The Second Adventure Read Online Free

could probably find us. Swindle knows all the kids on the team.”
    They followed the bearded man by the glow of his flashlight. He went all the way to Camp Ta-da!, crossing the compound as if certain of his destination.
    Melissa, Logan, and Luthor held up at the edge of the clearing. To Melissa’s amazement, the man headed straight for the performance center.
    â€œDid someone tip him off about Luthor and where we’re hiding him?” Logan managed, shocked.
    â€œI don’t see how. . . .” Yet the evidence was right there in front of them — the stranger striding purposefully toward the converted barn. She turned to Logan. “You raised the platform, right?”
    â€œOf course,” Logan replied. “But if he knows where to look . . .”
    In trepidation, they listened for the hum of the lift coming down. Nothing.
    â€œMaybe he took the stairs,” Melissa whispered.
    But a moment later, the flashlight beam reappeared, and the stranger left the barn. Melissa, Logan, and Luthor scrambled to get out of his path, watching as he reentered the woods and moved off in the direction he’d come from. After a few minutes, his footsteps could no longer be heard. Eventually, the light vanished as well.
    Melissa was white as a sheet. “Griffin was right! Swindle sent a new spy!”
    â€œNow we have to find another hiding place for Luthor,” Logan mourned. “I haven’t got that kind of time, you know. It’s going to be hard enough to put together a decent show with the Klingon bossing everybody around.”
    â€œIt seems to me that the safest place in camp is the spot where the guy just looked,” Melissa argued. “Now that he’s ruled it out, he’ll search somewhere else next time.”
    â€œThat doesn’t mean we can relax,” Logan argued. “He could be back.”
    She nodded. “In fact, I think we can count on it.”

    T he afternoon was hot — but not half as hot as it was inside the warthog costume. It was raining lightly, and every drop made the fur wet and heavy. The effort required to raise his arm was almost more than Logan could muster.
    â€œMary Catherine —”
    The captain of the Showdown team didn’t hear him. She bustled about, barking orders as she assembled her cast for the next number — “Hakuna Matata,” from
The Lion King
.
    â€œMary Catherine!” Logan shouted to project his voice beyond the cocoon.
    She peered in his eye-holes. “Yes, Logan?”
    â€œWell . . .” How could he explain it? Here he was, a professional actor, who had been in real TV commercials. And how had she cast him? In an outfit where no one could see if he was acting or not, portraying a neckless swine. “It’s just that — well,
anybody
could play this part.”
    â€œI know you’ll rock it.”
    â€œBut I don’t want to rock a warthog!” he wailed. “I want to play a meaty character!”
    She lowered her eyes to the warthog’s big stomach. “No one’s meatier than Pumbaa.”
    â€œNot that kind of meaty! I want multiple dimensions, complicated emotions, inner pain!”
    â€œPumbaa has lots of inner pain,” she reasoned. “He has gas!”
    She moved on to Bobby Delancey, who played Timon, leaving Logan seething and sweating. The Klingon was doing this on purpose. She knew that if Wendy saw him acting in a halfway decent role, she’d kick Mary Catherine out and make
him
captain of the Showdown team!
    They were all in their places when there was a thunderclap, and pelting rain had them scrambling for cover. By the time Logan lurched into the performance center, the warthog suit had soaked up at least twenty extra pounds of water.
    Mary Catherine looked down her nose at him. “Logan, you’re going to have to take better care of your costume than that. If it’s ruined, your parents get charged, you know.”
    Logan