Trouble Takes the Cake, Page 2

  Tory stuck her tongue out at Nancy as she stormed off with her mother.

  “I didn’t have anything to do with that cake,” Nancy insisted.

  “We know you didn’t, Nancy,” Aunt Eloise said.

  Bess grabbed Nancy’s arm. “This is a real mystery, Nancy. Why don’t you try to solve it?” she asked.

  “Yeah, Nancy,” George said. “You did bring your notebook, right?”

  “Yes,” Nancy said. “But this isn’t River Heights. It’s New York City, the biggest city in the world.”

  “So what?” Bess said. “You’re the best detective in the world.”

  Nancy gave it a thought. Then she reached into her pocket and pulled out her blue detective notebook. “Okay,” she said. “I’ll give it a try.”

  “Way to go, Nancy!” George said.

  “We knew you’d do it!” Bess cheered.

  Nancy turned to Harriet. “I’d like to help you find the person who played that terrible trick.”

  “Harriet, I don’t think I ever told you that my niece solves mysteries,” Aunt Eloise said.

  Harriet shrugged. “No. But what’s one more surprise?” she asked.

  The busboys hurried to clean up the slimy mess.

  “Can we come back here tomorrow to look for clues?” Nancy asked Harriet and Aunt Eloise.

  Harriet nodded. “I could really use your help in getting to the bottom of this,” she said.

  “And I have some math tests to grade tomorrow,” Aunt Eloise said. “So it’s fine with me, too.”

  “Thanks, Aunt Eloise,” Nancy said.

  “I’ll bring you girls to the restaurant tomorrow morning as soon as it opens,” Aunt Eloise said.

  “Now, why don’t you all sit down and eat your lunch?” Harriet said. “I promise it won’t be filled with spiders or worms.”

  “Gross!” Nancy laughed.

  • • •

  The food was delicious, but Nancy was still hungry to solve the case.

  “I want to start writing a list of suspects tonight,” Nancy said.

  “I think the biggest suspect is Count Snackula,” George said. “Remember what he said about getting even with some cake?”

  “And that other monster said the count had a way with slime,” Bess added.

  “I know,” Nancy said. She wiped her mouth with her napkin. “But as my dad says, everyone is innocent until proven guilty.”

  Carson Drew was a lawyer and often helped Nancy with her cases.

  “Don’t plan to work too much tonight,” Aunt Eloise said. “Because we’re going to the top of the Empire State Building.”

  Nancy gasped. “That’s one of the tallest buildings in the world!”

  “And King Kong climbed it in the movies,” George added.

  “Uh-oh,” Bess said. “I’m afraid of heights and giant gorillas.”

  “What aren’t you afraid of, Bess?” George asked.

  Aunt Eloise put her napkin on the table. “If everyone is finished, I’d like to say goodbye to Harriet.”

  They went inside the dessert kitchen. Scott wasn’t there, but Harriet was busy rolling out cookie dough.

  While Aunt Eloise spoke to Harriet, Nancy looked around the kitchen for clues. Suddenly she saw something.

  “Bess, George!” Nancy called.

  “What’s up?” George asked as she and Bess ran over.

  Nancy pointed to the white tiled floor. “Look at those weird footprints.”

  There were three footprints near the oven. One was clearer than the others.

  George tilted her head. “They’re weird, all right,” she said slowly.

  Bess stepped back and gulped. “They don’t even look human!”

  4

  A Message to Nancy

  Those footprints look like some kind of paws,” Nancy said. She pointed to one of the prints. It had a few hairs stuck on top. “Fuzzy paws!”

  George glanced over at Harriet. “Harriet has normal feet,” she whispered.

  “So did Scott,” Bess said. “I think.”

  “Most of the people here wear costumes, remember?” Nancy asked.

  “Oh, yeah,” George said.

  “And the cakes come out of this oven,” Nancy said. “So if the footprints are near the oven—”

  “Then a hairy-footed monster might have baked the creepy cake,” Bess said.

  Nancy took her notebook out of her pocket. On a fresh page she wrote, “Mystery at Haunted Harriet’s.” Under that she wrote, “Clues.” And under that she wrote, “Fuzzy Pawprints.” Then she turned the page and wrote, “Suspects.”

  “I’m going to make a list of all the monsters who have hairy feet,” Nancy said. “Starting with King Kong.”

  “Don’t forget Bigfoot,” Bess said.

  “Or Jason Hutchings,” George said, laughing.

  Jason was a bratty boy in their third-grade class.

  “Jason’s feet aren’t hairy,” Bess joked. “Just smelly.”

  “Eew!” Nancy laughed. Then her eyes lit up. “Hey, I know!”

  “What?” Bess asked.

  “The werewolf!” Nancy said. “He had hairy claws and paws.”

  “Should we tell Harriet and your aunt Eloise?” Bess asked.

  “Not yet,” Nancy said. “I want to look for more clues first.”

  Aunt Eloise gave the girls permission to walk around the restaurant again.

  “Harriet?” Nancy asked as she and her friends were leaving the kitchen. “Does the werewolf ever come in here?”

  “The werewolf?” Harriet repeated. She shook her head. “No. I don’t allow hairy costumes in the kitchen.”

  Ah-ha! Nancy thought. If the werewolf isn’t allowed in the kitchen, then he was doing something sneaky!

  The girls ran straight to the piano. But the werewolf was gone.

  “Do you know where the werewolf went?” Nancy asked the Hunchback of Notre Dame.

  “No,” the hunchback said. “But perhaps he’s moonlighting. Mwah! Hah! Hah!”

  Nancy laughed and rolled her eyes.

  “But seriously, folks,” the hunchback said. “I did see the werewolf go downstairs to the basement.”

  “Thanks,” Nancy said as the hunchback limped away. She walked up to the piano and carefully pressed a key. Then she saw something that made her jaw drop.

  “Bess! George!” Nancy said. “There’s chocolate all over these piano keys. Do you know what that means?”

  George shrugged. “That the werewolf’s a slob?” she asked.

  “No,” Nancy said. “It means the werewolf might have baked the creepy chocolate cake.”

  “Are you going to question the werewolf, Nancy?” Bess asked.

  Nancy nodded. “Let’s go down to the basement right now,” she said.

  The girls searched until they found a staircase leading downstairs.

  “I don’t want to go down there,” Bess said. “It looks scary.”

  But Nancy and George were already halfway down.

  “Wait for meeee!” Bess called.

  At the bottom of the stairs was a big room. It was filled with dusty, spooky-looking things.

  “Look at those portraits against the wall,” George said. “The eyes look as if they’re moving.”

  “Quit it!” Bess squealed.

  “And look at that giant fake spider hanging from the ceiling,” Nancy said.

  George wiggled her fingers. “How do you know it’s fake?” she whispered.

  “I said, cut it out!” Bess wailed.

  The girls walked between mummy tombs and large stuffed grizzly bears. Just then Nancy heard a strange smacking noise. She felt her skin crawl.

  “Did you hear that?” Nancy whispered.

  Smack-smack!

  Bess and George nodded.

  Nancy slowly followed the noise.

  Smack-smack-smack!

  “It sounds as if it’s coming from there,” Nancy said. She pointed toward a row of gray tombstones.

  Smack-sma
ck-smack!

  “That one,” George whispered. She pointed to a tombstone that read: Violet Veggie. Rest in Peas.

  “I’m checking it out,” Nancy said. She moved slowly to the tombstone. But just as she was about to walk around it, something big and hairy popped up from behind!

  “Eeeek!” the girls screamed.

  Nancy covered her face with her hands.

  “Hey! What’s up?” the creature said.

  Nancy peeked out from between her fingers. It was the werewolf. And he had chocolate all over the gloves of his fuzzy costume.

  “What are you doing here?” Nancy asked. She stared at the smudged paws.

  The werewolf looked down at his paws and sighed. “Okay, okay. You caught me wolfing down the evidence.”

  “Did you say evidence?” Nancy gasped.

  The werewolf gave a big sigh. Then he pointed behind the tombstone. Nancy looked down and saw a pile of half-eaten chocolate brownies lying on a napkin.

  “I sneaked these brownies out of the dessert kitchen,” the werewolf confessed.

  “Why?” Nancy asked.

  “I have this craving for anything sweet,” the werewolf explained. “So I’ve been secretly snatching desserts. Strawberry tarts, lemon squares, chocolate eclairs. Anything I can get my paws on.”

  “But you’re not allowed in the kitchen,” Bess said. “You’re too hairy.”

  The werewolf nodded. “I always wait until Harriet and Scott are out of the kitchen. Today I sneaked in while they were giving the birthday cake to that girl.”

  “Do you know anything about that creepy cake?” Nancy asked.

  The werewolf shook his head. “Only that it was a big shame. How can anyone ruin a delicious chocolate cake like that?”

  Nancy decided that the werewolf was no longer a suspect. He was just a hairy guy with a big sweet tooth.

  “What you did was wrong, too,” Nancy told the werewolf.

  “I know, I know,” the werewolf said. Then his eyes looked frightened behind his fuzzy mask. “You girls aren’t going to tell Harriet, are you?”

  “Not if you promise never to do it again,” Nancy said.

  “It’s a deal,” the werewolf said. “As soon as I finish these brownies, I’m going to be a new wolf-man!” He held out his furry paw to shake. Nancy jumped back. It was full of sticky chocolate.

  “Whoops,” the werewolf said.

  As the girls walked toward the staircase, Nancy noticed a row of lockers against the wall. One had the name Sally written on it.

  “We’d better go back to your aunt, Nancy,” George said. “She’s probably waiting for us.”

  “You’re right,” Nancy agreed.

  The girls climbed the staircase. Then they walked through a long hall with mirrors on the wall.

  George stopped to look into a mirror. “Hey, that’s not my reflection.” She laughed. “It’s some dog’s!”

  Nancy looked over George’s shoulder. “That’s a hologram. It makes flat pictures look real.”

  Bess giggled as she looked into the next mirror. “My face looks like stretchy taffy,” she said. Then she looked worried. “I don’t really look like this, do I?”

  “No way!” Nancy laughed. But when she looked into the next mirror, she stopped laughing.

  Smeared on the glass in green slime were the words “Nancy, go home!”

  Nancy felt a shiver down her back.

  “Uh-oh,” she said. “I think this means me!”

  5

  Clues and Boos

  What a horrible message,” Bess said.

  Nancy stared at the green gook dripping down the mirror. “It looks like the slime that was in the creepy cake.”

  George ran her fingers through her dark curls. “So?” she asked.

  “So the person who wrote this message might be the same person who baked the cake,” Nancy said. “Who else would want me to go home?”

  Nancy took out her notebook and copied the message. Then she, Bess, and George went to join Aunt Eloise.

  They went straight to Aunt Eloise’s apartment to freshen up. Then they took a bus to the Empire State Building.

  “This is the longest elevator ride I’ve ever taken,” George said on their way up to the top.

  “Don’t remind me!” Bess groaned.

  When they reached the top, Nancy couldn’t believe her eyes. The observation deck wound all the way around the building. They could see a different part of New York City from each side.

  “Wow!” Bess said. “It’s too pretty up here to be afraid of heights.”

  Nancy agreed with Bess. The lights of the city twinkled all around them.

  “New York is even bigger than I thought,” Nancy said.

  “You bet,” Aunt Eloise said. “There are five boroughs—Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, and Staten Island.”

  “I can see three bridges from here,” George said.

  “You can even see the state of New Jersey across the Hudson River,” Aunt Eloise said.

  Nancy stared out at the sights.

  Somewhere out there is the baker of the creepy cake, she thought. And I’m going to find him or her.

  It got chilly, so the girls and Aunt Eloise went inside to the snack bar.

  Nancy, Bess, and George sat at a table while Aunt Eloise paid for the snacks.

  “Okay. Let’s get to work,” Nancy said. She opened her notebook and crossed the werewolf’s name from her list of suspects.

  “What other suspects do you have, Nancy?” Bess asked.

  George jabbed at the notebook. “Write down Count Snackula. He seems guilty to me.”

  Nancy wrote the count’s name in her notebook. “He’s a good suspect, but we still need more proof,” she said.

  “Who else, Nancy?” Bess asked.

  Nancy twirled her pen between her fingers. “How about Sally?” she asked.

  “Sally?” George asked. “You mean our waitress?”

  Nancy nodded. “Remember when Sally dropped that whole tray of chocolate sundaes?” she asked.

  Bess groaned. “How can we forget?”

  “Well, Sally was mad at Harriet for always yelling at her,” Nancy said.

  “Maybe she was mad enough to ruin Tory’s birthday cake,” George said. “So her mother would write bad things about Haunted Harriet’s in her magazine.”

  Nancy nodded. “I also saw Sally’s locker in the basement today. If she did bake the cake, then her locker might be full of all sorts of clues.”

  “Like leftover slime and rubber creepy crawlies,” George said. “And gushy fake eyeballs.”

  Nancy tapped her fingers on the table. “We can’t look inside Sally’s locker tomorrow, but we can look around it.”

  Aunt Eloise brought over a tray of hot chocolate and cookies. When they finished eating, they rode the elevator down.

  “That was neat,” George said. “What are we going to see now?”

  Bess yawned. “How about our beds? I’m sleepy.”

  “You girls did have a busy day today,” Aunt Eloise said.

  And it’s going to be even busier tomorrow, Nancy thought. We’ve got a mystery to solve!

  • • •

  Sunday morning couldn’t come fast enough for Nancy. After a yummy breakfast of bagels and cream cheese, Eloise took all three girls to Haunted Harriet’s.

  “Maybe we can have Boo Burgers later for lunch,” Bess said as they followed the hunchback to the dessert kitchen.

  “We’re here to work, Bess,” Nancy said. “Besides, we just had breakfast.”

  When they reached the kitchen, Harriet was there to greet them.

  “You can investigate the restaurant as long as you check in with me every half hour,” Harriet said.

  “We will,” Nancy promised. Just then she smelled something funny.

  Harriet must have smelled it, too, because she wrinkled her nose. “The muffins!” she cried.

  Scott ran to the oven and opened it. He pulled out a huge tray of blac
k, crusty muffins.

  “Scott, you burned our only batch of Monster Muffins,” Harriet said. “That’s not like you.”

  “S-s-sorry,” Scott said.

  Nancy felt bad for Scott.

  “Let’s go,” she whispered to Bess and George.

  They headed for the staircase leading to the basement. Sticking close together, they went downstairs.

  “Yuck!” Bess whispered as she stepped on a rubber rat. “This place is so creepy!”

  “The lockers are over there,” Nancy said. She pointed to a row of metal lockers against one of the walls.

  The girls walked over to Sally’s locker. There was no lock on the door.

  “It’s open!” Nancy said excitedly.

  “Go for it, Nancy,” George whispered.

  Nancy yanked the door open. Then she looked inside and gasped. There was something inside the locker—something wrapped in tattered white bandages.

  “What is it?” Bess asked.

  Nancy jumped back. “It’s, it’s—a mummy!” she cried.

  6

  Down for the Count

  M-m-maybe it’s Sally!” Bess cried.

  “Maybe Harriet did this to her for being so clumsy,” George said.

  “Let’s get out of here!” Nancy said. But just as she was about to slam the locker door shut, the mummy tumbled out.

  The girls shrieked as the mummy dropped on top of them. It was so heavy that they all fell to the ground in a heap.

  “What’s going on here?” came a voice.

  Nancy peeked out from under the mummy’s arm. She saw Sally, dressed in her Bride of Frankenstein costume.

  Nancy pointed up at the mummy. “Um . . . this was in your locker,” she said.

  Sally dragged the mummy off the girls. “Whose joke was this?” she asked.

  Suddenly a witch with a broom jumped out from behind a fake dead tree.

  “Surprise!” the witch cackled. “I see you found your mummy!”

  Bess hid behind Nancy.

  “Who’s that?” Nancy asked Sally.

  Sally smiled. “That’s my friend Maria, warts and all.”

  Maria turned to Sally.

  “I stuck Mister Mummy in your locker right after you put on your costume,” Maria explained. She shook her finger at Sally. “You always forget to lock your locker.”