The Zoo Crew Page 4

  “I get it!” George cried. “It was the monkey! No wonder that handprint was so small!”

  Zookeeper Zane gasped. “That darn Chuckles,” he muttered. “He did it again!” He hurried away in the direction of the monkey cage without another word.

  The others wandered after him. “Nice work, Nancy,” Mrs. Reynolds said with a smile. “That was very observant of you to notice that!”

  Nancy shrugged bashfully. “Thanks,” she said. “But it was no big deal. If Brenda hadn’t taken such good pictures, I never could have seen it.”

  Brenda looked proud. “Thanks,” she said.

  “But how did that monkey escape?” Bess wondered.

  Nancy shrugged. “Maybe Tyler loosened the door or something,” she said. “He was jumping around and pulling on the bars of the cage, remember?”

  “Or maybe the monkey didn’t need any help,” George added. She giggled. “From what Mr. Zane said, this might not be his first escape.”

  “At least this means that no one in our class ruined the flowers,” Mari said.

  Mrs. Reynolds smiled at her. “That’s right,” she said. “I never thought any of you would do such a thing. And I’m very happy that Nancy and the rest of you helped prove it to Mr. Zane!”

  As they walked, they ran into Emily’s buddy group. “Hi,” Julia Santos greeted them. “Why are you all looking so happy?”

  “I’ll tell you why,” Brenda said before the others could speak. “We just solved the mystery of the ruined flowers!”

  Emily gasped. “Really? How did you do that?”

  “It was easy,” Brenda said. “All the clues I needed were right here on my camera. . . .”

  While Brenda continued talking, Nancy stepped away from the group. “Excuse me a second,” she told Mrs. Reynolds politely. “I’ll be right back.”

  When she returned a few minutes later, Brenda was still talking. More of their classmates had turned up by then, and everyone was hanging on Brenda’s every word.

  “. . . and I plan to interview Mr. Zane and take a few pictures of him for the Carlton News,” she was saying self-importantly. “After all, I’ll want to run some photos with the story of how I solved the mystery.”

  Nancy’s friends grabbed her by the arms. “Aren’t you going to say something, Nancy?” George hissed as Brenda continued to brag.

  Bess nodded. “Yeah,” she whispered. “Brenda’s totally taking credit for all your detective work!”

  Nancy just smiled. “That’s okay,” she said. “She did help solve the mystery. Without her pictures, we might never have figured it out.”

  Bess shrugged. “Well, someone would’ve figured it out eventually,” she said. “Whenever they noticed that monkey was missing.”

  “True,” Nancy agreed. “So it’s no big deal if Brenda takes the credit.” Her smile widened. “Especially since I know something Brenda doesn’t know.”

  “What?” Bess and George asked in unison.

  Nancy laughed. “I just spotted Mr. Zane and another zookeeper bringing Chuckles back to his cage,” she said. She held up her camera. “And I got the scoop right here. So I’ll have the last laugh when these pictures win the photo contest tomorrow!”

  • • •

  It wasn’t until the following afternoon that Nancy had time to finish writing up the case in her detective notebook.

  The field trip to the zoo was lots of fun—especially solving that mystery. Who ever would have guessed the real culprit would turn out to have fur and a long tail?

  I finally figured out the truth about the other suspects, too. It turned out that Emily was in such a crabby mood because she forgot to bring her camera. That’s why she kept getting mad when people talked about the contest too much—she was upset because she knew she couldn’t participate.

  Then there were Alison and Sarah. They looked pretty suspicious for a little while. But later they admitted they sneaked away from their group because Sarah was afraid to go into the reptile house.

  As for the boys . . . Well, they were just being boys, as usual. Despite all their monkeying around, I never really thought they’d do such a thing.

  Mr. Zane finally realized that too—about all of us kids. He even apologized by treating us all to free ice cream and zoo T-shirts before we left!

  But the best news of all is that my photo of Mr. Zane returning Chuckles the monkey to his cage won the photo contest. And Mrs. Reynolds hung it up on the wall right next to Brenda’s pictures of the monkeys, so everyone could see how all this monkey business unfolded!

  Case closed!

  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.

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  First Aladdin Paperbacks edition June 2005

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  ISBN-13: 978-0-689-87755-1 (Aladdin pbk.)

  ISBN-10: 0-689-87755-2 (Aladdin pbk.)

  ISBN-13: 978-1-442-48350-7 (eBook)