A Message in the Sand

“Hey! ” Nancy called, dusting herself off, but James had kept running and was too far away to hear her. “Boy, that wasn’t nice! ”

“Where is he going in such a hurry? ” Bess asked.

“Probably off to cause more trouble, ” Lisa said. “Come on, don’t pay him any more attention. Let me show you around.”

The Beach Barn had everything you could ever want for the beach — and more, Nancy thought. There were beach towels, sand toys, and a row of colored starfish strung across the ceiling with red yarn. There were big bins of beach balls and pinwheels, and all along the walls were tubs of the most beautiful colored sand Nancy had ever seen. “They’ve got every color in the rainbow! ” she exclaimed.

Bess ran her hands through the blue sand. “Look at this pink sand, ” George said.

Lisa pointed to a jar of sparkly sand. “The judges would love this, ” she said.

The girls bought the sparkly sand and then walked back to the beach. It was starting to get cloudy and cooler now. There weren’t so many people on the beach.

“I hope it doesn’t rain, ” Bess said. “That would ruin the castle.”

“It wouldn’t dare! ” Lisa said.

“Let’s get up really early so we can have a fresh start on our castle, ” Nancy said. “I can’t wait to try out the colored sand.”

“Me, neither, ” said Bess.

“Want to come back to the cottage with us? ” Nancy asked Lisa. “We can play cards.”

Lisa shook her head. “I have to go to the dentist. My dad’s coming to pick me up in a little while.”

“Thanks for coming with us, ” Nancy said to Lisa. The girls all waved good-bye.

That night Nancy, Bess, and George pored over the books on sand castles. Nancy got out some drawing paper and crayons and they drew some plans. George scribbled in a tall tower. “If we pack the sand in hard and use a Popsicle stick, we can cut in stairs, ” Bess said.

The girls worked all evening, stopping only when Mr. Drew came in. “Time for bed, ” he said.

“Already? ” said Nancy.

“You have another big day ahead of sand castle building, ” he said.

The girls washed and got into bed, but Nancy was restless. “I’m too excited to sleep, ” she whispered.

“Count sheep, ” George said, yawning loudly. “Or better yet, count sand castles.”

“Okay, ” said Nancy doubtfully. She shut her eyes and tried to imagine a row of sand castles walking past her. “One sand castle, two sand castles, ” she counted. Then she yawned, and soon she was sleeping.

• • •

In the morning, the girls were up bright and early. They had blueberry pancakes with Mr. Drew. “It’s Sunday and I don’t have to work, so I’m going to go to the beach later, too, ” Mr. Drew said. “Maybe I should enter the contest myself since I have this free time today.” His eyes twinkled.

“You can’t enter the contest, Dad! ” Nancy laughed. “Only kids can.”

“Well, you can’t blame me for trying.” Mr. Drew laughed.

After the girls ate, they ran outside to the beach. “I can’t wait to try out the sparkly sand! ” George said.

“Hey, ” said Nancy, “there’s a crowd around our castle.”

“What are they doing there? ” asked George. “Did we do that good a job? ”

Nancy frowned. They walked closer. “There’s Lisa, ” George said, waving, but Lisa looked upset and didn’t wave back. The girls inched closer and Bess suddenly gasped. There in the sand, in big letters, was written STAY AWAY! Even worse, their castle was destroyed!

Bess’s hand flew to her mouth. “How will we ever rebuild our castle in time? ” she wailed.

Nancy looked around the crowd. “Who would do such an awful thing? ” she asked.

Mrs. Thorton and Kurt the reporter came racing toward them. “Nothing like this has ever happened before, ” Mrs. Thorton said.

Kurt took out a notebook. Nancy remembered how he had said trouble sold newspapers, and she didn’t like the excited way he was writing. What if the things he was writing caused more trouble? “What happened? ” he asked.

“We don’t know, ” Bess said. “We just got here.”

“This is terrible, ” Lisa said. “What are you going to do? Are you going to take yourselves out of the contest? ”

“We won’t let this stop us! ” Nancy exclaimed.

“This happened because no one from out of town has ever entered the contest, ” Jane said.

“Now that’s not fair! ” Bess said.

“Is too! ” Lara said, putting her hands angrily on her hips.

“Girls, ” said Mrs. Thorton. “I told you before that everyone can enter. Now we take our contest very seriously and we are going to find out who did such a thing and make sure it doesn’t happen again. In the meantime, why don’t you girls work at rebuilding your castle.” She shook her head. “And we can just erase this nasty ‘stay away.’”

“Oh, no, it has to stay! ” Nancy cried.

“It does? ” George asked. “But it’s disturbing.”

“That’s why we can’t disturb it, ” Nancy explained. “It’s evidence. It might just help us to find out who did this.”

“How’s it going to do that? ” Bess asked.

Nancy chewed on her lower lip. “I don’t know yet, ” she admitted.

“Well, you’re the best detective around, so I bet you’ll figure it out, ” George said.

“If you think leaving that sign will help, then we’ll leave it, ” Mrs. Thorton said.

• • •

Mrs. Thorton left and the crowd slowly walked away. The girls sat glumly looking at their castle. It was kicked in on one side. The top was lopsided and the moat Bess had started to build was filled in with sand.

“How will we have time to rebuild? ” Bess said. “We have just two more days.”

“We can rebuild it, ” Nancy said. “But what happens if someone comes back and kicks it in again? ”

“Nancy, you’re the detective. Who do you think did this? ” George asked.

Nancy looked around the beach. “I don’t know, but we’re all going to have to be detectives on this one, ” she said.

Nancy got her special blue detective notebook and pencil out of her backpack. “Suspects, ” she said. “We need suspects.”

“Do we have any? ” Lisa asked.

Nancy chewed on the end of her pencil and wrote “Suspects” at the top of the page.

“What about the reporter? ” George said. “Remember, he said trouble was good for selling newspapers.”

“Reporter, ” Nancy wrote down.

“How about Jane and Lara? ” said Bess. “They don’t think we should be in the contest because we don’t live here.”

Nancy carefully wrote down their names.

“James is always causing trouble. Maybe it was him, ” Lisa said, and Nancy wrote his name, too.

Next, Nancy wrote in big block letters “Clues.” She looked up. “We know why these suspects may have done it, but we don’t have any clues, ” she said.

Nancy jumped up. “We have to look around.” The girls all studied the castle.

“I see something, ” said Bess. She pointed to a whirly pattern on a footprint. Nancy crouched down, studying the print.

“Let me see, ” said George. George bent closer and then sighed.

“What? Why did you sigh? ” Nancy asked.

George lifted up one of her sandaled feet. “That’s the special pattern on the bottom of my new beach shoes, ” George said.

“I know, ” said Nancy, “we’ll take pictures of the scene of the crime. My father says that is a good way to discover clues.” She dug into her beach bag and got out the cameras. Each girl took a few pictures.

Nancy was about to put her camera back in her bag when she noticed something about the sand. She pointed excitedly. “Look at the color of that sand! ” she cried.

The girls looked where Nancy was pointing. There was a thin line of green sand.

“That isn’t the color we bought! ” Nancy exclaimed.

“But it is the color James bought! ” cried George.