Alexis and the Lake Tahoe Tumult Read Online Free PDF Page A

onto the desk.
    Alexis and Bailey had wandered over to look out the window, but now they hurried back to the desk.
    “Really?” Alexis said. “You got a threat letter?”
    On the desk was a sheet of white paper with different sizes of lettering on it. Someone had cut words out of a magazine and pasted them together.
    You think you’re helping, but you’re interfering with nature. Leave the forest alone! It will heal itself! If you don’t, more than letters will come your way!
    No one had signed it.
    “What in the world?” Alexis said. “This is awful!”
    “It’s not as bad as you think,” said Lisa. “We actually get them a lot. A lot of people are unhappy with places like this reserve.”
    Bailey and Alexis looked at Jake. They were puzzled. How could anyone be angry with a place that helped animals?
    “It’s the same old thing, Alexis,” said Jake. “You can’t please everyone. Some people think we do too much.” He pointed to the letter Alexis held in her hand. “Others think we don’t do enough. Nothing ever comes of the letter, though. We don’t worry about them. We keep them all, just in case something worse happens, but that’s it.”
    Alexis was still alarmed. She had received a threatening note once before, and she remembered how scared she had been. It had made her feel like someone could jump out at her at any moment. She opened her mouth to mention it.
    “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