Alexis and the Lake Tahoe Tumult - Erica Rodgers [10]
“Ahhh!” Karen suddenly cried out.
“Oh no, Jake! Look!” She was holding another open letter.
“Is it another threat?” asked Bailey.
Jake took the letter and looked it over.
“No,” he said. “It’s worse. It’s a letter from the government. They say they’ve had complaints about our facility, and that if they continue, then we’ll lose our license to operate.”
“What does that mean?” asked Alexis. Lisa walked up and put her arm around her dad’s waist.
“What it means, Alexis, is that we’ll have to close down the reserve.”
Moneybags Bruce
I think there’s a lot more going on in this mystery than I ever imagined.
Alexis typed the last line onto the screen for the Camp Club Girls to read. She was using her mom’s laptop and had just typed a long e-mail to all the girls to let them know what was going on.
Bailey read over Alexis’s shoulder.
“It’s scary to think that not only is someone letting animals out of their cages but that the government has even heard about it,” Bailey said thoughtfully.
“Well, as you read in my e-mail, I told the Camp Club Girls that if we can’t solve this mystery, the reserve might not exist anymore. And that would be terrible!” Alexis exclaimed. “Then what would happen to those precious baby bats?”
“And animals that can’t take care of themselves, like Bubbles,” Bailey added.
“Good thing Mom and Dad picked this time to bring us here,” Alex said.
“Or as Beth would say, ‘There’s no such thing as coincidence. God has you there now for a reason!’” Bailey laughed as she thought of their friend from Amarillo, Texas. Elizabeth was a walking Bible—and not because she was showing off, but because she believed that God directed people through His words in the Bible. Elizabeth believed God could do anything and often reminded the girls of that truth.
“I’m just concerned,” Alexis said.
“About the mystery?” Bailey asked.
“Yes, but I’m also kind of worried that we won’t be able to solve the mystery and do the documentary, too,” she said slowly. “I really, really wanted to win this documentary contest, but what good will that be if the reserve we film gets shut down?”
Alexis bent over to lace up her heavy snowboarding boots.
Bailey had a mouthful of ski mittens as she used her hands to lace up her boots, but she nodded to show that she was listening.
“Karen and Jake are really doing us a favor by letting us film our video here,” continued Alexis. “It would be sad if we couldn’t pay them back by solving this case. I mean, it’s what we do.”
“So we’ll just have to keep doing what we’re doing,” said Bailey, taking her gloves out of her mouth and tossing them onto the bed. “I mean, we’ll solve the case while we work on the documentary.”
“That’s what I thought, too,” said Alexis, “but that’s a lot to do in a few days.”
“No, Lexi!” said Bailey. “I mean really work on them at the same time. We were going to shoot a documentary about the reserve, right? Like, about what they do for the animals and stuff? But now something better has come up! They do amazing things for the wildlife here, and someone is paying them back by sabotaging them! So, we can still make our film about the reserve …”
A lightbulb flashed to life in Alexis’s head.
“But we can make it about the mystery! Then filming our documentary really is solving the case! Bailey, you’re a genius!”
Alexis hugged Bailey so hard that the two of them practically fell off the bed. The worry lifted like it had never been there.
Why didn’t I think of that in the first place? Alexis wondered. We can document the trouble at the reserve!
If they solved the case, their documentary would be different from any other—like a real-life CSI show! And even if they didn’t solve the case completely, they would draw attention to what was happening. They could send a copy to the government and maybe get more help for Karen and Jake. And I bet the Tahoe Tourism Bureau would help, too, Alexis thought.
The girls spent