Nate the Great and the Monster Mess
Page 1
NATE THE GREAT
NATE THE GREAT GOES UNDERCOVER
NATE THE GREAT AND THE LOST LIST
NATE THE GREAT AND THE PHONY CLUE
NATE THE GREAT AND THE STICKY CASE
NATE THE GREAT AND THE MISSING KEY
NATE THE GREAT AND THE SNOWY TRAIL
NATE THE GREAT AND THE FISHY PRIZE
NATE THE GREAT STALKS STUPIDWEED
NATE THE GREAT AND THE BORING BEACH BAG
NATE THE GREAT GOES DOWN IN THE DUMPS
NATE THE GREAT AND THE HALLOWEEN HUNT
NATE THE GREAT AND THE MUSICAL NOTE
NATE THE GREAT AND THE STOLEN BASE
NATE THE GREAT AND THE PILLOWCASE
NATE THE GREAT AND THE MUSHY VALENTINE
NATE THE GREAT AND THE TARDY TORTOISE
NATE THE GREAT AND THE CRUNCHY CHRISTMAS
NATE THE GREAT SAVES THE KING OF SWEDEN
NATE THE GREAT AND ME: THE CASE OF THE FLEEING FANG
NATE THE GREAT AND THE MONSTER MESS
NATE THE GREAT, SAN FRANCISCO DETECTIVE
NATE THE GREAT AND THE BIG SNIFF
NATE THE GREAT ON THE OWL EXPRESS
NATE THE GREAT TALKS TURKEY
NATE THE GREAT AND THE HUNGRY BOOK CLUB
AND CONTINUE THE DETECTIVE FUN WITH
Olivia Sharp
by Marjorie Weinman Sharmat and Mitchell Sharmat
illustrated by Denke Brunkus
OLIVIA SHARP: THE PIZZA MONSTER
OLIVIA SHARP: THE PRINCESS OF THE FILLMORE STREET SCHOOL
OLIVIA SHARP: THE SLY SPY
OLIVIA SHARP: THE GREEN TOENAILS GANG
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Text copyright © 1999 by Marjorie Weinman Sharmat
New Illustrations of Nate the Great, Sludge, Fang, Annie, Rosamond, the Hexes, and Oliver by Martha Weston based upon the original drawings by Marc Simont.
All other images copyright © 1999 by Martha Weston
Extra Fun Activities copyright © 2005 by Emily Costello
Extra Fun Activities illustrations copyright © 2005 by Jody Wheeler
All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Delacorte Press, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York. Originally published in hardcover by Delacorte Press in 1999 and reissued in paperback with Extra Fun Activities by Yearling, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books in 2005.
Delacorte Press is a registered trademark and the colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.
Visit us on the Web! randomhouse.com/teens
Educators and librarians, for a variety of teaching tools, visit us at RHTeachersLibrarians.com
Library of Congress Cataloging-in Publication Data is available upon request.
eBook ISBN: 978-0-385-37230-5
Trade paperback ISBN: 978-0-440-41662-3
Hardcover ISBN: 978-0-385-32114-3
v3.1
First Delacorte Ebook Edition 2013
Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.
For ANNA RICHARDSON WEINMAN,
the world’s best mother,
who, by the way,
created the world’s best chocolate cookie
—M.W.S.
To my CBI buddies—
Mira, Dwight, Susan, and Ashley
—M.W.
Contents
Cover
Other Books By This Authors
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter One: Draculas, Frankensteins, and Werewolves!
Chapter Two: The Long and Short of It
Chapter Three: One Big Mess
Chapter Four: Tasty in Lemon
Chapter Five: The Best Follow
Chapter Six: Something Fishy
Chapter Seven: Crossed-Out Werewolves!
Chapter Eight: The Right Place
Chapter Nine: A Scribble Among Scribbles
Extra Fun Activities
About the Authors
My name is Nate the Great.
I am a detective.
My dog, Sludge, is a detective too.
Today Sludge and I had big plans.
To do nothing.
Suddenly I saw something.
There was a note under the door
of my room.
It was written in scribbles.
I knew it was from my mother.
She scribbles when she is in a hurry.
I read it.
“I love those monsters,”
I said to Sludge.
“Strawberry Draculas,
Chocolate Frankensteins,
Cinnamon Werewolves.
My mother hates the werewolves,
but she bakes them for me anyway.
I must find that recipe.”
I, Nate the Great,
had never solved a case
for my mother.
My mother knew
where everything was.
Until now.
“We will look inside,”
I said. “Perhaps my mother
did not look everywhere in the house.”
I, Nate the Great, liked this case.
I could stay home.
I would not have to see
Rosamond or her four cats.
I would not have to see
Annie’s dog, Fang.
I could make as many pancakes
as I wanted.
Sludge and I went to the kitchen.
My mother kept her recipes there.
Each short recipe was written
on one side of a card.
Each long recipe was written
on one side
of a long piece of paper.
The cards were in one pile.
The papers were in another.
My mother liked the cards.
They were all neat and clean.
She did not like the papers.
They were crinkled, wrinkled,
and stained with food.
The pile of papers was a mess.
And it was huge!
But I, Nate the Great,
had to look for Monster Cookies.
“The recipe should be easy
to find,” I said to Sludge.
“It’s the only one with
drawings of werewolves.
Dozens and dozens of werewolves.
All crossed out.
My mother has never seen
a werewolf she likes.”
I spread every sheet on the floor.
I found recipes for foods
I had never eaten
and would never want to eat.
Like Squash Slosh.
I found great names like
Chocolate Bumps and Pecan Plops.
I found scribbled names
that I had never heard of.
Like Lemfan.
There was nothing listed under that one.
And Fig Fizzle.
Nothing was listed under that either.
There were more pages
with scribbled names.
Maybe the recipes
would be added later.
I, Nate the Great,
could not find
Monster Cookies.
It was time to think.
I made some pancakes.
I gave Sludge a bone.
We ate and thought.
>
I knew that my mother
had not made Monster Cookies
for a week.
Today she’d discovered that the
recipe was gone.
So the recipe might have
been missing for a week
or less than a week.
I turned to Sludge.
“We will look in every nook
and cranny of this house.
Look hard. It’s for my mother.”
Sludge and I looked, sniffed,
climbed up, bent down,
knocked things over,
pulled things out,
pushed things around.
We crumbled stuff.
We jumbled stuff.
Nothing.
“I, Nate the Great, say
there is a big clue
missing in this case.
The clue is my mother.
We have to find her
and ask her questions.”
Sludge and I walked toward
the front door.
“Ouch!”
We stumbled over the mess
we had made.
“We will clean this up
when we get back,” I said.
We went outside.
“Think about where
my mother would go,” I said.
Sludge sat down.
“No, don’t sit and think.
Walk and think,” I said.
Suddenly I knew why
Sludge had sat down.
Fang was up ahead with Annie.
I went up to Annie.
“I am looking for my mother,”
I said. “Or her recipe
for Monster Cookies.
Have you seen either one?”
“I saw your mother
three days ago,” Annie said.
“She said hello.
Then she looked at Fang.
She kept staring at him.
Then she took a
long piece of paper
out of her pocketbook
and wrote something down.
She said that Fang
would be tasty in lemon.
What did that mean?”
“You wouldn’t want to know,”
I said.
Sludge and I walked on.
“Maybe my mother is adding
Fang to her list of
tasty monsters,” I said.
“I can hardly wait to eat him.
But that does not
help us find my mother.”
Sludge turned around.
“Where are you going?” I asked.
Sludge led the way to Oliver’s house.
Oliver lives next door.
Oliver is a pest.
Oliver follows people.
Oliver follows animals.
Oliver follows the world.
Oliver was in his yard.
“Oliver,” I said.
“Did you follow my mother today?”
“Your mother went out today?”
Oliver said. “Oh, phooey, I missed her!
Your mother is a great follow.
She goes to good places.
Like the fish store.”
Oliver collects eels.
He likes anything fishy.
“Oliver,” I said, “did you
follow my mother this week?”
“Yes. Three days ago.
It was my favorite follow
of the month.”
“Where did she go?”
Oliver looked proud.
He opened a box.
He took out a card.
“I know who I follow
and when I follow them
and where they go,” he said.
“I have a card for everybody.
Let’s see.
NATE THE GREAT’S MOTHER.
Thursday. 2 P.M.
She spoke to Annie.
She looked at Fang.
She took a long piece of paper
out of her pocketbook.
She scribbled something on it.
It was probably her grocery list.
She went to
the supermarket next.
She looked at the paper.
Then she took a jar
of cinnamon from a shelf.
She stared at the jar.
She put it back.
She bought chocolate,
strawberries, and a lemon.”
“A lemon?” I said.
Was she really going to make
Lemon Fang Cookies?
“What happened next?” I asked.
“She went to the fish store,”
Oliver said. “She took more long papers
from her pocketbook,
looked at them, and bought
lots of fish.”
“Aha!” I said. “More long papers.
They could not be grocery lists.
They must have been recipes.
At the fish store for fish dishes.
At the supermarket
for Monster Cookies.
What did she do next?”
“I don’t know,” Oliver said.
“I had to go home
and feed my eels.”
“I must go to the fish store,” I said.
“I must follow you,” Oliver said.
“I know it,” I said.
Sludge and I walked
to the fish store.
Oliver followed us.
Rosamond and her four cats
were there.
Rosamond was buying tuna.
“Here,” she said
to the man behind the counter,
“is some paper to wrap my tuna in.
You wrapped my fish in it
two months ago.
But the other side hasn’t been used.
Just turn the paper over
and use the other side.”
The paper was stained,
rumpled, and crumpled.
And smelly.
The man made a face.
But he wrapped the tuna
in the paper.
“I recycle everything,”
Rosamond said. “But fish paper
is the best.”
I, Nate the Great,
was disgusted to hear that.
I went up to Rosamond.
I did not want to do that.
“Have you seen my mother?
Or her recipe for
Monster Cookies?” I asked.
Rosamond looked mad.
“I saw your mother
a few minutes ago.
She asked me if I
had seen her recipe.
Now you are asking me questions.
You always ask me questions.
From now on I will
charge you for my answers.”
Rosamond was strange.
Now I, Nate the Great, had
to be even stranger.
“Well, from now on,
I, Nate the Great,
will charge you
for my questions,” I said.
Rosamond shrugged.
“Okay, no charge,” she said.
“The answer is that I have not
seen your mother’s recipe.
And I don’t know
where she went
after I saw her.”
“For that you wanted money?” I said.
Rosamond hugged her tuna package.
“Well, when I answer your questions
I have to think hard,
I have to breathe harder,
my toes tingle,
my cats get hungry,
my …”
It was time to leave.
Sludge, Oliver, and I went outside.
Oliver took out a card
and scribbled something on it.
Hmmm.
It was just the way my mother
scribbled her short reci
pes
on her cards.
Sludge sniffed the card.
Was he thinking what I was thinking?
Sludge and I rushed home.
“We have solved the case,” I said.
I opened the front door.
We tripped.
“We’ll clean up soon,”
I said. “But first we
have to use our clues.
We know that my mother
had the recipe when she
went to the supermarket
three days ago.
She almost bought cinnamon there.
But she didn’t.
My mother really hates
Cinnamon Werewolves.
So she must have decided
not to bake them anymore.
And that meant she didn’t need
all those crossed-out werewolves!
I, Nate the Great, say that without them,
the Monster Cookies recipe
was short enough to write on a card.
So when my mother got home,
she copied the recipe
from the piece of paper
onto a card.
She threw out the paper.
Then she forgot that
the recipe is now on a card.”
I went to the pile of cards.
I thumbed through them fast.
I knew I would find
Monster Cookies.
Sludge wagged his tail.
He knew it too.
I looked once.
I looked twice.
I looked three times.
Sludge stopped wagging.
“The recipe is not
on a card,” I said.
“I should have known
that my mother knows
what she is looking for.
A long piece of paper.”
I opened a cupboard.
There was plenty of cinnamon.
My werewolves were safe.
“We have to keep looking
for my mother,” I said.
Sludge and I rushed to the door.
Thud! Bump! Thump!
We fell down.
“We will clean up
this place soon,” I said.
Sludge was tired of hearing that.
We sat there.
“It’s hard work being
a detective,” I said.
“I have to think about
what I am looking for
and who I am working for.
I am working for my mother.
I know that she does not lose things.
She puts things in the right place.