Free Nanny X Returns by Madelyn Rosenberg Page B

the ranger. He didn’t seem to know what to say after that, so Boris made a suggestion.
    â€œPerhaps we should put our squirrel in a bag. That way we won’t frighten the tourists.”
    The ranger looked grateful. “Just what I was going to suggest,” he said. “Bag it. Carry on.”
    We stuffed the squirrel into a green nylon sack that Boris had in one of his pockets, and moved on to find Nanny X at the fountain. I was glad we had been reassigned to the Castle. That meant I could finally see my painting of Yeti.
    Just then, a big drop of rain landed on my forehead.
    â€œMy painting!” I said.
    I took off as the rain started falling even harder.
    When we reached the exhibit, Mrs. Bonawali, our art teacher, was trying to cover up the artwork with a plastic sheet. “This was not in the forecast,” she said.
    Boris was craning his neck, looking all around for thefountain and for Nanny X, but he took out a rain poncho and handed it to me. I put it over the Yeti painting, which had only gotten a little smeary near the tail. That’s when I noticed the purple ribbon that meant fourth place.
    Stinky had a piece in the exhibit, too, a mosaic he’d made out of lentils and other kinds of beans. But when Boris handed Stinky a poncho to put over his project, we saw a squirrel sitting on the easel, nibbling on the lentils.
    From the way it was holding its head, it didn’t look like a robot squirrel, either.
    â€œI’m sorry, Daniel,” Boris said, putting a hand on Stinky’s head. Daniel was Stinky’s real name. “At least we know he has good taste.”
    Stinky didn’t look even a little upset. “And at least beans are natural,” he said. “It’s better for him than the other food he’s probably finding around here.”
    Then I noticed something else on Stinky’s artwork: a red ribbon, for second place. He’d beaten me, just like Ursula had beaten Mr. Huffleberger. But I could still beat him by finding more clues first.
    I was working very hard on not being jealous when Stinky gave me his poncho. “I don’t want to bother the squirrel,” he said. I think he still felt bad that the robot squirrel got clobbered with the sauté pan.
    I almost said no. But then the rain started coming down harder and I pulled it on. I looked like a dandelion, but at least I was dry. If there were ribbons for junior agents, I’ll bet Stinky would have gotten a blue one. He’d get a blue one if there were ribbons for friends, too.
    We still didn’t see Nanny X or Jake or Eliza anywhere, even though they’d left way before we had. We went over to the fountain, which was pretty small. There were lots ofripples from the raindrops hitting the water. But we didn’t see a fish. Maybe my brother had caught it already.
    Boris led us back to the Mall side of the Castle. He spotted two people in the distance, running at top speed with a stroller. They stopped running, and Boris’s phone rang. He held it to his ear, but we could still hear it when Nanny X said, “We’ve got her. We’ve got The Angler.”

18. Jake
Something’s Bugging Nanny X

    â€œGot her” was an exaggeration. What Nanny X should have said was that we “possibly almost cornered her.” Or “We see her!” That would have worked.
    Because we did see The Angler. She was still standing on the top step of the Museum of Natural History as the rain fell down around her. And she was studying the screen on what was not a video game, but a remote control, just like I’d guessed.
    At first I thought we should just go up behind and grab her, but we didn’t know if she had any weapons. Plus, she had threatened the president of the United States. And even though she had threatened to destroy things and not people, once you start threatening destruction, it’s probably hard to know when to stop. Nanny X’s computer