Suddenly Judy stopped speaking. She had been idly dabbling her hand in the pool as she talked. Now she felt something small and hard at the bottom. “Like a small gravel stone,” she thought as she took it between her thumb and forefinger to examine it.
“Have you found another clue?” asked Lois. “What is it this time?”
“It looks—like a diamond!” gasped Judy. “But it can’t be. What would a diamond be doing in an old deserted fountain?”
“It could be a piece of ice,” Lorraine ventured.
“A frozen tear, perhaps,” Lois put in whimsically. “Maybe the tear you shed, Lorraine, turned into a diamond. Maybe there are more diamonds in the pool. Maybe we’ll walk home with our hands full—”
“We’ll walk home dripping wet if we aren’t careful! The fountain is beginning to bubble!” cried Lorraine as she seized her friend’s hand and pulled her away from the water. Judy stood spellbound watching the transformation as if a miracle had taken place. Finally Lois expressed the obvious.
“Someone has turned it on!”
“Someone in the tower,” guessed Judy.
“Or down underneath,” Lorraine whispered. “Judy, I’m scared. This was planned, somehow. I think we’re being watched!”