The Boardwalk Mystery

by Gertrude Chandler Warner

  “That’s true,” Jessie said. “When he was arguing with Mrs. Reddy, he said that he wanted Mr. Hanson to fail. And someone with a black marker wrote on the walls of the house of mirrors. We found a marker with ‘Captain Cooke’s Amazing Amusement Pier’ written on the side.”

  “But Mr. Cooke is right,” Violet said. “There are many markers like that on the boardwalk. Anyone could have used it. But I agree that he acts suspicious sometimes. Remember the other day when we saw him on the boardwalk? His pants and shoes looked very wet. And it was not raining. He hurried away when he saw us looking at him.”

  “He might have been fixing a ride on his pier,” Henry said. “He does have a log flume and a boat ride.”

  The children finished their meals and cleaned up the little table on the deck. Violet leaned on the rail. She stared out at the moonlight glinting off of the ocean. She wished she could take a photograph of the view and save it. She thought of Mrs. Mancini, the photographer who took so many pictures of Oceanside.

  Suddenly, Violet stood up straight. She turned to her sister and brothers. “I have an idea,” she said. “I think I know how we might catch the people who are trying to ruin the pier.”

  CHAPTER 10

  An Accidental Confession

  Early the next morning, the children started their day at Dottie’s Pancake House. They wore the T-shirts that Violet had designed. Everyone in the small restaurant asked them about the free rides. The people seemed excited and made plans to visit Hanson’s Amusement Pier.

  Dottie, the woman who owned the restaurant, stopped at the children’s table. “How is everything?” she asked.

  Benny tried to answer, but his mouth was stuffed with pancakes.

  Jessie was cutting up her French toast. She laughed. “I think you can see that our brother loves your pancakes. Everything here is wonderful.”

  Dottie smiled. “Thank you. I noticed your T-shirts,” she said. “Everyone is talking about them. Are the rides really free tonight?”

  “Yes, they are,” Jessie answered.

  Dottie smiled. “Maybe I will stop by and check it out tonight.”

  After breakfast the children visited a copy store. The night before, Violet had designed the flyer that would advertise the free night. It looked a lot like the design on the T-shirts. The man made the copies for the children right away.

  Next to the copy store was the photographer’s shop. Violet gazed in the window at all the beautiful photographs. Ms. Mancini had many colorful pictures of sunsets over the bay, shore birds, and happy families posing on the beach. A sign on the door said, “Out taking photographs. Be back soon!”

  As the children walked farther down the street, they saw a shop that rented bicycles. Bikes in every size lined the sidewalk.

  “Look!” Violet cried. “They even rent surreys!”

  “What is a surrey?” Benny asked.

  Violet walked up to the surrey and showed Benny. The surrey had four wheels and four sets of pedals. It had two seats in front and two in the back. There was a steering wheel, just like a car, and there was a yellow and blue striped cloth roof over the top.

  A woman in a blue apron walked up to the children. “Would you like to rent the surrey?” she asked. “They are lots of fun.”

  The children agreed. They paid the woman and climbed in. Henry and Jessie sat up front. Violet and Benny were in the back. With all four children pedaling, the surrey could go quite fast. They took turns driving. Even Benny had a turn! As they rode back down the boardwalk, they made many stops and posted the flyers in stores and on announcement boards.

  Henry looked at his watch. “It is almost ten o’clock,” he said. “We should return the surrey now to the rental store.”

  The children pedaled back the way they had come. “Look,” Benny said. “Isn’t that Mr. Cooke?”

  “It is,” Jessie said. “What is he carrying?”

  “I don’t know,” Henry said. “It looks like big poster boards. Maybe he is making signs for his pier, too.”

  After the children returned the surrey, they got right to work. Henry and Benny took half of the remaining flyers and Jessie and Violet took the other half.

  “Benny and I will give these out on the beach,” Henry said.

  “And we will hand them out on the boardwalk,” Jessie said.

  But before the children could start, they saw Mr. Hanson hurrying toward them. He had a worried look on his face.

  “What’s wrong?” the children asked.

  Mr. Hanson wrung his hands together. “I don’t know exactly. I just got a call from Ms. Mancini, the photographer, that she saw something wrong at the pier. We don’t open for a few more hours. I hope it is something I can fix.”

  Everyone hurried toward the pier. They saw the problem right away.

  “Oh no!” Violet said. “Who could have done such a thing?”

  The top six cars on the giant Ferris wheel each had a very large letter pasted to its side. All together, the cars spelled out the word “UNSAFE.” It was so big, everyone on the boardwalk could see what it said. Ms. Mancini was standing nearby taking photographs.

  They all hurried to the Ferris wheel. Mr. Hanson pulled his keys from his pocket. He turned the Ferris wheel on so that the cars at the top moved to the bottom. Ms. Mancini and the children helped him remove the letters. It was not hard. The letters had been printed on white poster board and taped to the sides of the car.

  “Who else has keys to the Ferris wheel?” Henry asked.

  Mr. Hanson was ripping the cardboard letters into pieces. “Only Wendy, Will, and I have keys,” he said. “And I suppose Mrs. Reddy might. She was supposed to turn over all the keys to me when I bought the pier. But I suppose that it is possible that she kept some.”

  “What about Mr. Cooke?” asked Jessie.

  Mr. Hanson shook his head. “Mr. Cooke would not have any keys to my pier.”

  “Is there any other way to get the letters up on those cars?” Henry asked.

  Mr. Hanson looked up at the Ferris wheel. “I suppose you could climb up,” he said. “It’s not too hard. But most people would be afraid to do such a thing.”

  “I took a lot of pictures of your pier over the last week,” Ms. Mancini said. “I will develop them and leave them in your workshop. I don’t know if they will help. But maybe they will show something that will help you to figure out who is doing these things. I will drop them off around four o’clock.”

  The Alden children looked at one another and smiled. This would help their plan.

  Mr. Hanson thanked Ms. Mancini. He asked the Aldens if they could help him to look through the pictures. Everyone agreed to meet in the workshop at about five o’clock. Henry and Benny then headed toward the beach to distribute their flyers.

  Jessie and Violet walked up and down the boardwalk to hand out their flyers. Just as they had hoped, they saw Mrs. Reddy. She was wearing the T-shirt that they had given her yesterday.

  “Hello!” Mrs. Reddy waved to Jessie and Violet. “I am wearing my T-shirt,” she said. “How does it look?”

  “It looks very nice on you,” Violet said. “Green is a good shade for you. It matches your eyes.”

  Mrs. Reddy smiled. “Thank you, Violet. You are very sweet. Do you think anyone will come to Hanson’s pier tonight?”

  “Yes,” Jessie said. “Many people will come.”

  “But what about that sign on the Ferris wheel?” Mrs. Reddy asked.

  “We saw it,” Jessie replied. “But Mr. Hanson has taken it down. And we hope to figure out who put it there. A photographer has been taking pictures of the pier. She is dropping them off in the work shed at four o’clock. We will look through them later for clues.”

  Mrs. Reddy put her hand up to her mouth. “Oh my,” she said. “I wonder what those pictures will show. I better go. But I will stop by the pier later.” Mrs. Reddy hurried away.

  When Jessie and Violet got to Captain Cooke’s amusement pier, they stood outside handing out the
flyers until Mr. Cooke noticed and came rushing toward them.

  “Get out of here with those flyers!” he said.

  “You are wasting your time anyway. Hanson’s pier is not safe and it will close before the summer is over.”

  “It is safe,” Violet insisted.

  “Didn’t you see that sign on the Ferris wheel?” Mr. Cooke said.

  “Yes,” Violet answered. “We saw it. But it is nothing more than a mean trick. It does not mean that the pier is unsafe.”

  “Then why would someone go to all the trouble to put that sign up?” Mr. Cooke asked.

  “We don’t know,” Jessie answered. “But we may have a clue.”

  Mr. Cooke’s eyebrows went up. “Really? What kind of clue?”

  Jessie explained about Ms. Mancini’s photographs. “She has been taking photographs all over the boardwalk. She has many of Hanson’s pier. No one really noticed that she was there. We are going to the work shed at five o’clock to look through the photographs. They might show who has been trying to ruin Mr. Hanson.”

  Mr. Cooke’s face turned red. “Those photographs probably won’t show a thing!” he said. “What time did you say that Mrs. Mancini is dropping off the photos?”

  “At four o’clock in the work shed,” Violet answered.

  Mr. Cooke turned away. “I have a busy night ahead of me,” he said. “I have to get back to work. And keep those flyers away from my pier!”

  After Henry and Benny were finished on the beach, they met Jessie and Violet at a lemonade stand on the boardwalk.

  The children bought lemonades and walked out over the ocean.

  “I sure hope everything works out tonight,” Benny said. “Some people on the beach said that they saw the ‘unsafe’ sign on the Ferris wheel.”

  “I think people will be curious about the free rides,” Henry said. “They will come and see how safe the amusements are. I just hope that there are no more pranks tonight. I hope our plan works.”

  Jessie took a long sip from her cool drink. “Violet and I saw Mrs. Reddy and Mr. Cooke on the boardwalk this morning,” she said. “We told them that Mrs. Mancini had some photographs that might contain clues as to who has been trying to ruin Mr. Hanson’s pier.”

  Violet nodded. “We told them that the photographs would be dropped off at the work shed at four o’clock.”

  “Mrs. Reddy loves to spread news on the boardwalk. I am sure she will tell many people,” Jessie said.

  “Now I get it!” Benny said. “The person who has been playing all the mean tricks will want to steal the photos in case he or she is in them!”

  “Exactly!” Jessie said.

  The children agreed that they would arrive early at the work shed to see who might show up after Mrs. Mancini dropped off the photos. In the meantime, they relaxed on the beach. They talked about all the things they had seen and all the clues they had gathered. Jessie wrote everything down in her notebook.

  When the Aldens returned to Hanson’s pier later in the afternoon, they went straight to the work shed as planned. They were surprised to find Wendy and Will sitting with their father on a bench. He had his arms around them.

  “We’re sorry,” Jessie said. “We did not mean to intrude. We will come back later. We thought we would come a little early.”

  “Please stay,” Mr. Hanson said. “Wendy, Will, and I were just having a long talk. I now realize that we should have talked a long time ago. I didn’t take their feelings into account when we moved to Oceanside.”

  “Dad, it’s okay,” Wendy said. “Everything is fine now.”

  “Yes,” Will said. “We weren’t fair to you either, Dad. In the beginning, we did not give Oceanside a chance. We thought that if you had a lot of problems with the pier, you would not like it here. We wanted you to hate running the amusement pier. We thought you would let us move back to Colorado.”

  “You were the ones who splashed the red paint in the house of mirrors,” Jessie said. “You were careful, but some of the paint splattered onto your shoes.”

  Wendy and Will looked down at their feet. “Yes,” Will said. “You’re right, Jessie. A house of mirrors is not fun if you can see where you are going. We’re very sorry, Dad.”

  “We want to apologize to Benny, too,” Wendy said.

  Mr. Hanson looked confused. “Benny? What did you do to Benny?”

  Wendy rubbed the top of Benny’s head, but she was too embarrassed to speak.

  “Will and Wendy took the zombie from the haunted house,” Henry explained. “I am sure that they did not know that Benny would be there. The zombie is very heavy, and Will must have accidentally hit Benny in the face when he was moving it. It was very dark.”

  Mr. Hanson turned to Henry. “You knew that Will took the zombie?”

  “Not right away,” Henry said. “We could not accuse him. But there were clues. Today on the beach, we put all the clues together.”

  “I was on top of the Big Slide,” Violet explained. “I saw someone going down the steps toward the beach carrying the zombie.”

  “And at the same time,” Jessie added, “the haunted house ride was turned on. So it had to be two people working together.”

  “And they had to have had a key to turn the ride on,” Henry said.

  “Will and Wendy had a spare key,” Jessie said. “We heard Wendy say so the next day.”

  “It was very dark in the haunted house that night. I’m sorry, Benny,” Will said. “It was an accident. Wendy turned on the ride so that the lights would come on. She knew that your brother and sisters would come and help you.”

  Mr. Hanson listened in amazement. “You should have stayed and helped Benny yourselves!” he said. “You should not have left him there.”

  “We know,” Wendy said. “We’re so sorry.”

  “We feel terrible about what we have done,” Will said. “But now we know that Oceanside is a wonderful place. We understand why you wanted to move here. And we have met some very nice friends.”

  Just then Ms. Mancini stepped inside the shed. She handed a stack of photographs to Mr. Hanson. “I took a quick look through the photos. They don’t really show anything that would help you catch the person who has been playing the tricks,” she said. “I’m sorry. But there are some nice shots that we can use for advertisements.”

  Mr. Hanson glanced through the photos. He held up the one of the Ferris wheel with the word unsafe on the cars. “Did you do this, too?” he asked Wendy and Will.

  Suddenly, the doorknob of the small work shed began to rattle. Everyone grew quiet. The door slowly creaked open. A head peered around the side of the door.

  “Bob!” Mr. Hanson cried. “What are you doing here?”

  Mr. Cooke looked startled to see the room so full of people. He looked down at his watch. “It is not five o’clock yet. I . . . I just came to see if . . . I mean, to say good luck tonight.”

  Jessie pointed to the stack of photographs in Mr. Hanson’s hands. “Are you sure you did not come for the photographs, Mr. Cooke?” she asked.

  “But how did Bob know we had the photographs?” Mr. Hanson asked. “I don’t understand.”

  “Those kids told me,” Mr. Cooke said. “So you have looked through the photographs already?” he asked.

  “Yes, we have,” Mr. Hanson answered.

  Mr. Cooke shoved his hands deep into his pockets. “Then you know that I am the one who put the word unsafe on the Ferris wheel. But it was just a joke, Carl.”

  “Actually, Bob,” Mr. Hanson said, “the photographs don’t show you at all.”

  “What?!” Mr. Cooke turned toward the Aldens. “Those kids told me that the photos had clues in them.”

  “We did not,” Violet responded. “We said that we hoped that there were clues in them. But you have just admitted that you put the word unsafe on the Ferris wheel.”

  “But how did you get up there?” Benny asked. “It is so high!”

  “I fix rides all the time. I know how to go up and down th
em. I have my own Ferris wheel on my pier, remember?” Mr. Cooke turned toward Mr. Hanson. “And my Ferris wheel has always been better than yours! I was just trying to protect the public from this unsafe pier.”

  “You were not protecting the public when you put the zombie in the ocean,” Henry said.

  Mr. Cooke looked startled.

  “It was you,” Jessie said. “We saw you later walking down the boardwalk and your pants and shoes were quite wet. You did not seem to care that a swimmer banged his ankle against the zombie in the water.”

  “You wanted Mr. Hanson to be blamed for it,” Violet said.

  “And Mr. Cooke wrote with black marker in the house of mirrors,” Benny added.

  Mr. Hanson looked upset. “Did you really do all these things, Bob?” he asked.

  Mr. Cooke looked around the room.

  Everyone was staring at him. “I . . . I . . . All right, I admit it! I did those things. But so what? It is just a little friendly competition.”

  “There is nothing friendly about it,” Mr. Hanson said. “I want you to leave my amusement pier right now. And don’t ever set foot here again or I will call the police. You are lucky I am not calling the police right now!”

  Mr. Cooke’s face turned very red. Then he hurried out of the shed.

  A few moments later, there was knock on the door. “Carl? Are you in there?”

  Mr. Hanson opened the door. “Mrs. Reddy! Come in. What are you doing here?”

  Mrs. Reddy cleared her throat. “I um . . . I want to apologize.”

  “More apologies!” Mr. Hanson exclaimed. “What could you have done, Mrs. Reddy?”

  “Mrs. Reddy wanted your pier to fail also,” Jessie said. “She misses being the owner and running the pier. She thinks that she made a mistake to retire. She would like to run the pier again.”

  Mrs. Reddy nodded. “Jessie is right. So many things were going wrong here, I thought that you would ruin the pier. And I was bored at home with not much to do. I love this pier. I want to keep it great. It is the best pier on the boardwalk.”

  Mr. Hanson nodded. “I know how you feel. And I sure could use your help,” he said. “You have so much experience. Would you be willing to help out here?”