SANDY BEACH
AND THE
MYSTERIOUS BOOK
Sheri Ochs
*****
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, incidents, and dialogue either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Sandy Beach and the Mysterious Book
Copyright 2011 by Sheri Colberg-Ochs
Smashwords Edition
Virginia Beach, VA, United States of America
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
*****
Contents
Chapter 1 – The Beach by Night
Chapter 2 – The Mysterious Book
Chapter 6 – Almost Another Pickle
Chapter 7 – Another Missing Pooch
Chapter 10 – Book Mystery Solved
Chapter 11 – Dognappers, Be Gone
Preview – Sandy Beach and the Slippery Slope (Book 2)
*****
The Beach by Night
“HOW did I manage to get myself into such a pickle, again?” Sandy whispered to herself as she squeezed her eyelids shut tightly over her dark brown eyes.
She was trying to blend in with the shadows dancing on the side of the tall rock where she was crouched; although closing her eyes did not hide her more effectively, it somehow made her feel more concealed. Her hiding place could not completely cover her as she was a tall girl—already the height of her mother despite just recently starting her teenage years—and the boulder was short, but her lankiness helped some. Her naturally sun-lightened, medium brown hair reflected some of the remaining light as she tried to duck her head behind the rock.
Sandy could still hear the footsteps, thumps, and occasional curses of the two men searching for her; quite frequently they were tripping over the uneven surface of the rocky beach as they climbed around the many boulders at the beach’s edge. It was lucky for her that she knew her way around the rocky crevices next to the beach, even in the faintest moonlight, much better than they did.
“I thought I saw her over there, by those rocks in front of that group of trees,” Sandy heard one of the men say. She recognized his voice as belonging to the larger and burlier of the two men seeking her. He wore his dark, shoulder-length hair pulled back in a short ponytail like some men wear at the napes of their necks. Before it had gotten too dark, she had seen that he was wearing a camouflage shirt with olive green shorts and thongs on his feet—not usual beachwear, except for possibly the thongs—even for their coastal area of California.
Through her closed eyelids, she thought she saw a beam from his flashlight pass close by her face. She crouched down lower, wishing she could melt into the rock and disappear altogether.
“Well, she couldn’t have gone too far. We have to find her, thanks to you,” the smaller, stockier man replied angrily. Unlike the burly one, this man wore his hair short, in a buzz cut. He was also dressed differently than his companion; the smaller one’s baggy, darkly colored, long-sleeved shirt and pants seemed to be even poorer clothing choices for the beach during the summertime.
Sandy opened her eyes for a split second and made out the faint glimmer of an earring in the smaller man’s left ear as he turned his head toward her. Even though they were still more than twenty paces away from her and apparently had not spotted her, she was afraid they would hear her heart pounding if they came any closer. Besides, her brightly colored summer attire did not blend in well with the shadows on the rocks, and she feared that the two men would soon spot her hiding place.
What I wouldn’t give to be at home right now, tucked in my bed all warm and cozy with Sunny curled up next to me, she thought to herself, keeping her eyes squeezed tightly shut and imagining the scene. Sunny was Sandy’s cat. His long, yellow striped fur reminded her of sunshine on a cloudless day, and hearing him purr or feeling him rub up against her legs always cheered her up. He always came to sit on her lap whenever she was upset or crying; he even seemed to understand what she was feeling and empathize with her.
A thud in the distance brought her back to her current quandary. How long she had been hiding by the rock, Sandy was really not sure anymore. It felt like hours, but more likely it had been only a few minutes. Normally, she loved the beach—feeling the wind blow her long hair, walking by the water’s edge and feeling the sand crunching under her bare feet, hearing the waves crashing nearby—but tonight was definitely an exception.
She thought she heard the footsteps of the two men still moving a little closer to her. Suddenly, she heard a shout off in the distance, one that did not sound like it came from either of them.
“Did you hear that? Let’s go over there and see if it’s the girl!” she heard the smaller man yell at the other one in response to the sound. She finally began to hear their footsteps moving farther into the distance.
A feeling of hope sprung up in her chest. Maybe she would make it through this ordeal without being discovered. She wondered whom or what they had heard that had taken them in the other direction, away from her. No matter what the source, she felt very grateful for the diversion. In fact, her heart had just stopped racing quite so fast, and she had just reopened her eyes when she heard a voice nearby—coming from just on the other side of the rock that she was attempting to hide behind—and she involuntarily jumped.
“We have to stop meeting like this,” a boy’s voice whispered, practically right into her ear.
Her sudden fright caused her heart to feel like it would beat out of her chest, at least until a few moments later when she realized that the voice belonged to none other than her best friend. Forgetting to hide, she practically leaped over the waist-high boulder that had been shielding her to reach him.
“Forrest, what are you doing here?” she said in a voice muffled by the bear hug she was giving the tall, lean boy. Next to Sunny, nothing made her feel happier than seeing Forrest, especially in the throes of her current predicament.
“Keep it down! They aren’t all the way gone yet, although they did fall rather nicely for my superbly planned diversionary tactic, if I do say so myself. Geez, Sandy, you do seem to need rescuing quite often these days,” he whispered in a distinctly smug tone.
She gave him a playful punch in his side, although she kept hugging him gratefully at the same time. “Let’s get out of here before they figure it out,” he added.
Holding her hand to guide her in the semi-darkness, they both crouched and ran as best they could around the rocks down the beach in the direction opposite to where the two men had gone. A good distance away, they finally came to their favorite hiding spot in their coastal town of Rosa Beach: a partial enclosure created by three large boulders in close proximity at the edge of the beach, just past the part of the beach that was closest to their neighborhood. They ducked into it—a safe hiding spot at last—and started talking excitedly to each other in slightly lowered voices.
“How did you know where to find me?” Sandy blurted out her question at the same time that Forrest asked her in a concerned tone of voice, ”What in the world have you gotten yourself mixed up in this time, Sandy Beach?”
“You first,’ Sandy demanded of Forrest. She waited expectantly, glancing over sideways at him as they both sat facing forward toward the ocean, their shoulders touching and backs leaning against the slightly uncomfortable, rocky back wall of their hideaway. His dark brown hair was a bit tousled from the constantly blowing wind coming off the ocean.
As Sandy glanced over at him, she thought, I bet no one has ever had a better friend in the whole world than Forrest.
Sandy’s thoughts flitted back to the first time that she had met her best friend, almost two years before when they were both going into sixth grade right after his family had moved in the house next door to hers.
He was the rudest boy I had ever met! When he found out that my name was not just Sandy, but Sandy Beach, he laughed in my face and asked me if my name was for real.
She had long since forgiven him for that, however. Besides, her real name was Sandra; Sandy was just the nickname that had stuck with her because of how close they lived to and how much she enjoyed the beach.
At least he could have told me then that his full name was Forrest Plant, and Forrest Plant the third, no less! He didn’t let me find that out until two weeks later, during which he constantly teased me about my name, she remembered. Boy, did I ever give him a hard time for a while after that. The novelty of both their names had, honestly, been part of the glue that fully cemented their friendship, although neither one was likely to admit that.
After gazing out at the waves for a moment, Sandy glanced back at her friend’s handsome face. His combined look of concern and admonishment brought her thoughts rapidly back to the present.
“Well,” he began explaining, “as soon as I noticed that your light never came on in your room tonight, I knew that something was up. You said you were going to be home, and I know that something is definitely wrong if you’re not tucked in bed with Sunny and reading the latest adventures of Simone LeClerc before you go to sleep!”
The window of Forrest’s bedroom faced out towards the side of Sandy’s house next door where her bedroom window was located, and they often communicated in the evening through their respective windows about homework and other stuff and kept tabs on each other that way as well. It was comforting to both of them to know that the other was just a stone’s throw away every evening.
“I just guessed that you’d come down to the beach,” Forrest continued. “I never expected to find two grizzly men in hot pursuit of you when I got here. Once I saw you hiding by that rock—not very well, FYI, since your head was sticking up over the top of it!—I crept over and yelled from the other side of the beach to distract them before I snuck back over to you,” he concluded.
Both kids were silent for a few moments before Forrest finally got around to asking her, “Sandy, what kind of trouble did you land in this time?” The anxious look on his face was genuine.
“Forrest, will you swear…?” she started to ask, but then hesitated. She hated to get him mixed up in her quandaries yet again. He always was such a good friend to her, standing by her no matter what trouble she inadvertently got herself involved in, always ready to assist her any way that he could. “Will you keep this to yourself if I tell you everything that I know?”
He nodded. She knew he would keep his word; he always did, at least to her.
“I’m not sure what it all means yet, but I intend to find out,” she began.
He laughed, rolling his eyes towards the sky before he looked over at her directly. “I’m sure you do,” he confirmed. He knew firsthand that Sandy doggedly pursued answers to her questions even though doing so gave her an uncanny knack for stumbling into trouble, and for trouble to find her.
“It all began a couple of days ago when I was down here on the beach in the afternoon,” Sandy recounted. “That was when I first heard about the book.”
“The book? What book?” Forrest inquired.
“The mysterious book,” Sandy replied, enigmatically.
The Mysterious Book
AFTER another brief pause in their conversation during which they both looked toward the ocean’s waves breaking gently on the shore, Sandy continued telling Forrest how she came to be on the beach that night pursued by two very unfriendly strangers.
“I was so totally absorbed in reading my book that I didn’t notice that anyone unusual was down on the beach this afternoon,” she recalled.
“A Simone LeClerc adventure, no doubt,” Forrest murmured, as much to himself as to her. He was listening to her story with his eyes alternating frequently between glancing sideways at her and gazing straight out in front of them at the rising moon shining its bright light over the ocean waves. With the moon now visible, it was considerably brighter out on the beach than when he had found Sandy there not long before.
The background sound of the waves crashing on the beach a short distance away was comforting to her, like an old friend letting her know that she was safe, at least for the moment. More than five minutes had passed since they had heard any sign of her pursuers, and the men appeared to have given up their search.
Even though his eyes were not always on her face, Sandy knew that Forrest was hearing and absorbing every word she said. “Yes, Simone was being chased through the streets of Paris by two British spies, who would have surely captured her if she had not slipped into a boutique on the Champs-Ēlysées and quickly assumed the disguise of a Parisian model,” Sandy continued, still focused on remembering the events in her book.
“Would you just get to the ‘mysterious book’ part of the story, Sandy? I really doubt that your favorite fictional, international spy, Simone LeClerc, had much to do with your being chased down on the beach tonight,” Forrest broke in with a rising edge of frustration in his voice. She knew him well enough to know that he liked to stick to the facts.
“Okay, okay,” Sandy replied. “As I was saying, I didn’t notice anyone unusual—at least not at first. While I was reading about Simone assuming her disguise, I started overhearing those same two guys talking loudly not far away from where I was reading on my beach towel. I didn’t recognize their voices, so I peered at them over the top of my book without them noticing. The smaller guy was accusing the taller one of losing ‘the book,’ and he seemed really mad about it.”
“That doesn’t sound like much of a mystery to me,” interjected Forrest. “It could have been any kind of book, maybe just whatever he was reading on the beach today.”
“Well, there is more,” Sandy responded defensively. She quickly added, “Do you want to hear it, or not?”
“Yes, go ahead. Sorry.” They both fell silent for a few seconds.
“I jumped up and walked over to the men and asked them what book they were talking about,” she continued, “and I let them know that I’d found a book that had been left on the beach just the day before.”
“You didn’t!” Forrest sounded shocked. He was more wary of strangers than she; it was not in his nature to be quite so forward with people he didn’t know. Rosa Beach, the town where they lived, was a rather small place, one where almost all of the local residents knew each other by sight. The summer tourist season brought in more vacationers that the locals viewed with suspicion and preferred to avoid, unless there was a real need to interact with them.
Forrest asked, “What book did you find on the beach anyway?”
“I found a ‘How-To’ home improvement book, which—you have to admit—is not a usual beach read. I still had it in my beach bag.” Sandy was somewhat annoyed at having to explain that part of the story; she did not consider it essential. “Anyway, I didn’t recognize them as anyone who lives in our town. Actually, they didn’t look like the usual vacationers that hang around the beach, and they didn’t have beach towels. So, I told them that they would have to identify ‘the book’ correctly before I would return it to them.” Sandy gave Forrest a self-satisfied look.
“Well, did they identify the book you found? Was that the same ‘mysterious book’ that they were talking about?” Forrest asked, interested in her story now.
“Actually, up to that point, neither one of them had said a thing to me.” Sandy remembered thinking how strange that was. “The two of them just sat there alternating between looking up at me and casting furtive glances at each other. Finally, the smaller guy with the earring and buzz cut said, ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about, little girl. We haven’t lost a book.’ That made me mad—the little girl part! Not only that, but I knew that he was lying to me. I heard him think, ‘Could she have possibly found it? Best to deny that we lost one,’ while he was talking.”
Forrest pulled his eyes away from the breaking waves and looked straight at Sandy following her last comment. He knew about her unique skill, but it still always amazed him to hear about it.
Sandy had first realized that she had a special ability the previous year because of her sister Myrtle, who was two years older, in high school, and crazy about boys. Myrtle always wanted to break her curfew to hang out with her latest infatuation. One evening around bedtime, Sandy had been hanging out in the hallway outside the bathroom, waiting for quite a while to brush her teeth because Myrtle had been taking forever in the bathroom. Sandy had been about to walk downstairs to use the kitchen sink, but had decided to bang on the bathroom door one last time first.
“Come on out of there now, Myrtle, or I’ll tell Mom that you’re hogging the bathroom again.”
“Wait just a dang minute,” had been the reply growled at Sandy through the bathroom door. Myrtle usually worried mostly about getting her hair just right or applying her make-up just so. No one in the Beach family liked being around her on a so-called “bad hair day,” Sandy least of all.
Who cares about wearing make-up and curling your hair anyway? Sandy remembered thinking, just glad she wasn’t boy crazy like her older sister.
“I’m sure that your teeth are clean enough to smile at all the boys you like so much. Let—me—in—or—I’m—telling—Mom,” Sandy had said between emphatic bangs with her fist on the locked door.
“Just wait, you little brat! I’m getting ready for my date with Stevie,” had been the curt reply from Myrtle.
Did I hear that right? Did she actually admit that she’s sneaking out on a date at 9:00 on a school night when Mom and Dad have strictly forbidden it? Why is she admitting this to me? She never confides in me, Sandy thought, staring in amazement at the closed bathroom door.
“What? Did I really hear you say that you’re going on a date with Stevie tonight?” Sandy had asked disbelievingly from outside the bathroom door.
The door had whipped open then, and Myrtle had gaped with astonishment at Sandy—in fact, Myrtle’s mouth had been hanging open like she was trying to catch flies.
“How’d you know that?” Myrtle’s tone of voice had not been friendly. “I never said anything of the kind. What do you know?” she had demanded again. “And you had better not tell Mom and Dad.” Myrtle was a ferocious enemy when cornered, especially with a secret that she wanted to keep that way.
Sandy had taken a step back from the door and reflexively put her hands up in front of her face to block some of Myrtle’s angry questioning. “You told me,” she had replied honestly in a subdued tone of voice.
“I did nothing of the sort,” Myrtle had denied in an angry voice.
“I heard you say so,” Sandy had responded.
“I did not say that.”
“Did so.”
“Did not.”
“Did so, Myrt.”
“Did not!” Myrtle had countered definitively. She had made it clear that she did not intend to lose that argument with her younger sister. “And don’t call me ‘Myrt,’” she added, with spit flying out of her mouth.
“Okay,” Sandy had replied slowly, letting the next few words roll off of her tongue slowly. “Then tell me this: how did I know?”
“You must’ve been listening in on my phone calls,” Myrtle had stated in an accusatory tone. “If you have been, so help me, I will….”
Sandy had not let her finish her sentence. “I’m telling you the truth, Myrtle. I haven’t been listening on your phone calls with Stevie-poo or anyone else for that matter, and I sure as heck don’t want to either,” Sandy had added with disgust in her voice.
Myrtle knew her little sister well enough to know that she would not lie. “Well, then, how did you know?” she had demanded. Myrtle had looked slightly less angry then, but the question in her voice had hung in the air between them.
“I really thought I heard you say so, Myrtle. Honestly. The last time I asked you to let me in the bathroom to brush my teeth, you told me that you were going out with Stevie,” Sandy had stated with total sincerity.
“Sandy, I was thinking that in my head, but I know I didn’t say it out loud,” Myrtle had replied. “I said I was getting ready for bed.” They had both stood their ground, staring at each other, with puzzled looks on their faces. “I’d never tell you because I know you can’t tell a lie, and I know that you couldn’t keep it from Mom and Dad.” Her parents had set a strict curfew for them to keep them safe and out of trouble.
Sandy had suddenly remembered something she had been meaning to ask her sister. “Not to change the subject, but did you see Sunny this evening? He’s not in my bedroom, although he’s usually waiting for me when I brush my teeth.”
“No, I haven’t seen him,” Myrtle had replied without looking at her sister. She hated all cats in general because they made her sneeze, but she especially disliked Sunny because he totally ignored her, while he followed Sandy around like a dog.
“Are you sure? I never let him outside this late.” Sandy always missed her “sunshine kitty” when he was not curled up on the edge of her bed, purring away while she was reading herself to sleep at night.
“I told you I put him out because I didn’t want to sneeze. I can’t have puffy eyes for my date.” The response from Myrtle that Sandy had heard had been so matter-of-fact that Sandy had been shocked at its honesty.
“You did what to Sunny?” Both sisters had looked astonished again, and the staring match between them had begun anew.
“Sandy Beach, I swear I did not just tell you that I did anything to Sunny tonight.”
“Myrtle, you certainly did. You just said you put him outside so he wouldn’t make you sneeze.” Sandy remembered having been even more puzzled then and mad at her sister for banishing her beloved pet.
I know I heard her admit to putting Sunny outside. Why would she say it, and then deny it? What’s going on? Sandy had wondered.
Myrtle’s eyes had suddenly looked as if a light were dawning inside her head. “Sandy, I think you’re reading my mind somehow,” she had said, amazed and shocked. She had paused a moment, then said, “Let’s try it again.”
Sandy had nodded her head in agreement. She remembered having been willing to try anything at that point to figure out what was really going on.
“Okay, what am I thinking?” Myrtle had held her eyes squeezed tightly shut, with the rest of her face scrunched up so that she had looked as if she had just eaten something sour.
“I don’t know, Myrt,” Sandy had replied after a moment of concentration during which nothing had come to her.
“I’m warning you—don’t call me that again.” Myrtle hated it when anyone, especially Sandy, called her “Myrt” for short. She had opened her eyes briefly, then closed them again and resumed the same sour face. “Try again, and this time, try harder.”
Sandy had stared at Myrtle, concentrated hard again, and then simply stated, “I really don’t know.” She had been telling the truth.
“Okay, let’s try something else.” Despite all her boy craziness, Myrtle really was a smart girl, almost as smart as Sandy. “I will say two things and then you tell me what I said after each one. Here’s the first one. Ready?”
“Sure.”
“I like Stevie because he is a really good basketball player,” Myrtle had stated.
“You like Stevie because he is a really good basketball player,” Sandy had repeated. “You always do go for the athletic guys,” she had added. Sandy loved exercising herself—taking long walks on the beach especially, or occasionally jogging with her father around town—but Myrtle usually hated everything about exercise, unless dating athletic boys counted.
“Okay, you got that one right. Now, here’s the second thing.” She had paused, and then continued with, “I love Sunny. I wish he were mine.”
“You love Sunny?” Sandy had questioned with a look of disbelief and confusion on her face. Myrtle hated Sandy’s cat with a vengeance. Besides, Sandy had actually heard Myrtle say—or was it think?—the opposite.
“Yes, I hate Sunny, and I wish he were gone,” Sandy had heard Myrtle say in response.
“Now that’s more like the sister I know and love. I’ve always known you hate my cat.” Sandy had replied with relief; she really hated it when people lied to her or misled her with half-truths.
“Sandy, you’re not going to believe this, but I never said out loud that I hate Sunny.” She had paused for emphasis before continuing with, “I only thought about it while I was lying to you and saying that I love him the second time. The first time I tried really hard to believe what I was saying, that I love your stupid cat.”
Sandy had told the story of that astonishing and enlightening evening to Forrest on more than one occasion to explain how she always knew when anyone was lying to her face and what the person was really thinking. Initially it had always taken her directly questioning a suspected lie to hear the truth like she had done with her sister, but nowadays she had gotten so good at “hearing” it that she could simply relax her mind during conversations with friends—or anyone for that matter—and hear all the truths that they were thinking while they were talking. Her ability to hear the truth appeared limited in some ways, however. For example, she could not hear all of people’s thoughts at will—they had to be talking out loud, not just thinking things, and their words had to be a lie for her to “hear” their real thoughts in her head. In a way, she was glad about the last part; she really would not want to hear everyone’s thoughts all the time.
Forrest was honest by nature, but he was especially careful not to stretch the truth even a little while talking to Sandy because of what he knew about her ability. Sandy thought it was only fair for her to be honest with him as well, so she always was.
On the beach, hidden in the darkening shadows, Sandy continued telling her best friend about the mysterious book that the men had denied all knowledge of.
“Why would anyone lie about talking to each other about a book? They hadn’t even mentioned a book title or author, so I don’t know how I could’ve possibly overheard anything of importance. It struck me as rather strange behavior, and unnecessary.” Sandy had taken some time to ponder their behavior, and it still seemed strange to her.
“I was also upset that I wasn’t able to get any more information out of the men either,” she continued. “After the smaller guy—I think he must’ve been the one in charge—answered me, neither one spoke another word except to tell me bluntly to go away and mind my own business.” She thought that both men had been secretive, uncooperative, and downright rude.
And I was only trying to help out by returning a book they might have lost!
She remembered that the two men had glared at her until she had retreated back to her towel, where she had sat back down, picked up her book, and resumed reading it with her back to them.
“It was really weird, Forrest. I could just feel their eyes glaring at my back when I was reading,” Sandy continued. “I was really glad when they finally left the beach a few minutes later. I looked up as they were leaving and noticed that the burly man with long hair had some long, red scratches on his left wrist, like he had been in a run-in with a rose bush, or a cat, or something.”
Forrest nodded and raised his eyebrows in her general direction. “Did anyone else see them on the beach that day?”
“Myrtle was there on the beach not too far away from me, but she was lying on her back and soaking up the sun with her face covered. I think she was asleep, actually,” Sandy responded. “I remember seeing a couple other people on the beach, too, but none of them was that close to Myrtle or me. So, no, I don’t think anyone else was paying attention when I went up to ask them about the book.”
“What I want to know is, how exactly did you end up here tonight with those two guys chasing after you? Your little talk with them on the beach certainly doesn’t explain that.” Forrest was always thinking things all the way through—not many details ever escaped his notice—which she thought was an admirable quality.
“I watched them, again over the top of my book, while they climbed off the beach and headed to the parking lot. They took off in a white van—you know, the kind that electricians and other workmen use, only theirs didn’t have windows in the back or any writing on the side like they usually do. It was just plain white,” explained Sandy. “I guess I would’ve forgotten about the whole thing, but I was downtown coming out of the library to go home just after seven o’clock tonight when I saw the same van parked outside one of the shops on the Boulevard. I didn’t see those guys anywhere around, so I headed over towards the van to see if it was the same one that I’d seen them get into at the beach.”
“And was it?” asked Forrest, obviously intrigued.
“It did have a California license plate just like the van I’d seen, although at the beach I was too far away to actually read the license number.”
“Most of the cars and vans here have California plates. We live in California, remember?” Forrest spoke with the matter-of-fact tone that Sandy often found so annoying.
“Yes, I know that,” Sandy responded curtly. “What I didn’t tell you before is that I had noticed a blue sticker of some kind on the van at the beach. I could tell that there was one on the left-hand side of the back of the van, but again, I was too far away to tell what it was for.” She paused for a second to take a deep breath before continuing. “The van I saw today had a similar blue sticker in the same place.”
“Sandy, it could just be a coincidence. There are lots of service vans that drive around here every day,” Forrest argued.
“Yes, but how many of them are driven by the same two men that I saw at the beach?” she responded triumphantly. “I waited for a few minutes on the library steps, and I saw them come out of a nearby shop and get into the van with a large bag of something—like cat litter or dog food. It looked like the smaller guy was yelling at the other one, but it was too noisy due to the cars passing by for me to hear what he was saying.”
“What did you do then?” Forrest asked.
“I followed them on my bike, of course, since I had ridden it over to the library.” Sometimes Sandy’s common sense flew out the window when she was trying to figure out the story behind a lie.
Forrest’s look of disbelief put Sandy on the defensive. “Hey, I didn’t get that close!” she countered before he had a chance to say anything. “I followed them at a distance about a mile down Rosa Beach Boulevard. It seemed like they hit every red light between downtown and the north end of town, so I had no trouble keeping up. In fact,” she continued, “I kept stopping myself so I wouldn’t get too close.”
“Where did they go?”
“They turned right onto Rosa Linda Street at the end of town, the one that goes through the ritzy beachfront residential area. They didn’t seem the type to know anyone there, though,” Sandy mused, “so I kept following them, except farther behind them since there weren’t very many people or cars around other than parked ones. Their van slowed way down, and they kept stopping outright in the middle of the road and looking for a long time at the different houses.”
“Lots of tourists do that just to look at the really nice beach houses,” Forrest said, “or maybe they were just looking for the correct address for a delivery or something.” He was sounding a bit exasperated again—it was harder for him to let his imagination run wild than it was for Sandy.
“Yes, but it just seemed different with them. I can’t put my finger on exactly why; I just know that it wasn’t the usual house watching, or address searching for that matter, that I’ve seen most people do,” replied Sandy. “In one adventure, Simone LeClerc was able to catch the international drug smugglers because she noticed such a minute detail.”
Forrest rolled his eyes towards the sky, but kept silent. It was obvious that he definitely preferred the hard, cold facts to the intuition or actions of fictional book heroines.
“After following them for three blocks, I must’ve gotten a little bit careless. I came within about half a block of the van before I realized that it’d stopped, and the larger man—the one driving—must have seen me in his rearview mirror,” Sandy continued. “I saw him make a gesture with the arm he was sticking out of his window, and then the van turned around. I turned around, too, and started riding as fast as I could away from them. After about two blocks, they were gaining on me so I cut through the back of someone’s yard, ditched my bike in the bushes, and ran for the beach. That happened about a half mile up the beach from where I was hiding when you found me.”
“You must have been scared half to death, Sandy,” Forrest commented, “being chased by mysterious lost book bandits who like to dawdle and look at nice houses.” He gave Sandy a friendly poke in the ribs. Even though he was only half joking this time, he never passed on an opportunity to give her a hard time about the situations she often found herself in.
Sandy ignored his poke and continued her story. “I knew the beach better than they did, and I stayed far enough ahead of them that I was able to hide behind those rocks until sunset.” It was late in the summertime, and the sunsets were usually beautiful then, but late—well after eight in the evening. Usually she loved to get to the beach early, before the sun had started setting, and then watch it until it had winked out of sight behind the horizon, all the vivid colors had left the sky, and darkness had descended. This evening, however, her legs had gotten cramped from crouching during the half hour or so that she had been hiding and waiting for the final darkness to fall, and she had barely noticed the beauty of it.
The ocean breeze had calmed down somewhat during the hour that Sandy and Forrest had been conversing in their rocky hideaway. The gentle and rhythmic crashing of the waves on the beach in front of them was comforting in its own way. No other noises were evident to their ears but the calming sound of the ocean.
“What exactly are you planning to do about this mysterious book situation, Sandy?” Forrest finally asked her after several minutes of silence during which time they both just stared out at the ocean’s waves breaking on the shore in front of them.
The tone of his voice was unreadable to Sandy. Does he think I’m just making a big deal out of nothing? Am I doing that? No, my instincts tell me otherwise. People always lie for a reason, and not usually for a good-hearted one. She leaned her head back against the rock and tried to spot some constellations she knew in the darkened sky while wondering what Simone LeClerc would do. She always knows how to get the information she needs! Sandy thought.
“I’m not sure yet,” Sandy replied truthfully.
Just then, the pair heard a muffled yell in the distance. One quick glance out of their hideaway looking down the beach told them that the two men had not given up on finding Sandy yet. They were back searching the beach with their flashlights, this time heading in the direction of the kids’ rocky hiding spot. Another thought crossed her mind: maybe they’re actually looking for their book this time instead of me. In either case, it’s time to make like a banana and split!
“Quick, let’s get out of here!” Forrest whispered, voicing her thoughts. The two kids snuck around the boulders where they had been sitting, keeping low to the ground so that they were shielded from the men’s view. They had the advantage of knowing their way around that particular local beach extremely well, and they easily found their way undetected to a path leading off the beach about a half block down. Once out of view of the beach, they broke into an all-out run for their houses a few blocks away.
Home Sweet Home