Jason started at the sound of her honey-sweet voice, but he quickly summoned up the wherewithal to respond. "Oh, well, Mark – I mean Mr. Jenkins – was taking us on a sort of nature hike. He said it would help us pass the wilderness survival test at the end of camp. He was explaining about some of the plants around here, and there was this flower… a purple kind of long thing… and… and…" Again the blonde youth's explanation seemed to fade off into nothing. His blue eyes had inadvertently slipped down from the woman's beautiful face and were now resting securely on her sensuous breasts, watching excitedly the way they rose and fell with every breath she took. A boyish groan escaped the youth's chest.

"You know what, Mrs. Jenkins?" he said boldly, with unprecedented suddenness. "I think you're too beautiful to be a camp teacher." He made the complaint in all sincerity, and Natalie turned to him in frank surprise.

"Why, thank you, Jason," she said with a healthy blush, "but I certainly don't know what you mean."

"Well, I've been to summer camps before," he said expansively. "Not this one, but other ones… And the ladies they have there are always old hags, like Miss Thatcher." Jason made an innocent reference to the camp cook and nutritional expert, a middle-aged, rather plump woman who had worked the camp's kitchen ever since Mr. Weatherly and Mr. Brooks had started the camp nearly ten years ago. It wasn't that Miss Arlene Thatcher wasn't well-liked by the staff members and teachers or even the boys, for that matter – but she wasn't exactly a model specimen of the female of the human species. The only other woman at the Summer Camp for Boys was Lucille Wells, the wife of the marine biology expert. She reluctantly taught a class in leather-working during the morning school sessions, but otherwise, the snobbish blonde woman stayed out of sight, so none of the boys really got to appreciate her classic, upper-crust beauty.