“You’ll find me where pigs roll around,
and where rain meets dirt.
You’ll find me on the ground—
just don’t get me on your shirt!”
“Where pigs roll around?” asked Frank.
“Pigs are dirty,” said Lolly. “But the answer can’t be dirt, because the clue says that it’s dirt mixed with rain.”
The group thought for a minute.
“Wait,” said Phil. “I think I know the answer!”
“You can’t look it up on your phone,” said Frank. “That’s cheating.”
“I didn’t look it up,” Phil said. “But I know that dirt and water make mud—that must be it!”
“Mud?” asked Lolly, sticking out her tongue. “Gross!”
Joe nodded, stifling his laugh—girls were so weird sometimes. “Pigs like to roll around in mud, and I know my aunt Gertrude hates when I get mud on my shirt.”
“But where will we find mud around here?” asked Phil, tapping his phone. He looked at the screen and then back to his teammates. “According to the weather forecast, it hasn’t rained in over three weeks.”
Frank nodded. “And the only way to make mud is with water and dirt.”
Joe kicked at the ground, uncovering layer after layer of dry-as-dust dirt. “Nothing,” he said. “Does anyone else have any ideas?”
“It wouldn’t matter where in the park we went,” said Frank, unfolding a map of Bear Park that each team had been given. “If it hasn’t rained and there are no lakes or streams—which, according to the map, there aren’t—all the dirt would be the same.”
Suddenly Lolly gasped. “I’ve got it!” she exclaimed, taking her backpack off her back and unzipping it.
Joe gave Frank and Phil a quizzical look.
Lolly produced a thermos from her backpack.
“There’s mud in your thermos?” asked Phil.
“No, silly!” Lolly’s curls dazzled in the sunlight. “My mom and I made SugarSugar Punch last weekend. All we had to do was mix the flavored powder with water.”
“What does that have to do with mud?” asked Frank with a serious look on his face.
Lolly unscrewed the top of the thermos and poured the punch on the ground next to the nearby picnic table, on top of a patch of dirt. She used a stick to mix the dirt and the SugarSugar Punch together. The result was a thick brown sludge.
“She made mud!” said Phil.
“Of course!” said Frank. “The SugarSugar Punch is made from water, and water and dirt make mud!”
“Hey, Frank,” said Joe. “Think fast!” Quick as lightning, Joe scooped up a handful of mud and flicked it at his brother. It landed on Frank’s forehead with a splat.
At first Frank froze. But soon enough he was laughing so hard tears were rolling down his face. He retaliated by throwing a handful of mud at Phil and one at Joe.
Laughing hysterically and not wanting the only girl member of their group to feel left out, Phil smeared some mud on Lolly Sugarman’s cheek. She was laughing with the rest of her team, until . . .
“My hoodie!” Lolly hollered.
A quarter-size splotch of sugar-mud had fallen from Lolly’s cheek onto her soft pink hoodie.
“I’m sorry, Lolly,” said Phil. “It was an accident!”
“My mom’s going to be so mad,” she said, chin quivering. “This is a brand-new hoodie!”
“Hey, just like the clue said!” laughed Joe.
Lolly glared at him.
“Or not,” he said weakly.
Frank tried to reason with her. “Lolly, what if you tried washing it off in the restroom? Our aunt Gertrude takes stains out by running our clothes under the water faucet sometimes.”
After a couple more chin quivers from Lolly, the boys convinced her to go back to the cabin’s restroom and try to the get mud out of her hoodie. But after nearly ten minutes, they were starting to get worried. What was taking so long? They wanted to open the next clue, but according to Ranger Bo’s scavenger hunt rules, they all had to read and solve the clue together, or it didn’t count.
“She’s taking forever!” complained Joe. “What, did she fall in?”
Finally Frank, Joe, and Phil decided to follow Lolly into the cabin. After all, the other teams had probably caught up to them, so they couldn’t afford to waste more time. “She must be in here somewhere,” said Frank, pushing open the door to the visitors’ cabin.
But all three of them stopped short, their mouths open wide in shock.
Because there, on the table where the piñata had once sat, were now only a few shreds of yellow paper—the prize piñata was missing!
Chapter 4
A CRIME AGAINST CANDY
“What happened to the candy?” Joe Hardy exclaimed. He and the others ran over to the table.
“Someone stole the piñata!” said Phil. He combed his fingers through the scraps of yellow tissue paper and little pieces that used to be the fake bumble bees attached to the hive. “I wonder what happened?”
Just then Adam Ackerman came from another part of the cabin into the main room. He wore his usual smirk, as well as a ring of dark chocolate smudged all around his lips.
“What did you losers do to my prize?” he asked. Then, upon getting a closer look at the mess on the table, he shouted, “It’s gone!”
“As if you didn’t know!” said Phil pointedly. “You had your hands on that piñata the second you saw it!”
Adam laughed. “Are you crazy?” he asked. “Does it look like I have your stupid beehive?”
“No,” admitted Frank. “But it does look like you’ve eaten quite a bit of candy—which is what was inside the piñata.”
Adam looked genuinely stumped. “I’m sick of your stupid detective club always blaming me for everything,” he said.
“If you didn’t eat the piñata candy,” said Joe, pointing back at the table, “then what’s with the chocolate mustache?”
Adam’s eyes widened. He wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. “Fine,” he said at last. “Ranger Bo caught me eating a chocolate bar while we were out in the woods. He made me come back to the cabin to get rid of it before it attracted any animals.”
“It doesn’t look like you got rid of it,” Frank said, eyeing the chocolate still on Adam’s face.
“He said I had to get rid of it,” Adam grumbled. “He didn’t say that I couldn’t get rid of it in my mouth.”
The restroom door slammed, and Lolly Sugarman walked out. Her pink sweatshirt still had a brown spot on it, but it was a little faded now. And wet.
“What happened?” She ran to the table and saw the few shreds of confetti, all that remained of the piñata. “My beautiful piñata full of delicious candy!” she moaned.
“Oh boy,” said Joe, under his breath. “This isn’t going to be pretty.”
Phil explained to Lolly what had happened in the past few minutes.
“Did you see anything when you first came in, Lolly?” asked Frank. He pulled the notebook out of his pocket, along with a pen.
Lolly shook her head. “No,” she said. “The piñata was still here when I walked in. I remember admiring it.” She tightened her grip on her backpack.
Frank and Joe exchanged glances. Lolly was acting sort of strange—like she was uncomfortable about something.
“Was Adam here when you came in?” Joe asked.
“No, no one else was here. I noticed the back door to the cabin was open, so I thought someone might be inside—but when I called out, there was no one there. After that, I closed the door and went into the restroom to try to get the mud out.” She frowned at her sweatshirt.
“See?” said Adam, scowling. “I got here five minutes before you three did. You dummies are barking up the wrong tree! Again!”
“I still say Ackerman did it,” said Phil. “He’s acting suspicious.”
Frank looked at the first page of his new detective’s notebook. It had only one word written on it, the one he’d written earl
ier that morning after his dad had told him about that jewel heist.
Proof!
They couldn’t accuse Adam of stealing the piñata without better proof.
“Let’s think this through,” said Frank. “Lolly got here first, which we know because the cabin was empty when she came in. And by the time we came in, Adam was here.”
“Duh,” said Adam, crossing his arms over his chest.
“The piñata was still here when Lolly went into the restroom,” Joe said, picking up where his brother left off. “But when we came into cabin, it was gone. Plus, Adam was here.”
“If I stole the piñata,” said Adam, “then where is it? And where is the candy?” He pulled his pants pockets inside out, showing everyone they were empty.
“You could have eaten it all,” said Phil. “And then thrown away the piñata part.”
“No, Adam’s right,” Lolly sighed. “In my professional candy-eating opinion, five minutes is not enough time for anyone to have eaten a whole piñata full of candy. Not even me.”
Phil looked disappointed, but he didn’t say anything.
“I guess we better tell Ranger Bo,” said Frank.
After they told Ranger Bo and Heather what had happened, the two rangers convened the rest of the teams inside the cabin and made an announcement—or tried to. The students were so upset over the missing scavenger hunt prize that groans and whispers were spreading around the room quickly. Finally Ms. Potter had Heather blow her whistle, and everyone quieted down.
“Everything will go on as scheduled,” said Ranger Bo.
“But what will the winner get now that there’s no piñata?” asked Cissy.
“The adults will find a new prize while you kids go back to your scavenger hunt,” said Bo. He patted his pockets, as though looking for something he couldn’t find.
“You gave them to me for safekeeping, remember?” Heather dangled a set of keys in front of Bo’s eyes.
He put a palm to his forehead. “I forgot!”
“Why don’t you let me go to the store?” said Heather eagerly.
Ranger Bo looked at her like he wanted to say something, but stopped himself. Then he said, “I’ll figure something out. You go ahead and help with the scavenger hunt.”
“Suit yourself.” She shrugged. But Bo was still looking at her suspiciously when everyone else began looking for clues again.
“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Joe asked Frank.
Frank nodded. “It looks like Team Hardy has a new case to solve!”
Chapter 5
SWORD FIGHT!
After the rest of the kids had gone back outside to resume their scavenger hunt, Frank and Joe huddled up. While they huddled up, Heather was off in the corner, typing furiously on her phone.
“Let’s try to get the facts down,” said Frank, opening his notebook.
Joe nodded. “We’ve got our what. Now we just have to figure out the who, when, where, and why.”
Frank scribbled the first W into their notebook, followed by the rest of the Ws:
“What are you guys doing?” Lolly asked, leaning over the notebook.
“Solving a mystery,” Joe said. “These are the five Ws.” He pointed to the page in front of them. “It’s how we solve our cases.”
“You mean you’ve solved mysteries before?” she asked.
“Tons of them!” Phil told her.
“Would you like to help us solve this one?” Frank asked Lolly. “We can use all the help we can get!”
“That sounds like fun . . . ,” she said, trailing off. She looked out the window at the other teams, which were hard at work on the scavenger hunt. It looked like Adam, Cissy, Seth, and Tony were already starting their search for Clue #3.
“Are you worried that we’ll miss the rest of the scavenger hunt?” Frank asked Lolly. He knew how much she’d been looking forward to the prize candy.
She nodded, looking down at her feet. “Not that it matters who wins anymore.”
Frank nudged his brother and put the detective’s notebook back in his pocket.
“C’mon,” Joe said. “We can do the scavenger hunt and try to solve the mystery at the same time.”
“Really?” asked Lolly, her blue eyes brightening.
“Really!” said Frank. “Besides, Ranger Bo said he was getting us a new prize.”
“Even if it’s not candy.” Lolly sighed.
“Who cares?” Phil said. “As long as we beat Adam Ackerman!”
Frank, Joe, Lolly, and Phil went back outside and opened their third clue.
Nearby, Elisa Locke was jumping out of the way while Chet Morton poured his water bottle onto the dirt near her pretty black boots. If they hurried, they could still catch up!
Phil and the others all read the clue:
____s and stones
will break our bones.
To hit the bull’s-eye,
I’m shaped like a Y.
Lolly placed a finger on her chin. “My sister used to say that when I’d call her names.”
“What?” Joe asked.
“Sticks and stones will break my bones, but words will never hurt me.”
“So we’re looking for a stick?” said Phil.
“Not just any stick,” whispered Frank. He leaned into his teammates so none of the other teams would hear. “We need to find a Y-shaped stick!”
“Everyone else is in the woods,” observed Joe. “Maybe we should look for our stick over there, near the park benches. There are trees over there, too—I’ll bet a bunch of sticks have fallen on the ground underneath them.”
He pointed toward a circular space in the middle of the park, where a few park benches formed a semicircle. He was right; there were trees all around the benches, shading them from the bright spring sunshine.
When they got there, everyone got down on their hands and knees and started looking for a stick in the shape of a Y.
As they searched, they talked some more about what Joe had named the Case of the Scavenger Hunt Heist, and Frank jotted down notes in his notebook.
“What about the where?” Joe asked. “We know that one.”
“True,” Frank said, winding his way around the dirt path to the woods. “The candy and piñata were taken from the visitors’ cabin.”
“We can keep looking while you write that down,” Lolly offered helpfully.
“Thanks!” Frank said, scribbling in his notebook. While he was writing, he held the paper in place so the balmy spring wind wouldn’t turn the page.
Where: Bear Park visitors’ cabin
“Now all we need are the when, the why, and the who,” he told the others.
“We know the when, don’t we?” asked Joe. He was on his knees, sifting through a pile of twigs on the ground. Some of them were sort of wavy, but none of them looked exactly like a Y.
“It was after I went inside to get the stain off my shirt,” said Lolly.
“And that was at eleven thirty,” said Phil. “I remember, because I checked my watch.”
Frank wrote 11:30 in his notebook.
“And ten minutes later, we followed her inside,” said Phil. He knelt down on the ground and brushed aside some leaves to see if there were any Y-shaped twigs hiding underneath them—no such luck.
“So the piñata had to have been stolen between eleven thirty and eleven forty,” said Frank, making another note.
“That’s not very much time,” said Joe, dusting some dirt off the knees of his jeans.
“That was a big piñata,” Lolly pointed out. “I wonder where it went that fast—and where the candy inside went.”
“That’s a good point.” Frank thought for a minute and looked back at that word he’d written in the notebook earlier that morning—Proof! If they found the candy, he bet that they’d find proof of who’d taken the piñata.
“It has to be close by,” said Joe. “The thief couldn’t have gotten far with it in just ten minutes.”
“Got it!” Phil shouted, poin
ting at a stick under a park bench.
But just as he picked it up, Seth Darnell and Tony Riccio knocked it out of his hands—with their own Y-shaped sticks!
“En garde!” shouted Tony, holding his stick like a sword.
Seth brandished his own stick like a sword too. “ ‘My name is Inigo Montoya,’ ” he said, quoting the movie The Princess Bride, which had one of Frank and Joe’s very favorite sword fights of any movie, ever. “Prepare to—ahhhhh!”
Joe came at Seth with a stick he’d broken off a nearby tree, and the two boys toppled to the ground, laughing.
Soon all the boys were having a mock sword fight.
“You guys!” moaned Cissy, standing beside Lolly with her hands folded over her chest. “Stop! We’re wasting time!”
“Yeah,” added Lolly. “Stop horsing around.”
“She’s right,” said Cissy. “We’ll never win if you keep playing sword fight.”
Adam charged Frank with his stick, but Frank ducked just in time. Adam ran right into the tree!
He got to his feet quickly, though, just in time to block Frank’s swipe.
“Stop!” Cissy repeated. She turned to Lolly. “Boys are so dumb sometimes.”
They watched as the boys continued to parry with the Y-shaped sticks.
“What should we do?” Cissy asked.
Lolly took a deep breath, then threw herself into the middle of the boys’ imaginary sword fight, holding out her palms as if to say Stop!
Phil, who had been running at Joe with his stick-sword, ran right into Lolly, knocking her—and her backpack—to the ground.
The second it hit the ground, Lolly’s backpack flew open—and heaps and heaps of candy spilled out like lava out of a volcano.
“Is that . . . ?” Phil blinked at the candy on the ground.
“A piñata’s worth of candy!” Frank said.
Chapter 6
OOEY CLUEY
Lolly pushed herself up off the ground. “Now my new sweatshirt has a mud spot and a grass stain.”
“Lolly,” said Joe, eyes widening. “Where did all that candy come from?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” Adam snatched the backpack out of Lolly’s grasp. “Lolly Sugarman stole the scavenger hunt prize!”
Scavenger Hunt Heist Page 2
