Scavenger Hunt Heist Read online

  Cissy gasped and ran to Adam’s side, her eyes on the backpack.

  “Did not!” said Lolly. She grabbed her backpack and began shoveling the spilled candy back inside. Then she paused and looked at her team.

  Frank, Joe, and Phil were all gaping at the candy pieces still on the ground. None of them knew what to say—it didn’t look good for Lolly.

  “You believe me, don’t you?” Lolly asked.

  “Well . . . ,” said Phil, red-faced.

  “I mean, why do you have all that candy?” asked Joe.

  Lolly rolled her eyes. “Guys, this is my personal candy stash. I always have it on me, at all times.”

  Cissy looked at her feet. “I don’t know. . . .”

  Lolly stood. She held a handful of the candy that had spilled out of her backpack. The wrappers were bright purple, with white polka dots. “Do you see what this is?” she asked the boys.

  “Proof that Team Hardy won’t be winning the scavenger hunt?” Adam asked, cackling at his own joke.

  “It’s Grapelicious Ooey Gooey gum,” said Lolly, as if the answer was obvious.

  “So?” Adam asked.

  “So, I’m always chewing Grapelicious Ooey Gooey gum. Ask anyone!”

  “How can we be sure?” asked Phil.

  “Because I said so,” said Lolly, hugging her bag tight to her chest.

  “What else is in that bag?” asked Adam. “More candy?”

  “You can’t just go accusing me because you don’t know who else could have done it,” said Lolly. “It’s not fair. I was helping with the investigation and everything.”

  Frank and Joe looked at each other.

  “She’s right,” admitted Frank. “Plus, there’s only gum in her bag—and Heather said there were toys and other kinds of candy in the piñata.”

  “And real detectives have to have a reason to go through people’s things—our dad told us,” Frank added.

  Joe nodded. “It’s called ‘probably cause.’ ”

  “Probable cause,” corrected Frank. “And it means we need to leave Lolly alone, unless we have a real reason to believe she stole the candy.”

  Cissy shrugged. “Lolly probably took the candy, ’cause she loves to eat it so much! She’s sugar crazy!”

  “But that’s also the reason why she could be telling the truth,” Frank reasoned. “She loves candy, so it shouldn’t be a big surprise that she’s carrying a bunch of it around in her bag.”

  “Okay,” said Joe. He faced Lolly—he couldn’t help but feel bad for her. “If something else comes up and it looks suspicious for you, though, will you agree to show us everything in your bag?”

  Lolly nodded. “I guess.”

  “Let’s go,” Adam said to his team. “This is getting boring.”

  Cissy, Adam, Seth, and Tony stalked off with their Y-shaped sticks. Phil put the stick he’d found before the sword fight into a clue bag. It was time to open the new clue—before Adam’s team beat them.

  Lolly smiled her thanks at the Hardy boys and offered them, and Phil, a piece of purple gum, which they took and popped in their mouths, competing to see who could blow the biggest bubble.

  “Howdy there, kids!” boomed Ranger Bo, coming upon the group. “How’s your scavenger hunt going?”

  “We’re just about to open Clue Number Four,” said Phil excitedly.

  Ranger Bo patted the pockets of his brown pants, then his jacket pockets, as if he was looking for something. “Clue Number Four?” he asked. “That’s my favorite!”

  “Really?” asked Phil. “How come?”

  “Open it up and find out for yourself!” said Ranger Bo. “I’m off to look for my hat.”

  With that, Bo walked off, looking under park benches and picnic tables as he went.

  “Did anyone else notice his hat was on his head?” asked Phil.

  “Me!” chorused Lolly, Frank, and Joe.

  “He really is forgetful, isn’t he?” said Frank.

  The team sat at a wooden picnic table while Joe opened the fourth clue. They leaned in as he read it aloud:

  “I turn color in fall

  but that’s not all.

  I should have a few holes;

  being bug food take its tolls.”

  The group thought for a minute.

  “I understand the first part,” said Frank, running his finger over the grooves in the picnic tabletop. “But not the second.”

  “What’s the first part?” Joe asked.

  “Leaves?” said Phil. “Leaves turn colors in the fall.”

  “Exactly,” agreed Frank. “But what’s the bug part?”

  “Don’t bugs eat leaves?” Lolly asked, snapping her purple bubble gum. It was already fading, turning from bright purple to lavender.

  Joe nodded. “Yup, they do! And when they eat the leaves . . .”

  “They leave holes in the leaf!” said Frank, understanding.

  “So we’re looking for a bug-eaten leaf with holes in it for proof?” asked Phil.

  “That’s right,” said Frank. “Where should we start?”

  “I think it’s time to go into the woods,” suggested Lolly, rising from her seat. “There are more leaves there than anywhere else in the park.”

  The boys followed her lead, all the way to the wooded path. They saw a few different teams on their way. Elisa had just found her Y-shaped stick, and Ellie Freeman’s team hadn’t even managed to make their mud yet!

  But Adam’s team was still neck and neck with the Hardys’ team.

  “I think we should look here,” said Lolly, stopping in front of a big, leafy elm tree. “This one has a ton of leaves—some of them must have bug holes.”

  “Good idea,” said Frank.

  Lolly and Frank focused on the leaves they could reach on the tree, and Phil and Joe knelt down and checked the fallen leaves on the ground.

  Frank got on his toes and pulled a leaf off the tree. For the most part, it was smooth and bright green, like the grass. But it had four tiny, pin-size holes in one corner where the edges were browning.

  “Got one!” he exclaimed.

  But when he turned to look at his team, they were all looking past him, under the tree.

  Frank turned to follow their gaze. There, mixed in with the leaves and branches right next to the tree trunk, was a bunch of shredded yellow paper.

  “It’s from the piñata!” shouted Phil.

  Joe picked some shreds up and examined them. He spotted a blur of movement out of the corner of his eye and looked up.

  “Look!” Joe said. “Up there!”

  Chapter 7

  TREE HUGGER

  There, standing on a thick, sturdy branch just above Frank and Joe Hardy’s heads, was Heather.

  “Ranger Heather?” said Lolly, her mouth dropping open.

  Frank couldn’t see what Heather was doing, but he noticed that one of her arms was raised high in the air, as if she was trying to reach something.

  Heather lowered her arm, and when she did, Frank and Joe saw that she had her phone in her hand.

  “Be right down!” She wrapped her hands around one branch, then another, making her way down from the tree.

  By the time Heather finally jumped to the ground, she had a leaf in her perfect hair, and pieces of broken tree bark clung to her ranger uniform.

  “I was just trying to get better phone service,” she told them.

  “In the tree?” Phil asked.

  Heather nodded. “This park gets, like, no Wi-Fi.”

  Phil looked confused. “Of course not,” he said. “It’s a park!”

  Joe leaned in to whisper to his brother. “Do you think she could be a suspect?” he asked.

  Frank wasn’t sure. It looked suspicious that they’d found Heather so close to pieces of the piñata. But what was her motive for stealing it in the first place? Frank leaned down, picked up the shredded yellow paper bits, and stuck them in one of the clue bags for their scavenger hunt items.

  “What’s that?
” Heather asked, pointing at the pieces of piñata in Frank’s bag.

  “Evidence,” explained Joe.

  “Of what?” Heather asked. She plucked a tub of lip gloss from her front pocket and smoothed the sticky, shiny goo over her lips.

  “We’re investigating the case of the missing scavenger hunt prize,” Frank said.

  Heather’s phone chimed like a bell—it was the same sound Mrs. Hardy’s phone made whenever she got a text.

  Heather tapped her phone a couple of times, made a few swipes across the screen, and then locked it. She placed the phone back in her pocket and looked up at them.

  Joe wondered if she’d really been listening to what his brother had said. “Did you see anyone around here looking like they were up to trouble?” he asked Heather.

  “I don’t think so,” she said. “Why?”

  “Because,” Frank said, holding up the bagged pieces of piñata, “we found the missing piñata pieces right here under this tree.”

  Heather raised her eyebrows. “I wonder how those got there.”

  Joe looked at her warily. “We were hoping you could tell us that.”

  Heather leaned forward, placing her hands on her knees so that she was closer to Joe’s height. “Why?” she asked. “Am I a suspect?” She laughed, throwing her head back a little like it was the funniest thing she’d ever heard.

  “We’re not ruling anyone out,” said Frank carefully. He didn’t want to single her out the way Adam had with Lolly earlier, but he didn’t want to lie, either.

  “I think it’s time for you kids to get back to your scavenger hunt,” Heather said, looking skeptical. “Ranger Bo just texted me—he’s gone out to get the new prize, and I’m in charge while he’s gone.”

  “How come he didn’t want you to go?” Phil asked, voicing a question that was in Frank’s head.

  Back at the visitors’ cabin, Heather had seemed to really want to go out to get the new prize herself. Ranger Bo had said no pretty quickly—and Frank and Joe wanted to know why.

  Heather twirled her hair around a seashell-pink-painted fingertip. She bit her lip, as though she wanted to say something but wasn’t sure if she should.

  “Ranger Bo is my dad,” Heather said finally. “He doesn’t like me to leave the park during work hours, because he’s afraid I’ll be on my phone the whole time.”

  Frank and Joe exchanged a look. Did that count as a motive? If Heather was mad at her dad, maybe she’d have sabotaged the scavenger hunt prize. Or . . .

  Far off in the distance, Frank heard a bunch of squeals and shouts. The team jogged down the path and searched the path through the trees to see what was going on.

  It was Adam’s team!

  “We’re going to win!” Cissy shouted. She turned to Adam, who was holding a clue envelope. “Just one clue left—hurry up and open it!”

  Fweeeeeeet!

  Just behind Frank and Joe stood Heather, her whistle still in her mouth.

  “Twenty minutes left!” she shouted. “Twenty minutes! Finish up your last clue and meet back in the visitors’ cabin in twenty minutes!”

  “Oh no!” said Joe, turning to the team. “Adam’s team is beating us, and we haven’t even solved the mystery yet. What do we do?”

  Lolly held up the final clue. “You help us solve the clue, and Phil and I will go find it while you two work out the mystery. Sound like a plan?”

  “Let’s do it!” said Joe.

  Chapter 8

  STAY BACK!

  When animals travel,

  they leave this mark.

  Last clue to unravel

  in Bayport Bear Park!

  “The note at the bottom of the clue says that we have to take a picture of two different examples, instead of putting whatever it is in a plastic bag,” said Phil.

  Frank tucked the last clue away in his back pocket. This was the hardest clue yet, but he knew that if they worked together, they could solve it.

  “Animals travel?” Lolly asked. “What does that mean?”

  “Let’s think. How do animals travel?” Frank asked.

  “Bunnies hop,” suggested Lolly.

  “And birds fly,” Joe said. “But I don’t know what that has to do with the clue.” He leaned against the maple tree behind him, causing a squirrel nearby to startle and scamper away. As it ran, the squirrel scattered a spray of dirt and crunched through old fallen leaves.

  Frank tiptoed toward the leaves the squirrel had upset. “Wait a minute,” he said. “Did you guys see that?”

  “What?” asked Phil. “The squirrel?”

  Frank knelt down and looked closely at the ground. It was faint, but when he pushed aside the leaves and branches, Frank could see where the squirrel had left an imprint of his paw in the dirt. It looked like a mini version of a dog’s paw print, but with little lines at the ends where the claws were.

  “Look!” Frank said, calling them over.

  “Is that from the squirrel?” Joe asked, peering at the print in the dirt.

  “When it ran, it left its mark!” Phil exclaimed.

  “The answer to the clue is animal tracks,” said Joe. “So if we take a picture of the squirrel’s paw print, that means we’re done!”

  “Almost,” corrected Lolly. She popped another piece of Ooey Gooey into her mouth and chewed around her words. “It says we have to take a picture of two different animal tracks. We only have one.”

  Phil took out his phone and snapped a picture of the squirrel print. Then he reminded Frank and Joe that he and Lolly would look for the next set of tracks while the Hardys went to work on solving the scavenger hunt heist.

  The group went deeper into the woods, making sure to stick to the trails. Around them, they could hear other groups moving around. Chet Morton and Elisa Locke were bagging their bug-eaten leaf to their right, and Ellie Freeman was just reading the last clue aloud to her team.

  Joe didn’t see Adam or anyone else from Adam’s group, so there was no way to know whether they’d already found their first tracks. He pushed the thought out of his mind. It was time to focus on their case!

  “Okay,” Frank said. “We have fifteen minutes left to solve this case—let’s get cracking!”

  “I’ll set my timer,” said Joe.

  Frank could feel his heart pounding. He’d never had to solve a case to a timer before, and with so little to go on!

  As they walked, Frank pulled out his trusty notebook and showed his brother what they had so far:

  Who: Adam? Lolly? Ranger Heather?

  What: stolen piñata

  When: between 11:30 and 11:40 a.m.

  Where: Bear Park visitors’ cabin

  Why: ????

  “Let’s start with Adam,” suggested Frank. “Why would he want to steal the prize?”

  Joe shrugged. “Adam doesn’t need a reason to cause trouble,” he said. “He just does!”

  “True,” Frank said, sidestepping a fallen tree branch. “What about . . .” He lowered his voice. “Lolly?”

  “I heard that!” Lolly called from ahead, glancing at the Hardys.

  Frank felt bad, but Lolly was smiling, which made him feel a bit better. Joe and Frank walked fast to catch up with Lolly and Phil.

  “My motive is simple,” Lolly added, surprising the two brothers. “Everyone knows how much I love candy!”

  “Um, that’s true,” said Frank, making a note next to her name.

  “What’s Heather’s motive, then?” asked Joe.

  “She could have done it because she was mad at her dad,” said Frank, making another note. “Maybe she wanted to get back at him for not letting her be on her phone?”

  “You guys might be great detectives,” Lolly said, ducking under a low-hanging branch. “But you don’t know anything about girls!”

  “I think I see something up there,” Phil said. He pointed toward where the path broke off in two different directions. He jogged ahead.

  “What do you mean, Lolly?” asked Frank.

&n
bsp; “Heather was awfully quick to volunteer to run out and get a new prize after we discovered the original one had been stolen,” Lolly added.

  “You think she could have stolen the prize just for the excuse to leave and get a new one?” Frank asked.

  Lolly nodded. “That way, she could be on her phone all she wanted!”

  Up ahead, Phil had stopped at the fork in the path and was pulling out his phone.

  “Did you find something?” Joe called out, running to look over Phil’s shoulder.

  “Uh-oh,” said Joe, looking down at the tracks in the dirt. “Frank, you better not come any closer!”

  “What are you talking about?” said Frank, going right for his brother.

  “What are they?” Phil asked Joe.

  But it wasn’t Joe who answered him.

  Frank stared at the tracks in the dirt—rounder, fatter versions of the squirrel tracks they’d seen earlier. But these tracks were about ten times the size of the squirrel’s. Where had he seen those before?

  That was when he remembered—the documentary! “B-b-b-bear tracks!”

  Chapter 9

  DON’T FEED THE ANIMALS

  “I got the picture—let’s get out of here!” yelled Phil.

  They all turned to leave, except Frank Hardy.

  “Frank, are you crazy?” Joe asked. “You were the one who was so afraid of the bears! Let’s go!”

  Frank’s heart was pounding—but not for the reason it was earlier, when he’d first gotten off the school bus. Not only did he have to solve a case so soon, but he felt like they were super close to figuring it out!

  “C’mon, Frank!” Lolly urged, tugging the cuff of his jacket sleeve.

  “Can we please get out of here?” Phil asked. “In case you didn’t notice, we’re about to be bear stew!”

  “I don’t think we’re in any danger,” Frank said. He hoped not, anyway. But it didn’t stop his heart from pounding, or his hands from shaking.

  Frank looked at his brother, who was now looking at the bear tracks. Joe met his eyes and nodded.

  “You see what I see, don’t you?” Frank asked.