Nancy had found out on Tuesday that Rebecca’s “secret plan” to make camp more interesting was the play. Rebecca had decided to write the play on her own and get some of the campers to act in it.
To Nancy’s surprise, Rebecca had asked Nancy, Bess, and George to act in it. After Rebecca found out that Nancy had solved the mystery of the creepy camper, she had apologized to her, George, and Bess. “I’m sorry I’ve been kind of mean to you,” Rebecca said. “Jessie told me she didn’t want to be friends with me anymore if I was going to be so mean to everybody. So I’m going to be supernice from now on. Isn’t that great news?” The girls had spent the last few days getting ready for the show.
In the play, Rebecca played Mr. Fish. She put on a short red wig and carried around a painting of a fish. Jessie played Fiona. Nancy, Bess, and George played three campers who kept getting into trouble.
Everyone in the audience laughed during the play. Harry laughed the loudest of all. He also kept getting up to drink more punch and gobble down more cookies. Pell had to tell him lots of times to sit down and be still.
At the end of the play, the room broke into applause. “Thank you, thank you!” Rebecca said, bowing over and over again. She bowed so much that her red wig fell off!
Ned and Greg came up to Nancy, Bess, and George. “You three were really awesome!” Ned said with a big smile.
Greg smiled too. “Yeah,” he said. He turned to George. “Sorry ’bout our fight last week. I got mad because I thought you guys thought I was a bad guy.”
“You were a suspect,” George said. “That’s not the same as being a bad guy. Anyway, I’m sorry too.”
“What happened to Rocky Raccoon?” Ned asked Nancy. “Did he go to raccoon jail?” he added, giggling.
Nancy giggled too. “No! But Mr. Fish locked up his secret trapdoor so he can’t come into the lodge and wreck stuff anymore.”
“See, Nancy? You really are the best detective in the whole wide world,” Bess told her.
• • •
That night, Nancy sat at her desk and wrote in her detective notebook:
I learned a bunch of stuff at Camp Northwoods. Like things aren’t always what they seem. It turned out that the creepy camper wasn’t creepy at all. The creepy camper wasn’t even a camper!
Also, just because a person acts like a suspect doesn’t mean he or she did something wrong. In this case, the guilty person (I meant animal!) wasn’t even a suspect to begin with.
I guess the most important thing I learned at Camp Northwoods was how to take care of nature. And that includes Rocky Raccoon!
Case closed!
This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
First Aladdin Paperbacks edition August 2003
Copyright © 2003 by Simon & Schuster, Inc.
ALADDIN PAPERBACKS
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All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.
The text of this book was set in Excelsior.
NANCY DREW, THE NANCY DREW NOTEBOOKS, and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
Library of Congress Control Number 2002111920
ISBN 0-689-85695-4
ISBN 13: 978-1-4424-8078-0 (ebook)
The Day Camp Disaster Page 4