"Come on." He led the way to the boat cove and stopped short. The speedboat was there, and so was the Scuba cart, but the rowboat wasn't. Anxiously he scanned the water. There was no sign of the girls.
Where were they? Where? The thought struck him. He remembered Barby's comment of the night before.
Scotty ran to the speedboat and yelled, "Come on!"
"Wait!" Rick called. "Let's not go barging off without knowing what we're doing."
Scotty turned, puzzled. "What do you mean?"
"The girls have some kind of plan, and we don't know what it is. If we go barging around in the speedboat, we might throw a monkey wrench into the works."
"But we can't just stand here and do nothing," Scotty said desperately.
"We won't. Go get the plane warmed up and wait for me."
Rick hurried into the house and ran up the stairs to Barby's room. Working fast, he went through the dresser, then through the shelves in her closet. Not finding what he wanted, he paused to look around in case he might have overlooked a possibility.
He didn't know where girls kept things, and he suspected that sometimes the places weren't the same as boys might pick. But he could see no possible place that he hadn't searched.
That meant Barby had her Megabuck unit with her, unless she had left it somewhere else in the house.
He plugged in his earphone and called. "Barby!"
There was no reply. His lips set grimly. No use wasting time here. He ran from the house, hearing the sound of the Sky Wagon as Scotty warmed it up. Joe Blake was not in sight. Rick hurried into the lab and found him watching Professor Morrison who was checking some calculations on the lab's small computing machine.
"Joe, step outside with me for a moment, please."
Outside, Rick explained that the girls were missing, then asked, "Can you get the plane frequency on your receiver?"
"Sure. It's an all-wave job. What's the frequency you use?"
Rick told him, then explained, "We don't know what's going on, so we want to be prepared. If some of your Scout leaders can move down the coast to North Cove and keep an eye on the houseboat, Scotty and I will search from the air. If we see anything, we'll let you know on the plane's radio. You won't be able to talk back, but at least you can hear us, and you can let the Scouts know."