Stella liked most of the outdoors except for the lack of bathrooms. Everywhere she

  looked simple brains went about doing what they did best. There was nothing

  complicated about them and made not listening to them easier.

  Disregarding the others camping with her was almost as easy. Bond bothered her the

  most with his worry, but the Morgans seemed to have worked to make things easier

  by concentrating on one point. Mister Morgan had some concerns but he kept them

  hidden behind a catalogue of animals moving in his brain.

  Stella wondered if the Morgans had trained themselves to be unreadable by people

  like her. She decided not to ask. The answer would be as embarrassing as the question

  in her opinion.

  “How do you know my dad, Mister Morgan,” asked Stella. That seemed a safe topic

  to talk about with the adults. “He never told me he knew someone famous.”

  “I wouldn’t say I am personally famous,” said Marty. “I knew your dad when I was

  a kid. He used to help Barry out sometimes. He retired sometime in the seventies from

  doing the weirder side of things. When he asked me to look after you, I owed him

  enough to include you in our camping trip.”

  “I didn’t know Dad was a Hazard Scout,” said Stella.

  “He wasn’t,” said Marty. He shifted on his log seat. “Your dad operated on his own,

  and Barry would give him side jobs to look into because we were doing something

  else on the other side of the planet. Your dad and a couple of others would look into

  things and get back to Barry if the Scouts needed to do something about the

  problem.”

  Stella sensed something being left out that was more than just handing her dad side

  jobs. It was something about the nature of the jobs, and how her dad went about doing

  them.

  “Dad said he had a job come up,” said Stella. “Do you think it was a weird job? This

  is the first time he asked me to leave town while he was working on something.”

  “Don’t know,” said Marty. “Your dad can take care of himself. If there was a

  problem, I would leave you and the other kids with Barry, and look into things

  myself. I have a good record of finding out things since I have been working with

  Bond’s dad.”

  “Is Mister Tamagochi a good detective?,” asked Stella. Fleeting memories of

  deductions proven right flowed through Morgan’s mind for a second.

  “He’s decent,” said Marty. “He’s better than the others that trained with his teacher.”

  Finch nodded at the assertion. Stella still couldn’t read her. She had to take the

  assessment at face value.

  “I’ll be back,” said Finch.

  She stood and vanished into the darkness. Ruff watched her go. He lay with his head

  on his paws, a small growl escaping his throat as he looked out beyond the campfire.

  He stopped growling just before she reappeared from the tree line.

  The dog closed his eyes and settled in place. Whatever had been bothering him

  seemed to be gone.

  Stella wondered if Mrs. Morgan had run into an animal and the animal had fled from

  her.

  Mrs. Morgan leaned over and said something into her husband’s ear. Stella caught an

  edge of what was being said from his brain, but all she saw was a bear and cubs.

  “Okay,” said Mister Morgan. “Thanks for telling me. I’ll put up a picket fence around

  us.”

  “A picket fence?,” asked Stella.

  “We have some wildlife roaming too close to the camp,” said Mister Morgan. “I’m

  going to put out some watchers to let us know if any of it gets too close. We still have

  Ruff, but something further out will give us a faster warning of things.”

  Stella felt he was hiding something, but she couldn’t break down his defense to get

  in and find out what. She decided to let it go. If he wanted to tell her, he would.

  She wondered what her dad was doing. It had been a while since he had taken a case

  that couldn’t wait. Usually when he did, he let her stay home with her mother. This

  This novel's true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.

  time they were both out on this case, and she was stuck in the middle of the woods.

  Mark and Melinda had picked up sticks and were practicing against each other. She

  could read the variations, but she knew in a real fight she would lose. She just didn’t

  have the reflexes to match what they were doing. Melinda would take her apart if they

  ever matched up, and she was smaller and lighter.

  Bond sat by himself. He waved a hand over the camp fire. His mind processed

  calculation after calculation without glancing over the work. He caught an ember in

  his hand. He held it up. It gleamed like a crystal instead of a piece of burning wood.

  Then it turned black as he watched it.

  Stella had the impression that he had held a ruby for that brief second. He frowned

  as he went back to waving his hand over the fire.

  “Who wants to tell some campfire stories?,” asked Mister Morgan.

  The children except for Stella groaned. She looked at them. This was something she

  had never done. They seemed to have done it numerous times before.

  “Dad, your stories are boring,” said Mark.

  “And we’ve heard all of them,” said Melinda.

  “The sick dog?,” asked Mister Morgan.

  “Bit the fingers off a burglar,” said Mark.

  “The concrete truck?,” asked Mister Morgan.

  “The wife was selling the house,” said Melinda.

  “The ghost of San Francisco?,” asked Mister Morgan.

  “Which one?,” asked Bond.

  “Good question,” said Mister Morgan.

  “One Eye Wilson?,” asked Mrs. Morgan.

  “I don’t remember that one,” said Mister Morgan.

  “One Eye Wilson followed his murderer around,” said Mrs. Morgan.

  “Okay,” said Mister Morgan. “I do remember that now. All right, kids. I’m going to

  tell you the story of One Eye Wilson. How does that sound?”

  “Boring, Dad,” said Mark. “I would rather listen to Barry talk about lightning making

  bugs glow.”

  “It doesn’t make the bugs glow, it makes the bugs grow,” said Mister Morgan. “Do

  we have any more Negative Nancys in the audience?”

  “Negative Nancys?,” asked Melinda.

  “Whiners,” said Bond. “Crybabies.”

  “Oh,” said Melinda. She looked at her brother. She pointed at him. “You’re a whiny

  crybaby. Does the baby need a binky?”

  Bond covered his face with his hand.

  “Binky?,” said Stella.

  “I got this one, Bond,” said Mister Morgan. “A binky is a pacifier, Stella. Melinda,

  quit bullying your brother. A Negative Nancy isn’t a cry baby. They are wet

  blankets.”

  “What’s the difference?, asked Melinda.

  “One whines about life, the other brings people down because they are along for the

  ride and they don’t like it,” said Mister Morgan. “Now since you are all stuck out here

  with me, we’re going to hear the story of One Eye Wilson. Then you are going to turn

  in for the night.”

  “But it’s not even eight yet,” said Mark.

  “And what does that have to do with anything?,” said Mister Morgan. “We’re

  camping. I need you to be fresh tomorrow so we can do our camping stuff.”

  “Camping stuff?,” asked Mark.

  “Hiking, and catching fish, and loving nature,” said Mister Morgan. He waved his

  arms to indicate the great outdoors around them. “Plus one of you will have to walk

  Ruff.”

  “One of us?,” said Mark. He looked at the other children.

  “I’m not going to do it,” said Mister Morgan. “All right, let’s get the storytelling out

  of the way. Tomorrow, one of you can tell a story.”

  “Okay,” said Mark. “We’ll think of something we can tell that’ll be scarier than some

  old ghost story.”

  “This isn’t just a ghost story, son,” said Mister Morgan. “This is a story of crime and

  punishment.”

  “Crime and punishment?,” asked Melinda.

  “Someone did something bad, and got caught,” said Bond.

  “He was caught by his own conscience,” said Mister Morgan. “Now gather around,

  kids. Let me tell you the story of One Eye Wilson. Try not to interrupt until the end.”

  “Really?,” said Mark.

  “The more you heckle tonight, the more I will heckle tomorrow,” said Mister Morgan.

  “And it is bad manners,” said Mrs. Morgan.

  “So let the storytelling commence,” said Mister Morgan, trying out the spooky hand

  gesture for the kids. They looked unimpressed at his efforts.

  The story of One Eye Wilson was a standard revenge story, except the person who

  wanted the revenge was dead. Shot down in cold blood outside his favorite eatery,

  Wilson became the bane of the local crime lord, Ari Schmidt. Everywhere his nemesis

  went, the body of Wilson appeared. Schmidt broke down and gave a confession of his

  crimes. He was tired of having the ghost following him around and causing problems

  with his colleagues.

  “That’s it?,” said Mark.

  “What more do you want?,” asked Mister Morgan.

  “Why did Wilson come back to life?,” asked Mark. “Why was he wandering around?

  Why didn‘t anyone else see him? There are a lot of questions in this story, Dad.”

  “He was a ghost,” said Mister Morgan. “No one saw him because of that.”

  “So this lame ghost just happened to follow this guy around until he cracked?,” asked

  Mark.

  “The guy did happen to murder the ghost when he was alive,” said Bond. “It’s a

  standard ghost thing.”

  “It is?,” asked Mark, unwilling to concede the point.

  “Yes,” said Bond. “I have been reading about the Lamplighters. They are doing a lot

  of things about ghosts, how to find them, how to get rid of them. Some of their papers

  indicate that you can expect a spirit to try to do what it’s modeled after when it was

  alive.”

  “What does that mean?,” asked Mark. He indicated general disbelief at the assertion

  with a wave of his hands.

  “It means that according to these Lamplighters, that if a ghost hated someone enough

  when they were alive, they would want to take revenge if they came back after they

  were dead,” said Stella. “I guess they got proof to prove what they were saying.”

  Bond nodded at the assistance.

  “So One Eye Wilson could be a true story?,” said Mark. “You’re kidding me.”

  “Never,” said Morgan. He hid a smile. “You’re too smart for something like that.”