Navigate the trail to the ring of rocks
Advance to the foundation of victory
Overturn the rising sun
Invite success!
“Looks like directions,” C.J. said, sitting.
“Frozen waters must be the lake,” Ned agreed. “But the rest of it …” He shook his head.
Grant opened up his backpack and pulled out a sheet of glossy paper. “Here’s a map of the campus,” he said, spreading it out on the table.
The lake was a blue oval at the center. A vast wooded section spread out to the west of it. Nancy followed a squiggly blue stream that threaded through the woods to the lake.
“Do you think that could be the ‘wet wanderer’?” she wondered out loud.
“Could be,” George said. “But it runs for miles. We need to figure out the rest of the clue first.”
Nancy’s eyes jumped to the top of the clue. “‘Shake it up at the start,’” she murmured.
“The start of what?” C.J. asked.
“I wonder …” Reaching into her own backpack, Nancy took out a pen and a small notebook. “What if he means the start of each line of the clue,” she said. “The first letter from each line …”
She wrote down S L L R B E N A O I. “Okay. What if we scramble the letters?”
“You think that’s what Mr. Lorenzo means by ‘Shake it up’?” Ned asked.
“Maybe. It can’t hurt to try,” Nancy said. She was already spelling different words. “Bells … beans … sail … rose … barn …”
“Wait a sec. There is a barn. The old Sanderford place!” Grant jabbed a finger at the map, nearly sending it flying off the table.
“That’s right,” Ned said. “The whole campus used to be part of the farm. Woods have grown back over the part of the land where the house and barn used to be. I’ve never seen them, but from what I’ve heard, they’re wrecks now.”
Nancy circled the B, A, R, and N. “That leaves S, L, L, E, O, and I,” she said. “What did you say the farmer’s name was?”
“Sanderford,” Grant said. “Ollie Sanderford.”
“That’s it!” Nancy crowed. “If you take the first letter from each line and rearrange them, they spell Ollie’s Barn!”
C.J.’s eyes lit up. He leaned on his cane to gaze at the map. “Excellent! But … the house and barn aren’t marked on here,” he said.
“That’s where the directions come in.” Nancy’s whole body tingled as she took the paper from C.J. “We know the barn is somewhere in the woods. I say we ski to the wooded side of the lake and see if we can figure out the rest of the clue.”
“I’ll have to sit out this part of the challenge,” C.J. said. “Randy and I will meet you at the headquarters later, okay?”
Ned jumped to his feet and grabbed his parka and yellow team hat. “Mr. Lorenzo said he’s got all the equipment in the atrium of the Sports Complex,” he said. “Let’s go.”
The Sports Complex consisted of three modern, cubelike buildings that had been constructed at angles to the old brick gymnasium. Nestled between the buildings was a triangular, glassed-in atrium carpeted with AstroTurf.
“Ah!” Mr. Lorenzo glanced up from a table just inside the door to the atrium. He smiled as Ned sorted through the cross-country skis and poles stacked against the outer wall of the old gym, along with ropes, pins, harnesses, and climbing shoes. Everything was divided into four sections, one for each team. “I see the Omega team has solved the first clue. Good work. You’re the second team out.”
“Second?” George frowned at the blank spot beneath the Delta Tau sign. “Joy’s team is ahead of us, huh?”
“Looks like the Sigmas and the Kappas are still puzzling over the clue,” Nancy said, nodding to where the two groups sat hunched at tables on opposite sides of the fountain. Both teams watched as Nancy and the others put on their ski boots and grabbed skis and poles.
“Come on!” Grant urged, pushing back outside through the glass doors.
He, George, Ned, and Nancy stepped into their skis. As they took off, they heard a loud whoop from inside the atrium.
“It’s the Kappas,” said George, glancing back over her shoulder.
Nancy felt a jolt of adrenaline as Dede and her teammates burst through the atrium doors with their skis. “Go!” Nancy urged.
She plunged her pole into the snow and skied forward. Beyond the parking lot, a corner of the snow-covered lake was visible. It was rimmed on one side by a thick woods of evergreens, maples, and oaks that stretched all the way to the horizon.
“This way,” Ned called. He took the lead on a path that angled toward the woods.
“Hmm,” Nancy said as her eyes fell on two buildings that had come into sight. To their left was a greenhouse, dominated by steamed-up windows and flashes of greenery. Just beyond it, to their right, the boathouse was nestled into the trees at the lake’s edge.
“Hey, George!” Nancy called as she poled and glided forward. “Isn’t sculling a way of rowing a boat?” she asked. “And isn’t digging one of the main things that happens in a greenhouse?”
George looked back and forth between the two buildings. “Sculdiggery. It’s perfect!” She whooped as they skied past both buildings. “We just left sculdiggery behind, guys! What’s next?”
Nancy recalled the next part of the clue. “We have to ski past frozen waters—that must be the lake,” she said. “Then we should follow the shore until we come to the stream.”
“The wet wanderer,” Ned called back to them. “It’ll take a while to get there.”
