Nate the Great and the Missing Birthday Snake Read online

  “I’ll take Fang to the stream.

  He’ll bark at UGG Chomp

  and scare him out of the water.”

  I turned to Lizzy.

  “When was the last time

  UGG Chomp ate?” I asked.

  “Yesterday,” she said.

  “Ugg Chomp will be hungry,” I said.

  “Fang might become his lunch.”

  “Or snack,” Lizzy said.

  “UGG Chomp really loves to eat.”

  I walked toward the stream.

  I looked at the water.

  I saw two black eyes.

  I saw fur.

  I saw fur around

  the two black eyes.

  Then I saw two ears.

  They were also covered in fur.

  We had not found Lizzy’s snake.

  “I, Nate the Great, say that you are

  not looking at a snake.

  A snake would have scales around

  its eyes. This animal has fur and ears.”

  “Snakes don’t have fur or ears,” Lizzy said.

  “But beavers do,” I said.

  “We are looking at a beaver.”

  “So this is a dead end,” Rosamond said.

  “No it’s not,” Claude said.

  “I just found my dollar in the mud!”

  “We need to get back inside,” I said.

  “But how are we going to find my snake?”

  Lizzy asked.

  “He could be anywhere by now.”

  “Not anywhere,” I said.

  “He would go where a snake would go.

  And we need to find out where that is.

  We need to talk to someone who knows

  about snakes.”

  “Who would that be?” Lizzy asked.

  “A pet store, that’s who.

  Crazy Craig’s Peculiar Pets.

  They specialize in strange pets.

  And they sell snakes.

  I’ll take Sludge with me.”

  Chapter Six

  Call Me Crazy

  Sludge and I walked in the rain

  to Crazy Craig’s Peculiar Pets.

  I opened the front door.

  I looked around.

  I saw all sorts of peculiar pets.

  Armadillos, skunks, hedgehogs, anteaters,

  and, of course, snakes.

  There were also many insects.

  Including one that looked like a small bird.

  Sludge whimpered and ran toward the door.

  I followed him.

  “Come on, Sludge,” I said.

  “We have a case to solve.”

  An odd-looking man walked over.

  He was wearing a crazy T-shirt with

  a picture of a snake with giant fangs.

  He also had wild, crazy-looking hair.

  Lots of wild, crazy-looking hair.

  And a long beard.

  We were in the right place.

  “You must be Crazy Craig,” I said.

  “Yes,” he said.

  “But you can call me Crazy.”

  “I’d like to talk to you about snakes,” I said.

  “And I’d like to talk to you about snakes,”

  Crazy Craig said.

  “But I’d really like to talk to you

  about tarantulas!

  We’re having a huge sale on spiders!”

  Sludge hid behind my legs.

  “Maybe next time,” I said.

  “Right now I’m trying to find

  a missing ball python.

  He vanished during a birthday party.”

  “Snakes disappear a lot,”

  Crazy Craig said.

  “Snakes have to keep their bodies warm.

  They’ll look for rugs, blankets, and furnaces.

  Any place that’s warm.”

  “Thank you,” I said.

  “You’ve given us a good clue.”

  “Glad to help,” Crazy Craig said.

  “Now how about those tarantulas.

  They make wonderful gifts.”

  He pointed to a large, hairy spider.

  “His name is Alfred, and he’s on sale.

  If you buy him today,

  I’ll throw in his friend Henrietta.”

  I thought about Lizzy

  and her strange snakes.

  A tarantula might be

  a good present for her.

  But I, Nate the Great,

  was on a case.

  Chapter Seven

  Snake in the Class

  Sludge and I rushed back

  to Rosamond’s house.

  It was pouring rain.

  Everyone was inside.

  “Snakes love warm places,” I announced.

  “We must find someplace warm.”

  I opened the back door

  and looked at the yard.

  I looked down at the porch.

  The sugar was still there.

  Then I remembered.

  Oliver said that he had dropped

  a pile of sugar on the porch.

  But there was no pile.

  Just a giant mess spread out

  all over the place.

  “Did anyone try to clean up

  the pile of sugar?” I asked.

  “No,” Lizzy said.

  “I, Nate the Great, say to all of you

  that UGG Chomp has slithered his way

  into the house.”

  “But we would have seen him,”

  Claude said.

  “Not if he slithered down

  to the basement,” I said.

  “The basement has warm places

  where a snake might go,” Rosamond said.

  “There’s a furnace, a water heater,

  blankets, and mattresses.”

  We all went down to the basement.

  “Maybe you can sniff UGG Chomp out,”

  I said to Sludge.

  Sludge whimpered.

  We searched the basement.

  We looked under blankets.

  We looked

  in boxes.

  We looked near

  the furnace.

  And the water heater.

  Oliver picked up a corner of the rug.

  “Not under here,” he said.

  “You didn’t need to lift the rug,” Lizzy said.

  “If he were under it,

  we would see a big bulge.”

  I, Nate the Great, knew that

  UGG Chomp could not be in the basement.

  He was too big to hide down here.

  And yet, he was hiding.

  We were playing hide-and-seek

  with a giant snake.

  The giant snake was winning.

  “UGG Chomp must be really smart,”

  I said.

  “He’s brilliant,” Lizzy said.

  “And he’s never even gone to school.”

  I thought about UGG Chomp

  in a classroom filled with children.

  “Let me guess,” I said.

  “No school would take him.”

  “We tried them all,” Lizzy said.

  “Well, he’s smart enough

  to stay hidden,” I said.

  “And we’re running out of places to look.”

  Then Sludge went to the dryer.

  It was busy drying Fang’s T-shirt.

  “UGG Chomp is not in the dryer,”

  Rosamond said.

  “Why not?” Oliver asked.

  “Snakes like heat. The dryer is hot.”

  “Because a snake can’t open the dryer door,

  let himself in, close the door,

  and turn on the heat,” Rosamond said.

  “I didn’t think about that,” Oliver said.

  “Neither did Sludge,” Lizzy said.

  “I guess he’s not much of a detective.”

  Sludge growled.

  “Sludge is a great detective,” I said.

  But Rosamon
d was right.

  UGG Chomp could not have gotten inside

  the dryer on his own.

  What was Sludge trying to tell me?

  I looked at the dryer.

  Then I walked around and looked behind it.

  No snake.

  Then I realized that Sludge

  had solved the case!

  Chapter Eight

  Hugs and Hisses

  I went back up the basement stairs.

  I walked through the kitchen and opened

  the door to the backyard.

  Sugar covered much of the porch.

  But there was no sugar by the door.

  UGG Chomp had never reached the door!

  I looked to the side of the porch.

  I saw a large bush next to the house.

  Behind the bush, I heard a noise

  coming from inside the house.

  It was the sound of the dryer vent

  blowing out hot air from the dryer

  in the basement.

  I, Nate the Great,

  knew where UGG Chomp had gone.

  I walked over and looked behind the bush.

  There was UGG Chomp!

  I looked at him.

  He hissed at me.

  The case was solved.

  It was my job to find him.

  It was not my job to move him.

  A good detective knows his limits.

  I went back inside the house.

  “The case is solved,” I said.

  “Come here. I’ll show you where

  Ultra-Giant Goliath Chomp is.”

  Everyone followed me outside.

  “You found him!” Lizzy exclaimed.

  “My beautiful little baby!”

  “Baby?” I said.

  “Oh yes,” Lizzy said.

  “Someday he’ll be twice as big as he is now.”

  “I can hardly wait,” I said.

  “Thank you so much, Nate the Great,”

  Lizzy said.

  “Don’t thank me. Thank Sludge.

  He solved the case.”

  “Well, thank you, Sludge,” Lizzy said.

  “Can you two stay for dinner?”

  I looked at UGG Chomp.

  He looked very hungry.

  And he was smiling.

  “I’d love to,” I said. “But I have to get

  back to Crazy Craig’s before they close.

  They’re having a great sale on spiders.”

  Extra

  Fun Activities!

  What’s Inside

  Nate’s Notes: Many Sizes of Snakes

  How to Make Slime

  Nate’s Notes: Bugs That Bite

  Funny Pages

  Lizzy had snakes that

  were big, bigger, even bigger,

  and ultra-big. But not all snakes are

  big. Nate asked Crazy Craig about

  snakes of all kinds. This is

  what he learned.

  Nate’s Notes:

  Big Snakes, Small Snakes,

  Hard-to-Find Snakes

  The smallest snakes in the world live

  on an island in the Caribbean Sea

  called Barbados. They are called

  threadsnakes. The first threadsnake

  was found in 2008. They may have

  been hard to find

  because they are

  just four inches long.

  That’s about the

  size of a worm.

  The heaviest snake in

  the world is the green

  anaconda. They can

  weigh up to 500 pounds.

  That’s as heavy as

  twelve dogs! Sludge

  hopes that isn’t true.

  Another species of

  snake, a python, grew to

  be about 22 feet long.

  His name was Fluffy.

  Mongooses are animals that eat snakes.

  They look like ferrets.

  Mongooses ate all the snakes on the

  island of Saint Lucia. The snakes were

  called Saint Lucia racers. Nobody saw

  a racer for almost forty years. Then one

  was found on a smaller island near Saint

  Lucia. The racers were safe on the small

  island. No mongooses live there. Racers

  are the rarest snake in the world. Only

  about eighteen survive today.

  How to Make Slime

  Snakes are actually not slimy. They are covered with

  dry scales, and sometimes they feel smooth. But it is fun

  to play with slime. You can make some at home.

  Ask an adult to help you.

  GET TOGETHER:

  a small bottle of white glue

  warm water

  a big spoon

  a small bottle of food coloring (any color)

  Borax*

  two bowls

  a tablespoon measure

  ½ cup measure

  *Borax is a white powder like salt. You can buy it at the

  hardware store. It’s not food, so don’t eat it.

  MAKE YOUR SLIME:

  Empty the bottle of glue into one bowl.

  Fill the empty bottle about halfway full with warm water. Swish it around.

  Pour the water from the bottle into the bowl.

  Add eight drops of food coloring. You can

  skip this step if you want.

  Mix the water, glue, and food coloring

  together with the spoon.

  Add 1 tablespoon of Borax into the second

  bowl. Add ½ cup of warm water.

  Stir slowly. The Borax should dissolve.

  Slowly pour the Borax mixture into the glue

  mixture.

  Stir as much as you can.

  Pick up the slime. Some water may be left in

  the bowl.

  Poke and squish the slime with your hands.

  It will get less sticky with time.

  NATE’s NOTES:

  Bugs That Bite

  The field next to Rosamond’s house was filled with buggy

  things with wings. How do bugs like mosquitoes find

  animals to bite? Nate went to the library to find out. This

  is what he learned.

  Mosquitoes bite to eat, and

  the food they like is blood.

  They use the blood to feed

  their eggs.

  Mosquitoes use smell to find people.

  They can smell you breathe

  from across a field. They

  can also smell sweat.

  Mosquitoes can see people, too. It’s easier

  for them to see people who are wearing

  dark colors.

  Some people get bitten more than others.

  Mosquitoes don’t just bite people. They

  bite dogs and cats, too. They even bite

  snakes!

  More than 80 different

  kinds of common bugs

  also bite people.

  Funny Pages

  Q: How do snakes sign their letters?

  A: With love and hisses.

  Q: What snake is a member of the band?

  A: The RATTLEsnake!

  Q: Why are snakes hard to fool?

  A: They don’t have any legs to pull.

  Q: What do you call a python that everyone likes?

  A: A snake charmer.

  Q: What do snakes do after they fight?

  A: Hiss and make up.

  Q: What do you call a snake without clothes?

  A: Snaked!

  Q: Why couldn’t the snake talk?

  A: He had a frog in his throat!

  A word about learning with

  Nate the great

  The Nate the Great series is good fun and has been entertaining children for over forty years. These books are also valuable learning tools in and out of the classroom.

  Nate’s world—his home, his friends, his neighborhood—i
s one that every young person recognizes. Nate introduces beginning readers and those who have graduated to early chapter books to the detective mystery genre, and they respond to Nate’s commitment to solving the case and helping his friends.

  What’s more, as Nate the Great solves his cases, readers learn with him. Nate unravels mysteries by using evidence collection, cogent reasoning, problem-solving, analytical skills, and logic in a way that teaches readers to develop critical-thinking abilities. The stories help children start discussions about how to approach difficult situations and give them tools to resolve them.

  When you read a Nate the Great book with a child, or when a child reads a Nate the Great mystery on his or her own, the child is guaranteed a satisfying ending that will have taught him or her important classroom and life skills. We know that you and your children will enjoy reading and learning from Nate the Great’s wonderful stories as much as we do.

  Find out more at NatetheGreatBooks.com.

  Happy reading and learning with Nate!

  Solve all the mysteries with

  Nate the great

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  Nate the Great and the Lost List

  Nate the Great and the Phony Clue

  Nate the Great and the Sticky Case

  Nate the Great and the Missing Key