READ ALL THESE
NATE THE GREAT DETECTIVE STORIES
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 Denise 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 © 1998 by Marjorie Weinman Sharmat
Cover and interior illustrations copyright © 1998 by Marc Simont
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 in the United States by Delacorte Press in 1998.
Delacorte Press is a registered trademark and the colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.
* * *
Visit us on the Web! randomhouse.com/kids
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.
Trade paperback ISBN 978-0-385-32601-8 — Printbook ISBN 978-0-440-41381-3 — eBook ISBN: 978-0-385-37680-8
Book design by Trish Parcell
Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.
v3.1
For my dog, Dudley, who _ _ _ _ _ _* at the right time and gave me the solution to this case.
—M.W.S.
*ATTENTION, DETECTIVES!
WHAT IS THE MISSING WORD
IN THIS DEDICATION?
(The answer is somewhere in this book.)
Contents
Other Books by This Author
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter One: Happy Detective Day!
Chapter Two: Where Is Fang?
Chapter Three: Green Hair and Fluffy-Bunny Shoes
Chapter Four: A Red Herring
Chapter Five: Pancakes and Dripping Ice Cream
Chapter Six: The Real Clue
Extra Fun Activities
About the Authors
My name is Nate the Great.
I am a detective.
My dog, Sludge, is a detective too.
We have solved many cases.
Many, many, many cases.
Would you like to solve
a case with me?
Would you like to be
a detective too?
Good.
Because I have a case to solve.
Right now.
Before the ice cream in front of me
turns to mush.
Collapses.
Before I have to slurp
strawberry soup.
Are you ready?
Our case starts
when the ice cream
was young and healthy.
My doorbell rang.
I opened the door.
I saw a row of people and pets:
Rosamond and her four cats.
Oliver and his eels.
Finley and his rat.
Pip.
Esmeralda.
Claude.
Annie.
Annie’s brother, Harry.
“Surprise!” they yelled.
“Happy Detective Day!”
Rosamond spoke up.
“We are having a
detective party just for you.
Because you have solved
Rosamond was holding two big boxes.
“Look!” she said.
“A box of strawberry ice cream
and a box of tuna fish pancakes.”
“Tuna fish pancakes?” I said.
“I, Nate the Great, love pancakes,
but . . .”
“My cats, Super Hex, Big Hex,
Little Hex, and Plain Hex,
love these pancakes,” Rosamond said.
“And that is why
they should eat
all of them,” I said.
Rosamond stepped inside.
“We surprised you,” she said.
“You, the great detective,
didn’t have a clue
that we were coming.
Ha ha ha.”
Rosamond has a strange laugh.
That is no surprise.
Everyone was laughing.
Except Annie.
She looked sad.
“Fang wanted to come,” she said.
Annie is always with Fang.
“Where is Fang?” I asked.
“He ran away,” Annie said.
Rosamond nodded. “Now you have
a new case,” she said.
“Nate the Great Finds Fang.”
I, Nate the Great,
did not want to do that.
Fang’s teeth get bigger every day.
Esmeralda spoke up.
Esmeralda is wise.
“Nate can’t solve cases today.
This is his day off.”
“No problem,” I said.
“I will teach all of you
how to be a detective.
I will teach you how
to find Fang. Come in.”
I, Nate the Great, said to Annie,
“First you have to remember.
Remember if there was
anything different
about Fang today.
Any reason why he might run away.
Then remember where you last saw him.
Remember what he was doing.
Remember who was there.”
Annie said, “I got Fang ready
for the party.
I didn’t have time to give
him a bath.
So I feather-dusted him.”
“You feather-dusted him?”
“Yes. It makes his fur
nice and clean.”
“Very well,” I said.
“Fang is clean. What else?”
�
�Fang was going to do
a trick for your party,”
Annie said. “I have been
teaching him commands.”
“How?”
“I’ve got a rhyming book for dogs.
Each line is a new command.
The first is Do a trick.
The second line is
Lick, lick, lick.
Then there’s a new rhyme.
Stop and wait.
Go to the gate.
Then there’s another rhyme.
Go to the park
and—”
“Ho hum,” Rosamond said.
“My cats can do all sorts of tricks.”
“Well, Fang knows all the rhymes,”
Annie said. “But he mixes them up.
When I say the first line
he does the second.
Instead of tricks,
he licks, licks, licks.”
Annie grinned.
“But I solved that problem.
I just say the second line.
Lick, lick, lick.
And then Fang does the trick!”
“Good thinking,” I said.
“Yes,” Annie said. “And it
works for all the rhymes.
Like gate and wait and—”
“Ho hum again,” Finley said.
I looked at Annie.
“Where is the last place
you saw Fang?”
“Well, Harry, Fang, and I
were on our way to your house.
We were at the corner of
Dartmouth Street and Oakdale Street.
All of a sudden two tiny poodles
came up to Fang.
They started to bark.
Fang looked surprised.
I barked right back at them.
Bark! Bark! Bark!”
“Then what?” I asked.
“Then Fang ran off,” Annie said.
“He ran down Dartmouth Street.
We went after him,
but he was too fast.”
“Was he running after the poodles?”
I asked.
“No, they just stood there.
I think he was running away
from them.”
“Let me get this straight,”
I said. “Fang is ten times bigger,
stronger, and toothier
than two tiny poodles.
And he was afraid of them?”
“Yes,” Annie said.
I, Nate the Great, raised my voice.
“Has anybody else seen Fang?” I asked.
Rosamond spoke up.
“I am in charge of this case.
I am the head detective.
Direct your answers to me.”
Pip raised his hand.
Pip hardly ever says anything.
“I saw Fang,” he said.
“On the way over here.
On Dartmouth Street.
He was following a lady
in a green hat.”
“Following?” Oliver said.
“Good for him.
I believe in following.
I’ll follow anybody.”
I, Nate the Great,
already knew that.
Oliver is a pest.
But he learns things.
“Have you ever followed the lady
in the green hat?” I asked.
“Do you know where she lives?”
“I have followed her
from store to store,”
Oliver said. “But I don’t know
where she lives.”
“Has anybody else ever seen this
lady who wears a green hat?”
I asked.
“Yes,” said Finley.
“She wears a rose in her ear.”
“Her hair is green too,” Claude said.
“And her shoes look like fluffy bunnies.”
I said, “A rose in her ear?
Green hair?
Fluffy-bunny shoes?
This sounds very strange.”
Rosamond looked mad.
“It doesn’t sound strange to me,”
she said. “And this is my case.”
Oliver tapped me on the shoulder.
“I can help,” he said.
He pulled something from his pocket.
“Sometimes I take pictures
of people I follow,” he said.
“Here is the lady in the green hat.”
“I, Nate the Great, say that
this lady buys many things
and carries them around.
Like meat.
Maybe Fang smelled her meat.
Dogs can smell things at a distance.
Fang might be following
the smell of meat.”
“So if we find the lady,
we find Fang,” Annie said.
Rosamond clapped her hands.
“My case is almost solved.
We can start the party soon.
This ice cream
is beginning to melt.”
“I will put it in the freezer,” I said.
“No!” Rosamond said. “If you
keep it out of the freezer,
it means we must solve
this case soon.”
“I, Nate the Great, say it means
we will eat pink goo.”
Rosamond went into the kitchen,
put the box of ice cream
on the table,
and came back with pink fingers.
I said, “The lady in the green hat
could be a red herring.”
“A red herring?” Rosamond gasped.
“My cats love red herring.”
“No, not the kind you eat,”
I said. “It’s something that can
seem like a clue,
look like a clue,
feel like a clue,
smell like a clue,
but isn’t a clue.”
“So, what do we do?” Annie asked.
“I, Nate the Great, say
that we have talked enough.
Now it is time to go out
and look for Fang.”
“Look for Fang by himself,” I said.
“Look for Fang and
the green-hat lady.
Go to the corner of Dartmouth Street
and Oakdale Street.
Go down Dartmouth Street.
Walk the same streets
Annie, Harry, and Fang
walked before they reached
the corner of Dartmouth Street
and Oakdale Street.
Go to their house
and see if Fang went back home.”
“This will take forever,” Rosamond said.
“Split up,” I said.
“Decide who goes where.
And go in pairs.
So that you each have a helper.”
“A helper?” Pip asked.
This must have been
Pip’s big day for talking.
“Yes, it helps to have a helper.
I have a great one. Sludge.”
“Can we take him with us?” Annie asked.
“I, Nate the Great, need him here.”
“We’re off!” Rosamond said.
I made pancakes.
I gave Sludge a bone.
We ate and thought.
We knew that Fang was last seen
following the lady
in the green hat.
She could be carrying meat.
Fang could want that meat.
But what if she wasn’t
carrying meat?
What if Fang happened
to be behind her?
What if he wasn’t really
following her?
Maybe she was important to this case.
Maybe she wasn’t.
I knew that Fang
had to have a reason
to leave Annie and Harry.
I looked at Sludge.
Would he ever run off?
Maybe if somebody scared him.
But nobody scares Fang.
Fang scares everybody.
I was stuck.
“We are getting nowhere,”
I said to Sludge.
I wrote a note to my mother.
Sludge and I finished eating.
But now Sludge was licking.
Ice cream. It was dripping on him
from the table.
“You are supposed to be
helping me with this case,” I said.
Sludge always helps with my cases.
But now he was too busy licking.
Or maybe he was . . . helping!
Was Sludge trying to tell me something?
Yes!
Licking was a clue.
That was what Sludge thought.
And now, that was what I thought!
I wrote another note.
Sludge and I went out.
We knew where we were going.
We went there.
We found Fang.
He was asleep.
He woke up.
He was glad to see us.
We were glad to see him.
I, Nate the Great,
never thought
that I would ever say that.
Sludge, Fang, and I started
back to my house.
Everyone was waiting
at my house.
Everyone looked sad.
Sludge and I walked in.
Then Fang walked in behind us.
Annie yelled, “Fang!”
Annie and Harry
rushed toward Fang
and hugged him.
“My cats and I
could have found him,”
Rosamond said.
“I was born to be a detective.”
Annie looked at me.
“You were born to be
a detective,” she said.
“Where did you find Fang?”
“Sludge knew the big clue,” I said.
“The clue was the mixed-up rhymes.”
Annie looked puzzled.
“I, Nate the Great, say
that Fang must leave the room
while I explain this.