Cam Jansen and the Wedding Cake Mystery

Table of Contents

 

 

“I baked all week,” Ken said. He sadly shook his head. “The wedding is in three hours. I don't have time to bake all those desserts again.”

Mr. Jansen looked at the many trays of cookies and cakes on the tables. “You could take the cakes you gave us to the wedding.”

Ken shook his head.

“Thank you, but they wouldn't be nearly enough,” Ken said. “And what about the wedding cake? The bride and groom wanted a tall, beautiful wedding cake, and that's what I baked.”

Bob turned to Cam. “This is exciting,” he said. “We have just three hours to find the cake.”

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First published in the United States of America by Viking,
a division of Penguin Young Readers Group, 2010
Published by Puffin Books, a division of Penguin Young Readers Group, 2011

Text copyright © David Adler, 2010 Illustrations copyright © Penguin Young Readers Group, 2010 All rights reserved

 

THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS HAS CATALOGED THE VIKING EDITION AS FOLLOWS:
Adler, David A.
Cam Jansen and the wedding cake mystery / by David A. Adler ;
illustrated by Joy Allen.
p. cm.

Summary: When Cam and her father go to a talent show at the local senior center, Cam's help is needed to find out who stole a wedding cake from the delivery truck.

ISBN : 978-1-101-55257-5

[1. Talent shows—Fiction. 2. Stealing—Fiction. 3. Mystery and detective stories.]
I. Allen, Joy, ill. II. Title.
PZ7.A2615Caw 2010
[Fic]—dc22 2009048129

 

 

The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party Web sites or their content.

For Kendra Levin,
Cam's friend and muse—mine, too.

—D.A.A.

 

 

To Angie, a great teacher,
and her awesome class!

—J.A.

“Hey,” Danny said. “What color is a hiccup?”

“That riddle is just silly,” Beth told him. “I hope you won't tell it at the talent show. And you always talk too fast when you tell your jokes.”

“Fast talking makes my jokes even funnier.”

Eric said, “Beth and I will juggle. That's not silly.”

“And I'll do memory tricks,” Cam Jansen said.

Mr. Jansen was driving everyone to the senior center. Cam was in the front seat of the car, next to her father. Her friends Eric, Danny, and Beth were in the backseat.

Cam and her father help out at the senior center. This year they helped plan the Fall party and talent show. Cam asked her friends to be in the show. This was Eric, Danny, and Beth's first visit to the senior center.

“So, what color is a hiccup?” Danny asked again.

Mr. Jansen stopped the car. He waited for the traffic light to change to green.

“How could we know the answer to that?” Mr. Jansen asked Danny. “We've heard hiccups, but we've never seen one.”

“It's burple,” Danny said, and laughed. “A hiccup is burple.”

The light changed to green. Mr. Jansen turned onto a quiet street with large old houses and big front lawns.

“It's funny,” Danny said. “A hiccup is like a burp and ‘burple' sounds like ‘purple.' So a hiccup is burple.”

“It's silly,” Beth told him.

Mr. Jansen parked his car in front of the senior center. He parked between a blue truck and a yellow truck. Ken's Bake Shop was printed on the side of the blue truck parked in front. Mr. Fancy Fix-It was printed on the side of the yellow truck.

“Look,” Cam said, and pointed. “Lucy Lane is taking pictures.”

“Lucy Lane is a photographer,” Mr. Jansen told Cam's friends. “She will make lots of copies of the pictures. Then Cam and I will help the seniors send them with holiday cards to their friends and family.”

Cam and the others got out of the car. They hurried up the front walk.

“Take my picture,” Danny said to Lucy Lane.

Lucy Lane was standing just a few feet from an old man with a white mustache.

“I will,” she told him. “But first I'm taking Bob's picture.”

“Everybody calls me ‘Old Bob,” the old man said. “I own a bookshop. I was on my way into the center when this nice woman said she'd take my picture.”

“Smile,” Lucy Lane told Old Bob.

He smiled and she took his picture.

Then she turned to Cam and the others.

“Smile, everyone.”

Mr. Jansen, Cam, Eric, and Beth smiled. Danny stuck out his tongue. Lucy Lane took their picture.

Cam looked at Lucy Lane and said, “Smile, please.”

Lucy Lane put her digital camera down. She pushed her hair back and smiled.

Cam blinked her eyes and said,
“Click!”

“Cam, take my picture, too,” Danny said.

Danny stuck his tongue out.

Cam looked at Danny, blinked her eyes and said,
“Click!”

Lucy Lane held up her camera. “Here, take a look,” she said. Danny and the others looked at the picture on the small screen on the back of her camera.

“I'm sorry,” Cam said. “You can't look at the pictures I took. Only I can see them. They're all up here,” she said, and pointed to her head.

Cam has an amazing memory. It's as if she has a camera in her head and pictures there of everything she's seen. When she wants to remember something, Cam just looks at the pictures she has in her head. Cam says
“Click!”
is the sound her mental camera makes when it takes a picture.