Free The Case of the Cool-Itch Kid by Blanche Sims Page B

Perry.
    Dawn looked up.
    She saw old wooden gates, a bunch of cabins.
    Where were the horses?
    Where was the lake?
    Everyone piled off the bus.
    Everyone but Dawn.
    She wanted to check out the rest of the bus.
    Maybe she’d find a clue.
    She’d catch the thief. One two three.
    Miss Perry stuck her head back inside.
    Her whistle blasted.
    Dawn jumped a foot.
    Miss Perry grinned at her. “All out,” she said.
    Dawn took one more quick look. Then she rushed off the bus.
    Ahead of her, Miss Perry moved fast. “Smell that great Wild-in-the-Woods air,” she said.
    Dawn took a deep breath.
    Wild-in-the-Woods air smelled like regular old air to her.
    Miss Perry pointed. “Our horses. They love to race for miles.”
    Dawn looked. Three horses were standing in the middle of a field.
    They were fat and falling asleep.
    They probably couldn’t even walk a block.
    In back of her the know-it-all girl with a thousand freckles was whispering.
    “Hurry,” Dawn heard her tell Fresh Face. “We want to get the best bunks.”
    Dawn marched fast.
    Know-It-All and Fresh Face moved faster.
    Dawn sped up.
    She tried to pull Jill along.
    Jill was huffing and puffing. She kept banging into everything.
    They rushed up the hill . . . and through the woods.
    Straight ahead was a log house.
    The sign said: COBRA CABIN .
    “Horrible,” said Dawn.
    She started up the steps.
    She crossed her fingers.
    She hoped there’d be a huge color TV inside.
    She wanted fat pink pillows on the beds.

    Then she raised her shoulders in the air.
    Who cared about pillows?
    Who cared about a TV?
    She was going to get back her pin and her mirror, and find out who ate her cookie.
    Then she was going to go home.
    H-o-m-e, home.
    Miss Perry threw open the doors. “Pick your bunks.”
    No rugs were on the floor, no curtains.
    There were plain old pillows and a skinny mini black-and-white TV.
    A bunch of bunks lined the walls. Bottom bunks and top ones.
    A long, skinny aisle went down the middle. Yucks.
    Know-It-All and Fresh Face were racing for the first bunks.
    Dawn raced, too.
    She was dying for a top bunk.
    Know-It-All and Fresh Face got there first.
    Dawn dived for the next one.
    “Too bad,” said the girl with gold fingernails.
    Dawn looked around.
    All the bunks were taken.
    “Over here,” yelled Jill.
    She was jumping up and down in front of the end bunks. They were all the way back by the wall.
    Jill’s western hat covered her eyes.
    Dawn raced over. “I’ll take the top.”
    Jill pushed her hat up. “I never had a top bunk in my life.”
    Dawn put her hand on the ladder.
    “Besides,” said Jill, “I got here first.”
    Dawn took her hand off the ladder.
    She wanted to make an anteater face.
    She couldn’t do that.
    Jill was her only friend in this whole place.
    She sank down on the bunk.
    It was hard as the sidewalk.
    The pillow felt like the Polk Street School hamburgers.
    Jill started up the ladder.
    CLUNK!
    Her western hat sailed past.
    Dawn jumped. “What was that?”
    “Me,” said Jill. “I tripped a little.”
    “Too bad you didn’t give me the top.” Dawn said it in a little voice.
    She didn’t want to hurt Jill’s feelings.
    She started to look around for the thief.
    A girl was hanging off a top bunk across the aisle. “Ex-er-cise,” she yelled.
    The girl with the gold fingernails was painting her toes gold.
    Someone else was pasting double heart stickers on the wall.
    Dawn looked over at Fresh Face.
    She looked like a thief.
    Besides, she had crumbs all over her mouth.
    Dawn leaned over.
    She’d get out her Polka Dot Detective Box.
    She’d work on the crime right now.
    “Oh, no,” she said
    The box wasn’t there.
    She had left it home.
    She sank back on the bunk.
    Now it was going to be twice as hard to find the Cool-Itch thief.

CHAPTER 4
    D AWN COULD HARDLY open her eyes the next morning.
    She yawned seven times on the way to breakfast.
    Jill had cried all night.
    She kept saying she wanted to go home.
    Miss Perry was