The Cinderella Ballet Mystery (4 page)

Just then, Nancy noticed something odd. Gregory was walking toward the storage area with Scruffy on a leash. Scruffy had his nose low to the ground, as though he was sniffing for something.

Gregory was looking at the ground the whole time too. In fact, he didn't even seem to notice Nancy and Bess.

That Gregory acts so strange sometimes!
Nancy thought.

But Nancy's thoughts were interrupted by Bess's voice.

“Nancy!” Bess exclaimed. “I found something. I think it's a clue to the missing slippers!”

“I've never seen a barrette like that,” George remarked.

Nancy sat cross-legged on her bed and leaned over to take a look. George was holding a silver barrette in the palm of her hand. It was zigzag shaped.

Bess had found the barrette at the dance studio, wedged into a crack in the shelf under the pink and silver striped shoe box.

George handed the barrette to Nancy. Then she moved over to Nancy's desk and started typing on the computer. This was one of George's jobs in the Clue Crew: entering and keeping track of the case on Nancy's computer.

“Clue: Zigzaggy barrette found under the
Cinderella shoe box,” George read out loud as she typed.

“Do you think the slipper thief left it there by accident?” Bess suggested.

“Or maybe the barrette was there all along and doesn't have anything to do with the slipper thief,” Nancy pointed out.

George typed all this into the computer.

Nancy turned the barrette over and over
in her hand.
It looks like a
Z, she thought. She turned it over again.
Now it looks more like an
N.

N
—as in Nadine?

Did the barrette belong to Nadine?
Nancy wondered.
Was Nadine the slipper thief?

Nancy held the barrette out to George and Bess. “At first I thought it was a
Z
shape,” she said. She turned it sideways. “But now I'm wondering if it's an
N
shape.”

“Maybe,” George said.

Bess nodded slowly. She seemed to be following Nancy's train of thought. “That means it could be Nadine's! She wears barrettes.”

Nancy leaned back against her pile of fluffy pillows and was quiet.

“Nadine was really, really mad that Andrea got to be Cinderella instead of her,” Nancy said after a while.

George nodded. “It looked like she tried to
trip Andrea yesterday at rehearsal. But it might have been an accident.”

“No way,” Bess said. She grabbed a handful of buttery popcorn that Hannah had made for the girls. “That was
no
accident.”

“So maybe Nadine stole the slippers to ruin the ‘Cinderella' ballet for Andrea and everybody else,” Nancy mused. “And while she was stealing them, her barrette fell and got stuck in the crack in the shelf.”

George typed everything into the computer. “Let's look at it from a different angle. What if the barrette fell and got stuck there some other time? Like last week or last month or whatever?” she said out loud.

“Or what if the barrette belongs to somebody else with the initial
N
?” Bess added.

“I think we need to talk to Nadine as soon as possible,” Nancy announced.

“I have to ask you something,” Nancy told Nadine.

It was Thursday, a few minutes before rehearsal. The studio was already crowded with dancers who were stretching and getting ready. Nancy, Bess, and George had found Nadine in the corner by herself.

Nadine tugged her black leg warmers over her tights and glanced up at Nancy and her friends. “What?” she asked suspiciously.

Nancy pulled the silver barrette out of her dance bag and held it out to Nadine. “Is this yours?”

Nadine stared at the barrette. “Nope, that's not mine. Lately I only wear barrettes that are shaped like flowers, animals, or musical notes. That one is shaped like … well, I'm not sure what it's shaped like. It's either a lightning bolt or a really skinny tree.”

“Actually, we think it's the letter
N
,” George piped up.

“We? What do you mean,
we
? You're not on one of your crazy Clue Crew cases, are you?” Nadine asked.

“We are. We're trying to find the missing Cinderella slippers,” Bess replied. “This barrette is a clue. A very
important
clue.”

Nadine's jaw dropped. “Am I one of your suspects?” she demanded.

“Where were you between the end of Tuesday's rehearsal and the beginning of Wednesday's rehearsal?” Nancy asked her.

“Did you steal the slippers?” Bess blurted out.

“What made you do it, Nadine?” George added.

“I don't believe this!” Nadine exclaimed. “Of course I didn't steal those stupid slippers. Why is everyone so worried about them, anyway? Andrea can wear another pair of ballet shoes.
I'm
the real victim here. I was rejected for the part of Cinderella, not once, but twice!” She held up two fingers and stabbed them in the air dramatically.

“Maybe you stole the slippers because you're mad about not getting the part,” Bess said.

“Of course I'm mad. I should have been
Cinderella!” Nadine huffed. “But why would I make things even worse by committing a crime? I don't want to spend opening night in jail!”

Nancy, Bess, and George exchanged a look. Nadine was being her usual drama-queen self. But was she telling the truth about not stealing the slippers?

Sometimes clues are a lot easier to figure out than people
, Nancy thought.

On the studio floor, rehearsal was under way for one of the Act Two scenes. Nancy watched George, Bess, and some of the other dancers practicing pirouettes with Mr. McGuire's help. Pirouettes involved spinning on one foot and were difficult to do.

Nancy was not in this scene, so she took the opportunity to do a second search for clues. This time, she crawled around on the floor on her hands and knees to get a really close look. She peeked into every crevice. She peered into
every nook and cranny. She found a lot of rusty bobby pins, empty paper cups, and dust bunnies.
Yuck
, she thought, making a face.

And then she found something a little more interesting in the set storage area. It was a small piece of white paper, half hidden under a shelf. She picked it up and stared at it closely. It said, “taille 35.”

Nancy frowned. What did “taille” mean? Was that code for something?

Then she noticed that the words “taille 35” were written in the same fancy cursive style as the letters on the Cinderella shoe box.
Maybe the piece of paper came from inside the shoe box
, she thought.

It's definitely a clue
, Nancy told herself.

She stuffed the piece of paper in her pocket and made a mental note to discuss it with her fellow Clue Crew detectives later. Then she brushed the dust off her tights and headed over to where her dance bag lay on the floor.

On her way, she almost tripped over Gregory's legs. He was sitting on the floor, going through his own dance bag. Scruffy was sitting next to him, sniffing everything.

Gregory moved his legs out of the way. “Oh, sorry,” he mumbled.

Nancy glanced down. Gregory had dumped some of the contents of his dance bag out on the floor. There were some dirty socks, a water bottle, school notebooks, homework assignments, a half-eaten granola bar, dirty T-shirts, and a dirty towel. What a mess!

“Are you cleaning out your bag?” Nancy asked him curiously.

Gregory shook his head. “Nah. Just looking for something.”

“Oh.”

Nancy turned to go. But just then she noticed something shiny and glittery in the pile of Gregory's stuff.

It was a rhinestone. A small, clear, heart-shaped rhinestone.

It looked just like the rhinestones from the missing Cinderella slippers!

Nancy stared at the glittery, heart-shaped rhinestone lying among Gregory's things. It had to have fallen off one of the Cinderella slippers.

Did this mean that Gregory was the slipper thief?

“That looks like one of the rhinestones from the Cinderella slippers,” Nancy said, pointing to the jewel.

Gregory stared at the rhinestone. His cheeks flushed red.

“That's not mine,” he said quickly. “I don't know how it got there.”

Nancy tried to figure out if Gregory was lying.
She couldn't tell. Still, he seemed to be hiding
something.

“You don't know how it got there?” Nancy asked him.

“No way,” Gregory said.

“It's definitely not yours?” Nancy persisted.

Gregory shook his head.

Nancy picked up the rhinestone. “Can I have it, then?”

“Sure,” Gregory said with a shrug. “I don't want it.”

Scruffy nuzzled his nose in Nancy's hand and sniffed the rhinestone. He began barking loudly.

“What's the matter, boy?” Nancy asked him.

Scruffy continued to bark at the jewel.

“Scruffy, be quiet!” Gregory said. He picked up one of his dirty socks and threw it across the floor. “Fetch, Scruffy!” he ordered.

Just then Nancy got an idea. While Gregory watched Scruffy fetch his sock, she leaned over and peeked into his dance bag. If Gregory
was the slipper thief, the slippers might be in there.

But they weren't. All she could see was a paperback book, a magazine, and … a magnifying glass.

A magnifying glass? Nancy frowned. What was Gregory doing with that?

Scruffy had finally stopped barking and was chewing vigorously on Gregory's sock. Nancy turned to Gregory with a smile. “So why are you carrying a magnifying glass in your dance bag?” she asked him.

Gregory started. “Hey, what are you doing looking in my bag?” he demanded.

“It was open, and I just happened to—” Nancy began.

Gregory picked up his belongings and threw them into his bag. “You should stop poking around in other people's stuff,” he said gruffly.

With that, he grabbed his bag and headed over to the barre.

That night, the Clue Crew met at Nancy's house to go over their case. Nancy and Bess sat cross-legged on Nancy's bed while George sat at Nancy's desk.

“We have two new clues,” Nancy announced.

She held out the heart-shaped rhinestone and the piece of paper that said, “taille 35.” Bess and George studied them carefully.

“What does ‘taille' mean?” Bess mused. “Did somebody misspell the word ‘tail,' as in a doggy tail?”

“Maybe it's in code,” George suggested.

“I wondered about that too,” Nancy said. “In any case, I think it's definitely a clue because the letters are just like the fancy letters on the slipper shoe box.”

George typed all this into Nancy's computer. “I know,” she said suddenly. “Why don't I do a search for the word ‘taille' on the Internet?”