The Kitten Caper

  “Hey!” Richie cried out.

  Mr. Layton handed Cocoa to the woman. Then he lifted Creampuff in the air and stretched her body long, as though she were a piece of dough. “See the bone structure? The markings?” he said.

  “Remarkable,” the woman agreed.

  Creampuff squealed again. She wriggled restlessly.

  “Stop that! You’re hurting her!” Bess cried out.

  “I’m not hurting her in the least,” Mr. Layton replied.

  Just then, Terry came walking over. “Mr. Layton. Mrs. Layton. What can I do for you?” she said in a tense-sounding voice.

  “Let’s discuss this in private,” Mr. Layton said. “This is an adult conversation.” He glanced at Nancy, Bess, George, and Richie.

  Terry and the Laytons walked away, with the couple carrying Cocoa and Creampuff. Nancy frowned. Was Mr. Layton still trying to buy the two kittens from Terry?

  “That guy better not try to adopt Titan and Turboslayer,” Richie said, glaring at Mr. Layton. “They’re my cats. No one is going to get them but me!”

  “If your mom says yes,” Nancy reminded him.

  Richie’s shoulders slumped. “Yeah. If.”

  • • •

  Nancy, George, and Bess were the last ones to leave the party. They stuck around to help Terry clean up, since Terry’s assistant Ella wasn’t around. Ella had left earlier to visit her great-aunt in a nursing home.

  “What a wonderful party this was!” Terry exclaimed as she picked up a pile of fliers.

  “Did you find new homes for any of your cats?” Nancy asked her.

  “Fifteen new homes!” Terry replied. “All with very nice people. I also raised lots of money to buy cat food and litter. Oh, and I met a local veterinarian who is going to do some volunteer work for Furball Farm.”

  “How about Creampuff and Cocoa?” Bess said slowly. “Did . . . did Mr. Layton and his wife buy them from you?”

  Terry shook her head. “I told him no. Again. He doesn’t seem like the kind of person who gives up easily, though,” she said with a sigh.

  Nancy glanced around. “Speaking of Creampuff and Cocoa . . . where are they?” she asked Terry.

  Terry looked around too. “Creampuff! Cocoa! Come here, kitties!” she sang out.

  Half a dozen cats raced up to Terry. But Creampuff and Cocoa weren’t among them.

  “Creampuff! Cocoa!” Terry repeated, more loudly. “That’s strange. They always come when I call,” she told the girls.

  Nancy frowned.

  Were Creampuff and Cocoa missing?

  3

  Kit-napped!

  Creampuff! Cocoa! Kitties! Come here right now!”

  Terry wandered through the barn, calling out to the kittens. Nancy, Bess, and George did the same.

  “Where could they be?” Bess asked worriedly as she peered under a chair.

  “Maybe they’re hiding somewhere,” George suggested. She peeked behind a cupboard.

  “I don’t know. They don’t often hide. They like to run around and play with the other cats,” Terry said. “Creampuff! Cocoa!” she yelled.

  Nancy searched under the cages. She looked behind the bags of cat food and litter. She checked in all the nooks and crevices of the barn.

  She found lots of kitties in these hiding places. But Cocoa and Creampuff were not among them.

  Nancy turned to Terry. “Do you think they got outside by accident?” she asked her.

  “It’s possible,” Terry replied. “So many people have been coming and going these last couple of hours.”

  “Let’s check it out,” Nancy suggested. “Bess, you stay in the barn and keep looking.”

  Bess nodded. “Okay”

  Nancy, George, and Terry put on their coats and went outside. They closed the barn door carefully so none of the cats or kittens would follow them.

  Terry headed into the snow. But Nancy put her hand out to stop her.

  “Pawprints,” Nancy said. “If the kitties got away, there would be pawprints in the snow. It snowed this morning and stopped around lunchtime, so the snow out here is fresh. We should look for any pawprints that might be here before we erase them with our own footprints.”

  “Wow, you talk just like a real detective,” Terry said, sounding impressed.

  “Nancy is a real detective,” George said proudly. “She’s the best detective at Carl Sandburg Elementary School. She’s solved lots of mysteries!”

  “Well, I certainly hope she can solve the mystery of my two missing kittens,” Terry said.

  Nancy bent down and began studying the marks in the snow. There were dozens and dozens of footprints, no doubt from the party guests. They all went to and from the driveway and the street.

  One set of footprints cut through Terry’s yard toward the neighbor’s yard. Nancy noted that the prints weren’t that much bigger than her own. They must belong to Richie Feathers, she guessed. He said he lived right next door to Terry.

  Nancy continued to study the marks in the snow. Even though there were lots of footprints, there were no pawprints at all—not near the barn, not near the house, not anywhere in the yard.

  “It doesn’t look like Creampuff and Cocoa ran out of the barn,” Nancy said finally. “At least, I don’t see any pawprints anywhere.”

  “Why don’t we go back inside? Maybe Bess had better luck than we did,” Terry said hopefully.

  The three of them went back into the barn. There, they found Bess on the floor. She was poking around under an old wooden table.

  “Bess?” Nancy said curiously. “Did you find the kittens?”

  Bess shimmied out from under the table. She was covered with cat fur and dust. “No, but I found these,” she said.

  Bess held up two red collars with silver bells attached to them. “Creampuff and Cocoa were wearing collars just like these at the party,” she pointed out.

  “Did any other cats have collars like those?” Nancy asked Terry quickly.

  Terry shook her head. “No. Just Creampuff and Cocoa,” she replied. “I made those collars especially for them, for the party.”

  “How did they get off the kitties and under this table?” George piped up.

  Nancy glanced at George, then Bess, then Terry. “Someone must have taken them off the kittens,” she said in a serious voice. “The same someone who may have kidnapped them.”

  • • •

  On Sunday morning after breakfast, Nancy, George, and Bess returned to Furball Farm. They wanted to see if the missing kitties might have turned up during the night.

  But when they got there, Terry had no such good news for them. In fact, she looked tired, with dark circles under her eyes.

  “I’ve been up since five a.m. looking for them,” Terry told the girls. “I even left out a bowl of their favorite treat, strawberries. But they didn’t come.”

  “Strawberries?” Bess exclaimed. “They like strawberries?”

  Terry nodded. “Some cats like fruit. Some cats like vegetables. You’d be surprised. I once knew a cat who liked cantaloupe and raw green beans.”

  Nancy noticed that Ella was in the corner, cleaning out some cages. “Hi, Ella,” she called out.

  Ella turned around and waved. She had a roll of paper towels in one hand and a bottle of cleaning spray in the other. “Hey,” she said.

  “You haven’t seen Creampuff and Cocoa, have you?” Nancy asked her.

  Ella shook her head. “Nope. I can’t believe they’re missing! I told Terry I’d help her try to find them. I’m good at finding things. I’m always losing my CDs and earrings and schoolbooks and stuff, but then I find them again. Well, most of the time.”

  Terry turned to Nancy and her friends. Her brown eyes were shiny with tears. “Oh, girls, who could have taken those poor little kitties?” she said with a moan.

  Just then, something caught Nancy’s eye. It was a shiny, crumpled-up piece of paper on the floor next to the garbage can. She could make out the symbols “$$$” on it, written i
n green ink.

  She walked over to the piece of paper and picked it up. A scruffy black cat came up to her and rubbed against her ankles, purring. “Hi, kitty,” she said. “I don’t have time to pet you right now.”

  Nancy smoothed the paper out carefully and scraped some dried mud off of it. She studied it closely. It seemed to be a page torn from a magazine.

  In the center of the page was a photograph of a cat. Nancy gasped. The cat looked a lot like Creampuff and Cocoa!

  Some words were written in green Magic Marker along the side of the paper: “Same breed? Ragdoll, Seal, Lilac. If so, worth $$$. Call Roger—I can get 2 right away.”

  “What is it, Nancy?” Bess asked her.

  Nancy walked over to the others and showed them the piece of paper. “Is this yours?” she asked Terry.

  Terry shook her head. “No. And that’s not my handwriting, either.” She added, “The cat in this picture looks a lot like Creampuff and Cocoa!”

  “Definitely,” Bess agreed.

  Nancy’s thoughts were racing. Did someone steal Creampuff and Cocoa, because they might be the same breed as the cat in the magazine? Did that same someone want to sell the two kitties to a person named Roger for lots of money?

  Could that someone be Michael Layton?

  4

  Behind the Blue Door

  Nancy stared hard at the new clue. Michael Layton really wanted Creampuff and Cocoa. He came to Furball Farm to try to convince Terry to sell them to him—not once, not twice, but three times. He even told Terry that she would be very, very sorry if she didn’t.

  “Could Mr. Layton be our kitty thief?” Nancy said out loud to Terry.

  “Mr. Layton?” Terry repeated. She sounded shocked. “Why on Earth would he steal my kittens?”

  George’s eyes lit up. “You’re right, Nancy. Mr. Layton must be the thief!”

  “He really wanted to buy Cocoa and Creampuff from you,” Bess reminded Terry. “And you kept saying no. Maybe he decided the only solution was kit-napping!”

  “I don’t know,” Terry said uncertainly. “He’s a well-known and respected cat breeder. He’s not the most polite or pleasant person in the world. But I can’t believe he’s a criminal!”

  Nancy noticed that Ella had stopped cleaning the cages and was listening to their conversation. “Ella, do you know anything about this?” she asked, holding up the piece of paper.

  Ella shook her head. “I’ve never seen it before. I bet you’re right, though. I bet that Layton guy is the thief!” she said firmly.

  Ella sounded pretty sure. So did Bess and George. Nancy still needed more proof, though.

  Nancy pointed to the handwritten words on the page. “Ragdoll. Seal. Lilac. What do they mean?” she asked Geroge and Bess.

  “Hmm. I’m not sure,” George said after a moment. “I mean, we all know that a rag doll is a kind of doll. And a seal is a kind of sea animal. And a lilac is a kind of flower. Other than that . . .” She paused and shrugged.

  Nancy stared and stared at the words.

  A doll. A sea animal. A flower.

  Was this puzzle the key to the mystery of Creampuff and Cocoa? If so, what did it mean?

  • • •

  “Okay, what words did you want to search again?” Hannah Gruen asked Nancy.

  Nancy scooted closer to Hannah in front of the family computer. Hannah was the Drews’ housekeeper. But she was way more than a housekeeper. She had helped take care of Nancy since Nancy’s mother died five years ago.

  Nancy took a sip of the yummy hot chocolate that Hannah had prepared for her. She made sure to keep the mug far away from the computer.

  “Ragdoll, seal, and lilac,” Nancy told Hannah.

  “Hmm, sounds like you’re right in the middle of another mystery,” Hannah said, her eyes twinkling.

  “I am!” Nancy replied. She told Hannah all about the missing kittens.

  “The poor things,” Hannah said when Nancy had finished. “But with you on the case, I’m sure they’ll turn up very soon,” she added, squeezing Nancy’s arm.

  “I hope so,” Nancy said.

  Hannah typed some words to call up a search engine. A search engine was a computer program that could find facts and track down information.

  The search-engine page popped up on the screen. There was a cartoon detective with a magnifying glass. Above her head, it read: HI, I’M DETECTIVE DAPHNE DESKTOP. WHAT CAN I FIND FOR YOU TODAY?

  “She looks like you, Nancy,” Hannah joked.

  Nancy giggled.

  Hannah typed in “ragdoll,” “seal,” and “lilac.” A few seconds later, a new page popped up on the screen. Hannah typed a few more words. Yet another new page popped up.

  Across the top of the page were the words WELCOME TO THE WORLD OF FANCY CATS.

  Underneath the welcome message was a photograph of a cat. Nancy gasped. The cat looked like Creampuff and Cocoa—and like the cat on the piece of paper Nancy had found at Furball Farm! This particular cat was chocolate brown with dark brown ears, like Cocoa.

  “This is it!” Nancy cried out. “Can you go down the page, Hannah?”

  Hannah punched a key and scrolled down the page. There was a description of the cat under the photograph:

  Bon Bon is a classic ragdoll cat, owned by Miguel and Patty Gonzalez of Austin, Texas. Ragdolls make ideal pets because of their sweet, social, almost teddy bear-like personalities. Notice that Bon Bon has beautiful seal points.

  “There’s the word ‘seal,’” Nancy said excitedly. She jabbed her finger at the screen. “It must have something to do with the way the cat looks. What are ’points,’ anyway?”

  “Let’s find out,” Hannah said.

  She and Nancy continued reading more articles on the Web site. Within fifteen minutes, Nancy had learned everything she needed to know. “Points” were colorful markings on a cat. A cat could have dark points on its tail, ears, face, and elsewhere. “Seal” and “lilac” described some of the colors. Seal points were dark brown. Lilac points were pinkish.

  Nancy thought about this new information. Cocoa had dark brown ears and a dark brown tail: seal points. Creampuff had pinkish ears and a pinkish tail: lilac points.

  The handwritten words on the magazine page she had found at Furball Farm definitely had something to do with the missing kittens, she concluded.

  Someone thought that Cocoa and Creampuff were a special breed of cats called ragdolls. Terry had told Nancy that Michael Layton sold fancy cat breeds.

  It was time to pay Michael Layton a visit.

  • • •

  “Is this the right address?” Hannah asked Nancy.

  Nancy glanced at the computer printout with Michael Layton’s address. “Layton’s Fine Felines. Twenty-eight Rockwell Street. This is it.”

  Hannah parked her car in front of a large, elegant-looking brick mansion. Nancy, George, and Bess got out from the backseat.

  “I’ll wait here for you girls while you interrogate the witness,” Hannah said with a wink. “Or whatever it is you detectives do.”

  “Thanks, Hannah,” Nancy said, smiling.

  She walked along a snow-covered path to the front of the mansion, her friends following. There was a small gold-plated sign on the front door. It read: FOR LAYTON’S FINE FELINES, PLEASE GO AROUND TO THE BACK.

  The girls went around the mansion to the back. When they got there, they found a young man shoveling snow. “Can I help you girls?” he called out.

  “We’re here to see Mr. Layton,” Nancy replied.

  “He’s in the main house. He should be right back. Feel free to go inside the cattery and wait for him,” the man said.

  “Thank you!” the girls said in unison.

  “What’s a cattery?” Bess whispered to Nancy.

  “I think it’s another name for, you know, a cat store or whatever,” Nancy whispered back.

  The three of them opened an antique-looking wooden door marked LAYTON’S FINE FELINES and went inside to an enormous offic
e. In the middle of the office was a large marble desk and chair. All along the walls were dozens of silver cages. Inside each cage was a cat.

  Nancy had never seen such unusual-looking cats before. There was a gray-and-white cat with a pointy nose and huge, batlike ears. The sign on its cage read BREED, CORNISH REX. There was a tall, slender, silver cat with black spots, like a leopard. The sign on its cage said BREED, EGYPTIAN MAU.

  The girls saw other exotic breeds with interesting names like Australian Mist, American Curl, and Brazilian Shorthair. There was even a completely hairless cat called a sphynx!

  Bess stared over Nancy’s shoulder at the sphynx. “I’ve never seen a bald cat before,” she said.

  Just then, Nancy noticed something. In the back corner of the office was a blue door marked PRIVATE.

  She walked up to the door and pressed her ear against it. She could hear tiny meows coming from the other side. They sounded like kittens.

  “What is it, Nancy?” George asked her. She and Bess had followed her to the blue door.

  “Listen,” Nancy whispered.

  They heard more meows.

  Could the meowing kittens be Creampuff and Cocoa? Nancy wondered.

  She put her hand on the doorknob and began to turn it.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” a voice said behind her.

  5

  A Suspicious Sneeze

  Nancy and her friends whirled around. Mrs. Layton was standing there. She was dressed in a different fur coat than the one she had been wearing at Terry Smith’s open house.

  “We’re, um, here to see Mr. Layton,” Nancy said innocently. “The man outside told us to wait for him. We thought Mr. Layton might be in here.”

  “Well, he most certainly is not,” Mrs. Layton said huffily. “Can’t you read? That door says ‘Private.’ Private means little girls can’t go barging in there.”

  “We’re sorry, we didn’t know,” George piped up.

  Mrs. Layton frowned. “Why do you want to see my husband, anyway?”

  “Um, well.” Nancy thought. “We wanted to ask him about some cats.”