Designed for Disaster (3 page)

For the rest of the day, under Nicole's direction, everyone on the three winning design teams walked around balancing books on their heads. From time to time some of the fourth and fifth graders thought it was funny to try to knock them off, but after a while they just gave up. In fact, by the time school was out, Nancy
had noticed that a lot of the kids in the other classes were doing the same thing.

When Nancy mentioned that to Bess and George on the way home, George said, “Oh yeah! Modeling fever hit our school big-time. I overheard several fifth graders talking about how much better they would have been doing it than us.”

“Oh yeah, right!” Bess said.

The next morning, just as Nancy and the Clue Crew entered Mrs. Ramirez's classroom, Deirdre, Nadine, and Katherine ran up to them. They had stricken looks on their faces.

“Uh-oh, something's wrong,” Nancy whispered.

“You're not going to believe this!” Deirdre said. “You're just not going to believe it!”

“Believe
what
, Deirdre?” Nancy asked.

“I went to Mrs. Corwin's classroom this morning to ask her a question,” Deirdre said, “and that's when I saw her crying.”

“Juliana can't find our designs!” Nadine said. “They've disappeared!”

Deirdre whirled around. “Excuse me! This is my story!” she said. “I'm the one who heard it first!”

“I'm sorry,” Nadine said. “It's just that I'm so upset!”

“You're
upset?” Deirdre said. “It's my life we're talking about here!”

“What happened exactly?” Nancy asked.

Deirdre let out an exasperated sigh. “All of our incredibly wonderful fashion designs have disappeared,” she said. “And Juliana's seamstresses need the designs to start sewing the clothes.”

“That shouldn't be a problem. Mrs. Corwin scanned the designs and e-mailed them to Juliana,” Nancy said. “The file will still be on her computer.”

Deirdre shook her head. “Mrs. Corwin and Juliana were going to retrieve the file, Nancy, but a virus must have corrupted it.” She let out a moan. “My life is over.”

“You'll recover, Deirdre,” Nancy said. She
turned to Bess and George. “Still, there's something really suspicious about this. We need to get to the bottom of it right away.”

“Well, I'm calling an emergency meeting of the River Heights Fashion Models Club for that very reason,” Deirdre announced.

The Clue Crew looked at her.

“What's that?” Nancy asked.

“We've never heard of it,” Bess and George said in unison.

“We models need a club where we can discuss our careers and solve any problems that arise, such as what happened to our designs, so I'm starting one right now,” Deirdre said.

Nancy rolled her eyes.

“You all need to be at my house tonight at seven o'clock!” Deirdre added.

Since no one in Mrs. Ramirez's class could think of anything else except the disappearance of the fashion designs, she decided to show a DVD about volcanoes.

Halfway through it, though, Nancy noticed Nadine's mother at the door, motioning to Mrs. Ramirez. For a few minutes Mrs. Nardo whispered something in Mrs. Ramirez's ear, but then Mrs. Nardo started waving her hands around and shaking her head. Nancy purposely knocked a pencil onto the floor so she'd have to get out of her seat to pick it up. The pencil landed close to the door, but not close enough for Nancy to hear more than the words “Nadine” and “wonderful model.” Just as Nancy got back to her seat, Mrs. Ramirez returned to the front of the room.

Nancy could tell she was upset about something.
I wonder what's going on?
she thought.

That evening only the girl models showed up at the emergency meeting of the River Heights Fashion Models Club.

Deirdre opened with, “As president, I think we should hire Nancy Drew and the Clue Crew to look into this crime.”

Nancy gave Bess and George a puzzled look. “We don't know that it's actually a
crime
yet, Deirdre,” she said.

“Oh, it's a crime, all right,” Deirdre assured everyone. “This whole thing smells fishy to me.”

“We agree!” the other members said.

“You will certainly be paid for your work,” Deirdre said, looking directly at Nancy, Bess, and George. “Just send the bill to our treasurer.”

“What am I going to do with it?” Katherine asked. Nancy thought she looked really nervous. “I only get a small allowance.”

“You don't have to pay for it personally, Katherine,” Deirdre explained. “We'll use our club dues.”

“We don't pay dues,” Nancy said.

“Well, we should!” Deirdre said.

Nancy rolled her eyes at Bess and George. “We don't charge for our investigations, Deirdre,” she said, “so why don't we just move on?”

“Well, all right, but I want you to be serious about this,” Deirdre said.

“We're always serious about solving crimes, Deirdre,” Bess said.

“Yeah, Deirdre,” George said. “You don't have to worry about that.”

“What if Juliana isn't telling the truth?” Katherine said. “What if she just wants to claim the designs as her own?”

“I can believe she'd do that!” Nadine said. “I don't think she really likes us—especially me!”

Suddenly Nancy remembered what she had overheard Mrs. Nardo say.
Did Juliana make negative comments about Nadine?
she wondered.
Was Juliana really not as nice as everyone thought she was?

“I think that makes Juliana our number one suspect, Nancy,” Deirdre said.

Nancy nodded. “We'll talk to her tomorrow morning,” she said.

On Friday morning when Nancy, Bess, and George walked into Mrs. Corwin's classroom, Mrs. Corwin and Juliana were standing at the front, a big smile on each of their faces.

“How can they be so happy?” Bess whispered.

“That's what I was wondering too,” Nancy whispered back. “There's nothing funny about the missing fashion designs.”

“Well, if you ask me …,” George started to say, but Mrs. Corwin said, “Class, Nicole found the missing designs! All is well!”

There was an audible gasp from the class.

Nancy looked at Bess and George. “I guess Juliana is no longer a suspect!” she said.

Bess and George nodded.

“My modeling career has been saved!” Deirdre announced.

“Where were they?” Nancy asked.

“That's the strangest thing,” Juliana said. “They had fallen behind a filing cabinet in one of the dressing rooms.” She shook her head. “I'm just positive I looked there, but I must not have looked carefully. I'm certainly glad Nicole dropped her pen and that it rolled behind that particular filing cabinet, or we'd still be searching for them.”

Nadine raised her hand. “We thought someone stole them!” she said. She turned to Nancy, Bess, and George. “Our River Heights Fashion Models Club even hired the Clue Crew to investigate.”

Juliana looked at her. “Oh my goodness, I can't imagine why anyone would do something like that.”

Nancy opened her mouth to speak, but Deirdre said, “Well, those designs are worth a
fortune, Juliana. We were desperate. We just couldn't sit by and do nothing.”

Mrs. Corwin held up her hand. “Well, Juliana does have something to say that may disappoint several of you,” she said.

“Oh no!” Bess whispered. “Something new every day!”

“I have an agreement with a professional modeling agency in New York City,” Juliana said, “and Felicity reminded me this morning that I can't have more River Heights models than professional models in the show.” She let out a big sigh. “So I can only use
five
of you.”

Bess looked at George and Nancy. “That Felicity is a real troublemaker,” she whispered.

Nancy and George nodded.

“Who will they be?” Deirdre said. “Who will they be?”

George raised her hand. “I'll be happy to—”

Bess grabbed George's hand and pulled it down. “My cousin thought you were talking
about running in the New York City Marathon, Juliana,” she said. “She forgot you were talking about the River Heights Fashion Show and how incredibly important it is to some of us!”

Juliana and Mrs. Corwin gave Bess funny looks.

“Well, we're going to decide that by secret ballot, Deirdre,” Mrs. Corwin said.

That seemed to satisfy everyone.

After Juliana left to go back to the auditorium, Mrs. Corwin passed out blank pieces of paper. “Write out five names,” she told the class. “One of the models has to be a boy.”

Fifteen minutes later the ballots had been turned in and counted.

“Here are the results,” Mrs. Corwin said. “Nancy, Bess, George, Deirdre, and Quincy!” She looked up at the class. “Is everyone satisfied?”

“Yes,” the class answered. George groaned.

Nancy looked at Nadine. She didn't seem disappointed.

“No!” Amanda Johnson shouted.

Everyone turned to look at her. Amanda had never before been so negative about everything.

“I am still very upset that my ONITAP designs weren't chosen,” Amanda said. “I think they're better than everyone else's.”

“I'm sorry, Amanda,” Mrs. Corwin said. “Juliana's decision was based solely on what she thought would sell the best.”

Nancy looked at Bess and George. “Her designs weren't bad,” she said, “but where in the world did she get ‘ONITAP' as a designer label?”

“I still think it's all really unfair,” Amanda said.

At that moment the classroom door opened, and Nicole said, “We're ready for the River Heights models!”

With Nicole in the lead, Nancy, Bess, George, Deirdre, and Quincy headed to the school auditorium.

When they got there, all the other models—except Felicity—gave the River Heights models brilliant smiles.

Felicity said, “I hate this town!”

Juliana gasped. “Felicity! That's a terrible thing to say!”

Deirdre turned around and whispered to Nancy, Bess, and George, “Those smiles they gave us are so fake! I'll show them a
real
modeling smile.”

“I know,” Bess agreed. “Nicole is the only nice one of the group.”

For the next several minutes Juliana explained how the fashion show would work, and then she said, “We start rehearsals first thing on Saturday morning. You all need to be here!”

On Saturday morning Nancy, Bess, and George got permission to ride their bikes to River Heights Elementary School.

“I can't believe it's finally here,” Nancy said
as they headed toward the auditorium. “This is incredible!”

“Maybe not,” George said. “Look.”

Nancy and Bess turned to where George was pointing. Mrs. Corwin was standing at the door to the auditorium. Juliana was sobbing on her shoulder.

“Oh no,” Nancy said. “This doesn't look good.”

When the three girls reached Mrs. Corwin, Nancy said, “What's the matter?”

Mrs. Corwin told them. Some of the clothes for the fashion show were missing—all of them were designs by the River Heights models!

“We can't cancel,” Juliana sobbed. “It'll ruin my name.”

“We won't cancel,” Nancy assured her. She looked at Mrs. Corwin. “You have copies of our designs, so I'll show them to our housekeeper, Hannah. She sews really well, and my dad can help her.”

“Our parents will take care of our designs too,” Bess said. She turned to George. “Right?”

“Right! And the same goes for Deirdre and Quincy, I'm sure!” George said. “With our parents helping, we'll get it done!”

“Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you,” Juliana said. She turned to Mrs. Corwin. “Well, let's start the rehearsal. We'll do what we can.”

As Mrs. Corwin and Juliana headed into the auditorium, Bess held back. “These can't just be coincidences,” she whispered.