Mall Madness Page 4

  “Quarters!” Deirdre exclaimed. “I love quarters.”

  Nancy looked at her notebook. Was it possible that Deirdre had taken the cash register money after all?

  “Let me show you mine.” Deirdre opened the lid of her tin box and showed Nancy, Bess, and George all her quarters.

  Nancy did a quick count and estimated how many quarters were in Deirdre’s box. There were probably about forty.

  “Wow!” Bess exclaimed. “Why do you have so many?”

  “I’ve been collecting quarters for a few years now.” Deirdre ran a finger through her collection. She picked out a quarter to show the girls. “During the summer, I carry them with me everywhere I go just in case I find one I don’t already have.”

  “This is the Ohio quarter. See the airplane and the astronaut?” The girls all bent in to see the small etching on the back of the quarter. “And this,” Deirdre said, pulled out another quarter, “is California’s. It has a picture of the famous environmentalist John Muir on it.” Deirdre was really excited about her collection.

  Nancy thought about Deirdre and her quarters. Unless she had a lot of time to go through the cash register and pick out specific coins, there was no way she’d taken any quarters from the register. She was too particular in what she was looking for. But Nancy had to ask two more questions, just to be sure.

  “Deirdre, where do you get your quarters?” Nancy asked.

  “I go to the bank. I give the teller the dollar bills I earn for my allowance and they give me quarters. It’s so easy. The teller will usually go through the drawer and try to find me the states I need. They’re really nice like that. Especially Kathy at First Bank here in the mall. She keeps a list of what I need and watches out for them.” Deirdre looked at Nancy. “Do you want to start a collection too?”

  “No thanks,” said Nancy. “But it’s fun to look at yours.” She had one more question, then she could cross Deirdre off the suspect list. “You said you get gum every day at the Drop Zone. Where do you get those quarters?”

  “You sure do have a lot of questions, Nancy Drew. Am I a suspect in your mystery?” Deirdre asked.

  “Well, yes,” Bess told Deirdre, completely honest.

  “Oh,” Deirdre said, sort of laughing. “Well then, you should know that I get my Drop Zone quarters from my dad. Every night he dumps the change out of his pocket onto the top of his dresser. I’m allowed to take the regular, boring, old quarters to put in the gum machine.” She opened her mouth to show Nancy, Bess, and George the pink piece she’d already bought that morning. “He hardly ever has any new-looking state quarters,” Deirdre said with a sigh.

  Deirdre was on her way to meet Kathy at the bank. Kathy had called to say she had a shiny Missouri quarter. “They’ve been out a while, so shiny ones are hard to find,” Deirdre told them.

  “Thanks for the answers,” Nancy said. “You aren’t a suspect anymore.”

  “No surprise,” Deirdre responded. “Good luck with your case. I gotta run. Kathy’s waiting for me.” She quickly put the lid back on her quarter tin and rushed away.

  Nancy made a thick line through Deirdre’s name in her notebook.

  After reading the list of clues out loud, “Thirty-five lines, quarters, and a wad of ABC gum,” Nancy crossed Ned off the suspect list.

  “Why are you scratching out Ned’s name without even talking to him?” George asked.

  “Yeah,” agreed Bess. “Until we interview him, he’s still a suspect. We don’t know where he got all those quarters from yesterday.”

  “And he kept changing his gum for new pieces,” George added. “He said himself that he’d put a lot of quarters in the Drop Zone machine. Maybe he spent a whole eight dollars and seventy-five cents.”

  Nancy considered her friend’s words. “There’s no possible way Ned put eight dollars and seventy-five cents into the machine. Ned said that he had ten or eleven pieces and that he ran out of money.”

  Bess did some quick math. “If he had eight dollars and seventy-five cents to spend,” she told the others, “that means that Ned would have chewed thirty-five pieces of gum.”

  “Whew. That’s a crazy lot of chewing,” George remarked. “It would take all day to chew that much gum.”

  Nancy touched her pencil to her notebook. “Ned is off the list. There’s only one suspect left.”

  “Rodger!” Bess and George declared at the exact same time.

  “Yep,” Nancy confirmed. She was bummed that Rodger was their last and only suspect. “Unfortunately, we’ve got to tell Mr. Gustavson.”

  Chapter Nine

  Bubble Trouble

  “Did you find Rodger?” Mr. Gustavson asked Nancy, Bess, and George as they returned to the Pencil Box. He was standing behind the cash register, still ringing up sales. The line had grown since the girls left the store. It wove around the countertop and down Aisle Eight.

  “We didn’t get him,” Bess told the store owner.

  “What do you mean?” he asked, wrinkling his eyebrows. “I need him. I can’t keep ringing up sales all day. I have office work to do.” He pointed at the door to the shop and in a softer, gentler voice continued, “Please, I need you to go get him.”

  “We need to talk to you first,” Nancy said to Mr. Gustavson. “There’s something we think you should know.”

  The girls had decided that they shouldn’t tell Rodger to come back to the store. If he did take the money to play video games, Mr. Gustavson wasn’t going to want him back anyway. Besides, they knew exactly where he was, and from the way he was stabbing at video game buttons it looked like he’d be there a while. They could always go get him after they told Mr. Gustavson the solution to the mystery.

  “Tell me what you discovered,” Mr. Gustavson said, taking a credit card from a tall woman in a flowered hat.

  “We’d like to tell you in private,” Bess told him. “Can we meet in your office, please?”

  He surveyed the girls’ serious faces and said, “I’ll have Robin take over the cash register in five minutes. Go on back to my office. I’ll meet you there.”

  The girls walked down Aisle Twelve to Mr. Gustavson’s office. Robin was standing in the middle of the aisle, putting more tape rolls in the display. She was blowing purple bubble-gum bubbles and listening to her headphones. When she saw Nancy, Robin dramatically threw her body in front of the display. “I’ve been working on this for an hour,” she explained. “Be very careful walking by.”

  Nancy hugged the opposite side of the aisle and was very careful not to swing her arms. When she reached the end of the aisle, she said suddenly, “I need to see that cash register!” She spun quickly around—and unfortunately, knocked over a display of pens as she turned.

  “Augghh!” Robin cried, diving down the aisle in an attempt to stop the pens from spilling everywhere. It was too late. Pens were rolling down Aisle Twelve and into Aisle Fourteen.

  Robin told Nancy, “Sit right there and don’t move.” Then she went off to get a broom and dustpan to help collect the pens.

  Robin was only gone a few minutes. Bess and George helped her clean up, but Robin didn’t want Nancy to move. She didn’t want her to knock over anything else and decided that if Nancy was very, very still, nothing bad could happen.

  As she cleaned, Robin blew gum bubbles. Pop! Pop! Pop! went the green bubbles.

  George remarked that Robin had changed from purple to green gum.

  “Does green gum hold its flavor?” George asked.

  “It’s okay,” Robin replied. “But yellow is still the best.”

  Once the mess had been cleaned up and Robin had gone back to work, George asked Nancy, “What was all that excitement about when you knocked over the pens?”

  “I don’t think Rodger took the money. Really, only one of our clues leads to him, but”—Nancy paused dramatically—“I do think I’ve solved this mystery. I’ll know for sure after I look at the cash register one last time.”

  “I came as quickly as I could,”
Mr. Gustavson said, walking toward the girls. “Do you have something to tell me?”

  “Nope,” Nancy told him, grabbing Bess and George’s hands. “We don’t have anything to tell you. Not yet, anyway.”

  Mr. Gustavson looked puzzled. “But you said there was something I should know.”

  “First we need one last look at the cash register,” said Nancy. “Then we’ll know for sure what happened to your eight dollars and seventy-five cents.”

  Chapter Ten

  Stuck Like Glue

  Nancy practically dragged her friends back down Aisle Twelve to the counter where the new cash register sat. A confused Mr. Gustavson followed.

  Robin was now at the counter, ringing up sales. She’d taken out her earbuds, but the MP3 player was still hanging around her neck.

  “I had a hunch the answer to this mystery was inside that machine,” Nancy reminded the Clue Crew. “Now I’m sure it is. Can we open the cash drawer?” she asked Mr. Gustavson.

  Robin looked at Mr. Gustavson. “There’s a line,” she told him. “Can’t this wait?”

  “We only need a second,” Nancy told Mr. Gustavson.

  He agreed to give her the time she needed and suggested that Robin take a break. As Robin walked away muttering, “Try not to break the register,” she tucked her earbuds into her ears.

  “I won’t even touch it,” Nancy promised, and to prove how trustworthy she was, she stuck her hands deep into her pockets.

  Mr. Gustavson apologized to all the people waiting in line and gave them free pencils as a thank-you for being so patient while Bess opened the register and looked inside.

  “I want to see that little paper you found before,” Nancy told her.

  Bess discovered the paper, under a bunch of quarters, still tucked in the bottom of the quarter cup, just like it was the day before. She unfolded it and handed it to George.

  “Wait a minute! There are now thirty-eight lines,” George reported. “What does it mean?”

  Nancy brought her hands out of her pockets and took the piece of paper. “Your mystery is solved,” she told Mr. Gustavson. “Can we tell Robin to come back now?”

  Frowning, Mr. Gustavson motioned down the aisle to Robin, who was straightening a stack of computer paper, plugged into her music once more. She hurried back to the register and the waiting line, pulling out her earbuds.

  “So what’s the solution to the mystery?” Mr. Gustavson wanted to know.

  “What mystery?” asked Robin.

  “We were working on solving a mystery, not a school project,” Nancy explained. “There was money missing from this cash register yesterday.”

  “I know,” Robin said with a shrug. “Eight dollars and seventy-five cents.”

  “How’d you—” Bess began.

  Then Robin, in typical Robin fashion, interrupted, saying, “Because I borrowed it.”

  “What?” Mr. Gustavson exclaimed. “How? When? Why?”

  “Robin took the money to buy gum,” Nancy told him. “I have it all figured out—for every quarter Robin took, she made a little line on this piece of paper.” Nancy held up the paper Bess had found in the cash register. “She was planning to pay it back later, right?”

  “I do it the same way every day. Always have,” Robin said. “Thing is, I was running late last night to meet my friend at the park, and I didn’t get back to the cash register. I figured I’d simply add on today’s gum and pay it all back before I went home tonight.”

  “Oh,” said George. “That explains why there are three more little lines on the paper today. We’ve already seen you chewing purple, green, and now”—she looked in Robin’s mouth— “white gum.”

  “I’m chewing the gum to help stop biting my nails,” Robin explained.

  “Well, then,” Mr. Gustavson said, looking happily around at everyone. “No harm done.” He and Robin agreed that she’d repay him all the money she’d spent on gum before the store closed.

  “Well, this mystery is in the bag,” Nancy told her friends. “We’d better go find Hannah and get cracking on that school supply list.”

  “What about Rodger?” Bess asked. “Even if he didn’t take the money, he’s going to be in huge trouble for skipping work to play video games.”

  “I’m here!” Rodger said breathlessly as he ran into the store. “I’m so sorry I’m late, Mr. Gustavson, but I have amazing news.”

  “This better be good,” Mr. Gustavson told Rodger. He tapped his watch. “You are very, very late for work.”

  “Yes, but—” Rodger said, trying to catch his breath. It was clear he’d run from the arcade to the shop.

  “But what, son?” Mr. Gustavson said patiently.

  “I won!” Rodger said. “I won the highest scorer contest on Thrash Combat. The game makers are sending a TV crew over here to interview me.” He paused. “And the best part is that the same people who make Thrash Combat invented the Drop Zone. They’re sending you a brand-new gumball machine. With more levels and twists and turns and ramps.”

  “Wow!” Bess clapped her hands. “That is good news.”

  “There’s more!” Rodger exclaimed. “I told them how the Drop Zone gum loses its flavor, and they promised to send better gum. Gum that stays fresh all day long!”

  At that, all the kids in line for the register cheered. But Robin cheered the loudest.

  Mr. Gustavson put his arm around Rodger. “Thank you,” he said.

  “I’m not in trouble anymore?” asked Rodger.

  “Not even a little,” Mr. Gustavson answered. “But you’d better be at work on time tomorrow.” He smiled and Rodger laughed.

  “Thank you so much, Clue Crew,” Mr. Gustavson said. “I have a present for you, Nancy Drew.” Mr. Gustavson gave Nancy a brand-new purple notebook and matching pencil. “Robin told me there was gum stuck to your notebook. This should help you on the Clue Crew’s next mystery.”

  “Thanks, Mr. Gustavson.” Nancy couldn’t stop looking at the new notebook. The cover had sparkles on it, and the pencil had a fluffy lavender feather instead of an eraser.

  Bess, George, and Nancy linked their arms together and walked toward where Hannah was waiting to take them to Schneider’s department store. Near the front of the Pencil Box, Nancy accidentally bumped into a display of glue sticks. Luckily, it didn’t tip over—just teetered for a second.

  “Hannah would have loved it if you’d knocked down that display,” said Bess, looking at the glue sticks. “If you’d spilled glue, we really would be stuck together.”

  “The Clue Crew doesn’t need glue to stick together,” George replied. “We’re already bonded by friendship.”

  “And a knack for solving mysteries,” Bess added.

  “Very true,” exclaimed Nancy. “The Clue Crew is definitely stuck on mysteries!”

  Make Your Own

  Back-to-School Notebook!

  It’s that time of year again! Now that you’ve been to the mall with Nancy and the Clue Crew, you can make your own bright and flashy back-to-school notebook!

  You Will Need:

  Spiral-bound notebook

  Wide, furry pipe cleaners (of all colors!)

  Colored paper

  Tacky glue

  Glitter

  Stickers

  A photo of you and your friends

  Ready, Set, Note!

  First, line up your choice of pipe cleaners in the order you want to stick them on. Then, using the tacky glue, stick the pipe cleaners onto the notebook cover one by one. Let it dry.

  Once the glue has dried, fold the ends of the pipe cleaners against the bottom and top edges of the inside cover. To cover up the folded pipe cleaner ends, glue a sheet of colored paper onto the inside cover. This also gives you another surface to decorate!

  Once the inside cover dries, glue on the photo of you and your friends, and decorate it with your favorite stickers!

  For more sparkles, dot the front cover with glue and sprinkle on some glitter!

  Get creat
ive! Try using beads, buttons, feathers, or ribbon to give your notebook more flair!

  Remember Fun and

  Fuzzy Days!

  To make your back-to-school notebook extra special, decorate the back of your notebook too! Then leave room for an end-of-year photo with your friends. That way when school finishes, you’ll be able to see how much you all have changed!

  Read all the books in the

  Blast to the Past

  series!

  #1 Lincoln’s Legacy

  #2 Disney’s Dream

  #3 Bell’s Breakthrough

  #4 King’s Courage

  #5 Sacagawea’s Strength

  #6 Ben Franklin’s Fame

  #7 Washington’s War

  #8 Betsy’s Star