“Look!” Terri said, and pointed. “There’s the plumber’s truck. It’s big enough to hold lots of sports stuff.”
A small truck was parked in front of bunk B6. Cam, Eric, Terri, and Jim hurried across the baseball field. Jim put Kitty down. Then he tried to open the back door of the truck. It was locked.
“Are you looking for me?” someone asked.
Cam and the others turned. A tall woman was standing behind them. She wore overalls, a T-shirt, work boots and a baseball cap. She was holding a large metal toolbox.
“We’re looking for basketballs and baseball bats,” Cam said.
“I don’t have any of those,” the woman said as she walked past Cam and the others. She opened the back door of her truck and put her things inside.
Jim held the door open.
“May I look inside?” he asked.
“Sure,” the woman said. “Lots of people are curious about plumbing. But it’s just about keeping the water running, stopping leaks, and sometimes installing boilers for heat. That’s what I do.”
There were lots of pipes and tools in the truck, but no sports equipment.
“Do you know what I just did in there?” the woman asked, and pointed to bunk B6. “I just cleared a clogged toilet. Do you know what it was clogged with? Carrot sticks! I didn’t ask why there were carrots in the toilet. I never ask. I just clear the clog and go home.”
“Thank you,” Jim said, and closed the back door of the truck.
“Once I found a math test. A boy had balled it up. He dropped it in the bowl and flushed. It was all wet when I got it out. But do you know what? His mother opened it up to see his grade on the test.”
“Thank you,” Jim said again.
“His mother wasn’t angry that he stopped up the toilet,” the plumber said. “But she was real angry about the test grade. Oh, I could tell you lots of stories.”
“We’re looking for basketballs,” Eric said.
“Oh, I never found one of those in a toilet. It wouldn’t fit through the pipes.”
The plumber petted Kitty.
“One day, I’m going to write a book,” she said. “I might call it Peeks at Leaks or Pipes and Gripes.”
She got in her truck. “Look for my book,” she said as she drove off.
Jim said, “The only other person who came in or left during dinner was Sadie Rosen. She wouldn’t steal basketballs and my computer.”
“Is there a back way into camp?” Cam asked.
“You can go through the woods,” Jim told her.
They followed Jim to the woods just beyond the baseball field. It had rained earlier in the day. The ground was soft and wet.
Jim said, “Look for foot or tire prints.”
They all walked along the edge of the woods from the end near the baseball field to the road.
Once they reached the road, Eric said, “There’s nothing here. There’s no path wide enough for a car or truck to ride on.”
“There are lots of footprints,” Terri said. “They’re from this afternoon, when we played baseball here. But none of them leads into the woods.”
There were several benches along the side of the road. Jim sat on one. He put his head in his hands and said, “We didn’t find any clues. Everything is just gone.”
Meow!
Kitty rubbed her back against Jim’s leg.
“No, it’s not just gone,” Cam told him. “We did learn something. We learned that the sports equipment didn’t leave the camp through the front entrance or through the woods. So it must still be here. It must be hidden.”
Jim looked up.
“That’s right,” Jim said. “Now where in camp could someone hide basketballs, soft-balls, baseball bats, my computer, and all those prizes?”
