Mystery in the Mall (7 page)

“No buts about it,” Hap said. “Penny was missing these shipments, and you had them.”

With that, Hap pushed the hand truck down the hall. He hit the freight elevator button. When the elevator arrived, he rolled the hand truck inside. The doors closed, and Hap and dozens of coconut monkeys disappeared into the depths of the mall.

The children had called Mrs. Frye to let her know that they would be home soon. Since Janet and Hap didn’t want the Aldens around, it wasn’t as much fun visiting Hope Harbor Mall anymore.

As the children walked along Waterfront Street, Benny noticed his grandfather’s car parked up ahead. “Grandfather’s back from his trip,” he said.

This cheered up all the children.

“We can have dinner together,” Violet said. “There’s a lot to tell him. This visit didn’t turn out to be the way we thought it would.”

As the children drew closer to Mr. Bolt’s house, their grandfather came out of the house.

Benny skipped ahead to get the first hug. “Grandfather! You’re back.”

Mr. Alden couldn’t put out his arms to hug Benny. He was holding something he had found on the front steps of Mr. Bolt’s house, something round and hairy.

“My monkey!” Benny cried when he noticed what Mr. Alden had in his hands. “Where did you get it?”

Mr. Alden read a note taped to the monkey:

“Dear Benny,

I found out this belonged to you after I found it at the mall. I hope you are glad to get it back.

A Friend”

Grandfather Alden then said, “Goodness, Benny, how did your monkey get all the way from that garbage truck to Mr. Bolt’s house?”

Benny hugged the monkey to his chest. “Oh, this isn’t the one I lost. I mean, well, I lost this one, too, but it’s a new one.”

One by one, the other children came up to their grandfather for hugs.

“I have a feeling there’s a story that goes with that monkey,” Mr. Alden said. “First I found it on these steps with a note. Now Benny says this monkey isn’t the one that was missing. Would somebody tell me what has been going on while Martin and I were gone?”

By this time, Martin Bolt had come outside to help with the luggage. He looked just as confused as Mr. Alden when the children began to tell them about the last few days. “Goodness, I’m sorry you children had such a rough time of it. Nothing exciting ever happens when I’m there.”

Benny smiled up at his grandfather’s old friend. “Oh, we had a good time, but sometimes not. Anyway, we like it when exciting things happen.”

Mr. Bolt smiled at this. “Listen, now that we’ve unpacked the car, I’d like to go back to the mall. Then we can have a late dinner there.”

Benny tilted his head to look at Jessie’s watch. “The mall closes in a while. We can’t stay there because Hap doesn’t like that. It’s the rule.”

Now Mr. Bolt threw his head back and laughed. “That’s my rule! But since I own the mall, I think we can break that rule tonight.”

Benny’s face lit up. “Goody! Now nobody can kick us out.”

The children walked back to the mall with their grandfather and Mr. Bolt. They told them more about the mysterious happenings.

“Here’s a mystery,” Jessie said. “Who returned Benny’s second monkey?”

Benny shook the monkey to hear it rattle. “Know what? This coconut Grandfather found doesn’t rattle. It’s empty.”

Henry picked it up. “Hey, this isn’t the one I gave you, Benny, just one that looks like it. Now things are getting stranger than ever.”

“Your grandfather and I have a few calls to make in my office,” Mr. Bolt said. “You children can come up now or hang around the mall for a half hour until we’re finished. What do you say?”

The Aldens weren’t children who liked to hang around when they had to finish solving a mystery.

“We’re going to find out who left this monkey at your house,” Benny said.

The other children nodded in agreement. They were going to get to the bottom of this.

Their first stop was Penny’s store. When they showed up, Hap and Janet were standing outside the shop, arguing. They grew silent when they noticed the Aldens staring at them.

“I think I left something in the storeroom,” Jessie told Janet. “We’ll only be a minute.”

Before Janet could answer, the children walked briskly through Penny’s shop and went straight to the storeroom.

“There are the monkey boxes,” Henry said. “Hap must have brought them back here. But it looks as if some of the coconuts are missing from the boxes. I bet the one Grandfather found with the note came from here.”

“Hey, I just remembered something,” Benny said. He reached into his jeans pocket and pulled out the note he had found at the restaurant. It was wrinkled, but he could still see the handwriting. “It’s the same as the handwriting on the monkey note. Maybe Janet wrote it, even though these aren’t her initials.”

“Or that crewman,” Violet said. “Remember, he was at the restaurant with Janet, too?”

“Are you talking about me?” Janet said, standing in the doorway. “And why are you shaking those?” she asked when she saw Benny pick up each coconut and shake it.

“To see if they make noise,” Benny said. “The one I lost made noise, but this one doesn’t. It’s not the same one.”

The Aldens were shaking all the coconuts now.

“None of these make noise,” Jessie said. “Where are all the other ones that were in these boxes?”

Janet was about to answer when the back door of the storeroom opened. The young crewman stood in the doorway. In his arms were two boxes of plastic souvenir snow globes. “Oops,” he said. “Wrong door.”

Henry stepped forward. “No, it’s the right door, and you know it’s the right door. We’ve already figured out that you and Janet know each other and that you’ve been coming to the storeroom on purpose. The only thing we don’t know is why.”

“Maybe you can start out by explaining why you have those snow globes,” Jessie said. “They belong to Penny, and there’s no reason you should have them. But you do.”

Janet and the young man looked at each other.

Benny took the wrinkled note and showed it to the crewman. “Did you write this note?” Then he held up the other note. “And this one?”

The crewman looked at Janet. The storeroom was so quiet everyone could hear one another breathing.

That’s when Penny appeared in the doorway. “Everybody come out here. Mr. Bolt, Hap, and Mr. Alden are here. We all have a lot of questions to ask.”

Janet and the crewman stepped back.

“We have other things to do,” Janet told Penny.

Jessie slipped behind Janet, blocking the door.

“Something odd has been going on with my shipments,” Penny said. “Before I call in the customs inspectors to look things over, I want to give you a chance to tell me why things have been missing from my shop. I’ve locked the shop for now, so we don’t have to worry about being interrupted.”

Janet and the crewman exchanged glances.

Janet looked up. “I guess I’ll go first. First of all, this is my brother, Robert Trainor. He’s been working on a freighter for the last six months to pay back some debts.”

Robert Trainor looked around the room at all the upset faces. “I’d better tell this part, so my sister doesn’t get blamed for everything. I got involved with some people who were trying to smuggle some antique counting stones back from the South Seas. They’re marked pebbles people used a long time ago to figure out math problems. They are quite valuable to collectors. But they’re even more valuable to the people on those islands. They were stolen from a museum.”

“Did you take them?” Mr. Alden asked.

“No!” Janet interrupted. “Robert isn’t good with money but he’s not a thief.”

The crewman shook his head. “No, I’m not a thief, but I might as well be. I guess I’m just not too smart. I got a job on a freighter and learned there were smugglers on board. They found out my sister worked at a shop in Hope Harbor where the boat was coming in. They hid the counting stones in some of the shipments that were coming here. They figured if anyone got caught, it would be Janet, not them and me. I should have reported them right away when I discovered what they were doing, but I was afraid. I just went along with everything until the ship pulled into Hope Harbor.”

“My coconut!” Benny cried. “Were those counting stones inside my monkey?”

For the first time, both Janet and Robert Trainor almost smiled.

“No. But we did check all the coconut monkeys we could track down,” Janet explained. “Some just had nutshells inside to make noise. A few of them had the smuggled counting stones. But not yours, Benny, not even the one I took from under the counter.”

Robert Trainor picked up where his sister left off. “See, the smugglers hid the stones inside some of the monkeys and some of those plastic snow globes. Janet and I tried to look through all of them so we could return them to the museum.” Robert paused and looked at Martin Bolt. “Call up Mr. Hana, the owner of the South Seas Shop. He’ll tell you how we tried to get the stones back to their rightful place. Honest.”

“I know Mr. Hana quite well,” Martin Bolt said. “I’ll call him right now.”

While Mr. Bolt made his phone call in the back of the store, Benny looked at his silent coconut. “What happened to the one I had that did rattle?”

Janet lowered her eyes. “We cracked it, trying to find out what was inside. So we replaced it with another one. But we forgot to pick one that rattled. I know I wasn’t nice to you, but it was because I was afraid my brother would be arrested with the smugglers. Every time Robert and I tried to check the shipments, the four of you would show up. I even came back here the night you got locked in Penny’s shop.”

Jessie looked at Robert. “Were you the person who called the shop that night, then hung up?”

Robert nodded. “Yes. I thought it was Janet answering, so I came over. We returned to the mall after it was closed and waited for you to leave. I even tried to get a job at the jeans store because you kids were making it so hard for me and Janet to check shipments together. I found your monkey in the jeans store, but the saleswoman took it away.”

Penny Block looked upset now. “Janet, I don’t understand some things. Why did you go off to work in another shop?”

“I’m sorry,” Janet apologized. “I thought if I got to know Mr. Hana, he could help us find out how to return the counting stones to the museum. We’re not criminals.”

By this time, Martin Bolt had rejoined everyone. “These two young people are not only not criminals,” he announced, “they risked their safety tracking down the counting stones before the smugglers could claim them. When Mr. Hana heard their story, he called the customs inspectors. He just told me they found one box in a secret hiding place on the ship.”

“The trapdoor I saw!” Benny shouted.

“Quite right, Benny,” Martin Bolt said. “Mr. Hana has been working with the authorities. He advised Robert to leave one box on the ship. The inspectors boarded the ship and ordered the smugglers to open the trapdoor. Only this time, the smugglers were trapped!”

Everyone stopped talking when they heard someone banging on the door to Penny’s shop.

Penny went to the front door. Hap was standing there knocking on the door. “That Hap. He’s always around just when I don’t need him to be,” Penny whispered. “I’d better explain what’s happening, or he’ll just burst right through those doors.”

“You’re supposed to be open, Penny,” Hap said, stepping into the shop. “Anything wrong around here? I hope that young woman didn’t tell you about the tiff we had. I found out she was the one who threw out your shipping orders so you wouldn’t know about some missing shipments. Good thing you have me around to keep an eye on things.”

“We thought you had something to do with Penny’s missing shipments,” Henry confessed to Hap.

“And my monkey!” Benny interrupted. “Don’t forget my monkey. It was on the cleaning cart the other night, and Hap wouldn’t give it back.”

Mr. Bolt stood in front of Hap. “Were you cleaning up the food court again, Hap? This isn’t the job of my chief manager, you know. Not to mention trying to run Penny’s shop half the time. I need you for the big jobs. These other folks can do the other jobs.”

Hap looked at Penny. Everyone noticed his ears getting as pink as could be. “Well, I like helping Penny, but I can’t get her to help me back.”

Penny looked at Hap for a long time. “What do you mean?”

“By keeping me company once in a while,” Hap confessed. “Until these Alden kids showed up, Penny and I were getting to know each other pretty well. Then they had to take up all her time with those monkeys and such. I haven’t got a chance with these noisy kids around.”

Penny smiled at Hap as if she were seeing him for the first time. “Well, if you like me, then you’d better get used to noisy kids. I plan to ask the Aldens to come back to Hope Harbor Mall anytime they want. They’re good for my business.”

“Good for your monkey business, you mean,” Benny said.

G
ERTRUDE
C
HANDLER
W
ARNER
discovered when she was teaching that many readers who like an exciting story could find no books that were both easy and fun to read. She decided to try to meet this need, and her first book,
The Boxcar Children,
quickly proved she had succeeded.