“Shopping!” George hooted, springing to her feet. “All you ever want to do is go shopping, Bess Marvin. Don’t you have a larger purpose in life?”

Bess looked at George calmly. “Of course I do,” she said with a twinkle in her eye. “Going out with a good-looking boy, for one. Or eating,” she added.

George shook her head. “Funny. Ha, ha,” she replied.

Nancy climbed off the bed and went to the window, where she stood looking out at the soft summer drizzle that was falling. A river trip might be fun, but she could see Bess’s point. A beach vacation, a real one, would be relaxing, and baking under the hot sun on the shores of Fox Lake might be just the thing to take her mind off the detective business. But there was something else to think about. “You say you won a trip for four people?” she asked George again.

George nodded.

“Well, then, how about inviting Ned to go along?” Ned Nickerson was Nancy’s longtime boyfriend. He was away at summer school just then, at Emerson College, and Nancy missed him. She had the feeling that her friendship with Ned could be the most important relationship in her life-if she could just make a little more time for it. But Ned, who had always been the most understanding guy on earth, seemed to be getting a little impatient with her. Nancy couldn’t forget that during their case at Flash magazine, Ned had become involved with another girl. That hadn’t lasted long, but…

The raft trip might be exactly the kind of thing to give the two of them plenty of relaxed, fun time together.