Cam Jansen and the Joke House Mystery
Page 2
“Thank you. I’ll check the back door.”
Gary Gold turned and saw Cam and Eric.
“What are you doing?”
Cam said, “I’m the one who told you the plate was missing.”
“She’s Cam Jansen,” Eric told Mr. Gold. “She has an amazing photographic memory. She solves mysteries.”
“I don’t need a child detective,” Gary Gold mumbled as he hurried back through the big room. “I need that plate.”
“My old friend doesn’t hear so well,” Granny Janie told the people in the Joke House. “We were going out and I said she should take a coat. I told her it was windy. ‘No,’ she said. ‘It’s Thursday.’”
No one laughed.
“It’s a joke,” Janie explained. “I said ‘windy’ and she thought I said ‘Wednesday.’”
Gary Gold walked quietly along the side of the room. He passed the small empty table at the side of the stage. He pushed through two large swinging doors and went into the kitchen.
Cam and Eric quietly followed him.
In the center of the kitchen was a long blue table. On it were a few plates of cakes and cookies.
“Hi, Boss,” a short, plump man said. He was wearing a large white chef’s cap and a white jacket.
Behind the man, there was a stove, a refrigerator, and a door with a window. Along one side of the kitchen were coats hanging on hooks, and several cubbies. Along the other side was another man washing dishes in two big metal sinks. Large metal counters were attached to the side of the sinks.
“I see trees through that window,” Cam whispered. “That door goes outside.”
“Hi, Hal,” Gary Gold said to the man wearing the chef’s cap. “Did anyone walk past you and go out the back door?”
Hal shook his head.
“What about you, Stan,” Gary Gold asked the dishwasher. “Did you see anyone leave?”
Stan shook his head.
“I’ve been standing here since six o’clock,” he said, “and no one went through that door.”
“We came at eight,” Eric whispered, “and when we got here that plate was still on the small table.”
A server walked in carrying a large tray of dirty dishes. She took the dishes off her tray and put them on one of the counters by the sinks.
“Susan, what do you need?” Hal asked.
Susan took a small pad from her back pocket and read from it.
“One order of spaghetti and meatballs, a chicken salad, a cup of vegetable soup, and two teas.”
She put her tray on the blue table. She poured two cups of hot water and put them on her tray. Beside each cup she placed a tea bag. Hal prepared the food and put the plates on her tray.
Gary Gold took a cell phone from his jacket pocket, pressed a few buttons, and waited.
“There’s been a robbery at the Joke House,” he said into his phone. “A valuable silver plate was taken.”
Hal gasped.
Gary Gold listened for a moment. Then he said, “Please come in through the side door.”
Gary Gold put his cell phone away.
“Susan, when the police get here, try to keep them from upsetting our guests.”
“Sure, Boss.”
“Now I’ve got to get going. I’ve got to introduce the next act.”
He turned and saw Cam and Eric.
“Why are you still here?”
“We’ll solve this mystery,” Eric told him. “We’ll find that silver plate.”
“The police will find it. Please just find your seats. You don’t want to miss the next act. It’s a funny woman named Molly Jansen.”
Chapter Five
“The thief is one of the people in the Joke House,” Cam whispered. “Somehow no one saw him take the plate, and no one saw him hide it.”
“Him or her,” Eric told Cam. “The thief might be a woman.”
Cam and Eric returned to their table.
“Did you find the plate?” Cam’s father asked.
“Not yet,” Eric answered. “But we will.”
Gary Gold was standing on the stage.
“It’s time for our next comedian,” he said into the microphone. “Please welcome a funny woman named Molly Jansen.”
People applauded. Cam looked across the table at Aunt Molly. She was clapping, too.
“Molly,” Mr. Jansen told her. “You’re clapping for yourself.”
“Oh! Is it my turn?”
Molly walked onto the stage. She stood by the microphone and smiled.
“Tell some jokes,” Mr. Jansen called out.
“Oh, jokes.”
Molly thought for a moment and then asked, “Why is the chicken a dirty double-crosser? It’s because it ran out of juice.”
No one laughed.
“No, that’s not right,” Molly said. “It’s because it might crack up.”
“What is she talking about?” a woman at the next table asked.
“She’s pretending to be mixed up,” the man next to her answered, “and it’s funny.”
Cam whispered to Eric, “Aunt Molly isn’t pretending.”
“Wait! Wait!” Molly said. “I wrote the jokes down.”
She took the tissue from her pocket and looked at it.
“This doesn’t have the riddle questions on it. It just has the answers.”
She turned the tissue over.
“More answers. But that’s okay. The answers are the funny part.”
She looked at her tissue and read from it.
“To get to the other ride.”
She looked up and said, “That’s why the chicken crossed something. I just don’t know what it crossed.”
People laughed.
“Did you know that elephants like to go on car trips?” Molly asked. “But the car has to have a cup holder.”
More people laughed.
“Listen to this,” Molly said. “An orange crossed the road and then it stopped. Do you know why it stopped?”
Molly waited.
No one told her why the orange stopped in the middle of the road, so Molly looked at her tissue.
“It stopped to get to the other side,” she read. “Oh, no, to get to the other slide or ride, or something.
“Oh, and did I tell you about the dirty double-crossing chicken?”
“You told us,” someone called out.
Molly turned and looked at Gary Gold.
“That’s all I have on my tissue,” she told him, “so I think I’m done.”
Gary Gold stood next to Aunt Molly.
“Let’s hear it for Molly Jansen.”
Lots of people applauded. Mr. Jansen, Cam, and Eric clapped the loudest. Molly bowed, waved her tissue, and walked off the stage.
“Look at that,” Eric whispered. “Aunt Molly walked right past the small table. Everyone who walks on or off the stage walks past it.”
Cam closed her eyes. She said, “Click!”
“Uncle Sid walked past the table, and he had that large bag of props,” Cam said with her eyes still closed.
Aunt Molly returned to her seat.
“You were great,” Mr. Jansen told her.
“I should have practiced more,” Molly said. “Then I wouldn’t have mixed up all the jokes.”
Cam opened her eyes. She turned and looked at the bag next to Uncle Sid.
“Maybe Uncle Sid took it,” Cam whispered to Eric. “We have to sneak over there and look in his bag. We’ll do it when the next comedian is telling jokes. Maybe then we won’t get caught.”
Eric said, “Maybe then we’ll find the silver plate.”
Chapter Six
“I hope you’re ready for some knock, knock fun,” Gary Gold said. “Please welcome Knock, Knock Norm.”
A young man in an orange jacket that was much too big for him walked onto the stage.
He tapped twice onto the microphone.
Knock, knock!
“Who’s there?” people in the audience called out.
“It’s me,
Knock, Knock Norm.”
He tapped again on the microphone.
Knock, knock!
“Who’s there?”
“Hatch.”
“Hatch who?” people in the audience asked.
“Please, cover your nose when you sneeze.”
Some people laughed.
Eric said, “I don’t get it.”
Mr. Jansen explained, “‘Hatch who’ sounds like achoo, the noise you make when you sneeze.”
Knock, knock!
Mr. Jansen, Molly, and lots of other people called out, “Who’s there?”
“This is our chance,” Cam whispered.
Norm said, “Lettuce.”
Cam quietly left her seat. Eric followed her. They crawled to where Uncle Sid was sitting.
“Lettuce who?”
“Lettuce in. It’s cold out here.”
Cam and Eric crawled under the table.
“It’s dark here,” Eric whispered.
“Sh!” Cam told him.
Cam reached into the bag and took out the book with blank pages. She took out the rubber chicken, coffee cup, cardboard clock, comb, and two rubber balls.
“There’s no plate,” Cam whispered.
“No plate?” Eric asked.
He crawled over to look in the bag. On the way, he touched someone’s shoe.
“Hey! Who’s under there?”
Suddenly several people bent down and looked under the table.
“What are you doing with my bag?” Uncle Sid asked.
Cam and Eric sat up and banged their heads on the bottom of the table.
“Get out of there!” Uncle Sid said.
Cam and Eric crawled out. Cam told everyone at the table about the missing prize.
“You thought I took it?” Uncle Sid asked. “I wouldn’t steal that plate. I want to win it.”
Cam said, “It’s just that you walked past the small table at the edge of the stage and your bag is big enough to hide the plate.”
Uncle Sid said, “Lots of people walked past that stage.”
“Look!” someone at one of the other tables said. “The police are here.”
Two police officers walked through the kitchen door. One was a man with a brown mustache. The other was a woman with curly black hair. They walked past the small table at the edge of the stage.
“Knock, knock,” Norm said quickly.
“Who’s there?” lots of people asked.
“Donna,” Norm answered. “Donna arrest me for telling bad jokes.”
Gary Gold stepped onto the stage. He stood by the microphone and said, “Let’s hear it for Knock, Knock Norm.”
A few people applauded. The others at the Joke House were watching the police officers.
Norm went to his seat.
“There will be a short break in our show,” Gary Gold said.
Cam looked at the police officers. She looked at Gary Gold. Then she looked at the small table at the edge of the stage.
Cam closed her eyes and said, “Click!”
She said, “Click!” again.
“Eric,” Cam said, and opened her eyes. “I think I know where to find the missing plate.”
Chapter Seven
Gary Gold and the police officers were on their way to the entrance to the Joke House.
“You told us the plate was here when the show started,” one of the officers said to Gary Gold as they walked past Cam’s table. “There are lots of people here. Anyone could have taken it.”
“Not anyone,” Cam told Eric. “Only people who walked past that small table could have taken it.”
“I saw you and Eric walk past it on your way to the kitchen,” Mr. Jansen said.
“But we didn’t take it,” Eric told him.
“I know that.”
“Mr. Gold and the police officers walked past it,” Eric said. “I know they didn’t take it.”
Eric thought for a moment. Then he said, “Uncle Sid, Granny Janie, Aunt Molly, and Knock, Knock Norm also walked past the table. Maybe Granny Janie has it. Maybe she hid it in her shawl.”
“No,” Cam said. “By the time Janie went onstage, the plate was already gone.”
“I went after Janie,” Aunt Molly said. “So I couldn’t have taken it.”
Just then Susan went through the door to the kitchen. She was carrying a large tray filled with dirty cups and plates.
Cam said, “The servers walk past that small table every time they go into the kitchen.”
“Kevin serves us,” Eric said. “Susan serves the tables next to ours.”
Eric looked around the room.
“There are two other servers.”
“It would be easy for one of them to take the plate,” Cam said. “When a server walks past the small table, he could just grab the plate and put it on his tray.”
Eric said, “Susan and one of the other servers are women. So maybe she grabbed the plate and put it on her tray.”
“Maybe,” Cam said. “And then the thief would have to hide the plate.”
Cam closed her eyes. She said, “Click!”
Cam quickly opened her eyes.
“There are cubbies in the kitchen. I bet each server has one. And each cubby is big enough to hide the plate.”
Eric got up.
“Let’s go look,” he said.
Cam got up, too.
“You can’t look in people’s cubbies,” Mr. Jansen told Cam and Eric. “Whatever is in them is private.”
“We could go to the police,” Cam said. “We can tell them where to find the plate.”
“I’m going with you,” Mr. Jansen said.
Cam, Eric, and Mr. Jansen started toward the side of the big room.
“Hey!” Aunt Molly called. “Wait for me! I’m coming, too.”
They all went to the entrance to the Joke House. The police officers and Gary Gold were there. They were talking to Helen. Cam told them where she thought the silver plate was hidden.
Gary Gold said, “I’ll tell all the servers to meet me in the kitchen. If one of them took the plate, we’ll find it.”
They all walked toward the kitchen. As they went through the big room, Gary Gold told each of the servers to come with him.
Gary Gold, the two police officers, Mr. Jansen, Molly, Hal, Stan, Susan, Kevin, and the two other servers all crowded into the kitchen.
Gary Gold introduced the two police officers.
“This is Officer Jacob Berger,” he said. “His partner is Officer Beth Cooper.”
Gary Gold told them all about the missing prize and where Cam thought it was hidden.
Everyone was quiet for a moment. Then one of the servers looked down, like he was embarrassed.
“It was me,” Kevin said. “I’ll show you where I hid the plate and I’ll tell you why I took it.”
Chapter Eight
Kevin walked by the stove and refrigerator and past a few hanging coats. He reached into one of the cubbies and took out a sweater. He unfolded the sweater and there was the silver plate. He gave it to Gary Gold.
“I’m not a thief,” Kevin said. “I’m a comedian. I’m really very funny. I wanted to have a chance just like anyone else to win this plate and be on television. I know I would have won.”
“No one who works here can enter the contest,” Gary Gold said. “That’s the rule.”
“You stole something,” Officer Berger told Kevin, “so you are a thief.”
Officer Cooper unhooked a set of handcuffs from her belt.
“You’ll have to come with us.”
“Please,” Gary Gold said to the police. “I have my plate. Don’t arrest him.”
Officer Cooper put the handcuffs away.
“Thank you,” Kevin said.
“But you can’t work here anymore,” Gary Gold told Kevin. “Take your things and leave. You’ve also lost your chance to ever tell jokes at the Joke House.”
Kevin emptied his cubby. He took his jacket off the hook. He opened the back door and left.
“Thank you for getting this plate back,” Gary Gold said to the police officers.
“We didn’t find your plate and we didn’t catch the thief,” Officer Berger said. “It was this red-haired girl. She solved this mystery.”
“Thanks for your help,” Officer Cooper said to Cam.
Eric said, “Cam has a photographic memory. She used it to solve this mystery.”
“A photo what?” Officer Cooper asked.
“Show them,” Eric said.
Cam looked at everyone standing in the kitchen. She said, “Click!” and closed her eyes.
“Turn around,” Cam’s father told her. “That way no one will think you’re peeking.”
Cam turned around.
“Officer Berger,” Cam said, “your badge number is 2164. There is some mud on the toe of your right shoe. And Mr. Gold, the bottom button of your vest was sewn on with different-colored thread than the others. It must have been replaced.”
Gary Gold looked down at his vest.
“Oh, my, you’re right!” he said.
He gave Officer Berger a paper napkin to wipe the mud off his shoe.
“Officer Cooper,” Cam said. “The red nail polish on two of the middle fingers of your left hand is chipped.”
“Is it?” her partner asked.
Officer Cooper looked at the fingernails of her left hand.
“Yes.”
“Wow!” Gary Gold said to Cam. “Could you and your friend come on my television show and demonstrate your amazing memory?”
Cam and Eric looked at Mr. Jansen.
“You may go, Cam. Eric, I’m sure your parents will also let you go.”
“Cam and Eric are too young to go by themselves, so I’ll bring them,” Aunt Molly told Gary Gold. “Since I’ll be there, maybe I can go on your show, too, and tell some jokes.”
“That would be nice,” Gary Gold said.
Officers Berger and Cooper thanked Cam again and left the Joke House. Hal and Stan went back to their work in the kitchen. The others returned to the big room.
Gary Gold stood by the microphone again. He introduced the last two comedians. Cam and Eric listened, ate their cookies, drank their juice, and laughed.