“But no fingers!” George jumped out of bed, suddenly wide-awake. “You’re right! But what was the other part? Something about not speaking but telling stories …”
“That’s the only part I’m not sure of,” Nancy admitted. “Maybe the guys will know. They’re a lot more familiar with the campus than we are.”
It took them less than fifteen minutes to get dressed and drive to Ned’s fraternity. They found Ned, C.J., and Grant in the kitchen making toast, scrambled eggs, and coffee.
“Hi, there,” Ned said as the girls walked in. He stopped buttering toast long enough to give Nancy a big hug.
“Hi, yourself.” Nancy leaned back and smiled up at his handsome face and dark eyes. “Do you guys know of any special trees on campus? Say, one that’s big and old and wrinkled, and can tell many people’s stories?”
“Of course!” Grant said, slapping his palm against his forehead. “The legendary oak!”
“What’s that?” George asked.
“It’s this huge oak way back in the woods on the other side of campus. It’s been around since before Europeans settled here,” Ned said. “It’s a tradition to carve your initials on it.”
“Which is how the tree tells the story of many people even though it can’t speak,” said George.
C.J. nodded, grinning from ear to ear. “When Mr. Lorenzo blows the horn this time,” he said, “no one’s going to stop us!”
A pale light was just snaking across the horizon when Mr. Lorenzo sounded his air horn at five-thirty sharp.
The Omegas were ready. Within five minutes they had put on their skis and left the Sports Complex behind.
“Did you see Joy’s face when we shot out of there?” Grant said, grinning. “She couldn’t believe we solved the clue before she did.”
C.J. slid forward on his skis, heading toward the woods on the far side of the lake. He angled a quick glance back at Randy, who was skiing behind him. “It’s more than five miles to the oak,” he said. “You’re sure you’re up for the trip?”
Randy nodded. “Absolutely. As long as we can talk while we ski,” he said. “I was hoping you could tell me about the Clues Challenge sponsor.”
“Mr. Lorenzo?” C.J. skied forward easily. Nancy was glad to see his ankle didn’t seem to trouble him. “There’s not much to tell. He just opened SportsMania a few months ago.”
“What about before that?” Randy asked.
“Beats me,” C.J. said.
As she skied behind Randy, Nancy wondered at his questions. “I thought your article was about C.J., not Mr. Lorenzo,” she said.
“Background information is an important part of any article. I like to get my facts straight,” he told her.
But as they skied deeper into the woods, Randy’s questions continued to focus on Mr. Lorenzo. Did he have a special interest in college sports? Did C.J. know how long Mr. Lorenzo had lived in Emerson, or where he moved from?
After a while Nancy tuned him out and concentrated on skiing. The path they forged was through dense forest. Every time Nancy breathed in, she smelled the sweet fragrance of cedar and pine.
“I think we’re getting close,” Ned said.
Nancy began a searching sweep over the area with her eyes. There were plenty of oaks, but none that looked as big as the one Ned had described.
“You think we took a wrong turn somewhere?” George wondered, when they’d been skiing for more than forty-five minutes. “I don’t see—”
“There!” Nancy stopped in her tracks and pointed with her ski pole.
About twenty yards in front of her the branches of a huge oak towered over the other treetops. As they skied toward it, Nancy saw a massive tree trunk more than four feet across. Its bark was chipped and scarred from carvings that covered nearly every square inch of it.
“That’s the legendary oak, all right,” Grant confirmed.
Nancy saw a second set of ski tracks leading up to the legendary oak. They snaked through the woods from somewhere to the left of the path the Omegas had taken.
“Whoever made those took a different route through the woods,” George commented.
“Jimmy, probably,” Grant said. “He hid the clues for Mr. Lorenzo.”
C.J. tilted his face upward and then said, “There’s the snowflake.”
Nancy looked up, following his gaze. In the topmost branches of the tree, sunlight glinted off a plastic snowflake.
“This one’s mine,” she said. After stepping out of her skis, she hoisted herself on to the lowest branch. She reached for the next branch, then had to grab it wildly as her boot slipped on the icy bark.
“Whoa!” she cried.
“Careful, Nan,” George called.
Nancy steadied herself, flashing a grin down at her teammates. “Don’t worry,” she assured them.
Slowly and surely, she climbed up to the next branch, and the next. She noticed that snow had already been cleared from some of the branches—no doubt by Jimmy when he had hidden the clue. Footing on those branches was less slippery than where the snow was still thick, so Nancy followed the trail upward. She didn’t pause until she saw the treetops of the evergreens that were thick around the oak.
“Wow!” she murmured.
