The Cinderella Ballet Mystery Read Online Free PDF Page B

with a matching tiara.
    George was on the other side of the studio, wearing her wicked stepmother costume: a long,dark gray dress with a high collar. Her eyebrows had been transformed into pointy, severe arches with a black eye pencil. Nancy thought George looked pretty scary!
    â€œCan I help you on with your costume, Mademoiselle Nancy?”
    Nancy turned around. Ms. Zelda was standing there. She had a box of safety pins in one hand and a sewing kit in the other. There was a long white tape measure draped around her neck.
    â€œThanks, Ms. Zelda, that would be great,” Nancy said. Her mouse costume was kind of complicated.
    Ms. Zelda led Nancy to a quiet corner of the studio. She took the mouse costume from Nancy and studied it carefully. “Why don’t you sit on the floor and we can slip this on your feet first?” she suggested.
    Nancy obeyed. Ms. Zelda tugged the mouse costume over Nancy’s feet, which were covered with pink ballet tights.
    â€œHmm, maybe the mouse legs are still a little long,” Ms. Zelda fretted. “I must pin them for you.”
    â€œOkay,” Nancy said. “Thanks, Ms. Zelda.”
    As Ms. Zelda worked, Nancy looked around restlessly. She wished she could gather her Clue Crew around her and get back to work: searching for clues, interviewing witnesses, anything. But she knew this was dress rehearsal time. No matter how important it was to find the missing slippers, she, George, and Bess had to focus on their last chance to rehearse.
    Ms. Zelda gave a big yawn. “Oh, pardonnezmoi ,” she said, covering her mouth.
    â€œAre you sleepy?” Nancy asked with a smile.
    Ms. Zelda yawned again and nodded. “I have been working so hard here lately,” she explained. “Sewing all the costumes, helping with the ticket sales, even designing the program. Oh, and a few nights ago Mr. McGuire asked me to help him move some old Nutcracker set pieces from the set storage area up to theattic, to make room. It was hard work— tres difficile . My muscles still ache from that.”
    Nancy sat up a little straighter. The set storage area? That was where she had found the piece of paper with the words “taille 35” on it.
    Nancy reached over to get her dance bag. “Don’t move,” Ms. Zelda instructed her. “I must put one last pin in—there! Now you can move.”
    Nancy opened her dance bag and pulled out the “taille” clue. She showed it to Ms. Zelda.
    â€œDo you know what this is?” Nancy asked her.
    Ms. Zelda shrugged. “ Mais oui , of course. It is a French shoe size.”
    â€œA shoe size? Isn’t thirty-five kind of big for a shoe size? Maybe it’s a shoe size for giants!” Nancy giggled at her own joke.
    Ms. Zelda chuckled. “No, no. France is part of Europe. European shoe sizes are different. A European size thirty-five is about—oh, let us see, a size four for girls in America.”
    â€œReally?” Nancy exclaimed.
    â€œYes, really.” Ms. Zelda looked amused. “Now, please stand up so I can check the rest of your costume.”
    Nancy got to her feet. Her mind was spinning.
    If taille 35 was the same as a girl’s size 4, the piece of paper must have definitely fallen out of the box containing the Cinderella slippers. She remembered Andrea telling her once that she was a size 4.
    Ms. Zelda bent over low to adjust Nancy’s hemline. Just then Nancy noticed something. Ms. Zelda was wearing a shirt with the monogram Z embroidered on it in black.
    Nancy cocked her head to the right. Sideways, the letter Z turned into the letter N . Could the silver barrette—one of the Clue Crew’s clues—be a Z shape instead of an N shape, after all?
    Nancy gave a little cough. “Um, excuse me, Ms. Zelda,” she began. “Do you own a silver barrette?”
    Ms. Zelda looked surprised. “ Oui! But I seem to have lost it. I haven’t seen it in several