The Cinderella Ballet Mystery (6 page)

Nancy reached over to get her dance bag. “Don't move,” Ms. Zelda instructed her. “I must put one last pin in—there! Now you can move.”

Nancy opened her dance bag and pulled out the “taille” clue. She showed it to Ms. Zelda.

“Do you know what this is?” Nancy asked her.

Ms. Zelda shrugged. “
Mais oui
, of course. It is a French shoe size.”

“A shoe size? Isn't thirty-five kind of big for a shoe size? Maybe it's a shoe size for giants!” Nancy giggled at her own joke.

Ms. Zelda chuckled. “No, no. France is part of Europe. European shoe sizes are different. A European size thirty-five is about—oh, let us see, a size four for girls in America.”

“Really?” Nancy exclaimed.

“Yes, really.” Ms. Zelda looked amused. “Now, please stand up so I can check the rest of your costume.”

Nancy got to her feet. Her mind was spinning.

If taille 35 was the same as a girl's size 4, the piece of paper must have definitely fallen out of the box containing the Cinderella slippers. She remembered Andrea telling her once that she was a size 4.

Ms. Zelda bent over low to adjust Nancy's hemline. Just then Nancy noticed something. Ms. Zelda was wearing a shirt with the monogram
Z
embroidered on it in black.

Nancy cocked her head to the right. Sideways, the letter
Z
turned into the letter
N
. Could the silver barrette—one of the Clue Crew's clues—be a
Z
shape instead of an
N
shape, after all?

Nancy gave a little cough. “Um, excuse me, Ms. Zelda,” she began. “Do you own a silver barrette?”

Ms. Zelda looked surprised. “
Oui!
But I seem to have lost it. I haven't seen it in several days.”
She stared at Nancy. “Why do you ask?”

Nancy thought quickly. “I think I heard one of the other kids saying they saw something like that,” she said. She wanted to hang on to her clue until she'd solved the case. “I'll ask around about it.”

“Thank you, that's kind,” Ms. Zelda said.

“Ms. Zelda, can you help me with my cape?” one of the other students called out. “It's too long!”

“Yes, yes, I'm coming,” Ms. Zelda replied. She patted Nancy's costume, beaming. “There. You look just like a little mouse.”

Nancy thanked Ms. Zelda as the older woman hurried away with her tape measure, safety pins, and sewing kit. Nancy gazed after her, wondering if the costume manager might be the slipper thief. But that didn't make any sense. Why would Ms. Zelda have stolen the slippers? Besides, Nancy didn't feel comfortable accusing her of being a thief. She was a grown-up, after all. Maybe Ms. Zelda lost the barrette, just as she said.

“Hey, Nancy Clue,” someone said.

Nancy glanced up. Gregory was standing nearby. He looked handsome in his prince costume: black velvet pants and a royal white tunic with gold buttons.

“Hi, Gregory,” Nancy said. She wondered if he had been eavesdropping on her conversation with Ms. Zelda.

Gregory pointed to the “taille 35” clue, which Nancy was still holding. “Where'd you get that?” he asked her curiously.

“In the set storage area,” Nancy replied. “Why?”

“I want to show it to someone,” Gregory said. “I'll bring it right back. Is that okay? I'll be supercareful with it.”

Nancy thought for a moment. She wondered why Gregory
really
wanted to borrow the “taille 35” paper. Still, some instinct told her to say yes. Maybe she would learn something new and important about the case. After all, Gregory
was
a suspect.

“Sure,” Nancy said with a smile. She handed the piece of paper to him.

“Thanks a lot!” Gregory said. Then he rushed off.

Nancy watched him as he hurried to the other side of the studio. She followed tentatively. Bess and George came up to her.

“You look so cool in your mouse clothes!” Bess exclaimed.

“You guys look really great in your costumes too,” Nancy said. She lowered her voice. “I'm following Gregory.”

“Why?” George asked.

Nancy explained. “I want to know what he's going to do with the ‘size thirty-five' clue,” she finished.

“We're all dressed and we have our makeup on,” Bess whispered. “We have about twenty minutes until the first scene. We can help you!”

Nancy nodded. She put her finger to her lips. Then she, George, and Bess began following Gregory again.

The studio was bustling with activity, so Gregory didn't seem to notice that he was being watched. He walked toward Scruffy, who was curled up in the corner on an old red blanket.

Gregory bent down next to Scruffy and held the piece of paper Nancy had given him under the dog's nose. Scruffy sniffed. Gregory said something to him. Then Scruffy got up and began walking this way and that, his nose low to the ground, continuing to sniff.

“What is Gregory doing?” George whispered to Nancy.

“What is
Scruffy
doing?” Bess added.

Nancy frowned.
What
are
they doing?
she wondered.

Then something occurred to her.

“On Wednesday I saw Gregory walking around the set storage area with Scruffy,” Nancy said out loud to her friends. “It's like he was using Scruffy to help him find something. Then yesterday, when I found the rhinestone in Gregory's stuff, Scruffy started sniffing it and barking like crazy.”

Bess and George both stared at her. “What do you think all that means?” George asked her.

Nancy's eyes flashed. “I think I know what happened to the Cinderella slippers,” she announced.

George gasped. “You know what happened to the slippers?” she demanded. “What? Who? Where? How? Why?”

“I think Gregory is the person who should be answering those questions,” Nancy said.

Nancy marched up to Gregory and Scruffy, with George and Bess at her heels. Gregory stopped and turned around. Scruffy gave a short bark.

Nancy put her hands on her hips and stared sternly at Gregory. She felt a little silly doing that in her mouse costume. But this was important.

“You took the Cinderella slippers, didn't you?” Nancy accused Gregory.

Gregory's cheeks turned bright red. “Uh, n-no way,” he stammered. “I d-don't know what you're talking about.”

Bess stepped up. She put her hands on her hips too. “You
do
know,” she said. “And you'd better tell us!”

Gregory stared at the floor. Scruffy barked at him.

“I think you took the Cinderella slippers on Tuesday, as a joke,” Nancy guessed. “You hid them somewhere, maybe in the set storage area. Then you forgot where you hid them. Or someone moved them. Either way, now you don't know where they are. You've been looking for them since Wednesday, using Scruffy's super-duper doggy nose.”

Bess seemed to pick up on Nancy's thoughts. “You let Scruffy smell the rhinestone and the piece of paper with the size on it to help track down the slippers,” she said slowly.

Gregory looked up and stared at her, his eyes wide. “How'd you guys know all that?” he asked her.

“That's why we're the Clue Crew,” George said with a grin.

“Oh.” Gregory frowned. “I didn't mean to steal the slippers, exactly,” he confessed finally. “I was just going to hide them, as a joke, like
Nancy said. I did it after rehearsal on Tuesday.”

“Is that the last time you saw them?” Nancy asked him.

Gregory nodded. “On Wednesday, when Andrea and everyone else figured out the slippers were missing, they all freaked out! I thought that was kind of funny. Then I went over to the hiding place to get them. But they were gone!”

“Where did you get the rhinestone?” Bess said.

“It fell off on Tuesday when I hid the slippers,” Gregory replied. “I was going to glue it on later. I let Scruffy smell it so he'd help me find the slippers. He has an awesome sense of smell. I think his great-grandfather was a bloodhound.”

Then something else occurred to Nancy. “That's why there was a magnifying glass in your dance bag,” she said suddenly.

“Yeah. I was trying to act like a real detective so I'd solve the mystery,” Gregory admitted. “I
guess it didn't work. The slippers are still gone. Mr. McGuire is going to be supermad at me.” He sighed unhappily.

Nancy thought for a moment. “Where did you hide the slippers on Tuesday?” she asked him.

“In a giant ice-cream sundae,” Gregory replied.

“A giant ice-cream sundae?” Nancy, George, and Bess repeated in unison.

Gregory nodded. “Yeah. It was made of painted wood. It had a little shelf on the back part of it. I put the slippers there. But then the whole thing disappeared! Like, how did
that
happen?”

Nancy gasped. It all made sense now.

“I know where the sundae is!” she exclaimed.

“You do?” Gregory asked her eagerly. “Where? I'll give you my magnifying glass if you find the sundae,” he offered.

“You can keep your magnifying glass,” Nancy told him. “Come on, guys, we have to get up to the attic!”

“The attic?” Bess said, sounding confused.

“The giant ice-cream sundae is from
The Nutcracker
,” Nancy said, heading for the stairs.

Bess, George, and Gregory followed Nancy. The four of them raced up the stairs to the attic. Scruffy bounded behind them.

Nancy had never been in the attic before. It was a big room with a ceiling that sloped down on either side, following the lines of the roof. It was full of set pieces and props: giant trees, the fronts of buildings, fake lampposts, Victorian furniture. Everything was covered with a fine layer of dust. Scruffy sneezed; so did Bess and George.

“Okay, what's this about
The Nutcracker
?” George asked Nancy as she sneezed again.

“Ms. Zelda told me that she moved some old set pieces from
The Nutcracker
from the studio up to the attic, to make room,” Nancy explained breathlessly. “This was Tuesday night.”

“Tuesday night?” Gregory cried out. “That's right after I hid the slippers.”

Nancy nodded. “Exactly! Now, we just have to find the giant ice-cream sundae somehow. There's an awful lot of stuff here.”

“And we can't mess up our costumes, or Mr. McGuire will
really
be mad,” George pointed out.

“And we don't have a lot of time,” Bess said.

But it took Nancy and her Clue Crew only a few minutes to find the giant ice-cream sundae. It had been shoved in between a huge cookie and an enormous piece of pie.

Nancy peered behind the sundae. She saw the shelf Gregory had mentioned. Actually, it was more like a little nook.

The Cinderella slippers were there!

Nancy pulled them out and held them up in the air. “Yay, we found them!” she exclaimed.