"Is this a joke?" Bridgette cringed as a certain mocha-skinned C.I.T. broke the silence of the cabin.
"What's wrong, Courtn…" Bridgette stopped as she saw a bouquet of flowers and a piece of paper on Courtney's bed. Bridgette lifted the paper and began to read.
" Roses are red, violets are blue, candy is sweet, and so are you." Bridgette beamed ," This is adorable, what's the issue?"
" The issue is that this is probably that Ogre's doing!"
" You think Duncan did this?"
" Trying to get my hopes up even after we've broken up just to dash them, of course he'd do this." Bridgette frowned, until a certain someone and their mad skills came to mind.
" Courtney, I think I may know someone who can help." Courtney frowned.
" Please tell me it doesn't involve your boyfriend."
Harold's trenchcoat and Fedora covered the hamburger shirt he always wore while Bridgette filled him on the case.
"...So Courtney's convinced that someone's just having a joke at her expense but I'm not so sure…But if anyone can get to the bottom of this, then I figured you could."
" Worry not m'lady, Detective Harold is on the case." Harold took out a notebook and wrote out a list of suspects.
Owen, Noah, Geoff, Cody, and Ezekiel were the only campers left without girlfriends. He'd start with the big man.
Owen was sitting in the mess hall next to Tyler and Linsdey, with Tyler listening as the blonde bombshell filled him in on the events of her day.
" And then Greta and Harriet started arguing again!"
Nobody dared speak when Harold kicked open the door, walked to their table, and sat across from Owen. The lovable oaf looked around.
" Is this another intervention about my gas? I swear, I'm taking the medicine the doctor gave me for it."
" Not at all." The geek took a cupcake out of his pocket and put it on the table, " Somebody left flowers and a love letter on our resident C.I.T.'s bed...Have you seen anything suspicious lately? Or are you carrying a flame for our team leader?"
Harold then looked at Owen to see that he was drooling, eyes not daring to leave the cupcake. He snapped, getting the big guy's attention.
" The cupcake is yours...if you answer the question."
" What was the question again?"
" Gosh, do you know who left flowers on Courtney's bunk?"
" Someone left flowers on Courtney's bunk, that's awesome! But who did it?"
" Idiot." Harold muttered.
Noah was sitting on a stump near the edge of the woods, his eyes completely enraptured on the book in front of him.
A frown came upon his face and he looked up as he heard a familiar deep breathing.
" Harold, to what do I owe the pleasure?"
" Somebody left flowers and a love note on Courtney's bed, was it you?"
Noah raised an eyebrow.
" Yeah, Ms. Personality isn't my type."
" Don't suppose you've seen anything suspicious?"
" Not any more than usual."
" Well, you've been no help." Harold just stared at the bookworm with disdain.
Noah went back to reading.
Geoff was asleep in a chair on the beach, his hat over his eyes. His chest rose rhythmically in sleep until a clap right next to his ear caused the party animal to sit up suddenly.
" I'm up, I'm up." He looked around until he saw Harold.
" What's up Dude, is it Halloween already?"
" No, I'm on an investigation for Bridgette."
" S'okay, what you investigating?"
" Someone left a bouquet of flowers on Courtney's bed." Geoff chuckled.
" It's not me, brah."
" I suspected as much. Have you seen Ezekiel or Cody around." Geoff shrugged at the question.
" Nah brah but you could try the woods. I heard homeschool likes hiking."
Ezekiel kept a steady pace as he led Cody through the woods.
" You alright, Zeke?"
" Oh yeah, I'm fine Homey." Anybody with two eyes could have seen that that was a lie. The country boy was fidgeting worse than a dog with fleas. "We're here."
Cody stopped and took in the field that Ezekiel had led him.
It was picturesque
A softly bubbling brook bordered it on the edge, and flowers of all colors were littered throughout.
Cody bent down and plucked flowers, mostly yellow colored, stopping when he had a dozen together. He tied the flowers with twine at the base, set them down, took out a pice of paper and began working on another poem.
" Hey Zeke?"
" Yeah holmes?"
" What rhymes with fire?" Cody asked, embarrassed.
" Liar, crier, mire, dire…."
" Any good, flattering words?"
" Oh, Lyre, the instrument, fryer, wire, higher."
Cody sighed as none of those words flowed well in the poem. The tech geek froze in his writing when Ezekiel asked him another question.
" Why don't you just tried on Courtney what you tried on Gwen?" Cody frowned.
" When I tried it with Gwen, I got hit in the licorice with a canoe paddle ...I'd like to avoid that."
" The poems and flowers just seem a bit odd…"
" It worked for Harold! Got him and Bridgette together."
" But, Courtney ain't Bridge. She's a very different girl. Bridgette's like the water, eh, serene and peaceful and such. Courtney, though, she's like a fire, raging, destructive, but world changing when under control." Cody was writing as fast as he could.
" Keep going, Zeke, I'm almost done." The tech geek was biting his tongue in concentration at this point. Zeke huffed before speaking.
" What exactly is your endgame on this?" Cody raised an eyebrow.
" Isn't it obvious?"
" How exactly is this going to lead to you and Courtney getting together? You think she'll fall in love with you by virtue of these anonymous love letters alone and then when you reveal yourself…."
" Okay, okay, so I haven't thought that far enough. Jeez, man, why are you so mad?"
" A, because I've had to listen to you fawn over Courtney for the last week and I'm sick of hearing it and B, because my mom made me read the entire collected works of Shakespeare multiple times as a youngster. Do you know the root cause of so many of his tragedies, Cody?"
" Teenagers being stupid" answered Cody, summing it up the main reason behind Romeo and Juliet that his english teacher had told him years ago.
" No, it's that nobody ever just comes out and says what they mean or what they want… it's infuriating after the fiftieth time. You should do what they do in the movies."
" You mean confess to Courtney ...Zeke, this isn't a movie!"
" So it's better to just pine for her from afar?"
" Alright, you have a point."Cody sighed and grimaced as he spoke,"But I don't even know how I'd do that."
" 'Hey, you're a cool girl and I'd like to get to know you better, eh.'" Zeke said, shooting Cody's trademark finger guns afterwards.
" Ah hah!" Both Cody and Ezekiel turned their heads to see a trenchcoat and fedora wearing Harold just emerging out of the bushes,"So Cody is Courtney's suitor!"
" Why are you dressed like Humprey Bogart?" asked Zeke, scratching his torque in bewilderment.
" Gosh, because I'm a detective!" He then grinned, "and a detective always gets his man!"
"Harold, I have no idea what you're talking abo…"
" Yeah, it's him, eh" Cody frowned at Ezekiel, but the homeschooled teen kept talking ," He's never gonna work up the guts to tell her, so why don't you?"
" Now would everybody hold on a minute?" shouted Cody, huffing as horrible thoughts of Courtney rejecting him, loudly and in public, went through his head.
Ezekiel looked at the detective, then at Cody. He smiled, somewhat mischievously, which was a first for the Homeschooled teen.
" Eh, Detective Harold, whatta you say you give him 5 minutes headstart to tell Courtney how he feels before you do."
" Wait, what?!" Cody shook his head back and forth,"Very funny, Zeke, but please stop kidding."
"That ... actually sounds like a good idea."
" Harold, please!"
"Starting now" the lanky teen replied, smirking.
" Ahh!" Cody shrieked before sprinting off into the woods.
" This should be just the kick in the keister he needs."
Courtney absentmindedly picked at the slop on her plate, judging whether she was hungry enough to put whatever the hell was on it into her body. Bridgette was sitting next to her, doing the exact same thing.
" Come on Harold, what's taking so long?" Bridgette thought, nervous of the fact that she hadn't seen her boyfriend since he had started on the investigation, and that was over three hours ago.
The two were distracted from their food and thoughts when a gasping, exhausted Cody came stumbling through the door. He fell to his knees and kept breathing real hard until he saw Courtney and Bridgette. The geek stood up, put on an obviously nervous smile, and walked over to the two.
" Hey guys, what's up?"
" Nothing much, just relaxing before the challenge tomorrow." replied the surfer chick.
" Hey Bridge, I think Harold was looking for you. I saw him by the dock"
" Really, wonder what he wants." Bridgette quickly dashed to the door and went out.
Cody gave an especially sheepish smile to Courtney and pulled a flower out of his pocket. Courtney's eyebrow rose, her mind putting the pieces together.
" Look, I know we're on different teams and we haven't talked much, but I'd really like to get to know you better." Cody offered the flower to the C.I.T..
Courtney looked down at the flower, then back up at the blushing face of Cody.
She smiled.
" Thank you Cody." She took the flower in her hands, then looked at the tech geek with a playful smirk," you're sweet, too."
And all of Cody's fears and despair evaporated when the mocha-skinned C.I.T. spoke again.
" And I'd like to get to know you better too."