Dunc and Amos and the Red Tattoos Read Online Free PDF Page A

is if the doctor is somewhere else.”
    Amos shrugged. “So?”
    “I need you to get him out of his office.”
    “And just how am I supposed to do that? He eats and sleeps in that place. He wouldn’t leave if it were on fire.”
    “I thought about fire. Too close to the trees. I figure the only sure way to get that doctor out of his office is to tell him somebody is sick or maybe dying.”
    “I still don’t get it,” Amos said. “Who’s sick?”
    Dunc was starting to get frustrated. “Nobody is sick! You just knock on the door. Tell him somebody up in the woods is hurt and needs a doctor real bad. He’ll take off, and we’ll search his office. Easy.”
    “What if he doesn’t fall for it?”
    “It’s your job to make absolutely sure he does. Now come on. We’ve wasted too much time already.”
    Amos moved to the front of the infirmary. He raised his hand to knock on the door.
    Suddenly the door burst open. The doctor rushed by him carrying his medical bag, trying to put on his white coat at the same time.
    He looked surprised when he saw Amos. “Unless it’s an emergency, son, I can’t help youright now. Somebody fell on the hiking trail. They may have a broken leg.”
    The doctor ran across the exercise field and up toward the woods. Amos stood there with his mouth open and his hand raised.
    Dunc came out from the side of the building. “I’m impressed, Amos. You must have told him something good to make him run like that.”
    Amos watched the retreating doctor. “You know you can always count on me.”
    The inside of the infirmary looked the same as before.
    “You search his sleeping quarters. I’m going to have a look at that desk again,” Dunc said.
    After about ten minutes, Dunc called out, “Have you found anything yet?”
    Amos walked back into the room. “I found that same army picture with all of them in it. Nothing else, though. How about you?”
    Dunc shook his head. “He’s moved everything that was on the desk. But I know there’s something here. We’re just missing it somehow.”
    They looked around the walls of the infirmary. Nothing seemed out of place. Amos took astep backward and knocked down a stack of the white medical boxes.
    Dunc picked up one of the boxes. “Amos, you’ve got to be more careful—wait a minute, look at this!”
    The top of the box had been stamped with an exotic red flower.
    “Let’s open one,” Amos said. “It’s probably drugs or something illegal.”
    Dunc opened a box. “Medical supplies.” He opened several others. “They all have medical supplies.”
    Amos scratched his head. “I don’t get it. Why would anybody go to the trouble of putting that red stamp on a bunch of medical supplies?”
    Dunc was deep in thought. He snapped his fingers. “It all fits together. Amos, we’ve got to get the sheriff up here.”

• 11
    “It’s time. Everybody’s over in the dining hall now. Do you know what to do?” Dunc asked.
    Amos was sitting at a desk in front of the camp’s intercom system. “I know what to do. You’ve made me go over it five thousand times.”
    They had waited until everyone from the administration office had gone to lunch and just walked right in the front door. Dunc used the phone to call the sheriff. Amos was about to use the intercom.
    Dunc started for the door.
    “Give me five minutes.”
    He ran as hard as he could to the dining hall and positioned himself behind a tree.
    Amos watched the clock. The seconds ticked by. He took a deep breath and flipped the switch. A loud crackling noise came over the system.
    He cleared his throat. “Attention, all campers! May I have your attention please!”
    Amos grinned. Part of him wanted to do what Dunc said, but another part was starting to get into it. The microphone was too much.
    “All you boys and girls out there in Gitchee Goomee-land. This is your lucky day. I’m comin’ at you with an announcement that is guaranteed to blow your socks off.”
    From behind his tree