My jeans and my shirt were still in there, and so were my sneakers. But my whole spare outfit was gone. No black leotard, no pink tights. No leg warmers (I'd worn the white ones, so it was the purple ones that were missing) and no sweat shirt. No spare toe shoes, either.

    "Oh, my lord," I said, under my breath. (That's one of Claudia's favorite expressions, and we've all picked it up.) I looked around to see if anyone was noticing me noticing my empty bag. They were all busy with their own stuff.

    I shrugged. What was I going to do about it? There was a thief in our midst (as they would say in a Nancy Drew book) but I wasn't going to catch her that night. I was too exhausted even to think about it.

    I pulled on my school clothes and bent over to tie my shoes. Then I saw it. Once again, a note was tucked into the laces of my left sneaker. Only this time, the note was written in blood! I gasped. Oh, how creepy. Hiding my toe shoes was no big deal. Stealing my extra dance clothes was worse, but it still wasn't, a federal offense. But a note written in blood! Ew. For a minute I thought I was going to pass out.

    Then I looked closer and saw that it wasn't blood at all. It was just red ink. But this time, it didn't say BEWARE. It said: WATCH YOUR STEP. As I read it, I shivered. Then I crumpled it up and stuck it into my bag. This was getting scary. Somebody was really out to get me. But why?

    I left the dressing room as quickly and quietly as I could. I didn't want to draw attention to myself. My dad picked me up, and I barely spoke to him during the ride home. He didn't try to get me to talk, even though I could tell he'd noticed that something was wrong. He's pretty sensitive that way.