“Oh, nothing. Forget I said anything about it. You were telling us how you woke up in the hammock, but you never did explain how you got back home,” Lorraine reminded her.
“Didn’t I?” asked Judy. “I’d forgotten a lot of it, but it’s beginning to come back now. I do remember driving home along this road. You see, I thought my grandparents had left me in the garden for a surprise and would return for me. I told you I was all alone. There wasn’t a house in sight.”
“The Brandt house is just over the top of this next hill,” Lois put in.
“I know. You told me that. Now I know why I couldn’t see it. All I could see was a windowless old tower and a path leading in that direction. Naturally, I followed it. There’s something about a path in the woods that always tempts me.”
“We know that, Judy. Honey told us all about your latest mystery. You followed a trail or something.”
“Well, this trail led out of the rose garden where the hammock was and then through an archway,” Judy continued. “All sorts of little cupids and gnomes peered out at me from unexpected places. I was actually scared by the time I reached the old tower. There wasn’t time to explore it. Just then I heard the rumble of my grandfather’s wagon and knew he was driving off without me.”
“He was!” Judy’s friends both chorused in surprise, and Lois asked, “Why would he do a thing like that?”
“I think now it was just to tease me. He did stop and wait for me after a while,” Judy remembered. “The rugs were gone. Grandma must have delivered them, but I didn’t ask where. If she made them for Mrs. Brandt they may still be there.”
“I wouldn’t depend on it,” Lorraine said as they turned up the narrow road to the Brandt estate.
“Watch out!” Judy suddenly exclaimed. “There’s another car coming.”