Free Malibu Mayhem Trilogy 02: Mystery At Malachite Mansion by Carolyn Keene Page A

sign written in the same blue?
    “The world’s not going bonkers, Stacey,” George said. “Just the Blue Greenies. We’ve been trying to tell you about this group.”
    “Who are they?” Stacey snapped. But before anyone could explain, she waved her hand and said, “I don’t care. Just get rid of that thing before I slash it with my nail file.”
    Stacey had had just about enough. She walked through the gate and headed down the road to her beach house.
    “Time to deflate Crabzilla,” I said. Bess walked over to the balloon and unscrewed the cap on its claw. The three of us watched silently as the crustaceous balloon deflated.
    “Nancy, who else
but
the Blue Greenies could be behind this massive sabotaging of the party? All signs point to them,” Bess said.
    “I know, I know,” I said slowly. “But before we go to the police, I want to be
absolutely
sure.”
    “Then let’s check out their blog,” George suggested.
    “The Blue Greenies have a blog?” I asked.
    “Doesn’t everybody?” George said. “The Blue Greenies use theirs to brag about their so-called successful missions. There’s a computer in Inge’s old office. Let’s check it out.”
    Bess hesitated. “Can’t we just use our phones to go online?”
    “Relax, Bess. It’ll be easier on a big screen, okay?” George said.
    But once we filed into Inge’s old office, we froze. Hanging on the wall behind her desk was Roland’s portrait.
    “George,” I asked slowly, “didn’t you take that thing down?”
    “Definitely,” she said, staring up at the portrait.
    “So what’s it doing back up there? Let’s take it down and this time, out of the house,” Bess said, reaching up to remove the painting.
    “What
isn’t
weird in this place?” George said. She went behind Inge’s desk and sat down. Bess and I peered over her shoulders as she browsed the web for the Blue Greenies’ blog.
    The blog came up on the screen. The background was blue and had avatars of what looked like Cassie and Nathan carrying a smiling whale over their heads.
    Underneath the avatars was a much more serious photo. It was of the oil-slicked bird that had been on our doorstep.
    “Not only do they boast about their victories, they take pictures of them,” I said.
    George scrolled down to uncover another colorful shot. It was of the giant inflated crab outside the mansion. Underneath the picture was a caption that read: “We can’t get inside the mansion, so poor Crabby has to stand outside.”
    “Wait a minute,” I said, pointing to the monitor. “The Blue Greenies are admitting that they couldn’t get inside the mansion.”
    “Maybe they were just talking about today,” Georgesaid. “They could have found a way to break in last night.”
    Farther down the page, beneath the picture of Crabzilla, were more shots of the Blue Greenies’ escapades. One showed them attending a fancy seafood restaurant in Beverly Hills last night, where they freed live “imprisoned” lobsters from a tank.
    “It says the lobsters were liberated by all the Blue Greenies at six p.m.,” Bess said, reading the caption. “Just as the restaurant began serving dinner.”
    “Six p.m.,” I repeated. “That’s the time Miss Zaza was here to rehearse last night. They couldn’t have been in the mansion sabotaging her shoes.”
    “Especially since they spent the entire night in a Beverly Hills stationhouse,” George said. “They posted a shot of that, too.”
    I looked to see where George was pointing. On the screen was another shot of the Blue Greenies giving thumbs-ups in what looked like a holding cell. A clock on the cinder-block wall read three o’clock. Three a.m., no doubt.
    “What time was the fire last night?” I asked.
    “It was actually early in the morning,” George said. “When I looked at the clock, it was around two thirty.”
    “So if the Blue Greenies spent all night at the stationhouse,” I said, “that’s their alibi for the time the fire was