Summer Camp Adventure by Marsha Hubler Page B

orders.
    Mr. Wheaten stood under his steer horns with worry plastered all over his face. “Nobody, and I mean nobody, has seen Jonathan today. I want you people to scour these grounds. Leave no rock unturned. And look up in every tree. Kids his size love to climb trees! Linda, you take the swimming pool, slide, and pond area. Tim, you check all the cabins, boys’ and girls’, and the picnic area. Chad, take an ATV and go down to the lower east endof the camp. Check the playing fields, including all the equipment, and then search the perimeter of the whole camp. It’s gonna take you a while to cover ten acres, but take your time and be thorough. Skye, I want you to check the corral area and barn, including the tack room and hayloft. The rest of you come with me. I’ll take you by truck to the outskirts of the camp. We’ll check each hiking trail leading away from the camp for half a mile or so. I sure hope he hasn’t wandered off into the woods. It’ll be like searching for a penny in a copper mine.”
    “What’ll we do if we find him?” Chad asked.
    “Bring him right back here, even if you have to drag him.” Mr. Wheaten raised his finger emphatically. “This is no joke, even if he thinks it’s funny. We’ll all meet back here in an hour, with or without him. Oh, and before you all go, let’s have a word of prayer.”
    After Mr. Wheaten prayed for the searchers and Jonathan, everyone left the office in a rush.
    Skye hurried across the street toward the barn. Sliding the door open, she went inside. First, she checked the hay bales on ground level where twice in as many weeks Jonathan had hidden to pout.
    No Jonathan.
    She ran to the large tack room at the other end of the barn, searching under and behind barrels, saddles, blankets, and anything large enough to hide a skinny little kid.
    No Jonathan.
    She ran up the stairs to the hayloft where she looked behind hundreds of bales stacked like gigantic blocks.
    No Jonathan.
    Down the stairs she flew. She searched every stall on both sides of the long corridor. She glanced at her watch. An hour had just about passed.
    “Champ,” she said when she got to her horse’s stall, “I have no time to socialize right now. Jonathan’s on the run—again!”
    Champ nickered and nodded as Skye hurried past. She finished checking the rest of the stalls and headed toward the sliding door.
    Wait! Skye stopped dead in her tracks.
    “That last stall is Buddy’s stall!” she said. “And it’s empty!”
    She hurried back and leaned over the Dutch door, scanning the stall like Buddy just had to be in it. A layer of straw bedding and one pile of horse manure were all she saw.
    Rushing in, she bent down and touched a lump of manure. Cold and dry. “That means he hasn’t been in here for hours!” she told herself.
    She darted out of the stall and ran back down the long corridor. Stopping at the doorway of the tack room, she zeroed in on the far left corner, at the brace and hook where Buddy’s saddle and bridle belonged.
    Empty!
    “Oh, no!” Skye yelled. “That means—he’s ridden off the campgrounds!”
    At 10:00 a.m., Skye sat on Champ outside the barn. Mr. Wheaten and four other staff members were sitting on horseback as well. Every rider held an open map. All the saddles had been equipped with a canteen of water, a first-aid kit, and a blanket rolled up on the back. From each rider’s belt, a cell phone dangled from one side and a megaphone from the other. Mr. Wheaten was giving last-minute instructions to the search team.
    “Our job is to comb this immediate area,” he said, his voice ladened with stress. “Caleb and two other men are already searching the main highway and the woods on the other side of the road. I’ve notified the Shamokin Park Rangers, and four of them have started to searchtheir six hundred acres on ATVs. It’s up to us to cover the north, south, and east woods adjoining the camp. Thank goodness we have blue skies. That will make the job