“That’s because it is from a farm.” George pointed to the words CRUNCH APPLE FARMS painted on one side. “See?”
“I went apple-picking at Crunch Apple Farms with my dad last year!” Nancy said. “We picked McIntosh, Golden Delicious—”
“Raaaak!” something squawked.
Nancy, Bess, and George looked up in time to see a parrot flutter toward the wagon. The parrot was dressed as a pirate for the parade. It hovered over the wagon before gently landing on a bale of hay.
“That’s Shelby’s parrot, Ernie,” Nancy recognized.
“But where’s Shelby?” Bess asked.
“Maybe she’s on the other side of the wagon,” George decided. “Let’s check it out.”
The girls walked around the wagon but stopped short when they saw Felipe Gomez. The celebrity dog trainer stood next to the wagon, blinking nervously while digging into his pocket.
“What’s he doing?” Nancy whispered.
Before they could find out, a woman wearing a headset and holding a clipboard walked over. “I’m Kim Adamo, the parade director,” Kim introduced herself. She smiled down at Chip. “Is that the dog who’s leading the parade?”
“This is Chip!” Nancy confirmed proudly. “I’ll tie her vampire cape on as soon as we get up on the wagon.”
“The time is now,” Kim said. “The parade has to kick off in ten minutes sharp!”
“On it!” Nancy promised.
The girls hurried with Chip toward to the hay wagon. Felipe was gone, and Ernie had flown onto Shelby’s shoulder.
“Good luck, you guys!” Shelby called.
“Good luck, good luck!” Ernie repeated. “Arrrrk!”
After being helped up on the wagon, the girls settled on the hay with Chip. George immediately pulled a computer tablet from her backpack.
“What are you doing?” Bess asked as George held the tablet facing the crowds on Main Street.
“Parade cam!” George explained. “I’m going to film the parade so we don’t miss a beat!”
Nancy slipped Chip’s leash into her messenger bag and then tied the Murray the Monster Cape around Chip’s neck.
“Who’s the best parade leader ever?” Nancy asked.
Chip cocked her head happily and wagged her tail.
The girls glanced back at the other marchers. One was Deirdre walking Pom-Pom on a rhinestone-studded leash. Deirdre’s eyes narrowed as she glared up at Nancy, Bess, and George.
“Oh, get over it!” George muttered, still holding the tablet facing the crowds.
Nancy was about to adjust Chip’s cape when—
“Woof, woof, whine, whine!”
Nancy stared at Chip and gasped. Her puppy wasn’t just barking and whining. She was rolling over and over from her tummy to her back, four legs kicking in the air!
“Woof, woof!” Roll, kick. “Whine, whine!” Roll, kick. “Woof!” Roll. “Whine!” Kick. “Woooooooo!!!”
“Chip!” Nancy cried over the earsplitting howl. “What’s the matter?”
In a flash, Kim climbed aboard. “What on earth is wrong with your dog?”
“I don’t know, Ms. Adamo,” Nancy admitted. “Chip was great a few minutes ago!”
“Well, now she’s doing the same thing over and over again,” Kim observed. “And loudly!”
“Woof, woof!” Roll, kick. “Whine, whine!” Roll, kick. “Woof!” Roll. “Whine!” Kick. “Woooooooo!!!”
“We cannot have a crazy dog leading the parade,” Kim insisted. “I’m afraid Chip will have to be replaced.”
Nancy, Bess, and George traded horrified looks. Did they just hear what they thought they heard?
SQUAWK TALK
“Hurry, girls, please,” Kim called. “We have to replace Chocolate Chip right now and begin the parade!”
By now Chip was rolling so fast her cape came undone, sliding out from under her.
Nancy’s heart ached as they were helped down from the hay wagon. Chip’s hind foot dragged the cape as she jumped down after them. As the cape fluttered to the ground, George grabbed it and stuffed it inside her backpack next to her tablet.
Nancy hoped Chip still had a chance. “Can’t you please give Chip a do-over, Ms. Adamo?” she asked. “Look at how calm she is now.”
Chip was covered with hay but mellow as she panted cheerily.
“I’m sorry, but what if Chip acts up again?” Kim explained. She began looking around at the other kids and their pets. “We’ll have to go with the pet that came in second place.”
Deirdre pushed her way through the crowd with Pom-Pom. “That would be Princess Pom-Pom!” she declared.
Kim looked at Pom-Pom and nodded. “She was the runner-up. The princess pup will lead the parade.”
“Awesome!” Deirdre exclaimed and then under her breath sneered, “It worked.”
Nancy, Bess, and George traded puzzled looks. What worked?
“The parade will start in exactly three minutes!” Kim shouted out. “Owners and pets line up behind the wagon!”
Deirdre climbed up on the wagon, sitting on a hay bale as if it were a throne. Holding Pom-Pom on her lap, Deirdre smiled at the girls. It wasn’t a very nice smile either. Nancy frowned to herself. How did this happen? What made Chip suddenly go bonkers?
“Nancy,” Bess said softly, “Chip may not be able to lead the parade, but maybe she can still march in it.”
“That could be fun.” George shrugged. “Kind of.”
Nancy shook her head as she brushed pieces of hay from Chip’s chocolate-brown fur. How could she have fun after what just happened? She had important work to do!
“No parade for me or Chip,” Nancy replied as she hooked on Chip’s leash. “I need to find out why Chip went nutters the way she did.”
“I had a feeling you’d say that!” George grinned.
“So did I,” Bess agreed. “This is definitely a case for the Clue Crew!”
But just as the Clue Crew and Chip were about to squeeze through the crowd—
“Nancy, Bess, George!” a boy called. “Wait up!”
Nancy turned to see Quincy Taylor and his friends.
“We saw Chip acting like a dog possessed,” Quincy said, “Which is why you need—”
“The Ghost Grabbers!” his friends chorused.
Nancy rolled her eyes. Not that silly club again!
“Did you ever wonder if the ghost of Murray the Monster Mutt wants his old cape back?” Quincy asked with wide eyes. “And he won’t leave Chip alone until he gets it?”
“Why don’t you guys act like ghosts?” George snapped. “And disappear!”
“You may not need us now,” Quincy said, “but when you change your minds, you know where to find us!”
Not looking back, the girls headed to a less-crowded part of Main Street. There they found a pet-friendly place called Lisa’s Bowwow Meow-Meow Café. Since most pets were at the parade, Chip was the only dog there.
While Chip chewed a biscuit shaped like a sneaker, the girls sat around a table. They waited for their hot apple ciders to cool, and Nancy pulled out her Clue Book.
“You really do carry your Clue Book everywhere, Nancy,” Bess noted. “Even to parades!”
Nancy tapped her chin thoughtfully with the cupcake-shaped eraser on her favorite pencil. Her eyes lit up after the fourth tap.
“I’m going to call this case, ‘What Made Chip Flip?’ ” Nancy decided. She wrote the words at the top of a clean page. Skipping a few lines she wrote the word Suspects.
“Who would have done something to upset Chip?” Bess wondered. “That’s what I want to know!”
“I think Deirdre Shannon is suspect number one,” George said. “She was mad that the judges picked Chip instead of Pom-Pom.”
“And when Pom-Pom was picked, Deirdre said, ‘It worked,’ ” Nancy pointed out. “As if she had a secret plan!”
“But how could Deirdre make Chip flip?” Bess asked.
“I don’t know,” Nancy admitted as s
he wrote Deirdre’s name in her Clue Book. “But I do know that Deirdre Shannon is suspect number one—”
“Numero uno! Numero uno!” something squawked. “Raaaak!”
The girls looked up to see a parrot zoom through an open window into the café. A parrot dressed as a pirate!
“It’s Ernie!” Nancy declared as Shelby’s pet parrot fluttered over their heads toward the counter. Lisa stepped out from behind her counter, hands on her hips.
“We don’t serve unattended pets in here,” Lisa called out. “Whose parrot is this?”
Then the door swung open and Shelby ran inside.
“There’s Ernie!” Shelby sighed with relief. “When the parade marched by the café, all he could think about was bird food!”
“Chow time, chow time!” Ernie squawked. “Raaaaak!” Ernie touched down on the counter. He grabbed a bird-seed churro, pecking it hungrily.
“Hey!” Lisa exclaimed.
“Hay!” Ernie repeated. “In the hay, in the hay! Raaaaak!”
Nancy blinked. “Did he just say . . . ‘in the hay’?”
“Ernie must have heard that somewhere,” Shelby explained. “Parrots always repeat what they hear.”
While Shelby paid for the churro, Nancy, Bess, and George went back to sipping their apple cider.
“Lots of people say ‘hey,’ ” Bess pointed out. “Ernie could have heard it anywhere.”
“That’s for sure.” George nodded. “Remember when we found him on the hay wagon? That parrot gets around.”
Hay wagon! Nancy’s eyes lit up above the rim of her cider cup. Ernie was on the wagon. So was Felipe, creeping around and looking nervous!
“Unless Ernie repeated a different kind of hey,” Nancy said slowly. “H-A-Y!”
CLUE AT THE ZOO
“H-A-Y spells hay,” Bess said excitedly. “As in hay wagon!”
“Ernie was on the wagon when Felipe was there too,” Nancy explained. “What if Ernie saw Felipe hide something underneath the hay to upset Chip?”
“Felipe did want Huey to lead the parade, not Chip,” Bess added.
“Ernie said, ‘in the hay,’ ” George remembered. “Maybe that’s what he heard Felipe say.”
“Who would he say it to?” Nancy wondered. “Felipe was standing at the wagon alone.”
“Some people talk to themselves,” George said.
“And you talk in your sleep, George,” Bess teased. “I heard you at a sleepover once. Blah, blah, blah—”
“And you snore like a dragon!” George snapped. “With a stuffy nose!”
Nancy formed the letter T with her hands as if to say time-out! “You guys—can we please talk about the case?”
“Okay, okay,” George agreed. “What do we do next?”
“I want to check out the hay wagon,” Nancy explained. “It will probably go back to Crunch Apple Farms after the parade.”
“Then we should go there too!” Bess said excitedly. “I heard they have a petting zoo.”
Ernie soared above the girls, squawking and spitting birdseed all over. “In the hay! In the hay! Raaaak!”
“Say it; don’t spray it!” Nancy laughed. “But thanks for the great clue, Ernie!”
After bringing Chip home, the girls got a ride from Mr. Drew to Crunch Apple Farms. He planned to buy freshly baked pies while the girls looked for clues.
“Make sure you get permission to go near the wagon,” Mr. Drew advised the girls when they reached the farm.
Nancy smiled. Her dad was a lawyer, so he loved to give advice. Lucky for her, most of it was great!
“We will, Daddy,” Nancy promised. “And you make sure to get some cherry pies.”
“You got it!” Mr. Drew chuckled.
After filing out of the car, the three friends made their way through Crunch Apple Farms, their feet rustling through colorful fallen leaves.
The farm was filled with bright-orange pumpkin stands, not-so-scary scarecrows, and barrels of red and green apples to buy. But where was the hay wagon?
“You guys, look!” Bess gasped.
“Is it the hay wagon?” Nancy asked.
“Almost as good,” Bess said excitedly. “It’s the petting zoo!”
Nancy and George followed Bess through a gate that opened onto a fenced-in pen. The pen was filled with baby goats and lambs!
“Bess, we can’t play with the animals now!” Nancy called as Bess ran straight to a snowy white goat. “We have to look for the hay wagon!”
“You mean that one?” George asked.
Nancy followed George’s gaze. Toward the back of the animal pen was a barn. Through the open door, Nancy spotted a red painted wagon. Was it the same wagon from the parade? There was one way to find out. . . .
“We’re going in there,” Nancy declared.
“What about the baby animals?” Bess asked as a baby goat licked her fingers.
“There’s only one animal on my mind now,” Nancy admitted. “And that’s Chip!”
There were no other guests in the petting zoo or inside the barn. Only haystacks, an overhead loft filled with more hay—and the wagon.
“How do we know it’s the same wagon from the parade?” Bess asked.
“It’s got Crunch Apple Farms painted on the side,” George said. She stood on tiptoes to sniff the hay. “Plus it smells like strawberry doggy shampoo, so we know Pom-Pom was on it.”
“Princess Pom-Pom!” Bess teased.
“Let’s search the hay in the wagon before someone comes,” Nancy said. “We never got permission to be in here.”
“On it!” George declared. She climbed one of the wheels and jumped into the hay with a PLOOF. Quickly, George crawled to the spot where Felipe had been standing. She used her hands to dig through the loose hay until her eyes flashed.
“What is it, George?” Nancy asked.
George smiled as she pulled an orange-colored necktie out from under the hay. Jumping down from the wagon, George showed it to Nancy and Bess.
“That tie is ripped at the bottom,” Nancy observed. “And there’s a big blotchy stain on it.”
“Gross!” Bess remarked.
“So is the goat spit on your fingers, Bess,” George groaned.
Nancy studied the tie closely. “I don’t remember Felipe wearing an orange tie before the parade. But I do remember him digging into his pocket.”
“Maybe Felipe had that tie in his pocket,” George thought out loud. “Maybe that’s what he hid under the hay!”
Nancy shook her head. “That wouldn’t make Chip flip. Not a plain old tie!”
“Maybe Felipe hid something else,” Bess suggested. “Go back up there, George!”
George was about to climb up on the wagon when—CREEEEEEAKKK!!!
The girls glanced out the barn door. Outside was a man opening the petting zoo gate. His back was turned toward the barn as he stepped inside, closing the gate behind him.
“Who’s that?” Bess whispered.
“Whoever it is he can’t see us snooping here without permission,” Nancy answered. “We have to hide!”
George stuffed the tie into her pocket. The girls found a tall haystack and darted behind it. After a few seconds, they quietly popped their heads above the hay.
Nancy, Bess, and George secretly watched. The man stood directly outside the barn door, looking right and then left.
When Nancy saw who he was, she whispered, “Bess, George—it’s Felipe!”
BYE-BYE TIE
Nancy, Bess, and George held their breaths as they watched Felipe from behind the haystack.
“Oh no!” Bess whispered. “What do we do if Felipe finds us with his tie?”
“We question him!” Nancy replied sternly.
Felipe headed straight to the hay wagon and to the spot where the tie was found. He dug his hand into the loose hay, and then he said, “This is exactly where I put it. Where is it?”
George turned to Nancy and Bess. “Felipe does talk to himself. I knew it!”
“And he’s looking for his tie!” Nancy whispered.
The girls watched Felipe frantically dig through the hay, pieces flying. Suddenly, Nancy felt a tug on her shirt. Then—“Baaaa!”
Nancy gasped. It was one of the baby goats from the petting zoo! She looked to see if Felipe heard. Luckily, he was busily digging through the hay.
“Go back to the petting zoo,” George hissed to the goat. “We’re working here!”
The goat responded by playfully tugging George’s sneaker lace.
Bess giggled—until the goat went from George’s sneaker to Bess’s jacket!
“Noooo!” Bess cried. “He’s chewing my new suede-trimmed hoodie!”
“Baaaaa!” the goat bleated loudly.
This time Felipe looked up, staring at the haystack. The girls ducked, but it was too late.
“I saw you!” Felipe called. “Who’s there?”
“Looks like he’s got our goat,” George muttered.
The goat bleated again before scurrying out of the barn. The girls slowly walked out from behind the haystack.
“Hi,” Nancy said, forcing a smile.
“I know you!” Felipe remarked. “Didn’t your dog lead the parade until she went crazy?”
“Chip is not crazy!” Nancy insisted. “We think something in the hay wagon made her act that way.”
“Something like this!” George said, holding up the ripped and blotched necktie. “Look familiar?”
Felipe’s jaw dropped when he saw the tie. He then stuck out his palm and said, “I’ll take that, please.”
“So you were looking for this tie,” George confirmed. “Which means you probably hid it in the hay too!”
“Oh, Huey!” Felipe murmured to himself.
Nancy blinked. “Did you just say ‘Huey’?”
“As in Mayor Strong’s dog?” Bess asked.
Felipe’s throat bobbed as he gulped. “Absolutely not!” he blurted. “I said ‘oh . . . phooey’!”
“I know a phooey from a Huey,” George muttered. “Nice try, Felipe.”
Nancy wondered why Felipe would mention the mayor’s dog. Then something about the tie clicked.
“That rip looks like something a dog would make,” Nancy pointed out. “And the blotch looks like dog slobber.”