Butterfly Blues Page 4

  “We want to look for the missing butterfly from Flutter House,” Nancy explained. “Antonio Elefano put a—”

  “I don’t care if you’re looking for buried treasure!” Deirdre said. “You’re not snooping in my bag!”

  The girls stared at Deirdre. Things didn’t look very promising, until Bess blurted out, “If you let us look, Nancy will switch class jobs with you!”

  Nancy turned to Bess and said, “I will?”

  “You mean Nancy will clean the turtle tank?” Deirdre asked slowly. “And I’ll get to water the pretty plants?”

  “I guess,” Nancy said through gritted teeth.

  “Do it, Deirdre!” Andrea Wu urged.

  “That turtle tank stinks worse than my brother’s socks!” Kayla Bruce said.

  “Deal!” Deirdre declared. She pointed to the house. “I dropped my bag in the laundry room on Friday.”

  “The laundry room?” Bess asked, confused.

  “I came in through the side door,” Deirdre explained. “The laundry room was the closest place to leave it.”

  As the girls raced toward the house, Deirdre called, “And don’t take my books out. I didn’t start my homework yet!”

  Nancy, Bess, and George opened the side door. Sure enough, the laundry room was right inside.

  “There’s Deirdre’s bag!” Bess said, pointing. “It’s on top of the washing machine.”

  The girls stood on tip-toe around the washing machine and the bag. George pulled the bag open and—

  “Pe-ew!” Bess cried.

  George reached in and pulled out the apple core. It was dark brown and mushy. “Applesauce anyone?” she teased.

  “Where’s Morpho?” Nancy asked.

  The girls dug through Deirdre’s bag. They found three books, a feathery pen, and a panda-face change purse.

  “No blue morpho, or any butterfly.” Nancy sighed.

  She was about to close the bag, when George said, “That’s what you think.”

  Nancy turned toward George and gasped. Perched on top of her head was a big blue butterfly!

  “He flew in front of my face and up to my head!” George exclaimed. “Am I lucky or what?”

  Startled, the butterfly flew off George’s head. It landed on top of a detergent bottle on the floor.

  “It looks like Morpho,” Bess said quietly.

  “But is it Morpho?” Nancy whispered.

  “Let’s see,” George said as she pulled out her minitablet. Very quickly she opened the Butterfly Spy app.

  “What does it say?” Nancy whispered as George held the tablet over the butterfly.

  “It says . . . blue morpho!” George said softly.

  “Omigosh, omigosh!” Bess whispered. “It’s him!”

  Using her foldable butterfly net, Bess gently scooped up the morpho. As the girls turned to leave the laundry room, they saw Deirdre and her friends at the door.

  “Is that Morpho?” Deirdre asked, pointing to the sheer butterfly net in Bess’s hands. “How did he get in here?”

  “I tried to tell you, Deirdre,” Nancy said. “Antonio dropped an apple core in your bag on Friday. Blue morphos eat rotten fruit, so—”

  “Ewww, gross!” Deirdre cried. “Get that flying insect out of here!”

  “Gladly, Deirdre,” Nancy said. She turned to her friends. “Come on, Clue Crew—let’s bring Morpho home!”

  The girls rushed the blue morpho back to Nancy’s house. Then Hannah drove them directly to Flutter House.

  Josh and the rest of the staff were thrilled to see the morpho again, and grateful, too.

  “Flutter House can’t thank you girls enough,” Josh told the Clue Crew inside the butterfly dome. “We thought we’d never see our blue morpho again.”

  “It’s a good thing he liked rotten apples!” George said with a grin.

  Josh left to give Hannah a tour of Flutter House. The girls strolled through the dome, watching the butterflies.

  “What did you wish for on Friday, Nancy?” Bess asked. “When the pretty orange butterfly landed on your shoulder?”

  “Yeah, Nancy,” George urged. “Spill!”

  Nancy smiled. She knew wishes were supposed to be secret, but nothing was a secret among best friends. . . .

  “Okay,” Nancy said. “I wished that the Clue Crew would be the most awesome detectives ever!”

  “And guess what?” George said as they watched the morpho happily flitting from flower to flower. “I think your wish came true!”

  When spring is in the air, so are butterflies! Now with this cool and super-easy craft, you can have fun with butterflies all year round.

  Things you’ll need:

  sheets of tissue paper in different colors

  1 clothespin

  paint or markers

  1 pipe cleaner

  scissors

  glue

  2 googly eyes (optional)

  Directions:

  Use markers or paint to color the clothespin. This will be the butterfly’s body.

  Paint on a face or glue on googly eyes!

  For the butterfly’s wings, cut tissue papers in oval shapes.

  Stack the ovals on top of each other.

  Bunch papers together in the middle. Next, clasp the middle with the clothespin.

  Show off the colors by fluffing out the tissue paper wings.

  Fold the piper cleaner into a V-shape. Curl the ends to make the butterfly’s antennae.

  Glue the antennae to the top of the clothespin “head.”

  Craft more butterflies for a whole fluttering flock!

  HAPPY SPRING!

  Join the CLUE CREW & solve these other cases!

  #1 Sleepover Sleuths

  #2 Scream for Ice Cream

  #3 Pony Problems

  #4 The Cinderella Ballet Mystery

  #5 Case of the Sneaky Snowman

  #6 The Fashion Disaster

  #7 The Circus Scare

  #8 Lights, Camera . . . Cats!

  #9 The Halloween Hoax

  #10 Ticket Trouble

  #11 Ski School Sneak

  #12 Valentine’s Day Secret

  #13 Chick-napped!

  #14 The Zoo Crew

  #15 Mall Madness

  #16 Thanksgiving Thief

  #17 Wedding Day Disaster

  #18 Earth Day Escapade

  #19 April Fool’s Day

  #20 Treasure Trouble

  #21 Double Take

  #22 Unicorn Uproar

  #23 Babysitting Bandit

  #24 Princess Mix-up Mystery

  #25 Buggy Breakout

  #26 Camp Creepy

  #27 Cat Burglar Caper

  #28 Time Thief

  #29 Designed for Disaster

  #30 Dance Off

  #31 The Make-a-Pet Mystery

  #32 Cape Mermaid Mystery

  #33 The Pumpkin Patch Puzzle

  #34 Cupcake Chaos

  #35 Cooking Camp Disaster

  #36 The Secret of the Scarecrow

  #37 The Flower Show Fiasco

  #38 A Musical Mess

  #39 Museum Mayhem

  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

  An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division

  1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

  www.SimonandSchuster.com

  First Aladdin paperback edition March 2015

  Text copyright © 2015 by Simon and Schuster, Inc.

  Illustrations copyright © 2015 by Peter Francis

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

  ALADDIN is a trademark of Simon & Schuster, Inc., and related logo is a registered trademark of Simon & Schuster, Inc.<
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  Designed by Karina Granda

  The text of this book was set in ITC Stone Informal.

  Library of Congress Control Number 2014931010

  ISBN 978-1-4814-1470-8

  ISBN 978-1-4814-1471-5 (eBook)