Nate the Great and the Sticky Case 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 © 1978 by Marjorie Weinman Sharmat

  Cover art and illustrations copyright © 1978 by Marc Simont

  Extra Fun Activities text copyright © 2006 by Emily Costello

  Extra Fun Activities illustrations copyright © 2006 by Ruth Bornschlegel

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

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

  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: 978-0-385-37688-4

  Trade paperback ISBN: 978-0-440-46289-7

  Book design by Trish Parcell

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

  v3.1

  To my sister Rosalind,

  who let me name

  Rosamond after her

  Contents

  Other Books by This Author

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  First Page

  Extra Fun Activities

  About the Authors

  I, Nate the Great,

  was drying off

  from the rain.

  I was sitting

  under a blanket

  and reading a detective book.

  My dog, Sludge, was sniffing it.

  I was on page 33

  when I heard a knock.

  I opened the door.

  Claude was there.

  “I lost my best dinosaur,”

  Claude said.

  He was always losing things.

  “This is your biggest loss yet,”

  I said. “A dinosaur is huge.

  How could you lose it?”

  “My dinosaur is small,”

  Claude said.

  “It is a stegosaurus on a stamp.

  Can you help me find it?”

  “It is hard to find

  something that small,” I said.

  “This will be a big case.

  But I will take it.

  Tell me, where was

  the stegosaurus stamp

  the last time you saw it?”

  “It was on a table

  in my house,” Claude said.

  “I was showing

  all my dinosaur stamps

  to my friends.

  The stegosaurus stamp

  was my favorite.”

  “Who are your friends?” I asked.

  “Annie, Pip, Rosamond, and you.

  But you weren’t there,”

  Claude added.

  “Good thinking,” I said.

  “I, Nate the Great,

  will go to your house

  and look at your table.”

  I wrote a note to my mother.

  Claude and I went to his house.

  He did not lose his way.

  He showed me his table.

  It had stamps all over it.

  “Here are all of my stamps,”

  Claude said. “Except for

  the stegosaurus stamp.”

  I, Nate the Great,

  saw a tyrannosaurus stamp.

  I saw a brontosaurus stamp.

  I saw an ichthyosaurus stamp.

  I saw claws and jaws.

  The stamps were ugly.

  But that did not matter.

  I had a case to solve.

  I had a job to do.

  “Where was the stegosaurus stamp

  when it was on the table?”

  I asked.

  “Near the edge,” Claude said.

  “It must have fallen off,”

  I said.

  I looked on the floor

  near the table.

  The stegosaurus stamp

  was not there.

  I picked up a stamp

  and showed it to Sludge.

  “We must look for

  a lost stamp,” I said.

  Sometimes Sludge is not

  a great detective.

  He tried to lick

  the sticky side of the stamp.

  “Look. Don’t lick,” I said.

  Sludge and I looked at, over,

  under, and around everything

  in Claude’s house.

  Then we looked again.

  We did not find

  the stegosaurus stamp.

  I, Nate the Great,

  turned to Claude.

  “The stegosaurus stamp

  is not in your house,” I said.

  “Tell me, when did you notice

  the stamp was missing?”

  “After everybody left,” Claude said.

  “Did everybody leave together?”

  I asked.

  “Yes,” said Claude.

  “Did everybody come together?”

  I asked.

  “No,” said Claude.

  “Annie and Rosamond came

  to tell me that Rosamond

  was going to have a yard sale.

  Then it started to rain.

  It rained for a long time.

  So Annie and Rosamond stayed

  and looked at my stamps.

  When the rain stopped,

  Pip came over.

  He looked at my stamps too.

  Then they all left together

  to go to Rosamond’s yard sale.”

  “Then I, Nate the
Great,

  must go to the yard sale too,”

  I said.

  “I must speak to everyone

  who was in the room

  with the stegosaurus stamp.”

  Sludge and I

  went to Rosamond’s house.

  Rosamond was standing

  in her yard

  with her four cats under a sign:

  “Are you selling your cats?” I asked.

  “No,” Rosamond said.

  “I am selling and swapping

  empty tuna fish cans,

  slippers, spare cat hairs,

  toothbrushes, pictures of milk,

  spoons, and all sorts of things.”

  Sludge was sniffing.

  “Do you have

  a stegosaurus stamp?” I asked.

  “No,” Rosamond said.

  “But I saw one at Claude’s house,

  near the edge of his table.”

  “Thank you,” I said.

  I started to leave.

  “Please buy a cat hair

  from my yard sale,”

  Rosamond called. “They are only

  a penny each.”

  I, Nate the Great, did not want

  a cat hair.

  But I gave Rosamond a penny.

  “I will buy one cat hair,”

  I said.

  “I will give you

  an extra one free,”

  Rosamond said.

  “Do you want hairs

  from Big Hex, Little Hex,

  Plain Hex, or Super Hex?”

  “Surprise me,” I said.

  Rosamond took a hair from a box

  that was marked “Big Hex”

  and a hair from a box

  that was marked “Super Hex.”

  She stuck the hairs

  to a piece of tape.

  “So you won’t lose them,”

  she said.

  Sometimes Rosamond

  has strange ideas.

  This was one of them.

  I saw Pip looking at

  some empty tuna fish cans.

  “Did you see a stegosaurus stamp

  at the edge of Claude’s table?”

  I asked.

  Pip doesn’t say much.

  He shook his head

  up and down.

  “Do you know where it is now?”

  I asked.

  Pip shook his head sideways.

  “Thank you,” I said.

  I saw Annie and her dog, Fang.

  “I am looking for Claude’s

  stegosaurus stamp,” I said.

  “What do you know about it?”

  “I know that the stegosaurus

  is pretty,” Annie said.

  “I know that it looks like Fang.”

  Annie turned toward Fang.

  “Show us your stegosaurus smile,”

  she said.

  Fang opened his mouth.

  I, Nate the Great,

  knew it was time

  to go home.

  I said good-bye to Annie.

  Sludge and I walked home slowly.

  It was a good walk.

  There were raindrops

  on the tree leaves.

  We saw ourselves in puddles.

  We sniffed the clean air.

  We saw a rainbow.

  At home I made some pancakes.

  I gave Sludge a bone.

  We ate and thought.

  Where was the stegosaurus stamp?

  Nobody knew.

  But the stamp was gone.

  This was a sticky case.

  I, Nate the Great, was stuck.

  Then I thought,

  Perhaps there is

  something different

  about a stegosaurus stamp.

  Perhaps I should think

  about the stegosaurus

  instead of the stamp.

  Suddenly I, Nate, felt great.

  I had pancakes in my stomach

  and a good idea in my head.

  “Wait here, Sludge,” I said.

  “I have to go look

  for information.”

  I went to the museum.

  I saw a stegosaurus there.

  I had to look up.

  And up. And up.

  The stegosaurus was big.

  He was bigger than Fang.

  His smile was uglier.

  But he could not move.

  He could not do anything.

  I, Nate the Great,

  was glad about that.

  I learned about the stegosaurus.

  He was a giant lizard.

  He lived a long time ago.

  He had two brains.

  I, Nate the Great, wished

  that I had two brains

  and that one of them

  would solve this case.

  I walked home.

  The signs of rain were gone

  except for some puddles.

  I thought hard.

  What did I know

  about the stegosaurus stamp?

  I knew that Annie and Rosamond

  went to Claude’s house

  and saw the stamp.

  Then it rained for a long time.

  I knew that

  after the rain stopped,

  Pip went to Claude’s house

  and saw the stamp too.

  I knew the stamp had been

  at the edge of Claude’s table.

  I knew it was not

  in Claude’s house now.

  How did it get out

  and where was it?

  Seeing the big stegosaurus

  had not helped the case.

  Perhaps I had been thinking

  wrong.

  Perhaps I had forgotten

  that there are two sides

  to every stamp.

  Perhaps I should think about

  the sticky side

  instead of the stegosaurus side.

  “Think sticky,” I said

  when I walked inside

  and saw Sludge.

  Sludge was licking his dog bowl.

  He had not been much help

  on this case.

  Or had he?

  I remembered when

  Sludge tried to lick

  the sticky side of a stamp.

  Sludge’s wet tongue

  would have made the stamp

  very sticky.

  A very sticky stamp … sticks!

  Suddenly I knew that

  Sludge was a great detective.

  He knew that the sticky side

  of the stamp

  could be important.

  I, Nate the Great, knew

  that anything wet

  would make a stamp

  very sticky.

  I thought of wet things.

  I thought of drips and drops.

  I thought of rain.

  When Annie and Rosamond

  went to Claude’s house

  it was not raining.

  But when Pip went

  to Claude’s house

  it had been raining

  and stopped.

  Raindrops were on the trees.

  Puddles were on the sidewalk.

  Hmm.

  I, Nate the Great,

  thought of puddles.

  I thought of Pip

  stepping in them.

  I got a stamp from my desk

  and put it on the floor.

  I went outside

  and stepped in a few puddles.

  Then I went back inside

  and stepped on the sticky side

  of the stamp.

  The stamp stuck to my shoe!

  The same thing

  must have happened

  to the stegosaurus stamp

  and Pip’s shoe

  at Claude’s house.

  Sludge had given me

  the clue I needed.

  Now I knew

  that I h
ad to see Pip’s shoes.

  We went to Pip’s house.

  I rang the bell.

  Pip opened the door.

  I looked down at his feet.

  He was wearing slippers.

  “Where are your shoes?” I asked.

  Pip looked down at his feet.

  He opened his mouth.

  Then he said,

  “My shoes were all wet

  from the rain.

  After I left Claude’s house

  I swapped them

  for a pair of dry slippers

  at Rosamond’s yard sale.

  I took the slippers

  off the Swap Table

  and put my shoes there.”

  “Thank you,” I said.

  Sludge and I went back

  to Rosamond’s yard sale.

  We went up to the Swap Table.

  “The sticky case

  is almost over,” I said.

  But Pip’s shoes were not there.

  Rosamond came over.

  “I hope you don’t want to swap

  your cat hairs,” she said.

  “I want Pip’s shoes,” I said.

  “Where are they?”

  “I just sold them to Annie

  for ten cents,” Rosamond said.

  “It was my big sale of the day.”

  Sludge and I ran to Annie’s house.

  She was outside with Fang.

  I saw two shoes.

  One was on the ground.

  The other was in Fang’s mouth.

  “Are these Pip’s shoes?” I asked.

  “They were,” Annie said.

  “I bought them

  for Fang to chew.”

  I, Nate the Great,

  saw the bottom of the shoe

  Fang was chewing.

  Something small, square, and dirty

  was stuck to it.

  At last I had found

  the stegosaurus stamp.

  But I, Nate the Great, knew

  that finding was not everything.

  Getting was important too.

  I thought fast.

  “Show me Fang’s

  stegosaurus smile,” I said.