Cam Jansen and the Spaghetti Max Mystery
Page 1
The Cam Jansen Series
Cam Jansen and the Mystery of the Stolen Diamonds
Cam Jansen and the Mystery of the U.F.O.
Cam Jansen and the Mystery of the Dinosaur Bones
Cam Jansen and the Mystery of the Television Dog
Cam Jansen and the Mystery of the Gold Coins
Cam Jansen and the Mystery of the Babe Ruth Baseball
Cam Jansen and the Mystery of the Circus Clown
Cam Jansen and the Mystery of the Monster Movie
Cam Jansen and the Mystery of the Carnival Prize
Cam Jansen and the Mystery at the Monkey House
Cam Jansen and the Mystery of the Stolen Corn Popper
Cam Jansen and the Mystery of Flight 54
Cam Jansen and the Mystery at the Haunted House
Cam Jansen and the Chocolate Fudge Mystery
Cam Jansen and the Triceratops Pops Mystery
Cam Jansen and the Ghostly Mystery
Cam Jansen and the Scary Snake Mystery
Cam Jansen and the Catnapping Mystery
Cam Jansen and the Barking Treasure Mystery
Cam Jansen and the Birthday Mystery
Cam Jansen and the School Play Mystery
Cam Jansen and the First Day of School Mystery
Cam Jansen and the Tennis Trophy Mystery
Cam Jansen and the Snowy Day Mystery
Cam Jansen and the Valentine Baby Mystery—25th Anniversary Special
Cam Jansen and the Secret Service Mystery
Cam Jansen and the Summer Camp Mysteries—A Super Special
Cam Jansen and the Mystery Writer Mystery
Cam Jansen and the Green School Mystery
Cam Jansen and the Sports Day Mysteries—A Super Special
Cam Jansen and the Basketball Mystery
Cam Jansen and the Wedding Cake Mystery
Cam Jansen and the Graduation Day Mystery
Cam Jansen and the Millionaire Mystery
DON’T FORGET ABOUT THE YOUNG CAM JANSEN
SERIES FOR YOUNGER READERS!
and the
Spaghetti Max
Mystery
David A. Adler
illustrated by
Joy Allen
VIKING
An Imprint of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
VIKING
An imprint of Penguin Young Readers Group
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
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New York, New York 10014, U.S.A.
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For more information about the Penguin Group visit www.penguin.com
First published in the United States of America by Viking, an imprint of Penguin Young Readers Group, 2013
Text copyright © David Adler, 2013
Illustrations copyright © Penguin Young Readers Group, 2013
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Adler, David A.
Cam Jansen and the Spaghetti Max mystery / by David A. Adler ; illustrated by Joy Allen.
pages cm
Summary: While at the airport waiting for her father to pick up his best friend from childhood, Cam Jansen uses her photographic memory to help a distressed father find his missing daughter.
ISBN 978-1-101-62348-0
[1. Mystery and detective stories. 2. Memory—Fiction. 3. Airports—Fiction. 4. Missing children—Fiction.] I. Allen, Joy, illustrator. II. Title.
PZ7.A2615Caqlf 2013 [Fic]—dc23 2012044877
The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
Contents
More Cam Jansen books
Title Page
Copyright
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
A Cam Jansen Memory Game
For my grandson Jacob, Happy reading!
—D.A.A.
To Spaghetti Bev, and Papa Giani’s!
—J.A.
Chapter One
“Spaghetti Max,” Mr. Jansen said as he got out of his car. “Spaghetti Max.”
Cam Jansen and her best friend, Eric Shelton, got out of the car, too. They were in a parking lot at the airport. They all walked toward the large building just ahead.
“Spaghetti Max,” Mr. Jansen said again. “I can’t believe it. Spaghetti Max.”
“Why do you keep saying that?” Cam Jansen asked her father.
“I’m so excited to see Max. He was my best friend when I was in grade school. We did everything together.”
“Like Eric and I do,” Cam said.
“Yes, like you and Eric. Then, just before we started sixth grade, his family moved. I haven’t seen him since then.”
“Wow!” Eric said. “That’s a really long time.”
“It’s been almost thirty years. But we got back in touch recently on the internet. And now he’s coming to town for a few days, and he’s staying with us.”
“Dad,” Cam said. “Tell Eric why you call him Spaghetti Max.”
“His real name is Max Miller. But he’s really skinny, like a strand of spaghetti. So we gave him the nickname ‘Spaghetti Max.’ He called me ‘Barry J.’ The J is for Jansen.”
“I know about nicknames,” Eric said. “‘Cam’ is a nickname. Her real name is Jennifer.”
Cam is short for “the Camera.” She’s called that because of her amazing memory. It’s like she has a camera in her head with pictures in there of everything she’s seen.
“I want a nickname, too,” Eric said. “You could call me Spaghetti Eric.”
Cam looked at her friend.
“You’re not so skinny,” she said.
“Then call me Ziti Eric. Ziti is a big noodle.”
Cam, Eric, and Cam’s father had reached the airport departure and arrivals building.
“Or call me Pizza Eric. I like pizza. Or call me Scooter Shelton, because I run so fast.”
Mr. Jansen turned and looked at the hundreds of cars in the parking lot. “With all this talk about noodles and scooters, I forgot to look where I parked my car. How will I find it later?”
Cam closed her eyes. She said, “Click!” Cam always says “Click!” when she wants to remember something. She says it’s the sound her mental camera makes.
“I’m looking at a picture I have in my head,” Cam said. “Your car is parked between a red sports car and a silver SUV. It’s in section B4.”
Cam opened her eyes.
“B4,” Eric said. “That’s easy. It’s the word before. Even I can remember that.”
Cam, Eric, and Cam’s father turned and went into the airport building. It was a busy place.
People pulling suitcases on wheels were hurrying to the departure gates.
People stood looking up a
t a large computer screen. On the screen was the schedule of arriving and departing airplanes.
There was a long line of people standing by the information desk.
The building was also a noisy place. There were lots of announcements.
Flight four seventy-eight from New York now arriving at gate eleven.
Flight ninety-three to New Orleans now boarding at gate sixteen.
“I made a big WELCOME SPAGHETTI MAX!! sign,” Cam told Eric. “I taped it to the front door of our house.”
“It’s time to find my friend,” Mr. Jansen said. “He told me that flying makes him hungry. He said he would wait for us in one of the snack places.”
“There’s a snack place,” Eric said, and pointed. “It’s called The Pita Palace.”
“There’s another one,” Cam said, “Polly’s Ice Cream.”
Mr. Jansen said, “There are lots of snack shops here. There’s Sol’s Sandwiches, Fresh Squeezed Juice, Happy Burgers, and lots more. We don’t have to look in every shop for Max. I’ll just call him on his cell phone. He’ll tell me where he is.”
Mr. Jansen took his cell phone from his pocket.
“Karen! Karen Kramer!” someone shouted. “Karen Kramer, where are you?”
Cam, Eric, and Mr. Jansen turned.
“Have you seen her?” asked a man standing nearby. “Have you seen my daughter Karen? She’s just five years old, and she’s lost.”
Chapter Two
“I’m Mel Kramer,” the man said. “And I’m worried.”
“This is my friend Cam,” Eric told Mr. Kramer. “She has a great memory. She’ll remember if she saw your daughter.”
Mr. Jansen said, “Cam is also great at solving mysteries.”
“Did you see her?” the man asked Cam. “Did you see Karen?”
“What does she look like?” Cam asked.
Mel Kramer held his hand at the height of Cam’s shoulders.
“She’s about this tall,” he said. “She has strawberry red ribbons in her hair.” He smiled and said, “She’s so cute.”
Mr. Jansen asked, “What is she wearing?”
Mr. Kramer thought for a moment.
“An avocado green shirt and a banana yellow belt.”
“Strawberries! Avocados! Bananas! ” Eric whispered. “That’s a wacky salad but it’s making me hungry.”
Cam closed her eyes. She said, “Click!”
She said, “Click!” again.
“Cam has a photographic memory,” Eric told Mr. Kramer. “It’s like she has pictures in her head of everything she’s seen. Now she’s looking at pictures of people she’s seen at the airport. Maybe one of them is Karen.”
Cam opened her eyes.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t see her.”
“She was right over there,” Mel Kramer said. He pointed toward the men’s bathroom. “I told her I was going in for just a minute. I told her to wait for me.”
Cam, Eric, and Mr. Jansen looked where the man had pointed. There was a large sign on the door that said MEN.
“I was going into the bathroom, but she thought it was a restaurant.”
“It says MEN on the door,” Eric said. “Why did she think that’s a restaurant?”
“She saw MEN and thought it said MENU,” Mr. Kramer explained.
“When Cam was five, she did the same thing,” Mr. Jansen said. “She was just learning to read. She saw the first few letters of something and thought she knew the whole word. Once she saw a sign that said TOY STORE and she thought it said TOE STORE.”
“I remember that,” Cam said. “I wanted to go and look at all the toes!”
Mel Kramer turned, looked at the door to the men’s room, and said, “I was only in there for a minute or two, and now she’s gone.”
“It only takes a minute for someone to get lost,” Mr. Jansen told him.
There was another announcement:
Flight sixty-three for Los Angeles now boarding at gate twenty-three.
“I help Cam solve mysteries,” Eric told Mr. Kramer. “We may be able to find your daughter.”
Eric pointed to the toy shop near the men’s room.
“Karen could have gone in there.”
They all walked to the store. There was a small table in front. On it were several battery-powered animals walking and bumping into each other.
“Look at that monkey,” Eric said. “Bam! It just crashed into the giraffe. And—bam!—the elephant crashed into the lion. These crashing toys are fun!”
Mr. Jansen said, “Karen loves stuffed animals. Maybe she saw the crashing animals in the front and went inside to find the stuffed animals.”
It was a small store with toys, games, and books for children. Lots of parents and their children were looking at the toys. Cam, Eric, Mr. Jansen, and Mr. Kramer walked through the store. They found the stuffed animals, but they didn’t find Karen Kramer.
“She knows not to wander off,” her father said. “We’ve been in this airport lots of times. This is the first time she’s gotten lost.”
Mr. Jansen said, “Maybe she went with someone to the gate where your airplane is boarding.”
“She knows not to go off with a stranger. I’ve taught her that—don’t talk to strangers, and if you need help, find the police. But maybe she went by herself to the gate.”
Mr. Kramer’s hands shook as he took two long slips of paper from his pocket.
“These are our boarding passes,” he said softly. “Karen knows we are supposed to leave from gate eighteen.”
He looked at the signs against the wall.
“Gate eighteen is that way,” he said, and pointed to the right. He started toward the gate. Then he stopped. “To get to the gate you need to pass through the security check. And to pass through security, you need a boarding pass. She doesn’t have one. I have it.”
Eric leaned close to Cam and whispered, “He’s about to cry.”
“I’m worried,” Mr. Kramer said. “This is the first time she’s gotten lost.”
“Don’t worry,” Eric told Mr. Kramer. “We’ll find your daughter.”
Chapter Three
“Maybe we shouldn’t look for your daughter,” Cam’s father said.
“What?” Mr. Kramer said, raising his voice. “I can’t just leave her here.”
“I said that wrong. What I meant is that we should let her know where you are. We should go to the information desk and ask them to make an announcement.”
“I know where the information desk is,” Cam said. “We passed it on our way in.”
They all followed Cam through the busy airport building.
“While we walk,” Mr. Kramer said, “keep looking for Karen. Remember, she is wearing an avocado green shirt.”
“I remember,” Eric whispered. “Avocados, bananas, and strawberries.”
There was another announcement:
Flight one nineteen for Houston now boarding at gate eleven.
There was a long line of people waiting by the information desk. Mr. Kramer got on the end of the line. It was moving slowly.
“You stay here,” Mr. Jansen told him. “I’ll go to one of the ticket windows. Maybe they can make the announcement.”
Eric said, “We’ll look for her. We’re kids, just like Karen. Maybe we can figure out where she is.”
Cam, Eric, and Mr. Jansen walked away from the line.
“You have to promise me you’ll stay together,” Mr. Jansen told Cam and Eric. “I don’t want you to get lost, too.”
“We promise,” Cam and Eric said.
Mr. Jansen walked toward the ticket windows. There were lines there, too.
“What’s your idea?” Cam asked Eric. “Where do you think Karen is?”
Eric turned a little and looked. He turned a little m
ore and looked some more. When he had turned all the way around, he told Cam, “I have no idea where she is. I just thought we are better at finding people and solving mysteries when it’s just the two of us.”
“Let’s go to the last place her dad saw her,” Cam said. “Let’s go to the men’s room.”
Cam and Eric stood just outside the men’s room. Men hurried into it. Some were pulling suitcases on wheels. And men hurried out.
“Yuck!” Cam whispered. “Each time that door opens I smell bathroom.”
“Bathroom?”
“You know, that ammonia cleaner smell.”
The door opened again. A man holding onto a small boy’s hand came out. “Next time,” the man told the boy, “don’t wait until the last minute to tell me you have to go.”
“Did you smell it?” Cam asked.
“Yeah,” Eric said, and pinched his nose closed.
“Do you know how that makes me feel?” Cam asked.
Eric shook his head. He didn’t know.
“It makes me feel like I have to go to the bathroom.”
Cam looked around. To the left of the men’s room was the toy shop. To the right of the men’s room was the women’s room.
“Maybe that’s it,” Cam said. “Maybe Karen stood here waiting for her father. Then suddenly she felt she had to go, so what did she do?”
Eric shook his head again.
Cam laughed.
“When you have to go, you have to go,” Cam said. “So she went to the bathroom.”
“You have to go, too,” Eric said. “You have to go in there and look for her.”
Cam went into the women’s room.
Eric stood by the door to the men’s room and waited.
Men went in and came out of the men’s room. Then Eric decided he had to go. Just after Eric went into the men’s room, Cam came out of the women’s room.