Buggy Breakout Read online

  “This is Edgar,” Michael D. said. “He’s a hissing cockroach. Hissing cockroaches are also called Madagascar hissing beetles. They are related to common cockroaches, but they’re nothing like them. For one thing, they’re very clean. For another thing, they don’t have wings. They originally came from Madagascar, which is an island off the coast of Africa. You can tell that Edgar is a boy because girls have smooth antennas, and boys have hairy antennas. See?”

  Everyone gathered around Michael D.’s desk and studied Edgar, who was perched on top of his small white cage. He was about two inches long, with a pill-shaped body that was black and brown. He had long, thin antennas with tiny hairs on them.

  “Can you pick him up?” Antonio asked Michael D. “Does he bite?”

  “Yes, you can pick him up. And no, he doesn’t bite.” Michael D. reached down and scooped Edgar up in his hand. Edgar hissed, then crawled quickly up Michael D.’s arm.

  “Ew!” several kids cried out, backing up.

  “No, no, he’s harmless,” said Michael D.

  “I think Edgar would be a lot happier living in Madagascar, where he belongs,” Carly said pointedly. Today, her “Free the Bugs!” T-shirt was sky blue.

  “Edgar didn’t come from Madagascar,” Michael D. explained. “He came from Elio’s Exotic Pets, downtown.”

  Carly rolled her eyes. “Whatever.”

  Everyone moved on to Sonia’s desk next. Her bug was perched on top of a small green cage. The cage had holes but no windows, so it was hard to see inside.

  “This is Princess Bess,” said Sonia. “She’s a bess beetle. Bess beetles have really strong teeth, because they like to chew wood. When they’re upset, or when they want to talk to other bess beetles, they make a squeaky sound by rubbing their wings together.“

  Nancy stepped forward to check Princess Bess out up close. She looked exactly like she did in her picture. Nancy noticed a few other details, though—like her big, fierce teeth and also some subtle golden fringe along her legs and the edges of her body.

  The class gathered around Michael L.’s desk next. Nancy noticed that his bug was still inside its cage, which was brown.

  “And this is the coolest bug in the entire Bug Club,” Michael L. announced. “His name is Dragon Breath. Dragon Breath is an assassin bug. Assassin bugs are super dangerous. That’s why Dragon Breath had to stay in his cage. He bites! And he eats other bugs. His favorite food is cockroaches!”

  He grinned meanly at Michael D. as he said this last part. Michael D. glared at him and quickly returned Edgar to his cage.

  “That’s great. Thank you, members of the Bug Club!” said Mrs. Ramirez brightly. “Now we’re going to be looking at—”

  “No, no, we’re not done yet!” Sonia interrupted. “We have another Bug Club member. Luna joined us yesterday. She has a bug to share too!”

  “Oh! Wonderful!” Mrs. Ramirez smiled expectantly at Luna.

  Luna reached into her bookbag and pulled out a small green cage. It was the same kind of cage as Sonia’s. She set it down on her desk and opened the cage door, and a long, light brown and green bug scurried out. “This is, um, my pet praying mantle,” she explained.

  Mrs. Ramirez frowned. “You mean … praying mantis?”

  Luna nodded. “Yes! That’s what I meant! This is my praying mantis!”

  She fell silent. She reached up and twirled her curly red hair.

  “So … what does your praying mantis eat?” Mrs. Ramirez prompted Luna.

  “Um … food?” said Luna.

  “I think they like to eat other bugs too,” Michael D. offered. “They’ll also eat tiny little pieces of raw meat.”

  “Ew,” Madison Foley said.

  “What’s his name?” George spoke up.

  “Um … Praying Mantis?” said Luna hesitantly.

  “Lame,” Michael L. muttered under his breath.

  As Nancy checked out Praying Mantis, she wondered why Luna had joined the Bug Club. She seemed even less interested in bugs than Michael L.!

  After lunch and recess, everyone went back to the classroom so they could continue with Bug Show-and-Tell. Mrs. Ramirez had told the students to come up with three observations about each bug.

  “Observations like, ‘Princess Bess has a really cute name’?” Bess said to Nancy and George as they headed to their desks.

  Nancy and George laughed. “Or maybe, ‘Princess Bess has really scary fangs, like a vampire,’” George joked.

  Bess made a face. “Ha ha.”

  “Oh, no!”

  Nancy turned around. Sonia was standing next to her desk, and she looked really upset.

  “What’s wrong, Sonia?” Nancy asked her.

  “It’s Princess Bess. She’s gone!” Sonia cried.

  Chapter Four

  Bugs on the Loose

  “What do you mean, Princess Bess is gone?” Nancy asked Sonia.

  Sonia pointed to her pet beetle’s green cage. “The door’s open. And she’s not inside!”

  “Maybe she crawled out,” George suggested.

  “How could that happen? I closed the door before lunch. I latched it too. I’m sure of it!” Sonia bent down and peered all around her desk. “Here, Princess Bess! Where are you, Princess Bess?”

  Mrs. Ramirez came up to the girls. “What’s going on?”

  Sonia explained quickly. Mrs. Ramirez listened, then cupped her hands over her mouth. “Boys and girls,” she called out. “Sonia’s pet beetle is missing. Please stay right where you are and don’t move an inch. Princess Bess might be crawling around on the floor, and I don’t want her getting stepped on. Very carefully, look all around you. Let me know right away if you see her.”

  Everyone started buzzing and whispering. Nancy did as Mrs. Ramirez said, searching for Princess Bess without moving her feet. She didn’t see any sign of the beetle.

  However, she did see something else … something small and crumpled up right next to Princess Bess’s cage. She picked it up and smoothed it out on the palm of her hand. It was a sticker of a black beetle, and it kind of looked like Princess Bess.

  Nancy wondered if it belonged to Sonia—or someone else. She put it in her pocket, thinking that it might be a clue.

  Nancy loved finding clues. She, George, and Bess belonged to a club of their own, called the Clue Crew. The Clue Crew solved mysteries, everything from tracking down missing chicks to catching an April Fools’ Day prankster. Whenever they were on a case, they looked for clues and kept track of them, both in Nancy’s special purple detective notebook and on her computer at home.

  “Hey, I found a bug!” exclaimed George suddenly.

  “Is it Princess Bess?” Sonia asked her eagerly.

  “Um … no. It’s … it’s a praying mantis,” George replied after a moment. She reached down on the floor and picked it up very gingerly. “Is this your praying mantis, Luna?”

  “I’m not sure.” Luna squinted at the insect in George’s hand. “They all kind of look the same to me.”

  “Is Praying Mantis still in his cage?” Bess asked Luna. “That’s the easiest way to figure it out.”

  Luna peered into the small green cage on her desk, opening the door a crack. “Um … no. So I guess that is Praying Mantis. Thanks for finding him, George!”

  “You’re welcome. Here, do you want me to put him back in his cage?” George offered.

  “No! He escaped before, so maybe there’s some-thing wrong with the cage. Like maybe it’s broken? I brought this other thing with me … let’s put him in there.” Luna reached into her bookbag and pulled out a plastic container. The lid had half a dozen holes for air. She took Praying Mantis from George and placed him inside the container. Then she tucked both the cage and the plastic container in her bookbag.

  “Maybe my cage is broken too,” Sonia said worriedly. “Maybe that’s how Princess Bess got out.” She ran her fingers over the cage door, checking for problems. “Hmm, I don’t know. It seems okay.”

  Everyone continued
searching for Princess Bess. Mrs. Ramirez said it was okay for people to move around, as long as they were careful and kept their eyes on the floor. But Princess Bess was nowhere to be found. She didn’t seem to be anywhere in the classroom.

  At one point a thought occurred to Nancy. What if someone had deliberately set the Bug Club members’ insects loose? That would mean Edgar and Dragon Breath might be missing too.

  “Hey, Michael D.? Michael L.? Are your bugs still in their cages?” Nancy called out to the boys.

  The Michaels checked their respective cages. “Edgar’s right here,” Michael D. replied after a moment. “And Dragon Breath is here,” Michael L. added.

  Nancy frowned. This meant that someone had set Princess Bess and Praying Mantis loose, but not Edgar and Dragon Breath. Or the first two bugs had gotten out by accident, but not the other two.

  “What do you think happened to Princess Bess?” George asked Nancy and Bess quietly.

  “I don’t know, but we’ve got to find her!” said Bess, pouting.

  Sonia approached the three girls. “Can I ask you something?” she whispered. “You guys have some sort of club, right? A detective club?”

  “The Clue Crew,” Nancy replied. “Why?”

  Sonia glanced over her shoulder. She nodded in the direction of Carly, who was sitting at her desk and scribbling in a notebook. “She’s the one who set Princess Bess free,” she declared firmly. “Can you guys arrest her and get my beetle back?”

  Chapter Five

  Elio’s Exotic Pets

  “Why do you think Carly took Princess Bess?” Nancy asked Sonia. She and the other girls spoke in low voices so that no one else would overhear.

  “It’s so obvious! She’s the president of the Free the Bugs! Club. That’s why she set Princess Bess free,” Sonia replied.

  “Do you have any proof?” said George.

  Sonia looked confused. “What do I need that for?”

  “Did you see her do it?” Bess added.

  Sonia shook her head. “No.”

  Nancy, George, and Bess exchanged glances. “We’ll take your case and help you find Princess Bess,” Nancy told Sonia. “And we’ll definitely put Carly on the suspect list. But we can’t just accuse her of taking Princess Bess without any proof.”

  “Oh.” Sonia made a face. “Okay, I guess,” she said after a moment. “Thanks for taking my case! I hope you guys find Princess Bess fast. She’s my favorite pet in the whole world!”

  “So do you think Carly took Princess Bess?” George asked Nancy.

  It was after school, and the three friends were heading outside with their bookbags. They all lived close to school, so they were allowed to walk home by themselves.

  “I’m not sure,” Nancy replied. She spotted Carly hurrying toward one of the school buses parked at the curb. “There she is. Maybe we should talk to her?”

  “I have a better idea. Let’s trick her!” Bess suggested.

  “What do you mean, Bess?” said Nancy.

  “Watch.” Bess ran up to Carly. “Hey, Carly?”

  Carly stopped in her tracks. “Yeah?”

  “Do you have those Free the Bugs! fliers with you?” Bess asked her in a friendly voice. “Can I have one? I’m really, really interested in what you’re doing.”

  Carly’s face lit up. “Yeah? I didn’t know you were interested. Here, wait a sec.”

  She bent down to open up her bookbag. Bess bent down too and peeked inside.

  Nancy guessed what Bess had meant by tricking Carly. Bess was pretending to be interested in the fliers so she could see if Princess Bess was in Carly’s bookbag—maybe in a cage or container.

  Nancy craned her head over Bess’s shoulder, trying to get a look inside Carly’s bookbag too. She saw some books and notebooks and other stuff—but no cage or container or anything else that might be used for smuggling bugs.

  Carly fished out one of her fliers and handed it to Bess. She handed a couple to Nancy and George, too.

  Nancy scanned it quickly. Printed on light green paper, the flier read:

  There were bug stickers all over the flier: ladybugs, bees, butterflies, and more.

  Nancy glanced over at Bess and George’s fliers. They had some of the same stickers, but some different ones too.

  Nancy reached into her jeans pocket, feeling for the crumpled-up beetle sticker she had found next to Princess Bess’s cage. Sonia had told her earlier that the sticker didn’t belong to her.

  Could that sticker have come from one of Carly’s fliers?

  Did that mean Carly really was the one who had set Princess Bess free?

  “I’m going to have a double scoop of Silly Strawberry,” Nancy said.

  “I’ll have a double scoop of Mango Madness,” said George.

  “Hmm, these flavors all sound good. I can’t decide,” Bess said, scanning the menu.

  “Maybe you should have one of each,” George said. “That would be a lot of ice cream!”

  The three girls were sitting in a booth at I Scream for Ice Cream, a new ice cream parlor in downtown River Heights. Hannah Gruen, the Drews’ housekeeper, had brought the girls there as a special treat.

  Nancy loved Hannah, who was a lot more than a housekeeper. Hannah had helped raise Nancy since she was three years old, when Nancy’s mother died. She was kind and smart and funny. She brushed Nancy’s hair every night. And she made the yummiest cupcakes in the world.

  “Well, I think I’m going to have a raspberry sorbet smoothie,” Hannah said, setting her menu down on the table. “So girls, how was school today?”

  “The Clue Crew got a new mystery to solve,” Nancy told her excitedly.

  “It’s about a missing bug,” added George.

  “It’s not just any bug. Her name is Princess Bess!” Bess piped up.

  Hannah’s eyes widened as she glanced from one girl to the other. “A new mystery? A missing bug? Princess Bess? My gosh! Tell me everything!”

  The waitress came by to take their orders. After she left, Nancy and her friends filled Hannah in on their case.

  “Do you have any suspects yet?” Hannah asked when the girls were finished.

  Nancy nodded. “We have one suspect. Carly Henek.”

  “She has this club called Free the Bugs!” Bess explained. “I think she might be the only member so far … but whatever. It’s still a club.”

  “And Nancy found a bug sticker next to Princess Bess’s cage,” George went on. “Carly’s Free the Bugs! fliers have stickers all over them.”

  “That’s a pretty interesting clue,” Hannah remarked. “Did you record it in your notebook yet, Nancy?”

  “Not yet. Thanks for reminding me!” Nancy reached into her bookbag and pulled out her special detective notebook. Her father had given it to her a long time ago so she could keep track of her cases. She also took out her favorite purple pen.

  Nancy opened the notebook to a clean page. She wrote:

  THE CASE OF THE MISSING BESS BEETLE

  SUSPECTS

  Carly Henek. She thinks bugs shouldn’t live in cages.

  CLUES

  A sticker of a beetle. It kind of looks like Princess Bess. It was right next to Princess Bess’s cage. Maybe it belongs to Carly? Her “Free the Bugs!” fliers have bug stickers on them.

  Nancy thought about something else. Princess Bess was missing. And Luna’s pet bug, Praying Mantis, had almost gone missing. Had the bug-napper—whoever it was—been after both bugs? If so, why those two and not Edgar or Dragon Breath?

  “Hey, is that Michael L.?” Bess said suddenly.

  Nancy glanced up from her notebook. Bess was staring out the window next to their booth.

  Bess was right. Michael L. was walking into a shop across the street, carrying something small and square under his arm.

  Something small and square … like a bug cage?

  Nancy squinted, trying to read the sign above the door. It said ELIO’S EXOTIC PETS.

  Nancy frowned. She remembered Micha
el D. saying that he had bought his hissing cockroach, Edgar, there.

  Then she remembered something else. Mr. Valeri had said that Princess Bess might be special and even some kind of record holder because she was so big.

  Maybe Michael L. had stolen Princess Bess so he could sell her to the owner of Elio’s Exotic Pets!

  Chapter Six

  A New Suspect

  Nancy told George, Bess, and Hannah about her suspicions. “What if he’s going to sell Princess Bess?” she said worriedly.

  “Michael L. is so mean. He would do something like that,” Bess said.

  “Let’s go stop him!” said George, jumping to her feet.

  Hannah told the waitress that they would be back in a few minutes for their ice cream. Then the four of them rushed out the door and went across the street to Elio’s Exotic Pets.

  The inside of Elio’s was unlike any other store Nancy had ever seen. There were walls and walls of cages and aquariums with different kinds of animals. One wall had snakes, some of them curled up in a ball, others slithering along tree trunks and branches. They made Nancy shiver a little. Another wall had chameleons and geckos and even a creature called a “bearded dragon.” Nancy had thought dragons only existed in myths and fairy tales! Yet another wall had more familiar exotic pets, like turtles and frogs. Nancy especially liked one of the frogs, which had a green body, orange legs, and big, bulgy, reddish orange eyes.

  “There he is!” whispered George. She pointed to a cluttered counter in the back of the store. Michael L. was talking to a man with curly brown hair and wire-rimmed glasses.

  “Let’s sneak up on him,” Bess suggested. “That way, we can catch him … uh … red—red—”

  “Red-handed?” Hannah suggested.

  Bess nodded. “Yeah, that’s it! Red-handed.”

  The three girls tiptoed down one of the side aisles so they could avoid being seen—or heard—by Michael L. Hannah followed at their heels. Along the way, they passed a wall full of spiders and insects. Nancy saw several hissing cockroaches and assassin bugs. She also saw some scorpions. She didn’t see any bess beetles, though.