“Borrowed them?” Nancy said, surprised.
Ella nodded. “Toward the end of Terry’s open house. I thought I’d borrow them, and that nobody would notice if they were missing for an hour or two. I wanted to bring them here to show my great-aunt Rosalie. She used to have two cats that looked a lot like Creampuff and Cocoa. I figured it would cheer her up, because she’s been kind of sad lately.”
Nancy pondered all this. Ella seemed to be telling the truth. “But why didn’t you just ask Terry if you could borrow them?” she asked Ella.
Ella shrugged. “I was afraid Terry would say no. I guess that was pretty dumb of me, huh?”
“Where are the kitties now?” Bess demanded.
“That’s the problem,” Ella confessed. “They kind of, um, escaped from Great-Aunt Rosalie’s room. I couldn’t find them anywhere. I’ve been here every day, looking for them. I heard a rumor that they were living in the cafeteria and stealing leftovers. Then I heard a rumor that they were living with Mrs. Knowles in Room 342. I keep hearing all sorts of rumors. But I haven’t been able to find them.”
She added, “I thought I could just find them and sneak them back into Furball Farm. I didn’t want to tell Terry that I lost them. I was afraid she would fire me.”
Nancy glanced around. “I have a plan,” she announced. “Ella, you’re going to call Terry on your cell phone and tell her everything you just told us. At least she’ll know that the kittens are here and safe. Bess, George, I need you to go to the cafeteria and get me some strawberries.”
“Strawberries?” Bess and George said in unison.
• • •
Fifteen minutes later, Nancy, Bess, and George were walking down the second-floor hallway of the nursing home with several bowls of strawberries. Nancy had followed a trail of furballs, chewed-up magazines, and fresh, half-eaten granola bars to this wing of the nursing home. She figured Cocoa and Creampuff must be close.
“Cocoa!” Nancy called out. “Creampuff!” But there was no response.
A gray-haired woman poked her head out of one of the doors. “There’s nobody by those names here,” she rasped at the girls.
“We’re looking for a couple of kittens,” Bess explained.
The woman smiled. “Oh, those little rascals? They were just here. I think they went to visit Joyce Mains in Room 255.”
“Thank you!” Nancy said.
The girls hurried down to Room 255. There was no one inside. There were no cats inside, either.
Nancy set down a bowl of strawberries in the doorway. She indicated to George and Bess that they should do the same, farther down the hall.
Then they waited. And waited.
After a while, Nancy heard a scurrying noise coming from a side hallway. Seconds later a furry little figure appeared from around the corner. And then another. The two figures raced toward one of the bowls of strawberries and began sniffing eagerly. Then they started munching away.
Creampuff and Cocoa!
“We found them!” Bess hooted. “Kitties, we found you!”
Creampuff and Cocoa looked up briefly from their bowl of strawberries. Creampuff had a spot of red juice on her cream-colored nose. Then they went right back to their snack.
Nancy and the girls rushed up to the kittens and petted them happily. The kittens purred and continued eating.
• • •
That night Nancy curled up under the covers and pulled out her special blue detective notebook. She thought for a moment, tapping her purple pen against the notebook. Then she began to write:
Today we found Creampuff and Cocoa. They were living at the Wesley Nursing Home. They snuck food from the cafeteria and hid from the authorities. But they also made a lot of friends there.
Terry was super glad that we found them. Ella apologized about a hundred times for what she did. Terry accepted her apology and even let her keep working at Furball Farm—as long as she promised to not sneak any more cats away for nursing-home visits without telling Terry first!
The senior citizens at the nursing home really loved having Creampuff and Cocoa living with them. Especially Ella’s great-aunt Rosalie. In fact, Terry suggested that maybe the kitties could keep living there as house pets. The nursing home manager agreed.
So now Creampuff and Cocoa have a wonderful new place to live—together!
And Bess, George, and I have an awesome article for our school project about Terry, Furball Farm, and the mystery we solved!
Case closed!
This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
ALADDIN PAPERBACKS
An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division
1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020
www.SimonandSchuster.com
Copyright © 2005 by Simon & Schuster, Inc
All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.
NANCY DREW and THE NANCY DREW NOTEBOOKS are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
ALADDIN PAPERBACKS and colophon are trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
Designed by Lisa Vega
The text of this book was set in Excelsior.
First Aladdin Paperbacks Edition December 2005
Library of Congress Control Number 2005907547
ISBN-13: 978-1-4169-0830-2
ISBN-10: 1-4169-0830-7
ISBN-13: 978-1-4424-8353-8 (eBook)
Carolyn Keene, The Kitten Caper
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