Part 2 of #42, The Invisible Intruder
Last time we saw Nancy, she was freaking out because her beloved had been Ned-napped and there are shells. Lots and lots of expensive shells.
Nancy’s friends show up and she tells them that Ned is missing. They go back to the hotel and let the police do their job. Nancy is all emo in her room and Bess tries to get to eat something called jellied consommé. Don’t do it, Nancy, I looked up pictures and it looks like meaty jell-o. And those are two foods I don’t eat.
Ned! calls and tells her he’s at the Red Barn Guesthouse, which is their next stop. He managed to get away from his kidnappers. She’s relived to hear his voice and tells him she’ll call him back. She tells the rest of the group, but thinks he could be with his kidnappers still and forced to call. They have a code for this sort of thing and she calls him back and finds out that he really is free. Boyfriend and I need to come up with a code in case either of us gets kidnapped!
The police call and they’ve found out that the Ned dummy was really a robot that is wired to move and do karate chops. Cool! Nancy tells them that Ned’s fine and they’re meeting him at the Red Barn tomorrow.
At the Barn, it’s the same deal as the camp; haunting = no guests = no $ = selling? Ned agrees with me. They hear a crash from the attic and go investigate. The owner of the Barn was up there and saw a trunk fall. She freaks and goes to bed and Nancy finds a trap door that was underneath the trunk. Someone was standing in the closet of the room below and tried to open the trap door, which caused the trunk to topple over. She lords it over Psychic Rita that it wasn’t a ghost. In the guestbook, Nancy sees that a year ago Wilbur & Wife were guests at the Barn and Wifey asked Owner if she was planning on ever selling. Sounds familiar.
Nancy and pals are standing watch near the barn at night to see if the ghost horse and rider appear. They do and the group chases after them, but they lose them. There’s a lot of chasing and losing in this book. I had more hope for Ned, Burt, and Dave since they’re men and all. The Emerson College football team must really suck. Rita and Bess are convinced that the ghosts are real this time.
Footprints and hoof prints are found and George falls into a little pit. Good thing it’s not a Pit of Despair or else she’d be one psychotic monkey! Nancy says that the horse is probably a big balloon stretched over a mechanical horse and Wilbur Prizer is the ghost rider. Another shell is found with the initials M.T. The shell is a golden cowrie which is - you guessed it - very rare and very valuable.
After church, they hide out near the pit to see if someone shows up to get the shell. Bess gets stung and George tells her to put mud on it and shut up. I like George. A teenage boy comes over and searches for something. The group surrounds him and asks what the hell he’s doing. He’s all, “I’m hunting for rabbits” like he’s Elmer Fudd, but admits that he was paid to find a shell. They decide to follow him to see who paid him, but the kid gets in a car and drives away with Prizer in the backseat. Foiled again. They call the police from a nearby house. When they get back to the Barn, it’s been ransacked.
The deed to the Barn was stolen. The police come and after Nancy fills them on the 411, the stroke her ego. Also, Elmer Fudd’s (real name Steve Rover) car was found abandoned and the boy’s missing. The police say that Prizer broke in to steal the shell and the deed. They find a hair and determined that the burglar was Prizer because the hair was bushy. How can a single hair be considered bushy?
Carson calls and also gets the 411 on the ghost tour. His friend lives at the inn where they’re going next and wants to know when they’ll be arriving. Nancy says they’ll go tomorrow since there’s nothing more they can do at the Red Barn Guesthouse.
The inn is located on Craig Mountain and it used to be a fort that held POWs. You know, John McCain was a POW. You probably didn’t because he hardly ever talks about it. Again, the inn is in financial trouble because of the ghosts. After dinner, the group hangs out on the porch and watch fireworks and “flaming rockets,” one of which hits Nancy. Hmm…let’s think about that for a minute. A rocket hits Nancy. Now you’d expect our heroine to be blown to bits, right? Well, wrong! She escapes with only a little burn. That must’ve been a shitty rocket. The boys went and looked to see who threw the rocket but find nothing. No surprise there.
Nancy and pals check out the old dungeons. Bess feels sorry for the prisoners that were held there and Dave locks her in one of the cells. Dave, will you marry me? She’s not too mad though because she found a secret passage way. A hidden staircase, perhaps? There is a wood plank over the entrance and there’s an explosion when they lift the wood, but they go into the tunnel anyways. There are shells in the tunnel, of course, and they’re shiny so they had to have been placed there recently. Rita is mad that Nancy has shown her up again.
Bill gets all creationist on them by saying how everything technically is supernatural because God is super and He created it all. And then he waxes poetic about man eating clams. Freak.
The police come and tell Nancy that Madame Tarantula’s hut burned to the group and neighbors saw a ghost floating over the ashes. Then they leave with the shells. Rita again tries to convince the hunters that there are such things as ghosts and I totally believe her because I stayed in a haunted house one weekend.
Nancy suggests they try to get a leg up on Prizer and head to the final destination but make everyone think that they’re still at the inn. It’s agreed that Nancy, Ned, Helen, and Jim will go ahead and the rest of the group will stay behind. As the elite members leave, someone delivers a warning to Nancy, which George reads and everyone freaks that they’ve just sent Nancy to meet her maker.
Nancy, Ned, Helen, and Jim are in a truck and Carson’s friend, Warfield, is driving. Someone is following them. It’s just a police car. They got a report that there was a stolen truck and they thought it might be Nancy and Co. They get dropped off and Warfield gets carjacked. I’m going to guess it’s Elmer Fudd.
Nancy and pals walk around the outside house and look in the windows to see human skulls on the fireplace mantel and there’s a large sting ray. So, that thing on the cover isn’t a ghost, just a skeleton? Why did I think it was a ghost? A butler answers the door and plays 20 questions with them until he lets them inside. There are tons of shells in the house, but you probably already knew that. They read all about the shells and joke about sting rays. Steve Irwin probably doesn’t think they’re too funny. There are more, bigger skeletons in the basement of dinosaurs and they’re in cages. That must be a huge basement. The butler pushes them all into a cage and locks them in. That’s not a nice way to treat guests, dude. It’s really all Helen, Jim, and Ned’s fault, though. They wanted to get a better look at the dinosaur skeleton and walked right in.
They find a loose panel and Ned escapes behind it and the rest follow. Helen and Jim go one way and Nancy goes another and hears Elmer Fudd, crying for help. The butler comes back and Ned and Jim jump him and lock him in a cage. They let Elmer out and go talk to the owner of the house, Mr. Cranshaw. He fesses that he’d lost some shells recently and that there was a ghost in the house. They go downstairs and the sting ray starts talking.
There’s a two way radio inside its mouth and Ned pretends to be the butler and the other person on the radio says they’ll be there at midnight and to have dinner and the prizes ready. Nancy calls the police and they come over. Everyone agrees to stay hidden until midnight to see who arrives.
Old Man Prizer enters, along with his son and daughter-in-law, Madame Tarantula, and four other men. Madame T reveals that she had someone trail Nancy. She opens a bag of cash and says it’s from selling shells that her cousin Wilbur had stolen. Wilbur says that he rigged all the ghosts so people wouldn’t visit the properties and the owners would be forced to sell to him at a low price which he can then sell for a higher price. Not in this current real estate market. The police capture them and the robbers think they would’ve gotten away with it too, if it weren’t for those meddling kids.
Madame Tarantula hates Nancy, but can’t deny she’s the bestest detective ever. She asks where her papers are and Nancy tells her they’re safe. Madame T didn’t trust Cousin Wilbur with them and she pleads with Nancy to keep them safe until she gets out of prison. The bad guys get hauled away, including the butler they locked up, and Mr. Cranshaw asks Nancy and the hunters to be his guests. All of them. I was hoping that Psychic Rita had something to do with it, but I guess she’s clean.
Nancy sad because the mystery is over, but she doesn't know there's one right around the corner!
Nancy’s friends show up and she tells them that Ned is missing. They go back to the hotel and let the police do their job. Nancy is all emo in her room and Bess tries to get to eat something called jellied consommé. Don’t do it, Nancy, I looked up pictures and it looks like meaty jell-o. And those are two foods I don’t eat.
Ned! calls and tells her he’s at the Red Barn Guesthouse, which is their next stop. He managed to get away from his kidnappers. She’s relived to hear his voice and tells him she’ll call him back. She tells the rest of the group, but thinks he could be with his kidnappers still and forced to call. They have a code for this sort of thing and she calls him back and finds out that he really is free. Boyfriend and I need to come up with a code in case either of us gets kidnapped!
The police call and they’ve found out that the Ned dummy was really a robot that is wired to move and do karate chops. Cool! Nancy tells them that Ned’s fine and they’re meeting him at the Red Barn tomorrow.
At the Barn, it’s the same deal as the camp; haunting = no guests = no $ = selling? Ned agrees with me. They hear a crash from the attic and go investigate. The owner of the Barn was up there and saw a trunk fall. She freaks and goes to bed and Nancy finds a trap door that was underneath the trunk. Someone was standing in the closet of the room below and tried to open the trap door, which caused the trunk to topple over. She lords it over Psychic Rita that it wasn’t a ghost. In the guestbook, Nancy sees that a year ago Wilbur & Wife were guests at the Barn and Wifey asked Owner if she was planning on ever selling. Sounds familiar.
Nancy and pals are standing watch near the barn at night to see if the ghost horse and rider appear. They do and the group chases after them, but they lose them. There’s a lot of chasing and losing in this book. I had more hope for Ned, Burt, and Dave since they’re men and all. The Emerson College football team must really suck. Rita and Bess are convinced that the ghosts are real this time.
Footprints and hoof prints are found and George falls into a little pit. Good thing it’s not a Pit of Despair or else she’d be one psychotic monkey! Nancy says that the horse is probably a big balloon stretched over a mechanical horse and Wilbur Prizer is the ghost rider. Another shell is found with the initials M.T. The shell is a golden cowrie which is - you guessed it - very rare and very valuable.
After church, they hide out near the pit to see if someone shows up to get the shell. Bess gets stung and George tells her to put mud on it and shut up. I like George. A teenage boy comes over and searches for something. The group surrounds him and asks what the hell he’s doing. He’s all, “I’m hunting for rabbits” like he’s Elmer Fudd, but admits that he was paid to find a shell. They decide to follow him to see who paid him, but the kid gets in a car and drives away with Prizer in the backseat. Foiled again. They call the police from a nearby house. When they get back to the Barn, it’s been ransacked.
The deed to the Barn was stolen. The police come and after Nancy fills them on the 411, the stroke her ego. Also, Elmer Fudd’s (real name Steve Rover) car was found abandoned and the boy’s missing. The police say that Prizer broke in to steal the shell and the deed. They find a hair and determined that the burglar was Prizer because the hair was bushy. How can a single hair be considered bushy?
Carson calls and also gets the 411 on the ghost tour. His friend lives at the inn where they’re going next and wants to know when they’ll be arriving. Nancy says they’ll go tomorrow since there’s nothing more they can do at the Red Barn Guesthouse.
The inn is located on Craig Mountain and it used to be a fort that held POWs. You know, John McCain was a POW. You probably didn’t because he hardly ever talks about it. Again, the inn is in financial trouble because of the ghosts. After dinner, the group hangs out on the porch and watch fireworks and “flaming rockets,” one of which hits Nancy. Hmm…let’s think about that for a minute. A rocket hits Nancy. Now you’d expect our heroine to be blown to bits, right? Well, wrong! She escapes with only a little burn. That must’ve been a shitty rocket. The boys went and looked to see who threw the rocket but find nothing. No surprise there.
Nancy and pals check out the old dungeons. Bess feels sorry for the prisoners that were held there and Dave locks her in one of the cells. Dave, will you marry me? She’s not too mad though because she found a secret passage way. A hidden staircase, perhaps? There is a wood plank over the entrance and there’s an explosion when they lift the wood, but they go into the tunnel anyways. There are shells in the tunnel, of course, and they’re shiny so they had to have been placed there recently. Rita is mad that Nancy has shown her up again.
Bill gets all creationist on them by saying how everything technically is supernatural because God is super and He created it all. And then he waxes poetic about man eating clams. Freak.
The police come and tell Nancy that Madame Tarantula’s hut burned to the group and neighbors saw a ghost floating over the ashes. Then they leave with the shells. Rita again tries to convince the hunters that there are such things as ghosts and I totally believe her because I stayed in a haunted house one weekend.
Nancy suggests they try to get a leg up on Prizer and head to the final destination but make everyone think that they’re still at the inn. It’s agreed that Nancy, Ned, Helen, and Jim will go ahead and the rest of the group will stay behind. As the elite members leave, someone delivers a warning to Nancy, which George reads and everyone freaks that they’ve just sent Nancy to meet her maker.
Nancy, Ned, Helen, and Jim are in a truck and Carson’s friend, Warfield, is driving. Someone is following them. It’s just a police car. They got a report that there was a stolen truck and they thought it might be Nancy and Co. They get dropped off and Warfield gets carjacked. I’m going to guess it’s Elmer Fudd.
Nancy and pals walk around the outside house and look in the windows to see human skulls on the fireplace mantel and there’s a large sting ray. So, that thing on the cover isn’t a ghost, just a skeleton? Why did I think it was a ghost? A butler answers the door and plays 20 questions with them until he lets them inside. There are tons of shells in the house, but you probably already knew that. They read all about the shells and joke about sting rays. Steve Irwin probably doesn’t think they’re too funny. There are more, bigger skeletons in the basement of dinosaurs and they’re in cages. That must be a huge basement. The butler pushes them all into a cage and locks them in. That’s not a nice way to treat guests, dude. It’s really all Helen, Jim, and Ned’s fault, though. They wanted to get a better look at the dinosaur skeleton and walked right in.
They find a loose panel and Ned escapes behind it and the rest follow. Helen and Jim go one way and Nancy goes another and hears Elmer Fudd, crying for help. The butler comes back and Ned and Jim jump him and lock him in a cage. They let Elmer out and go talk to the owner of the house, Mr. Cranshaw. He fesses that he’d lost some shells recently and that there was a ghost in the house. They go downstairs and the sting ray starts talking.
There’s a two way radio inside its mouth and Ned pretends to be the butler and the other person on the radio says they’ll be there at midnight and to have dinner and the prizes ready. Nancy calls the police and they come over. Everyone agrees to stay hidden until midnight to see who arrives.
Old Man Prizer enters, along with his son and daughter-in-law, Madame Tarantula, and four other men. Madame T reveals that she had someone trail Nancy. She opens a bag of cash and says it’s from selling shells that her cousin Wilbur had stolen. Wilbur says that he rigged all the ghosts so people wouldn’t visit the properties and the owners would be forced to sell to him at a low price which he can then sell for a higher price. Not in this current real estate market. The police capture them and the robbers think they would’ve gotten away with it too, if it weren’t for those meddling kids.
Madame Tarantula hates Nancy, but can’t deny she’s the bestest detective ever. She asks where her papers are and Nancy tells her they’re safe. Madame T didn’t trust Cousin Wilbur with them and she pleads with Nancy to keep them safe until she gets out of prison. The bad guys get hauled away, including the butler they locked up, and Mr. Cranshaw asks Nancy and the hunters to be his guests. All of them. I was hoping that Psychic Rita had something to do with it, but I guess she’s clean.
Nancy sad because the mystery is over, but she doesn't know there's one right around the corner!