"Wow," Cole said as Nora started crying even harder.
"It looks like we just solved the mystery."
"Yeah," Henry agreed.
"So my funny feeling was wrong," he thought.
He'd been convinced that Nora was too little to be the thief.
But now, here she was, confessing to the crime.
"I'm sorry, Maggie!" Nora blurted out between sobs.
"I didn't think you'd mind if I took it."
"You didn't think I'd mind?" Maggie echoed in disbelief.
"Are you crazy? Why wouldn't I mind? You took my money!"
"Huh?" Nora blinked and sniffled. "What money?"
"The money you grabbed from the cashbox," Cole said.
"Those two older girls saw you take it."
Henry was starting to get that funny feeling again. "Wait," he said.
"The girls didn't say that.
They just said they saw Nora grabbing something from the table and looking sneaky.
What did you take, Nora?"
"None of your business," Nora said. She wasn't crying anymore.
Now she was starting to look stubborn.
Henry stared at her. Something about this didn't make sense.
He just wished he could figure out what it was.
"You'd better tell me right now, Nora!" Maggie exclaimed.
"You can't make me," Nora yelled back.
"Yeah!" Nora's friend added. "You can't order her around. She's a princess!"
Just then Nathan hurried out of the house.
"What's going on out here?" he asked.
"Hi, Nathan," Henry said. "We were just talking to your sister."
"No, they weren't!" Nora started to cry again.
"They were trying to drag me off to jail!"
"What?" Now Nathan looked really confused.
"She's exaggerating," Maggie said.
"We were just trying to get my money back. Nora stole it!"
Nathan shook his head. "Nora didn't take that money."
"Yeah!" Nora stuck out her tongue at Maggie. "I didn't take your money."
"Yes, you did!" Maggie said. "You just confessed, remember?"
"No way." Nora looked stubborn again. "I didn't take any money.
All I took was an extra cup of lemonade!"
Everyone looked surprised. "Extra lemonade?" Cole said.
"Oh . . ." Henry nodded. "That must be what those teenage girls saw her doing.
Nora wasn't sneaking around to steal the money.
She was just sneaking some extra lemonade."
"How do we know she didn't do both things?
She just admitted that she's a lemonade thief," Maggie said.
"She might be a money thief too!"
"Come on, Maggie," Nathan said.
"Nora might be sneaky enough to grab some extra lemonade.
But she wouldn't steal your cash."
"Maybe not on her own," Maggie said, glancing from Nora to Nathan and then back again.
Nathan folded his arms across his chest. "What do you mean?" he asked.
"Cole was right. It was probably all your idea!" Maggie burst out.
"Wait, I didn't say that!" Cole chimed in.
Maggie didn't pay any attention to him. She was still staring at Nathan.
"You two were wandering past and saw that I was making tons of money at my lemonade stand," she said.
"So you got greedy."
She narrowed her eyes and looked around.
Henry could tell she was pausing to make her story sound more dramatic.
It was definitely a dramatic story.
But Henry still wasn't convinced that it was true.
That funny feeling inside him was stronger than ever, and he needed time to think about it.
"Maggie . . . ," he started to say.
"That's when you made your plan," Maggie went on, glaring at Nathan and ignoring Henry.
"You walked over and bought some lemonade for yourself and Nora.
You even borrowed money from Mrs. Martin to pay for it!"
"They did?" Henry was surprised. He hadn't known that.
Maggie was still staring at Nathan.
"Then you started talking to me, distracting me on purpose.
That gave your sneaky little sister time to grab the money out of the cashbox while my back was turned.
Then all she had to do was hide it and pretend she didn't know anything. I think she—"
"Hold on, Maggie," Henry interrupted. "I just realized something.
Nora couldn't have taken your money."
Maggie, Cole, Nathan, and even Nora all turned to stare at him.
"What are you talking about, Henry?" Maggie said.
"Of course she did! Who else could have done it?"
"I don't know." Henry shrugged. "But it wasn't Nora. You said it yourself.
All she had to do was hide that money after she took it."
"Right," Maggie said. "So?"
"So don't you see?" Henry continued.
"She couldn't hide it because she had nowhere to put it. Remember?
Nora and Nathan stopped by the lemonade stand on their way home from the swimming pool.
All they had on were their bathing suits!"