“What do you think, George?” Hannah asked after George had taken a taste.
“If I say it’s better than my mom’s, I’ll be in big trouble.” George smiled. “But it is really, really good.”
Everyone turned to Nancy, who hadn’t tasted the chili yet.
Nancy was holding the spoon near her mouth, but her lips wouldn’t open. “I just can’t eat more chili,” she told Hannah. “I want to. But after days and days of it, I am full to the top.”
“You won’t even taste it for the contest?” asked Hannah. “I changed the recipe since you had it last. I added a secret ingredient.” Hannah appealed to Nancy’s detective side. “I bet you can’t figure out what the secret is,” she challenged.
Nancy let out a big breath and groaned, “You know I can’t resist a mystery.” She took a bite of the chili, then remarked, “Wow! This is your best pot yet.” She closed her eyes, letting the taste of the chili roll around on her tongue. “Not pepper. Not cinnamon.” Nancy wrinkled her nose. “I’ve got it. This mystery is solved.” She opened her eyes.
“So what’s the ingredient?” asked George.
“Do you really know?” Bess wondered aloud.
Nancy looked to Hannah. It was her secret recipe, after all. Nancy wasn’t sure if she should tell everyone or not.
“After the contest,” Hannah told her, “the school is printing a booklet of all the recipes. The secret won’t be a secret after that. Go ahead, Detective Nancy Drew, tell us what you think the mystery ingredient is.”
Nancy took another bite just to be certain, then said, “Chocolate. Hannah melted chocolate into her chili.”
Hannah started to laugh. “You are a great detective, Nancy.” She ruffled Nancy’s hair. “I’m proud of you.”
“What a great idea,” George said. “I know my mom didn’t do anything cool like that to her chili. My mom’s chili is good, but yours is really special. I bet you’ll win after all.” George winked at Hannah. “Save me a bowl. I’m coming for lunch tomorrow, too. Just don’t tell my mom!” she added with a laugh.
Bess put her arm around Nancy. “Now that the chili mystery is solved, we’d better help Ned with his ticket mystery.”
The girls said good-bye to Hannah and wished her good luck, then hurried over to Mrs. Fayne’s chili pot. Luckily, Suzie was still there.
“Hello, girls,” Mrs. Fayne greeted them. “Did you come to taste my chili?”
“Do we have to?” Nancy whispered to George. “I know it’s the polite thing to do, but I just can’t eat another bite. Honestly.”
“No problem,” George told Nancy. Turning to her mom, she said, “Actually, we just came to talk to Suzie.”
“All right.” Mrs. Fayne wasn’t upset. “I know you girls ate my chili last year. Since I won first place, I didn’t change the recipe at all.”
“Watch out for Hannah Gruen,” George warned her mom. “She has a killer recipe this year.”
“It would be lovely if I won again, but I won’t be upset if Hannah takes first place this time. I hear she added a secret ingredient,” Mrs. Fayne remarked, picking up a wooden spoon and stirring her pot. “I wonder what it is.”
Nancy winked. “It’s a mystery. But the secret will be revealed in a few days in the school recipe booklet.”
“I suppose I’ll have to wait patiently until then.” Mrs. Fayne turned away from the girls to serve Police Chief McGinnis a taste of her chili.
Suzie threw away her empty bowl and said to Nancy, Bess, and George, “You wanted to talk to me?”
“We noticed that you have a lot of festival tickets,” Bess told Suzie.
“I need a lot of tickets because I have to win a bear,” Suzie explained.
“We were wondering where you got so many—,” Nancy began, but her voice was drowned out by Principal Newman talking over the loudspeaker. She was announcing the winner of the chili cook-off. “After much tasting and testing, the winner of this year’s chili cook-off is . . .”
“. . . Hannah Gruen!”
“Hannah gets the blue ribbon!” George exclaimed. “That’s great news.”
“Do you think your mom will be bummed?” asked Nancy. She was excited for Hannah and honestly concerned about Mrs. Fayne’s feelings at the same time.
“Not a chance,” George reassured her. “Mom even said she thought Hannah should win this year.”
Bess added, “After all the experimenting Hannah did, she probably worked the hardest to win. She totally deserves first place.”
“I’m glad she won,” Nancy remarked, holding her belly. “Hopefully next year she’ll enter the pie bake-off instead.” She laughed. “I’d love to spend two weeks tasting pie samples. With yummy ice cream.”
Suzie turned to George. “I want to be a caterer like your mom when I grow up, so I was hanging out at the cook-off, trying to learn a little about cooking chili. Now I’d better get back to trying to win a stuffed bear.” She checked her watch. “I’m running out of time. If you want to talk, come with me to the arcade area.”
The girls followed Suzie over to the Dart Dare throwing game. Nancy noticed the noisy crow sitting on top of the Dart Dare sign.
“Hi, girls,” Nancy’s dad said. Mr. Drew was taking tickets and handing out the darts at the booth. “Are you having a good time?”
“We’re on a case, Dad,” Nancy told him.
“I want to hear about it after the festival,” Mr. Drew said. “This line is growing pretty long, so right now I need to focus on the dart game.”
“Sure, Dad. Hopefully, we’ll solve this mystery soon. I’ll fill you in during the car ride home,” Nancy told her father. “We need to speak to Suzie now, anyway.”
By now Suzie was at the front of the line. “We can talk after I play,” she said, tearing off one ticket from the huge stack in her hand and giving it to Mr. Drew. Nancy watched as her father ripped Suzie’s ticket in half and gave her three darts. He told her Suzie needed to throw them hard at the colored balloons at the back of the booth. “You only have to pop one balloon to win a bear,” Mr. Drew explained.
Suzie picked up a dart. Before she threw it, she looked at George and Bess. “Any ideas on how I can win this game?” she asked them.
“Even if you threw on a precise curve,” George said after carefully thinking about how the game was played, “there is the rebound off the balloon.” She shook her head. “Math won’t help you win this one.”
Bess bit her bottom lip before answering. “Like the baseball game, this is designed so that you will probably lose and have to spend more tickets. The darts are dull and the balloons are placed close together to make it hard to hit just one. Chances are good the dart will fall between the balloons.” Bess shrugged. “I think it’s best to just cross your fingers for luck, then throw the dart.”
Suzie decided that instead of crossing her fingers, she would hold her lucky necklace. “Will you hold my tickets for me?” she asked Nancy. “I need one hand to throw the dart and the other to squeeze my lucky necklace.”
Nancy was glad to help. She took Suzie’s stack of tickets from her, glancing at them before closing her fist around the plain yellow tickets. “I’ll keep your tickets safe,” she told Suzie.
“Thanks,” Suzie said. Then she tossed the first dart. It bounced off a red balloon and fell to the ground. Mr. Drew picked it up and put it in his apron pocket. Suzie tossed the second dart. It hit a blue balloon, but instead of popping, the balloon spun a little and the dart dropped away.
Suzie rubbed her necklace. She closed her eyes and said, “I wish I would pop a balloon.” Pulling her hand back for the throw, Suzie squinted one eye and took careful aim. She released the dart. It sailed through the air, headed directly for a yellow balloon.
Pop.
“I did it!” she shouted. “I can’t believe it!” Suzie pointed up at the stuffed bears on a shelf behind Mr. Drew. “Good thing I was wearing my lucky necklace.” Mr. Drew handed Suzie a teddy bear. She was so happy that she kep
t hugging the bear and jumping around.
“Girls,” Mr. Drew called out to the friends from behind the dart booth. “Will you do me a favor?”
Bess and George really wanted to interview Suzie right away, but Nancy got a faraway look in her eye as she told them they were no longer in a hurry. She wanted to help her dad before they did anything else. Nancy moved closer to the booth counter, saying, “What’s up?”
“I need you to cut off a few pieces of string for me while I inflate a new yellow balloon.” Mr. Drew handed Nancy a ball of brown twine and a pair of scissors. He showed her how long to make the pieces. “I need to tie up the new balloon for the next person who wants to play the game.”
Mr. Drew scratched his head. “The funny thing is that I swear I cut up a whole bunch of string pieces just before Suzie took her turn.” He looked down at the bright blue countertop. “I thought I put them here on the counter.” Then he looked inside his apron pocket, pulling out some torn tickets and a handful of flat balloons. Mr. Drew shook his head. “I’ve been so busy I probably thought I cut up the string, but didn’t actually do it.”
Bess and George helped Nancy as she cut a piece of string for her dad. Mr. Drew blew up a balloon, took the string, and tied the balloon to the board. Then Nancy cut a few extra pieces for him.
Mr. Drew took the pieces and put them in his apron pocket. “Thanks, Pudding Pie. Now I’ll be able to put up balloons when I need to.” He tapped the front of the pocket before going back to work taking tickets, ripping them in half, and handing out darts.
“We still need to talk to Suzie,” Bess said, getting back to business. “But where’d she go?” Bess realized that while Nancy had been cutting string, Suzie had wandered away.
Just then, Ned came rushing up to the dart booth. “Did you find my tickets?” he asked Nancy and the Clue Crew.
Nancy was sorry to have to tell Ned that they hadn’t found his tickets yet. She opened her notebook and took out her pencil. “We still have one more suspect to interview.”
“I thought we had two suspects,” Bess said, leaning in and correcting Nancy. “We were about to interview Suzie.”
“No, I’m sure that now we only have one suspect left,” Nancy replied. “Suzie didn’t take Ned’s tickets.” She drew a line through Suzie’s name.
“What?!” Bess and George said at the same time.
Nancy closed her notebook and explained, “When I was holding Suzie’s tickets, I checked them out. All her tickets were plain yellow. There wasn’t any writing on the back.”
“Suzie wanted to win a stuffed bear so badly, I thought she nabbed Ned’s tickets so she could get extra chances. I was sure we’d solved this mystery, but I was wrong,” said George. “I guess we’d better go find Natalie. She’s our last suspect.”
“What if Natalie didn’t take my tickets?” Ned asked. “What will the Clue Crew do then?”
“We’ll start looking for more clues,” Nancy told him. “Don’t worry, Ned. We won’t let you down.”
“I totally believe that you will solve this mystery.” Ned looked around the carnival. It was getting late and people were already starting to head home for the evening. “But can you hurry up? The festival is almost over.”
“Here, Ned,” Nancy said, carefully ripping off one of her own tickets. “Do you want to get some popcorn? You could eat it while we interview Natalie.”
“I think I should come with you,” Ned suggested. “Just in case she really did take them.” He looked at Nancy seriously. “I’ve seen situations exactly like this one on TV. The thieves always try to run away. I could be your backup.”
Nancy smiled. “Thanks for the offer, but we aren’t going to accuse Natalie of stealing. The Clue Crew interviews suspects and looks for clues. We never just march up and blame someone. She might be our last suspect, but right now all we’re going to do is ask her a few questions.”
“Then we process the information and discuss the possibilities,” George added. “That’s why solving mysteries isn’t a quick business.”
“Hopefully Natalie will provide the information we need to solve this mystery,” Bess said, still hugging the bear she’d won at the baseball booth.
“Wow,” Ned exclaimed. “I didn’t realize that detective work took so much thinking. It seems kind of hard the way you explain it.”
“It’s not hard when you know what you’re doing,” Nancy said with a grin.
“Well, then.” Ned took the yellow ticket from Nancy. “I’ll leave Natalie’s interview to the professionals. I’m not hungry, so I’m going to take this ticket over to the arcade and throw three baseballs at milk jugs instead.”
“Good luck,” said Nancy. Then, before Ned walked away, she added, “I’ll let you know if—I mean, when—we solve the mystery.”
“Great,” Ned replied. Then, after a short pause, he continued, “This is the last ticket I’m borrowing.” He held up the ticket Nancy had given him. “If you don’t find my tickets soon, I’m going home.”
Ned was still having a pretty good time, but Nancy could tell that if they didn’t find his tickets soon, he was going to go home feeling sad that he’d missed a lot of the festival fun.
“We’d better hurry and talk to Natalie,” Nancy said, and then told Ned that they would move as fast as they could.
“Don’t forget,” Ned called after them as the girls strode off, “if you need backup, I’ll be at the baseball-throwing booth using Bess’s tips and Nancy’s ticket to try to win a bear.” He laughed. “You might be good at solving mysteries, but I’m a superfast runner! And a good defensive tackle.”
The girls were still giggling at the idea that the Clue Crew might need “backup” when they realized they were wandering around the festival aimlessly. They actually had no idea where to find Natalie, and in the confusion of Ned rushing up to them at the Dart Dare booth, they’d lost track of Suzie as well.
“So much for hurrying to solve this mystery,” Bess moaned. “We can’t even find our number one suspect!”
“I wonder if Suzie was going to meet up with her,” George remarked. “I bet if we’d followed Suzie she’d have led us straight to Natalie.”
“We’re going to have to search out Natalie a different way,” Nancy said, standing on her tiptoes and peering through the crowd. “I wish I could see farther. . . . ” Suddenly Nancy’s voice dropped and she got that far-off look in her eyes.
“Don’t zone out again.” George gave Nancy’s shoulder a little shake. “We promised Ned we’d move quickly.”
“I wasn’t zoning.” Nancy blinked twice to clear her head. “Well, maybe just a little.” She smiled. “I was thinking about how we could see a bigger area of the festival.”
“We could get back on the roller coaster,” Bess suggested. “We could see everything from the top.”
“We don’t have time to wait in line,” said Nancy, pointing at the big crowd of kids now waiting for the ride.
“Or we could ask that annoying crow for a lift.” George pointed at the crow, who was now perched on the back of a nearby bench. Nancy noticed that the crow had something in its mouth. She inched closer to get a better look and saw a bit of white fluff hanging from the bird’s beak. Interesting, she thought. “I bet the crow has a bird’s-eye view from way up there!” George began to laugh at her own joke.
Nancy smiled and shook her head. “I have an idea. Come on!” She led her friends through the festival grounds, back over by the chili cook-off. “Mr. Wilson!” Nancy cried out as they approached their gym teacher.
Mr. Wilson was still standing on his tall stilts. He wasn’t juggling small balls anymore. He still had the soccer ball going from hand to hand, but now he also had three butter knives spinning with it.
“Way to go, Mr. W!” George applauded as the knives flipped through the air.
Without breaking his groove, Mr. Wilson waited until his right hand was free, then waved at George.
“Very tricky,” Bess remarked as he
caught a knife with that same hand an instant before it dropped away.
“Did you girls solve your mystery?” Mr. Wilson asked.
“Not yet,” replied Nancy. “Remember how you said we could come ask you for help if we needed it?”
“Sure,” the teacher said. “But what can I do for you from way up here?”
“We’re looking for Natalie Coleman,” Nancy told him. “Can you peer over the crowd and find her for us?”
Mr. Wilson scanned the festival grounds while still juggling with perfect timing. He looked left. Then right. Then turned around and looked left. And right. Finally he declared, “Natalie is with Suzie Park and Deirdre Shannon on the Tilt-A-Whirl.” He pointed with a knife, showing the Clue Crew exactly where they needed to go.
“Thanks a million,” Bess told Mr. Wilson.
“You’re welc—,” Mr. Wilson said, suddenly stumbling slightly. He didn’t fall off his stilts, but the soccer ball dropped out of his juggling, bouncing to the ground. In an instant, George swept the ball up and quickly tossed it back into his left hand, just as she had before.
“Now it’s my turn to thank you,” said Mr. Wilson with a smile.
“We’re even,” George told their teacher.
The girls hurried off to find Natalie at the Tilt-A-Whirl.
The girls caught up with Natalie, Deirdre, and Suzie just as they were getting off the Tipsy-Turvy Tilt-A-Whirl.
“That was an awesome ride,” Suzie exclaimed, rubbing a hand through her windswept hair.
“I’m glad it wasn’t any faster,” Natalie said with a small shiver. “I was feeling a little green the whole time.”
“I could have gone way faster,” Suzie boasted. “I love spinning around.” And, just to show how much she liked spinning, Suzie turned herself around three times quickly. When she stopped, she was dizzy and lost her balance. She fell into Nancy, knocking her backward.