Judy Moody, Girl Detective

by Megan McDonald

  “Did you see a bad guy?”

  “Did you see a burglar?”

  “Did you see a bear?”

  “No, but I saw bad-guy burglar boot prints the size of a bear. Look.” She pointed to a patch of mud in front of the kennel door.

  “They’re probably just Officer Kopp’s footprints,” said Rocky.

  “Or a bad guy like Stumpy or Snorky,” said Judy.

  “But they’re gi-normous,” said Stink. “As big as four footprints put together. Give me your ruler so I can measure them.”

  “I don’t have a ruler,” said Judy.

  “That whole detective kit and no ruler?”

  “In The Witch Tree Symbol, Nancy Drew used her skirt as a ruler.”

  “Then give me your skirt.”

  “Hardee-har-har, Stink.”

  “No way are these footprints human,” said Frank.

  “Maybe Mr. Chips got eaten by a bear!” said Rocky.

  “Or a yeti!” said Stink.

  “The Abominable Snowman,” said Frank.

  “Get real,” said Judy.

  “There are more footprints over here,” said Stink. “These look more like sneakers.”

  “Stink, get a clue. Those are your prints,” said Judy.

  Frank pointed to something caught on the fence. “Judy. Over here!”

  “What have we here?” Judy asked. “A clump of fur!”

  “Could be from the dog,” said Agent Rock.

  “Or a yeti,” said Agent Pearl.

  “Move over. Let the Nose take a whiff.” Stink sniffed it and turned up his nose. “It’s dog hair, all right. PU! Smells worse than a yeti.”

  “When’s the last time you smelled a yeti?” Judy took out her tweezers and collected the dog-hair evidence in a plastic zip-top bag.

  “So do you think Mr. Chips brushed up against the fence when he was being dragged out by bad guys?” Frank asked.

  “Dognappers!” Judy whispered.

  “You think somebody stole Mr. Chips? For real?” asked Rocky.

  “Hello! Read the clues,” said Detective Judy. “One, Mr. Chips didn’t even get to finish his breakfast. Two, he can’t open the latch on the door himself. And three, bad-guy big-foot boot prints are everywhere.”

  “Burglars!” said Rocky.

  “Thieves!” said Frank.

  “Dog stealers!” said Stink.

  She, Eagle-Eye-Moody, had found one clue after another, just like Nancy Drew. She read the evidence. She was on her way to cracking the big case. All she had to do now was track down a couple of downright dirty dognappers with size sixteen stompers!

  The next morning, Judy was already hard at work on the case by the time Stink woke up. She sprawled on the floor with a rainbow of markers all around her.

  “What’re you doing to Officer Kopp’s flyers?” Stink asked.

  “Fixing them,” said Judy, coloring in blue eyes on the picture of Mr. Chips.

  Stink tilted his head, reading upside down. He was trying to figure out the words Judy had just added. “‘Have you seen this goo?’”

  “‘Have you seen this dog.’”

  “Oh. Your D looks like an O.”

  “Stink, a good detective can read backward and upside down.” Judy colored in a black letter R.

  “‘Drawer’?” Stink asked, squinching up his face.

  “‘Reward’!” said Judy. “We have to offer big bucks so that anyone who has seen Mr. Chips or has any information on his whereabouts will call the police. Rule Number One of being a good detective is don’t be afraid to ask for help.”

  “You mean Rule Number One Gazillion!” said Stink. “So, whoever finds Mr. Chips gets a reward, not a drawer?”

  “Yep.”

  “So if I find him,” Stink asked, “I get the money?”

  Judy ignored him. She wrote in $23.80.

  “Whoa,” said Stink. “Twenty-three dollars and eighty cents. That’s a lot of money. How’d you come up with $23.80?”

  “That’s all you had in your piggy bank, Stink.”

  “You broke my bank?” Stink ran into his room and grabbed his piggy bank. “That’s weird. My bank’s not broken. . . . And the lock is still on,” said Stink. He put the piggy bank up to his ear and shook it. Empty.

  “The Mystery of the Missing Money,” said Judy.

  “You picked the lock! With one of those Nancy Drew bobby pin thingies.”

  “You can’t prove it, Stink.”

  “No fair! You can’t just keep taking my stuff. First it was my president dollars, then my dino-bug pins. Now this. That’s called stealing. It makes you just as bad as Snarky, Snuffy, and Stingy — those Nancy Drew bad guys.”

  “For your information, it’s Snorky, Sniggs, and Stumpy.”

  “Whatever. It’s still my money.”

  “Well, you stole a whole bag of my gummy mice. Just think, Stink. If you find Mr. Chips, you can win back your money.”

  “But that money’s already mine! I shouldn’t have to win it back.”

  “It’s for a good cause,” Judy reminded him. “If you ask me, that lock was just asking to be picked.”

  “Give it!” said Stink, holding out his hand.

  “ROAR,” said Judy, handing over the money. Now she had to think of something else to offer as a reward. Something good. Something anybody would want a whole big bunch. She looked around her room at her collections. At last she had an idea.

  Before you could say Sign of the Twisted Candles, Judy and Stink, with tires full of air, were speeding on their way to Speedy Market to hang up flyers. Judy’s old turquoise bike wasn’t exactly a Nancy Drew blue roadster convertible. But the wind did whip her messy hair around, and the October sun warmed her cheeks.

  Judy and Stink met Rocky and Frank outside the market.

  “We already hit Fur and Fangs and Screamin’ Mimi’s,” said Frank.

  “And the bakery, the bowling alley, and the birthday party store,” said Rocky.

  “Rare!” said Judy.

  Inside Speedy Market, tons of people and a reporter and lights and cameras were crowded around, and the store manager was talking to some cop. Not just any cop. Officer Kopp!

  “I’m not kidding ya,” Mr. Keene, the manager, told Officer Kopp. “That little guy headed straight for the pet food aisle like nobody’s business. Crazy pup grabbed a bone worth $2.79. I yelled, ‘Drop it!’ Did he drop it? No, sirree. He ran right out the front door before anybody could catch him.”

  “Sorry about the bone, Mike,” said Officer Kopp. “I’ll pay you back.”

  “That’s one smart pup. How he knew which aisle had the dog treats . . .”

  “Is that all the suspect seems to have taken?” asked a lady reporter.

  “Suspect? He’s a dog, for crying out loud,” said Mr. Keene.

  “Did you get a look at the shoplifter?”

  “Yeah,” said Mr. Keene. “Brown and hairy.” He turned to Officer Kopp. “I guess you could say instead of taking a bite out of crime, he took a bite into crime.” When he laughed, his round belly shook where his shirt had popped a button.

  The reporter turned to the camera and spoke into her puffy microphone. “A thief remains at large after a daring heist in the pet food aisle of the local Speedy Market,” she said. “You might say the four-legged man’s best friend was too speedy for this market manager.” She fake-smiled at the camera. “Cut!”

  Judy followed Officer Kopp out of the store. “Do they think it was Mr. Chips?” she asked.

  “All anybody saw was a streak of brown and a tail, but it must have been him. Keep looking!” Officer Kopp called as he hopped into his black-and-white and headed out of the parking lot, lights flashing.

  Judy and her best chums (the Nancy Drew word for friends) searched all over the parking lot of Speedy Market — under cars, behind a tree, in the Dumpster. They asked every shopper they saw, “Did you happen to see a little brown puppy with big paws?” But the answer was always no. Until . . . a lady with funny
glasses pointed to the back corner of the parking lot. “Those guys in that van had a dog.”

  “Where? What van?” asked Judy, snapping her head around.

  “Was he brown?”

  “Was he cute?”

  “Was he Mr. Chips?”

  Just then, a dark green van peeled out, tearing through the parking lot, tires squealing. Judy and her friends jumped out of the way. The van swerved out of the parking lot without stopping. “Stop! Thief!” Judy yelled, but the van sped off down the street before she could make out the letters on the license plate.

  “Did you see that? It’s gotta be them — the bad-guy dognappers!” Judy was breathing fast and pointing down the street. “This is SO just like Nancy Drew mystery #1, The Secret of the Old Clock.”

  “How is this like some old clock?” Rocky asked.

  “C’mon, guys. You read the book.”

  “No, we didn’t,” all three boys said at the same time.

  “First of all, there’s a dark van. Second of all, there’s this girl named Judy. She’s trying to cross the street and she almost gets hit by a moving van and she falls off a bridge and Nancy Drew has to rescue her and it turns out the bad-guy jewel thieves stole an old clock and stuff.”

  “I thought you said the jewel thieves were in The Mystery of the Brass Bound Trunk,” said Stink.

  “And The Mystery at Lilac Inn and The Ghost of Blackwood Hall and —”

  “Wow, Nancy Drew must have more jewels than the queen of England!”

  “She doesn’t get to keep them, Stink.” Judy took out her notebook. “So, did anybody see anything? Like a license plate?”

  “The first three letters were K-G-B,” said Rocky.

  “K-F-C,” said Frank.

  “K-L-F,” said Stink. “Or E-L-F.”

  “Great,” said Judy, putting her pencil behind her ear. “So we know who took Mr. Chips. Some secret bad guys who eat chicken and look like elves.”

  “I think the one guy did have pointy ears,” said Stink.

  “ROAR,” said Judy. “What about the van? Did it say anything on it?”

  “Flush ’n’ Flo?” said Stink.

  “Push and Go,” said Rocky.

  “Flash and Glo,” said Frank.

  “Toilet emergency!” said Stink.

  “Stink, not now.”

  “It had the words Toilet Emergency on the side. I saw. For real. No lie.”

  “Stink’s right,” said Frank.

  Judy chewed on the end of her pencil. “Toilet emergency. Flush ’n’ Flo. So they must be like those guys that fix toilets and stuff. RARE!”

  “The super-bad guys are plumbers?” Frank asked.

  “That’s just their cover,” Judy explained. “Everybody knows that international jewel thieves can’t ride around in a van that says Jewel Thieves.”

  “The phone number was like 1-800-UN-DOG,” said Rocky.

  “‘UN-DOG’?” said Judy. “Are you sure it didn’t say ‘UN-CLOG’?”

  “1-800-UNDER-DOG!” said Stink.

  “Great,” said Judy. “Let’s all take an Underdog Super Energy Pill and find a phone booth and change into superheroes. Then we’ll find Mr. Chips.”

  “Hip, hip, hip, and away we go!” yelled Stink.

  “I know,” said Frank. “Let’s stake out the supermarket till they come back.”

  “Yeah, we know Mr. Chips is hungry, right?”

  “Yeah, ’cause why else would a cop dog steal a dog bone?” Frank said.

  “I can’t believe Mr. Chips is a shoplifter,” said Rocky.

  “I don’t think Mr. Chips is the thief,” said Judy. “I bet these guys are so bad, they’re not even feeding him, so poor Mr. Chips has to steal his own food!”

  “He’s still gonna have to arrest himself for breaking the law.” Frank cracked himself up. Rocky and Stink cracked up, too.

  “This isn’t helping us find Mr. Chips,” said Judy.

  “Rule Number One,” said Stink. “A good detective always keeps a sense of humor.”

  The rest of Saturday, and all day Sunday, Judy and her fellow junior detectives biked all over the neighborhood in search of a dark green van. They saw black vans, blue vans, brown vans, maroon vans, but not one single green van with Toilet Emergency written on its side and driven by chicken-eating guys with pointy ears.

  On Monday morning, she, Judy Moody, was in a mood. A why-can’t-I-solve-a-mystery mood. Then came a clue, when she least expected it.

  Judy was doodling paw prints with her Grouchy pencil through Mr. Todd’s talk about Healthy Habits when out of the blue, the principal came on the loudspeaker and said three magic words.

  “Girls and boys, I’m afraid we have a bit of toilet trouble in the third-fourth wing. We had an emergency this morning when a pipe burst and flooded the girls’ bathroom. The plumbers are here to fix the problem, but we ask that you use the bathrooms by the library until further notice.”

  Toilet! Emergency! Plumbers! Those three words were music to Judy’s ears. She craned her neck to look out into the parking lot. That’s when she saw it: a dark green van, parked right across from the entrance to the school!

  Judy took out her notebook and wrote SOS in red lipstick. She held it up for Frank and Rocky to see. Her hand shot up. “Mr. Todd, I have to go. Bad. And Rocky and Frank have to go, too.” The whole class cracked up. Frank turned beet-red. “To the bathroom, I mean.”

  Jessica Finch raised her hand. “Mayday! Mayday! I have to go, too.” Jessica Finch was just being a big fat copycat. What a Fink-Face.

  “Tell you what,” said Mr. Todd. “Let’s all take a quick bathroom break.”

  Eagle-Eye Moody was back on the case.

  Judy, Rocky, and Frank rushed out the door and down the hall. They did not head for the bathroom by the library. They headed straight for the girls’ room with the busted toilet. On their way, they ran smack-dab into Agent Stink.

  “Stink, the girls’ bathroom is broken and the bad-guy plumbers are here fixing it. No lie!” Judy told him.

  “Judy saw the van parked outside,” said Frank. “It’s green, just like the one at Speedy Market.”

  “Mr. Chips could be right here right now!” said Rocky.

  “This is big, Stink. And we only have five minutes. Be our lookout while we check out the bathroom.”

  “What? You can’t go in there. There might be exploding toilets! Or bad guys! They could tie you up. Or give you a major flushie or something.”

  “A flushie?” asked Judy.

  “That’s when they stick your head in the toilet . . . and flush!” Frank whispered.

  “Rule Number One, Stink: Don’t be afraid of flushies.” Judy reached in her pocket and pulled out her SOS lipstick. “If anything happens, I’ll write SOS on the mirror. Besides, I’ve got backup. Agent Rock and Agent Pearl are going in with me.”

  “I’m not going in the girls’ room,” Rocky and Frank said at the same time.

  “We’ve got to,” said Judy. “For Mr. Chips!”

  “Hurry up,” said Stink, glancing up and down the hall. “Just yell ‘Toilet paper’ if you get in trouble.”

  Judy ducked under the yellow DO NOT CROSS tape. Her heart beat in her throat as she tiptoed inside. Rocky and Frank followed close behind.

  “Hey, it’s pink!” Rocky whispered.

  “And the girls have soap,” said Frank.

  “Shh!” said Judy. The place was quiet. Too quiet. A door from one of the stalls leaned against the sink. “Who’s there?” she asked, holding her breath. She held out her Grouchy pencil for protection. She inched closer to the far end of the bathroom and poked her head around the corner of the last stall.

  “AAAGH!” screamed Judy. Rocky and Frank jumped back.

  “What! Nobody’s in here,” said Rocky.

  “I know. But I had a scream in me, all ready to come out.”

  “Toilet paper! Toilet paper!” Stink yelled, rushing into the girls’ room.

  “False alarm, Stink,�
� said Frank. “They’re not even here.”

  “No, but they were here,” said Judy, pointing to tools left on the floor.

  “Maybe they flushed themselves down the toilet!” said Stink.

  “Stink, you have flushies on the brain.”

  Frank picked up a piece of old pipe. “The plumber did it, with the pipe, in the pink room. It’s like that game, Clue.”

  “Maybe they’re phantom plumbers,” said Stink. “Like that phantom horse in Nancy Drew #5, The Secret of Shadow Ranch.”

  Judy blinked. “Nice work, Agent Stinkbug. How’d you know that?”

  “Um, you told me.” Judy shook her head. “I, um, might have seen it on Sophie of the Elves’s desk, and I might have just happened to take a peek.”

  “Phantom or not, they were here,” said Rocky. “And where there are fake plumbers with a green van, Mr. Chips can’t be far behind.”

  “For sure and absolute positive,” said Judy.

  “Check this out,” said Frank. He held up a piece of old rope. One end was tied in a knot, and the other was frayed. “Evidence!”

  Stink sniffed the rope. “It smells doggy, all right. The Nose knows.”

  “Poor Mr. Chips,” said Frank.

  “We’re getting warmer. I can feel it,” said Judy. “I’d bet my mood ring they keep Mr. Chips tied up with this rope while they fake like they’re fixing toilets.”

  “But where are they now?” Rocky asked.

  Judy twisted the SOS lipstick, her detective brain spinning round and round. “I’ve got it.” She snapped her fingers. “They left in a big fat hurry because they know we know.”

  “How do you know they know we know?” asked Frank.

  “I don’t know. Call it a Nancy Drew hunch. I just know they know we know.”

  “I know my head hurts,” said Stink.

  “We better hurry up and get outta here,” said Frank.

  “Before Fink-Face tattles on us,” said Judy.

  “It’s early dismissal today,” said Rocky, checking his watch. “Only twelve minutes before school’s out.”

  “Hey, you guys have soap in your bathroom? Pink soap?” Stink asked.

  “Since when is everyone I know such a clean freak?” Judy asked.