Joy’s face was hidden from view as she pulled herself up onto the lowest branch. When she finally glanced down at Nancy, Joy’s eyes flashed with irritation. “I suppose you’re going to try to pin that on me, too?” she said.
She reached calmly for the next branch and kept climbing. Her teammates gathered at the foot of the tree calling encouragement.
“She sure doesn’t act like she’s guilty,” George whispered in Nancy’s ear.
“No, but maybe that’s exactly what she’s doing … acting,” said Nancy.
She eyed Joy’s teammates. All their faces were turned upward. No one was paying attention to Joy’s backpack, which lay on a mound of snow next to her skis.
Catching George’s eye, Nancy held her finger to her lips. She moved quietly to the backpack. Crouching next to it, she pulled the zipper open slowly.
Hmm, she thought, scanning the contents. Joy had packed an extra pair of gloves, sunglasses, protective lip balm…. Nancy saw nothing unusual—until her gaze landed on a small bottle with a prescription label.
She glanced quickly over her shoulder. Seeing that Joy was hidden by the branches of the huge old oak, Nancy reached inside the pack and pulled out the bottle.
The prescription label was partly torn. Nancy couldn’t read the name of the person it was for. But the name of the medicine was still intact.
“Comptamine,” Nancy breathed. The same drug that was used to spike their dessert at the pre-Challenge dinner!
Gripping the bottle tightly, she made her way to her teammates, who waited next to their skis.
“Find something?” Grant guessed, looking at the bottle.
Nancy showed them the prescription bottle, then turned as Joy’s teammates cheered. “Joy’s on her way down with the clue,” she said, peering up into the towering branches of the oak.
“Good.” Ned frowned, stomping the snow under his boots. “’Cause she’s got some explaining to do.”
“What’s going on?” asked Hanna, a girl with freckles and a halo of reddish brown curls around her face. She glanced curiously at the Omega team as they circled Joy at the foot of the legendary oak.
“I found this in your backpack, Joy,” Nancy began. She opened the container and poured a handful of chalky tablets into her palm.
Joy stared blankly at the tablets, her pale brows knit together. “Pills?” she said. “But I don’t—”
“It’s the same medicine someone used to spike our dessert at the Eatery,” C.J. cut in. “Don’t try to pretend you don’t recognize them. They’re obviously yours, Joy.”
Joy’s eyes flickered uncertainly. “I’ve never …” Her voice trailed off as Randy snapped a photograph of her.
“Hey!” she said sharply. “I don’t like being set up—especially in front of the press!”
She grabbed the bottle of pills and shook them in front of Nancy’s face. “You know these aren’t mine. Why are you setting me up?”
Whoa, thought Nancy. Joy was hardly acting like a person who’d been caught red-handed.
“You’re going to be in serious trouble when we show this to Mr. Lorenzo,” George pointed out.
“And the police,” Nancy added.
“But I didn’t do anything!” Joy insisted.
“Are you saying you’re not the person Mr. Lorenzo saw sneaking around the woods in my hat?” she asked, turning back to Joy. “That you weren’t up on the roof on the administration building when that icicle was knocked off?”
“And what about the other night, when we saw you at the bell tower,” George added. “You were definitely up to something there.”
Joy bit her lip. She glanced back at her teammates. All four girls watched her uncertainly.
“All right. All right,” Joy said at last, letting out her breath in a sigh of frustration. “I have been up to something. But it’s not what you think. It doesn’t have anything to do with the Clues Challenge!”
Nancy couldn’t believe how defiant Joy was. “We’re listening,” Nancy said.
“There’s a chemistry midterm coming up,” Joy began. “I promised to help someone in my class study. That’s who I was meeting after the pre-Challenge dinner. I was going to lend her my study notes.”
“Outside the bell tower, in the freezing cold?” George asked doubtfully. “Why did your friend run away like she was harboring top-secret classified information? Getting class notes is no big deal.”
“It is to my friend,” Joy insisted. “She’s used to being at the top of her class. I guess she figured her reputation as a brainiac would be wrecked if people knew she’d been having trouble.”
Nancy searched her mind, trying to fit Joy’s explanation to all that had happened. There were still too many unanswered questions. “What about your glove?” Nancy asked.
“The one I found on the roof of the administration building,” Ned reminded Joy. “Along with that file. Are you trying to say you didn’t use the file to sabotage George’s skis?”
Joy shook her head forcefully. “I didn’t! I was never on that roof, I never touched that screwdriver, and I don’t know about any pills,” she insisted. Planting her hands on her hips, she fixed Nancy with accusing eyes. “Someone set me up!”
She seemed so sincerely angry that Nancy found herself believing Joy. “What about my yellow Omega team hat? I know you took it,” Nancy said.
For the first time Joy’s defiant glare faded to uncertainty. “That was me,” she admitted. “Since you guys wrecked my first chance to give my friend the chemistry notes, I had to make another rendezvous. I decided to meet her during the party, when everyone from the Clues Challenge would be at the Attic.”
“That way no one would see you outside and think you were searching for clues,” Grant said.
“Exactly,” Joy said, nodding. “I didn’t plan to take your hat, Nancy. But as I was on my way out of the Attic, I saw it sticking out of your jacket pocket….” She took a deep breath and let it out in a cloudy stream. “I was really mad at you guys.”
