recognized a lot of faces from the night before. Like
her and George, they all wore sleek warm-up gear and
sweaters under their parkas. Only a few die-hard
spectators, bundled up from head to toe, had braved
the cold and the early hour to be there.
“Nancy! George!” Ned's voice rang out.
Nancy turned to see her boyfriend's tall silhouette
walking up the snowy, tree-lined path with a thermos
and insulated cups. Grant and C.J. were with him. All
three guys wore bright yellow caps that glowed in the
darkness.
“Omega Chi Epsilon!” Nancy said, reading the
Greek symbols printed on the hats in neon green.
“They're perfect.”
“Tea and team hats.” George grinned as C.J. pulled
two more hats from his pocket and handed them to her
and Nancy. “Okay. Now I'm psyched.”
They were just digging into their muffins when
Randy hustled up with his camera. “How about a team
photo?” he asked. “Guys in back, girls in front.”
C.J. had started toward Dede's team, which was
doing stretches next to the tower, but Randy pulled
him back. As Randy motioned for C.J. to take his place
between Ned and Grant, Nancy noticed the team from
Sigma Pi heading toward the tower.
Nancy didn't miss the way Dennis's eyes flitted be-
tween C.J. and Dede. Rolling his eyes at C.J., Dennis
muttered loud enough for them all to hear, “We'll see
who's the top jock around here after the competition.”
“There's Mr. Lorenzo now,” Ned said.
Mel Lorenzo was just walking up the tree-lined path
to the bell tower, Nancy saw. His round face was
almost completely obscured by his tinted glasses, knit
cap, and thick scarf. His heavy ski jacket made his large
frame look even bulkier than usual.
“Let's talk to him,” Nancy said.
They caught up to him outside the arched stone
doorway to the tower. “Ready for the challenge?” Mr.
Lorenzo asked them.
“Ready, willing, and able,” Ned assured him. “But
before we start . . .”
He and Nancy told him about the muscle relaxant
they had found on their dessert. As he listened, Mr.
Lorenzo's expression grew more and more sober.
“This is a serious accusation.” Mr. Lorenzo shook his
head and gazed at them over the tops of his tinted
glasses. “Man, oh, man. You say no one saw the person
who . . . um, the person who . . . did it?”
Suddenly the store owner seemed distracted. His
eyes were focused on something behind Nancy. When
she turned, she saw Randy headed their way with his
notebook open and ready.
“C.J. just told me about a possible sabotage inci-
dent,” Randy said, tapping his pen against the page.
“And what's this about threats to hand over clues? Care
to comment, Mr. Lorenzo?”
“No,” Mr. Lorenzo practically growled at the re-
porter, then walked away from him.
“Mr. Lorenzo,” Nancy said, hustling after him with
Ned. “We think whoever put those pills on our dessert
could be the same person who sent you that computer
threat.”
“I already told you, that was nothing,” Mr. Lorenzo
insisted. His eyes kept jumping to Randy, who hovered
nearby.
“We saw Joy talking to you last night. You seemed
uncomfortable, and then suddenly you left,” Ned said.
“Did she say something that made you leave?”
Mr. Lorenzo held up a hand and shook his head. “I
had to meet Jimmy, an employee. He hid the clues for
me,” he explained. “Joy was just making small talk.”
He turned to Nancy and Ned with an understanding
smile. “I'll keep my eyes open for trouble,” he assured
them. “But I'm afraid I can't suspend anyone from the
challenge without much more solid evidence.”
Nancy saw the doubt in his eyes. Mr. Lorenzo
clearly thought she and Ned were blowing the whole
thing out of proportion.
“Okay, everyone.” Mr. Lorenzo pulled a whistle
from his pocket and blew it. “To the starting line!”
Excited murmurs rose from all four teams. “This is
it!” George said as she, Grant, and C.J. joined Nancy
and Ned.
They had already agreed that C.J. would run for the
first clue for their team. He took his place at the
entrance, bouncing lightly on the balls of his feet. Joy,
Dennis, and Dede's sorority sister Krista lined up next
to him.
“On your marks!” Mr. Lorenzo called. “Get set . . .”
He blew the whistle, and all four runners sprinted
through the bell tower doorway. Shouts and cheers
erupted from the crowd.
“Yes!” Nancy jumped up and down as C.J. took the
lead on the stairs. “Go, C.J.! Go!”
The runners' pounding footsteps mixed with cries of
encouragement from their teammates and spectators.
The outer wall of the tower was dotted with small,
diamond-shaped windows that rose in the same curve
as the stone stairs inside. Nancy followed the flashes of
movement as the runners sprinted higher and higher.
“They're almost at the top!” George said, squinting
upward at the tower. “But I can't see which runner is—
—”
“Aiieeeeee!”
An earsplitting cry rang out from the top of the bell
tower. The anguish—and pain—in the voice made
Nancy shiver from head to toe.
“Oh, no,” she said breathily. “Someone's hurt!”
5. A Cry for Help
“We've got to help!” Nancy cried. After shoving her tea
into Ned's hands, she raced for the bell tower and
pounded up the stone stairs two at a time.
Her heart thumped as she sprinted higher and
higher. Surely she had to be near the top. As she raced
past a window, she caught a diamond-shaped glimpse
of branches and snow far below. And then . . .
“C.J.!” Nancy said as she stopped short.
He was doubled over on the stairs with the others
around him, clutching his left ankle. “Owww,” he
groaned. “I think I sprained it.”
“All of a sudden he slipped going up,” Krista ex-
plained. “We plowed right into him.”
“It happened so fast,” Dennis added. “We were
lucky we didn't all fall.”
Nancy crouched down in front of C.J. “We have to
get you downstairs—” She was interrupted as someone
shoved her from behind. “Hey!”
Randy pushed past her with his camera, snapping
photos. The blinding flashes made Nancy instinctively
move up the stairs.
“C.J.!” Dede appeared below them on the stairs.
Her face was red, and her eyes were wide. “You're
hurt!”
She tried to get close to her boyfriend, but Randy
blocked her way.
“Can't you get out of the way?” Nancy said. “Dede
needs to— Whoa!” As she had moved up a step,
Nancy's foot slipped ou
t from under her, and she
landed on her knees.
“Ow!” She winced, then did a double-take as she felt
the surface of the step with her hand.
“It's slippery!” she said, rubbing her fingers to-
gether. “Someone rubbed this step with soap!”
“No way.” C.J. whipped his head around—then
scowled when Nancy showed him the soap marks on
the step. “So someone tripped me up on purpose!”
Randy turned his camera toward the step. “Talk
about great material,” he said under his breath.
“Unless he's faking for publicity,” Dennis muttered.
“C.J. would never do that!” Dede said hotly. She
shot a furious look at Dennis. “How do we know it
wasn't you? You'd do anything to get C.J. out of the
competition.”
Good point, Nancy thought and turned toward
Dennis. At least, she tried to, but with everyone clus-
tered around, she could barely wiggle.
“We need to get Randy to the infirmary!” she
shouted above the din of everyone speaking at once.
“He has to—”
“I've got it!” came a voice from farther up the tower.
Nancy turned around in time to see Joy trot down
the stone stairs. She was clutching a slip of paper in her
right hand.
“The first clue!” she crowed, holding up the paper.
Joy shoved past Nancy and everyone else who had
pushed up the stairs. “See you at the finish!”
Krista and Dennis looked at each other, then, care-
fully avoiding the soapy steps, sprinted to the top.
“The others can help me down,” C.J. told Nancy.
“Go get our clue!”
Nancy didn't have to be told twice. But as she ran up
the curving tower stairs after Krista and Dennis, a
troubling thought nagged at her.
How had Joy avoided the soapy step? How had she
known to?
“I'm all taped up and ready to go,” C.J. announced
half an hour later.
Using a cane, he limped into the infirmary waiting
room, his left ankle wrapped in an Ace bandage.
Nancy looked up from the slip of paper that rested
on the battered coffee table in the waiting room. She,
George, Ned, and Grant had been going over their first
clue while Randy observed from a chair.
“How is your ankle?” Ned asked.
C.J. shrugged. “It's a minor strain, nothing serious.
This stuff is just a precaution, to keep from aggravating
the injury,” he said, pointing at the cane and bandage.
“I have to steer clear of strenuous activity today, but if
it feels okay, I'll be back in action tomorrow.”
“Great,” Randy said, raking his white-blond hair off
his forehead. “That means we'll have time for some in-
depth questions today.”
“Speaking of questions . . .” Ned picked up the clue
from the table and handed it to C.J. “Take a look at
this.”
As C.J. read the clue, Nancy glanced at it over his
shoulder. Not that she needed to. She already knew it
by heart:
Shake it up at the start!
Leave sculdiggery behind
Lunge past frozen waters
Run alongside the wet wanderer
Bypass broken-down barriers
Escape the bony clutches
Navigate the trail to the ring of rocks
Advance to the foundation of victory
Overturn the rising sun
Invite success!
“Looks like directions,” C.J. said, sitting.
“Frozen waters must be the lake,” Ned agreed. “But
the rest of it. . .” He shook his head.
Grant opened up his backpack and pulled out a
sheet of glossy paper. “Here's a map of the campus,” he
said, spreading it out on the table.
The lake was a blue oval at the center. A vast
wooded section spread out to the west of it. Nancy
followed a squiggly blue stream that threaded through
the woods to the lake.
“Do you think that could be the wet wanderer'?”
she wondered out loud.
“Could be,” George said. “But it runs for miles. We
need to figure out the rest of the clue first.”
Nancy's eyes jumped to the top of the clue. “ Shake
it up at the start,' “ she murmured.
“The start of what?” C.J. asked.
“I wonder . . .” Reaching into her own backpack,
Nancy took out a pen and a small notebook. “What if
he means the start of each line of the clue,” she said.
“The first letter from each line . . .”
She wrote down S L L R B E N A O I. “Okay. What
if we scramble the letters?”
“You think that's what Mr. Lorenzo means by Shake
it up'?” Ned asked.
“Maybe. It can't hurt to try,” Nancy said. She was
already spelling different words. “Bells . . . beans . . .
sail . . . rose . . . barn . . .”
“Wait a sec. There is a barn. The old Sanderford
place!” Grant jabbed a finger at the map, nearly
sending it flying off the table.
“That's right,” Ned said. “The whole campus used to
be part of the farm. Woods have grown back over the
part of the land where the house and barn used to be.
I've never seen them, but from what I've heard, they're
wrecks now.”
Nancy circled the B, A, R, and N. “That leaves S, L,
L, E, O, and I,” she said. “What did you say the
farmer's name was?”
“Sanderford,” Grant said. “Ollie Sanderford.”
“That's it!” Nancy crowed. “If you take the first let-
ter from each line and rearrange them, they spell
Ollie's Barn!”
C.J.'s eyes lit up. He leaned on his cane to gaze at
the map. “Excellent! But . . . the house and barn aren't
marked on here,” he said.
“That's where the directions come in.” Nancy's
whole body tingled as she took the paper from C.J.
“We know the barn is somewhere in the woods. I say
we ski to the wooded side of the lake and see if we can
figure out the rest of the clue.”
“I'll have to sit out this part of the challenge,” C.J.
said. “Randy and I will meet you at the headquarters
later, okay?”
Ned jumped to his feet and grabbed his parka and
yellow team hat. “Mr. Lorenzo said he's got all the
equipment in the atrium of the Sports Complex,” he
said. “Let's go.”
The Sports Complex consisted of three modern,
cubelike buildings that had been constructed at angles
to the old brick gymnasium. Nestled between the
buildings was a triangular, glassed-in atrium carpeted
with AstroTurf.
“Ah!” Mr. Lorenzo glanced up from a table just in-
side the door to the atrium. He smiled as Ned sorted
through the cross-country skis and poles stacked
against the outer wall of the old gym, along with ropes,
pins, harnesses, and climbing shoes. Everything was
divided into four sections, one for each team. “I see the
Omega team has solved the first clue. Good work.
You'
re the second team out.”
“Second?” George frowned at the blank spot be-
neath the Delta Tau sign. “Joy's team is ahead of us,
huh?”
“Looks like the Sigmas and the Kappas are still
puzzling over the clue,” Nancy said, nodding to where
the two groups sat hunched at tables on opposite sides
of the fountain. Both teams watched as Nancy and the
others put on their ski boots and grabbed skis and
poles.
“Come on!” Grant urged, pushing back outside
through the glass doors.
He, George, Ned, and Nancy stepped into their skis.
As they took off, they heard a loud whoop from inside
the atrium.
“It's the Kappas,” said George, glancing back over
her shoulder.
Nancy felt a jolt of adrenaline as Dede and her
teammates burst through the atrium doors with their
skis. “Go!” Nancy urged.
She plunged her pole into the snow and skied for-
ward. Beyond the parking lot, a corner of the snow-
covered lake was visible. It was rimmed on one side by
a thick woods of evergreens, maples, and oaks that
stretched all the way to the horizon.
“This way,” Ned called. He took the lead on a path
that angled toward the woods.
“Hmm,” Nancy said as her eyes fell on two buildings
that had come into sight. To their left was a
greenhouse, dominated by steamed-up windows and
flashes of greenery. Just beyond it, to their right, the
boathouse was nestled into the trees at the lake's edge.
“Hey, George!” Nancy called as she poled and
glided forward. “Isn't sculling a way of rowing a boat?”
she asked. “And isn't digging one of the main things
that happens in a greenhouse?”
George looked back and forth between the two
buildings. “Sculdiggery. It's perfect!” She whooped as
they skied past both buildings. “We just left sculdiggery
behind, guys! What's next?”
Nancy recalled the next part of the clue. “We have
to ski past frozen waters—that must be the lake,” she
said. “Then we should follow the shore until we come
to the stream.”
“The wet wanderer,” Ned called back to them. “It'll
take a while to get there.”
As Nancy skied, she tilted her face up to catch the
sun's rays. The wind whipped at her cheeks, but she
was moving with such energy that she didn't feel the
cold. She felt completely invigorated.