Sabotage at Willow Woods (Nancy Drew Diaries #5)(4)

“What letters are those?” George asked. She’d jumped up and was now standing over us, peering down at the note.

“I can’t tell.” I brought the paper closer to my face, then breathed in and coughed. “Ugh! Well, here’s another clue—this reeks of smoke.”

Bess sniffed the note and nodded. “Written by a smoker, clearly.”

I squinted at what remained of the letters. A curve with a flat bottom, a single line, and double equally spaced lines. I’d looked at enough ripped-up clues in my time to know what the letters might be. “The first one has to be a B. The second could be an I or a T. The last one looks like an A or an H.”

George raised her eyebrows. “B for Boylestown?” she asked.

“A for Association,” Bess suggested.

I looked up. “George, where’s your tablet?”

George grabbed her purse and pulled out the latest addition to her gadget arsenal: a small tablet that she ran her finger across to wake up; then she pulled up her browser. “Let me do a search. . . . Boylestown Association. Hmmm.” She paused while the search engine did its magic, then read the results. “Boylestown Seniors Association.”

“No,” I said, frowning down at the note. “The middle letter definitely isn’t an S.”

“Boylestown Fire Safety Association. Boylestown Stamp Collectors Association?”

Beth groaned. “No to both of those.”

George read the next entry and looked up, crooking an eyebrow. “Boylestown Teachers Association?”

I looked down at the note again. “That’s it! George, go to their home page.”

George bent over her tablet and obeyed. “Here we go,” she said, lifting the tablet to show us the home page of the Boylestown Teachers Association. A round seal dominated—a seal that seemed to match right up with the tiny bit of circle left on the note in my hand.

“So it stands to reason,” I began, “that the person who wrote this note is a teacher at one of the Boylestown schools. And since Carrie is proposing a major change at Boylestown High . . .” I trailed off, but the gleam in Bess’s eye told me that she knew exactly where I was going.

“It makes sense to start there,” she murmured.



Luckily, RHHS had a teachers’ conference the next day, which left me free to begin my snooping. I snuck down into the kitchen while Hannah was dusting the living room, not wanting to answer a bunch of questions about why I was shoving a hastily made peanut butter sandwich into my mouth. Then I grabbed my backpack and jumped into my car, checking my reflection in the mirror. A simple skirt and polo shirt Bess had picked out for me, an artfully messy ponytail: I looked cute enough to blend in, but not cool or noticeable enough to stand out.

I drove quickly to Boylestown High School and parked on a nearby side street. The bell was just ringing for their second lunch period—perfect! Soon the campus was crawling with kids carrying brown paper bags or trays laden with franks and beans, all looking for a place to eat. The school was pleasantly chaotic. Nobody would notice a girl who maybe, if you were really thinking about it, didn’t belong.

I walked confidently into the main building, smiling at any kids I passed, like I was just one of them. Most kids smiled back. Nobody asked who I was. I was able to make my way easily down to the basement level, past the cafeteria to the room I was seeking—which was exactly where the map I’d found online had said it would be.

A thick metal door, painted green, held a small window that had been papered over so you couldn’t see inside. Typical, I thought. I raised my hand and made a few sharp knocks, my knuckles bumping against the C in TEACHERS’ LOUNGE.

The door finally swung open to reveal a tall man with longish sideburns and a shaggy mustache. He peered down at me through too-thick glasses, looking instantly annoyed. “This is the teachers’ lounge. It’s private. No students!” he barked, then pulled back his arm to close the door in my face.

“But wait!” I said, holding up my hand in the universal please stop! gesture. “I know the teachers’ lounge is private. It’s just that I found this lighter right outside the door here—I figured it must belong to someone inside?”

I reached into my pocket and pulled out a small butane lighter I’d bought at the drugstore a few hours earlier. I’d been careful to buy a gender-neutral color: green.

The man frowned, peering down at the lighter. “Hold on.” He closed the door again, briefly, while I could hear him talking to the other teachers inside. “You sure? Okay.” He opened the door and shrugged at me. “I don’t know whose that is. It doesn’t belong to any of the teachers in here.”

I put on my best oh gosh face. “Oh, that’s too bad. I’d really like to return it. Do you know any teachers here who smoke?”

The man sighed, as if he were getting tired of this distraction from his rare “me” time. “Which teachers here smoke? Well, there aren’t many. It’s bad for you, you know that, right?”

I nodded solemnly. Oh, I knew. In fact, my dad had found that it was much easier to quit smoking than to put up with my constant nagging. Win for Nancy Drew!

The man shook his head. “There’s . . . uh . . . Ms. Kashen, she still smokes. And Ms. Meyerhoff. You could try them.”

“Thanks,” I said cheerfully, but barely got the th sound out before the door was closed in my face again.