Boo Crew Read online

  Mrs. Pak leaned over their shoulders to get a better view of their cards. “I think you’re red and blue. And maybe a few other colors too.”

  “We’re very colorful,” Liam agreed.

  George raised her hand. “You’re a scarlet macaw.”

  “That’s right! She’s right,” Liam said. He seemed excited that someone had guessed the correct answer, even though they were a bit confused about which bird the macaw was.

  Mrs. Pak moved on to the next lesson, pulling up a video of a three-toed sloth on the screen in front of the class. The furry creature was swimming. As the rest of the class watched it paddle through the water, Nancy leaned over to her friends.

  “Tomorrow is going to be a perfect day,” she said. “There’s supposed to be this cool courtyard at the wildlife center with a crazy playground and a hedge maze. And there’s a gift shop where you can buy stuffed animals or these pens with floating parrots in them.”

  “Someone said they actually put the python around your neck,” George whispered. “You can hold them!”

  “George!” Nancy and Bess practically screamed. Then they broke into laughter, thinking of George with a giant snake hanging over her shoulders. Sometimes the things that totally creeped them out were the same things George loved.

  “I don’t think we’ve been somewhere this fun since . . . ,” Bess trailed off, her eyes wide.

  “Maybe ever,” George added.

  Nancy smiled, knowing it was true. The River Heights Wildlife Center was going to be their biggest adventure yet.

  “You must be Mrs. Pak, and I’m guessing these are your exceptional science students!” A woman with curly black hair bounded down the front steps of the wildlife center. She was wearing khaki from head to toe—khaki shorts, a khaki shirt, and even khaki-colored socks. Her name tag read belinda.

  “They are,” Mrs. Pak said cheerfully. “We’ve been so excited to visit.”

  “Well come on in.” The woman waved each of them inside one by one. “I’m Belinda, and I’m the founder of the River Heights Wildlife Center. I’ll be taking care of you today. Before we get started I wanted to tell you a little bit about the place, and you can meet the wonderful staff that makes magic happen around here.”

  Nancy followed Bess and George inside the center, which was a single-story building with a beautiful courtyard garden in the middle of it. There were already two other school groups there. The playground was crowded with kids and a group of moms with strollers. Nancy could hear animal noises echoing down the corridor. To the side of the garden, there was a huge playground and the hedge maze that Nancy had read about online. Two men in khaki uniforms were standing by the café and picnic tables.

  “Come, sit down!” Belinda said, waving for the class to find spots at the picnic tables. “I want to tell you a little bit about what brought me here to the River Heights Wildlife Center.”

  Nancy and her friends sat on the bench closest to Belinda. She seemed like she was much younger than Nancy’s parents. She had funny pins all over the front of her shirt. One said toucan play at that game and had a cartoon drawing of a toucan. Another said toadally and had an annoyed-looking toad on it.

  “I’m so happy you all could come visit today, because helping animals has become my life’s passion,” Belinda said. “I started rescuing abandoned and injured animals when I was just a teenager. I worked in a bird sanctuary after college, and then I came here to the River Heights Wildlife Center.”

  “Are all of your animals injured?” Lily Almond, a girl with long black pigtails, asked. She was the biggest animal lover in class. Nancy had been to her house once for a school project and met her two hamsters, one bunny, three dogs, and her twenty-pound cat, Otis.

  “Most of them were when they came in here,” Belinda answered. “All of them needed our help. Sometimes people buy animals and they don’t know what to do with them. Like our flying squirrel, Bean. Someone bought him online and didn’t like how much time and effort it took to take care of him. Or our wolf, Moonrise. People actually thought he was a dog, so they brought him home, and he was trouble . . . big trouble. He tore apart two couches and ate a hole in their door.”

  “We learned a lot about wolves,” Jamal said excitedly.

  “Yes, Mrs. Pak told me all about the lessons you’ve been doing lately.” Belinda looked genuinely interested. “Do you know the difference between a wolf and a dog?”

  “Wolves have fur on their bellies, and amber-colored eyes,” Jamal said.

  “And their ears stick straight up!” Lily chimed in.

  “That’s right,” Belinda said. “We’ll talk more above wolves and snakes and birds, but first I want to introduce you all to the wonderful staff here. Because we use so much of our donations to rescue and take care of our wildlife, many people who work here are volunteers. Bob has been volunteering the longest, for five years now.”

  A man with frizzy white hair stepped forward. He looked like he could have been someone’s grandpa. “After I retired I thought it might be a fun thing to do. And I was right! I work with all the wildlife here, but I really love the capuchin monkeys. The kinkajou, too.”

  “The kinkajou . . . ?” Bess whispered to Nancy. Her brows furrowed.

  Nancy remembered them from one of their textbooks, even though they didn’t spend a lot of time talking about them. “It’s like a tiny raccoon but it’s honey-colored instead of gray. And it lives in trees.”

  The other man stepped forward after Belinda was done talking about Bob. He had long blond hair that came down to his shoulders. He wore rings on three of his fingers, and had a goatee.

  “And this is Ocean,” Belinda said, introducing him. “And yes—before you ask, that is his real name.”

  “She tells the truth!” Ocean laughed. “My parents were hippies. I grew up on a farm in California and I’ve always loved wildlife, especially reptiles. I have a California king snake named Steven and a tortoise named Bette. They’re two of my best friends.”

  “A California king,” George said to no one in particular. “Very cool.”

  “You’ll meet Lisa in the gift shop, and Miles is coming in later,” Belinda said. “Now let’s start our tour, shall we? There are so many wonderful creatures here and so little time.”

  “Do you have pets?” Bess asked Belinda.

  “I have two chinchillas at home,” Belinda said, as she led the group back into the building. “I’d love to have more pets, but I take care of so many animals here, it feels like I already do. Now where should we start . . . ?” She looked down the right hallway, then down the left. “Are you ready to meet Rainbow?”

  The class cheered in response. Belinda led them to a huge enclosure with sand and shrubs in it, and fresh produce scattered everywhere. A short wood fence surrounded the perimeter.

  “It looks like a cabbage exploded,” Nancy whispered to Bess. “What’s in there?”

  “Okay everybody, find a space along the outside of the fence to look for Rainbow. She might be hard to spot at first, but look closely,” Belinda directed. She waited, watching the class’ faces.

  Everyone lined up along the fence and peered into the enclosure.

  “I see her . . . ,” Lily said. Then a few more kids agreed.

  Nancy narrowed her eyes and finally saw a large tortoise behind a shrub. She was all the way in the back of the habitat. Her shell was brown and dark green, so she blended in with the sand and leaves around her.

  “Rainbow will always have a very special place in my heart,” Belinda said, staring at the tortoise. “She was my very first rescue here at the wildlife center. An older woman had her as a pet, but when she moved she just left Rainbow in her yard with a rotting pile of vegetables. The new owners found her and, well, they called me.”

  Nancy stared down at the tortoise. She felt really sad for the animal. She had to admit, it was awful that someone had just left Rainbow there all alone. What would have happened if no one found her?

  “On the d
ay I went and got her,” Belinda went on, “there was the most spectacular rainbow in the sky.”

  “And that’s how she got her name,” Mrs. Pak said. She smiled, even though that part was a little obvious. It was clear Mrs. Pak loved each one of Belinda’s stories.

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  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division

  1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, New York 10020

  www.SimonandSchuster.com

  First Aladdin paperback edition September 2018

  Text copyright © 2018 by Simon & Schuster, Inc.

  Illustrations copyright © 2018 by Peter Francis

  NANCY DREW, NANCY DREW CLUE BOOK, and colophons are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

  Also available in an Aladdin hardcover edition.

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  Series designed by Karina Granda

  Book designed by Nina Simoneaux

  The illustrations for this book were rendered digitally.

  The text of this book was set in Adobe Garamond Pro.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Keene, Carolyn, author. | Francis, Peter, 1973- illustrator.

  Title: Boo crew / by Carolyn Keene ; illustrated by Peter Francis.

  Description: First Aladdin hardcover/paperback edition. |

  New York : Aladdin, [2018] | Series: Nancy Drew clue book ; #10 |

  Summary: Nancy Drew and her friends investigate when strange things start happening at a local theater, rumored to be haunted, during auditions for a televised talent show.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2017049037 (print) | LCCN 2017059524 (eBook) |

  ISBN 9781534413900 (eBook) | ISBN 9781534413887 (pbk) | ISBN 9781534413894 (hc)

  Subjects: | CYAC: Theaters—Fiction. | Haunted places—Fiction. |

  Actors and actresses—Fiction. | Mystery and detective stories.

  Classification: LCC PZ7.K23 (eBook) | LCC PZ7.K23 Bq 2018 (print) | DDC [Fic]—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017049037