Judy Moody, Girl Detective Page 5

  “Do I smell chocolate-chip cookie dough?” Stink asked, peering into the bowl. “Sweet! Can I help?”

  “Yeah, you can help by not eating all the chocolate chips. These are super-important detective cookies. Find-Mr.-Chips cookies. Crack-the-case cookies.”

  When the cookie sheets were full, Mom put the cookies in the oven for them. “Stink, we’re ready for Phase One. Go get the fan.”

  “The fan? What for?”

  “We’re going to set a trap. Since we can’t seem to get to Mr. Chips, we’ll get him to come to us. With chocolate-chip cookies. Chocolate-chip cookies are the key to this case.”

  “You mean we’ll blow the cookie smell outside, and Mr. Chips Super-Sniffer will sniff out the cookies and break free and come running?”

  “Right into our arms,” said Judy.

  “Then the bad guys will come running after Mr. Chips to catch him?”

  “Right into Officer Kopp’s arms,” said Judy.

  “Genius!” Stink said. Stink turned on the fan.

  In no time, Judy and Stink heard a noise outside. They went running to the front door. It was Rocky and Frank.

  “We thought you were Mr. Chips!” said Judy. She explained her Master Catch-a-Thief Cookie Plan.

  “How do you know it’ll work?” asked Rocky.

  “It worked on you, didn’t it?” Judy said with a grin. “Time to call 1-800-MR-CHIPS and tell Officer Kopp to come quick if he wants to catch some bad guys.”

  “And tell him to bring backup,” said Agent Pearl. “Just in case.”

  Phase Two: Judy piled a mountain of hot-out-of-the-oven cookies on a plate. Rocky and Frank took some and made a trail of cookie crumbs leading down the sidewalk, around the corner, across the driveway, and right up to the tent.

  “If we don’t catch Mr. Chips, at least we’ll catch a bunch of ants,” said Stink. Stink always had ant farms on the brain.

  “Stink, we’ll hide in the tent with the rest of the cookies and wait for Mr. Chips. You take Frank’s walkie-talkie and hide in the bushes out front. If you see the green van, call us and say ‘Chips ahoy!’ That’s the secret code.”

  “Cool beans,” said Stink. “Wait a sec. No fair. How come you guys get to be in the tent with cookies, and I have to be in the bushes all by myself without cookies?”

  Judy held up the other walkie-talkie. “You can talkie to us any time you feel lonely.”

  Stink grabbed two cookies.

  “Hey!” Judy barked. “Give those back.”

  “Rule Number One: Never solve a crime on an empty stomach.”

  The Master Catch-a-Thief Cookie Trap was set. Now all they had to do was wait.

  “Breaker, breaker, this is Adam-12,” said Stink. “Do you copy me? We got a possible Beetle Bailey.”

  “Huh?”

  “It’s a green VW Bug,” said Stink.

  “A Bug is not a van, Stink.”

  They watched and waited, waited and watched some more.

  “Breaker, breaker,” said Stink. “Come in, breaker. You read me?”

  “Roger that,” said Judy.

  “Rocky’s mom is taking out the garbage. Over.”

  “Oops, I was supposed to do that,” said Rocky.

  “We’ve got an S-as-in-Saturn, Q-as-in-quark, U-as-in-underwear, I-as-in-I-Don’t-Know, R-as-in-rock, E-as-in-Easter-Bunny, L-as-in-loser.”

  “A what?” Frank asked Judy.

  “S-Q-U-I-R-E-L. I think he might mean squirrel. Learn to spell, Stink.”

  They waited some more.

  “Beetle Bailey still parked. Cat burglar on a fence. Over,” said Stink.

  “Repeat. Did you say burglar?”

  “It’s just a cat.”

  “No green van?”

  “Negatory on the van. Just a crow picking at some leftover road pizza.”

  “So we just sit here?” asked Frank.

  “My butt’s asleep,” said Rocky.

  “Stakeouts are boring,” Stink said over the walkie-talkie.

  “NOT,” said Judy. “This is as exciting as one time in The Mystery of the Moss-Covered Mansion when Nancy Drew chased a wild leopard and trapped him in the garage with a calm-down pill hidden inside a piece of meat.”

  “Chips ahoy! Chips ahoy!” crackled Stink. “Movement in bushes across the street. I think I see something furry.”

  Judy sat up, on alert. Frank and Rocky peered out the tent flap.

  “Negatory. Scratch that. Just the cat burglar again.”

  Still more waiting.

  “Chips ahoy!” Stink called again. “Got your ears on? I think I see a tail.”

  “A doggy tail?”

  “False alarm. Just the S-as-in-Saturn. Q-as-in —”

  “Stink, you have the right to remain silent,” said Judy.

  “Chips ahoy!” hissed Stink. “CHIPS A-HOY!”

  “He’s like the boy who cried chips ahoy,” said Frank.

  “No way are we falling for that again.” Just then, Judy heard a new sound. A sniffing, snuffling sound. A panting, pawing sound.

  Is it? Was it? Could it be?

  All three faces peered out the front tent flap.

  Holy jeepers! MR. CHIPS!

  Judy held out a cookie. “Good boy! C’mere, Mr. Chips.” In one leap, Mr. Chips jumped right into the tent and on top of Judy, knocking her over. Cookies went flying. Mr. Chips’s tail was wagging five miles a minute. Judy hugged that wiggling ball of fur and kissed that puppy on his wet nose.

  “Mr. Chips!” said Rocky and Frank. “Who’s a good boy? You are. Oh, yes, you are!” Mr. Chips rolled over, paws in the air. They tickled his tummy.

  “Chips ahoy! Chips ahoy!” Stink was still yelling. “Come in, breaker. Do you read?” Finally, he came rushing into the tent, where the little brown furball was licking Judy, Rocky, and Frank from head to toe.

  “Told you!” Stink cried.

  “Where’d you go, boy?” Rocky asked in between doggy kisses. “I wish you could tell us where you’ve been.”

  “You’re safe from the bad guys now, Mr. Chips,” said Frank. “You didn’t see the green van, did you, Stink?”

  “Nope. Not even a piece of rope or a bite of baloney sandwich.”

  “How’d you break away from those bad guys?” Judy asked. “Who’s a smart doggy? You are.”

  “Breaker 1-9. We got a bear coming. With a gumball machine.”

  “Stakeout’s over, Stink. You can talk normal now,” said Judy. Just then, she saw the black-and-white that had pulled into the driveway, lights flashing.

  “Officer Kopp!” cried Judy as he crossed the yard. “Look who we found!”

  “Where did you get off to, boy?” Officer Kopp asked, snapping a leash on the puppy. Mr. Chips leaped into Officer Kopp’s arms, wagging his tail and licking him like he hadn’t seen him in a year.

  After all the How-Did-You’s and Where-Have-You-Been’s and Don’t-Ever’s, Officer Kopp asked, “So, how’d you find this guy?”

  “Easy-peasy, lemon-squeezy,” said Judy. “We set a chocolate-chip cookie trap.”

  “Good idea,” said Officer Kopp.

  “So did you bring backup?” Stink asked. “To catch the bad guys in the green van?”

  “Yeah, we were onto them the day Mr. Chips stole the dog bone from Speedy Market,” said Frank.

  “At first, we thought they were dognappers,” said Judy.

  “Yeah, like they took Mr. Chips for reward money,” Stink added.

  “Then a Nancy Drew lightbulb went off in my head, and we followed a ton of clues all over town and figured out that they’ve been training Mr. Chips to steal stuff. They’re teaching him by making him sniff out chocolate-chip cookies.”

  “First it’s cookies, then diamonds,” said Stink.

  Officer Kopp chuckled. “Hmm. That’s some mighty interesting detective work, and you sure cracked the case. But I’m afraid there haven’t been any reports at the police station about any diamonds gone missing.”

  “See?�
� said Judy, turning to her fellow detectives. “Not only did we rescue Mr. Chips; we also stopped those bad guys in the nick of time.”

  “Yeah, looks to me like you caught the thief all right. The chocolate-chip cookie thief — our own Mr. Chips.”

  Judy wasn’t so sure. She, Eagle-Eye-Moody, was going to keep one eye peeled, just in case.

  “We’ll never know for sure, but I think Mr. Chips is an escape artist — a regular Houdini. Best we can figure is that he pushed the bottom of the fencing just enough and squeezed out through a tiny opening. Then he ran all over town looking for food, he got so hungry.”

  “So that’s why he stole a dog bone from Speedy Market?” asked Frank.

  “And Jack Frost’s baloney sandwich!” said Stink.

  “Then he got into the lunches at school and ate the chocolate-chip cookies,” said Judy. “That’s how he got the name Mr. Chips. Because he loves chocolate-chip cookies. Am I right?”

  “Not quite,” said Officer Kopp. “Mr. Chips doesn’t eat chocolate-chip cookies. He buries them.”

  “Huh?” everybody asked.

  “Most dogs have a sweet tooth. And they have a nose for chocolate. When Mr. Chips first came home with me, my wife was baking chocolate-chip cookies. He went right for the chips and ate a handful before we could stop him.”

  “Oh, no,” said Frank. “Dogs aren’t allowed to eat chocolate. It’s like poison. It makes them sick.”

  “That’s right,” said Officer Kopp. “Poor guy had the throw-ups. We took him to the vet, and she told us that chocolate makes dogs sick. So before he even got any police-dog training, he was trained not to eat chocolate.”

  “Then why would he steal all those cookies?” Judy asked.

  “Go ahead and give him a cookie,” said Officer Kopp. “Watch what he does.”

  Judy held a cookie up to Mr. Chips. He sniffed it, then ran with it between his teeth, the way he’d carried the egg across the stage at school that day. He started digging under a tree.

  “He’s going to bury it!” Judy said. They ran after Mr. Chips. Judy peered into the hole he had dug in the soft earth.

  “Hey, there’s a bunch more cookies in there,” said Stink.

  “Where’d he get those?” Rocky asked.

  “He has a whole stash,” Frank said, pointing and laughing.

  “Thin Mints,” said Judy. “Mom bought Girl Scout cookies from Jessica Finch, and I left some in the tent.”

  “What did I tell you?” said Officer Kopp. He scooped up Mr. Chips. “Well, now that these super-detectives found you, I better get you home, huh?” He rubbed noses with Mr. Chips. “I was worried I’d never see this guy again. I thank you, and Mr. Chips thanks you.”

  “RARE!” said Judy. “I finally got to solve a mystery. The Mystery of the Missing Doggy Detective. This is just like the time Nancy Drew rescued a police dog puppy in book #1, The Secret of the Old Clock. No lie.” She felt as shiny as the penny in Nancy Drew’s penny loafers.

  “Is there a reward?” Stink asked.

  “Are you gonna arrest Mr. Chips for stealing that dog bone?” Frank asked.

  “Will Mr. Chips still get to be a police dog?” Rocky asked.

  “No, no, and yes,” said Officer Kopp. “But it’ll be a while — he still has a lot to learn. A lot more training to do. Back to Doggy Detective School for you.”

  “Aw, I wish I could keep him,” said Stink.

  “Stink, he’s not a pet,” said Judy. “He’s a crime buster. Aren’t you, Mr. Chips?” She rubbed noses with the puppy, too.

  “Looks like this mystery’s solved,” said Officer Kopp. “No more cookie stealing for you, little fella. Case closed.”

  Case closed? If Judy Moody had learned one thing from Nancy Drew (besides Never Leave Home Without a Bobby Pin), it was that a detective’s work was never done. Haunted houses. Secret diaries. Stolen diamonds. Around every corner was a mystery, just waiting to be solved. And where there was mystery, there would be Judy.

  The kids waved to Officer Kopp and Mr. Chips. “If any diamonds go missing,” said Judy, “you know who to call.”

  “Who?” asked Stink.

  “Judy Moody, Girl Detective,” she said, grinning from ear to ear.

  * CASE CLOSED *

  by Megan McDonald

  Judy Moody was walking with her nose in Nancy Drew #32, The Scarlet Slipper Mystery, when — BAM! — she ran smack-dab into a fourth-grader. A fourth-grader carrying a giant stack of library books. The books went flying. OOPS!

  “Sorry!” Judy and the girl said at the same time.

  Judy helped pick up the books. “Secret in the Old Attic?” she said. “The Hidden Staircase?”

  “I’m freaky for Nancy Drew,” said the girl.

  “I’m freaky for Nancy Drew! I’m reading all fifty-six classic Nancy Drews. I’m on number thirty-two.”

  “Hey, don’t I know you? We played soccer together last summer. I go to Jerabek Elementary School, but my mom knows your mom. My name’s Alyssa.”

  “Oh, yeah!” said Judy.

  Before you could say “Scarlet Slipper,” Judy had a playdate with Alyssa.

  Judy’s mom pulled up outside Alyssa’s house. It had purple front steps, a porch covered in vines, and a round tower.

  “This looks like a haunted house!” said Stink. “No way would I go in there.”

  The house did look way old and spooky. Judy glanced at her mood ring. Amber. Amber was for Nervous. Amber was for Not-So-Sure. Amber seemed to whisper, Never-Go-Inside-Haunted-Houses.

  Judy reached into the pocket where she kept her SOS lipstick. It helped her pluck up her courage. She climbed the purple steps and knocked on the front door.

  Alyssa opened the door, and Judy stepped inside. The first thing Judy noticed was a chandelier in the entryway — it was swinging back and forth. Then, from out of nowhere, spooky music drifted into the room.

  Judy got goose bumps, goose eggs. Alyssa didn’t seem to notice a thing.

  “Is this house haunted?” Judy whispered.

  “Of course not.” Alyssa laughed. “Don’t be cuckoo.” Judy started to relax. Alyssa lowered her voice. “Sometimes I do hear spooky sounds coming from the attic. You want to go up?”

  “Up? As in stairs? To the spooky attic?” Judy checked her mood ring. Blue-green? Blue-green was for Relaxed, Calm. She, Judy Moody, did not feel Relaxed, Calm at all!

  Upstairs, Alyssa yanked a rope in the ceiling. Down came a secret staircase that led into the attic. Jeepers! The cobwebby attic was full of junk covered in million-year-old dust: chairs, rolls of carpet, old-timey paintings, a cracked mirror.

  Just then, out of the corner of Judy’s eye, something caught her attention. Something in the mirror. Something hairy and scary.

  “AGHHHHHH!” Judy screamed and fell back on the floor. She scrambled back up to her feet and made a beeline for the stairs. “I think . . . saw . . . gorilla . . . ghost!”

  “Judy! Stop! Wait!”

  But Judy didn’t stop. She didn’t wait. Judy flew down the attic stairs, through the front door, and out into the sunshine as fast as she could, all the way home.

  Judy tried not to think about haunted houses. She tried not to think about swinging chandeliers and spooky music. She tried not to think about gorillas or ghosts.

  She, Judy Moody, was in a mood. A tingle-up-your-spine mood. What color is my mood ring? She looked down at her hand.

  Hello! Her mood ring! It was G-O-N-E, gone! This was a for-real mystery for Judy Moody, Girl Detective: Mystery of the Missing Mood Ring.

  When had she last seen it? At breakfast. At soccer. In the car with Stink . . .

  Stink!

  Judy Drewdy went to find her number-one suspect. She shone a flashlight in Stink’s eyes. “Where’s my mood ring?” she asked a million and one times. Judy held up an apple but wouldn’t let him eat it. Yet.

  “Honest to pizza! I did NOT steal it! You had it on in the car. I saw you checking it. Maybe that gorilla ATE your
mood ring.”

  The gorilla! Of course! She’d had her mood ring on in the attic just before . . .

  Wait just a Nancy Drew minute! This was exactly like . . . Nancy Drew Book #2, The Hidden Staircase. Nancy goes to a creepy mansion, sees the creepy chandelier swinging, hears creepy music, finds a creepy hidden staircase, and sees a creepy gorilla at the window.

  Maybe Alyssa’s house was haunted after all! And, she, Judy Moody, had to go back there to get her ring. Brrr. Judy shivered at the thought.

  Alyssa opened the front door. She looked surprised to see Judy.

  “Hey, have you seen my mood ring?” Judy asked Alyssa.

  “Mood ring?” Alyssa said. “You had it on when we went upstairs.”

  “Then I think your house is haunted for real,” Judy said.

  Alyssa howled like a hyena. “I got you! I got you so good!”

  “You mean — all that spooky stuff was just a big fat fake-out?”

  “I got the idea to spook you from reading The Hidden Staircase. So I asked my brother to jump on his bed to make the chandelier swing, play creepy music, and hide up in the attic with his gorilla mask. Judy Moody, you cracked the case!”

  “RARE!” said Judy. “But — there’s still the Mystery of the Missing Mood Ring.”

  Judy and Alyssa crawled on hands and knees across the attic floor, searching for her mood ring. “I’m sure you just dropped it,” said Alyssa. But where was it?

  “I guess my mood ring is not in the mood to be found,” said Judy. All of a sudden, her hand pressed down on a loose floorboard. The board popped up. Under the loose board was . . . a way-cool secret compartment!

  “My ring!” shouted Judy, sliding it onto her finger. “I guess it flew off yesterday when I saw your brother the gorilla, and it fell though a crack.”

  Alyssa peered into the dark hole. “Hey, what’s this?” She picked something up and blew on it. A cloud of dust cleared. A note! The note was in a secret code.

  OLLP RM GSV IZUGVIH.

  Signed,

  Nancy Drew’s biggest fan,

  Alice Sutherland

  December 29, 1930

  “Alice in Wonderland left us a secret code from 1930?” Judy screeched.