Free Surviving Summer Vacation by Willo Davis Roberts Page A

got out a plastic bag to hold them.
    â€œHey, this is neat!” he said a moment later when the ice disappeared the moment it hit the surface of the nearest lake. “You want to dump some in, Billy?”
    This time Billy’d left the cat in the coach, so he dumped in ice cubes and went back for more. Alison, holding tightly to Ariadne so she couldn’t possibly fall into the hot water, rolled her eyes at me.
    Then she straightened up and looked past me with a sober expression. “They’re still with us. The guys in the blue car.”
    â€œI remembered where I saw that guy before, the passenger, the one who lost his keys in our coach,” I said.
    â€œSo did I,” Alison said. “In a uniform shirt and cap. He’s the one who tried to trade a different motor home for the one we already had. The name on his shirt was Syd.”
    I nodded. “Right. Funny, how someone in uniform looks different in other clothes. I don’t know why it took so long for me to realize why he looked familiar. So why’s the guy from the RV rental place following us?”
    â€œHe might not be following us,” Alison said cautiously. “He might just have been coming here in the first place.”
    â€œAnd Harry might follow all the rules,” I said. “Not likely. I’ve been thinking about it ever since we left the paint pots. Syd ­whatever-his-name-is wanted to exchange motor homes, and probably anybody but the Rupes would have done it. So why is it important enough for them to follow us and try to get inside this one?”
    â€œThe money Billy found,” Alison said, stealing my idea. “If he picked up that hundred-dollar billin the motor home, maybe there’s more hidden there.”
    â€œA new employee didn’t read the papers carefully enough and just took one that was the right model. When the guys who hid the money in this one discovered what had happened, they tried to trade back, and when Mr. Rupe refused, they came after us. You know, I heard that man snooping around that first morning, and he came back several times hoping to sneak in. He probably knows right where the money is hidden.”
    â€œDo you think he had something to do with the fire that night at the campground?” Alison asked. “Like maybe he set it to create a diversion so we’d all leave the motor home unlocked while we went to look at the fire?”
    I hadn’t thought of that angle yet, but I nodded as if I had. “And when I went chasing after Billy, the guy was over there by our rig. He was probably the only person in the whole camp who wasn’t curious about the fire.”
    â€œSo what are we going to do? Do you think there’s any point in telling Mr. and Mrs. Rupe?”
    We looked at each other and rejected thatidea without further discussion. “What should we do, then?”
    â€œTry to find the money. Billy could probably tell us where it is, if he would. He must have poked into every cranny in the whole rig.” I glanced over to where Harry was lifting Billy onto a railing, where he balanced him right above the steaming water. “Jeez, if he lets Billy fall—”
    â€œLet’s see if we can get Billy to walk with us,” Alison suggested, “before he gets boiled alive.”
    It wasn’t a joke. We got really nervous, watching, and it was a relief when Harry swung his little brother down onto the boardwalk again.
    The men in the blue car had parked on the edge of the road, but they didn’t get out and look at anything. I wished I was driving so I could take some maneuvers to prove, once and for all, that they were following us. If it had been Dad, I’d have bet he’d have felt the same, but Mr. Rupe probably wouldn’t even listen to me.
    So we finally went on around the loop—everything at Yellowstone seemed to be on aloop, so you didn’t have to turn around and go back the way you’d