The Ice Cream Scoop Read online

  IT’S ROTTEN!

  IT’S DISGUSTING!

  IT’S ICE CREAM?

  Nancy, Bess, and George have picked the perfect subject for their class science project: ice cream. The problem is, the teacher has added someone else to the team—a boy!

  What could be worse than that—a freezer full of melted ice cream? No chocolate? No vanilla? Just pineapple-papaya crush? The taste test turns into a triple-dip mystery as Nancy tries to save the best ice cream parlor in town!

  A Children’s Book-of-the-Month Club Selection

  ALADDIN PAPERBACKS

  A Ready-for-Chapters Book

  Simon & Schuster, New York

  Cover photography by Michel Le Grou at

  Media Photo Group

  Cover photo-illustration copyright © 1998

  by Joanie Schwarz

  Ages 6–9

  Kids.SimonandSchuster.com

  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  ALADDIN PAPERBACKS

  An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division

  1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

  www.SimonandSchuster.com

  Copyright © 1995 by Simon & Schuster, Inc.

  All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

  NANCY DREW and THE NANCY DREW NOTEBOOKS are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

  ALADDIN PAPERBACKS and colophon are trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

  Produced by Mega-Books of New York, Inc.

  The text of this book was set in Excelsior.

  First Aladdin Paperbacks edition September 2001

  First Minstrel Books edition May 1995

  ISBN-13: 978-0-671-87950-1

  ISBN-10: 0-671-87950-2

  ISBN-13: 978-1-4424-6762-0 (eBook)

  The

  Ice Cream Scoop

  At the ice cream parlor, Nancy, Bess, and George talked about their science report. Then the waitress brought Bess’s sundae to the table.

  Bess looked at the dish and smiled. It held one scoop of rich, golden brown peanut-butter-cup ice cream. Thick dark fudge with streaks of gooey marshmallow covered the top and ran down the sides.

  Bess lifted up a heaping spoonful.

  “Mmmm,” she murmured, closing her eyes. She placed the spoon in her mouth.

  Suddenly her eyes popped wide open. She gagged. She spit out the ice cream and shrieked, “I’ve been poisoned!”

  The Nancy Drew Notebooks

  # 1 The Slumber Party Secret

  # 2 The Lost Locket

  # 3 The Secret Santa

  # 4 Bad Day for Ballet

  # 5 The Soccer Shoe Clue

  # 6 The Ice Cream Scoop

  # 7 Trouble at Camp Treehouse

  # 8 The Best Detective

  # 9 The Thanksgiving Surprise

  #10 Not Nice on Ice

  #11 The Pen Pal Puzzle

  #12 The Puppy Problem

  #13 The Wedding Gift Goof

  #14 The Funny Face Fight

  #15 The Crazy Key Clue

  #16 The Ski Slope Mystery

  #17 Whose Pet Is Best?

  #18 The Stolen Unicorn

  #19 The Lemonade Raid

  #20 Hannah’s Secret

  #21 Princess on Parade

  #22 The Clue in the Glue

  #23 Alien in the Classroom

  #24 The Hidden Treasures

  #25 Dare at the Fair

  #26 The Lucky Horseshoes

  #27 Trouble Takes the Cake

  #28 Thrill on the Hill

  #29 Lights! Camera! Clues!

  #30 It’s No Joke!

  #31 The Fine-Feathered Mystery

  #32 The Black Velvet Mystery

  #33 The Gumdrop Ghost

  #34 Trash or Treasure?

  #35 Third-Grade Reporter

  #36 The Make-Believe Mystery

  #37 Dude Ranch Detective

  #38 Candy Is Dandy

  #39 The Chinese New Year Mystery

  #40 Dinosaur Alert!

  #41 Flower Power

  #42 Circus Act

  #43 The Walkie-talkie Mystery

  #44 The Purple Fingerprint

  #45 The Dashing Dog Mystery

  #46 The Snow Queen’s Surprise

  #47 The Crook Who Took the Book

  #48 The Crazy Carnival Case

  #49 The Sand Castle Mystery

  #50 The Scarytales Sleepover

  #51 The Old-Fashioned Mystery

  #52 Big Worry in Wonderland

  #53 Recipe for Trouble

  #54 The Stinky Cheese Surprise

  #55 The Day Camp Disaster

  #56 Turkey Trouble

  #57 The Carousel Mystery

  #58 The Dollhouse Mystery

  #59 The Bike Race Mystery

  #60 The Lighthouse Mystery

  #61 Space Case

  #62 The Secret in the Spooky Woods

  #63 Snowman Surprise

  #64 Bunny-Hop Hoax

  #65 Strike-Out Scare

  #66 Zoo Clue

  #67 The Singing Suspects

  Available from Simon & Schuster

  Contents

  Chapter 1: Sugar ’n’ Spice

  Chapter 2: The Double Dip

  Chapter 3: The Wrong Flavor

  Chapter 4: Two New Suspects

  Chapter 5: Pineapple-Papaya Crush

  Chapter 6: Chocolate Melt

  Chapter 7: Don’t Eat the Ice Cream

  Chapter 8: Nancy’s Fudge Berry Clue

  1

  Sugar ’n’ Spice

  Nancy Drew glanced around Ms. Spencer’s third-grade classroom. Suddenly she grinned. She leaned toward Bess Marvin’s desk and whispered two words. “Ice cream.”

  Bess’s eyes lit up. “Super idea!” she said. “Let’s ask Ms. Spencer.”

  Nancy raised her hand as high as she could. Ms. Spencer nodded at her.

  “May Bess, George, and I do our food report on ice cream?” Nancy asked. Bess Marvin and George Fayne—whose real name was Georgia—were Nancy’s best friends.

  Ms. Spencer didn’t answer right away. She had been telling the class about a new science project. The students had divided themselves into teams. Each team would choose a favorite food and find out exactly what was in it. Then the teams would report on how the food was made and what nutrition it provided. No junk food was allowed.

  Nancy held her breath. She really wanted to report on ice cream. Other teams had already picked tacos and pizza.

  Finally Ms. Spencer said, “Well, ice cream does provide some nutrition. So I think I’ll say yes.”

  George spun around in her seat and grinned at Nancy. “Way to go!” she whispered.

  “Wait a minute,” Ms. Spencer said. “We now have eight teams. Each team has three students, so that adds up to twenty-four. But there are twenty-five students in the class. Someone is missing from the list.”

  Jason Hutchings spoke up. “It’s Mike Minelli. He went to the dentist.”

  “You’re right,” Ms. Spencer said. “We’ll just add him to one of the teams. Does anyone know what he likes to eat?”

  “He’s an ice cream freak,” Jason said.

  “Uh-oh,” Bess said, scrunching up her nose. She whispered to Nancy, “We don’t want a boy on our team.”

  “No way!” Nancy said. She shook her head so hard that her long reddish blond hair swished back and forth.

  “Ice cream it is,” Ms. Spencer said. “We’ll add M
ike to that team.”

  “Phooey!” Bess muttered.

  Nancy opened her mouth to say something, but just then the bell rang.

  “That’s the end of the school week,” Ms. Spencer said. “I’ll see you on Monday. And don’t forget—food reports on Tuesday.”

  Nancy and Bess got their backpacks out of their cubbies. They waited for George outside the classroom.

  “What a bummer!” Bess blurted out as soon as George joined them. “We’d have so much more fun without Mike Minelli.”

  “I know,” George said. “But at least we get to report on food we love.”

  “But what will we do when he starts to act gross?” Bess asked.

  Nancy thought for a minute. Then she said, “I know what we should do right now. The three of us should start our research.”

  George didn’t look happy. “Do you mean spend Friday afternoon at the library?”

  Nancy laughed. “No, I mean ice cream research that’s really fun.”

  “Like eating ice cream!” Bess said.

  “Right,” Nancy said. “Let’s call home and ask permission.”

  The girls hurried to the public telephones in the school entry.

  “I’ll ask my mom if she can pick us up at Sugar ’n’ Spice,” George said as she looked for a coin in her backpack.

  Sugar ’n’ Spice was a small ice cream shop. It had been in the neighborhood since long before the girls were born.

  “Let’s not go to Sugar ’n’ Spice this time,” Bess said. “For a change, let’s go to the new place—the Double Dip.”

  “But Sugar ’n’ Spice has the best ice cream,” George said. “It’s homemade.”

  “The Double Dip is so cute,” said Bess. “It has those little tables and the striped awnings and matching chairs. There are more flavors at the Double Dip, too.”

  Nancy smiled. Sometimes it was hard to believe her two best friends were actually cousins. They were so different. George was tall with dark curly hair. She loved sports. Bess was shorter, had long blond hair, and liked clothes much more than outdoor games. And today the two girls even wanted to go to different ice cream places.

  “Let’s go to both,” Nancy suggested. “First, Sugar ’n’ Spice. Then we can try the Double Dip. They’re only two blocks apart.”

  “Sounds scrumptious,” Bess said.

  As soon as they had permission, the girls walked to Sugar ’n’ Spice. There were no other customers in the tiny shop when they arrived. The two wood tables, matching chairs, and big ceiling fan looked old-fashioned. But everything was scrubbed clean.

  The three friends put their backpacks on a table. Under the glass counter was the refrigerator case. It held just six large plastic buckets of ice cream: vanilla, chocolate, strawberry, peach, coffee, and fudge ripple.

  “Hi, Sid,” Nancy said to the man behind the counter. Sid Alden owned Sugar ’n’ Spice. With his white hair and big round belly, Nancy thought he looked just like Santa Claus without a beard.

  Sid winked at the girls. “Nancy, George, and Bess. I haven’t seen you in ages. It must be two days at least! Did you stop eating ice cream?”

  The girls laughed. Nancy and George peered inside the refrigerator case.

  “A chocolate cone for me,” George said.

  “I’ll get that while Miss Drew makes up her mind between strawberry and fudge ripple,” Sid said. “It won’t take her more than two hours.”

  Everyone laughed again, although Nancy’s cheeks turned pink. Strawberry and fudge ripple were her two favorite flavors. She always had trouble deciding which one to get.

  “Last time I had fudge ripple,” Nancy said. “So this time I’ll get strawberry.”

  “And what about you, Bess?” Sid asked as he handed George her cone. “Two scoops, peach and chocolate, on a sugar cone?”

  “Hmm,” Bess murmured, staring at the buckets of smooth ice cream inside the case. “That does sound yummy.” Without looking up, she finally sighed and said, “I still think I’ll get ice cream at the Double Dip today.”

  Bess kept staring at the buckets of ice cream. But Nancy noticed that Sid looked very angry. She had never seen him frown that way. He was holding her strawberry cone and glaring at Bess.

  Suddenly Sid whacked the ice cream scoop against the metal edge of the counter.

  “Why don’t you kids just pay for your cones and get out of my shop!” he snapped. “And don’t come back!”

  2

  The Double Dip

  Nancy couldn’t believe what she’d just heard. She glanced at Bess. Bess looked as though she was about to cry.

  “I’m sorry,” Sid said right away. “Really sorry! I didn’t mean that at all. You kids are terrific. It’s just that the Double Dip is driving me out of business.”

  Sid handed Nancy her ice cream cone.

  “Is Sugar ’n’ Spice closing?” George gasped.

  “I don’t think so,” someone said. The quiet voice came from behind Sid.

  It was Bobby Alden, Sid’s tall, thin grandson. He was fourteen and helped his grandfather after school almost every day.

  Bobby stepped into the shop from the back room and gave his grandfather a hug. “Don’t worry, Grandpa,” he said. “Nothing bad will happen to Sugar ’n’ Spice.”

  “I guess it’s hard for me not to worry,” Sid said. “Lots of people are going to the new place instead of coming here. There’s more room to sit down at the Double Dip. And they have those crazy new flavors and toppings that people like—the ones that are full of candy. Our ice cream is plain and simple, but we use healthy natural ingredients.”

  “Your homemade ice cream is the best,” Nancy said. Then she added, “We’re doing a school report on how ice cream is made.”

  “Would you like me to show you?” Sid asked. “I’m making a new batch of peach on Sunday morning. You can come by and watch.”

  “That would be great!” Nancy said.

  The girls paid for their ice cream and began walking up the street to the Double Dip.

  “Yummy!” George said, licking her cone.

  “Mmmm. Eeek!” Nancy yelped, trying to catch a drip that was running down her thumb.

  “It would be terrible if Sugar ’n’ Spice closed,” Bess said. “Even if I want to go to the Double Dip once in a while, I love Sugar ’n’ Spice.”

  Nancy nodded. “I wish both places could stay open.”

  “We could help,” Bess suggested. “By eating twice as much ice cream.”

  “Good idea. Eeek!” Nancy yelped again as she tried to catch another drip.

  George and Nancy finished their cones just as the girls got to the Double Dip. They stepped under the red, white, and green striped awning and opened the door.

  “Hi,” said a young woman with very short, curly brown hair. “Can I help you?”

  “I’d like a sundae,” Bess said.

  “Isn’t she pretty?” Nancy whispered to George. “She’s Cathy Perez, the owner.”

  “Just follow me,” Cathy said.

  She led the girls to one of the small wooden tables next to a large window. Four red geranium plants sat on the windowsill. There was a fresh red rose in a little glass vase on each table.

  “It’s so pretty here,” Bess said as she picked up the menu. “And I’m so hungry.”

  When the waiter came over, Bess ordered peanut-butter-cup ice cream with fudge sauce. “I’d better get the small size,” she said. “It’s before dinner.”

  “Oh, ick gross!” Nancy said.

  Bess looked surprised. “What’s wrong with peanut-butter-cup ice cream?” she asked.

  Nancy laughed. “I wasn’t talking about your ice cream,” she explained. “I was talking about my hands. That strawberry cone dripped a lot. Now my hands stick to everything I touch. I’d better wash them.”

  Nancy walked to the back of the restaurant, to a short hallway. On the right was the door to the women’s rest room.

  When Nancy came out of the rest room, she noticed
something. The door at the end of the hall was open.

  What’s in there? she wondered. She glanced around. No one was in sight. Just one little peek, Nancy thought. She quickly went to the door and stepped inside.

  The room was medium size. Two huge stainless-steel freezers stood along one wall. They made a humming sound. Large jars of ice cream toppings, bottles of candy sprinkles, and other supplies lined some shelves. Along another wall stood a work table. High above the table was a small, open window. Stacks of empty plastic ice cream buckets stood on the floor.

  It’s just the storage room, Nancy thought. On the other side of the storage room was the back door to the shop. It was open.

  Nancy turned to go, but her foot slipped. She stumbled against a stack of plastic buckets. They fell to the floor with a loud bang.

  “I’d better pick these up,” she said. But just as her fingers touched the plastic, someone behind her shouted, “Put those buckets down!”

  3

  The Wrong Flavor

  Nancy whirled around. Her heart was pounding. “I was just—” she started to say. But there was no one in the storage room.

  Outside the back door, someone stepped into view. It was Cathy Perez. She was arguing with someone else. “You can’t deliver that ice cream to my shop. I keep telling you—I didn’t order it.”

  Nancy moved closer to see what was going on. A tan truck from the River Heights Dairy stood outside. A man was taking buckets of ice cream out of the truck and putting them on a delivery cart.

  Cathy had her hands on her hips. “Ten buckets of pineapple–papaya crush ice cream? You’ve got to be kidding! That’s my worst-selling flavor. I have exactly one customer who orders it.”

  The delivery man finished loading the buckets onto the cart. “Look, Miss,” he said to Cathy. “I’m just doing my job. Here’s the order form. It says, ‘To the Double Dip.’ ”

  Cathy stared at the form. “I never ordered this flavor,” she insisted. “But the form does have my name on it.” She sighed. “Okay. Load the ice cream into my freezer.”

  The delivery man pushed the cart into the storage room.