itself in a crossbeam.

Luthor stood, barking through the hole in the floor at his attackers as Melissa and Logan rushed over.

Melissa immediately noticed a red scratch by Luthor's collar. “He's hit!”

“He seems okay to me!” Logan observed, hauling on the leash to urge the Doberman away from the opening, toward the back stairs.

“No, he doesn't!” Melissa exclaimed. “He isn't fighting — he isn't even growling at us! That's not Luthor!”

Sure enough, the big dog's eyes were glazed, his movements slowed.

“Well, I like him better this way!” Logan said feelingly. “Call me crazy, but I've got a thing about having my head bitten off!”

They could hear the lift mechanism still laboring, but knew there wasn't much time before the two drivers hopped down and came around to intercept them. The only way out was the steps. The dog had refused those before, but now he did not balk at the staircase, even though his legs buckled a little. The glancing blow from the dart had delivered some of the dose of the tranquilizer, but not all of it. It did not put him to sleep, yet it was affecting him, making him drowsy and docile.