Pony Problems Read Online Free

gate. Lately, I’ve been taking special care to check that Buttons is inside the pen. He always is.” Mr. Johnson closed the gate and hooked a small latch. After that, he slipped a large padlock through a hole drilled in the latch. Then he secured the lock.
    â€œCan I see the lock?” Bess asked, stepping forward.
    â€œBe my guest,” Mr. Johnson said as he moved aside.
    Bess pulled at the lock. It was firmly closed. She tugged some more, but the lock wouldn’t open. “Can I check out the key?” she asked Mr. Johnson. Bess took the key and opened the lock. She shut the lock tightly and handed the key back to Mr. Johnson. “Does anyone else have a key?”
    â€œNo,” Mr. Johnson replied. “I have the only one.” He unlocked the gate and put the key in his pocket. “I take the key home at night and hang it on a hook in the kitchen. Every morning I get the key off the hook to open the petting zoo for the day.”
    â€œHas the key ever been missing?” Nancy asked him.
    â€œNever,” he said with a shake of his head. “The key is always right where I put it.”
    â€œHmm.” Bess bit her bottom lip. “Nancy, will you write down in your notebook that the lock works and that the key hangs on a hook at night?” She paused, then said, “Maybe we need another column for stuff we should remember.”
    â€œGood idea.” Nancy made a column and added the two facts. She also wrote a reminder to think about why there weren’t very many people at the petting zoo on such a beautiful spring day. Then she closed her notebook.
    â€œThere must be more clues around here somewhere.” Bess quickly surveyed the pen and the animals but didn’t immediately see anything out of place.
    The three friends decided to split up and search around.
    â€œOver here,” George called after a few minutes. Bess and Nancy hurried to where George stood outside the fenced pen. Through the rails, she pointed at a bale of hay sitting near the fence. A goat was standing on top of the bale, eating. Yellowish-green strands of hay were hanging out of its mouth as it chewed.
    â€œIt’s hay,” Nancy said. “There’s hay all over the ground. That’s not a clue.”
    George pointed out that the bale of hay was half-eaten.

    â€œI still don’t understand what the clue is,” Nancy prodded.
    â€œWell,” George said. “If Mr. Johnson puts a bale of hay inside the fence every night and the animals eat it, why is there so much hay outside the fence too?” She pointed at the ground nearby.
    â€œYou’re right!” Nancy exclaimed. “It is a clue!” She bent low to the ground to examinethe evidence. Even though they were standing outside the fence, there was hay all over. “Do you think the goats, sheep, and pony can spit this far?” Nancy asked, then took a few big steps to where the last scraps of hay were lying on the ground.
    â€œThese aren’t
camels,”
Bess remarked. When no one laughed, she explained, “Camels are known to be big spitters. I read it in a book at school.”
    George laughed. “I get it now. But are goats big spitters too?”
    â€œI didn’t read about that.” Bess shrugged. “I can check on Monday when we get to school.”
    â€œMaybe Mr. Johnson simply dropped bits of hay when he carried the bale into the pen,” Nancy suggested. “But we should write it down anyway.” She opened her notebook and wrote in the clue column:
Hay outside the animal pen.
    Just as Nancy was closing the notebook, Bess asked, “Isn’t that Amanda Johnson over there?” On the other side of the pen, they could see a girl in white painter’s pants standing on a smallladder, leaning over the top rung of the fence.
    â€œIt sure is,” Nancy answered. The girls decided to go talk to Amanda about the pony’s disappearances. “Maybe