An Unexpected Answer

Bess and George turned to stare at her. “Huh?” George said.

“What are you talking about?” Bess added.

Mr. Helmer was peering at her from the porch. “What was that, young lady?” he asked. “Do you really know something about my missing apples?”

“I — I think so.” Nancy suddenly felt a little shy. Everyone in the crowd and up on the porch was staring at her. But she stood up straight and tall. “Please, just come with me. I’ll show you what I think happened.”

She could tell that the orchard owner was confused. Her friends looked stumped too. But Nancy knew it would be better to show them than to tell them. Besides, she needed to check one thing before she knew her solution was right.

Nancy led them all up the hill to the pony pen. The teenage girls were still marching the ponies around in circles, though they all stopped when they saw the crowd approaching.

“What’s going on?” Marcie asked, leading her pony to the fence.

Nancy walked up to her. “Hi,” she said. “Remember that mystery we were telling you about? Um, I think I just solved it.”

“Cool!” Marcie said. “So who dunnit?”

“First I need to ask you a very important question,” Nancy told her.

The older girl looked alarmed. “Hey, wait a minute,” she said. “You don’t think I stole the apples, do you? I told you, I didn’t even know they were down there.”

“I know.” Nancy smiled to reassure her. “That’s sort of what the question is about. Can you tell me exactly what you guys did to take care of the ponies last night and this morning?” She waved her hand to include the other pony workers.

Marcie shrugged. “Sure,” she said. “You saw what we were doing last night. We just put out some more hay and took off the ponies’ saddles. Then we left.”

“And this morning?” Nancy urged.

Mr. Helmer stepped forward. “Is this going somewhere?” he asked, sounding a little impatient.

Nancy nodded. “Please,” she said. “This is the important part of the question.”

Marcie shrugged again. “Like I told you before, we got here early,” she said. “We brought a little more hay up from the truck in a wheelbarrow. Then those two cleaned out the pen and used the empty wheelbarrow to take away the, um, pony poo.”

“Is that all?” Nancy prompted. “What about the water tub?”

“Oh!” the older girl said. “That’s right. We also dumped out the water — H-Two-Oh had dunked his hay in it last night, so it was all mucky. We filled it again from one of the irrigation hoses.” She glanced at Mr. Helmer. “You told us we could do that.”

Mr. Helmer nodded. Nancy smiled. Now she knew she’d solved the case. “Okay, but where did you dump out the old water?” she asked.

“We tipped it over the edge of the — oh!” Marcie exclaimed. Her hand flew to her face. “We dumped it right down the hillside,” she said. “Right about where you guys climbed down earlier.”

Mr. Helmer gasped. “Oh!” he cried, looking over at the large water tub. “It must have washed away my apples!” He called to a couple of young orchard workers. “Run down to the creek and see if the baskets floated downstream,” he told them.

As the workers ran off, George stared at Nancy. “How in the world did you figure that one out?” she exclaimed.

“Yes,” Mr. Helmer said curiously. “I’d like to know that too.”

Nancy smiled. “I was thinking about it some more during the applesauce contest,” she explained. “That was when I finally put together some weird facts. Like how it hasn’t rained in weeks, but there was mud and wet plants and stuff all the way down the hillside. Remember?”

“Yeah.” Bess looked down at her sneakers. They were still muddy from the climb. “I didn’t even think about that.”

“I also remembered that the water in the ponies’ tub was clean this morning,” Nancy said. “You even rinsed your hand off in it, Bess.”

“But last night it was already all gunky from H-Two-Oh’s hay,” George said, nodding thoughtfully.

“H-Two-Oh?” Mr. Helmer said, looking confused.

The girls explained about the hay-dunking pony. “They’re right,” Marcie put in. “We have to dump and refill the tub every day because of H-Two-Oh’s messy habit.”

“So anyway, I finally put two and two together,” Nancy said. “Especially since there didn’t seem to be a way that anyone else could have done it. I realized what must have really happened.”

They talked about it a little more while they waited for the orchard workers to return. When they did, the workers were riding in a little cart that held several soggy wooden baskets — and a lot of wet, slimy-looking apples!

“We found them, boss!” one of the workers cried. “They were stuck in the rocks about a hundred yards downstream.”

“Yay!” George cheered. “Nancy solved the mystery!”

“Don’t sound so happy,” Bess said. “Most of the apples are ruined.”

Mr. Helmer smiled and patted her on the head. “That’s okay,” he said. “I can grow more apples. I’m just happy to know there’s not a thief skulking around my orchard.”

“I’m really sorry about this,” Marcie spoke up. “It’s all our fault.”

“Nonsense.” Mr. Helmer shook his head. “You had no way of knowing the apples were down there. I just hid them too well!” He laughed loudly at his own joke. Then, to prove there were no hard feelings, he offered the wet and bruised apples to the ponies.

“Thanks!” Marcie said. “They don’t care what they look like. Right, H-Two-Oh?”

The little spotted pony had come over to the fence to see what was happening. When Nancy offered him an apple, he crunched it eagerly in his teeth.

Bess laughed. “Look, he loves the River Heights Red too!”

“Obviously a pony of taste,” Mr. Helmer said with a smile. Then he turned his smile toward Nancy. “I want to thank you, young lady. As soon as I harvest some more River Heights Reds, I want to give you a bushel as a way of saying thank you.”

“Hey!” Bess exclaimed. “I helped too!”

Everyone laughed, especially Nancy. “Don’t worry, Bess,” she said. “We’ll split the apples. After all, we’re a team!”

• • •

By bedtime that night, Nancy was so tired her eyes were almost falling shut. It had been a long, fun day at the Apple Festival. But before she went to bed, she pulled out her detective notebook to finish writing up the case.

The Case of the Apple Bandit was a juicy mystery — and a tricky one, too. There were hardly any good suspects, and at first it seemed like there were no clues at all.

But the clues were there — we just didn’t recognize them at first. It just goes to show that even something that seems normal at first can be a clue. Like a muddy hillside on a dry day. Or a tub full of clear water near a messy pony.

Anyway, I’m glad I figured it out in the end. It made a fun day at the Apple Festival even better — especially since Bess, George, and I all got free pony rides afterward, along with being promised a free bushel of apples. Now that’s what I call a tasty reward!

Case closed!

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Dare to read: Нэнси Дрю и Братья Харди

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