The First Adventure (7 page)

When Griffin and Savannah arrived on the scene, the sight that met their eyes was almost comical — Luthor, leaping and snapping at the dangling Darren while dragging around the remnants of the broken pump.

Savannah dropped down on one knee and gathered her beloved dog into her arms. “It's all right, sweetie. I won't let him hurt you.”

“Are you blind?” Darren shrieked, clinging to the branch as if his life depended on it. “
Me
hurt
him
? Which one of us is in the tree? He tried to kill me!”

“If you survive,” Savannah said coldly, “it'll be because
I
didn't kill you, not Luthor!”

“You can blame each other later,” Griffin said briskly. “But right now every counselor at Ebony Lake is out looking for this dimwit. The sooner we get him back to camp, the safer Luthor's going to be.”

“I'm afraid it's not going to work out that way,” came a voice from behind them.

G
riffin and Savannah wheeled around.

Malachi Moore stepped out of a stand of birch trees and approached them, carrying a pistol-sized tranquilizer gun.

Spying the weapon, Savannah stepped in front of Luthor.

“Oh, I'm not going to hurt him,” Malachi assured her in a friendly tone. “It's just a tranquilizer dart — you know, to make it easier to get him back to Mr. Palomino.”

Griffin's eyes bulged. “You work for
Swindle
?”

Malachi grinned appreciatively. “Nice nickname. I don't like him much, either. But business is business. Sorry, guys.”

At that moment, Darren lost his shaky grip on the branch and dropped like a stone to the forest floor.

Startled, Malachi turned and looked down at the fallen boy. “Are you okay?”

Savannah knew she'd never get another chance. She picked up the pump handle at the end of Luthor's leash and swung it with all her might, slamming it across Malachi's shoulders. He collapsed to the ground, stunned.

“Run!”
bellowed The Man With The Plan.

He began to scuttle along the overgrown path in the direction they'd come. Savannah untangled Luthor's leash from the broken pump and followed.

Darren scrambled to his feet. “Wait for me!”

Luthor halted him in his tracks with an angry bark.

“Don't even think about it, Vader!” Griffin rasped. “This is all your fault!”

Darren was the picture of innocence. “It's my fault Swindle hired a goon to kidnap the dog?” He indicated Malachi, who was dazed and barely moving.

“If you weren't such a greedy, blackmailing slime-bucket, you would have stayed in your bunk instead of coming for Luthor!” Savannah accused. “Then the whole camp wouldn't be searching for you right now! For all of us, probably!”

“And
this
guy couldn't have followed you,” Griffin added resentfully, gesturing toward the prostrate form of Swindle's hired man. “Which is
totally messing up the plan
!”

“How do you know he didn't follow
you
?” Darren shot back.

With a groan, Malachi rolled over.

“Let's get out of here!” Savannah hissed.

With a silent nod, Griffin continued along the trail, noting in annoyance that Darren was tagging along at a safe distance behind the Doberman. Too bad rescuing Luthor also meant bailing out this big jerk.

Calm down,
he thought. The important thing was getting Luthor away from Swindle's hired gun.

All at once, he froze.

“Why are we stopping?” asked Savannah.

“Shhhh!” Griffin put a finger to his lips. There were voices in the forest — not just a few — accompanied by the rustle and snap of footfalls through the underbrush.

“The counselors!” Savannah whispered in alarm. She aimed an accusing finger at Darren. “Looking for
him
!”

“If they find me, I'll tell them about the mutt,” Darren threatened.

Savannah was distraught. “What are we going to do?”

Griffin started back toward the cabin. “To the lake!”

Darren was astounded. “
That's
your plan? To swim for it?”

“There's an old rowboat by the shore.” It rankled Griffin to have to explain his reasoning to his worst enemy. But if he couldn't get Darren to shut his mouth, the searchers would be upon them in a matter of minutes. “The counselors will be checking the woods, not the water. Maybe they won't notice us.”

The four of them — Griffin, Savannah, Darren, and Luthor — doubled back along the path toward the shoreline. They tiptoed a wide berth around Malachi, who was stirring like someone waking after a long sleep. They didn't dare slow down, though. The counselors' voices in the woods seemed to be growing louder.

As they passed Luthor's cabin, the ground became softer, marshier. Griffin knew the water couldn't be far now. All at once, the heavy bushes parted to reveal the glassy black expanse of Ebony Lake. On the beach, just a few yards down, was the rowboat.

When Griffin tried to pull the small craft into the water, he got a nasty shock. The weathered hull wouldn't budge. The years had mired it deep into the sand and silt. He dropped to his knees and began to scrabble at the sediment and mud.

“Come on,” he whispered urgently. “Help me get this thing out!”

“Dream on, Bing,” Darren sneered. “I'm not taking a slime bath for you or anybody.”

But a threatening growl from Luthor had him down on all fours, breaking up the ground under the wooden boat. Savannah worked beside him. Even the Doberman clued in and devoted his considerable digging skills to the task, sending showers of gritty sludge onto his three human partners.

“Easy, Fido!” sputtered Darren, spitting sand. “You're not burying a bone here!”

“Luthor does not eat bones,” Savannah informed him, panting a little. “His meals are nutritionally balanced and veterinarian recommended.”

“Less fighting and more working,” Griffin urged. “The counselors will be on us any second!”

A dollop of wet mud struck Darren in the eye, and he leaped upright. “You're not the boss of me, Bing! Let's see how you like being muck-bombed by a giant mutt!” In a fit of rage, he reared back his leg and delivered a vicious kick to the wooden hull.

The boat
moved
.

O
w!” Darren collapsed to the beach, cradling his foot.

Griffin and Savannah ignored him. Grunting from the strain, they hauled the small craft out of its prison of sand and dragged it into the shallow water.

“Will it even float?” Savannah asked anxiously.

It was a good question. After decades entombed in the damp earth of the shore, parts of the wood were dark with weakness and rot. Griffin peered into the curved bottom. It seemed dry enough. He stepped aboard. His shoe did not break clear through the hull. No leaking water pooled at his feet.

“Seems seaworthy. Come on!” He helped Savannah over the gunwale, and Luthor leaped on board after her. The rowboat pitched dangerously from the Doberman's weight, then stabilized. “Let's go, Vader.”

Darren was still writhing on the beach. “I'm injured!”

“Can't we just leave him?” Savannah pleaded.

“Good idea,” Griffin announced in a stage whisper aimed at Darren. “We can't risk getting caught for a jerk like him.” He leaned over the side and began a dog-paddle motion in the water. The boat inched away from the beach.

“Hey, no fair!” The big boy splashed through the shallows and half climbed, half dove aboard the craft. Luthor let out a cry of outrage as Darren came down on his hindquarters. Terrified, the new arrival fell over, bumped heads with Griffin, and landed flat on his face in the wooden bottom. All that action served to send the rowboat drifting out into the lake.

There were no oars, so they paddled with their hands. Their escape was slow at first. But when they coordi-nated the rhythm of their strokes, the small craft began to make progress away from the shore.

“Don't stop!” Griffin said harshly when Darren's efforts slackened. “If any of those counselors hits the beach, we need to be a tiny dot halfway across the lake.”

They were about eighty yards out when the first of the searchers emerged from the cover of the trees. It was Cyrus.

“Get down!” Griffin hissed.

He ducked, pulling Darren along with him. Savannah leaned over Luthor's sleek back, gentling the two of them below the level of the gunwale.

“Don't touch me!” Darren snapped irritably, shaking himself free of Griffin. But he remained out of sight.

Staying flat, Griffin peered over the side. Cyrus had been joined by Marty, the Cabin 14 counselor. They gazed intently along the shoreline, but glanced only briefly out at the lake. If they noticed the rowboat riding low in the black water, they gave no sign. After another brief but urgent conversation, they disappeared into the woods to continue the search.

Savannah was amazed. “Didn't they see us? Surely they spotted the boat, at least.”

Griffin allowed himself to resume breathing. “They're not looking for a boat. They're looking for a missing kid.”

“But we can't just float around the lake forever,” Savannah pointed out. “Sooner or later, we'll have to go back.”

“We can wait them out,” Griffin reasoned. “Eventually, they'll call off the hunt and contact the police, or the forest service, or whoever's in charge out here. That's when we stash the dog someplace new, and wander in with a story about how we took a walk in the woods and got lost. They'll be mad, but we'll cry all over the place about how scared we were and how sorry we are.”

“You know, Bing,” Darren said with grudging respect, “I used to think you were a moron. But there might be something to these dumb plans of yours after all.”

Savannah was disgusted. “I should have expected you to be impressed by something dishonest and sleazy.”

“Like you're too high and mighty to go along with it,” Darren sneered.

“Only for my sweetie,” she replied primly, massaging the fur at the base of Luthor's sturdy neck. “I'd do anything to protect him.”

That was when they heard the motor.

A sleek shape was tearing across the lake from the direction of the abandoned cabin. It was a powerboat, coming up fast. Griffin squinted at the face behind the windscreen.

“Malachi!” Savannah exclaimed in horror.

Griffin bent double over the bow and began to paddle wildly. “Evasive action!”

Savannah tried to form a makeshift oar with both hands, stroking with all her might.

“You're wasting your time,” scoffed Darren. “No way can you outrun a motorboat.”

As much as Griffin hated to agree with Darren, this time his old enemy was right. They were wallowing in the water, sitting ducks. Swindle's agent was screaming down on them — on a collision course with the small craft.

“Is he going to ram us?” Savannah quavered in terror.

“He can't risk anything happening to Luthor,” Griffin blustered, wishing he sounded more convinced.

“It's all Drysdale's fault!” Darren raged.

“
My
fault?”

“You're the one who conked the guy with that pump handle and made him mad! And now he's going to sink us!”

No one was paddling any longer. The four occupants of the ancient dory — human and canine — watched in horror as the speedboat bore down on them. It was now close enough for Griffin to read the grim determination in Malachi's eyes. Swindle's man wasn't stopping. Impact was mere seconds away.

“Hang on!” Griffin cried, waiting for the racing craft to close the final thirty feet between them.

Without warning, a large, bulbous, silver-and-black form broke the surface directly in the path of the hurtling motorboat.

Darren's eyes nearly popped out of their sockets. “The mechanical monster of Ebony Lake!” he shrieked.