Chapter Eleven: Vermont Vacation

Planning a two-week trip in a day and a half isn’t as easy as it sounds, and it didn’t sound very easy to begin with. Fortunately, all four of us had a fair bit of experience in trip preparations, so once Biff told us the rest of what we could expect, it wasn’t too hard to start getting things together. It was also a big help to not have to pack dishes or pans or sleeping bags or tents. But it was time-consuming, and Joe and I both kept coming up with questionables. Like, “Should we bring matches, you think?” Or, “Won’t we need some bug spray?” “How cold does it get up there at night?” “They have beds, but what about pillows?” We finally went on the theory that it was better to have and not need than need and not have, so we added in a bunch of things. Some of which later turned out to be useful, and some of which didn’t.

As predicted, we weren’t ready to leave until a little after one on Saturday. And even then, we didn’t leave. We Hardys were ready, but the other half of the expedition had failed to make an appearance. Joe and I sat on our front steps and waited as patiently as possible for Biff and Chet to arrive, which mainly meant that I hid the cell-phone so Joe couldn’t pester them with calls to hurry their tails on over. “After all,” I reminded him, “Chet has to drive over to Biff’s and load all his stuff into Biff’s car first.”

Joe was speculating about Chet trying to get a refrigerator- or at least a cooler of food- into Biff’s trunk when the two of them finally showed up, at two-thirty-five. Both of them looked a bit sulky, and it turned out that they’d had several arguments: first on loading the car, then on which of them had mislaid the map, and finally over what music to listen to during the drive. It was unusual to see easygoing Chet so riled up, and I wondered if I ought to suggest that he ride with me and Joe with Biff. Fortunately, Joe managed to get them both to lighten up and we were on the road by a little before three.

Six hours of driving later, we stopped at a Comfort Lodge and got two rooms for the night. Joe and I took one, while Biff and Chet settled in across the hall. Chet was all ready to try room service right away, but we overruled him- it was too expensive- and went across the street to a Captain Flint seafood restaurant. The food was very good, though the waitress mixed up Biff's order and he had to wait a bit before he got the right plate. He was good-natured about it, though- maybe because she brought him a free dessert with the meal to make up for her mistake. It was after ten when we returned to the hotel to hang out for a while before going to sleep. Biff had turned rather subdued and I figured it was from all the driving; I was pretty beat myself. Chet was back in his usual cheerful mood and he and Joe had a rather amusing battle of wits before I called ‘em off and said I was crashing.

The next morning, we were up at seven a.m. Biff emerged grumpily from his room, complaining that Chet had kept him awake with snoring; Chet countered that Biff’s own snores had been what woke them both up. Joe diverted them with the suggestion that we find breakfast, which was pretty easily accomplished: the hotel had a complimentary 'Continental' breakfast laid out in the lobby. It consisted of coffee, juices and milk, a variety of bagels and toppings for them, and a selection of doughnuts and coffee-cake. We set to work on the spread and didn't get on the road again until about eight-fifteen.

“Is it just me,” my brother asked thoughtfully after a few moments of silence, “or are they getting on each others’ nerves more than usual?”

“It’s not just you,” I agreed. “But I’m not going to get inquisitive. If they want to talk, they’ll talk.”

“And if they argue?” Joe asked dryly. Joe hates arguments almost as much as I do, which is fairly contradictory of him, considering how good he is at them.

“With miles of forest around to explore, I doubt it’ll be hard to avoid any quarrels,” I pointed out. “And we don’t have to stay at the cabin.”

I had no idea how right I was going to be on that call.

We got into Vermont before noon, but didn’t get to the Hooper’s cabin until nearly two p.m. Part of the delay was due to stopping in the closest town- twenty-five miles from the cabin- to purchase a week’s worth of supplies. We’d brought as much non-perishable stuff as we could, but there were limits to that. I was glad to see that prices were considerably lower there than at home, but even so, the bill was pretty big. We didn’t try to get the entire two-weeks worth, planning instead to make a second trip when we started running low. It seemed more practical than having some of the food go bad before we could use it.

I kept my promise and let Joe do the last two hours of driving; by then, I was really grateful for the break. He was delighted with what he called the ‘off-road’ experience, though it was really a dirt road and we didn’t veer off into the forest at all.

Our first few hours at the cabin were spent settling in. Chet busied himself unpacking the food and finding places to put it all. Biff, Joe and I brought in our luggage, then Biff went to unlock the boat shed and inspect the boats while Joe and I made up the beds. There were two bedrooms, with two single beds per room, one nightstand, two dressers, and a battery-powered lamp on each dresser. The floors were bare wood, but well polished- no splinters here- and there was a small oval mirror on one wall of our room. The other two walls had windows, one looking over the lake and the other gazing into the forest.

“Cool. At least if a bear comes out of the woods, we’ll be able to see him,” Joe remarked casually as we went into the living area to collect the other sets of sheets.

“You can look at him all you like,” Chet informed us, pausing in his efforts. “Me, I’ll be under the bed. I don’t guess you guys brought a gun, did you?”

I pointed at the rifle propped on pegs over the cabin door. “Didn’t need to.”

Chet relaxed and went back to his work; I regarded the gun for a moment and hoped we wouldn’t need to use it.

“We can always fire into the air and hope that scares our uninvited guest off,” Joe pointed out as we went in to make the other two beds.

“That’s true, I didn’t think of it,” I agreed, feeling better. Joe grinned as I gave him a pat for his suggestion, and then we got back to work. Biff came back in time to help us, but had to leave for a few minutes in order to show Chet how to use the propane stove. Then he showed us all the outhouse, which was really more a Porta-potty set up in a little shed beside the cabin. There was a door next to our room that led into the shed so we wouldn’t have to traipse around outside in the dark, and there was also an outside access, which I thought was very convenient.

“And don’t worry,” Biff told us with a wry smile. “We’re not the ones to worry about hauling any of that away. A truck comes by once a week to take care of it.”

“Once a week,” Joe repeated. “You might find me at a tree, by then- it’s summer, and things might get kinda-”

“Can we talk about something else?” Chet broke in. “Listening to you and working with food don’t go well together.”

“He’s got a point, though; isn’t there a risk of typhoid or something?” I asked Biff.

“That’s what the spray is for,” Biff explained, pointing to a liter bottle full of disinfectant that sat beside the door. “You go in, you come out, you spray your shoes and hands. And there’s more of it in the closet.” He nodded to the ‘closet’, which was really more an alcove with shelves. There was an assortment of stuff that I hadn’t really looked at yet, but I did see bottles of clear liquid sitting on the floor.

“Definitely a tree,” I heard Joe mutter. “’Specially after the bean burritos.”

“Joe,” I suggested politely, “shut up.”

“Thank you,” Chet growled, and went back behind the kitchen counter to finish storing the last of the groceries.

The Hardy Boys belong to Simon and Schuster and the Stratemeyer Foundation. The Hardy Boys Fan Fiction authors of the Hardy Detective Agency have just borrowed them for an adventure or two. The authors promise to put the boys back when they are done with them. The authors do claim copyright to the original characters in this story. Please do not borrow original characters without express permission of the authors.