Nancy Jew and the Case of the Hijacked Dance School
Nancy Jew was outside one night with her father, and Micah Blachman, her 7-year-old friend visiting from Westchester County. They were picking tea leaves. The three of them continued walking around, and Micah spotted something. “Look at this!” he exclaimed. Nancy saw and realised that it was a message, taped to the back of one of the tea leaves, and written in glowing ink. It said, “Go to France.” “I wonder what this means!” Nancy exclaimed. The trio decided to go home and think about it over a warm mug of their freshly-picked tea and a good night’s sleep.
In the morning, Micah woke up with an idea. “Maybe this is where we should go for a case,” Micah said. Nancy and her father agreed, and Nancy booked a plane for the following afternoon. After an enjoyable day spent davening and studying Torah, the next afternoon they boarded the plane for France. When they landed, the first person they saw in the airport had been waiting impatiently for them to arrive. It was the head of the École de danse Happy Toes dance school. But as soon as she saw Nancy and Micah, she darted out the airport doors and disappeared. “I wonder if this has to do with the case,” Nancy said. “If it does, I am sure we will see her again.” Micah said philosophically. They decided to look for the École de danse Happy Toes in the Pages Jaunes, the French equivalent of the Yellow Pages. Luckily, Nancy and Micah could read French. They translated the French into English for their fathers (Jeremy Blachman, Micah’s father, came on the trip with them as well.) They finally found the address. They decided to go there, since Nancy liked going to places in person rather than just doing her investigations over the phone. But when they showed up at the address, the dance school was nowhere to be found. Instead, there was a room with a lot of different rooms branching off of it, and the entire complex smelled like croissants. Micah and Nancy agreed that there must be a criminal hiding in one of these rooms, and that he was probably an evil baker. But right then and there, it would be too dangerous to even take a peek. They were going to have to return with a strategy, and perhaps some pastries of their own. They could throw the pastries at the baker, he would be knocked unconscious, and they could search the building. They all thought this was a brilliant plan, and decided to put it into action after a week and a half, so that the baker wouldn’t expect them. In the meantime, they decided to tour the country and discover some of the wonderful things about France.
The next day, they woke up and called Micah’s mother, Nina Blachman, to tell them where they were, and they went to the Museum of Evil Dancing Croissants. In the gift shop, they were able to purchase a dozen weaponized croissants that they would be able to use to subdue the evil baker at the dance school. They took these and put them in their hotel room at the Vitun hotel. Then they decided to visit the Louvre and buy a painting in the gift shop as a memento. It was a beautiful still life of a bowl of unripe fruit, and thought it would be a perfect centerpiece for a Tu Bishvat seder. They acquired the painting, and put it on Micah’s nightstand. They decided to spend that evening studying the painting. It was getting late, and they went to sleep. In the morning, when they woke up, the painting was gone — and so was Micah’s father! Everybody was sure they had left it on the nightstand, and everyone was certain that Micah’s father had been in the bed. So where was the painting, and where was Micah’s father? Micah started crying and then went all over town looking for him. Then he realised that the painting had come with a tracking device on the back, and if he called the museum, they could trace the painting and figure out where it was. The museum said that the painting was in the building that they had seen a few days ago, and Micah hoped his father would be there, too. He went to the hotel room, got the croissants that they had bought, and went back to the building, ready to use. He shot them at the baker, the baker got knocked unconscious, and Micah went into every room, looking for his father and the painting. He finally found them and luckily his father was safe and unharmed. His father got up, and they ran to the hotel room. Micah didn’t even bother to grab the painting, because he was so happy that his father was okay. They still had more croissants and decided to find out who hijacked the dance school. They also decided to put their plan in action that day. Nancy got the croissants, and everybody walked to the building. They looked in every room. They found a woman typing on a typewriter, and a man tied up in ropes. Nancy and her father quizzed the woman, and Micah and his father questioned the man. They found out that the woman was the main suspect and the man was the victim of the hijacked dance school. They looked up the police’s number. It said that it was 112. They called it and they said they were coming right over. They came and talked to the man and the woman, and it turned out that weird things were happening at the dance school, because the woman had taken it over. She was working on getting the dance school out of business in this building where the dance school was, and the man ran the dance school. The woman had tied him up and put him in this building. The police arrested the woman, cut the ropes, and helped reopen the dance school. “I could never thank you enough!” the man said.
They flew home and Nina Blachman was so glad to see them. “How was your trip?” she asked. “Eventful.” they chorused. They had some more tea, and talked about what they should name this case. Everybody concurred on The case of the hijacked dance school.
