The Day Camp Disaster Read online

  Max and Fiona passed out orange slices, apple slices, and other fruit slices to put in the butterfly feeders. Then the campers hung the feeders on tree branches.

  “Now we’ll just wait for the butterflies to come,” Fiona said cheerfully. “While we’re waiting, we have another superfun activity for you.”

  “We’re going to be planting sunflowers,” Max explained.

  Rebecca was standing next to Nancy. “Big deal,” Nancy heard Rebecca whisper to Jessie. “We have zillions and zillions of sunflowers in our garden at home.”

  The counselors handed out small shovels and plastic pots with small sunflower plants in them. They also handed out name tags to stick in the ground in front of the sunflowers. That way, the campers know which plants were theirs.

  Nancy checked out the sunflower Max handed her. It was so pretty. She liked the big yellow blossom with the dark brown center.

  She took one of the shovels and began digging a hole. The ground was still wet from yesterday’s rainstorm.

  “These sunflowers are going to be so happy,” Bess said.

  “Why?” Nancy asked her.

  “Because it’s so sunny outside today!” Bess replied. “Get it? They’re sunflowers, so they like the sun!”

  Nancy giggled.

  “Bess is right, actually,” Fiona remarked. “Sunflowers love the sun. In fact, the blossoms always point in the direction of the sun.”

  “That is so cool,” one of the Oak girls said.

  Nancy took her sunflower out of the plastic pot and put it into the hole she had dug. A little earthworm came scurrying out of the hole just as Nancy set the flower into it.

  George spotted the worm and picked it up with her hands. “Cute little guy,” she said.

  Bess made a face. “Ewwwwww!” she cried out.

  “Hey, give that back!”

  Nancy turned around. Harry was running away from the sunflower garden. He was carrying a bunch of small shovels in his arms. Rebecca was chasing him.

  “I said, give me back my shovel!” Rebecca shouted.

  Harry just laughed and shrieked and ran faster. Pell stopped her digging and went chasing after him. So did Max.

  “Hey, where did my shovel go?” Greg said suddenly.

  “I think Harry took yours, too,” Ned replied. He stood up and wiped his hand across his brow.

  Max, Rebecca, and Pell eventually caught up to Harry and made him return the shovels.

  Boy, that Harry is a troublemaker, Nancy thought.

  • • •

  “Who wants another chicken taco with extra cheese and salsa?” Hannah said.

  Nancy, George, and Bess raised their hands. “I do, I do!” they shouted all together.

  “I like my taco superspicy,” Bess said. She took a taco from Hannah.

  “Well, I like my taco super-super-spicy,” George said. She scooped an extra spoonful of salsa onto her taco.

  Nancy, Bess, and George were sitting next to one another at the Drews’ dining room table. Hannah was sitting on the other side.

  Nancy’s father, Carson Drew, was at the head of the table. He had blue eyes just like Nancy’s and dark brown hair.

  “How was camp today, Pudding Pie?” Mr. Drew asked Nancy. “Pudding Pie” was his special nickname for her.

  “We took a tour of the campgrounds,” Nancy began.

  “And we met a turtle named Bob and some bunnies named Mopsy and Chocolate and these squirrels named Mr. and Mrs. Fluffytail and Acorn and Baby Nut,” Bess went on.

  “We all got to plant our own sunflower and label it with our name,” George piped up. “And I picked up a worm with my hands—”

  “Oh, but we forgot to tell you the really, really bad news,” Bess interrupted. “We made these butterfly feeders—”

  “And someone wrecked them!” Nancy and George said at the same time.

  Mr. Drew held up his hands. “Whoa! You’re going way too fast for me.”

  “What’s this? Someone wrecked your butterfly feeders?” Hannah asked the girls.

  Nancy, Bess, and George all nodded. Then Nancy told her father and Hannah all about the butterfly feeders.

  When she was done talking, Mr. Drew said, “Hmm.”

  “Hmm what, Daddy?” Nancy asked him. Mr. Drew said “hmm” a lot. She figured it was because he was a lawyer. Lawyers were always thinking about things.

  “Hmm, I think this mystery calls for a really excellent detective,” Mr. Drew said with a smile. “And her name is Nancy Drew.” He added, “I think it’s time for you to start a new page in your detective notebook.”

  • • •

  On Wednesday morning Nancy remembered to pack her blue detective notebook and her favorite purple pen in her backpack. She wanted to start a new page later today. And she wanted Bess and George to help her.

  Mr. Drew dropped her off at camp and gave her a kiss on the cheek. “Have a great day, Pudding Pie!” he said. “I hope you solve the mystery of the broken butterfly feeders.”

  “I’ll do my best, Daddy,” Nancy replied.

  Nancy got out of the car and ran down the path to the lodge.

  But before she went inside, something caught her eye.

  One of the brown bunnies from the day before was hopping around the corner of the lodge. Then it disappeared out of sight.

  Nancy started to follow it. “Come here, Mopsy or Chocolate or whoever you are,” she called out.

  But the bunny was gone. It must have hopped into the bushes, Nancy thought.

  She turned around to head back to the main path. That’s when she saw a terrible sight.

  The garden where Nancy and the other campers had planted their sunflowers yesterday was a disaster. Someone had pulled all the sunflowers out of the ground!

  4

  On the Loose

  Nancy rushed over to the garden. She couldn’t believe it. The poor sunflowers were lying on the ground with their roots sticking out. They looked like they were dead!

  “Aha! We caught you! You are so busted!”

  Nancy whirled around. Rebecca was standing there with her hands on her hips. Jessie was standing behind her. Jessie was staring down at her own feet.

  “You wrecked the sunflowers, Nancy Drew!” Rebecca said accusingly. “I bet you wrecked the butterfly feeders, too!”

  Nancy glared at Rebecca. “I did not! The sunflowers were like this already!” she exclaimed.

  “Likely story,” Rebecca said.

  Just then, the front door of the lodge opened. Mr. Fish came out. He ran up to the three girls. “What is going on here? What happened to these flowers?” he demanded.

  “I—,” Nancy began.

  “She—,” Rebecca started at the same time. She pointed at Nancy.

  “This is what happened,” Nancy said in a really loud voice so Rebecca wouldn’t interrupt her. “My dad dropped me off on his way to work. I was about to go inside the lodge. But I saw a bunny and I followed it. That’s when I saw the poor flowers,” she explained.

  Rebecca rolled her eyes. Jessie coughed.

  Fortunately Mr. Fish seemed to believe Nancy’s story. “Let’s go inside and talk to the others. If I find out who’s responsible . . . ”

  Mr. Fish’s words trailed off. He looked really angry.

  Rebecca raised her hand in the air. “I’ll help you interview the suspects, Mr. Fish,” she offered. “Come on, Jess!” Rebecca and Jessie followed Mr. Fish into the lodge.

  Nancy started to follow them too; then she stopped. She had an idea.

  She walked over to the garden. She bent down and studied the sunflowers closely.

  All the plants had been pulled out of the ground—except for three of them.

  Nancy looked carefully at the name labels. The only sunflowers that hadn’t been dug up belonged to Greg and Jessie. And Rebecca.

  • • •

  “So who do you think did it?” Bess whispered to Nancy. “Who’s the creepy camper who wrecked the butterfly feeders and the sunflowe
rs?”

  It was two o’clock in the afternoon. Nancy, Bess, George, and the other campers were in the main lodge. The three girls had teamed up to work on their project for the day. They were busy making ant farms.

  All the Evergreens and Oaks had replanted the sunflowers in the morning, after Mr. Fish’s “big talk.” Mr. Fish had asked each and every camper if he or she had messed up the sunflowers. But no one knew what happened.

  Nancy poured some dirt into a clear plastic box. “I don’t know who the creepy camper is, Bess. But I have some suspects. I want to write them down in my notebook.”

  She wiped her dirty hands against her denim shorts. Then she reached into her backpack and pulled out her blue notebook and her purple pen.

  Nancy glanced around the room. Everyone was busy working on their ant farms. Max was helping Pell and Harry. Fiona was helping three of the Oaks.

  Nancy opened up her blue notebook and turned to a clean page. She figured it was okay to write in it for a minute or two.

  Bess and George peered over Nancy’s shoulder. Nancy picked up her purple pen and wrote:

  Mystery at Camp Northwoods

  Suspects:

  • Rebecca, because her sunflower didn’t get messed up. Plus she said she was bored with camp. She told Jessie she knew how to make things more interesting.

  • Jessie, because her sunflower didn’t get messed up either. Plus she might be helping Rebecca. Rebecca is her best friend.

  • Greg, because his sunflower didn’t get messed up either.

  “Why would Greg mess up our projects?” George asked Nancy.

  Nancy looked around. Greg and Ned were across the room. They were working on an ant farm together.

  “I’m not sure,” Nancy replied after a minute. “Maybe we should talk to him. Let’s see what we can find out.”

  Nancy and her friends waited until Max and Fiona called a ten-minute break. The counselors told the campers they could go outside and get some fresh air. Afterward they would finish the ant farms.

  Nancy and George followed Greg and Ned outside. Bess went off to check on her sunflower.

  “Hi, guys,” Nancy said to Greg and Ned. The two boys were hunting for sticks.

  Ned picked up a stick and looked up. “Hi, Nancy. Hi, George,” he said in a friendly voice.

  Greg bent down to pick up a stick. He grunted something. It sounded like a hello, but Nancy wasn’t sure.

  “What’s that?” Ned asked Nancy. He pointed to her blue notebook. It was tucked under her arm.

  “Oh, it’s just a notebook,” Nancy said quickly.

  “Nancy’s a detective,” George blurted out. “We’re trying to find out who messed up the sunflowers and the butterfly feeders.” She turned to Greg. “Do you know anything about it?”

  Greg glared at her. “Why would I know anything about it?” he demanded. “And what do you mean, she’s a detective?” he added, pointing at Nancy with his stick. “She’s in third grade!”

  “She knows a lot more about being a detective than you do!” George said.

  “Does not!”

  “Does too!”

  While Greg and George argued, Ned took Nancy by the arm and pulled her aside. “Why are you and George picking on Greg?” he whispered.

  “We’re not picking on Greg,” Nancy whispered back. “We just have to ask everyone questions. Besides, his sunflower wasn’t messed up. That makes him look a little bit guilty.”

  “Well, my butterfly feeder wasn’t messed up,” Ned said. “Does that mean you’re going to pick on me, too?”

  Nancy gulped. She had forgotten about Ned’s butterfly feeder.

  I guess I’d better add him to the suspect list too, she told herself.

  Which was too bad, because she thought Ned Nickerson was a really nice boy.

  • • •

  The next morning Nancy was one of the first ones at Camp Northwoods. Bess and a few other campers had gotten there before her.

  Bess took Nancy aside. “You’ll be super-proud of me,” Bess said with a grin. “I’ve already checked everything out. The butterfly feeders are A-okay. The sunflowers are A-okay. No one messed up anything!”

  “That’s really good news,” Nancy said.

  Bess nodded eagerly. “It is, isn’t it? Tuesday morning we found the broken butterfly feeders. Yesterday morning it was the sunflowers. I guess our creepy camper decided to quit while . . . while . . . oh no, something’s tickling me!”

  Bess burst into a fit of giggles. She bent down and swatted at her leg. “I wonder what that was?” she said, still giggling.

  Nancy bent down. There was an ant scurrying around the floor. “It was just an ant—,” Nancy began.

  But then Nancy noticed something. A bunch of ants were scurrying around the floor.

  Nancy looked up at the craft tables. She saw that some of the ant farms had been knocked over.

  Hundreds of ants were on the loose!

  5

  The Clue in the Logbook

  Okay, who did it?”

  Mr. Fish stood in front of the room with his arms crossed over his chest. Nancy, Bess, George, and the rest of the campers were sitting on the floor. Max and Fiona were busily laying a trail of cookie crumbs for the ants to follow out the door.

  Everyone was silent. Then Rebecca raised her hand.

  “Yes, Rebecca?” Mr. Fish said.

  “Maybe you should ask the person who found the ant farms all messed up,” Rebecca said. “I’ve seen detectives do that in movies.”

  Bess gasped. “That’s you, Nancy!” she whispered.

  “Thanks for the suggestion, Rebecca. Anybody else?” Mr. Fish said. He glanced around the room.

  Nancy heard the sound of someone giggling. She turned around. Harry was in the row behind her, cracking up.

  Pell elbowed her brother. “Shhhhhh.”

  Harry burst out laughing.

  “Would you like to tell the rest of us what’s so funny?” Mr. Fish asked Harry.

  Harry stopped giggling and shook his head. “N-n-no, sir,” he stammered.

  Mr. Fish frowned and turned to the other campers. “This is the third incident this week,” he said in a serious voice. “These pranks are going to have to stop. Or there will be serious consequences.”

  “What does that mean, ‘serious consequences’?” George whispered to Nancy.

  “I don’t know,” Nancy whispered back. “But it doesn’t sound good.”

  • • •

  “Check this out,” Nancy said to Bess and George.

  The girls were hanging out at the pond with the other campers, Fiona, and Max. They were looking for tadpoles and frogs in the water.

  Nancy reached into her shorts pocket. She pulled a short, light brown hair out of it very carefully.

  Bess stared at it. “What are you doing with my hair?” she asked curiously.

  “That’s not yours, silly. It’s way too short! Plus, it’s the wrong color,” George told her.

  “I found it next to one of the ant farms that got knocked down,” Nancy explained. “I kept it because I thought it might be a clue.”

  “You mean to the creepy camper?” Bess asked eagerly.

  Nancy nodded. “Exactly.”

  George glanced around. “Hmm. There are only a few people with that color hair. There’s Max, Harry, and those two girls from River Heights Elementary—”

  “I think their names are Savannah and Kimberly,” Bess said. “They’re in fifth grade. Savannah wears eye shadow!”

  “Purple eye shadow,” George added.

  “I just thought of something,” Nancy said suddenly.

  “About purple eye shadow?” Bess asked her.

  Nancy shook her head. “Nope. I just realized the creepy camper always messes up our projects at night.”

  “How do you know?” Bess said.

  “Well, maybe not exactly at night,” Nancy replied. “But we’re all here from eight to five every day, right?”

  George
poked a long stick into the pond. A dozen tadpoles wriggled out of the murky bottom and swam away.

  “So the creepy camper or whoever it is must be messing up our projects sometime between five P.M. when we leave and eight A.M.—when we arrive,” George said slowly.

  Nancy nodded. “Right! So we just have to figure out who’s been leaving after everyone-”

  “—or who’s been coming in first,” Bess added.

  Just then, Rebecca and Jessie walked by. Rebecca was carrying a clear jar full of cloudy-looking water. There were three tadpoles in it.

  “What are you guys talking about?” Rebecca asked Nancy and her friends.

  “Oh, nothing,” George said.

  “It’s private!” Bess said at the same time.

  Rebecca turned up her nose. “Hmpf! You’re probably just trying to figure out how to get Nancy out of trouble. Everytime something bad happens at Camp Northwoods, she’s right there.”

  Rebecca smiled meanly and walked away. Jessie followed her.

  “Rebecca is so weird,” Bess complained.

  “Forget about Rebecca. How are we going to figure out which campers get here first and leave last?” Nancy reminded her friends.

  George’s face lit up. “I know! There’s that logbook in the lodge. Either we or our parents have to sign in at drop-off and sign out at pick-up. We have to put down the exact time too.

  “Great idea, George,” Nancy said eagerly. “The logbook will tell us what time everyone’s been coming and going.”

  “Okay, so how do we check the logbook without anyone seeing us?” Bess said.

  The three girls swished their sticks in the water and thought very hard.

  • • •

  Nancy tiptoed quietly through the Camp Northwoods lodge. Outside, it was hot and humid. But inside the lodge, it was dark and cool.

  Mr. Fish, Max, Fiona, and all the other campers were outside having lunch. Nancy had told the counselors that she needed to use the girl’s rest room.

  But she didn’t really need to use the rest room. She wanted a chance to look at the logbook in private.