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relief. As he watched the campers pile onto the bus, he told himself that a half-hour delay was really nothing to get upset about. He watched from the side of the road, expecting to see his father drive away with a busload of cheering kids.
    But as his father went to start the engine, it resisted, offering little besides a pessimistic whirring sound.
    Something else was wrong.
    Immediately Alan sprang into action. Within seconds he was poking around the motor, trying to find out what was going on.
    “Just another minute or so, kids,” he heard his father call to the campers with false heartiness, “We’ll have this big blue machine moving in no time!”
    It took Alan a few minutes to figure out what had happened. At first, it looked as if everything was in order. He was puzzled. But then he checked under the distributor cap—not a place it would ordinarily occur to him to look—and discovered that the rotor was missing. Someone had taken it.
    “Dad, could I talk to you a minute?” He tried to keep the fury out of his voice.
    “Just a second, kids. I think Alan’s found out what the problem is.”
    “I found the problem, all right,” he said angrily, once his father had come closer, out of earshot of the children. “Someone stole the rotor.”
    Jake sighed heavily. “They probably didn’t steal it—just hid it someplace cute, like in the refrigerator or underneath the front porch. Well, kids or no kids, I guess the only thing for us to do is drive the pickup into town and get a new rotor. Rudy’s opens at nine, doesn’t it?”
    “I’ll go,” Alan volunteered.
    But as soon as he got near the pickup, parked on the other side of the house, he stopped dead in his tracks.
    The air had been let out of all four of the truck’s tires, as well.
    He felt like stomping around and yelling and then going out to find the person who was responsible for all this. But he couldn’t. So instead, he went back to his father, who was explaining to the busload of wailing ten-year-olds that their departure would have to be postponed once again—for at least another hour.
    “Better make that two hours, Dad,” Alan muttered. “It looks like the pickup isn’t going anywhere, either. At least until we take the time to pump up its tires, too.”
    Jake Reed shook his head slowly. “We’d better cancel the trip altogether. For today, anyway. Do you want to be the one to break the news to sixty eager kids who are already jumping out of their skins, or should I?”
    By lunchtime, the entire camp was buzzing about the morning’s canceled trip to the Lake Majestic Wildlife Preserve. True, it had been rescheduled for the following week. But to the ten-year-olds who had been all ready to go, the following week seemed very far away indeed. And all the other campers were sympathetic. They knew how disappointed they would have been if it had been they who were counting on a trip. And even though they understood all about the broken bus and pickup truck, they couldn’t help blaming it all on the staff of Camp Pinewood.
    “I’m going to tell my mother and father about this,” said Lucy Kramer, one of the camp’s more outspoken ten-year-olds. She had just sat down at one of the long dining room tables. To help reverse the somber mood that had fallen over the camp, the Reeds had ordered the kitchen staff to prepare a special lunch. And Lucy had certainly taken advantage of it. Her tray was piled high with french fries and chocolate cake-—and little else besides.
    “I’ve been waiting to go to the wildlife preserve ever since I got here. I even brought my father’s binoculars, especially for something like this! And now we have to stay around this stupid old camp all day. Boy, I’m going to write my parents a letter about this right after lunch. And they’re going to be plenty mad!”
    Chris, sitting behind her at the next table, couldn’t help overhearing the little girl’s tirade.
    “I have a better idea, Lucy,” she said