Sandy Beach and the Slippery Slope

By Sheri Colberg-Ochs

Vacations, skiing, sledding, hot tubs, and other winter fun—this second book of the Sandy Beach series has it all! A winter skiing vacation takes teenaged Sandy and her friend, Forrest, and their two families to a ski resort in South Lake Tahoe, where in addition to having fun, Sandy ends up investigating an older woman’s near-fatal skiing accident.

Sandy Beach is a nearly normal eighth grader who lives in the fictional beach town of Rosa Beach, California. Sandy’s distinguishing attribute is her ability to “hear” the truth any time that someone is directly lying to her, a skill that frequently leads her down a figurative “slippery slope” into dangerous situations as an amateur sleuth.

After wiping out not long after the older woman in the same spot on a slippery ski slope, Sandy finds a unique key in the snow--one that she discovers goes to an expensive car—at which point she begins to suspect that the “accident” was not an accident at all. Finding that key, combined with some neighborhood sleuthing that involves her father, Forrest, and other couples staying in the same vacation area, convinces Sandy that she is on the right track, but she has to follow a series of clues before she is able to identify the main suspects in the woman’s attempted murder.

Throughout the story, Sandy finds strength and direction in surmising what she thinks Simone LeClerc, the fictional international spy, would do in a similar situation. Sandy also enjoys driving her older sister crazy simply by treating her nicely—which is a very unusual behavior for Sandy—resulting in some entertaining interactions between the siblings.

As is often the case, money turns out to be the “root of all evil” in this story as well. Luckily, Sandy is finally able to put two and two together to identify the guilty parties staying in a nearby condominium, but when she and her family are next on their hit list, will she survive long enough to bring them to justice?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sheri Colberg-Ochs
• Release date: May 7, 2012
• ISBN: 9781937971038

Sheri Colberg-Ochs

FICTION: SHERI OCHS started writing children's books when she was just a child herself, beginning with a whole series of (yet unpublished) short stories that she wrote and illustrated at the age of nine. Although she has made a name for herself writing and publishing eight nonfiction books to date about health, fitness, and diabetes—under her professional name of Dr. Sheri Colberg (www.shericolberg.com)—she still prefers to read fiction of all genres in her leisure time and write fiction in her "spare" time. The Sandy Beach series is her first work of published fiction, written for youth (and adults) of all ages. She has also written two adult novels (to date) that will be published shortly. NONFICTION: Publishing nonfiction using her professional name, SHERI COLBERG is an exercise physiologist and professor of exercise science at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia. She received her doctorate from the University of California at Berkeley. Living a long time with type 1 diabetes herself, she specializes in diabetes and exercise, conducting extensive clinical research in diabetes and exercise with funding from the American Diabetes Association, National Institutes of Health, and others. She has also authored more than 250 articles on exercise and diabetes, as well as more than a dozen other books. A frequent lecturer on diabetes and physical activity, Dr. Colberg is also a funded diabetes researcher, a reviewer for many scientific journals, a member of several diabetes advisory boards, an exercise adviser for dLife, a fellow of the American College of Sports Medicine, and an active professional member of the American Diabetes Association and its Prevention Committee. Dr. Colberg recently moved back to California with her husband and their three boys, who have given her more than a decade's worth of practical parenting experience. An avid recreational exerciser, she enjoys swimming, biking, walking, fitness machines, weight training, and hiking. Visit Dr. Colberg's website at www.SheriColberg.com. Access her other websites, Diabetes Motion (www.diabetesmotion.com), and Diabetes Motion Academy (www.dmacademy.com).

Book preview

SANDY BEACH

AND THE

SLIPPERY SLOPE

Sheri Ochs

*****

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, incidents, and dialogue either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Sandy Beach and the Slippery Slope

The Sandy Beach Series, Book 2

Copyright 2012 by Sheri Colberg-Ochs

Smashwords Edition

Muddy Paws Press, LLC

Virginia Beach, VA, United States of America

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

*****

Contents

Chapter 1 – The Slippery Slope

Chapter 2 – Trouble at the Lodge

Chapter 3 – The Slope Strikes Again

Chapter 4 – A Condo to Remember

Chapter 5 – A Clue in the Snow

Chapter 6 – A Clue at Harrah’s

Chapter 7 – A Hot Tub Clue

Chapter 8 – Suspects at Large

Chapter 9 – The Plot Thickens

Chapter 10 – A Clue and A Plan

Chapter 11 – The Big Chase

Chapter 12 – The Root of All Evil

Acknowledgments

Preview – Sandy Beach and the Watchful Eyes (Book 3)

About the Author

More Books by Sheri Ochs

*****

Chapter 1

The Slippery Slope

HOW did I ever manage to get myself into this? Sandy wondered aloud and then groaned, although no one was there to hear her. She looked down again from the top of the slope and quickly shut her eyes to block out the sight.

Help! she said pleadingly in barely more than a whisper with her eyes still closed. Forrest? Anybody? Please, oh please…somebody help me out of this mess! Her plea was louder the second time, but without anyone nearby to respond, it did little to resolve her present dilemma.

At thirteen, Sandy was quite tall for her age, but thin, which only gave her an illusion of greater height. At the moment, she was dressed in a colorful and thick winter jacket that had a bold bright pink and white design sweeping across a purple background. Her slick, water-repellent pants were the same purple color as her jacket—it was obviously a vogue, matching outfit. Dark purple insulated gloves covered her hands, and her attire was topped off—literally—with a purple Sherpa ski hat, matching scarf, and stylish ski goggles. If anyone had been nearby to see her, dressed the way she was, she would have been clearly visible from a long distance away against the almost solid white backdrop surrounding her.

Sandy opened her eyes and glanced again at the sign posted near her at the top of the slope: it was a triple diamond slope, an expert level ski run. How had she ended up here? She chided herself with the fact that Forrest had at least shown enough sense to get off the ski lift at an earlier opportunity to go down a more moderate slope. Entranced by the view from near the top of the Sierra Nevada Mountain range in the Lake Tahoe area—shared between California on the west side of the range, Nevada on the east—she had opted to ride the lift up a little farther and had found herself facing this ski slope, one that was well above her slightly more than beginner-level skier capabilities.

Deciding that she had no other choice, Sandy sighed deeply, tightly gripped her ski poles in her gloved hands, pointed her skis straight, and pushed back on the poles in her hands enough to cause herself to inch forward. Once more than half of the length of her skis was sticking straight out into the air—only their back ends were still making contact with the snow at the slope’s top—her balance began shifting forward, her skis followed suit, and she found herself rapidly picking up speed as she headed straight down the excessively challenging slope.

How am I supposed to slow down? Sandy screamed aloud, but with the wind whipping by and the trees a blur on either side of her, she could hardly hear herself.

In her anxiety, everything she had learned about skiing in the previous two days seemed to disappear from her memory. Concentrating only on maintaining her precarious balance atop the slick downhill skis attached to her ski boots, she kept her skis pointed straight downhill, which unfortunately only made her pick up more speed on the steep, icy slope.

Simone would know how to ski expertly down this slippery slope probably slalom style, Sandy thought as she tried to imagine herself as Simone, international spy and heroine of the Simone LeClerc adventure series that Sandy loved to read.

Coming up ahead of her after another terrifying minute of barely controlled skiing, Sandy saw the ski lift where Forrest had gotten off earlier. As she flew by the skiers and snowboarders exiting the lift there, she hardly had time to catch sight of their faces, let alone identify them, but based on their attire, she didn’t think that she recognized her best friend among them.

Pleased that she had managed to keep from wiping out so far, and a bit emboldened by that fact as well, she kept flying straight down the slope, barely keeping her skis under control. At the speed she was going, she was not sure that she could have stopped—without wiping out, at least—even if she could have remembered how she was supposed to do it.

About half way down the slope, she skied across a large uneven mound of snow, an unexpected mogul. Doing so caused her to finally lose her balance, which she attempted to regain by leaning first forward, then backward while continuing to wildly ski straight downhill without even looking where she was headed. The next thing she knew, she had skied into a snow bank on the far right side of the slope. The more powdery snow there had caused her slow down abruptly, then pitch and roll forward; she now lay flat on her back staring up at the clear blue sky, one ski pointing skyward, the other having disappeared somewhere. So covered in snow from head to toe was she that her vivid purple ski outfit was barely visible.

Ugh, was all she could manage to say out loud at first, followed by, That hurt!

I wonder if I’m still all in one piece, she pondered while looking up at the sky. Somehow I doubt that this is how Simone LeClerc would have ended up.

She tried wiggling her toes in her ski boots; they were cold, but she was relieved to find that they still worked. Next she tried moving the rest of her legs. She could move her right leg easily as it was the one without a ski. The other was held in place by the skyward-pointing ski, but she felt encouraged by the fact that she could wiggle her knee on that leg a little. Her arms felt okay as far as she could tell, and from the feel around her wrists, she guessed that the wrist loops of her ski poles were still in place. She tried to sit up, only to find out that she had landed so deeply in the soft snow that she really was stuck.

L.O.L., we sure do keep meeting up in the weirdest places, said a boy’s voice, coming—Sandy thought—from behind the top of her horizontal head. She immediately recognized the voice as belonging to her best friend, Forrest. Although he had seen her in worse fixes than this one, her embarrassment about her current helpless state caused her snow-covered, frozen cheeks to turn a brighter shade of red.

Hi, Forrest, she said sheepishly.

Um, do you need some help, Sandy? Forrest’s voice had a mocking tone, the kind that made her love and hate him at the same time.

Swallowing her pride, Sandy said, Yes, please. I could use a hand getting up. I seem to be, um… stuck here in this spot.

Forrest maneuvered on his skis over to her left side. From there, he was able to reach down to her hand, grab hold of it, and pull with just enough leverage to lift her up to a sitting position.

Her best friend was a tall boy, slightly taller than she, and just as lanky. He was a good athlete, too, although she was really the one who loved exercising. He was, admittedly, a much more proficient skier than she was, though; he had started skiing at a young age when he and his parents had lived in Washington State fairly close to a ski area there before moving to Rosa Beach, their current hometown in northern California.

You should get a look at yourself, Sandy. I think we should just call you ‘the abominable snow woman.’ You are totally covered in snow! His eyes twinkled with amusement as he grinned down at her where she was still sitting in the powdery snow.

Abruptly letting go of his hand, she reached down to her side, grabbed a gloveful of snow, and launched it directly at him. Her surprise attack caught him off guard, hitting him squarely in the face. Her actions started a rapid-fire, snow-launching battle between them that lasted a full minute. Of course, she was disadvantaged, given that she still could not move from the spot where she was seated in the snow bank, but she held her own since she was at least sitting up. By the time they stopped launching snowballs and larger clumps of snow, Sandy was covered with even more snow, and Forrest was mostly white as well. He fell laughing, on purpose, into the snow next to her. She unfairly pelted one last snowball at the back of his head, accidentally knocking off his ski hat.

Hey, that’s unfair! Let’s call a truce, he yelled, reaching for his dislodged hat and putting it back over his wavy brown hair. It was a beautiful, sunny day in early January, but it was definitely much too cold with the chilly wind to go without a hat for long.

The cease-fire held while they sat together in the snow, watching the people skiing and snowboarding by them down the rest of the slope and looking around at the rest of the breath-taking scenery that included a view of Lake Tahoe far below. Neither one of them seemed to be in much of