What are you two doing here?”

The voice was familiar, though weak. Travis turned and stared up into the drawn, pale face of Joe Hall. He didn’t look like “Bad” Joe Hall at all. He looked like “Sick” Joe Hall.

“We, we were looking for you,” Travis admitted.

“Are you all right?” Sarah asked.

There was a long silence, then Joe Hall sighed. He seemed very tired.

“I’m fine,” he said, unconvincingly. “You may as well go ahead in–but step carefully.”

They edged past old furniture and even raspberry shoots that had pushed up inside the abandoned cottage. They passed through into a sitting room, where the light was falling in shafts through torn curtains.

There was a cot in the room. Joe Hall must have been lying there.

The light was better here, and the two Screech Owls took the opportunity to look more carefully at their new friend. Joe Hall looked terrible. His eyes seemed sunken and every few moments he shook from the inside out with a deep, quiet cough.

“You’re sick!” Sarah said.

“It’s just the flu,” Joe Hall said. “I’ll be fine for the game.”

Sarah pushed aside the tattered curtains. The sun poured in through the broken and cobwebbed window, causing Joe Hall to blink and Sarah’s and Travis’s eyes to widen. He looked terrible. He’d lost weight.

“You need a doctor,” said Sarah.

“I’ll be fine,” Joe Hall argued. “The worst is over.”

“What’re you doing here?” Travis asked.

“I come here sometimes,” Joe Hall said. “No one knows about it. Place used to belong to the Westwick family. You remember I told you about Harry, the ‘Rat’? I’m a bit of a student of ‘Rat’ Westwick, you might say.” He smiled at Travis. “He’s the one taught us that heel pass, remember?”

Travis nodded. He couldn’t believe anyone would want to come here on their own. Especially if they were ill.

“If I’m the same after the big game,” Joe Hall said, “I’ll see a doctor. I promise you that, okay?”

He flashed his old smile and immediately looked much better. Sarah and Travis couldn’t help themselves. They nodded, though they still felt he needed help now, not tomorrow. But Joe Hall wasn’t going to listen to a couple of kids.

“You better head back to camp now,” he said. “They’ll be sending out a search party.”

“I guess you’re right,” said Sarah. “You’re sure you’re going to be all right here, though?”

“I’m fine,” Joe Hall said. He smiled again, but it wasn’t so convincing this time. “I’ll see you two at the rink, okay?”

They nodded in agreement.

Joe Hall walked them down to the dock, and when the setter caught sight of them it began to howl and moan. The dog seemed frantic, racing back and forth in the water, snapping and growling and barking.

“She’s still waiting for us,” Sarah said. “She wouldn’t come across the water with us.”

Joe Hall nodded, swallowed hard. “There’s been a skunk around,” he said. “I guess the dog smells it.”

“I guess,” Travis said.

The dog obviously had a better nose than he had. All Travis could smell was the musty old cottage and the river.