Page 2 of Let's Go To Camp!

“I can’t stand that guy,” Daniela said.

“Same,” Maisie replied as she sank a little lower in her chair. She hated feeling that way about another human, but with Derek, there just didn’t seem a way around it. “You know, being away from him might be the best part of my vacation.”

Both women laughed.

The best part was actually that she was going to a camp for Littles and would be having the time of her life. But there was no way she’d tell Daniela that. They were “work friends,” and genuinely liked each other, but they weren’t very close outside of that. Certainly not close enough for Maisie to share her secret!

“I’ll miss you while you’re gone,” Daniela said. “Who will I commiserate with?”

“Aww. I’ll be back in just a little over a week,” Maisie said. Her eyebrows raised as a wide grin split her lips. “But until then, I have one last parting gift. And now that you-know-who has arrived, he should discover it any time.”

Sure enough, as if on cue, Derek’s enraged voice shouted from the other office. “What the hell? You’ve got to be kidding me!” A pained groan followed.

Maisie gave herself a moment to contain the laughter that was threatening to spill over before donning a serious face and calling out, “What is it, Derek? Are you okay?”

A moment later, the man stormed in, his cheeks red and nostrils flaring. “Look at this email!”

He’d obviously printed it off, because he thrust a piece of paper at Maisie.

Still wearing her mask of faux concern, she took the sheet and read it aloud.

“Dear Mr. Pine. I have some exciting new opportunities I would like to discuss with you. Would you be willing to drop by so we can review your…poop.” She gasped and lowered the sheet long enough to say, “Oh, my.”

“It gets worse,” Derek fumed. “Keep reading.”

Maisie chanced a side-glance at Daniela who was clearly trying not to smirk.

She cleared her throat and then continued reading the email.

“Your poops are doing great, but I think they could grow even bigger. Time is of the essence, so if you want to maximize your poops, then I suggest you call immediately…” She trailed off and shook her head in disgust. “Oh, Derek. I’m so sorry.”

“I sent that to a client!” Derek said. “But I didn’t type poop or anything! I typedinvestments! I want to talk to Mr. Pine about his investments!”

Derek ran a hand through his thick dark hair as he started pacing. “How could this happen? Who would do something like this?”

“Did you run the software updates like I recommended last week?” Maisie asked.

“No. I was, uh, going to get to them,” the investment specialist said weakly.

“That explains it. Look, this has Russian hackers written all over it,” Maisie told him.

“It does?”

She nodded.

Daniela spoke up. “She’s right. The Russians are known for this sort of thing.”

Derek stopped pacing and leveled a serious gaze at the cyber-security experts. “How high up does this go?”

“My professional opinion?” Maisie said.

He nodded.

“All the way to the top. The Kremlin.”

“Oh, geez!” Derek cried, his eyes going wide.

“Tell you what, I’ll run that software on your computer before I leave for vacation today,” Maisie said. “That should clear everything up moving forward.”

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