“That’s good detective work, Dad,” Nancy replied.
Mr. Drew laughed, leaned over, and ruffled his daughter’s hair. “I’ve learned a few things from you, Nancy Drew!” He turned to Mr. Johnson, saying, “If it’s okay with you, I’ll bring the girls to the petting zoo so they can investigate this mystery.”
Mr. Johnson didn’t even hesitate. He gave the girls a big smile and said, “You’re hired!”
Even though it was Saturday morning, there weren’t many people at the petting zoo. Nancy wondered why.
Before they’d left the house, she had run up to her bedroom to get her new purple notebook and matching purple pencil. They were a present from Bess and George on her last birthday. Purple was Nancy’s favorite color, and solving mysteries was” her favorite thing to do. The gift was perfect.
Opening the notebook, Nancy wrote, How is Buttons getting out of the petting zoo? On the next page, she made two columns. One for clues, and one for suspects.
Under suspects, she wrote down Stacy Quinn. Stacy said that if Buttons came to her house, she’d keep him. She also said that Buttons loved apples, and she had an apple tree in her yard. Maybe Stacy was letting Buttons out, hoping he’d come over.
“Nancy, hurry up,” Bess called from inside the animal pen. She and George were excited to pet the animals and had rushed ahead. “Come see the baby chicks. They are sooo cute.”
Nancy closed her notebook, slipped it into her pocket, and headed toward her friends. She was still thinking about Stacy and Buttons and apple trees. In fact, Nancy was thinking so hard, she wandered off the cement path and tripped over a pretty big rock.
“Oof,” Nancy grunted as she stumbled forward and fell to the ground.
“Are you okay?” Careful not to let any animals out, Bess opened the pen door, shut it behind her, then hurried over to Nancy.
“I’m fine,” Nancy told Bess. Bess gave her a hand up. “Good thing my dad was over talking to Mr. Johnson. He’s always telling me to watch where I’m walking. If Hannah was here, she’d be putting Band-Aids all over me, whether I needed them or not.”
Nancy wiped the dirt off her pants. “I really can’t help being clumsy. Sometimes I just start thinking and my feet turn left when they should stay straight….” Her voice trailed off when she saw the huge animal pen in front of her.
Sure she’d looked up when Bess had called her name, but she had been so deep in thought she hadn’t really noticed the bright red, white, and blue painted rails of the tall, split-rail fence.
“Wow!” Nancy exclaimed, taking it all in.
Moving closer, she discovered that the top of the fence was slightly higher than her head. There was chicken wire between the rails so no animal could slip out.
Roomy bunny cages stood along one fence wall. A separate area for the chickens had a little pond. Buttons was wandering around, hanging out with the goats and sheep.
There was also a large shady area with plenty of room where the bigger animals could go if it was too sunny or when it rained.
Nancy opened the large, swinging gate just enough for her and Bess to slip inside.
George rushed over. “Nancy, are you hurt? I saw you fall.”
“Not a scratch,” Nancy replied.
George was happy to hear that Nancy was fine and handed her a quarter. “I brought some coins from my allowance,” she explained. “Do you want to buy some goat and sheep food?” There were a few food machines hanging on one side of the pen fence.
“Sure. Thanks.” Nancy took the quarter and walked over to a goat and sheep food machine. Buttons was standing in front of the machine, bumping it with his nose and neighing.
Nancy hadn’t been allowed to touch Buttons when he was on her lawn at home, but now that he was back at the petting zoo, Mr. Drew said it was okay.
Remembering that Mr. Johnson said Buttons should be eating hay, Nancy looked around for a bale. It wasn’t far, so Nancy headed over to it. Buttons followed her. “I know you’re hoping I’ll feed you some goat food,” Nancy told the pony. “Wouldn’t you like some healthy hay instead?” Nancy took a handful of clean hay off the bale. “Here.” She held her hand out for the pony. “This is for you.”
Buttons stared at the hay, wiggled his nose at Nancy, and then walked away.
I don’t think Buttons likes hay, Nancy said to herself. She quickly opened her notebook and wrote, Buttons doesn’t like hay in the clue column.
Nancy decided she’d feed the goats later. Now that she had one clue, she was excited to search for more. Tucking the quarter into her pocket, Nancy went over to join Bess and George.
Bess and George were standing near the gate talking to Mr. Drew and Mr. Johnson. Mr. Drew was not an animal lover and was shooing away a goat, who was nibbling on the side of his shirt. The goat didn’t want to leave Mr. Drew alone! Finally, Mr. Johnson got some goat pellets and threw them a distance away. The goat hustled off to have a snack.
“I bought the petting zoo a few weeks ago,” Mr. Johnson explained. “Before that, I worked at a bank in Hailey Town.” Nancy had been to Hailey Town before. It was about a twenty-minute drive south of River Heights.
“I didn’t like working in a bank,” Mr. Johnson went on. “I always dreamed about having my own petting zoo. When this old farm was for sale, I bought it and we moved out here. I purchased all the animals and built the fence myself.” He pointed at the small red barn behind the zoo fence. “I built the barn, too.”
Then Mr. Johnson pointed to a brick house with a nice porch and a swing set on the side. “The only thing I didn’t build is our house. It came with the farm.”
The goat came back and was bugging Mr. Drew for more food. Nancy handed her dad the quarter George had given her. Mr. Drew bought a little food and threw it into the center of the pen like he’d seen Mr. Johnson do. The goat ran after it.
“My wife and I love it here.” Mr. Johnson looked around. “Business could be better, however. I think that if more people knew how great Buttons was, more kids would come to ride him and pet the other animals. Buttons is a Shetland pony, you see.” Nancy, Bess, and George all nodded. They already knew that. “Shetlands are great. They have sweet personalities, love kids, and get along with all the other animals,” Mr. Johnson finished.
Suddenly, a loud, grumpy sound came from the red barn behind the pen. It was a cross between a sigh and a snort.
“Do you have pigs at the zoo?” Bess asked Mr. Johnson.
The zoo owner wrinkled his forehead and raised his eyebrows. “No. Just the sheep, goats, bunnies, and chickens.” He looked across toward the barn. “And one escaping pony.”
“Are any animals in the barn?” George asked, staring in the direction where the sound came from.
“No, they’re all out here,” Mr. Johnson answered. “The barn is really just a storage shed. No animals are allowed in the barn. They all live in the pen.”
Suddenly the barn door slammed shut. The angry noise made such a racket that all the animals stopped eating and looked up. Nancy, George, and Bess looked up too. They saw a girl about their own age, with short, black, curly hair. The girl ran out of the barn toward Mr. Johnson’s house.
“Who’s that?” Nancy asked Mr. Johnson.
They watched the girl fly up the porch steps and disappear into the brick house. “That’s my daughter, Amanda,” Mr. Johnson answered with a long, unhappy sigh.
“Amanda seems supermad about something,” Bess whispered to George and Nancy. “Slamming the barn door and stomping off like that. I’d like to ask her about the escaping pony, but I don’t think she’ll want to talk to us right now.”
“I think you’re right,” Nancy agreed. “Let’s look around for some clues, and maybe we can ask Amanda about the pony later.”
Nancy opened her notebook and showed Bess and George the pages she’d started.
“This is great!” George cheered after looking at the one clue and one suspect on Nancy’s list. “Tomorrow we can come over to your hou
se and I’ll copy everything we find into a computer file.”
Bess wanted to go check out the padlock on the animal pen gate. The girls asked Mr. Johnson if he could show them exactly how he locked up every night.
“You girls sure do take this detective work seriously,” he commented as he walked with them to the large hinged gate.
“Yes, we do, Mr. Johnson,” Bess answered. “The Clue Crew is eager to solve this mystery for you.”
“Well, then,” he began, “every night I give the animals a new bale of hay. Then I count them before I shut the gate. Lately, I’ve been taking special care to check that Buttons is inside the pen. He always is.” Mr. Johnson closed the gate and hooked a small latch. After that, he slipped a large padlock through a hole drilled in the latch. Then he secured the lock.
“Can I see the lock?” Bess asked, stepping forward.
“Be my guest,” Mr. Johnson said as he moved aside.
Bess pulled at the lock. It was firmly closed. She tugged some more, but the lock wouldn’t open. “Can I check out the key?” she asked Mr. Johnson. Bess took the key and opened the lock. She shut the lock tightly and handed the key back to Mr. Johnson. “Does anyone else have a key?”
“No,” Mr. Johnson replied. “I have the only one.” He unlocked the gate and put the key in his pocket. “I take the key home at night and hang it on a hook in the kitchen. Every morning I get the key off the hook to open the petting zoo for the day.”
“Has the key ever been missing?” Nancy asked him.
“Never,” he said with a shake of his head. “The key is always right where I put it.”
“Hmm.” Bess bit her bottom lip. “Nancy, will you write down in your notebook that the lock works and that the key hangs on a hook at night?” She paused, then said, “Maybe we need another column for stuff we should remember.”
“Good idea.” Nancy made a column and added the two facts. She also wrote a reminder to think about why there weren’t very many people at the petting zoo on such a beautiful spring day. Then she closed her notebook.
“There must be more clues around here somewhere.” Bess quickly surveyed the pen and the animals but didn’t immediately see anything out of place.
The three friends decided to split up and search around.
“Over here,” George called after a few minutes. Bess and Nancy hurried to where George stood outside the fenced pen. Through the rails, she pointed at a bale of hay sitting near the fence. A goat was standing on top of the bale, eating. Yellowish-green strands of hay were hanging out of its mouth as it chewed.
“It’s hay,” Nancy said. “There’s hay all over the ground. That’s not a clue.”
George pointed out that the bale of hay was half-eaten.
“I still don’t understand what the clue is,” Nancy prodded.
“Well,” George said. “If Mr. Johnson puts a bale of hay inside the fence every night and the animals eat it, why is there so much hay outside the fence too?” She pointed at the ground nearby.
“You’re right!” Nancy exclaimed. “It is a clue!” She bent low to the ground to examine the evidence. Even though they were standing outside the fence, there was hay all over. “Do you think the goats, sheep, and pony can spit this far?” Nancy asked, then took a few big steps to where the last scraps of hay were lying on the ground.
“These aren’t camels,” Bess remarked. When no one laughed, she explained, “Camels are known to be big spitters. I read it in a book at school.”
George laughed. “I get it now. But are goats big spitters too?”
“I didn’t read about that.” Bess shrugged. “I can check on Monday when we get to school.”
“Maybe Mr. Johnson simply dropped bits of hay when he carried the bale into the pen,” Nancy suggested. “But we should write it down anyway.” She opened her notebook and wrote in the clue column: Hay outside the animal pen.
Just as Nancy was closing the notebook, Bess asked, “Isn’t that Amanda Johnson over there?” On the other side of the pen, they could see a girl in white painter’s pants standing on a small ladder, leaning over the top rung of the fence.
“It sure is,” Nancy answered. The girls decided to go talk to Amanda about the pony’s disappearances. “Maybe she’s seen something suspicious,” Nancy said as they made their way around the pen.
Amanda was busy painting. She was smearing a new coat of red paint on the top rung of the animal pen fence.
“Hi,” Nancy greeted Amanda. “We hear you’re new to town. I’m Nancy Drew and these are my friends, Bess Marvin and George Fayne.”
Amanda didn’t get off the ladder. She didn’t even look down at the girls. She just kept on painting.
“Welcome to River Heights,” Bess said, reaching up and putting out her hand for Amanda to shake.
Amanda didn’t shake Bess’s hand. She kept painting.
George began to explain that they were investigating the mystery of Buttons’s visits to town.
“She won’t talk to you,” a voice behind them said. The girls turned to see Stacy standing behind them. “I’ve tried a thousand times. She won’t talk to me either,” she continued.
Nancy felt weird talking about Amanda in front of her, but since Amanda wouldn’t say anything, Nancy asked Stacy, “Why won’t she talk?”
Stacy gave Amanda a second to answer for herself, but Amanda simply dipped her brush in the red paint and silently swiped it along the fence.
“Mr. Johnson told me that Amanda doesn’t talk to any kids in River Heights. Not here at the petting zoo and not at school, either.”
“Is she sick?” George asked.
“Nah. She just doesn’t talk. That’s all. She’s refused to say one word to any kids since the day she moved to River Heights. I guess she doesn’t want any new friends.” Stacy shrugged and pulled an apple out of her jacket pocket. “I still try every day.” Stacy turned to Amanda and said, “Hi. Want to go feed Buttons with me?” She held out the apple so Amanda could see it.
When Amanda didn’t answer, Stacy said, “We have the exact same conversation every single day. I ask her to join me and she doesn’t answer. I keep hoping that one of these times, she’s going to take the apple and come into the pen with me. Until then, I’m feeding Buttons on my own. I just love that pony!” She called, “See ya!” over her shoulder as she ran toward the pen.
When Stacy was gone, Nancy stepped closer to Amanda and said, “We’d like to be your friends.” Bess and George nodded their heads, totally agreeing.
Amanda didn’t answer. She turned her eyes away so that Nancy couldn’t see them. Then, even though she hadn’t finished the fence rail, Amanda put the lid on her paint, tucked her paintbrush into her overalls pocket, picked up the small ladder, and walked away without saying a single word.
The phone at Nancy’s house rang early Sunday morning.
“Hello?” Nancy picked up the phone after Hannah told her the call was for her.
“Nancy?” It was George. “You’d better come over ASAP. You aren’t going to believe who is standing on my front lawn!”
“Is it Bess?” Nancy was kidding. She knew right away it wasn’t Bess. George never got this excited about her cousin.
“No, it’s Buttons!” George thought Nancy was serious. She paused for a second as she thought about Nancy’s question. “You were kidding, right? You knew it was Buttons.” Nancy giggled and George laughed in return
“Gotcha! “Nancy said.
“I’m going to call Bess now,” George said.
“Okay. I’m on my way!” Nancy hung up, grabbed her purple notebook and pencil, and hurried downstairs. She paused to get permission to go to George’s. The very second her dad said it was okay, Nancy fled out the door and ran the three short blocks to George’s house.
“Hi, Bess. Hi, George. Hi, Buttons,” Nancy greeted the gang as she hurried up the front walkway. Bess and George were standing off to the side, watching the pony eat leaves off the Faynes’ willow tree.
> “What are you doing here?’ Nancy asked Buttons. Buttons neighed and chewed off a few more leaves.
“I wish Buttons could tell us how he’s getting out of the petting zoo,” Nancy said. “It sure would make this an easy mystery to solve.” Buttons neighed again as if he understood and was trying to tell.
Just then, Bess noticed a strange red marking on one of Buttons’s back hooves. She pointed it out to George and Nancy. They stepped in a little closer to get a better look.
“Girls!” Mrs. Fayne called from inside the house, through the kitchen window. “Stay back from that pony. I know he likes kids and is nice at the farm, but you need to be careful when Mr. Johnson isn’t around. I’ve already called him. He’s on his way.”
“But Mom—,” George began.
Mrs. Fayne didn’t repeat herself. She just shot them a warning look.
“No really, Mom.” George moved back from the pony and closer to the kitchen window. “We were checking Buttons’s hoof. It looks like he’s bleeding.”
Mrs. Fayne came out of the house, drying her hands on a small towel. Slowly she approached the pony, talking softly and making a nice clicking sound with her tongue.
“I didn’t know your mom knew about ponies,” Nancy told George.
“She grew up on a farm in Ohio,” George answered. “Sometimes she talks about how much she misses living on a farm.”
Mrs. Fayne put a soothing hand on Buttons’s side, being careful to stay in front of his hind hooves. She bent low to take a look.
“That’s not blood,” Mrs. Fayne remarked at last. “Hooves are hard and wouldn’t bleed even if he did break one. There is no scratch on his leg.” She looked closer at the red mark. “That looks like paint.”
The girls were surprised.
“Paint?” Bess cried. “Like the red paint Amanda Johnson was using yesterday!”
Nancy immediately pulled out her notebook and pencil. In the clue column, she wrote down: Red paint on Buttons’s hoof.