The Mystery of Babe Ruth Baseball

by David A. Adler

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Stop the thief!

  When Cam got to the door she told the guard, “You have to stop him!”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “That boy in the green jacket. He was there when a valuable baseball was stolen. The baseball was in the exhibit, and I’m sure that boy took it. That’s why he’s in such a rush to get out of here.”

  “Just because he’s leaving the hall doesn’t mean he’s a thief,” the guard said.

  The boy in the green jacket turned and saw Cam talking to the guard. He started to run.

  “Did you see that!” Eric said. “He saw us talking to you and he started to run.”

  The boy ran around the corner of the building. He was out of sight.

  “We’ll never catch him now,” Cam said.

  The Cam Jansen Adventure Series

  DON’T FORGET ABOUT THE YOUNG CAM JANSEN SERIES FOR YOUNGER READERS!

  PUFFIN BOOKS

  Published by Penguin Group

  Penguin Young Readers Group,

  345 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A.

  Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R ORL, England

  Penguin Books Australia Ltd, 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia

  Penguin Books Canada Ltd, 10 Alcorn, Avenue, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4V 3B2

  Penguin Books (N.Z.) Ltd, 182-190 Wairau Road, Auckland 10, New Zealand

  First published in the United States of America by The Viking Press, 1982

  Published by Puffin Books, 1991

  Reissued 1998

  This edition published by Puffin Books,

  a division of Penguin Young Readers Group, 2004

  Text copyright © David A. Adler, 1982

  Illustrations copyright © Susanna Natti, 1982

  All rights reserved

  THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS HAS CATALOGED THE 1991 PUFFIN BOOKS EDITION

  UNDER CATALOG CARD NUMBER: 90-53037

  eISBN : 978-1-101-07598-2

  RL: 2.7

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  To Bette and Simeon Guterman with love

  Chapter One

  It was a Sunday afternoon at the end of May. Cam Jansen and her friend Eric Shelton were in the local community center. A hobby show was being held there, and Cam’s parents had brought their collection of circus posters.

  Cam’s father fixed his bow tie. He looked at his watch and said, “It’s almost time.”

  “You should go now, before you miss it,” Cam’s mother added.

  Cam and Eric rushed to the clock corner, where there were more than twenty cuckoo clocks hanging on the wall. It was almost four o‘clock. Cam and Eric waited. Then the noise started. When the minute hand of each clock reached twelve, a tiny door opened and a small wooden bird popped out. “Cuckoo, cuckoo, cuckoo, cuckoo,” it chirped.

  All the birds seemed to be coming out of all the clocks at once. People in the large room turned to look at the clocks. Many of them looked at their watches to see if it really was four o‘clock.

  After the clock doors had closed, Cam and Eric looked at some of the other exhibits. They looked at needlepoint pillows, the Collins Coin Shop exhibit, a display of old toys, and at a large collection of baseball cards, yearbooks, and posters.

  “Look here,” Eric said. “There’s a whole section about Babe Ruth.”

  There were a few Babe Ruth baseball cards, some photographs, a baseball the Babe had autographed, and a large poster of Babe Ruth hitting a home run. The poster also listed his record as a player.

  “Test my memory,” Cam told Eric. “Ask me anything about Babe Ruth’s playing record.”

  Cam looked carefully at all the numbers on the poster. Then she closed her eyes and said, “Click.” Cam always says, “Click,” when she wants to remember something. When people ask her why, she points to her head and tells them, “This is a mental camera. Just like any camera, it goes ‘click’ when it takes a picture.”

  “What was the Babe’s real name?” Eric asked.

  “George Herman Ruth,” Cam said with her eyes still closed.

  “How many games did he play in 1924?”

  “One hundred and fifty-three.”

  Cam has what people call a photographic memory. Her mind takes a picture of whatever she sees. When she wants to remember something, even a detail such as how many games Babe Ruth played in any one year, she just looks at the photograph stored in her brain.

  Cam’s real name is Jennifer Jansen. But when people found out about her amazing memory, they called her “The Camera.” Soon “The Camera” was shortened to “Cam.”

  “When did Babe Ruth get the most hits?” Eric asked.

  “In 1923. He had two hundred and five hits that year. And he hit the most home runs in 1927. That’s when he hit sixty,” Cam said, with her eyes still closed.

  The owner of the collection was listening. He was an old man. He had a bushy white mustache, and he was wearing a baseball cap.

  “You really know all about baseball,” the old man said.

  Cam opened her eyes and said, “No, I don’t. I just remember everything on that poster.”

  Then Eric told him, “She has a mental camera. Why don’t you test her?”

  The old man picked up a box of baseball cards. “Take a card,” he called to the people around the exhibit. “We’ll see how good this girl’s memory really is.”

  Two people reached into the box and took out a card. Cam looked at the people. Then she looked at the cards they were holding. She said, “Click,” and closed her eyes.

  “What card am I holding?” a teenage boy wearing jeans and a bright green jacket asked.

  “You’re holding a Reggie Jackson card.”

  “That’s right,” the boy said. Then he looked at his card and asked, “How many doubles did he hit in 1977?”

  “Thirty-nine.”

  A girl with long brown hair, holding a large gym bag, asked, “What card am I holding? When was the player born and what’s his middle name?”

  “It’s a Stan Musial card. He was born in 1920, on November twenty-first, and his full name is Stanley Frank Musial.”

  “Amazing!” the man said as Cam opened her eyes. He told her that his name was Henry Baker, and he asked Cam and Eric if they could come back later. He wanted his wife to meet Cam and test her memory.

  “Sure, I can come back,” Cam told him.

  “Oh, good. Now let me show you my collection.”

  Mr. Baker showed Cam and Eric his favorite baseball cards. He showed them cards of Billy Martin, Fernando Valen zuela, Ron Guidry, and Satchel Paige. After that, he led Cam and Eric to the Babe Ruth corner.

  He showed them his Babe Ruth cards. Then Mr. Baker said, “Wait till you see this. I have a baseball that Babe Ruth signed for me almost fifty years ago.”

  Mr. Baker turned around. The wooden stand the baseball had rested on was there, but the baseball was gone.

  Chapter Two

  “Someone stole my baseball!” Mr. Baker cried out.

  A woman nearby looked at him. She laughed and said, “Ask your mommy to get you another one.”

  “This wasn’t just any baseball. Babe Ruth signed it. He gave it to me when I was a boy. It’s very valuable.”

  Mr. Baker ran from one person to the next, asking, “Have you seen my baseball? Did you see it
rolling on the floor? Did you see someone take it?”

  Eric looked on the floor for the ball. Cam stood on a chair to watch what Mr. Baker was doing.

  “He’s so upset,” Cam told Eric. “He’s stopping everyone. Most of them think he’s crazy.”

  While Cam stood on the chair, she looked across the exhibit hall. She saw her parents with a large circus poster hanging behind them. She saw the wall of cuckoo clocks. Then she saw someone leaving the exhibit hall. It was a teenage boy wearing a bright green jacket. Cam closed her eyes and said, “Click.”

  “Let’s go!” Cam shouted to Eric when she opened her eyes. “Someone’s leaving the hall, and he might have the baseball.”

  Cam ran between two women trading rare postage stamps. She crawled under a few tables and almost knocked over a small boy looking at some old toys.

  Eric followed Cam. “I’m sorry. Excuse me,” he said to the two women and the small boy as he hurried past.

  When Cam got to the door she told the guard, “You have to stop him!”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “That boy in the green jacket. He was there when a valuable baseball was stolen. The baseball was in the exhibit, and I’m sure that boy took it. That’s why he’s in such a rush to get out of here.”

  “Just because he’s leaving the hall doesn’t mean he’s a thief,” the guard said.

  The boy in the green jacket turned and saw Cam talking to the guard. He started to run.

  “Did you see that!” Eric said. “He saw us talking to you and he started to run.”

  The boy ran around the corner of the building. He was out of sight.

  “We’ll never catch him now,” Cam said.

  “Yes, we will,” the guard said.

  He ran after the boy. Cam and Eric followed him.

  They ran to a crowded playground on the other side of the building. Two young children were playing catch with a baseball. Others were jumping rope or playing basketball. In one corner of the playground some parents were watching very young children playing in a large sandbox, on seesaws, or on swings.

  The guard ran with Cam and Eric until they got to the other end of the playground.

  “He’s gone,” Cam said. “I don’t see him anywhere.”

  They looked down the street leading from the playground. A few children were walking there. A man was pushing a baby carriage, and there were some people waiting at the bus stop. But no one was wearing a bright green jacket.

  “There’s another way out of the playground,” the guard said. He turned and started to walk toward the other exit. Then he stopped.

  “Is that him?” the guard asked, pointing to a boy sitting on one of the park benches.

  Chapter Three

  The boy sitting on the bench was wearing jeans and a bright green jacket. He was sitting behind the two children who were playing catch.

  “Yes, that’s him,” Cam said.

  Cam, Eric, and the guard ran to the bench. The boy looked up at them. He smiled and said, “Well, look who’s here. It’s the girl with the amazing memory and her quiet friend.”

  “A valuable baseball is missing from one of the exhibits,” the guard told the boy. “We’re looking for it.”

  “I’m sorry, but I don’t know where it is.”

  Cam looked at the boy. There was something in one of his jacket pockets. It was round and about the size of a baseball.

  Cam closed her eyes and said, “Click.” She looked at the picture in her mind of the boy when he was holding the Reggie Jackson baseball card.

  Cam opened her eyes and said, “What’s that in your pocket? It wasn’t there before.”

  “Oh, this,” the boy said, and reached into his pocket. “You just didn’t notice it.”

  He took out a baseball and showed it to the guard.

  “This can’t be the missing baseball,” the guard said. “It’s not signed by Babe Ruth. It says ‘Little League Slugger.’ ”

  The guard turned to Cam and Eric and said, “I don’t know why I listened to you. Maybe there never was any Babe Ruth baseball. Now I have to get back to the exhibit hall. But first I think you owe this boy an apology.”

  Cam and Eric told the boy that they were sorry. The guard walked back to the exhibit hall. Cam and Eric walked to a bench on the other side of the playground and sat down.

  Cam and Eric lived next door to each other. They were in the same fifth grade class, and they spent a lot of time together. Eric knew that Cam wouldn’t give up the search for the missing baseball so quickly. She didn’t.

  “Where did he get that ball? He didn’t have it when we saw him at Mr. Baker’s exhibit.”

  “Maybe he found it,” Eric said.

  “Maybe.”

  Cam closed her eyes. She said, “Click.” Then she added, “I’m trying to remember everything I saw at the exhibit.”

  While Cam’s eyes were closed, Eric looked around the playground. He saw a side door to the exhibit hall open.

  “Cam, look! Isn’t that the girl we saw at Mr. Baker’s exhibit?”

  Cam opened her eyes. She looked at the girl leaving the exhibit hall. The girl had long brown hair and was carrying a gym bag.

  “Yes. That’s her. And there’s enough room in that gym bag for twenty baseballs. I’ll bet she left through the side door so no one would see her.”

  The girl walked past Cam and Eric, but she didn’t notice them. She walked out of the playground. At the corner she crossed the street and walked toward the bus stop.

  “Come on,” Cam said. “Let’s follow her.”

  Cam and Eric had to wait at the corner for the traffic light to turn green. As they waited, the girl got farther and farther ahead. When the light changed, Cam and Eric ran to get closer. The girl turned and saw them. She began running, too.

  The girl held the gym bag with both hands as she ran. She ran past the bus stop. She turned and saw Cam and Eric behind her. She looked scared.

  At the corner the girl quickly looked to see if any cars were coming. Then she ran across the street.

  “Let’s rest,” Eric said to Cam when they reached the corner.

  “No. We have to catch her. I’m sure she took the baseball. That’s why she’s running.”

  Cam and Eric crossed the street and chased the girl. She was halfway down the block when her gym bag dropped from her hands. The girl tripped over the bag and fell.

  Cam and Eric caught up with the girl. She was still lying on the sidewalk. The girl held her gym bag up and said, “Here, take what you want. Just don’t hurt me.”

  Chapter Four

  “We’re not going to hurt you,” Eric told the girl.

  Cam took the bag from the girl’s hands and said, “We’re just going to take the Babe Ruth baseball you stole and give it back to Mr. Baker.”

  “I didn’t steal any baseball.”

  “Then why were you running?”

  “I was running because you were chasing me.”

  “We’ll see,” Cam said as she opened the bag.

  “Wait,” Eric said. “It’s her bag. We can’t look through it unless she says we can.”

  The girl sat up and said, “Look all you want. You’ll see that I didn’t steal anything.”

  Cam reached into the bag. She took out an old newspaper, a puzzle book about outer space, and a dried-up slice of cheese.

  “You should really wrap cheese in plastic or foil,” Eric told the girl.

  Cam reached into the bag again and took out an apple, an empty soda can, and a roller skate. She felt along the bottom of the bag.

  “There’s no baseball in here, but there sure are a lot of papers.”

  “Maybe my book report is in there. I wrote it last week, but I can’t remember where I put it.”

  Eric helped the girl up. Cam gave the gym bag back to her and said, “I’m sorry we chased you. And I’m sorry we thought you stole that baseball.”

  “That’s all right,” the girl said as she looked through
the papers in her bag. “It will be worth it if I find that book report.”

  The girl took old comic books, crushed homework papers, and candy wrappers from the bag. Cam and Eric left her and started walking toward the exhibit hall. When they reached the corner, the girl waved some papers at them and called out, “I found it! I found it!”

  “I’m glad we helped find something,” Cam said to Eric. “But I wish it had been the baseball.”

  When Cam and Eric reached the playground, they sat down on one of the benches. Eric watched the children playing basketball.

  Cam closed her eyes and said, “Click.” She thought for a moment. She said, “Click,” a few more times. Then she opened her eyes.

  “The baseball was there when we first came to the exhibit, but it was gone a few minutes later. So it must have been taken while we were there,” Cam said. “I just wish I had a picture of who was standing in the Babe Ruth corner when the ball was taken.”

  Eric wasn’t looking at Cam while she talked to him. He was looking across the playground.

  “The one thing that I don’t understand,” Eric said, “is why that boy ran from the hall. He was in a real hurry then, but he didn’t go anywhere. He’s still sitting there on that bench.”

  Cam looked across the playground. Then she closed her eyes and said, “Click.”

  Cam told Eric, “I’m looking at the picture I have of him at the exhibit. He said he had a baseball in his pocket the whole time, but that’s not true. He didn’t have it in his pocket when we first saw him.”

  Cam opened her eyes and asked, “What is he doing over there?”

  “It looks like he’s watching those two children playing catch.”

  Cam looked across the playground at the boy in the green jacket. She thought for a minute. Then she clapped her hands together and said, “That’s it! I think I know where the Babe Ruth baseball is.”