Chapter 39: Looking for Polly

“Hang on a minute. I’m just going back to find Polly. She should have been down here by now. It wasn’t going to take her this long to read through the rest of her morning’s notes.”

Jessie Harper stood ankle deep in the water’s edge of Lake Jackson as she spoke. She was just starting to untie her blouse done up across her bikini top but had a quick rethink before doing it up again. She had already taken off her short skirt that had covered her bikini bottoms but quickly put the skirt back on again before heading back up the board-walk that led back through the trees to Camp Starkers.

Bjorn plus a few of the other teenage boys and girls gave her a nod then carried on pulling the canoes into the water for a bit of afternoon fun before dinner and the night’s music session. A couple of local Country and Western singers were coming up to show the Youth Choir how to really have a hoe down with some good ol’ fashioned Gospel Music ... church worship music with a real kick and a yee-hah!

When Jessie got back to the grassy area where she had left Polly Legett there was no sign of the girl. Jessie found the girl’s notes lying on one of the bench seats dotted about the lawn but of Polly Legett there was no sign. Jessie checked the female toilets, then the dormitory, then the mess hall, then the main pavilion, then some of the walking tracks and lastly the swimming pool behind the main pavilion ... but found nothing. She asked a few of the other kids and a few of the adult helpers but no one could remember seeing her anywhere about for the last twenty minutes or so. Even Sonika Jharm could only say that she had last seen Polly on the grassy area reading her notes ... just where Jessie and the others had left her.

“I’ll keep an eye out for her and tell her you guys are waiting for her down by the lake” said Sonika. “She can’t be very far away. Unless aliens have abducted her.”

Jessie and Sonika both laughed at that last comment before Jessie started heading back to the lake front by way of the perimeter of the Communal Dormitory. When half way along that perimeter Jessie noticed that the gate through the fence was open so she went to close it. She looked quickly through the wire fence into the swimming pool area but saw no one about and just assumed that the gardener or the groundsman had been in there for some reason. She didn’t think for one minute that one of the campers had gone through knowing how they were all avoiding the place like it was the Black Death.

Jessie had closed the gate and was just turning away when she thought she saw the shadow of a figure moving about through one of the windows of the building. The young girl stopped and looked again and sure enough ... there was someone moving about inside the Communal Dormitory block.

With curiosity getting the better part of Jessie Harper she re-opened the gate she had just closed and moved in closer to one of the windows for a better look inside. Standing on tip-toes she peered in through the base of the closest window and found out immediately where Polly Legett had disappeared to...

... she was inside the Communal Dormitory!

Polly Legett was inside the Communal Dormitory and now just sitting quietly on one of the beds as she looked all about her in quiet repose.