Mystery in the Fortune Cookie (5 page)

Henry said only, “We’re still working on it.” He didn’t want to talk about it in front of Martin.

“Well, let me know what happens,” said Dottie. “I’m fascinated.” Spotting Lucy, she hurried away to say hello, with Martin right behind her.

Benny’s eyes widened in excitement as Angela handed him his cone with the fortune cookie on top.

The Aldens paid for their ice cream and sat down at a small table by the window. Benny wasted no time removing the cookie, breaking it open, and pulling out the little white slip of paper.

“Will you read it, Jessie?” he said, handing her the fortune.

Jessie studied it for a moment, then she frowned.

“Is it a clue?” Benny asked her.

“I’m not sure,” she said.

“Don’t keep us in the dark, Jessie,” Henry pleaded. “What does it say?”

Jessie tucked her hair behind her ears and read aloud:

“Twenty-four plus two,

Will give you a clue.”

Benny crinkled his brow. “What does
that
mean?”

Jessie shrugged. Benny looked at Henry and then at Violet. They didn’t seem to have any answers, either.

“Do the
i
’s have little hearts over them?” Violet couldn’t help asking. “Like the last fortune, I mean.”

Jessie nodded. “
And
it’s neatly printed by hand in blue ink.”

Violet felt a shiver go up her spine. This was getting more and more mysterious.

“Is there a message on the other side?” Henry wanted to know.

Jessie hadn’t thought of that. She turned the fortune over. Instead of a message, there were numbers grouped together. Jessie read them aloud:

“6-9-14-4 4-18-21-13 11-5-12-12-5-18 9-14 20-8-5 3-5-12-12-1-18.”

“Wow!” Benny was so interested in the latest fortune, he had forgotten all about his ice-cream cone. “I bet it’s a secret code!” he said, his voice rising in excitement.

Jessie looked around and realized that Martin and Lucy were staring at them. “We can’t really talk here,” she said quietly.

Henry nodded. “Let’s go.”

Dottie suddenly called out to the children. “Nothing mysterious in
my
fortune cookie.” She was sitting at a corner table with Martin and Lucy. “How about yours?”

The Aldens all looked at each other, not sure what to say. “A bunch of numbers,” Jessie said at last.

Dottie nodded. “
Lucky
numbers, no doubt.” She looked disappointed.

On their way out, Jessie stopped at the counter. “I was just wondering, Angela,” she said. “Where do you get your fortune cookies?”

Angela waved the question off. “Oh, most grocery stores carry them. Anybody can buy boxes of fortune cookies. Why do you ask, Jessie?”

“Oh, no reason,” Jessie said with a shrug. When she turned around, she noticed that Martin was watching them closely, his eyes narrowed.

“Do you think Dottie’s right?” Benny asked as they went outside. “About lucky numbers, I mean.”

“No,” Henry said firmly. “I think
you’re
right, Benny. It’s definitely some kind of code.”

As they finished their ice cream and walked to their bikes, Jessie looked back over her shoulder. She couldn’t shake the feeling that they were being watched. Was it just her imagination, or was somebody following them?

“What is it, Jessie?” Henry asked. He could see that something was troubling her.

“Nothing really,” said Jessie, keeping her voice low. She didn’t want to frighten Violet and Benny, who were walking ahead. “I just feel like we’re being watched.”

Henry stopped in the middle of the sidewalk and looked behind him. “I don’t see anyone.”

Jessie looked back down the street also. She saw only shoppers coming and going, the same as always. Licking a drop of strawberry ice cream from the back of her hand, she said, “It’s probably nothing.” But there was a small part of her that didn’t believe it for a minute.

The Aldens puzzled and puzzled over the strange coded message. But the next afternoon, they were still stumped. None of them had seen a code like this before. Even Aunt Jane, who had been eager to see the latest fortune, couldn’t come up with any answers.

“How are we going to figure out this clue?” said Violet. She turned down the heat under the alphabet soup. The four children were busy making lunch. While they worked, they discussed the case.

“Why don’t we go over what we know about the mystery,” suggested Henry, who was squeezing lemons to make lemonade.

“Which one?” Benny set the soup bowls on the table. “The mystery we found inside the fortune cookie? Or the mystery of who put it there and why?”

“And don’t forget the third mystery,” Henry added. “
Somebody
has a secret identity!”

Jessie was buttering the bread for sandwiches. “At least that’s what Angela and Lucy think.”

Benny suddenly frowned. “But ... what exactly is a secret identity?”

Henry added water and sugar to the lemon juice. “It means there’s more to somebody than meets the eye,” he told his brother. “A person with a secret identity sometimes goes by another name. An alias.” He stirred the lemonade with a big wooden spoon.

“Do you think that somebody in Elmford has a secret identity?” Jessie wondered.

“Could be,” said Violet. “Martin was talking on the phone about something fishy going on, remember?”

“And he mentioned somebody named Drum Keller,” Henry recalled. He thought about this for a minute, then he got out Aunt Jane’s phone book and began thumbing through the white pages. Finally, he turned to the others. “Just as I suspected. There’s no listing in Elmford for Drum Keller.”

Jessie raised an eyebrow. “Are you sure?” she said, walking over.

“It ought to be right here.” Henry had the phone book opened on the counter. He placed his finger halfway down the page.

“Drum Keller might be new in town,” offered Violet. “Maybe his or her phone isn’t connected yet. Or maybe Drum Keller is just a nickname.”

“Maybe,” said Henry. But he didn’t sound as if he believed it. “Or ... maybe somebody in town used to go by that name but doesn’t anymore.”

“You think Drum Keller is somebody’s secret identity?” Benny’s eyes were huge.

“Could be,” said Henry.

Violet looked over at Henry as she stirred the soup. “Why would someone in Elmford need a secret identity?”

Putting the phone book away, Henry shrugged a little. “I have no idea,” he answered. “Maybe there’s somebody here who wants to hide something from his past.”

Benny placed the soup bowls on the table. “Dottie didn’t want to talk about
her
past,” he reminded them. “Remember?”

“Oh, Benny!” cried Violet. “You don’t really think Dottie has a secret identity, do you?”

Benny thought a bit. “Well, she didn’t want to talk about her hometown,” he argued. “She said the past was best forgotten.”

“That’s because it made her sad to think about her husband,” put in Violet. “That’s all it was.”

Jessie frowned as she brought over the egg salad sandwiches. She thought there was more to it than that. But she didn’t say anything.

“I still wonder what the man in the bookstore meant,” said Henry. “About a mysterious disappearance, I mean.” He poured lemonade into Benny’s pink cup. Benny had found the cracked pink cup when they were living in the boxcar. He always brought it with him when they traveled.

“Just one mystery at a time, remember?” Violet said as they sat down at the table. “If we put our heads together, maybe we can figure out the fortune cookie mystery.” And the others agreed.

Benny helped himself to a sandwich. “One thing’s for sure, somebody in Elmford knows we’re detectives.”

“What makes you say that, Benny?” Violet wanted to know.

“Well, why else would we keep getting those mysterious fortunes?” he said.

“We can’t be certain, Benny,” said Henry. “But it does seem like those fortunes were meant just for us.”

Jessie agreed. “Nobody else seems to be getting any weird messages — and we got
two
.”

“That means Angela’s fortune cookies didn’t come from the grocery store,” Benny pointed out. “I wonder why she lied to us.”

Jessie thought about this. “Angela didn’t actually say that’s where
she
got them, Benny.”

Benny looked confused.

“When I asked about the fortune cookies,” Jessie went on, “Angela said anybody can buy them at the grocery store.”

“You’re right, Jessie,” Violet realized. “She didn’t actually say that’s where
she
got
hers
.” She swallowed a spoonful of alphabet soup. “Maybe Angela and Auntie Two put the weird messages in the fortune cookies.”

The others had to admit it was possible. After all, Angela had invented Fortune Cookie Delight as the Mystery Flavor of the Week. And weren’t Angela and Auntie Two both trying to drum up business? What could be a better sales gimmick than hiding clues inside fortune cookies?

“I still think our best suspect is Lucy,” Benny insisted. He drained the last of his lemonade. “We never got any weird fortunes at the Kowloon Restaurant until she started working for Auntie Two.”

“It
was
kind of funny that she was at the ice cream parlor,” Henry said after a moment’s thought, “just when Benny got another strange fortune.”

“Dottie was there, too.” Jessie poured more lemonade. “And she seems to be taking quite an interest in the mystery.”

Benny nodded. “She wanted to sniff out clues.”

“We’re forgetting a suspect,” Violet said. “Martin.”

Henry put down his soup spoon. “Martin’s up to something, all right. I’m just not sure it has anything to do with the fortune cookie mystery.”

“Unless ... ” Violet began and then stopped herself.

“Are you wondering if the whole town is in on this?” Jessie asked. Then she quickly added, “I don’t blame you, Violet. I’ve wondered about that myself.”

“Perhaps we shouldn’t mention the mystery to anyone,” Violet suggested. “I think we should figure out a few things on our own first.”

Henry nodded. “And we’ll keep a close eye on all of them — Martin, Dottie, Lucy, Angela, and Auntie Two.”

“If only we could figure out what the numbers mean.” Benny took a bite of his sandwich while he thought about it. Then he pulled the fortune from his shirt pocket.
“Twenty-four plus two,/ Will give you a clue,”
he mumbled because his mouth was full. “Twenty-four plus two makes twenty-six.” He scratched his head. “The number twenty-six isn’t much to go on.”

Henry stared at Benny. A funny look came over his face.

“Is anything wrong, Henry?” asked Jessie.

Henry didn’t answer. As he looked down at his bowl of steaming soup, an idea began to form in his mind. Then he slapped his forehead with the palm of his hand. “Of course!” he suddenly said, more to himself than anyone else. “We should have known.”

“Henry?” Jessie asked. “Tell us what you’re thinking.”

Henry was smiling. “The answer to the code is right here!” he told them. He sounded excited.

“Where?” Benny sat up straighter and stopped eating.

“Right here in this bowl,” answered Henry, stirring the soup a little with his spoon. The alphabet noodles swirled around and around.

The others stared at Henry. They looked totally confused. What on earth did alphabet soup have to do with the mysterious code?

“When Benny mentioned the number twenty-six,” said Henry, “something just clicked. That’s exactly how many letters are in the alphabet!” Henry paused to look at his brother and sisters, hoping they would understand what he was driving at. Seeing their puzzled expressions, he explained, “It suddenly hit me, what if each number stands for a different letter in the alphabet?”

Henry stood up and went to get a piece of paper and a pencil. When he sat down again, he printed the alphabet. Then under each letter, he carefully printed a number.