Hideout: The Second Adventure

  Cover

  Title Page

  The Second Hideout

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  Don’t Miss the Next Adventure!

  About the Author

  Don’t Miss Any Antics of the Man with the Plan, from Gordon Korman

  Copyright

  The small screen showed the two-lane road cutting a ribbon through the trees as far as the electronic eye could see. Phone in hand, Melissa watched intently.

  Logan peered over her shoulder. “Don’t tell me you hacked into a satellite.”

  Melissa agitated her head, creating gaps in the curtain of hair that usually obscured her face. “Of course not. I’ve just placed a few wireless webcams in the trees.” She tapped the screen, and the angle changed slightly.

  Logan yawned hugely. “It’s too early. How come these plans can’t happen at a decent hour? An actor needs plenty of rest to practice his craft to the best of his ability.”

  Melissa was patient. “The pantry truck doesn’t make its run on our schedule. It delivers to all the camps up here at the crack of dawn so everything is ready before the kids get up.”

  “I’m not feeling my character,” Logan warned.

  “You don’t have to win an Oscar,” Melissa soothed. “You just have to get the driver to stop.” She tensed. “Get ready. Half a mile.”

  Sure enough, the white panel truck had appeared in the distance on the monitor.

  “All right, I’ll do it,” Logan conceded. “But it won’t be art.”

  Melissa stepped back into the cover of the trees. “Break a leg,” she whispered.

  Logan stood a little taller. It was the standard good-luck message for an actor about to take the stage.

  He could see the vehicle now, and hear its motor shifting into second gear as it climbed the grade. Logan waited until it was about a hundred yards away, and then stepped out into the road, waving his arms, the picture of confusion.

  The truck jerked to a sudden halt, and the driver jumped out. “What’s the matter, kid? Are you okay?”

  It was just the cue line Logan had been waiting for. “I — I’m not sure.” He stared at the man blankly. “What am I doing here? I was in bed a minute ago, and — I must have been sleepwalking!”

  The man looked shaken. “It’s a good thing I was paying attention. I could have run you down. Can I get you a bottle of water? I’ve got some in the back —”

  “No!” Logan exclaimed, a little too sharply.

  If the driver had turned around at that instant, he would have seen Melissa helping Griffin, Savannah, and Luthor out the rear of the payload. It was terrible acting, but it kept the man’s attention on Logan instead of the great escape that was taking place behind him.

  “What I mean is —” Logan stammered, recovering — “I’m fine now. I’m sorry for stopping you.” Luthor and the three kids were almost in the cover of the trees. “You can go.”

  No sooner were the words out of his mouth than Griffin tripped on a rut and went sprawling headfirst.

  “On second thought, I’m feeling woozy again!” Logan fairly bellowed. No actor should have to work under these conditions. Johnny Depp would never put up with it.

  Logan watched, wide-eyed, as the girls dragged Griffin out of sight, Luthor trotting by their side. Was that a Care Bears shirt Griffin was wearing? Who was in charge of wardrobe for this operation? Not anybody with the right to call himself The Man With The Plan.

  “Whoops, false alarm,” Logan announced as soon as the others were out of sight.

  “Get in the truck,” the man offered. “Let me give you a ride home. Are you from that theatre camp?”

  Logan’s actor’s preparation had not included that question. “Of course —” he stammered — “not.” The last thing they needed was a concerned truck driver asking questions about a kid wandering out on the road at six o’clock in the morning. “Bye!”

  He ran off into the woods, leaving the man scratching his head.

  When Logan rejoined the team at a small clearing in the cover of the woods, he found Savannah speaking to Luthor in the quiet manner that had earned her the reputation as Cedarville’s premier dog whisperer.

  “I have to go back to camp now, sweetie. You’ll be staying here with Melissa and Logan. I know it isn’t what you had in mind, but you three are going to have so much fun together. . . .”

  “Not too much fun,” Griffin put in. “He has to be quiet. All that barking nearly blew our cover at Ebony Lake.”

  “And don’t forget to tell him about the serious theatre going on,” Logan added. “This isn’t just a camp-camp, it’s a drama camp, and some of the people here are going to be actors for their real careers. He can’t expect us to drop everything and go get dog biscuits or whatever.”

  Savannah was annoyed. “I won’t tell him that. It’s insulting. Besides, he wouldn’t know what to make of a message like that. An animal’s comprehension comes from emotional intelligence and sensitivity.”

  “He wasn’t so sensitive when he was trashing my basement,” Logan complained.

  Savannah faced him furiously. “If you’ve got a problem —”

  Griffin quickly interposed himself between his two friends. “It works against the plan if we fight among ourselves. The whole point of all this is to keep Luthor out of Swindle’s grubby hands. We’re doing you a favor, Savannah.”

  The dog whisperer was instantly contrite. If it weren’t for Operation Hideout, her beloved Doberman would be back with his former owner, the sleazy S. Wendell Palomino.

  “Sorry, Logan,” she said emotionally. “I’m so grateful to you guys for stashing Luthor up here. It’s just not safe for us to keep him at Ebony Lake anymore.”

  “It helps us, too,” Melissa assured her. “If we let Swindle get rich off Luthor’s dog show winnings, he’ll use the money to come after all of us.”

  “Keep your eyes peeled for anybody who might be a private investigator working for Swindle,” Griffin instructed. “Whoever it is will be undercover, so you have to be careful. Watch out for delivery guys or forest rangers who poke around asking nosy questions. It could even be a new counselor — nobody’s above suspicion. Got it?”

  Melissa held up her phone for the others to see. “Here comes the laundry truck heading west.”

  “That’s our ride home,” Griffin confirmed. He turned to Logan. “Ready for some more acting?”

  “The sleepwalking thing isn’t really working for me,” Logan mused. “You know, dramatically. Maybe I should be a parachutist who blew off course.”

  “Except there’s no parachute,” Melissa pointed out.

  Logan sighed. “We need a props department.”

  “Just be something,” Griffin hissed. “If we miss the truck, it’s a twenty-five-mile hike back to camp.”

  “Leave Luthor with me,” Melissa said courageously. “Go catch your ride.”

  There wasn’t even time for an emotional farewell scene between Savannah and the Doberman. Instead, the animal expert made an elaborate show of handing the leash over to Melissa. “Be a good boy, sweetie. I’ll see you soon.”

  They heard the brakes of the truck, followed by Logan’s voice. The young actor had abandoned his parachutist story, and was portraying a lost hiker. There was no time to lose. In another moment, the opportunity would be lost forever.

  “Go!” whispered Melissa.

  With a brave smile for Luthor’s sake, Savannah allowed herself to be pulled away by Grif
fin. As Logan distracted the driver of the van, the two renegade campers circled around the back of the truck, eased open the rear gate, and hid themselves behind stacks of linens.

  The instant Savannah was out of sight, the change in Luthor was glaringly obvious. His calm deserted him, and he began to pace the clearing, twitching nervously.

  Shy Melissa Dukakis had only just reached the point where she felt comfortable talking to people. To deal with this very large, very frightening animal was going to take every milligram of fortitude she could muster.

  “Calm down — uh — sweetie,” she ventured in her best impersonation of Savannah.

  The endearment, coming from anybody but his beloved dog whisperer, was not to be tolerated. The growl seemed to begin at the tip of his tail, traveling through that oversized body, and emerging from behind those very sharp teeth.

  Melissa nearly swallowed her tongue. “Luthor — uh — sir —” Her hand visibly shaking, she reached into the bag of food Savannah had brought along, and produced a bone-shaped dog treat.

  Luthor snapped it down in a flash, but it failed to settle him.

  Logan reentered the clearing. “Well, that’s done —”

  The big dog turned on him with a sharp bark, freezing him on the spot.

  Melissa might have been quiet and timid, but her experience with Griffin and his team had taught her one important truth: Never let a plan get out of control.

  She activated the Skype app on her phone and called Griffin. A shadowy face surrounded by sheets and towels appeared almost immediately. “Are you crazy?” Griffin rasped. “You know we’re hiding in the back of a van! You want to get us caught?”

  Melissa’s wide eyes were clearly visible behind her curtain of hair. “Savannah has to talk to her dog!”

  Griffin understood her instantly. Just seconds later, Savannah appeared on the screen, in full dog-whispering mode. Melissa held the phone up for Luthor to see.

  The Doberman was a little bewildered by the tiny Savannah who was here and yet not here. But there was no question — that was her face, and that was her voice, which meant he wasn’t so abandoned after all.

  Melissa and Logan exchanged a look of pure dismay. Luthor was calm again — but for how long? Would his hostility return the minute Savannah’s familiar face was no longer before him?

  “Great,” Logan said with a nervous laugh. “Now all we have to do is keep her on the phone forever.”

  Melissa retreated behind her hair. It was going to be a really long three weeks.

  The buildings of Camp Ta-da! were laid out around its performance center — an old barn converted into a small theater and rehearsal space. It was a tight squeeze to get one hundred fifty campers plus their counselors inside at the same time. But when it was raining — like it was on that day — no one minded the crowding. All eyes were on head counselor and creative director Wendy Demerest, who was running through the details of the annual “Showdown” against the camp’s cross-county rivals, Camp Spotlight.

  “For the next week we work around the clock to script, stage, and rehearse a forty-five-minute revue,” she explained. “At the Showdown, both camps put on dueling shows for a trophy and bragging rights. Spotlight has beaten us the last three summers” — a loud chorus of boos greeted this statement — “and that’s why this is the year we bring the cup back to Ta-da!, where it belongs.”

  Melissa was amazed at the wild cheering that greeted this announcement. Even Logan — who normally looked at his acting as serious business — was on his feet, punching the air and howling. She had only agreed to go away for the summer because her parents thought she spent too much time alone with her computers. She’d signed on with Logan and Ta-da! in order to avoid all the sports, competition, and rah-rah-rah. Yet here she was in the middle of what looked like a pep rally. It turned out that these drama types were just as crazed over their specialty as the kids at the baseball camp up the road. Rah-rah-rah couldn’t be avoided.

  As the ovation died down, a distinct woof could be heard over the general din. Melissa reached out and pinched Logan’s arm, but the campers who didn’t know there was a dog in the attic hadn’t noticed the extra sound.

  There had been only one place to hide Luthor, chosen after an intensive search for something safer. Every other building, cabin, Quonset hut, or tent in camp was used regularly. But the hayloft above the rehearsal hall was strictly an off-season storage area. Now that camp was in session, all the props, sets, and costumes had been moved downstairs. The attic was empty, and would remain so until the buses arrived to take the campers home.

  There was a thump from upstairs. Unlike the woof, everyone heard that. To Melissa it sounded exactly like a large Doberman bumping into a crossbeam.

  An uneasy murmur rippled through the campers, but Wendy smiled. “Any theater worth its salt is haunted. Maybe that’s our ghost up there — the spirit of some old actor who wants us to beat the pants off Spotlight on the seventeenth. It’s good luck.”

  Everyone laughed, and there was scattered applause.

  “Now,” Wendy went on, “the title of our revue is The Best of Broadway. The first thing we need is a captain for our Camp Ta-da! team. Vote carefully, because our captain will be your leader through every stage of the competition — from scripting to costumes and set design to rehearsals to performance. The nominees are Dante Bryant, Mary Catherine Klinger, and Logan Kellerman.”

  As the counselors circulated with slips of paper to serve as ballots, Logan flashed Melissa a knowing smile. “It’s in the bag,” he said confidently. “Everyone knows I’m the best actor in camp. They’ve probably seen the Vicks commercial I starred in. Nobody does post-nasal drip like a Kellerman!”

  In the crush of the crowded theater, a tall counselor accidentally brushed against a hanging cable. As he reached up to steady it, his thumb depressed the operating button. An electrical hum filled the barn, and a rectangular platform began to descend from the ceiling.

  Melissa and Logan stared in horror. They’d thought that the only way to get to the attic was via the steep, ladderlike staircase leading from the back of the barn. They’d had no idea this hoist platform even existed. And there was a pretty good chance that when this thing came down to eye level, Luthor was going to be perched on it!

  Shoving campers out of his way, Logan made a screaming run for the descending platform. He got his hands on it and vaulted aboard, prepared to shield the dog from view with his very body. An “oof” escaped him as he landed face-first on the hard metal.

  Since all eyes were on Logan’s antics, only Melissa noticed the big Doberman head peering down from the opening in the ceiling. Urgently, she waved him back, and was surprised when he obeyed and vanished from view.

  The counselor pressed the button again, and the platform was ascending, bearing Logan with it.

  “Hey, you guys!” Logan shouted. “Let me down!”

  With a click, he was closed into the attic. He reappeared several minutes later after climbing down the ladder. By this time the vote was over. Mary Catherine Klinger was the captain of Ta-da!’s Showdown team.

  “I voted for you,” Melissa consoled Logan.

  “One vote!” Logan mourned. “I didn’t even get to vote for myself. Mary Catherine the Klingon couldn’t act her way out of a wet paper bag! There’s no way she could do post-nasal drip like me! She couldn’t work up a decent sniffle!”

  Melissa resettled her hair so that Logan could see the sincerity in her eyes. “At least Luthor didn’t get caught. That’s the important thing.”

  Logan was furious. “The stupid dog hasn’t even been here a day yet, and already he’s cost me an important stepping-stone in my career. He’d better not cost us the Showdown!”

  * * *

  Melissa didn’t make friends easily.

  Actually, she didn’t make friends at all except where Griffin’s plans were involved. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to be more social; she just never knew what to say to anyone. To the oth
er girls, it was so natural — they stayed up for hours after lights-out, giggling and snacking on cookies they’d stashed away from dinner. Funny — Melissa could hack into top secret data storage facilities or bounce an e-mail off so many servers around the world as to make it virtually untraceable. Yet the natural ease of her bunkmates, whispering, laughing, and chowing down, might as well have been a code with uncrackable protocols. To Melissa, it just didn’t compute.

  Mary Catherine Klinger was in the next bunk. “Watch out for that Kellerman kid,” she warned in a confidential tone. “He’s all sour grapes that no one voted for him to be captain. I think he might try to sabotage our production for the Showdown.”

  Shy as she was, Melissa couldn’t let that go unchallenged. She had to speak up for her friend. “Logan would never do anything like that. Theatre is his life’s work.”

  Mary Catherine and the girls looked around, trying to identify the source of the quiet yet strident words. For some reason, no one noticed Melissa, who was now sitting up in bed.

  Mary Catherine got a bead on her at last. “Well, that’s what he says. I’ve seen his type before. He acts like super actor, gets everybody to buy into his big pie-in-the-sky ideas. But when it’s time to deliver, he’ll flake out and leave us with nothing.”

  “You don’t know Logan,” Melissa defended him. “He’s really talented.”

  Mary Catherine had a broad, toothy stage smile — the kind that could be seen from the very last row of the balcony. Now her grin abruptly disappeared as she frowned at this new girl. They had been living together in this cabin for a week now. Was it possible that the Ta-da! captain simply hadn’t noticed her?

  “I don’t think I know your name,” Mary Catherine said.

  “M-Melissa —”

  “And what’s your specialty, Melissa?” Mary Catherine persisted. “You know, acting, dancing, singing . . . ?”

  “I’m good with computers,” Melissa offered lamely.

  “Computers?” echoed Athena Sizemore, who was never far from Mary Catherine’s side. “Then what are you doing at a drama camp?”

  Melissa didn’t like the direction this discussion was taking. But now that she was in it, she couldn’t just quit, could she? Were you allowed to resign from a conversation like it was a chess match? These were the things that came naturally to most people that Melissa just didn’t get.