The Pet Show Mystery Read Online Free PDF

kinds of pets that I find hard to believe. I’d expected lots of cats and dogs, but we already have entries for parakeets, canaries, hamsters, guinea pigs, a ferret, two gerbils, and I don’t know what else.”
    “Here’s the entry for my python,” a rangy teenager said, handing the slip of paper to Di.
    Di reached for the entry form, then pulled her hand back fast. “A snake?” she asked, looking at the entry as if the piece of paper itself might be coiled to strike.
    “Scott Hopper, I don’t believe you for a moment,” Trixie said, pulling the paper out of his hand. She read what he had printed on it: “ ‘Ed, an orange tabby cat.’ ” Di took the entry gingerly, then sighed with relief as she read it and realized that Trixie was telling the truth, while Scott had been teasing.
    “Like you said, it’s been a boring winter,” Scott told the girls with a grin. “I just wanted to liven things up a little bit.” He handed over his two dollars and walked away.
    “That was a close call,” Honey said. “But what if somebody does try to enter a snake?”
    “We have to let them enter,” Trixie said. “We didn’t say ‘no snakes’ on the poster.”
    Trixie’s mind was taken off snakes when she spotted someone standing in the hallway a short distance from their table. She nudged Honey and whispered, “Look over there.”
    “Norma Nelson,” Honey said. “She must be about ready to go feed the birds—she’s dressed for it, anyway.”
    “That’s what I thought,” Trixie said. “But this is the third time I’ve looked up and seen her.”
    “You mean she just keeps standing there?” Honey asked.
    Trixie shook her head. “She leaves and comes back, I think. I’ve looked up a few times and she hasn’t been there.”
    “Maybe she’s the forgetful type,” Di said. “Sometimes I have to go back to my locker three times before I get everything I need.”
    “Maybe,” Trixie said reluctantly. “But there’s something kind of creepy about the way she’s standing there.”
    “Oooh, don’t say ‘creepy,’ ” Di said, hugging herself and shuddering. “You’re making me think of snakes again. This pet show just isn’t as much fun as it used to be.”

    By the next day, though, Di found it hard to maintain her pessimistic attitude. At the end of the first hour she spent at the sign-up table at Sleepyside Mall, her eyes were sparkling. “At school, it was the pets that seemed funny,” she whispered to Trixie. “Here, it’s the owners!
    Trixie nodded her agreement. She handed an entry blank to a middle-aged couple who were decked out in matching snowmobile suits. “Dr. Chang was right,” she whispered back. “People do take their pets seriously. That’s what seems so funny.”
    As if to illustrate Trixie’s point, the woman looked up from the entry blank and said, “This competition won’t be too strenuous, will it? Our Samantha is a very intelligent cat, but she isn’t overly physical, if you know what I mean.”
    Struggling to keep a straight face, Trixie answered, “No, ma’am. The animals don’t really need to do anything, except be there. Intelligence counts every bit as much as, uh, physique in this show.”
    “Well, then, Ward, we certainly want to enter Samantha,” the woman said. Her husband nodded, and the woman filled out the entry blank and handed it back to Trixie with their two dollars.
    When they had left, Trixie said, “Well, the grown-ups in Sleepyside are sillier about their pets than the teenagers are. I’d say they’re just as bored with winter, though, judging from the activity we’ve had today.”
    “The pet show is bound to be a success, all right,” Di agreed.
    “It will be successful in every way,” Honey added. “I’ve seen several people go inside the pet shop after we’ve talked to them and come out with sacks of cracked corn. So we’re helping the game birds already!”
    “So you’re helping the game birds.” The mocking voice made the