Camping Chaos (3 page)

“What, When, Where, Why, and How?” Frank finished.

The Hardys were detectives, and they’d solved a lot of mysteries—everything from a zombie sighting to a missing dinosaur fossil. For every case, they wrote down Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How on a whiteboard in the secret tree house that their dad had built for them in their backyard at home.

Whenever they had a new theory, clue, or other information, they wrote it on the whiteboard under one of the six categories. They’d nicknamed their note-taking method the “six
W
s,” even though “How” was not technically a
W
word.

Joe circled their tent once, then twice. He stopped in his tracks and frowned.

“I just figured out the Why,” he announced. “Somebody stole our snake decorations in the middle of the night!”

“What?”

Frank scanned the outside of their tent. The night before, he and Joe had decorated it with a bunch of snakes—plastic ones, rubber ones, and even some plush ones too. They’d found them in their attic at home, in a cardboard box labeled
OLD TOYS
.

“What are you talking about, Joe? They’re right here!” Frank said.

“Not all of them,” Joe corrected. “Perry the Python is missing. So are Bob the Boa Constrictor and Andy the Anaconda.”

Frank did a double take. “Huh. You’re right.”

“So now we have our What, When, and Where,” Joe noted. “What—stealing snakes. When—between Friday bedtime and Saturday morning. Where—right underneath our noses!”

“It looks like we have a new case on our hands,” Frank said grimly.

4

A
short while later everyone gathered outside Gooseberry Lodge for breakfast. Ranger Gil made pancakes and bacon on the grill while the counselors, Fish and Wendy, passed out cups of apple cider.

Joe noticed Beatrice and Lina huddled together and whispering. At one point Beatrice glanced over her shoulder at Joe and said something to Lina. Then the two of them got up and took off.

Were they talking about me?
Joe wondered.

He piled a plate high with pancakes and sat down on a tree stump next to Frank. “I don’t like fifth-grade girls,” he muttered.

“Never mind that. I have an idea about how we can solve this case,” Frank said in a low voice.

Joe folded a pancake in half and stuffed the whole thing into his mouth. Maple syrup dribbled down his chin; he wiped it off with the back of his sleeve. “How?” he mumbled with his mouth half-full.

“You know that bank robbery case Dad worked on?”

Joe frowned, trying to remember. He wasn’t sure which bank robbery case Frank was talking about. Their father was a private investigator who’d consulted with the Bayport Police on dozens of cases. Before that he’d been a member of the NYPD—the New York Police Department.

“Remind me,” Joe said, picking up another pancake.

“Last summer Dad solved a bank robbery case. His only clue was the footprint the robber left behind at the Bayport National Bank,” Frank said. “There was a funny pattern on the sole, like crisscrossed arrows. It turned out only one store in town carried that kind of shoe. And the store owner remembered selling a pair to the robber. He gave Dad a description of the robber and a copy of the receipt and everything.”

Joe nodded. “Oh, yeah! That was awesome!”

“We can do the same thing here. If we can inspect the bottoms of everyone’s shoes, we might be able to find the lightning-bolt pattern,” Frank explained.

Joe considered this. “Yeah, but how? We can’t just go around asking people if we can check out their shoes!”

“Yeah, we can. I have a plan. Follow me!”

Frank stood up and started walking up to the other campers one by one. Joe followed. With each camper, Frank explained that he had lost his supervaluable lucky coin somewhere in the vicinity, and that he and Joe needed to search the ground underneath the campers’ feet.

The plan actually worked. Each camper lifted his or her feet so the Hardys could look for the “lucky coin”—and at the same time secretly examine the soles of everyone’s shoes.

None of them had the lightning-bolt pattern, however. And Beatrice and Lina had left breakfast early, so the boys hadn’t been able to see their shoes.

“
Now
what?” Joe asked Frank as they returned to their tree stumps.

Just then Ranger Gil’s son, Garrett, strolled by, flipping through a pile of superhero cards. He wore a fleece jacket that was several sizes too big for him over his dinosaur pajamas.

Hmm,
Joe thought. Garrett had pranked Joe at the movie the night before with the ice-cold soda can. Could he have pulled a second prank by stealing the snakes?

“Hey, Garrett!” Joe called out.

Garrett turned. “Oh! Hi!”

“Hi! Listen, did you come by our tent last night? Say, around midnight?” Joe asked him with a friendly smile.

Garrett scrunched up his face. “No way! My bedtime’s eight o’clock. Which is
waaaay
too early, because I’m six now—almost six and a quarter!”

“Wow, six and a quarter!” Joe exclaimed. He looked down at Garrett’s sneakers. They were green with orange stripes. “Hey, I like your shoes! Are they that new kind with the really cool design on the soles?”

“What?” Garrett lifted his shoes. The soles had a polka-dot pattern.

Frank and Joe exchanged a glance. No lightning bolt.

Garrett waved good-bye and wandered over to the pancake station. The Hardys finished their food in silence. They had to come up with another plan if they were going to get Perry the Python, Bob the Boa Constrictor, and Andy the Anaconda back. After all, the deadline for decorating their tent was lunchtime. Besides, Perry, Bob, and Andy belonged to
them
.

•  •  •  •

After breakfast Joe and Frank headed back to their campsite along with Phil and Chet. Mr. Hardy stayed at the lodge to help Ranger Gil and the counselors with cleanup.

Phil held up his cell phone. “My compass app says that our tents are this way,” he said, pointing at a trailhead.

“Uh, thanks, Phil. We’d all be totally lost without your app,” Joe joked.

“What will you do if you don’t find your missing snakes?” Chet asked the Hardys.

“We’ll find them,” Frank replied. But he didn’t look so sure.

“Phil and I could let you borrow some of our decorations, but our space alien theme doesn’t really go with your snake theme,” Chet offered. “Unless you want to do a killer-snakes-from-outer-space theme. That could work!”

Joe dropped down onto the ground and pretended to slither on his stomach. “Take . . . me . . . to . . . your . . . leader!
Ssssssss!
” he hissed.

The other boys cracked up.

They soon reached the end of the trail. Their campsites were just ahead.

As they got closer to the campsite, Joe noticed something strange.

A girl was hovering around his and Frank’s tent. She held several toy snakes in her arms.

The snake thief!

5

T
here’s our thief!” Joe yelled out to Frank.

The two boys took off running. Phil and Chet followed.

When they got closer to the tent, they could see that the girl had long black hair and glasses.
Lina!

“Hey! Put those snakes back right now!” Frank shouted.

Lina whirled around, clutching the snakes to her chest. “That’s what I’m doing. Why are you yelling at me?”

“What do you mean, that’s what you’re doing?” Joe demanded.

“I’m putting your snakes back,” Lina explained.

Frank saw that she was holding a toy python, boa constrictor, and anaconda. “Hey, that’s Perry, Bob, and Andy. Where did you get them?”

Joe’s eyes widened. “Oh,
now
I get it! She stole them last night. And she’s trying to sneak them back so she won’t get into trouble.”