Samantha quickly got her group together and they started for the boats. The kids had been quick learners and she was taking them out on the water two at a time while the others practiced knot tying and studied the sailing manual.
She'd al owed them to pick their own partners, figuring they'd work best with someone they liked. Geoff and Susannah had chosen each other and were the fourth pair to go with Samantha. She kept quiet and let them set sail.
They started off fine, but soon the sail was luffing and the boat almost at a standstil .
“Al right now, what do we do?" Samantha asked.
“We did it on purpose, Samantha," Geoff said. "We have something to tel you." His voice was firm and serious.
Susannah had less control, or more theatrics. "It's our fault that you got hurt."
“What!" Samantha said in amazement.
“Wel , not exactly our fault," Geoff explained, "but we kind of feel that maybe if we'd told you what we'd been doing sooner, then it might not have happened."
“What have you been doing?" Samantha asked sternly.
“Your getting hurt was like a punishment to us."
Susannah was off and running. Geoff interrupted her.
“Let's just tel her." He turned toward Samantha. "It started because Susannah and I were real y pissed off at coming here. Maybe we kind of hoped we'd get caught and be kicked out”
Samantha got a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. The mice. She looked at the two cherubic faces in front of her.
“You're not tel ing me you put those dead mice in the kitchen are you?" she gasped.
“Yuck! No Way!" said Susannah. "Although it did make things more fun.”
Geoff continued patiently. "We did al the other stuff—
the short sheeting, the spoiled milk, the salt in the sugar .. "
“Not the paint!" Again Samantha leapt to the worst.
“No, not the paint. We like sailing. But," he had the grace to lower his head slightly, "we did screw up the parade"
“And God punished us," Susannah declared solemnly.
"He let you get hurt and you're the most decent thing here.
Besides you, Geoff," she hastened to add.
“God doesn't work that way, but we'l talk about that some other time. What we have to do now is tel Mr.
Atherton what's been going on.”
Geoff and Susannah's expressions clearly indicated they would rather face their Maker.
“Do you think he'l send us home?" Geoff asked. "I thought that's what you wanted?"
“Only at first, then doing stuff was fun because everybody was getting so crazed at everything else that was going on. This is the best camp I've ever been to.”
Susannah nodded agreement.
The idiots, Samantha thought as she headed the boat back to shore and proceeded to give them a talking-to that would have made her mother proud.
The rest of the group was waiting for them on the dock with puzzled expressions on their faces.
“What was taking you guys so long? There's a good wind today. Why couldn't you come about?" one of them asked. "We're going to be late for lunch."
“You al run along and I'l put everything away. Tel Mr.
Atherton that Geoff and Susannah are helping me. We'l be there as soon as we can.”
As they stowed the gear, the two children chattered happily like the reprieved felons they were. Samantha, the godess, didn't hate them. She had barely yel ed.
Samantha was preoccupied. So it hadn't been Duncan who had spoiled the parade.
But that stil left everything else.
After lunch, Samantha cal ed home with the news. Her mother had been surprised, amused, and ultimately sympathetic.
“So, I'm going to take them to Jim now and then I'd real y like to spend the afternoon here. The counselors can use my help and I hate to leave the kids like this. I won't stay any later than five and you can pick me up at the Athertons'
house, where I wil stay absolutely put. I left without my paycheck Friday, Jim told me. I didn't know I would be getting one so soon and it's at the office over there."
“As long as you're not too tired, but swear that you'l get someone to walk you over."
“Al right, but I'm only doing this to make you happy."
“Could there be a better reason?"
“Mother! I've got to go.”
Jim reacted to Susannah and Geoff's confession almost absentmindedly. Samantha could only assume that his problems with Duncan overshadowed everything else, even the sabotage of the Fourth of July parade, one of Jim's favorite camp events. "The jewel in the crown of summer," he cal ed the fancy formations they dreamed up each year.
Chastised and chastened, the two children were released to their counselors. They would have to apologize to the whole camp. Jim would also inform their parents and he was firm. He didn't think he could accept them as campers again. Stil , he told them they could write and plead their case this winter.
“He was real y fair," Samantha told Arlene at the end of the day as her duenna escorted her through the woods to the "Mil ion Dol ar Mansion.”
“Maybe if he treated Duncan the way he treats the campers, things wouldn't have gotten so messed up"
“Dream on! The guy is wacko. He's responsible for those stitches in your head, remember."
“I know." Samantha stopped in the middle of the path.
"But something has to make someone like that"
“You are too good. Remind me to cal Mother Teresa and tel her to move over. Duncan is pond scum, pure and simple.”
Samantha had to laugh at Arlene's choice of imagery, from Mother Teresa to pond scum.
“Al right, I agree.”
Arlene waved good-bye as Samantha knocked at the front door. Valerie opened it immediately. She was expecting her.
“Come in. How are you feeling? Are you sure you should be back at work so soon?"
“You sound like my mother," Samantha said. "I'm fine and I was beginning to get stir-crazy."
“Come on upstairs. Your check is in my office”
Samantha fol owed her up the spiral staircase, made by one of the last practitioners of this art in the state.
The only thing that distinguished the thoroughly feminine boudoir Valerie ushered Samantha into as an office was the Macintosh on a pale green-and-white sponge-painted table underneath one of the windows.
Beside it was a daybed covered by a bil owy white spread and piled high with pil ows. Samantha imagined how lovely it would feel to lean back into that down sea of rose chintzes and white eyelet. The rug was covered by more roses, woven against a dark green background. In contrast to the rest of the house, the wal s were not painted off-white, but papered in a sage stripe with a Victorian frieze of lilacs above. Two wicker chairs with plump cushions—you wouldn't have marks on the back of your legs from these—
sat on either side of the French doors leading to a smal secluded balcony overlooking the cove.
“I like to sunbathe there," Valerie said, fol owing Samantha's eye. "I let myself go in here. I do spend quite a bit of time in this room. Jim hates it. Too much froufrou, he says," and she laughed.
“Wel , I love it. I'd give anything for one like it!"
Samantha enthused, forgetting her insistence two years earlier that Pix get rid of any and al vestiges of flowers, dotted swiss, and ribbon from Samantha's bedroom.
Valerie was rummaging around on the table, pul ing open the drawer in the middle.
“Your check must be in Jim's study. Why don't you admire the view. I'l be back in a minute.”
Samantha dutiful y sat in one of the chairs. It was as comfortable as it looked. The phone on Valerie's desk rang, then stopped. She must have answered it downstairs.
Samantha stood up and walked around the room, admiring the primitive stil lifes that hung on the wal s. Next to a plant stand with an arrangement of wax fruit and flowers never seasonal mates in nature, under a large glass dome, there was a closet door. Feeling slightly guilty, Samantha decided to open it after first listening careful y to make sure Valerie wasn't coming up the stairs. She just had to see what kind of leisure wear Valerie kept here—Victoria's Secret or Laura Ashley? She giggled and wished Arlene was with her. She'd die when Samantha told her.