“How soon is pretty soon?” Mike asked.
“Fifteen or twenty minutes,” Sid said.
While they waited, Sid let the kids sniff bottles of vanilla and strawberry extract. He showed them the containers of chocolate fudge.
“What would happen if you put a lot of salt in the hopper?” Mike asked.
“Why would anyone do that?” Sid asked.
“You might get ice cream that tastes good with potato chips,” Mike said.
Sid shook his head. “I’d lose all my customers and be out of business in a flash.”
Bess sighed and muttered to Nancy, “Mike Minelli must have been born really weird.”
Sid took a second bowl of peaches out of the refrigerator. “Just a minute to go,” he said. “Get those into the machine, George.”
George put the fruit into the hopper.
“These peaches won’t be inside long enough to be chopped up completely,” Sid said. “That’s how we get the little peach chunks that Bess likes so much.”
Sid uncovered a round opening in the door. Bobby put a plastic bucket under it. Then he pressed the switch to the left.
“What’s happening?” Nancy asked.
“The blades are turning in the opposite direction now,” Bobby explained. “They’ll push out the ice cream.”
“Here it comes!” Bess exclaimed.
“Oops! I think you used the wrong recipe,” Mike said. “That’s not ice cream.”
The children bent over the bucket.
“It looks like peach-colored whipped cream,” George said. “Only heavier.”
Sid chuckled as he snapped a lid on the bucket. “Now it goes into the flash freezer. Fifty degrees below zero finishes the job.”
“You mean no one gets to try it?” Bess asked. She looked very disappointed.
“Not for six hours,” Sid said. “How about a taste of the batch I made earlier instead?”
Bobby gave everyone a small dish of peach ice cream.
“Dee-lish!” Mike said as he ate. “Now I know what I want to be when I grow up.”
Nancy’s eyes twinkled. She leaned toward Mike and said, “An ice cream bucket!”
Everyone laughed, even Mike.
“This has been fun,” Sid said. “The shop hasn’t been this lively in weeks.”
Before leaving, the kids thanked Sid and Bobby for everything. When they were outside, George said, “We should finish talking to Cathy Perez this afternoon.”
“You’ll have to go without me,” Mike said. “I’m playing miniature golf. With boys!”
The girls made plans to meet again at four o’clock. Nancy rode home. After lunch Carson Drew helped her practice skating on her new in-line skates. Before she knew it, it was time to bike to the Double Dip.
Nancy, Bess, and George met inside the restaurant. They gathered around the refrigerator case. Cathy Perez began showing them the twenty flavors inside.
“I’ll have to hurry,” Cathy said. “Just four people work here. Ray does dishes and cleanup. Tom and my cousin Meg wait on tables. And I do everything else.”
She pointed to a tub of very dark brown ice cream. “Fudge-nut brownie is popular,” she said. “And so is coffee-toffee crunch.”
Suddenly a frightened screech cut through the air. “H-E-E-L-P!”
Cathy dropped the ice cream scoop that she was holding. The screech was followed by a loud thud. And then another thud.
Cathy gasped. “The storage room!”
6
Chocolate Melt
Cathy dashed off without another word. The girls raced after her. They all burst into the storage room—and stopped short.
“Meg!” Cathy exclaimed. “Are you all right?”
The young waitress was standing in front of a freezer. Its door was open. Two ice cream buckets were lying on the floor. Their lids had fallen off. There were big splashes of melted chocolate ice cream all over.
“I was getting a bucket from the top shelf,” Meg said. Her voice sounded shaky. “Everything was slippery and wet and squishy. When one bucket slipped out of my hands, I knocked over another one.”
“The important thing is that you’re not hurt,” Cathy said. “But I don’t understand why this chocolate ice cream is so soft.”
Meg’s face looked pale. “It’s not just this chocolate,” she said. “Everything in the freezer is melted.”
“Melted!” Cathy said. She hurried to the freezer and examined the ice cream.
Nancy moved closer. The buckets looked moist. Water dripped from the shelves.
“Did someone turn off the freezer?” Cathy asked. She checked the on-off switch. “It’s still on,” she said. “Maybe it’s the electricity.” She knelt down to look behind the freezer. When she stood up, the heavy electrical cord was dangling from her hand.
“Somebody unplugged this freezer!” she said. She looked at the dripping shelves. “An entire supply of ice cream—ruined! First the pineapple–papaya crush. Now this!”
Cathy began emptying the freezer. “Someone must have sneaked in yesterday,” she said. “We wouldn’t have noticed any change in the ice cream for a while. Then the freezer was off all night.”
“I don’t remember seeing anyone around here,” Meg said. “But we’re all so busy.”
“Uh-oh,” Nancy murmured. “This is bad.”
“What’s bad?” George asked. “Nancy, what’s wrong? You look really strange!”
“I think I just figured out something very creepy,” Nancy whispered.
“Tell us,” George said.
“Tell us while we get a snack,” Bess said. “Creepy makes me hungry.”
The girls sat at one of the restaurant tables. Meg came to take their order.
“A cherry soda with vanilla ice cream, please,” Bess said.
“A root beer float for me,” George said.
“I’ll have a dish of chocolate ripple ice cream,” Nancy said. “I mean, make that strawberry. Or maybe—” Nancy took a deep breath. “One scoop of each, please.”
“Now tell us everything,” Bess said.
“When I was looking at that melted ice cream, I remembered two things,” Nancy began. “They both happened yesterday—when we were all here. First, Mike asked Cathy about ice cream getting too soft.”
George nodded. “Cathy said refrozen ice cream isn’t smooth.”
“Right,” Nancy said. “Then we left the storage room, and he disappeared.”
“He was in the rest room,” Bess said.
“But suppose he was in the rest room just part of the time,” Nancy said.
Meg appeared carrying a tray. She put spoons, straws, napkins, and the ice cream dishes on the table. The girls thanked her.
George was staring at Nancy. “You think Mike Minelli unplugged the freezer!”
Nancy told her friends about Mike and the pineapple–papaya crush ice cream. “I thought it might be a coincidence,” Nancy said. “But now I think he’s helping Donna Kepler close down this place.”
“This is creepy!” George said.
Bess nodded. “Mike Minelli is pretty gross and sort of weird,” she said. “But I never thought he was . . .” Her voice died away. She looked sad. She put a straw in her soda and sipped very slowly.
For the first time ever, the three friends ate their ice cream in silence. Nancy wrote everything in her notebook. On the page labeled Suspects she added the name Mike Minelli.
• • •
That evening Nancy ate dinner with her father. She filled him in on the mystery.
“I know the Minelli family,” Carson Drew said. “It’s hard to understand Mike being involved in something like this. But you discovered some troubling clues.”
Nancy’s father twirled a few strands of spaghetti around his fork. Then he asked, “Besides Donna Kepler, who has a reason to hurt the Double Dip?”
Nancy thought about that, then answered, “Well . . . Sid Alden. He says the Double Dip is driving Sugar ’n’ Spice out of bus
iness. He could have called in the phony ice cream order. But how could he have pulled the freezer plug?”
The more Nancy thought about it, the more upset she felt. “I can’t believe Sid would do anything bad,” she said. “I just can’t.”
After dinner Nancy started a chart for the science report. It showed how to make peach ice cream. George was writing about the ice cream maker. Mike was reporting on nutrition. Bess was doing flavors.
Before going to bed, Nancy got out her blue notebook. She placed it on the desk unopened. She tapped her purple pen on the cover. Tap-tap. Tap-tap. Finally she opened to the page labeled Suspects. Under Mike Minelli’s name she wrote, “Sid Alden.”
Nancy climbed into bed and turned out the bedside lamp. But her eyes stayed open. She whispered, “If Mike or Sid is behind this, I want to know. And I want to know as soon as possible!”
• • •
The next day school went by slowly for Nancy. She looked at the clock again and again. Ten-thirty. Noon. Two-fifteen.
I need more clues, she thought. But what? And where?
Finally the afternoon bell rang.
“Don’t forget,” Ms. Spencer said. “Food reports tomorrow morning. All the teams should be ready.”
Nancy, Bess, and George hurried to get their backpacks out of their cubbies. Mike Minelli came up to them, waving some papers.
“Yo, team!” he said. “I finished my part of the report. So I get to watch a tape with Carl and Donna tonight. Galactic Hero!”
Mike sprinted down the hall to catch up with Jason. The girls headed for the exit.
“Guess what I dreamed last night,” Bess said. “I was in math class. But I was eating a peanut-butter-cup sundae with hot marshmallow fudge. Mmmm! Let’s get one.”
George scrunched up her nose and glanced at Nancy. The two girls did not look eager.
Nancy sighed. “I think I’ve had enough ice cream for a while.”
“Ditto,” George said.
“Come with me and just keep me company,” Bess said.
The girls called home for permission. Then they walked to the Double Dip.
When they got to the restaurant, Cathy waved to them. “Hi,” she said. “What’s on your menu for today? Looking or eating?”
“I’m eating,” Bess said. “Nancy and George are looking—at me.”
When the girls were seated, Meg took Bess’s order. She came back a minute later and said, “The hot marshmallow fudge container is empty. There’s more marshmallow fudge in the storage room. But it will take a little while to heat up.”
While Bess waited, the girls talked about their science report. Then Meg brought Bess’s sundae to the table.
Bess looked at the dish and smiled. It held one scoop of rich, golden brown peanut-butter-cup ice cream. Thick dark fudge with streaks of gooey marshmallow covered the top and ran down the sides. Bess lifted up a heaping spoonful.
“Mmmm,” she murmured, closing her eyes. She placed the spoon in her mouth.
Suddenly her eyes popped wide open. She gagged. She spit out the ice cream and shrieked, “I’ve been poisoned!”
7
Don’t Eat the Ice Cream
Everyone in the restaurant turned and stared at Bess. Cathy and Meg rushed over.
“What’s going on?” Cathy asked.
Bess held one hand over her mouth. With the other she pointed to her sundae. Cathy bent down and sniffed the ice cream. Then she tasted a tiny bit of marshmallow fudge.
“Ugh!” she said. “It’s full of salt!”
Salt! Nancy thought. It’s Mike Minelli again. He asked Sid about putting salt in ice cream!
Cathy had Bess rinse out her mouth and then drink some water. Meg explained that she had used a new jar of fudge from the storage room.
“I want to see that fudge,” Cathy said.
The girls followed Cathy to the counter where the sundaes were made.
“Someone stirred a lot of salt into this fudge,” Cathy muttered. “I’d better check everything in the storage room.”
Meg and the girls went with Cathy. She opened the door with a key.
“Here’s where I got the jar,” Meg said. She pointed to the middle of one shelf.
Cathy sampled all the other jars of fudge. They were fine. Everything else on the shelves was all right, too.
“Hey, look at this,” Nancy said. “Fingerprints!” She had found fudge smudges on the edge of the shelf.
“How did anyone get in here again?” Cathy asked angrily. “We open the back door only for deliveries. Or to put out garbage. I started locking the inside door. Meg and I have the only keys.”
Nancy looked around. “What about that window?” she asked. She pointed to the small open window high above the table.
“It’s for ventilation,” Cathy said. “But who could get in it? It’s so narrow and high up. Well, I’ll shut it from now on.’”
Cathy turned to Bess and said, “Let’s get you a new sundae—on the house.”
“Well, uh—” Bess stammered. “For once I don’t feel like ice cream.”
The girls said goodbye to Cathy and Meg. Outside the restaurant Nancy asked, “Do you remember this? Mike Minelli talked about putting salt in ice cream.”
“That’s right!” George said.
“Yuck,” Bess said. “I never thought ice cream would seem so creepy.”
The girls talked for a few minutes. Then Nancy said, “I’d better get home. I want to finish my ice cream chart.”
Bess and George waved goodbye. Nancy started up the block. The mystery was on her mind. When she got to the corner, she suddenly turned around.
I’ll take a quick look behind the Double Dip, she thought. Maybe I’ll find a clue.
She hurried to the back of the shop. A large garbage pail stood below the storage room window. The top was half off.
Maybe Mike stood on that pail to reach the window, Nancy thought. But he still would be too short. She stepped closer. Could Donna fit through that window? she asked herself. I don’t think so.
Nancy wrinkled up her nose. The garbage was smelly. She glanced down. A brown glass bottle was lying on top of the garbage.
That looks familiar, Nancy thought.
The bottle wasn’t dirty, so Nancy picked it up carefully. She read the label.
“Natural peach extract!” she exclaimed. “This is from Sugar ’n’ Spice. It’s Sid’s!”
Then Nancy noticed white specks around the bottle opening. “Salt!”
She got out her blue notebook and turned to the list of suspects. She circled a name: Sid Alden. Then she stared at the window.
Nancy slammed her notebook shut. She stuffed it and the bottle into her backpack. Then she started to run as fast as she could.
Three minutes later Nancy burst into Sugar ’n’ Spice. She was breathing hard.
“Whoa!” Sid said. “Why all the running? The ice cream isn’t going anywhere.”
Nancy opened her backpack. She spoke between pants. “I’ve—got—to see—Bobby.”
“He’s working in back,” Sid said.
Nancy rushed into the back room. Bobby was shutting the freezer door. He turned around.
Nancy glanced at his jeans. Then she set the brown bottle on a table and said, “You’re the one who’s trying to close down the Double Dip!”
8
Nancy’s Fudge Berry Clue
Bobby’s eyes grew round. His thin shoulders trembled.
“You called in that phony order of pineapple–papaya crush ice cream,” Nancy said. “You unplugged Cathy’s freezer. And you put salt in her hot marshmallow fudge!”
Bobby opened his mouth but didn’t speak. His eyes shifted to something behind Nancy.
“I’d like to know what’s going on.”
Nancy jumped at the sound of the voice. Sid was standing behind her.
Bobby’s eyes filled with tears. “I wanted to save Sugar ’n’ Spice, Grandpa,” he said. “You’ve worked so hard your whole life. So I
tried to hurt the Double Dip. I know I shouldn’t have done it. I wish I hadn’t. I really wish I hadn’t!”
Sid sat down on a stool. His face was sad. “Tell me what you did,” he said.
“I knew Cathy Perez got her ice cream from the River Heights Dairy. And I knew that pineapple–papaya crush isn’t popular. So I phoned in an order for ten gallons.”
Sid looked even sadder.
Bobby went on. “On Saturday I passed by the Double Dip. A big delivery had just arrived. I sneaked in the back door and unplugged a freezer. That’s when I noticed the open window.”
“What open window?” Sid asked.
“A little window in the storage room,” Bobby said. He had to take a deep breath before he could go on. “This morning I got up early. I filled an empty bottle with salt. Then I climbed through the window and stirred the salt into a new jar of marshmallow fudge.”
Bobby sank down on a stool. He covered his face with his hands.
“Everything you did was wrong, Bobby,” Sid said. “So you ended up hurting everyone. You hurt Cathy Perez, yourself, and me.”
“I know,” Bobby whispered. After a minute he looked up and said to Sid, “We should go to the Double Dip now. I want to tell Cathy Perez everything.”
Sid, Bobby, and Nancy left the shop. Sid hung a sign on the door. It said Closed. Then he locked the door.
Just before Nancy turned to go, Sid patted her on the head. She and Bobby looked at each other. He didn’t look angry.
• • •
Nancy got home at the same time as her father. She asked if they could go into his study. Then she told him the whole story.
“Pumpkin, you did fine detective work,” Carson Drew said. “I’m proud of you. Now let’s hope that Bobby, Sid, and Cathy can work things out.”
After dinner Nancy had to finish her ice cream chart. But she took a minute to phone Bess and George.
“Meet me at school tomorrow ten minutes early,” Nancy said. “I have big news.”
• • •
The next morning Hannah drove Nancy to the school entrance. George and Bess hurried up the front walk.
“Tell us everything,” Bess said. “I can’t believe you made us wait all night!”