Frognapped Read Online Free Page B

putting him back together again, but we never seem to get all the pieces in exactly the same place as before. So every time he gets rebuilt, Sir Horace walks in a different way. I guessed his weird walk might have had something to do with the fact that we last put Sir Horace together at the sametime we were mending Wanda’s bicycle. I had a feeling that some of the parts got mixed up.
    I found Sir Horace waiting for me in the hall a few minutes later and we got to the van just in time. Wanda, Aunt Tabby, and Brenda had finished loading up with the picnic basket, rugs, beach umbrellas, windbreaks, air matress, snorkels, flippers, and all the hundreds of things that Brenda always takes to the beach. Brenda was sitting nervously in the driver’s seat—because Aunt Tabby is teaching her to drive—and Wanda was already in the back of the van with all the stuff.
    Sir Horace was on the doorstep staring at Barry’s van. I was not surprised, as most people stare at Barry’s van. It is very embarrassing, especially when you are in it. Barry recently painted his van (which used tobelong to Uncle Drac) with pictures of his frogs. They were leapfrogging all over it, they had big scary eyes, and since he had run out of green paint, they were all weird colors. Also the paint had run. It was meant to be an advertisement for his troupe of frogs, which Barry thought would make his fortune, but personally I thought it would put people off.
    â€œHurry up, Sir Horace,” I said. “Brenda’s driving and she is likely to take off at any moment.” Brenda does not have what Aunt Tabby calls “good clutch control,” which is a fancy way of saying that when Brenda drives, the van leapfrogs like a giant frog itself.
    Sir Horace clattered down the steps and I was glad that Aunt Tabby was so busy telling Brenda to remember to let go of the handbrake this time that she did not notice. Aunt Tabbyhas a policy of never letting you do anything that you want to, and I was pretty sure this would cover taking Sir Horace to the mushroom farm in the back of the van.
    Wanda, however, did notice. But luckily, just as she shouted, “No, Araminta, I will not move over for Sir Horace,” her voice was drowned out by the metallic screeching of Brenda crashing the gears and Aunt Tabby yelling, “Clutch, Brenda! Clutch! ”
    I pulled Sir Horace inside and slammed the door just in time. Then we kangaroo-hopped down the drive and out into the lane. It was a lovely sunny day, and as we passed the DANGER, UNEXPLODED MINES sign I smiled. Chief Detective Spookie was on the case.

5
FROG BUCKET
    I t is amazing that only one of us fell to pieces on the way to the beach.
    Wanda spent the whole time moaning that she was going to be sick and I bumped my head hundreds of times, but a good detective is always on duty and I made sure I kept looking out the window when we passed Old Morris’s mushroom farm. It was a good thing I did because there were tons of clues justhanging around outside, waiting for a good detective to find them.
    First: There was Nurse Watkins’s bike leaning against the gate.
    Second: There was Old Morris. He was carrying a large red bucket that looked suspiciously like it was full of frogs. Okay, I couldn’t actually see any frogs because at that very moment Brenda went around a corner on two wheels, Aunt Tabby screamed, and something rattly happened to Sir Horace.
    Third: The sign outside the mushroom farm no longer said:

    Now it said:

    Fourth: Guess what the exclamation marks were? Yep, frogs—five jumping frogs. And how many frogs does Barry have? That’s right. Five .
    I was just about to explain all this to my sidekick—who was at the time underneath a pile of beach towels—when the van screeched to a halt and my sidekick landed on top of me. We had arrived at the beach parking lot.
    Aunt Tabby threw open the door to the back of the van and peered in. She looked pale