Boxcar Children 61 - Growling Bear Mystery (6 page)

Mrs. Crabtree checked her schedule book. “If you don’t mind getting a little dusty, there’s some room cleaning to do. A tour bus just left, and another one is coming in two hours. It would be a huge help to my staff if you could empty the waste-baskets and vacuum each of the rooms the tour bus guests were in,” Mrs. Crabtree said. “That will give the regular staff more time to do everything else. Take one of those cleaning carts over there and a vacuum cleaner. Here’s a list of the rooms that need immediate attention. Oh, and here are some smocks so you don’t get dusty.”

Jessie buttoned up her smock. “Okay, troops. All set?”

“All set,” Henry said. He turned to Mrs. Crabtree. “We’ll make sure to be done by five o’clock. We want to be ready to babysit the guests’ children.”

Mrs. Crabtree nodded. “Thank you for reminding me. Oh, and I’ll have Sam join you. Tonight twelve children are signed up, so I need lots of helpers. Sam said he’d be back from town by then. In fact, I expected to see him a lot sooner.”

“Back from town?” Jessie whispered to Henry after Mrs. Crabtree left. “Sam was on the trails with Ranger Crowe. I wonder whether he changed his plans.”

“Or maybe his plans are to change his
story
,” Henry replied.

The Aldens pushed their cleaning cart and dragged along the vacuum cleaner to the hall where most of the tour bus guests had been staying. Room by room, they went down the hall, vacuuming and emptying trash into a big barrel on the cart before moving on.

“This barrel is full,” Henry said after they finished cleaning several rooms. “Let’s take it to one of the Dumpsters in the laundry area. There’s a freight elevator at the end of this hall that goes downstairs.”

When the Aldens arrived in the laundry room, Mr. and Mrs. Crabtree were there.

“Now, Lester, don’t tell me you were out hiking alone this morning,” Mrs. Crabtree was telling her husband. “It’s too dangerous to be out on those trails by yourself.”

“Hi, Mrs. Crabtree,” Henry said. “Hi, Mr. Crabtree. We need to empty this barrel so we can finish cleaning up the last few rooms.”

Mrs. Crabtree seemed relieved to see the children. “Lester,” she said, turning to her husband again, “if you want help finding that silly treasure, bring the Aldens along. Then you’ll have four extra sets of eyes and some extra voices to keep the bears away. Truly, it worries me so when you hike alone.”

“Nonsense, Eleanor,” Mr. Crabtree said. “I never get far from the parking lot. Now let me take that barrel from you kids,” he said to the Aldens. “Otherwise Eleanor will have me baby-sitting or entertaining the guests, and I’ll get fired.”

The Aldens looked at Mrs. Crabtree. She was the boss.

“Fine, Lester. You can finish the Aldens’ cleanup chores,” she told her husband.

The Aldens carried the barrel to one of the Dumpsters just outside the laundry room. Jessie opened the side door of the Dumpster for Henry.

Before Henry had lifted the trash barrel, Jessie noticed a familiar piece of paper. She pulled it from the top of the trash. “Wait, Henry! Look what I found.”

“Our copy of Oz’s lost cabin map!” Violet cried. “Why is it in the trash?”

At that moment, Mr. Crabtree came in. “What are you kids up to? You’re not picking through the trash, are you? Shut the Dumpster. We don’t want to attract field mice.”

Henry banged the door shut. “Sorry. It’s just that we found something we were looking for.”

When the children turned around, Mr. Crabtree had taken the barrel and dumped it in a second Dumpster.

“Mr. Crabtree! Mr. Crabtree!” Jessie waved her copy of Oz’s map. “Do you know anything about this?”

Mr. Crabtree didn’t even turn around. He simply took the barrel and boarded the freight elevator. Before the Aldens could catch up, the doors closed, and Mr. Crabtree was gone.

“He sure was acting strange,” Violet said.

“But at least we found our copy of the map,” Jessie said.

W
hen the children returned to the laundry room, Sam Jackson had arrived for work.

Mrs. Crabtree was scolding Sam. “I’m pleased you were able to pick up the shipment of new towels, Sam. But I expected you back sooner. Was there a lot of traffic on the mountain roads?”

Sam looked at the Aldens, then down at his muddy hiking boots. “Kind of,” he answered. “I’m sorry. I’ll work later tonight in the dining room.”

For a second Mrs. Crabtree said nothing. Then she took a deep breath. “I needed you this afternoon more than I will tonight. After guests check out, we only have a few hours to clean the rooms before the next guests arrive. Thank goodness I had the Aldens here—and my husband—to finish the housekeeping chores.”

Now Sam perked up. “But I did a good job cleaning the rooms yesterday, didn’t I?”

Mrs. Crabtree sighed again. “Of course you did, Sam. You’re efficient when you’re here. But you’re often gone or late. Or something. In any case, every day at the lodge is a new one—new guests, new rooms to clean. Yesterday’s work starts all over again.”

“I’m sorry,” Sam repeated. “I’ll try to be around more.”

Mrs. Crabtree checked her schedule book again. “All right, then. In an hour I’d like you to meet the Aldens upstairs for the children’s hour. We have twelve children signed up this evening—six more than last night.”

Sam looked at the Aldens, then back at Mrs. Crabtree. “I can handle twelve as easily as six.”

But Mrs. Crabtree was firm. “No, Sam. You’ll need the Aldens, too. Some of the children asked for them as well as you. That’s final.”

Sam and the Aldens left the laundry room together, but they didn’t stay together. As soon as he was out of Mrs. Crabtree’s sight, Sam left the building.

“Should we have told Mrs. Crabtree about seeing Sam on the Lost Cabin Trails?” Violet asked.

“The important thing is that Sam brought Mrs. Crabtree the towels she needed from town,” Jessie said. “Maybe Sam just decided to help out Ranger Crowe on the way back. I guess it’s not our business that he also went hiking.”

Henry looked very serious. “There is something that is our business.”

“The map, right?” Benny asked.

“Right!” Henry answered. “It seems to me the map disappeared right after Sam cleaned the rooms yesterday. Maybe that’s how our trash wound up in the Dumpster. Do you think Sam saw the map, figured out where the cabin was, then spent the morning looking for it after going to town?”

“I’m going to get to the bottom of this,” Jessie said.

Jessie caught up to Sam outside. He was heading to the staff lodgings. “Hello, Sam. I wanted to ask you something.”

Sam kept right on walking. “What is it now? Does Mrs. Crabtree need me? Why do you keep bothering me?”

Jessie bit her lip. She wasn’t used to people being impatient with her. She looked Sam Jackson straight in the eye. “Did you clean our room yesterday and throw out a copy of a map when you were in there?”

Sam’s eyes darkened. He started to move away. “I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about. I clean rooms. I don’t throw out people’s possessions. Or maybe you’re suggesting I stole something from your room. Is that it?”

Jessie wasn’t sure what to say. “No, I didn’t mean that. I’m sorry I mentioned it. I just wanted to find out if you knew anything about a map, that’s all.”

Sam was silent.

“Sam denied knowing anything about the map,” Jessie said when she rejoined her sister and brothers inside. “I hope I didn’t make him out to be a careless worker or a thief if he’s not. Maybe I shouldn’t have said anything at all.”

“Well, maybe it wasn’t Sam. Maybe it was Mr. Crabtree,” Henry said.

“Since we’re finished with work now,” Violet began, “can we go for a walk? We haven’t been to the Upper Basin area. There won’t be too many tourists, since it’s so misty and foggy out.”

“Sure,” Jessie said. “Then we can take another look at the map. Maybe we’ll see where we made our wrong turn today.”

The children walked by Old Faithful, then strolled to the Upper Basin area, where dozens of small geysers gurgled and steamed. The Aldens watched the hot springs from the wooden walkways. Clouds of steam gently rose from the ground. All the fog made it hard to see more than a few feet ahead.

“It’s pretty out here, even in the fog,” Violet said. “Can we walk a little farther? I like looking at the smaller geysers. Some of the colors of the hot springs are so pretty.”

Jessie took Benny’s hand. “Careful around here, Benny. Let’s not walk too fast. It would be dangerous to slip off these walkways.”

The Aldens seemed to be alone. Everything was blanketed in mist from the fog and from the hot springs bubbling nearby. The children stood by a railing, looking and listening to the odd little pools of water that simmered like teakettles on a stove.

“Shhh,” Benny whispered suddenly. “Somebody else is on this walkway. I hear voices. But it’s so foggy, I can’t see who it is.”

The Aldens stood still.

“Those kids saw the map,” the children heard a man’s voice say. “What if they get up there before we do?”

A woman’s voice answered. “We have to keep that from happening. I’ll report to work early tomorrow and sign up for trail cleanup. Meet me at the trailhead at seven. We’re so close. We can’t let anyone get there first. . . . What’s the matter?”

The two voices were silent for a few seconds.

The man finally answered. “I’m worried about my job. I haven’t been around much. Everything is taking much longer than I thought.”

“Don’t worry,” the young woman said. “I know the head manager at the lodge. I’ll tell him I need you for trail work. Maybe they can put those kids on your job tomorrow morning instead. I’ll get you back by afternoon.”

The Aldens heard footsteps coming toward them. They tiptoed down the boardwalk, careful not to make noise. Once they got past the foggy hot springs area, the air cleared. They looked back at the mist still covering the walkways.

Out of the mist walked two people: Sam Jackson and Ranger Crowe.

T
he children woke up at six the next morning.

“No slugabed Aldens today!” Jessie said a few minutes after she woke up. “We have to be at the front desk at six-thirty.”

While the other children stirred and stretched, Jessie reread the note they had found taped to their door the night before.

Dear Aldens,

Change of plans. Can you work in the morning instead of the afternoon? If so, please meet the manager, Mr. Colter, at the front desk, at 6:30. If you have other plans, don’t worry. It’s your vacation! Happy treasure hunting. See you Thursday. Lester and I are off tomorrow.

Eleanor Crabtree

“It looks like Ranger Crowe got in touch with Mrs. Crabtree after all,” Henry said. “And that Sam is on the trails with her.”

By six-thirty, the Aldens had finished a breakfast of pancakes and sausages. They gathered in the lobby to meet Mr. Colter.

“I like working here, but I wish we could go hiking instead,” Benny said. “What if Sam Jackson finds the cabin before we do? Or Mr. Crabtree does?”

Jessie bent down to talk with Benny. “Know what? There are four of us Aldens and only one Sam Jackson, one Ranger Crowe, and one Mr. Crabtree. Remember what Mrs. Crabtree said? We have four pairs of eyes. We’ll go hiking again first thing this afternoon. I promise.”

A minute later, a jolly man with a big smile came over to the Aldens. “Let me guess who you folks are,” the man said in a booming voice. “The Aldens, right? I’m Bob Colter. I heard all about you from Eleanor. I hope you don’t mind the change of plans. This morning our guides need some extra help giving a children’s nature tour out at the West Thumb geyser areas. I heard a rumor that you are good at taking care of young people.”

Benny looked up at the man. “That’s because
we
are young people,” he told Mr. Colter. “And we know lots about nature, even geysers. Especially Jessie. She knows everything.”

This tickled Mr. Colter. “So I heard. Anyway, the tour is only a couple of hours long. You’ll have the rest of the day free. Well, come along. The van is leaving for West Thumb at seven.”