Stacey and the Stolen Hearts by Ann M. Martin

Author:Ann M. Martin
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scholastic Inc.
Published: 2015-11-08T05:00:00+00:00

“Order! Order!” Kristy was tapping her pencil on the desk.

Abby’s voice rose above the racket in Claudia’s room. “I’ll have a BLT on rye with mayo. Hold the L, extra B. And make it snappy.”

“Oh, ha-ha,” Kristy said. “That joke is so old. Last time I heard it I fell off my dinosaur.”

That cracked everyone up. We may be mature middle-school students, but that doesn’t mean we can’t appreciate a good third-grade joke.

Or, for that matter, third-grade food. Claudia had made fluffernutter sandwiches for everyone, and they were a big hit. (I, of course, was sticking with a handful of sourdough pretzels.)

Friday’s BSC meeting was not a typical one. Oh, we took phone calls, and we spent a few minutes talking about our clients. Kristy filled us in on her job at the Hobarts’, for example. But other than that we talked about nothing but the mystery of the stolen valentine-grams.

That’s right, mystery.

I’d made it official by hauling out the mystery notebook and making an entry.

What’s the mystery notebook? Well, the BSC members have a way of becoming involved in mysteries, probably because we all love them (Claud’s not the only one who reads Nancy Drew books). In fact, we’ve solved quite a few. And when you’re solving a mystery, one of the things you have to do is take lots of notes — on motives, suspects, stuff like that. Anyway, we figured it would make sense to keep those notes together in one place, instead of having them scattered around. The mystery notebook has made us into better, more efficient detectives.

But it was going to take more than efficiency to solve this case. For one thing, there were just too many suspects. Like, the entire student body of SMS. As we talked about the case that afternoon, one thing became obvious, and Kristy put it best.

“It could have been anyone,” she said. “What we have to do is narrow it down to the most likely suspects and then start ruling them out, one by one. We’ll end up with one or two major suspects and then the rest will be a snap.”

“You make it sound so easy,” said Mary Anne. “I’m not so sure we can solve this one.”

“Of course we can,” said Abby. “Look, let’s start by taking the main suspects, the way Kristy said. If you suspect someone, it’s your job to start checking them out, first thing on Monday.”

“Dibs on Brian and Rose Marie!” cried Claudia. “I’m dying to find out what’s going on with them anyway.”

“They’re yours,” said Kristy, making a note in the mystery notebook. “Meanwhile, I’ll see if I can find out what Brent’s been up to. He keeps a pretty low profile, and just because nobody’s seen him near the valentine-gram table doesn’t mean he’s above suspicion.”

“Speaking of suspicion,” Abby put in, “how about if I check out Cary? I’m sure his dentist story checks out, but I still think we should keep an eye on him.”

We all agreed with that.

“I hate to say this, but I’m wondering about Pete,” Mary Anne said softly.

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