Library Crook

“I think I want to go home! ” Bess said as the girls stood in the hallway.

Nancy didn’t want Bess to be scared. She didn’t want her to go home either.

“This is Scarytales, ” Nancy said. “Weird things are supposed to happen.”

“Not like this, ” Amara said with a shudder. “This stuff is all new to me! ”

Nancy heard someone humming. She looked back and saw Aunt Ellen.

“Let’s ask your aunt, ” Nancy said to Amara. “She’ll tell us what’s going on.”

Nancy told Aunt Ellen about the fireplace, the tumbling books, and the giant footsteps. She looked surprised.

“Really? ” Aunt Ellen asked. “I’ve never seen those things either! ”

“Y-y-you haven’t? ” Amara stammered.

“But I will look into it! “Aunt Ellen said. She scratched her forehead as she continued up the hall. “Now if I could just find my crystal ball! ”

The girls looked at one another. Everyone except Bess began to laugh.

“This is too weird! ” George said, smiling.

“Now I know why they call it Scarytales! ” Katie said with a giggle.

“But how did all that stuff happen? ” Amara wanted to know.

Nancy gave it a thought. “What if, ” she said, “someone is trying to scare us? ”

“Who? ” Amara asked.

“Someone who knows this house inside out, ” Nancy said. “Someone who knows how to make weird things happen.”

“Let’s find out who! ” George said. She ran over to a mirror hanging on the wall. Written on its thick gold frame were the words MAGIC MIRROR.

“Mirror, mirror on the wall, ” George began to chant. “Who is scaring us — once and for all? ”

The girls crowded in front of the mirror. Everyone giggled, until the mirror began to crack!

“Guess what? ” Amara said slowly. “This never happened before either.”

The girls stared at the mirror.

“That does it, ” Bess said. “I’m out of here.”

“But you packed three pairs of pajamas! ” George cried, waving her arms.

“Wait! ” Nancy said. “There must be a way to find out who’s doing all this.”

“You mean as in another mystery, Detective Drew? ” Mari asked, smiling.

Nancy smiled back. She loved solving mysteries. She even carried a blue detective notebook where she wrote down all of her suspects and clues. Sometimes she even used a magnifying glass!

“Sure, ” Nancy said. “Solving a mystery at a sleepover could be fun.”

“Better than telling ghost stories! ” Katie exclaimed.

George turned to her cousin. “Do you still want to go home, Bess? ” she asked.

“Nope, ” Bess said, shaking her head.

“Because Nancy is going to solve the case? ” Amara asked.

Bess nodded. “And because we didn’t finish that yummy pizza! ” she said.

The six friends laughed and gave each other high-fives.

“I’ll get my notebook and my magnifying glass, ” Nancy said. “They’re both in my backpack in the library.”

“And I have my camera, ” Mari reminded everyone. “To take pictures of clues.”

“I only packed my toothbrush, ” Katie sighed. “Bor-ring! ”

Before going into the library, Nancy checked the mirror for clues. She found a tiny silver spider on the frame.

“Ew! ” Bess gasped. “Is it real? ”

“It looks like a sticker, ” Nancy said. She carefully picked at the sticker.

Mari leaned over Nancy’s shoulder and snapped a picture. The flash made Nancy see spots.

“Let’s go into the library now, ” Nancy said, rubbing her eyes.

One by one the girls filed into the library. Nancy was about to get her notebook when Katie let out a shriek.

“Ohmygosh! ” Katie cried. “Lester isn’t inside his cage — he’s gone! ”

Nancy glanced at the cage. The door was wide open. “Maybe he kicked the door open, ” she said. “He’s done that before.”

“No, I closed the latch! ” Katie wailed. “I didn’t want him to get at our pizza! ”

“Say, ” George said slowly. “You don’t suppose Lester was… parrot-napped? ”

“Parrot-napped? ” Katie cried.

“But we were right outside the library all this time, ” Nancy said. “We would have seen someone go in or out.”

“And there are no other doors in the library, ” Amara added.

Nancy checked the window. It was locked shut from the inside. And she noticed something else. “The dust on the windowsill is pretty even, ” Nancy said. “That means no one climbed in or out of the window.”

The girls called Lester as they searched the room. Nancy saw how worried Katie was when he didn’t squawk back.

This isn’t funny anymore, Nancy thought. This is serious!

“What do you think, Nancy? ” George asked. “Who do you think took Lester? ”

All eyes were on Nancy now.

“I think, ” Nancy said slowly, “the person who took Lester is the same person who’s trying to scare us.”

She pulled out her notebook and turned to a clean page. On it she wrote the words TRUTH OR SCARE? Underneath the title she began her list of suspects.

“Who would want to scare us? ” Mari asked, wrinkling her nose.

“How about Ernest? ” Nancy asked, thinking. “He was mad that he wasn’t invited to the sleepover. He also told us we’d be scared — and that he had 'better things to do.'”

“And he probably knows this house inside out, ” George said. “He lives here! ”

Nancy wrote down Ernest’s name.

“How about that witch? ” George asked. “We haven’t seen her since Lester bit her nose.”

“Nipped! ” Katie corrected. “Lester does not bite.”

“Hey! ” Mari said excitedly. “Maybe there’s a clue in my pictures.”

Mari spread her pictures on the rug. Nancy checked them all out. Something in the group picture caught her eye.

“There’s something red behind that plant, ” Nancy thought out loud.

Nancy grabbed her magnifying glass and placed it over the picture. The red object was tall and pointy. Nancy recognized it right away. “The troll’s red hat! ” Nancy said. “Maybe he was waiting to sneak into the library.”

“We did hear the troll say that he had a plan up his sleeve, ” George said.

“Maybe the troll’s plan was to scare us, ” Nancy said. “Then if we went home, he could watch the baseball game! ”

“Sneaky troll! ” Katie muttered.

Nancy added the troll to her suspect list. “Good work, Mari! ” she said.

“Don’t mention it.” Mari smiled.

The girls searched the library for more clues. Nancy found another spider sticker on the mantel.

“There it is again, ” Nancy said.

“And again! ” Katie said. She pointed to a spider sticker on the bookcase.

“I never saw those spiders before, ” Amara said. “Where did they come from? ”

“Who cares? ” Bess shuddered. “As long as they’re not real.”

Nancy sketched the spider in her notebook. Then she heard a deep snarling voice. It was coming from the hallway and it was singing:

“Blow the man down, maties! Blow the man down! Yo, ho, blow the man down! ”

The girls bumped into each other as they tried to squeeze through the door.

Once in the hall, Nancy saw a man wearing a black cape and a red bandana around his head. His back was to the girls as he walked up the hall.

“Who’s that? ” Nancy asked Amara.

“It’s Captain Hook from Peter Pan, ” Amara explained. “But he never had a parrot before.”

A parrot? Nancy looked closer.

Perched on the pirate’s shoulder was a green-and-red parrot!

“It’s got to be Lester! ” Katie cried.

The pirate stopped. He glanced over his other shoulder and raised his eye patch. Then he began to run!

“Stop! “Nancy called.

Could Captain Hook be the parrot crook?