Nate the Great and the Stolen Base Read online

  READ ALL THESE

  NATE THE GREAT DETECTIVE STORIES

  NATE THE GREAT

  NATE THE GREAT GOES UNDERCOVER

  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

  NATE THE GREAT AND THE SNOWY TRAIL

  NATE THE GREAT AND THE FISHY PRIZE

  NATE THE GREAT STALKS STUPIDWEED

  NATE THE GREAT AND THE BORING BEACH BAG

  NATE THE GREAT GOES DOWN IN THE DUMPS

  NATE THE GREAT AND THE HALLOWEEN HUNT

  NATE THE GREAT AND THE MUSICAL NOTE

  NATE THE GREAT AND THE STOLEN BASE

  NATE THE GREAT AND THE PILLOWCASE

  NATE THE GREAT AND THE MUSHY VALENTINE

  NATE THE GREAT AND THE TARDY TORTOISE

  NATE THE GREAT AND THE CRUNCHY CHRISTMAS

  NATE THE GREAT SAVES THE KING OF SWEDEN

  NATE THE GREAT AND ME: THE CASE OF THE FLEEING FANG

  NATE THE GREAT AND THE MONSTER MESS

  NATE THE GREAT, SAN FRANCISCO DETECTIVE

  NATE THE GREAT AND THE BIG SNIFF

  NATE THE GREAT ON THE OWL EXPRESS

  NATE THE GREAT TALKS TURKEY

  NATE THE GREAT AND THE HUNGRY BOOK CLUB

  AND CONTINUE THE DETECTIVE FUN WITH

  OLIVIA SHARP

  by Marjorie Weinman Sharmat and Mitchell Sharmat illustrated by Denise Brunkus

  OLIVIA SHARP: THE PIZZA MONSTER

  OLIVIA SHARP: THE PRINCESS OF THE FILLMORE STREET SCHOOL

  OLIVIA SHARP: THE SLY SPY

  OLIVIA SHARP: THE GREEN TOENAILS GANG

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 1992 by Marjorie Weinman Sharmat

  Cover art and interior illustrations © 1992 by Marc Simont

  Extra Fun Activities copyright © 2006 by Emily Costello

  Extra Fun Activities illustrations copyright © 2006 by Laura Hart

  All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Delacorte Press, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

  Delacorte Press is a registered trademark and the colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.

  Visit us on the Web! randomhouse.com/kids

  Educators and librarians, for a variety of teaching tools, visit us at RHTeachersLibrarians.com

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.

  eBook ISBN 978-0-385-37689-1 — Trade paperback ISBN 978-0-440-40932-8

  Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.

  v3.1

  For my father, Nathan “nate” Weinman,

  and with appreciation to all the Nathans everywhere

  who feel a special bond with Nate the Great

  Contents

  Cover

  Other Books by This Author

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  First Page

  Extra Fun Activities

  About the Author

  I, Nate the Great, am a detective.

  Sometimes I’m a baseball player.

  This morning I was a detective

  and a baseball player.

  My dog, Sludge, and I

  went to the field.

  I had to practice batting

  and running and fielding.

  I belong to a team.

  ROSAMOND’S RANGERS.

  Rosamond, Annie, Harry,

  Oliver, Esmeralda, Claude,

  Finley, and Pip belong too.

  They were at the field.

  Rosamond’s four cats were there.

  They are the team’s mascots.

  Annie’s dog Fang was there.

  Fang is not on the team.

  He is not a mascot.

  Fang should have stayed home.

  Rosamond came up to me.

  “We can’t practice today,” she said.

  “Somebody stole second base.”

  “We can get another second base,”

  I said. I bent down

  and picked up a big stone.

  “A stone for second base?”

  Rosamond said.

  “Not while I’m coach.

  Everybody uses stones.

  Rosamond’s Rangers do not.”

  Rosamond is a strange coach.

  That was no surprise.

  Rosamond is a strange person.

  She said, “When we play

  baseball, I bring first base.

  Oliver brings second base.

  And Annie brings third base.”

  Rosamond held up a

  large tuna fish can.

  “Here’s today’s first base.

  Nobody stole it.”

  Annie held up a large dog bone.

  “Here’s today’s third base,” she said.

  “Nobody ate it.”

  Fang and Sludge sniffed.

  Oliver said,

  “I was going to bring

  the same base I brought yesterday.

  But somebody stole it.

  It was the best.”

  I, Nate the Great, did not think

  Oliver’s second base was the best.

  It was an octopus

  made of gloopy purple plastic.

  Oliver collects eels.

  He is saving up

  for a real octopus.

  “We need a detective to find

  my second base,” he said.

  “Make another octopus,” I said.

  Oliver was mad.

  “You think it’s easy to make

  those long, curling arms?” he said.

  “Besides, that was

  my good-luck octopus.”

  “Very well. I, Nate the Great,

  will take the case.”

  I knew what Oliver’s

  octopus looked like.

  It had eight long, curling arms.

  It looked oozy and slimy.

  “Where do you keep

  your octopus?” I asked.

  “On my bookcase,” Oliver said.

  “But when I went to get it

  this morning, it wasn’t there.”

  “We must go to your house,” I said.

  I wrote a note to my mother.

  I left the note at my house.

  Then Sludge, Oliver, and I

  went to Oliver’s house.

  He lives next door.

  He took us to his room.

  I saw his bookcase.

  It was full of books.

  So far, so good.

  But it was squeezed

  in a corner between the wall

  and a huge tank of eels.

  And the top of it was a mess.

  It was covered

  with baseball things.

  Cards, gloves, balls, and bats.

  “I’ve got so much stuff

  on my bookcase

  that some of it falls

  to the floor,”

  Oliver said.

  “But I pick it right up.”

  “This is a real mess,” I said.

  “Your octopus must

  be hidden under something

  on top of your bookcase.”

  I, Nate the Great,

  moved things,

  piled things,

  and so
rted things.

  Sludge sniffed.

  “I have just found

  something important,” I said.

  “What?” Oliver asked.

  “A telephone. It was hidden

  under two baseball gloves.

  And the cord is still hidden.”

  “The cord goes down the back

  of the bookcase

  and plugs into the wall,”

  Oliver said.

  “It’s boring.

  But the telephone is nice.

  I like to call people.”

  “I know it,” I said.

  Oliver is a pest.

  He follows people.

  He calls people.

  At last I said,

  “I do not see the octopus

  on your bookcase.”

  “So you can’t find it either,”

  Oliver said.

  “On is only one place to look,”

  I said. “In is another.”

  I looked in Oliver’s eel tank.

  “Your octopus did not fall

  in there,” I said.

  “Perhaps it fell

  down one side

  of your bookcase.”

  “But my bookcase

  is squeezed between

  the eel tank on one side

  and the wall on the other,”

  Oliver said.

  “I, Nate the Great,

  need a flashlight.”

  Oliver gave me a flashlight.

  I flashed the light down

  both sides of the bookcase.

  “The octopus did not slip through,”

  I said.

  “So you struck out,” Oliver said.

  “No. There is one more place

  to look. Perhaps your octopus

  fell down the back

  of the bookcase.”

  “But you can’t get

  back there,”

  Oliver said.

  “No problem. I, Nate the Great,

  can peer over the top.”

  I leaned forward.

  “Ouch!”

  I bumped my head.

  “The wall is in the way,”

  I said. “I can’t see down.”

  I stretched out flat

  on the floor

  in front of the bookcase.

  “Now what are you doing?”

  Oliver asked.

  “I am flashing the flashlight

  toward the floor at the back

  of your bookcase,” I said.

  I, Nate the Great,

  saw something.

  I reached for it

  and pulled it out.

  It was not the octopus.

  It was a baseball card.

  “So that’s where my

  Babe Ruth card went!”

  Oliver said.

  “I, Nate the Great, say

  that your octopus did not fall

  down the back of your bookcase.”

  I walked around the room.

  I looked hard.

  “I do not see the octopus

  anywhere in this room,”

  I said. “When was the last time

  you saw it?”

  Oliver shrugged. “I’m not sure.

  When I got home

  from the game yesterday,

  I pulled it out

  of my pocket

  and dumped it on my bookcase

  with my other baseball stuff.”

  “Then what?”

  “Then I used my telephone.

  I called everybody I know.”

  “I believe it,” I said.

  “Then I went out and

  followed people

  for the rest of the day.”

  “I believe that too,” I said.

  “What did you do last night?”

  “I slept,” Oliver said.

  I, Nate the Great,

  was getting nowhere.

  Oliver said, “This morning

  when I went to get my octopus,

  I couldn’t find it.”

  “Has anyone else

  been in this room?”

  I asked.

  “Only my eels,” Oliver said.

  “Then I, Nate the Great,

  must go out and

  look for clues.”

  “I will follow you,”

  Oliver said.

  “Stay by your telephone,” I said.

  Sludge and I went back

  to the baseball field.

  “The octopus was second base

  in yesterday’s game,”

  I said to Sludge.

  “Perhaps there’s a clue here.”

  I saw Rosamond standing

  under a tree with her cats.

  “I just tossed my baseball mitt

  into the air,” she said.

  “But it came down

  on a branch of this tree

  and it’s stuck there.”

  I looked up.

  I saw the mitt

  on a branch.

  “My cats can go up

  and shake it down,”

  Rosamond said.

  “My cats are smart.

  If Oliver’s octopus

  wasn’t made of plastic,

  they could find it.

  An octopus is something

  like a tuna fish, isn’t it?”

  I, Nate the Great,

  did not want

  to think about that.

  I walked over

  to where second base

  had been.

  I kicked the dirt around.

  I saw something long

  and curling

  and oozy and slimy-looking.

  It was one arm of Oliver’s

  octopus.

  Oliver’s octopus had eight arms.

  I had found one.

  I had solved one eighth

  of this case.

  “Look for more octopus arms,”

  I said to Sludge.

  Sludge and I walked

  around the field.

  The Sludge ran ahead.

  He sniffed.

  He stopped.

  He brought me another octopus arm.

  “Good work, Sludge,” I said.

  We kept looking.

  But we could not find

  any more octopus arms.

  Sludge and I went home.

  We had to think about the case.

  I made pancakes for myself.

  I gave Sludge a bone.

  “We are looking for

  a purple plastic octopus

  with six arms,”

  I said. “Or maybe less.

  When Oliver took

  the octopus home

  from the last game,

  he dumped everything

  on his bookcase.

  He did not notice that

  two arms were missing.

  What else didn’t he notice?”

  I went to the telephone.

  I called Oliver.

  He answered right away.

  “Who did you follow

  before you went home

  from yesterday’s game?” I asked.

  “Annie,” he said.

  “And your octopus was in

  your pocket, right?”

  “Right,” Oliver said.

  “Thank you,” I said.

  I hung up.

  “We must go to Annie’s house,”

  I said to Sludge.

  Annie was sitting in front

  with Fang.

  “I am looking for

  octopus arms,” I said.

  I looked at Fang.

  I did not want to do that.

  “Your dog will eat almost anything,”

  I said. “Like second base.”

  “Why would he eat

  gloopy purple plastic?” Annie said.

  She held up a dog bone.

  “This is third base

  and Fang di
dn’t eat it.

  I’m very proud of him.”

  Fang wagged his tail.

  “But Fang isn’t perfect,”

  Annie said.

  That was no surprise to me,

  Nate the Great.

  Fang stopped wagging.

  Annie said, “When Oliver

  followed me after the last game,

  Fang followed Oliver.

  I think Fang snatched

  some of the octopus

  from Oliver’s pocket.”

  “Aha!” I said. “So second base

  was stolen after all.”

  “Fang only took

  one octopus arm,”

  Annie said. “And here it is.”

  Annie handed a very dirty

  octopus arm to me.

  “I just found this

  in my yard,” she said.

  “Fang buried it there.”

  “Did Oliver see the snatch?”

  I asked.

  “No,” Annie said.

  “He was too busy following me.”

  “So Oliver’s octopus

  is missing three arms

  and maybe more,

  and Oliver doesn’t know it,”

  I said.

  I said good-bye to Annie.

  “This case is as good as solved,”

  I said to Sludge.

  “All we need to find

  are a few more octopus arms.”

  We went to Oliver’s house.

  Oliver was talking

  on the telephone.

  Oliver kept talking.

  I knew what I must do:

  Get down on the floor.

  Reach under the bookcase.

  And unplug the telephone

  from the wall.

  But when I had looked

  under there for the octopus,

  I did not see the plug

  or the cord.

  They must have been

  too high up.

  I had to think of something else.

  “HANG UP!” I shouted.

  It worked.

  Oliver hung up.

  I held up the three octopus arms.

  “I, Nate the Great, found these.

  The case is in good shape.