“We’ve got to help!” Nancy cried. After shoving her tea into Ned’s hands, she raced for the bell tower and pounded up the stone stairs two at a time.
Her heart thumped as she sprinted higher and higher. Surely she had to be near the top. As she raced past a window, she caught a diamond-shaped glimpse of branches and snow far below. And then …
“C.J.!” Nancy said as she stopped short.
He was doubled over on the stairs with the others around him, clutching his left ankle. “Owww,” he groaned. “I think I sprained it.”
“All of a sudden he slipped going up,” Krista explained. “We plowed right into him.”
“It happened so fast,” Dennis added. “We were lucky we didn’t all fall.”
Nancy crouched down in front of C.J. “We have to get you downstairs—” She was interrupted as someone shoved her from behind. “Hey!”
Randy pushed past her with his camera, snapping photos. The blinding flashes made Nancy instinctively move up the stairs.
“C.J.!” Dede appeared below them on the stairs. Her face was red, and her eyes were wide. “You’re hurt!”
She tried to get close to her boyfriend, but Randy blocked her way.
“Can’t you get out of the way?” Nancy said. “Dede needs to—Whoa!” As she had moved up a step, Nancy’s foot slipped out from under her, and she landed on her knees.
“Ow!” She winced, then did a double-take as she felt the surface of the step with her hand.
“It’s slippery!” she said, rubbing her fingers together. “Someone rubbed this step with soap!”
“No way.” C.J. whipped his head around—then scowled when Nancy showed him the soap marks on the step. “So someone tripped me up on purpose!”
Randy turned his camera toward the step. “Talk about great material,” he said under his breath.
“Unless he’s faking for publicity,” Dennis muttered.
“C.J. would never do that!” Dede said hotly. She shot a furious look at Dennis. “How do we know it wasn’t you? You’d do anything to get C.J. out of the competition.”
Good point, Nancy thought and turned toward Dennis. At least, she tried to, but with everyone clustered around, she could barely wiggle.
“We need to get Randy to the infirmary!” she shouted above the din of everyone speaking at once. “He has to—”
“I’ve got it!” came a voice from farther up the tower.
Nancy turned around in time to see Joy trot down the stone stairs. She was clutching a slip of paper in her right hand.
“The first clue!” she crowed, holding up the paper. Joy shoved past Nancy and everyone else who had pushed up the stairs. “See you at the finish!”
Krista and Dennis looked at each other, then, carefully avoiding the soapy steps, sprinted to the top.
“The others can help me down,” C.J. told Nancy. “Go get our clue!”
Nancy didn’t have to be told twice. But as she ran up the curving tower stairs after Krista and Dennis, a troubling thought nagged at her.
How had Joy avoided the soapy step? How had she known to?
“I’m all taped up and ready to go,” C.J. announced half an hour later.
Using a cane, he limped into the infirmary waiting room, his left ankle wrapped in an Ace bandage.
Nancy looked up from the slip of paper that rested on the battered coffee table in the waiting room. She, George, Ned, and Grant had been going over their first clue while Randy observed from a chair.
“How is your ankle?” Ned asked.
C.J. shrugged. “It’s a minor strain, nothing serious. This stuff is just a precaution, to keep from aggravating the injury,” he said, pointing at the cane and bandage. “I have to steer clear of strenuous activity today, but if it feels okay, I’ll be back in action tomorrow.”
“Great,” Randy said, raking his white-blond hair off his forehead. “That means we’ll have time for some in-depth questions today.”
“Speaking of questions …” Ned picked up the clue from the table and handed it to C.J. “Take a look at this.”
As C.J. read the clue, Nancy glanced at it over his shoulder. Not that she needed to. She already knew it by heart:
Shake it up at the start!
Leave sculdiggery behind
Lunge past frozen waters
Run alongside the wet wanderer
Bypass broken-down barriers
Escape the bony clutches
