“Why, that’s very nice of you, Danielle,” Ms. Swanback said.
The teacher eyed Danielle for a minute. “I’ll tell you what,” Ms. Swanback said to Danielle. “How would you like to stay behind the boards with me during the show? We can watch from the sidelines. And then you can help the other girls carry the flowers to the skaters after the show is over.”
“Oh, that would be wonderful,” Danielle said. “Thanks! Thanks a lot.”
Nancy was so excited, she didn’t know what to do first. She ran to the lobby to meet her father and tell him what had happened. Then she hurried to the locker room to meet Bess.
As fast as she could, she told Bess the whole story.
“But what about Susan Hong?” Bess blurted out.
“I don’t know,” Nancy said.
“What about me?” a voice on the other side of the row of lockers said. Then Susan came around the corner.
Bess blushed, but Nancy smiled. “We were just wondering something,” Nancy said. “Why did you erase your name from the sign-up board? And then how did your name get put back on the list?”
“My mother signed me up again,” Susan answered shyly. “I didn’t want to skate in front of so many people, but she said I had to.”
“But why didn’t you want to?” Nancy asked.
“You’re such a good skater!” Bess exclaimed.
“Thanks,” Susan said. “I just get scared when a lot of people are watching.”
“Don’t be scared,” Nancy said. “You can hang out with us. We’ll stick together.”
“Yeah,” Bess said. Then she lowered her voice to a whisper. “And don’t worry,” she added. “No one will notice you. They’ll all be watching Mandy. She falls down so much.”
Nancy, Bess, and Susan giggled quietly. They didn’t want Mandy to hear them. They didn’t want to hurt her feelings.
“We’d better get ready,” Bess said as she hurried back to her locker.
“Okay,” Nancy said. Her eyes were twinkling with excitement.
Within a few minutes, the ice show started. The first skaters were the Russian pairs champions. All the flower girls watched from behind the boards.
As soon as the act was over, Ms. Swanback sent Nancy, Bess, and Susan onto the ice. They skated around the huge oval, picking up all the flowers that the fans had thrown.
Nancy loved the feeling of skating in front of such a big crowd.
“That was so cool!” Susan said when they were done.
“I know,” Nancy said, smiling. “That was the most fun!”
Then Nancy looked down at her skating dress, the one Danielle had loaned her. It was blue satin with silver trim. The silver trim glittered under the bright lights on the ice.
It was so nice of Danielle to let me wear her dress, Nancy thought.
Nancy turned and started walking toward the locker room.
“Where are you going?” Bess called.
“I just have to write something down,” Nancy called. “I’ll be right back.”
In the locker room, Nancy reached into her locker and took out her blue notebook. She opened it to the next blank page. Then she wrote:
Today I solved The Ice-Skating Mystery. I learned that sometimes a person can be not nice one day. And then a day later, they can be nice again. Very nice!
Case closed.
Carolyn Keene, Not Nice on Ice
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