Footsteps on the squeaky floors interrupted Henry. A long shadow fell across the floor. “That’s hardly something for children to decide,” a deep voice said.
Even Hilda Stone jumped back. “William! Goodness, I didn’t know you were in the house.”
William Mason stepped into the room. “Been here for an hour. Charlotte stopped by and left us a list of chores to finish before she gets back in a few days.”
“Us?” Hilda asked. “Does that mean just you and me or these kids, too?”
“All of us,” Jessie said in her own clear voice. “Remember, she told you on the phone that she was sending us out here to work? She told Mr. Mason the same thing. That’s why we’re here.”
Mr. Mason looked down at the paper in his hand. “Well, I’m here because I’m an architect. Hilda is here because she’s an artist. Yes, we can certainly put you to work. Why don’t you go outside and wait? Hilda and I will discuss how to proceed.”
“She’s the same lady who was asking all those questions in the store,” Benny told Jessie when they went outside. “Only we didn’t know she was Charlotte’s friend. How come she’s not friendly?”
Henry put his arm around Benny. “Don’t worry about Hilda. We’ll just have to get to know her, I guess. Maybe she’ll be friendlier when she sees how hard we work.”
But it looked like Henry might be wrong. When Hilda came out to speak with the children, she wasn’t at all friendly. “William and I need you to go over to the hardware store across the lake for some special light switches,” Hilda told the Aldens. “We’re too busy right now to drive there.”
Henry thought about this. “That’ll take a pretty long time, since we’re on bikes. Wouldn’t it be faster to go in the car so we can all get started working around here?”
Hilda shook her head. “As I said, we simply don’t have time to run errands today. Charlotte told William that you know how to row a boat. Her rowboat is the yellow one down by the dock. Here’s the combination for the lock. There are enough life jackets below the seats. Row straight past the island to the buildings on the other side of the lake. One of them is the hardware store. Ask for the owner, Brad.”
“Sure thing,” Henry said when Hilda handed him the information on a piece of paper. “How do we pay for the switches?”
“Well ... tell Brad to put the bill on Charlotte’s account.”
Henry had one more thing to say. “Charlotte said maybe Violet could sketch some of the statues out there — before-and-after pictures, so people can see how Skeleton Point used to be.”
Hilda had other plans. “No need for that. William and I have already taken note of the outdoor sculptures. Professionals examine artwork in certain ways.”
Violet, who hadn’t said very much, spoke up now. “We’d love to learn to do that — if you could teach us, that is.”
For a second, Hilda seemed almost interested in Violet’s request. Then she looked back at the house. William was on the porch waving for her to come inside. She turned back to Violet. “No, no, I haven’t time to teach you children my methods. There’s so much else to be done. Right now we need those light switches. As for the statues, they are quite fragile. We can’t have you working around them in any way.”
CHAPTER 5
A Forbidden Island
The children rowed along, enjoying the lake, the birds flying overhead, and the nice easy sound of the lake lapping against the boat.
“I have to admit, this is kind of fun,” Jessie said as she pulled the oars of Charlotte’s yellow rowboat through the clear water. “We haven’t been rowing for a long time. Make sure to tell me if I’m rowing in the right direction.”
Benny, face-to-face with Jessie, gave her directions. “If you go straight, you’ll bump into that island where Greeny lives. I wish we could go there, but he might get mad at us.”
Henry scanned the lake with the binoculars. “You’re right about that, Benny. Not to mention he’d probably send Max after us.”
“May I have the binoculars, Henry?” Violet asked. “I’d like to see what Greeny’s house looks like.” She soon spotted a small log cabin nestled between some trees. “The island is pretty,” she said, “but lonely-looking, too. I wonder what it’s like to live out there with no family.”
“We’ll be passing close by,” Henry said. “Maybe we can get a look.”
Benny took a turn with the binoculars, too. “Hey! A seal is swimming to our boat!”
The older children laughed.
“Benny!” Henry said. “Seals don’t live in freshwater lakes. They’re ocean mammals. Maybe it’s one of those jumping trout you wanted to see.”
Benny handed Henry the binoculars. “Take a look. Something furry, not fishy, is swimming around.”
“You know what, Benny? You’re right,” Henry said, surprised. “I do see a furry head swimming our way. Jessie, row slightly to your right, toward the island.”
A few strokes later, Benny’s “seal” was so close to the boat, the Aldens saw right away that it was Max.
“Max!” Violet called out. “Come here, boy. It’s your friends, the Aldens. Come on, Maxilla!”
Jessie rowed carefully. “I’ll get closer to the island,” she told her brothers and sister. “I know Labs are good swimmers, but I don’t want Max to swim out too far. He might get tired.”
Max looked far from being tired. He kept his head well above the water and paddled at a nice steady pace. Pretty soon he was alongside the Aldens’ boat.
Benny reached down to pat Max’s wet head. “Good boy.”
The children heard a loud whistle in the air.
“Yo! Maxilla, get back here!”
“It’s Greeny.” Henry made a megaphone out of his hands so Greeny would hear him. “Is it okay to come to shore?”
Greeny yelled back, “I guess so. Otherwise Max’ll never come in. Pull up on the beach in front of the flagpole.” He then went over to his own boat and covered it with a sheet of canvas.
“Darn!” Henry said. “Now we won’t be able to see what was in that milk crate he picked up at Skeleton Point.”
Jessie guided the rowboat toward the small, stony beach. Max swam alongside so closely the Aldens could see his four legs paddling through the water in a real dog-paddle stroke!
When the boat glided to the beach, Greeny grabbed the rope hooked to the bow. “Pull up here.”
Once he got ashore, Max yipped and barked the way Watch always did after a good swim. The Aldens stood back. They knew very well that when Max shook out his far, they were in for a big shower.
“We wanted to come here,” Violet said, “but we didn’t know if you liked company. I guess Max came out to invite us.”
“Max and I don’t get much company out this way,” Greeny told the Aldens. “I figured you kids would be busy at the house with those other people poking around Skeleton Point. Did those two friends of Charlotte chase you away, too?”
“You mean William and Hilda?” Jessie asked. “Well, we thought you and Max were chasing us away by scaring us when we went looking around yesterday. We heard somebody say, ‘What are you doing here?’ ”
Greeny looked away from the children. “Well, I thought you were trespassers, so I gave you a little scare. There’ve been problems out there lately.”
“Did we scare you off the bike path this morning?” Violet asked, softly
Greeny looked away and didn’t answer.
The Aldens didn’t find him scary now in his bright red T-shirt and jogging shorts. Even his skull earring looked like the ones Jessie wore on Halloween. His long hair was tied in a neat ponytail.
“I wasn’t scared of you,” Greeny told the children. “I’m just not feeling too friendly toward a bunch of strangers taking over Doc Tibbs’s place.”
Jessie took a deep breath before she spoke. “It’s Charlotte’s place now. She’s fixing it up.”
Greeny’s mouth tightened. “It doesn’t need fixing up any more than the woods need fixing up
. Doc’s skeleton collection is one of the most important ones in the country. He taught hundreds of medical and veterinary students. Now people are just going in there, moving things around, and even taking things from his collection.”
“Some were stolen?” Violet asked. “We looked at some of the bird and animal skeletons, but we wouldn’t touch anything without permission.”
This didn’t cheer up Greeny at all. “Nobody around here knows enough about skeletons to give anyone permission to look at the skeletons.”
“You know enough,” Violet said in her quiet way. “Charlotte hopes you’ll help organize Dr. Tibbs’s collection before she donates it to the medical school where it belongs. She says you always run away from her.”
Greeny stroked Max’s head while he thought about this. “That’s because she acts like she owns Skeleton Point and everything in it.”
“Well, she does,” Jessie reminded Greeny. “But she wants the collection to be kept together and go to the right place.”
Greeny got worked up all over again when he heard this. “The right place was to me. But Doc up and died before he wrote out his will. He told me he was leaving me his collection so I could decide what to do with it. Then Charlotte went and bought the place.”
“I bet you didn’t know she’s using all her savings to fix up everything — the house, the statues, and the gardens,” Jessie said. “Charlotte really cares about Skeleton Point.”
“Well, so do I,” Greeny said. “I’ve kept a watch on it better than anybody. If it weren’t for Max and me, the place would be in worse shape than it is. All this hullabaloo about Walking Skeletons and such — those are just stories to cover up plain old thievery and vandalism.”
“What’s vandalism?” Benny wanted to know.
“People harming property,” Jessie said. “Like Charlotte’s statues. She bought them, so they belong to her now.”
Greeny disagreed with Jessie. “Those statues were priceless — they can’t just be bought.” Greeny was finished with the Aldens. “Now I think you should get going. I can see we’re never going to see eye to eye on this, that’s for sure.”
The children walked back to the shore. Henry and Jessie dragged the boat to the water’s edge. The children climbed in.
“ ’Bye, Greeny,” Benny yelled as Henry dipped the oars in the water. “ ’Bye, Max.”
When the children looked back at the island, they heard Max bark to say good-bye, but Greeny had disappeared into his cabin.
Henry rowed the next leg of the trip across Shady Lake. The other shore soon came into view. “I can’t decide about Greeny,” Henry said. “He doesn’t seem to think anybody has a right to be at Skeleton Point but him.”
Violet, who was trailing her hand in the water, had a soft spot for Greeny. “He just wants to protect the property, I think. Let’s try to make friends with him. I just know if we do, he’ll help Charlotte.”
“That’s a very sensible idea, Violet,” Jessie said. “The better we get to know him, the better our chances are of finding out who’s harming Charlotte’s property.”
Henry finally reached the small marina. “There’s the hardware store Hilda told us about,” he said. “We’d better pick up those light switches and get back. We lost a lot of time stopping off to see Greeny.”
When the children entered the hardware store, they found the owner at the cash register.
Henry handed the man the piece of paper Hilda had given him. “I hope you’re
Brad. Hilda Stone told us to see you about some special light switches. They’re for the lights over at Skeleton Point.”
“I am Brad,” the man said, “but I have no idea what you’re talking about, young fellow. I don’t carry these light switches and never did. And who’s this Hilda Stone person, anyway? Probably one of these city people buying up property who doesn’t know a darn thing about what she’s doing. Never heard of her.”
The Aldens looked at one another. Hadn’t Hilda told them to find Brad and pick up the special switches?
“What about William Mason?” Jessie thought to ask. “Do you know him?”
“Who doesn’t know William Mason?” the man asked. “I’m surprised he volunteered to help fix up that old house. Mason’s a fellow who’s always trying to make a buck or two. In fact, now that I think about it, he did some talking about wanting to buy the house himself, but Charlotte beat him to it. Doesn’t stop him from walking around like he owns the place.”
“He does?” Benny asked. “I thought Greeny Owen was the only one who acted like that.”
“Greeny?” the man said. “There’s another one always creeping around these old places on the lake. Don’t know which is worse, the newcomers or the old-timers who think everything on the lake should stay the same as it was a hundred years ago. That’s Greeny for you. Sorry about the light switches. You need to go to one of the big stores over in North River for those. It was a total waste of time sending you here.”
CHAPTER 6
The Hidden Trail
When the children returned to the dock empty-handed, they got a terrible surprise. “Our boat is floating away!” Jessie pointed to their little yellow rowboat bobbing out on the lake about twenty feet away. “How did that happen? I know I tied it up.”
“Wait here,” Henry told Violet and Benny. “We’re going to swim after it.”
In a flash, Henry and Jessie stripped down to their bathing suits and plunged into the water. They were excellent swimmers and reached the boat in no time.
“Whew,” Henry said when he caught his breath — and the boat. “That was close. Thank goodness the wind wasn’t blowing any harder. The boat didn’t get out too far. You climb in, Jessie. I’ll swim along while you row back.”
“I wonder how the boat got loose,” Jessie said when she and Henry reached the dock.
Jessie got out of the boat and walked over to join Violet and Benny, who were talking to a fisherman on the dock. “Somebody let your boat go,” said the fisherman. “A fellow was trying to untie his motorboat, but he unlocked yours by mistake. Guess he forgot to lock yours back up again. I tried calling after him, but he just sped right off. Folks can be mighty careless sometimes.”
“Which way did he go?” asked Jessie. The fisherman pointed across the lake toward Skeleton Point.
Jessie reached for the binoculars to take a look. She spotted a motorboat heading out. “Look out there.” She handed Henry the binoculars. “Doesn’t that look like Mr. Mason from behind?”
Henry grabbed the glasses. “I think it is him. I recognize the red hat he had on yesterday. If he had a motorboat, why did Hilda tell us they didn’t have time to go to the hardware store?”
Jessie found the towel she’d packed and shared it with Henry. “The sun will have to dry off the rest of us,” she said. “If you ask me, those two are trying to keep us away from Cousin Charlotte’s property.”
“Well, they can’t,” Henry said. “Hop in, everybody. We’re going to follow Mr. Mason back to Skeleton Point.”
But Henry couldn’t follow the motorboat to Skeleton Point. It sped right past there without stopping.
“He must be docking someplace else,” Jessie said. “That gives me an idea. Instead of going back to Skeleton Point, let’s row to that cove we passed not too far from the general store. We’ll hike up from there. If Hilda and William don’t spot our boat coming in, we’ll have a chance to see what they’re up to before they expect us back.”
Henry didn’t need to think twice about Jessie’s good suggestion. He dipped one oar into the water and headed for the deserted cove.
After they pulled up, the children dragged the boat as far onto shore as they could.
The woods were still as the Aldens crept along. They soon came to a broken fence that surrounded Skeleton Point.
“Let’s go in this way,” Henry said when he and Jessie found an opening. “I think I see a trail on the other side.”
Once the children were on the property agai
n, they followed the overgrown path that curved around the hillside. With Jessie leading the way, the children hiked single file, holding branches back for one another.
Violet bumped into Jessie when she suddenly stopped. “What’s the matter, Jessie?” Violet asked. “Are we at the end?”
Jessie pointed to a rock up ahead. “Come see this rock face. Doesn’t it look like a skull, especially with the way there’s some old paint where the eyes and mouth are?”
Henry examined the rock. He found a rusted metal door blocking a wide crack in the rock. The door didn’t budge. “This is getting weirder and weirder. It’s some kind of cave that somebody put a door on. By the looks of it, it’s been here a long time. Let’s see where this trail goes. I have a feeling it joins up with that other shortcut we took off the main path.”
When Violet and Benny stopped for a drink from their water bottles, Jessie pulled Henry aside. “I didn’t want to scare Violet and Benny, but I saw something moving up ahead. It could have been a deer, I suppose. Whatever it was, it ran off in the direction we’re going.”
“Uh-oh,” Henry said. “Here comes Benny. I wonder if he saw it, too.”
“There’s a big skull up there — a real one! See?” Benny pointed to a horse skull stuck in the notch of a tree right by the footpath.
“Somebody’s playing a trick,” Jessie said so the younger children wouldn’t get too scared. “Let’s leave it there so no one knows we saw it.”
Benny liked this idea. “Nobody can scare us away right, Jessie?”
“Right.”
Benny and Violet finished drinking their water. They stayed close to Henry and Jessie. Soon the trail crossed the main path between the beach and the house.
“Let’s pick it up on the other side,” Henry suggested. “Hilda and William won’t expect us from that direction.”
“This leads to the garden where the Clover Dodge statue is,” Violet said.