Nanny X Returns by Madelyn Rosenberg

led us down some stairs and into . . . a bowling alley? It only had one lane, but still. I wondered if the White House had a game room, too. If I ever become president, I’m putting in a baseball field.
    Besides the bowling lane, the room had a rack-thingy with a bunch of bowling balls on it, plus two chairs. Between the chairs was a giant sculpture of a fish. He was balancing on his tail, and it looked like he was guarding the place. Someone had tied a red scarf around his neck. Someone else had given him a purple and green bowling shirt.
    â€œThe guys in the mail room have been calling him Moby Dick, after the whale,” Ms. Lopez said.
    â€œActually,” said Nanny X, “I believe this is a wolf fish.”
    The fish didn’t look like a wolf or a whale. He looked like Jabba the Hutt, only sadder. And fishier. “Look at that attention to detail,” Nanny X said. “He’s magnificent.”
    She plucked a fishing lure off her hat—the blue minnow, not the purple one. “Extra camera,” she explained. I put up two fingers and gave the sculpture bunny ears, as Nanny X pressed down on a fin and clicked. I wasn’t tall enough to reach his head, though; instead they came out of his right fin. Nanny X pressed down on the camera’s fin and clicked. “I’m sending this straight to our crime database,” she said. My bunny-ear fingers were going to be famous. I hoped NAP had a sense of humor. Because if they didn’t, my sister was going to kill me.
    Just then a man walked into the room and held a whispered conference with Ms. Lopez. He left her with a plastic bag that contained a note.
    â€œFrom The Angler,” she said. “And this one didn’t go through our sorting center. Somehow it landed here.”
    Ms. Lopez handed the bag to Nanny X, who read out loud, right through the plastic:
    It has begun
.
    I’ve taken one
.
    (Plus Montauban’s thumb.)
    Install my fish
    Or you will wish
    You had
.
    It was signed
The Angler
.
    Howard loped over to the bowling balls. He rolled a red one down the lane, using two hands instead of one. The pins blasted to the sides. Strike!
    Howard clapped for himself and nodded his head.“Eeeeee,” he said. I was pretty sure that was Howard’s way of saying that The Angler had struck again.
    â€œI must find out how this got through,” Ms. Lopez said.
    â€œAnd we must contact our other operatives,” said Nanny X. I was pretty sure “operatives” meant my sister, Boris and Stinky. And Yeti, of course.
    We grabbed Nanny X’s diaper bag and Eliza’s stroller and exited through the North Portico, which is a reading-connection word for a porch-y thing with columns.
    We called Boris right away, with the diaper phone on speaker so I could hear, too.
    â€œWe received your photo of the sculpture,” he said. “Mr. Huffleberger sees a definite similarity between The Angler’s fish and the fish he saw at the Georgetown gallery. It wasn’t the same fish, mind, so there are doubts. But they could have been created by the same artist.”
    â€œThat’s progress,” said Nanny X.
    â€œThere’s more,” Boris said. “That painting that disappeared from the National Gallery? The museum is bringing in something to replace it this afternoon. I don’t know what it is, but they’re calling it a national treasure.”
    â€œWe’d better get over there,” Nanny X said. “Whatever it is, it’s vulnerable.”

13. Alison
Nanny X Knows Her Alphabet

    Nanny X must not have skated to the gallery, because we beat her by a mile. Yeti thumped his tail outside the museum door and sat down beneath a sign that said Only Service Animals Allowed Inside.
    â€œCan’t we bring him in?” I asked.
    â€œNot this time,” Boris said. “There are delicate pieces inside. Yeti does not look so delicate. Let’s wait for your