She nudged the carton toward him with her toe. Ned glanced at its contents and shrugged.

“So?”

“Don’t you see? It’s the same stuff that was used to make the dummy in the gym!” Quickly she filled him in on her examination of the effigy. “It means that Mike is behind all the practical jokes!”

“Not necessarily.”

Nancy stared at him, unable to believe what she was hearing. “Come on, Ned, be serious . . . what else could it mean?”

“Well, maybe it’s just a coincidence. Or maybe somebody dropped that box in here in order to frame him.”

Nancy thought about that. At first she was embarrassed—she had jumped to a conclusion! But then she realized that she had been right after all.

“No, it couldn’t be a frame-up,” she reasoned. “A frame-up would be more obvious. Think about it . . . why dump the evidence in a place where only Mike is likely to find it?”

“Okay, I’ll admit it sounds farfetched,” Ned said. “But so what? It’s not as farfetched as your theory!”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that I know Mike. He’d never do anything to hurt the team.”

“Are you sure about that?”

“Of course I am! The Wildcats mean everything to him. He’d no more play practical jokes on us than . . . well, than he would shoot the ball into the other team’s basket!”

A short silence followed. Ned had a point, Nancy knew. There was no good reason for Emerson’s co-captain to undermine the team’s morale, none that she could think of, anyway. On the contrary, he had every reason to work for the team’s success! Was her theory a washout after all?

No, she decided, the evidence was right in front of them. Maybe she didn’t know the motive yet, but she couldn’t ignore the facts. Somehow she had to convince Ned that she might be right.

“Ned, maybe someone’s paying Mike to play the practical jokes,” she suggested.