The Penny Parker Megapack: 15 Complete Novels (115 page)

“My Aunt!” she exclaimed, leaping out of bed. “All this good time wasted!”

With the speed of a trained fireman, Penny wriggled into her clothes. She gave her auburn hair a quick brush but took time to slap a little polish on her saddle shoes before bounding down the stairs to the kitchen.

“Is that you or a gazelle escaped from the zoo?” inquired Mrs. Weems who was washing dishes at the sink.

“Why didn’t you bounce me out of bed two hours ago?” asked Penny. “I have an important business engagement for this morning.”

“You’re not going to the river again, I hope!”

“Oh, but I must, Mrs. Weems.” Penny opened the refrigerator and helped herself to a bowl of strawberries and a Martha Washington pie.

“You’re not breakfasting on that,” said the housekeeper, taking the dishes away from her. “Oatmeal is what you need. Now why must you go to the river?”

“Someone has to salvage the sailboat. Besides, I lost a valuable object last night—”

The telephone jingled, and Penny darted off to answer it. As she had anticipated, the call was from Louise Sidell, who in a very husky voice asked her how she was feeling.

“Fit as a fiddle and ready to go bottle hunting!”Penny replied promptly. “And you?”

“I hurt in all the wrong places,” Louise complained. “What a night!”

“Why, I enjoyed every minute of it,” Penny said with sincerity. “If you’re such a wreck I suppose you won’t care to go with me to the river this morning. By the way, what did you do with that blue bottle?”

“I haven’t the slightest idea. I’m sure I had it in my hand when we reached shore, but that’s the last I remember.”

“Well, never mind, if it’s anywhere on the beach I’ll find it,” Penny said. “Sure you don’t want to tag along?”

“Maybe I will.”

“Then meet me in twenty minutes at Ottman’s dock. Signing off now to gobble a bowl of oatmeal.”

Without giving Louise a chance to change her mind, Penny hung up the receiver and returned to the kitchen. After fortifying herself with oatmeal, a glass of orange juice, bacon, two rolls and sundry odds and ends, she started off to meet Louise. Her chum, looking none too cheerful, awaited her near Ottman’s dock.

“Why did you ask me to meet you at this particular place, Penny?” she inquired. “It was a block out of my way.”

“I thought we might rent one of Ottman’s boats and row down to the bridge. It will be easier than walking along the mud flats.”

“You think of everything,” Louise said admiringly. “But where’s the proprietor of this place?”

Boats of all description were fastened along the dock, but neither Burt Ottman nor his sister were visible. Not far from a long shed which served as ticket office and canoe-storage house, an empty double-deck motor launch had been tied to a pier. An aged black and white dog drowsed on its sunny deck.

“Guess the place is deserted,” Penny commented. After wandering about, she sat down on an overturned row boat which had been pulled out near the water’s edge.

The boat moved beneath her, and an irate voice rumbled: “Would you mind getting off?”

Decidedly startled, Penny sprang to her feet.

As the boat was pushed over on its side, a girl in grimy slacks, rolled from beneath it. Barely twenty years of age, her skin was rough and brown from constant exposure to wind and sun. A smear of varnish decorated one cheek and she held a can of caulking material in her hand.

“I’m sorry,” said Penny, smiling. “Do you live under that boat?”

Sara Ottman’s dark eyes flashed. Getting to her feet, she regarded the girl with undisguised hostility.

“Very clever, aren’t you!” she said scathingly. “In fact, quite the little joker!”

“Why, I didn’t mean anything,” Penny apologized. “I had no idea you were working under that thing.”

“So clever, and such a marvelous detective,” Sara went on, paying no heed. “Why, it was Penny Parker who not so long ago astonished Riverview by solving the Mystery of the Witch Doll! And who but Penny aided the police in trailing The Vanishing Houseboat? It was our own Penny who learned why the tower Clock Struck Thirteen. And now we are favored with her most valuable opinion in connection with the bridge dynamiting case!”

Penny and Louise were dumbfounded by the sudden, unwarranted attack. By no stretch of the imagination could they think that Sara Ottman meant her words as a joke. But what had her so aroused? While it was true that Penny had solved many local mysteries, she never had been boastful of her accomplishments. In fact, she was one of the most popular girls in Riverview.

“Are you sure you haven’t a fever, Miss Ottman?”Penny demanded, her own eyes blazing. “I certainly fail to understand such an outburst.”

“Of course you do,” the other mocked. “You’re not used to talk coming straight from the shoulder. Why are you here anyhow?”

“To rent a boat.”

“Well, you can’t have one,” Sara Ottman said shortly. “And if you never come around here again, it will be soon enough.”

Glaring once more at Penny, she turned and strode into the boathouse.

CHAPTER 4

AN UNWARRANTED ATTACK

“Now will you tell me what I did to deserve a crack like that?” Penny muttered as the door of the boathouse slammed behind Sara Ottman.

“Not a single thing,” Louise answered loyally. “She just rolled out from beneath that boat with a dagger between her teeth!”

“I guess I am a little prig, Lou.”

“You’re no such thing!” Louise grasped her arm and gave her an affectionate squeeze. “Come along and forget it. I never did like Sara Ottman anyhow.”

Penny allowed herself to be led away from the dock, but the older girl’s unkind remarks kept pricking her mind. Although occasionally in the past she had stopped for a few minutes at the Ottman place, she never before had spoken a dozen words to Sara. Nearly all of her business dealings had been with Burt Ottman, a pleasant young man who had painted her father’s sailboat that spring.

“I simply can’t understand it,” Penny mumbled, trudging along the shore with Louise. “The last time I saw Sara she spoke to me politely enough. I must have offended her, but how?”

“Oh, why waste any thought on her?” Louise scoffed.

“Because it bothers me. She mentioned the bridge dynamiting affair. Maybe it was my by-line story in the
Star
that offended her.”

“What did it say?” Louise inquired curiously. “I didn’t see the morning paper.”

“Neither did I. I gave my story to a rewrite man over the telephone. I meant to read the entire account, but was in a hurry to get over here, so I skipped it.”

“Well, I shouldn’t worry about the matter if I were you.”

“I’m sure the boat used in the dynamiting came from Ottman’s,” Penny declared, thinking aloud. “Perhaps Sara is just out of sorts because she and her brother lost their property.”

Making their way along the mud flats, the girls came at last to the tiny stretch of sand where the sailboat had been beached the previous night. It lay exactly as they had left it, cockpit half filled with water, the tall mast nosed into the loose sand.

“What a mess,” sighed Penny. “Well, the first thing to do is to get the wet sail off. We should have taken care of it last night.”

Before beginning the task, the girls wandered toward the nearby bridge to inspect the damage caused by dynamiting. An armed soldier refused to allow them to approach closer than twenty yards. All traffic had been halted, and a group of engineers could be seen examining the shattered pier.

“Is Mr. Oaks around here?” Penny asked the soldier.

“Oaks? Oh, you mean the bridge watchman. He’s been charged with neglect of duty, and relieved of his job.”

Penny and Louise were sorry to hear the news, feeling that in a way they were responsible for the old fellow having left his post. Unable to learn whether or not the watchman was being detained by police, they returned to the beach to salvage their sailboat.

Without a pump, it was a difficult task to remove the water from the cockpit of “Pop’s Worry.” By rocking the boat back and forth and scooping with an old tin can, the girls finally got most of it out.

“We’ll have to dry the sail somehow or it will mildew,” Penny decided. “The best thing, I think, is to put it on again and sail home.”

Together they righted the boat. As the tall mast flipped out of the sand, Penny caught glimpse of a shiny, blue object.

“Our bottle!” she cried triumphantly, making a dive for it.

“Your bottle,” corrected Louise. “I’m not a bit interested in that silly old thing.”

Nevertheless, as Penny sat down on the deck of“Pop’s Worry” and removed the cork, she edged nearer. By means of a hairpin, the folded sheet of paper contained within was pulled from the narrow neck. Highly elated, Penny spread out the message to read.

“Well, what does it say?” Louise inquired impatiently.

“Oh, so you are interested,” teased Penny.

“Now don’t try to be funny! Read the message.”

Penny stared at the paper in her hand. “It’s rather queer,” she acknowledged. “Listen:

“‘
The day of the Great Deluge approaches. If you would be saved from destruction, seek without delay, the shelter of my ark.
’”

“If that isn’t nonsense!” Louise exclaimed, peering over her chum’s shoulder. “And the note is signed, ‘
Noah
.’”

“Someone’s idea of a joke, I suppose,” Penny replied. She tossed the paper away, then reconsidering, retrieved the message and with the bottle, placed it in the cockpit of the boat. “Well, it’s rained a lot this Spring, but I don’t think we’ll have to worry about the Great Deluge.”

“Noah was a Biblical character,” Louise commented thoughtfully. “I remember that when God told him it would rain forty days and forty nights, he built an ark to resist the flood waters. And he took his family in with him and all the animals, two by two.”

“Noah was a bit before our time,” laughed Penny. “Suppose we shove off for home.”

By dint of much physical exertion, the girls pushed“Pop’s Worry” out into the shallow water. Penny, who had removed shoes and stockings, gave a final thrust and leaped lightly aboard. Raising the wet sail, she allowed it to flap loosely in the wind.

“We’ll have everything snug and dry by the time we reach home,” she declared confidently. “Tired, Lou?”

“A little,” admitted her chum, stretching out full length on the deck. “I like to sail but I don’t like to bail! And just think, if you hadn’t been so crazy to get that blue bottle, we’d have spared ourselves a lot of hard work.”

“Well, a fellow never knows. The bottle might have provided the first clue in an absorbing mystery! Who do you suppose wrote such an odd message?”

“How should I know?” yawned Louise. “Probably some prankster.”

Taking a zigzag course, “Pop’s Worry” tacked slowly upstream. Whipped by a brisk wind, the wet sail gradually dried and regained its former shape.

As the boat presently approached Ottman’s dock, both girls turned to gaze in that direction. Sara could be seen moving about on one of the floating platforms, retying several boats which banged at their moorings.

“Better tack,” Louise advised in a low tone. “We don’t want to get too close.”

Penny acted as if she had not heard. She made no move to bring the boat about.

“We’ll end up right at Ottman’s unless you’re careful,”Louise warned. “Or is that what you want to do?”

“I’m thinking about it.” Penny watched Sara with thoughtful eyes.

“Well, if you’ll deliberately go there again, I must say you enjoy being insulted!”

“I’d like to find out why Sara is angry at me. If it’s only a misunderstanding I want to clear it up.”

Louise shook her head sadly but offered no further protest as the boat held to its course. Not until the craft grated gently against one of the floats at Ottman’s did Sara seem to note the girls’ approach. Glancing up from her work, she stared at them, and then deliberately looked away.

“The air’s still chilly,” Penny remarked in an undertone. “Well, we’ll see.”

Making “Pop’s Worry” fast to a spar, she walked across the float to confront Sara.

“Miss Ottman,” she began quietly, “if I’ve done anything to offend you, I wish to apologize.”

Sara turned slowly to face Penny. “You owe me no apology,” she said in a cold voice.

“Then why do you dislike me? I always thought I was welcome around here until today. My father has given you considerable business.”

“I’m sorry I spoke to you the way I did,” Sara replied stiffly and with no warmth. “It was rude of me.”

“But why am I such poison?” Penny persisted. “What have I done?”

“You
honestly
don’t know?”

“Why, of course not. I shouldn’t be asking if I did.”

Sara stared at Penny as if wondering whether or not to accept her remarks as sincere.

“Do you only write for the papers?” she asked, a slight edge to her voice. “You never read them?”