Space Case Read online

  Contents

  Chapter 1: Eye Spy

  Chapter 2: Thrills . . . and Chills!

  Chapter 3: Spilling the Beans

  Chapter 4: Snooper Blooper

  Chapter 5: Jar Too Far

  Chapter 6: Clue Out of the Blue

  Chapter 7: Crafty Confession

  Chapter 8: The Winner Is . . .

  1

  Eye Spy

  Go ahead, Bess,” eight-year-old Nancy Drew said. “Pick a star and make a wish!”

  It was Monday night. Nancy brushed her reddish-blonde bangs away from her eyes and stepped out of Bess’s way. Bess tilted the telescope out Nancy’s bedroom window toward the sky.

  “What should I wish for?” Bess asked.

  “How about a new bike? How about ice cream for dessert every day?” Nancy said to her best friend.

  Nancy’s other best friend, George Fayne, stood on her head against the wall. “I know!” she said. “Make a wish that you’ll win the Guess-the-Jelly-Beans contest!”

  “Good idea!” Nancy said.

  Earlier that day Nancy, Bess, and George had gone to McCormick’s Supermarket to guess the number of jelly beans in a big glass jar. The boy or girl who guessed the closest would win a week at Cosmic Kids Space Camp!

  Nancy, Bess, and George had studied the jelly beans in the jar. Then they each wrote their guess on a card and dropped it into a cardboard box decorated with stars.

  Nancy loved guessing games. Guessing was like solving a mystery. And Nancy was the best detective at Carl Sandberg Elementary School!

  “Starlight, star bright,” Bess wished out loud. “I wish that George or Nancy wins the jelly bean contest.”

  “How come you didn’t wish for yourself to win, Bess?” Nancy asked.

  “I don’t want to win!” Bess declared.

  Nancy was surprised. She thought everybody wanted to win. “Why not, Bess?” she asked.

  “I’m afraid of heights and aliens!” Bess explained. “How can I go to space camp if I’m afraid of heights and aliens?”

  George’s dark curls bounced as she flipped over and landed on her back. Bess and George were cousins, but they didn’t look alike or act alike.

  “Give me a break, Bess!” George groaned. “The winner wins a week at space camp. It’s where kids learn what it’s like to be an astronaut!”

  “And the winner gets to take along two friends,” Nancy said. “So if one of us wins, we all get to go!”

  Bess twirled her blonde ponytail between her fingers as she thought. She smiled and said, “Then I do wish we win!”

  “I wish we knew exactly how many jelly beans were in that jar!” George said.

  “Only Mr. McCormick knows for sure,” Nancy reminded her. “He said he secretly filled the jar with tropical-flavored jelly beans from his store.”

  George giggled. “At least they weren’t Smelly Jellies!” she said.

  “Smelly Jellies!” Bess squealed.

  “Ewww!” Nancy cried.

  Smelly Jellies were the yuckiest jelly beans. They came in flavors like boiled egg, sardine, and sour milk!

  “My turn!” George said. Bess stepped aside and George stood behind the telescope.

  “What do you see?” Bess asked as George looked through the silver tube.

  “Little green Martians!” George said. “And they’re waving to us!”

  “Martians?” Bess shrieked.

  “Just kidding!” George laughed.

  “Look for the Big Dipper,” Nancy told George. “It’s a bunch of stars that look like a pot with a handle.”

  George wasn’t looking at the sky anymore. She was pointing the telescope straight out the window, toward the neighbors’ houses.

  “Hey!” George exclaimed. “I can see into other houses with this thing.”

  Nancy gasped. George was snooping! “George, it’s not nice to snoop!” she scolded.

  “I know,” George admitted. “But I think I can see into Mike Minelli’s house.”

  Mike lived a couple blocks away from Nancy. He and his friends, Jason Hutchings and David Berger, were in the girls’ third grade class. They were also major pests!

  “What’s Mike doing now?” Bess asked.

  “Jason and David are in his room,” George said. “They look like they’re making piles of stuff on Mike’s bed.”

  “What stuff?” Nancy asked.

  “They look like . . . like . . .” George squinted her other eye. “Jelly beans!”

  “Jelly beans?” Bess asked.

  “Let me see.” Nancy looked through the telescope. The boys were making tiny piles of jelly beans. “What are they doing with all those jelly beans?”

  “The boys were at the supermarket today,” Bess said. “Maybe they saw the jelly-bean jar and got hungry for some.”

  “Some?” George cried. “It looks like they’ve got hundreds of jelly beans.”

  Nancy wasn’t sure why the boys had all those jelly beans. But she was sure of one thing: It wasn’t nice to snoop!

  “Let’s look at the stars, not people,” Nancy suggested. “That’s why my dad put the telescope in my room.”

  “Yeah,” Bess agreed. “And who wants to look at the boys anyway?”

  Bess stood behind the telescope and tilted it toward the sky.

  “Wowee, zowee!” she said. “How many stars do you think are in the sky, Nancy?”

  Nancy gazed out the window. There seemed to be a million stars twinkling in the night sky. Maybe even a gazillion!

  “All I know is this,” Nancy said. “There are a lot more stars in the sky than all the jelly beans in the world!”

  • • •

  Tuesday morning Nancy woke up and glanced at her clock. It was 8:30 A.M. She usually woke up at seven-thirty when she had to go to school. But it was the middle of July and the middle of summer vacation!

  Nancy washed up and got dressed, putting on her red shorts, white T-shirt, and sneakers. She ran downstairs to the kitchen. Her dad had already gone to work. Hannah was placing a fresh plate of muffins on the table.

  Hannah Gruen was the Drews’ housekeeper. She had been living with them since Nancy was three years old.

  “Okay, guessing champ,” Hannah said. “How many blueberries are in your muffin?”

  Nancy studied the muffin on her plate. “Hmm,” she said. “How about ten?”

  “There’s only one way to find out,” Hannah said with a smile. “Eat it!”

  The muffin was yummy. And Nancy counted nine blueberries. Pretty close!

  After breakfast Hannah gave Nancy permission to buy a box of her favorite Popsicle at McCormick’s Supermarket. Nancy called Bess and George to join her. They planned to meet at 10:00 A.M. on Main Street.

  “The contest is still going on,” Nancy said as they walked into McCormick’s. “More kids probably came to guess today.”

  The first person Nancy saw in the supermarket was a woman wheeling a shopping cart. Her shiny brown hair was tied in the back with a white bow. She was wearing a sleeveless yellow dress and white sandals.

  “Hello, girls,” the woman said softly. “Today I’m making photo albums out of bread slices. Won’t that be fun?”

  The woman smiled and wheeled her cart to the bread shelf.

  “Isn’t that Crafty Cathy?” George whispered. “The lady on TV who makes stuff out of food?”

  Nancy thought the woman looked familiar! “Hannah watches Cathy’s show all the time,” she said. “Once she made a ring-toss game out of stale doughnuts.”

  Bess shook her head. “Doesn’t Cathy ever eat the food?” she asked.

  The girls walked through the supermarket. Nancy saw a bunch of kids gathered around Mr. McCormick. Their friend Katie Zaleski was there. Katie’s parrot, Lester, was perched on h
er shoulder.

  The kids looked worried.

  “What’s going on, Katie?” Nancy asked as they walked over.

  “It’s awful!” Katie said. “The jelly-bean jar for the contest is missing!”

  Missing?

  Nancy turned to look for the jelly-bean jar. The table it had been standing on yesterday was empty—except for the starry cardboard box!

  “Mr. McCormick said that when he opened the store this morning the jar was already gone,” Katie explained.

  “A goner! A goner!” Lester screeched. “Arrrk!”

  Nancy, Bess, and George squeezed through the crowd to Mr. McCormick. He was wearing a white smock—and a big frown.

  “I’m sorry, kids!” Mr. McCormick was saying. “But if the jelly-bean thief doesn’t come forward by tomorrow afternoon, the contest will be called off!”

  “Called off?” Nancy gasped. She looked at Bess and George. “It can’t be!”

  2

  Thrills . . . and Chills!

  But I have to go to space camp!” Orson Wong cried. “I’ve been practicing eating freeze-dried astronaut food for a week!”

  “My father bought me a junior space suit for camp!” Brenda Carlton complained. “And a whole set of antigravity tennis balls!”

  Orson and Brenda were also in Nancy’s third-grade class. Orson could be a little pesty sometimes. And Brenda could be a little nasty lots of the time!

  “There’s nothing I can do, kids.” Mr. McCormick said. Then he walked away.

  “Great.” Katie groaned. “If I won, I was going to take Lester to space camp. So he could be the first parrot in space!” Katie heaved a sad sigh. Then she carried Lester out of the store.

  Nancy couldn’t imagine who would steal the jelly beans . . . . Until she remembered what she saw through her telescope last night. She waved Bess and George over to the side.

  “The boys had all those jelly beans in Mike’s room. Remember?” Nancy whispered.

  “Yeah!” George said. “And it looked like they were counting them, too!”

  Nancy nodded. “Maybe the boys stole the jar so they could count the jelly beans and win the contest,” she said.

  “How could they sneak such a huge jar out of the store?” Bess asked.

  Just then a teenage boy walked by. He was wearing the same white smock that everybody who worked at the supermarket had to wear.

  “Hey,” Nancy whispered. “Doesn’t Mike Minelli have a cousin who works here?”

  Bess nodded. “I think his name is Freddy . . . or Teddy—”

  “Eddie!” George cut in. “Mike’s cousin’s name is Eddie.”

  “Maybe Eddie stole the jar for the boys,” Nancy said.

  “That’s it!” George said. “Let’s find Mr. McCormick and tell him what we think!”

  The girls started to run. But when Nancy remembered her telescope, she screeched to a stop!

  “Wait!” Nancy said. “If we tell Mr. McCormick what we saw last night, he’ll know we were snooping!”

  “So?” George asked.

  “So I’m a detective, not a snoop!” Nancy said. “Before we accuse the boys of stealing the jar, we need more clues.”

  “Clues?” Bess asked. She gave a little excited jump. “Does that mean you’re solving another mystery, Nancy?”

  Nancy nodded. “But let’s keep what we know about the boys a secret for now.”

  The girls went back to the crowd of kids. They were still talking about the missing jelly-bean jar.

  “We might as well forget about the contest,” Orson told the others. “We’ll never know who stole the jelly-bean jar.”

  Bess stuck out her chin. “Yes, we will,” she said. “Nancy already knows who stole the jelly beans!”

  “Bess!” George hissed. “You weren’t supposed to tell!”

  Bess clapped her hand over her mouth. But it was too late. The kids were already surrounding Nancy!

  “Who did it, Nancy?” Brenda demanded.

  “I don’t know for sure,” Nancy insisted. “I need more clues.”

  “Clues, schmues!” Orson complained. “We want the thief and we want him now!”

  Brenda stepped closer to Nancy. “If you do find the thief, Nancy,” she said, “I’ll write in my newspaper that you saved the Guess-the-Jelly-Beans contest.”

  Nancy knew all about Brenda’s newspaper. It was called the Carlton News. She wrote it with her computer every month.

  “What if I don’t find the thief, Brenda?” Nancy asked.

  Brenda shrugged. “Then I’ll write that you let down all the kids in River Heights,” she said.

  Brenda flipped her long hair. The other kids smiled at Nancy as they followed Brenda out of the supermarket.

  “Great,” Nancy muttered. “Now I really have to solve this case. Or else!”

  Nancy pulled her blue detective notebook from her waist pack. Nancy carried it wherever she went so that she could write down all the suspects and clues of a mystery she was solving.

  The girls started by searching around the table where the jar was last seen. The first things Nancy found were black marks on the floor. They looked like tire tracks.

  “Maybe the thief wheeled the jelly-bean jar away,” Nancy decided.

  She opened her notebook. On a fresh page she wrote, “wheel tracks.” On the next page she drew a partial map of the store.

  “The table is right next to the candy shelf,” Nancy said as she drew. “And very near the doors.”

  “Nancy!” George whispered. “There’s Mike’s cousin Eddie!”

  Nancy looked up. A teenage boy with dark hair was wheeling a cart to the back of the store. It was filled with boxes. He wore a thick parka and blue jeans.

  “How do you know that boy is Eddie?” Nancy whispered.

  George cupped her hands around her mouth. “Hey, Eddie!” she shouted at the boy. “Where are the frozen pizzas?”

  “Aisle five!” the boy shouted back.

  George smiled. “Does that answer your question?” she asked.

  Eddie stopped to unload his cart. Nancy wondered, Did Eddie use the cart to wheel away the jelly-bean jar?

  “Why is Eddie bundled up like that?” Bess asked. “It’s the summer!”

  “Maybe he works in the freezer room,” Nancy said. “It’s always cold in there.”

  “Then we should check out the freezer room,” George said. “If Eddie works there, he might have left some clues.”

  “No way am I going inside the freezer!” Bess said. “It’s too cold in there!”

  “Okay,” George said with a shrug. “But I’ll bet that’s where Mr. McCormick keeps all the ice cream and Popsicles.”

  “Ice cream? Popsicles?” Bess asked with wide eyes. She smiled and said, “Let’s go!”

  The girls ran to the freezer room at the back of the supermarket. First they made sure no one was looking. Then Nancy turned the handle on the big steel door. The door was heavy, but it swung open.

  “Brr!” Nancy said as they stepped inside. “It’s colder than I thought!”

  “And I don’t see any ice cream or Popsicles either!” Bess said.

  “Forget the ice-cream and Popsicles,” George said with a shiver. “Let’s look for clues before we turn into kid-sicles!”

  Nancy could see her cloudy breath as they searched the room. There were shiny steel freezers against the walls. In the middle of the room was a long table.

  A white smock lay across the table. The name Eddie was stitched on the pocket.

  “Eddie’s smock!” Nancy said. She picked it up. A small piece of paper fell out of the pocket.

  “Maybe it’s a clue,” Nancy said, picking it up. But when she tried to read it she frowned. “It’s written backward!”

  “Now we’ll never know what it says,” Bess said through chattering teeth.

  “Yes, we will,” George said. “I saw a trick in a detective movie once. All we have to do is hold the note up to a mirror, and the words will appear the right wa
y!”

  There were no mirrors around, so Nancy held the note up to a shiny freezer. Looking at the reflection, she read it out loud: “Eddie, thanks for the jelly beans. From Mike, Jason, and David.”

  “Ohmigosh!” Bess cried.

  “Eddie did get the jelly beans for the boys!” George exclaimed.

  Nancy heard a noise outside the freezer room. She shoved the note back into the smock. “Let’s get out of here,” she said. “Before Eddie gets back.”

  The girls raced to the door. Nancy pushed the handle down. This time the heavy door didn’t open!

  “Give it a push!” George said.

  Nancy, Bess, and George pushed as hard as they could on the door. But it didn’t even budge.

  Nancy’s teeth began to chatter. She felt colder than she’d ever felt on the coldest winter day.

  “I h-h-hate to say it,” Nancy stammered. “But I th-think we’re t-t-trapped!”

  3

  Spilling the Beans

  Trapped?” Bess cried. She had goosebumps all over her arms and legs. George’s lips were turning blue!

  “Maybe Eddie locked us in here,” George said, rubbing her arms. “As some kind of warning to us!”

  “What are we going to do now?” Bess asked, jumping up and down.

  “There’s only one thing to do,” Nancy said. She pounded on the door and shouted, “Heeeelp!!”

  Nancy, Bess, and George all pounded on the door. Suddenly it swung wide open and they flew outside!

  “Hey!” a voice demanded. “What were you girls doing in there?”

  Nancy whirled around. Holding the freezer door open was Eddie Minelli!

  “We were looking for the jelly-bean jar!” Nancy said, her teeth still chattering. “What do you know about it?”

  Eddie smirked. “I know that it’s missing,” he said with a chuckle.

  Nancy was about to ask Eddie about the note when Mr. McCormick called, “Eddie! This customer wants those frozen flounders!”

  “Okay, Mr. McCormick!” Eddie called back. He looked at the girls and said, “And don’t go back in there. The door sometimes freezes shut.”

  “Now he tells us,” George muttered.

  Nancy watched as Eddie walked into the freezer room and shut the door.