Bess shimmied the screwdriver every couple of minutes, allowing for the ride to stop and for each carful of terrified-looking people to get out. Half an hour later, the ride was completely empty, and she’d shut it off for good.
Bess wiped machine grease onto a towel that the wiry, wide-eyed ride operator handed her, and I was just about to tell her how amazing she was when something out of the corner of my eye caught my attention.
I squinted toward where the movement had come from and saw that it was a figure in a black hoodie moving among the shadows between the rides. I couldn’t tell who it was — he or she (the hood was covering the figure’s head, making it impossible to tell if it was a man or a woman) was too far away and moving far too quickly, but one thing was for sure: Whoever this person was, they’d been watching us.
Without a word, I headed off after the figure.
I ducked into the dangerous areas behind the rides, earning plenty of glares from other ride operators as I went. It seemed the figure was always ten steps ahead of me — rounding a corner just as I’d cleared the last.
Whoever this person was, they were taking me for my very own ride.
It was growing darker outside, as clouds threatened to open up and release a tor- rent of rain, and every sound and every shadow became more and more ominous.
For a moment I thought I’d lost the person in the black hooded sweatshirt. But then I saw a flash of black at the front entrance of the school. I thought I heard my name being called behind me, but there was no time to turn around. I sprinted to the front doors of the school and yanked them open, the suddenly menacing sounds of the carnival rides fading as the doors closed behind me.
Silence.
I looked around. The hallways were dark, and there were so many corners of the building, the hooded figure could have been anywhere. My heart slammed against my chest as I took in the deafening noiselessness with the realization that I was utterly alone.
I looked outside, where people were oblivious to the danger that might be lurking around, oblivious to people who might be starting fires and rigging rides. And then I looked forward. I had no choice. Whether or not the hooded figure had anything to do with Lexi’s case, they were obviously trying to hide.
As I walked through the linoleum hallways, the kitten heels that Bess had insisted I wear again today echoed loudly around the building. I cringed, my heart skipping a beat, and slid them off. I laid them on the floor and crept along in my bare feet.
When I passed the first classroom, I paused at the door. I could feel my pulse beating erratically in my throat and tried to swallow it into submission. The deeper into the school I walked, the darker it became, and now I could barely see my hand in front of my face.
I reached out toward the door and grasped the brass knob. I felt a chill run up my spine that I was sure had nothing to do with the frigidity of the doorknob. Slowly I twisted the classroom door open. When it was fully open, I let out a breath I hadn’t known I’d been holding, and my hand groped desperately along the walls for a light switch.
I felt a wave of warm relief wash over me as my fingers grasped the switch and light flooded the room. I scanned the room frantically, looking for the lurker with the black hoodie, and found — to my relief or horror, I couldn’t decide which — that no one else was there.
Just in time for the lights to cut back out.
I gasped inadvertently and edged my way back out of the classroom. At this rate, I’d have a heart attack going through each and every classroom this way… especially without any lights.
Just a couple more rooms, I told myself. I stood as still as possible in the middle of the hall, willing my eyes to adjust to the darkness surrounding me. I listened to every creak and moan of the old school building, my ears searching out any noise that resembled a footstep, or even a breath.
When I was certain there was no one around me, I walked forward, keeping my left hand on the wall of lockers to help guide my way. I walked along on my toes, still in bare feet, trying to make as little noise as possible so I could better search out any sounds in the building that could be human.
The moaning creak of an opening door caught my attention, and I hustled toward the sound. And what exactly will you do when you find this mysterious black-hooded person? I asked myself. But I’d come too far to chicken out, and it was too late to think about the consequences now. I pushed the thought to the back of my mind.
Suddenly lights flooded the building. Every classroom and every hallway was lit up so brightly that I had to squint my eyes to readjust my vision.
A cold hand clapped down on my shoulder.
I gasped, whirling around.
“Nancy!” George said. “It’s just me!”
I put my hand over my heart and gulped in some breath.
“George,” I croaked. “You scared me half to death!”
“Sorry,” she said. “But I’ve been looking for you everywhere, and when I finally ran into Bess, she told me that you ran off toward the school. Listen, we need to talk. I was able to get into Aly Stanfield’s password-protected file and — hey. Why are you barefoot?”
I looked at my feet, having completely forgotten that I’d taken off my shoes. And there it was, lying right next to my left foot. At first I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me. An aftereffect of standing in the dark for too long. But the longer I stared, the clearer it became.
A crumpled-up piece of sky blue paper.
I bent to pick it up and carefully unfolded it — but before I even opened it, I knew what I would find. Black smudges, all over the paper.
“Another note?” George asked.
“This one’s blank,” I said. “But look.” I held it up to her.
“Same black smudges,” she said.
“Same black smudges,” I echoed. “George, I don’t know why, but I think that the person writing the blogs and the notes is the same person who started the fire and removed the lever on the roller coaster. We need to solve this mystery, and fast.”
“Well,” said George tentatively, “that’s what I was trying to tell you.”
“What’s that?”
“I’ve been working on Aly’s password-protected file all afternoon — and I was finally able to get in.”
“How?” I asked, excited.
“Easy.” George smirked. “I guessed her password.”
“You guessed her password?” I said incredulously. George knew even less than I did about Aly Stanfield. And the only thing I knew, even after the sleepover, was that Aly was a hard worker who wanted nothing more than to get into…
“Harvard,” I said out loud, smacking my forehead with the palm of my hand.
George only smiled. “Bingo,” she said. “Boy, I sure could have used you about two hundred passwords ago.”
“George, I’m such an idiot — I should have known!”
But she only shook her head.
“Doesn’t matter now,” she said, eyes gleaming. “I think we may have found our girl.”
SECRETS, SECRETS EVERYWHERE
Bess, George, and I huddled around the computer screen in the computer lab.
“It’s a series of saved IM conversations between Aly and some guy named Brad,” George explained. “They were careful not to get into any specifics, but they’re definitely hiding something, you can tell.”
I scanned the saved conversations.
ALYCAT: I DON’T LIKE THIS. U KNOW I HAVE 2 TELL HER.
BRAD33: PLZ! ALY, YOU MADE A PROMISE.
ALYCAT: SHE’S GOING 2 FIND OUT. I’M NOT KIDDING, U HAVE 2 DO SMTHNG. IF U DON’T…
BRAD33: WE’LL TELL HER. PROMISE.
ALYCAT: WHEN?
BRAD33: SOON. 1 WK, TOPS.
ALYCAT: 4 THE RECORD, H8 THIS.
“Okay, so Aly is definitely hiding something,” said Bess.
“She sure is,” I said. “The question is, what? And from whom?”
George leaned back in her computer chair and crossed her arms. “Aly has the DRH motive, and now it looks like she’s got something to hide — and an accomplice. Combine that with her drive to get into Harvard. Nance, she must be at the top of your list.”
I tilted my head, as though seeing the IM chat from another angle would help me to somehow find the hidden meaning. “It’s suspicious for sure… but there’s nothing in here that says she’s talking about keeping something from Lexi. And we don’t even know who Brad33 is — or if Brad is even his real name.”
“That one was dated a month ago,” George interjected, closing the chat and opening a new one. “But this is the most recent one.”
Bess and I leaned forward, peering at the screen.
BRAD33: Y R U IGNORING MY TXTS?
BRAD33: ALY?
ALYCAT: U TOLD ME THIS WOULD B OVER BY NOW.
BRAD33: AFTER ALL THAT’S HAPPENED, WE HAVE 2 KEEP THIS BTWN US
BRAD33: U CAN’T TELL ANYONE
BRAD33: U PROMISED.
ALYCAT: HOW CAN I TRUST ANYTHING U SAY NOW? I CAN’T EVEN BELIEVE U!
ALYCAT: I’M DONE LISTENING.
BRAD33: U’LL REGRET IT, ALY. DON’T DO THIS.
ALYCAT: I’M GOING TO TELL HER.
[ALYCAT HAS SIGNED OFF]
“Whoa,” Bess breathed. “If that one was a week ago, even if Aly didn’t make good on her promise to spill this secret…”
“Which is possible,” I reminded her.
“Which is possible,” Bess repeated. “But what if Aly was working with someone to get back at Lexi for the DRH nomination, but then things got too serious and she changed her mind? If her accomplice wasn’t ready to stop, it would cause a rift between them and this whole conversation would make perfect sense.”
I tapped my nails on the table, thinking.
At the sound of George’s phone buzzing in her pocket, she reached in and pulled it out. “Another alert on Lexi’s name,” she read, then looked up at Bess and me. “It’s from hatethesegirls.com.”
I looked at my friends, my mouth forming a grim line.
“Go ahead,” I told George. “Bring it up on the computer.”
In seconds the website came up, and the familiar pink bubble letters sparkled on the screen. I couldn’t help but notice that the banner on top of the page no longer boasted a picture of the three girls — both Heather and Aly had been cropped out. Whoever the author was, he or she had begun to set his or her sights on Lexi Claremont and Lexi Claremont alone. This year’s Daughter of River Heights smiled out from the screen, oblivious to what the words below her read.
I read the most recent post once, twice, three times in a row, my eyes sweeping the page for any possible clues as to the blogger’s identity.
Poor little Lexi Claremont. Thinks she has it all, and doesn’t know it’s all about to come crashing down on her Gucci shoes. Because, you see, being a member of the Daughters of River Heights is all about prestige and honor. And girls who lie and steal to get what they want have nothing to say about either of those virtues.
You think you have it all, Lexi? Think again. Even the people who are close to you know your dirty little secrets. And pretty soon, all of River Heights will know who their “daughter” really is. Good luck at tomorrow’s parade, Lexi Claremont. You’ll need it.
Just as I was about to point out the myriad of clues buried within the blog post, I had a thought.
“George, can you check the IP time stamp?” I asked, looking at the time on my PDA: 4:52 p.m.
“No problem,” said George, tapping her fingers along the keyboard. After a few moments, she looked up at me. “Four forty-eight p.m.,” she said. “And the IP says it’s coming from the high school’s wireless network.”
I smiled.
“I’ve seen that look before, Nancy Drew,” Bess said, raising an eyebrow at me. “What do you know that we don’t?”
I had a theory, but I didn’t want to make an accusation without confirming the facts first. But that required the help of my friends.
“George,” I said, “can you go back to the blog post that appeared the day we saw it for the first time, right after Club Coffee and shopping for Bess’s dress? Can you get a time stamp on that one too?”
George began searching, the tick-tick-tick of the mouse scroll moving faster and faster.
“And Bess,” I said, locking eyes with her, “do you by any chance still have your receipt for that dress you’re wearing?”
Bess looked confused for a moment, then dug through her purse, pulling out a pretty silver wallet. “Of course I have my receipt,” she said. “I always keep receipts.”
That’s what I was counting on, I thought as she pulled out a neat stack of tissue-thin papers and began flipping through until she found the one she was looking for.
“Got it,” George said, tracing a fingertip along the words on the computer screen.
“Here you go,” said Bess, handing me the receipt from Boom Babies.
I compared the time on the blog post to the time on the receipt — same day, twenty minutes apart. Which, if George’s research about the IP was correct, meant that we were in the same place as the blogger — Club Coffee — when one of the entries was posted.
I hurriedly explained my theory to my friends.
“Do we remember who else was in there with us?” Bess asked, tucking the receipts neatly back into her wallet.
“Well, it was pretty crowded,” I said, closing my eyes to try to conjure a mental image of the shop. “There were a bunch of kids from the high school who had just gotten out of school. In fact, it was so crowded we couldn’t find a seat.”
“Sunshine was there,” said George, scooting forward in her chair excitedly. “Remember, Nancy? You thought you’d found a seat, but it turned out that Sun- shine was just ducking under her table so that she could —”
“Plug in her laptop,” I finished for her.
We looked around at one another.
“So Sunshine is a strong suspect,” I said. “She was in the right place at the right time — with her laptop — and she has the motive to want to take Lexi down, but what do you think she’d have on Lexi to threaten her with before the parade?”
“Unless that was an empty threat, just a fake-out,” George suggested. “To scare her.”
“True — but the blogger already knows that Lexi hired me. Wouldn’t that indicate that she’s already pretty scared?”
Bess bit her lip. “Okay, so who else?” she asked.
“Lexi was also there when we were,” I said, “because that’s where she first approached me. But do you guys remember if anyone was with her?”
“Like Aly?” Bess asked.
I nodded my head, hopeful.
“Sorry,” said Bess. “I don’t remember. I was on a bargain-shopping high.”
“And I was rifling through my gadgets,” George admitted.
“And I was suffering from major caffeine withdrawal.” I sighed, sitting in one of the twirly computer lab seats and allowing the full weight of my body to sink down into it.
I was suddenly aware of how exhausted I was. I’d barely gotten any sleep the night before at Aly’s sleepover, and today had felt like a marathon relay race. Every time I finished putting out one metaphorical (or even literal) fire, my friends and I had another one to deal with.
It was as if someone was toying with us the same way they were toying with Lexi. I thought about Ned’s caution — that this one might be over our heads. And my muscles did ache from the tension of walking through the school in such a panic. My fingers were permanently numb from pouring (and missing) too many cups of fro-yo. My feet were killing me from those stupid kitten heels I had to wear in order to fit into this ridiculous popular girl’s little club. I was tired, and just about ready to give up.
And then it hit me.
I sat up straight, suddenly feeling wide awake. If I felt this way after only one day of trying to fit in with these girls, and run at their pace, imagine how someone doing it for several years would feel. Imagine what someone would be willing to do to get back at Lexi Claremont, just for being her.
“We really need to solve this mystery,” I told my friends. “I refuse to be outwitted by some bitter blogger who wants to destroy this town’s carnival just because they have it out for one overprivileged girl.”
George looked at me as though I’d lost my mind.
Bess gave me a timid smile. “Nancy?” she asked. “Are you okay?”
“I’m better than okay,” I said, standing and wincing as I put my blistered feet back into my kitten heel shoes. Oh, well, I thought, that’s what calluses are for. “So we’ve got to talk to Sunshine and Aly — and anyone who could have been there with Lexi the day she hired me.”
“What about Scott Sears?” Bess asked.
I laughed. “I think your boy is in the clear,” I said. “You were right before. This has girl written all over it.”
INTERROGATION TIME
First we decided to take inventory of the fro-yo stand. Deirdre Shannon, her new leather-clad boyfriend Josh, and Heather were all missing — and Aly Stanfield was typing away on her PDA.
“Where did Heather and Deirdre go?” I asked Aly.
“To — quote — take a break — unquote,” Aly replied.
“Did they leave together?” I asked, feeling guilty for having left Aly to take care of the fro-yo customers all by herself.
“Nope,” said Aly, shooting me a quizzical look. “Deirdre left about half an hour ago with Josh — and Heather left about five minutes later. Why?”
“No reason,” I said. Except that everyone had left the booth just in time for another blog post to go up. Not to mention the fact that Aly herself was typing on a PDA that looked more than equipped to post an entry from.
“Checking your e-mail?” George asked, clearly reading my mind.
Aly put a hand on her hip and sighed. She addressed me. “Look. I knew I’d get stuck doing all the work — no big deal and nothing new. But I’d really appreciate it if you and your friends could find someone else to chat with. I’m taking a practice SAT test online, and I don’t need the interruption, okay?”
“You can do that?” I asked, rushing to Aly’s side. I peered over her shoulder at the phone clasped in her hands. “What question are you on?”
“Excuse you,” Aly said, moving the phone away. “But this is my personal, private property. You really do seem to have a thing about invading other people’s stuff, don’t you?”
I wrung my fingers together, my heartbeat quickening. “What do you mean?” I asked.
“Please,” Aly said in a way that practically screamed You’re irritating me! “My mother totally saw you on my computer last night.”
“Oh,” I said, glancing at my friends. I was surprised that Mara had ratted me out — after all, she’d offered to pick out a nail polish color for me and everything! “Is that all? I was just checking my e-mail.”
“Find anything good?” she asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Not really,” I said. “Just spam.”
“Interesting,” said Aly. “Because our Internet service has been down for days. A guy from the cable company is coming next week to fix it.”
“Oh?” I said worriedly. I’d just blown my cover! “That’s so strange…. I could have sworn that —”
“Actually,” George interrupted, “it’s not all that strange. Internet is going in and out at our place too. Probably the strong winds that have been blowing through town off the water. Must’ve been a fluke.”
I tossed George a grateful smile.
“Whatever,” Aly said, sounding bored. “Just go ahead and leave so I can finish my test?”
She didn’t have to ask me twice.
On our way to visit Sunshine at the ring-toss booth, I voiced my opinion about Aly’s Internet problems. “If her Internet hasn’t been working for a few days, that would explain the IP coming from Club Coffee.”
“And from the school,” said Bess.
“But,” I said, playing devil’s advocate, “I saw her phone, and she really was doing an SAT practice exam online — plus, she was on question thirty-seven. No way she’d have gotten that far and posted to the blog too.”
“Maybe she minimized it and switched between them?” Bess ventured, sidestepping a pigtailed little girl with glittery stars and rainbows painted on her cheek.
“But isn’t the SAT a timed test?” I asked. “Would the practice test let you pause it, even if just for a minute, without making you start the whole thing over again?”
“Good question,” said George. “I’ll look that up once we’re done interrogating Sunshine.”
I raised my eyebrows in surprise. “Interrogating?”
“Nancy, I know you think that Aly is the most likely culprit here,” George replied.
“But we have more evidence to back up the accusation that Sunshine is behind this. Remember, we never even saw Aly at Club Coffee that day.”
I glanced at Bess, only to find that she seemed to be in agreement with George. I knew that they both had a point, but something about this still didn’t feel settled. I couldn’t help but feel that Sunshine was merely the most convenient answer, and that we must have been overlooking something.
As we walked through the center lane of the carnival, all the scents mingled in the air, making my mouth water. I realized I hadn’t eaten since breakfast, and it was already nearing six o’clock! I looked at the crisp, warm funnel cakes dusted with fine white confectioner’s sugar. The sausage-and-peppers cart had been reassembled with a new burner and smelled yummier than ever. Even the hot dogs…
I turned toward Scott Sears’s booth, but it was vacant, and the food had been half put away. There was a young-looking high school boy packing what was left of the condiments into a big brown box.
“What happened?” I asked him. “Decide to call it quits for the day?”
He screwed up his face and looked around. “Don’t tell anyone — I’m supposed to keep it secret. But it was food poisoning,” he said. “Please don’t spread it around, though. Mr. Steele doesn’t want word getting out that the carnival is cursed or anything — especially after the roller coaster and — Hey!” he said, looking at Bess. “You’re that girl who fixed the ride!”
Bess blushed.
Even though she should have been used to it by now, she didn’t like too much attention being directed toward her for things like this. It was simply something she enjoyed doing, and she happened to be very good at it. Besides, she obviously had something else on her mind — something far more important than saving the coaster. Well, according to her.
“What about Scott Sears?” she asked the boy.
He scrunched up his nose as though he’d just smelled something gross. “He was, uh, sampling the merchandise, apparently. He got sicker than anyone else. He’s going to be okay, but he was taken to the hospital for dehydration.”
“Oh, that’s awful!” I said. “I hope he feels better.”
“See,” Bess hissed in my ear as we continued walking. “I told you he wasn’t a suspect.”
“You were right,” I conceded as we walked away.
The moment we approached the ring-toss booth, Sunshine quickly glanced at us, turned around, and slammed something shut behind her.
“Hey, Sunshine,” I asked. “Slow day?”
“Why do you think I chose the ring toss?” she joked. “No one lines up for that when they could ride the roller coaster of death, or sample some delicious poison corn dogs.”
My blood ran cold. If she were the culprit, would she have brazenly admitted to knowing about two things that she was responsible for — especially since the corndog stand scandal seemed to be under wraps?
“How did you know about the corn-dog stand?” Bess asked menacingly.
Sunshine rubbed her stomach. “Made the mistake of having a few bites,” she said with a queasy look on her face.
“But you didn’t finish it?” I asked. “Why not?”
Sunshine rolled her eyes. “I’d never had one before, so I tried one. Those things are disgusting!”
I leaned against the counter of the booth — as much to take the pressure off my feet as to get closer to the object of my intrigue. “So what have you been working on?” I asked, nodding toward her laptop.
“Oh,” Sunshine said lightly, color creeping into her pallid cheeks. “Not anything, really. Just messing around.”
“Really?” I asked. “On what?”
“Just this thing,” she said. She’d regained her composure and crossed her arms over her chest now, challenging me.
“Online?” I asked.
Sunshine laughed. “What’s with the sudden inquisition?” she asked. “If you need to borrow a computer, there’s a labful inside the school.”
I looked toward my friends, nodding them away. If I was going to get anything out of Sunshine, it would have to be a one-on-one conversation. Considering her experiences with Lexi and her friends, I imagined she wasn’t too into spilling secrets to groups of girls — particularly because, at the moment, I resembled a Lexi look-alike.
“Sunshine, have you ever heard of a blog called hatethesegirls.com?”
She looked to the side dubiously, then back at me. “Nooooo,” she said slowly. “Should I have?”
I shrugged. “I just thought you might have.”
“Why?” she asked. Her brows knitted together, and she bit her lip in an uncharacteristically vulnerable way. “Does it say anything about me?”
She turned to her laptop, pulling up the Internet browser and immediately typing in the address I’d just given her. There was a tense moment when her entire body went rigid… and then she burst into tears.
Or at least, I assumed they were tears. Her shoulders shook and her hands flew to her eyes, wiping tears away. It wasn’t until she turned around and I saw the gleeful look on her face that I realized she wasn’t crying. She was laughing.
“Oh, Nancy… you didn’t think…” She burst into a hearty laugh.
“Okay,” I said, growing impatient. “I don’t get it. Fill me in on the joke.”
Sunshine’s jubilant tears had smeared the thick black eyeliner around her pretty eyes, and she carefully traced a finger underneath to tidy the smudge.
“It’s just… you think I did this, don’t you?”
I shrugged, feeling not a little bit foolish. Sunshine clearly hadn’t known about the blog. I knew how to tell when people were lying, and this had been an honest reaction to that blog.
Sunshine tilted her head and looked at me. The hysterical laughter had died down, but there was still a trace of a smile on her face. “Why would you think I’d do something like this? Just because some bratty girls called me names in between classes?”
“Well,” I said, “actually, yes. You’re telling me you’ve never wanted to make their lives difficult? Never wanted to out them to the world as the artificial, mean girls they are?”
“Sure I have,” she admitted. “They made my life really difficult at River Heights High. But look at this thing.” She gestured to the blog that was up on her computer screen. “Does this look like my style?”
I took in her black dress, the black intentionally ripped tights, the red Mary Jane platforms. Her pale skin, red lipstick, and ever-present black-string bracelet with the red charm. No, this website definitely was not her style. I doubted the word “pink” was even in this girl’s vocabulary.
“You’re right,” I admitted. “I’m sorry for accusing you. It was just — had I been in your shoes, I might have wanted a little revenge myself.”
She shrugged. “I get it,” she said. “But would you have acted on it? I mean, trust me. There are plenty of times I’d like to see the prom queen fall from grace. I mean, send a mass e-mail telling everyone that her Chanel handbag is a knockoff? Sure. Tell the world about her new guy? That would be sweet. But unlike Lexi Claremont and the sheep who follow her, I know that life goes beyond high school. She might rule the school now, but wait until I get out there and become a famous research scientist and rid the world of infectious diseases. I’ll be accepting the Nobel, and she’ll be reliving her high school glory days in her head. A blog is too easy. Still, thanks for telling me about it. I’ll be sure to keep an eye out to see what happens.”
Great, I thought. Here I was, trying to solve the mystery for Lexi, and I was only fueling the popularity of the blog by running my mouth about it to people who already hated her.
“Well, thanks for talking to me, Sunshine. It’s cool that you have such a mature perspective. I wish the author of this blog and all those notes shared your opinion.”
“Notes?” she asked.
Oops! “Oh, just… nothing to worry about. Thanks again.”
I had to contact Bess and George. Next and final stop: Aly Stanfield. I was sure of it now. All we had to do was prove she’d been in Club Coffee the day I’d met Lexi Claremont, and we would be in business.
FIREWORKS
Nancy! We’ve been looking all over for you. Where’s your phone?” Bess called to me.
I dug into my purse and pulled out my phone. The battery had gone dead. Again. “I must have forgotten to charge it. Is everything okay?”
“We found Lexi. She’s in bad shape,” George said.
“Is she hurt?” I said, my voice spiking with nerves.
Bess shook her head. “Just shaken up. She received another note.”
