Nancy Clancy, Super Sleuth
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DEDICATION
For my superb mother-in-law, Marge O’Connor
—J.O’C.
For Aaron: alias, Mr. Dude
—R.P.G.: alias, A.O.
CONTENTS
COVER
TITLE PAGE
DEDICATION
CHAPTER 1: HARDLY A MYSTERY
CHAPTER 2: SNOOPING
CHAPTER 3: THE PLOT THICKENS
CHAPTER 4: MYSTERY MEMENTOS
CHAPTER 5: THE RETURN OF RHONDA
CHAPTER 6: CRIME SCENE
CHAPTER 7: HUNTING FOR CLUES
CHAPTER 8: FINGERPRINTS
CHAPTER 9: INNOCENT!
CHAPTER 10: SUSPECTS
CHAPTER 11: CONFESSION
CHAPTER 12: CRIME AND PUNISHMENT
CHAPTER 13: CASE CLOSED
CREDITS
COPYRIGHT
ABOUT THE PUBLISHER
CHAPTER
1
Nancy Clancy was all set to solve a mystery. She had a fancy magnifying glass complete with rhinestones. She had a spiral notepad and a flashlight. She had sunglasses, a hat with a floppy brim, and a pink trench coat. (A trench coat was the kind of raincoat that detectives wore.) She had superb detective skills. She was naturally nosy. So she was good at snooping. (Investigating was the professional word for snooping.)
Really the only thing Nancy was missing was a mystery.
“If only more criminals lived around here,” she said to her father. He was at the kitchen table reading the Sunday sports pages.
“What?” he said without looking up.
“Nobody ever gets kidnapped. I bet there’s never been a jewel heist.” Then, in case her dad didn’t know, Nancy added, “That means a jewel robbery.”
Nancy sighed. “I wish we lived someplace like River Heights.” That was where Nancy Drew lived. Nancy loved the Nancy Drew books. She had read five so far. “In River Heights, criminals are lurking around every corner.”
“Mmmmm. Sounds fun,” her dad murmured.
Nancy’s mother came into the kitchen. Nancy’s little sister trailed behind her. She had on blue flippers that made a slapping sound as she walked.
“Have either of you seen JoJo’s snorkel mask?” Nancy’s mom asked.
Nancy’s little sister hardly ever took off her snorkel mask or flippers. JoJo and her friend Freddy liked to pretend they were deep-sea divers searching for buried treasure.
Nancy’s mom poured herself coffee. “We’ve looked everywhere. It’s a mystery where it went.”
Mystery! Nancy just heard the magic word. Okay, so it wasn’t a big-deal mystery. But all great detectives had to start somewhere. She spread her arms. “Ta-da! Nancy Clancy, Super Sleuth, at your service.”
“Aw, honey.” Her mom smiled. “You’ll look for it?”
“Sure. My rates are very reasonable.” Nancy paused. “Only kidding. You’re family. So my services are free.”
Nancy went and slipped on her pink trench coat. It was important to dress like a professional. “JoJo, I just need to ask you a few questions,” she said, pulling the notepad from her pocket. “Trust me. We’ll get to the bottom of this.”
At that moment, Bree appeared at the back door. She was wearing a trench coat too. (Hers was purple.)
“JoJo left this at our house.” Bree was holding a snorkel mask.
“Thanks!” Nancy’s mom said. Then she turned to Nancy. “Sorry, sweetie.”
Nancy scowled. Her first case was closed before it even got opened.
“I have to pick up a book for my mother. It’s at the twins’ house,” Bree told Nancy. “Come with me.”
CHAPTER
2
The book for Bree’s mom was in the Polskys’ mailbox. Nancy and Bree were about to walk back home when Bree held a finger to her lips. “Shh. Listen.”
Nancy could hear the Polsky twins arguing in their backyard.
“No fair!” Wanda shouted. “I get to pitch now.”
“No! It’s still my turn!” Rhonda said.
“Is not!”
Rhonda and Wanda were a year younger than Nancy and Bree. They were both superb at sports and very nice—except to each other. They got into lots of fights. Not just yelling fights, but hitting fights.
“Let’s investigate!” Nancy said. She looked around. “The coast is clear!”
The girls dropped to their knees and crawled to the side of the twins’ house. They tiptoed along the wall, their backs pressed flat against it. Silent as cats, they stopped at the back porch and hid behind an outdoor grill. Neither twin had spotted them. It was like Nancy and Bree were invisible. They smiled and high-fived each other.
“Here comes my fastball.” Rhonda started spinning her arm around like a pinwheel.
“I quit.” Wanda threw down her mitt.
“I’m not playing anymore.” She started to stomp off.
Rhonda spun her arm around once more and let go of the ball.
Just in time, Wanda saw the ball whizzing right at her. She sprang forward to catch it.
Oops! She missed.
Double oops! She stumbled and landed facedown on the ground.
Ooh! That had to hurt! Nancy peeked over the top of the grill. “Wanda’s bleeding! She split her lip.”
“I can’t look.” Bree stayed hunched down. She hated the sight of blood.
Nancy watched Wanda pull herself up. She was crying. Blood was all over her mouth and chin. Her hands, too. Wanda looked like something out of a horror movie!
“You did that on purpose!” Wanda yelled at Rhonda. “I’m gonna get you back. I’m—I’m gonna tell Nancy what you did the other day!”
Rhonda froze for a second.
Nancy did too.
“You swore you wouldn’t tell!” Rhonda shouted.
“Tough. I’m telling Nancy.”
Nancy wanted to pop up from behind the grill and shout, “Tell me what?” But Bree grabbed her by the arm and yanked her down.
“We’re snooping, remember?” Bree hissed.
A moment later, the twins’ dad appeared on the back porch. He looked mad. “Are you two fighting again?” he said. Then he took each of them by the arm and marched them inside the house.
CHAPTER
3
“So? What is Rhonda scared I’ll find out? What secret has Wanda been keeping?” Nancy made her voice go soft and spooky. “It’s the secret of the twins.” She giggled. “Doesn’t it sound like a Nancy Drew mystery?”
The girls were in Nancy’s backyard at Sleuth Headquarters. When they grew up, they planned to open a detective agency together. It would be called Partners in Crime Fighting. They had made superb business cards already.
“Maybe Rhonda spread a mean rumor about you,” Bree said. “Like you smell or have cooties.”
“Rhonda’s my friend. What motive would she have?” Ooh la la! Nancy felt all tingly just saying the word “motive.” It meant the reason for doing something bad.
“W-e-l-l.” Bree drew the word out, like she was thinking really hard. “Maybe you did something mean to Rhonda and she’s paying you back.”
Nancy shook her head. “I didn’t do anything.”
“Maybe it’s something you don’t even realize you did. But it got Rhonda mad. Really mad.”
“And so now Rhonda is seeking revenge?” Nancy added.
Bree nodded.
Double ooh la la! Nancy’s eyes lit up. There was something thrilling about this idea. “Maybe she’s set up a booby trap to get me!” Nancy pictured Rhonda digging a deep hole in her yard and covering it with grass and branches. As soon as Nancy walked over it, she’d plunge into darkness. No one would hear her cries for help.
Suddenly Nancy heard her moth
er calling her.
“Nancy, are you in the clubhouse?”
Nancy stuck her head out. “Mom, I told you before. It’s not our clubhouse anymore. It’s Sleuth Headquarters.”
“Sorry. I forgot. Have you finished your paragraph for tomorrow?”
“Um, not exactly,” Nancy answered.
“Have you started it?”
“Um, not exactly.”
“Bree, I’m afraid you’ll have to go home, and Nancy”—Nancy’s mother pointed to the house—“get cracking!”
Nancy headed to her room. Nancy Drew was so lucky. She never had to drop a case because of homework.
Tomorrow Nancy and all the other kids in her class had to bring in something special. “A memento” was what her teacher, Mr. Dudeny, had called it. The memento couldn’t be a video game or a new pair of sneakers. A memento needed to be something personal, like a photo of a dead person in your family from long ago.
“Write a paragraph about what the memento means to you. But don’t sign your name,” Mr. Dudeny said. “Keep it a secret. We’ll have fun guessing who each memento belongs to.”
“Oh! So they’ll be mystery mementos,” Nancy said.
“Exactly,” Mr. Dude told her. “I’m bringing something too. Then on Tuesday all the mystery mementos will be on display for Family Day.”
Nancy planned to bring The Witch Tree Symbol, which was a Nancy Drew book. It was special because long ago it had belonged to Nancy’s neighbor, Mrs. DeVine. On the cover Nancy Drew looked different. Her clothes and hairdo were old-fashioned.
The only problem was that Nancy wanted her memento to be unique—something nobody else had. What if Bree’s mystery memento was the Nancy Drew book that Mrs. DeVine had given her? Bree had already written her paragraph days ago. She never left homework for the last minute.
So Nancy sent a message to Bree in their Top-Secret Special Delivery mailbox. It was a basket on a rope strung between Nancy’s bedroom window and Bree’s.
What is your memento? She wrote the message in secret code. Only the two of them knew it. They needed a secret code if one of them was ever in danger and had to send for help. Nancy rang a bell to let Bree know mail was coming. Then she pulled the rope until the basket reached Bree’s window.
Uqtta. Ot. F
vqnf wv pqv
vq vgnn.
—Bree
A few minutes later, a message came back. Bree’s was in secret code too. It took Nancy a while to understand it. (In secret-code talk that was called deciphering a message.)
Bree had written: Sorry. Mr. D told us not to tell.
THE SECRET CODE EXPOSED! (Shhhhhhh!!!)
A = C
B = D
C = E
D = F
E = G
F = H
G = I
H = J
I = K
J = L
K = M
L = N
M = O
N = P
O = Q
P = R
Q = S
R = T
S = U
T = V
U = W
V = X
W = Y
X = Z
Y = A
Z = B
Ooh, Bree could be exasperating sometimes!
Nancy thought about writing another message. But writing in code took so long. Of course, she could just pick up the phone or open the window and shout. Nancy would say, “Can you just tell me if you’re bringing a Nancy Drew book? I am only asking because I don’t want to bring in the same thing!”
But it wouldn’t do any good. Bree was obstinate—that meant stubborn. In the end, Nancy decided to bring in a sparkling chunk of rock that looked like gold. She wanted kids to have a hard time figuring out who it belonged to. So when she wrote her paragraph, Nancy disguised her handwriting.
This glittering rock is called pyrite. Another name for it is fool’s gold. That’s because it looks like genuine gold. Long ago in days of yore, miners would find a chunk and think they had struck it rich. The joke was on them. Pyrite is not worth a lot of money. But it is still magnificent. I chose this memento because it was a present from my best friend, Bree. She bought it in a gift shop at a famous science museum in New York City.
It was quite a superb paragraph, if Nancy did say so herself. She had used vivid, interesting words. Mr. Dudeny would like that. Then something caught Nancy’s eye. In one sentence there was a dead giveaway. Everyone would know Nancy had written it. Quickly she erased the words “my best friend, Bree.” Instead she wrote “an acquaintance of mine.”
Nancy put the rock and her paragraph in her backpack.
Not even five minutes later, the mail bell rang again.
Bree’s message said, I just saw the twins drive off with their parents. We can go back and snoop in their yard. Maybe we’ll find the booby trap!
Nancy grabbed her trench coat. Bree was already waiting for her on the sidewalk.
Bree whistled on the way over to the twins’ house. Whistling was a superb detective skill. It made it seem like they were just out for some fresh air. No one would ever suspect they were snooping.
At first glance, the twins’ yard looked the same as it had this morning—grass, trees, a swing set in back, lots of sports stuff everywhere. Nancy, however, was very observant. That meant she noticed stuff that other people didn’t. Noticing stuff was also a superb detective skill. It kind of made up for not being able to whistle.
What Nancy noticed now was a pile of branches near the swing set.
“Bree, look, a clue! I bet those branches are left over from when Rhonda made the booby trap!”
Bree clutched Nancy’s arm. “Oh! I’m getting chills!”
A couple of large leaf rakes were on the porch. “I have an idea,” Nancy said.
By pushing the rakes in front of them up and down the yard, the girls would spot the hidden trap before either of them fell into it. Unfortunately, the yard was pretty big. They hadn’t covered much ground when they heard a car. It was pulling into the twins’ driveway!
Bree and Nancy dropped the rakes and scrammed. They ran through the lilac bushes in between the twins’ house and Mrs. DeVine’s. They dashed across Mrs. DeVine’s yard, wiggled through the hedge that separated her yard from Nancy’s, and hid inside Headquarters.
Whew! That was a close call. But they were safe! They collapsed into the beanbag chairs.
“You really think there’s a booby trap?” Bree asked. She sounded doubtful now.
“More and more, I’m sure of it. We need to search that whole yard. But let’s sneak back under cover of darkness.” That meant at night but sounded way more dangerous. They’d have to use flashlights. There’d be spooky night noises. Nancy could picture it all!
“We’re not allowed out after dark,” Bree pointed out.
Nancy knew that. She just didn’t want to be reminded of it. Not right now. It was more fun picturing the two of them sneaking around in the dark.
Nancy sighed. It was awfully difficult to be a glamorous detective when your bedtime was eight thirty.
CHAPTER
4
The cowboy hat is Robert’s memento, Nancy wrote. She was filling in the blanks on her Mystery Memento sheet. Mr. Dudeny had handed a sheet to each kid. Then he said, “Go to it, Dudes.”
All the mystery mementos were on a table by the windows.
The cowboy hat was easy. Robert used to live in Texas.
The glass mouse is Bree’s memento, Nancy wrote.
Bree owned lots of tiny glass animals. She kept them on a special shelf in her room. See? I knew right away. You could have told me. Nancy didn’t say those words out loud. She just thought them. Nancy figured that sometimes she and Bree could read each other’s minds.
Two kids had brought in shells. One was white with brown specks. The other was white and purple. The white-and-brown shell is Clara’s memento, Nancy wrote. Clara had not disguised her handwriting.
The
paragraph for the other shell was typed. It said, I found this shell on a beach in Florida. We stayed at a hotel with three pools. My family had a suite. Suites are bigger and cost more than regular hotel rooms. I had the best time ever in Florida.
The white-and-purple shell had to belong to Grace. Grace bragged all the time about her trip to Florida.
“Hey! No fair, you’re peeking!” Nancy said. Grace was sneaking a look at her sheet.
“I’m not! I guessed yours already,” Grace said. “It’s the bead bracelet.”
“Maybe yes, maybe no.” Nancy smiled. Ha-ha! You are sadly mistaken. That’s fancy for wrong, wrong, wrong! Nancy didn’t say this out loud either. She was not friends with Grace. Grace would never be able to read her mind.
Nancy went around the table. Hmmm. Who did the snow globe with the Statue of Liberty belong to? And what about the shark teeth? Or the swim trophy from Sighing Pines Day Camp? Nancy was stumped. She stopped at a big deep-blue marble. Bree was looking at it too. Inside it was a white swirl. The marble was taped to the table so it wouldn’t fall off.
“Whose is it, you think?” Nancy said to Bree and Clara.
“It’s gorgeous,” Clara said. “That’s my favorite color blue.”
“I bet I know who it belongs to,” Grace said. “But I’m not telling.”
Nancy ignored her. “It looks like a precious jewel.” Nancy held up her hand and imagined the marble was a fancy ring on her finger. Then she read the paragraph.
My grandfather gave me this. He taught me how to play a game with marbles. It’s a lot of fun, and I got pretty good at it. When he was a boy, all his friends played the game together. But most kids today don’t know how. I can teach everybody the rules.