Meg Cabot - Code Name Cassandra

Simple. I was going to have to check it out.

Great. Not like I didn't have enough to do. Like, for instance, look out for a cabinful of little boys, and, oh yeah, practice for my private lesson with Professor Le Blanc, flutist extraordinaire.

I was wondering how on earth I was going to accomplish all of this—find Keely Herzberg and make sure she really wanted to go back to living with her dad, keep Shane from killing Lionel, and brush up on my fingering for Professor Le Blanc—when I noticed that the secretary whose phone I'd borrowed was in her seat.

And oh, my God, she looked just like John Wayne! I'm not joking! She looked like a man, and she had a boyfriend. Not just any boyfriend, either, but one who raced cars for a living.

I ask you, what is wrong with this picture? Not like unattractive people don't deserve to have boyfriends, but hello, I have been told by several people—and not just by my mother, either—that I am fairly attractive. But do I have a boyfriend?

That would be a big N-O.

But Ms. John Wayne over here, she not only has a boyfriend, but a totally hot one, who drives race cars.

Okay. There is so not a God. That's all I have to say about that.

C H A P T E R

7

"Hey." I put my tray down next to Ruth's. "I need to talk to you."

Ruth was sitting with the girls of Tulip Tree Cottage. They were all eating the same thing for lunch: a large salad, dressing on the side; chicken breasts with the skin removed; cottage cheese; melon slices; and raspberry sherbet for dessert. I am not even joking.

Not that the boys of Birch Tree Cottage were any different. They were following their counselor's example, too. Only their trays were loaded down with pizza, Tater Tots, coleslaw, baked beans, peanut butter bars, macaroni and cheese, ice cream sandwiches, and chocolate chip cookies.

Hey, I'd missed dinner and breakfast. I was hungry, all right?

Ruth looked down at my tray and then glanced quickly away, with a shudder.

"Is it about your saturated fat intake?" she wanted to know. "Because if you keep eating like that, your heart is going to explode."

"You know I have a high metabolism," I said. "Now, listen, this is serious. I might need to borrow your car."

Ruth had been delicately sipping her glass of Diet Coke. When I said the words "your car," she sprayed what was in her mouth all over the little girl sitting opposite her.

"Oh, my God," Ruth said as she leaned across the table to mop up the soda from the little girl's face. "Oh, Shawanda, I am so sorry—"

Shawanda went, "That's okay, Ruth," in this worshipful voice. Like getting sprayed in your face by your counselor was this big honor or something.

"Jeez." Ruth turned to me. "Are you high? You think I'm going to let you borrow my car? You don't even have a license!"

I know it sounds hard to believe, but Ruth was telling the truth. I don't have a driver's license. I am probably the only sixteen-year-old in the state of Indiana without one.

And it's not because I can't drive. I am a good driver, I really am. Better, probably, than Ruth, when it comes down to it.

I just have this one little problem.

Not even a problem, really. More like a need.

A need for speed.

"Absolutely not," Ruth said, spearing a melon wedge and stuffing it into her mouth. Ruth and I have been best friends since kindergarten, so it's not like we ever bother being polite around one another. Ruth spoke around the food in her mouth. "If you think for one minute I would ever let you touch my car, Miss But-I-Was-Only-Going-Eighty-in-a-Thirty-Five-Mile-an-Hour-Zone, you must be on crack."

"I am not," I hissed at her, conscious that the gazes of all the little residents of Tulip Tree Cottage were upon us, "on crack. I just might need a car tomorrow, is all."

"What for?" Ruth demanded.

I didn't want to just come right out and tell her. Not in front of all those inquisitive little faces. So I said, "A situation might arise."

"Jessica," Ruth said. She only calls me by my full name when she is well and truly disgusted with me. "You know we aren't allowed to leave the campgrounds except on Sunday afternoons, which we get off. Tomorrow, I shouldn't need to remind you, is Tuesday. You can't go anywhere. Not without losing your job. Now what's so all-fired important that you are willing to risk losing your job over it?"

I said, "I think I have management's okay on this one. Come on, Ruth, it will only be for a couple of hours."

Ruth's eyes, behind the lenses of her glasses, widened. "Wait a minute. This isn't … this isn't about that, you know, thing , is it?"

"That, you know, thing " is how Ruth often refers to my newfound talent. The fact that "you know, thing " is pretty much all her fault has never seemed to occur to her. I mean, she was, after all, the person who made me walk home the day of the lightning storm. But whatever.

"Yes," I said. "It is about that, you know, thing . Now are you going to let me borrow your car, or not?"

Ruth looked thoughtful. "I'll tell you what. If you can promise we won't get into trouble, I'll take you wherever it is you want to go."

Great. Just what I needed.

Don't get me wrong. Ruth's my best friend, and all. But Ruth isn't what you'd ever call good in a crisis. For example, once Ruth's twin brother, Skip, who is allergic to bees, got stung by one, and Ruth responded by clapping her hands over her ears and running out of the room. Seriously. And she'd been fourteen at the time, fully capable of dialing 911 or whatever.

I tell you, it's enough to make you question the judgment of Camp Wawasee's hiring staff, isn't it?

I went, carefully, "Um, you know what? Just forget about it, okay?" Maybe Pamela would let me borrow her car.

But what if Pamela was in on it? I mean, what if, despite the fact she and Jonathan Herzberg hadn't been wearing wires, the two of them were in cahoots with the Feds? What if this whole thing was an elaborately orchestrated sting set up by my good friends with the FBI?

Which was why I needed a car. I needed to check out the situation for myself first.

And not just because there was a chance this might be a setup, but because, well, Keely had rights, too. One thing I had learned last spring—one thing that had been taught to me, and very emphatically, by a boy named Sean who I'd thought was missing, but who, when I found him, turned out to be exactly where he wanted to be—is that when you are in the missing person business, it is a good idea to make sure the person you are looking for actually wants to be found before you go dragging him or her back to where he or she came from. It just makes sense, you know?

Not that I imagined Jonathan Herzberg was lying. If he wasn't in cahoots with the Feds, I mean.

Still, I sort of wanted to hear Keely's mom's side of the story before turning her over to the cops or whatever. And if she really was in Chicago, well, that was only like an hour north of Lake Wawasee. I could make it there and back in the time it took the kids to finish Handel's Messiah . Well, almost, anyway.

I wanted to explain all this to Ruth. I wanted to say, "Ruth, look, Pamela isn't going to fire me if I leave the campgrounds because Pamela's the person who is responsible for this in the first place … well, sort of."

But another thing I'd learned last spring is that the less people who know about stuff, the better. Really. Even people like your best friend.

"So what I hear you saying"—I tried talking to Ruth the way we'd learned during counselor training to talk to troubled kids—"is that you would feel uncomfortable loaning me your car."

Ruth said, "You hear me correctly. But I'll be glad to go with you, wherever it is. That is, if you can promise we won't get into trouble."