As Nancy skied, she tilted her face up to catch the sun’s rays. The wind whipped at her cheeks, but she was moving with such energy that she didn’t feel the cold. She felt completely invigorated.
“Watch out from behind!” George warned.
Dede and her teammates were moving up, Nancy saw.
“Out of the way, slowpokes!” Dede called, grinning. She skied off the packed path, forging a new track that ran parallel to the one Nancy and her teammates were on.
“Pass ’em!” Rosie called from behind.
“Hey!” Nancy cried as Dede drew even.
“Oh, no, you don’t….” Breathless, Ned poled faster, and the Omegas pulled ahead again.
The two teams leapfrogged back and forth, skiing along the lake’s edge. Nancy had never felt so exhilarated. Sunlight sparkled off one spot on the lake where there wasn’t any snow.
“That must be where the stream comes in!” she realized. “The moving water kept that part of the lake from freezing.”
Ahead of her George’s head bobbed in a nod. “We’re almost at the wet wanderer!”
“You mean, we’re almost there!” Denise called as she skied parallel to Nancy.
Just ahead of them the stream angled off to the left. Ned and Dede had already veered away from the lake to ski beside the stream in parallel paths. Ned had forged a path closer to the stream. To his right, the ground sloped sharply down to the water.
“Faster, Ned!” George cried. She turned to glance at Denise, who had nearly caught up with her. George poled with extra vigor. She shot forward, angling around as the path curved next to the stream. “We can’t let them—”
She broke off in a gasp as her right boot suddenly pulled free of her ski. George flew sideways, tumbling down the snowy slope.
“Help!” she cried, her arms and ski poles flailing.
“Oh, no!” Nancy’s heart leaped into her throat as she watched George fly straight toward the frigid stream.
6
Cross-Country Catastrophe
“George!” Nancy’s eyes flew left and right. She searched madly for some way to help George stop before she plunged into the icy water.
“The shrubs!” Nancy cried, jabbing her ski pole at the scraggly bushes that lined the stream. “Reach out and grab them!”
She didn’t see how George could even see the bushes, she was tumbling so fast. All Nancy saw was a blur of poles, arms, legs. George’s left ski popped off and skittered down toward the water. All at once George’s arm shot out. Miraculously, her hand closed around some branches.
“Ooooh!” A muffled groan escaped George’s mouth as she jerked to a stop. Her boots smashed through the thin ice at the stream’s edge. George yanked them out instantly then sat up, dazed.
“Whoa” was all she said.
Nancy popped out of her skis and was next to George in a flash. “Are you okay?” she asked.
George got slowly to her feet, shaking snow off. “Nothing hurts. And the water didn’t soak through to my feet,” she said.
Nancy retrieved George’s left ski, which was submerged halfway in the stream. After shaking off the water, she and George tromped back up to the trail, where Ned and Grant waited. Ned had picked up George’s right ski and was examining it. Nancy saw Dede and the other Kappas behind the guys. They had all stopped and were watching George with worried eyes.
“Everything okay?” Rosie called over.
George didn’t answer right away—she seemed to be preoccupied. “Skis shouldn’t just pop off like that,” she said.
“The binding popped off on one side,” Ned said, turning the ski so George and Nancy could see.
Looking over George’s shoulder, Nancy saw that one side of the binding had ripped totally free of the ski. A screw dangled from the screw hole in the binding. Nancy took one look at the blunt end of the screw and frowned.
“The tip’s been sawed off!” she said, rubbing her finger against it.
George’s whole face darkened as she stared at the screw. “You mean, someone sawed off the tip and then screwed it back into my ski?” she said.
Nancy nodded. “Leaving enough thread to hold the bindings on, but not enough to take the extra stress you put on the bindings when you skied all out.”
Grant jabbed a ski pole into the snow. “Spiked food, soap on the tower stairs …”
“And now this.” Ned shook his head in disgust.
Dede exchanged quick glances with her teammates. “I hope you don’t think we had anything to do with these pranks,” she said.
Nancy supposed any of the teams could be responsible—even the Kappas—but Dede had seemed genuinely shocked to see the soaped stair. Also, she had been sitting at their table the night before, which meant she could have eaten the spiked dessert along with the Omegas. Nancy had a hard time believing that Dede would do anything to harm her boyfriend or anyone on the Omega team.
“We’ll consider everyone innocent until proven guilty,” Nancy said.
“In that case”—Dede grinned at Nancy and skied forward—“see you at the clue!”
George watched with longing. “You guys go,” she urged. “I’ll meet you back at Clues Challenge headquarters.”
