Stacey and the Mystery Money

by Ann M. Martin

  “Hi, Betty,” I said to the clerk as we walked in. I’ve gotten to know her, since Claud and I shop there so often.

  “Hi, Stacey,” she said. “I didn’t know you had a little sister!”

  I smiled down at Charlotte, and she grinned up at me. “This is Charlotte Johanssen,” I said. “I’m baby-sitting for her. She’s my little sister for the day.”

  “Maybe she’d like a pair of these stick-on earrings,” Betty said, handing them over the counter.

  “Oh, they’re so cute,” said Charlotte, looking at the tiny pink hearts. “And they match my skirt. But I don’t have very much money left.”

  “Consider them a gift from me,” Betty said, smiling. “Here, I’ll show you how to put them on.” She came out from behind the counter and knelt down in front of Charlotte.

  I walked over to the spinner rack to check out the pierced earrings. I had been looking for a pair to go with my purple jumpsuit. Right away, I saw some that looked just right. They were big purple button-shaped earrings with zigzags of pink on them. I held them up to my ears and looked in the mirror. “These are great,” I said. I checked the price. Four ninety-five. No problem. I pulled out my wallet and walked back to the counter.

  “How do these look?” asked Charlotte, showing me her stick-ons.

  “Terrific!” I said. “Very real. I hope your mother doesn’t think I let you get your ears pierced today.”

  Charlotte giggled and blushed. “I feel grown-up in these,” she said. “Maybe I’ll ask my mom if I can get more, so I can wear them to school.”

  Betty smiled at me. “Uh-oh,” she said. “I’ve started something.”

  I showed her the earrings I wanted and gave her the ten-dollar bill.

  Betty took it and turned to the cash register. Then I saw her shoulders stiffen. She turned back to me and gave me a funny look. Then she looked again at the bill. She rubbed it with her fingers. She held it up to the light. “Stacey,” she said in an odd voice. “I think this bill is counterfeit.”

  Charlotte gasped. So did I. “You’re kidding,” I said.

  “I wish I were,” replied Betty. “But I’m not. My boss is really worried about taking in counterfeit money, and he’s spent a lot of time training us to identify it. I think this bill is fake.”

  “It can’t be,” I said. “I just got it from Bellair’s!”

  “Counterfeit money can be anywhere,” said Betty. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to call the police.”

  “The police?” repeated Charlotte, looking scared all of a sudden. “Are they going to arrest Stacey?”

  I was wondering the same thing.

  “They’ll just want to ask you a lot of questions,” said Betty. “Don’t worry.” She picked up the phone and dialed.

  I felt like running out of the store. But Betty must have read my mind. “You have to wait here until they come,” she said. “I’m really sorry, Stacey. It’ll be okay.”

  Charlotte and I paced around the store, waiting. I was feeling a little dizzy and very nervous. Charlotte was obviously terrified. She kept asking me questions about what the police would do, but I couldn’t answer any of them.

  Finally, two young-looking police officers showed up. One of them had a black mustache, and the other had red hair. Betty introduced me to them, and the red-haired one started to ask me questions about where the bill had come from. The other one examined it closely with a magnifying glass. “It’s fake, all right,” he said, looking up with a frown.

  Charlotte looked as if she were about to cry. I heard her sniff a couple of times.

  “Can you get the clerk at Bellair’s on the phone for me, please?” the red-haired officer asked Betty. “I’m going to have to ask all of you to come down to the station to answer a few more questions.”

  Charlotte began to wail.

  “You can’t arrest Stacey!” cried Charlotte. “You can’t! She didn’t do anything wrong.” She pulled on the officer’s sleeve, trying desperately to make him listen to her.

  “Charlotte,” I said. “He’s not arresting me.” Then I glanced at him. “Are you?” Suddenly I wasn’t so sure.

  “Of course not,” he said. “At least, not right this minute.”

  I gulped, but then I noticed that he was grinning. Charlotte didn’t see his smile, though, and she started to cry even louder. “If Stacey’s getting arrested, so am I,” she wailed through her tears. “Take me, too!” she said to the officer, sticking out her wrists as though she expected him to put handcuffs on her.

  He looked at me and raised his eyebrows. “I think she’s been watching too much TV,” he said jokingly.

  “Charlotte, don’t be so dramatic,” I whispered, trying to be patient. “They’re not arresting me, I promise. And there’s no reason for you to come down to the station.” I turned to the officer. “Can I call my mom over at Bellair’s?” I asked. “She works there, and maybe she can watch Charlotte while I come to the station.” The man nodded, and Betty let me use the phone behind the counter.

  About thirty seconds later, my mom ran into the Merry-Go-Round. She looked pretty upset. Seeing her made me suddenly realize just how upset I was, too. “Mommy!” I said, running into her arms. I hardly ever call her that, but just then I felt like a little kid who needed comfort.

  She held me tight. “It’ll be okay,” she murmured into my hair. “Now, what’s this all about?” she asked the officers.

  “Just following routine procedure, ma’am,” said the one with the mustache. “A counterfeit bill was passed by this young lady,” he pointed at me, “and while we don’t consider her the perpetrator, we do need to question her and the clerks who served her at both stores she visited.”

  “I understand,” said my mother, nodding. “Well, Stacey, I suppose you’d better go with them. I’ll take Charlotte to the store with me, and later on I’ll take her back to her house and tell her parents what happened.” She held out her hand to Charlotte.

  “No!” said Charlotte. “I won’t let Stacey go to prison alone!” She grabbed my hand and held it tightly.

  This time I almost had to fight back a giggle, even though I was feeling so nervous. Or maybe it was because I was nervous that I felt such an urge to laugh. You know how that is, don’t you? Sometimes you feel like laughing at the worst moments, just because you don’t know what else to do. “Charlotte,” I said to her. “I promise I’m not going to prison. I’m just going to talk to the officers and tell them what happened. I’ll call you later, as soon as I get home.” I knelt to give her a hug. “You go on with my mom,” I said. “She’ll take good care of you.”

  My mother gave me a quick squeeze, and Charlotte finally allowed herself to be led away. As she walked next to my mom, she kept looking over her shoulder at me, giving me these tragic glances. I had the feeling she was already trying to figure out how to bake a file into a cake, so that I’d be able to break out of jail.

  By that time, Mrs. Hemphill had arrived at the Merry-Go-Round, and Betty had told her what was going on. “I just can’t believe this,” Mrs. Hemphill kept saying. “In all my days —”

  “Why don’t we go to the station,” said the officer with the mustache, interrupting her. “There are some people down there waiting to hear your story.”

  Mrs. Hemphill looked a little indignant. “Well, I never,” she said. She followed along as we left the store, whispering to Betty about how the police used to have such good manners.

  Two police cars were parked outside the Merry-Go-Round. I headed for one, along with Betty and the red-haired officer, and Mrs. Hemphill went toward the other.

  “Well, this is an adventure,” said Betty, as we sat in the back seat of the cruiser, looking at the wire screen that separated us from the front seat.

  “Do you think we’re going to get in trouble?” I asked quietly. What I really meant was, Do you think I’m going to get in trouble? Betty hadn’t done anything but identify the fake bill. I was the one who had tried to pass it. And hadn’t
Dawn said a person could get into a lot of trouble for doing that?

  “Don’t worry,” said the officer from the front seat. “This is no big deal, I promise you. The worst that’ll happen is that you’ll get bored to death telling your story fifty times.”

  I blushed. I hadn’t intended for the officer to hear my question. But I felt reassured by his answer. Betty reached over and patted my arm. “I’m sure he’s right,” she said. “Everybody knows it wasn’t your fault.”

  I gulped. “I hope that’s true,” I replied. I knew I didn’t look like a counterfeiter, but I also knew that a lot of people don’t trust teenagers. In some stores in the mall, kids are watched really closely, as if the storeowners think they’re going to shoplift or something. That’s not something I’ve been tempted to do, so I’ve always hated being looked at that way. And now I was being taken to the police station for questioning. Even though the officers had told me I wasn’t under suspicion, I felt as if I’d done something wrong. And all I’d done was go shopping! I wasn’t sure I’d ever feel the same way about shopping again.

  We rode through the streets toward the police station. I was sure that people were staring at us as we drove by, wondering why a young girl like me would be sitting in the back of a police cruiser. I scooched down in my seat, hoping we wouldn’t pass by anybody I knew. At least the officer hadn’t turned the siren on, and as far as I knew the blue light on top wasn’t going around and around.

  The Merry-Go-Round isn’t far from the police station, but the ride seemed to last forever. Finally, both cars pulled up behind the station, and the officers led us inside. We walked past the desk where the receptionist sits, down a hall, and into a small, stuffy room. A long table was in the middle of the room, with chairs around it. It looked exactly like the rooms in cop movies, the rooms where they question criminals and try to force them to confess. I tried to think of what my confession would sound like. “I did it,” I would say. “I admit everything. First I bought the headband and then I bought the earrings. Put me away for life, if you must!” Once again, I felt those giggles coming on.

  The officers left Betty and Mrs. Hemphill and me alone in the room, telling us that some other officers would be in to see us soon. As they left, the door slammed shut behind them with a boom. I wondered whether I would find it locked if I tried to open it. Luckily, I didn’t have to wonder long. About two seconds later the door opened, and five people walked in. Three were police officers — not “ours,” but different ones — in uniform. One of them was a woman. Then there was a man in a regular suit and a woman in a dress. I guessed they were plainclothes police.

  They introduced themselves, but I wasn’t really listening. I was feeling nervous and dizzy, and the small room seemed very, very full. But then they started to ask questions, and right away I felt better. Answering questions was something I could do. And all the officers seemed very nice. They didn’t shout, or shine bright lights on us, or threaten us. They just asked simple questions about what had happened.

  Mrs. Hemphill spoke first. She told how I had come into the store, and how pleased she’d been to see Charlotte and me. She went on for quite a while about what a nice young lady I was, and how, while other teenagers are often rude and sullen, I was always pleasant and polite. I saw some of the officers exchanging looks as she rambled on, and the woman in the dress jumped in to get her back on track.

  “Can you tell us about the actual purchase?” she asked Mrs. Hemphill. And Mrs. Hemphill told her, in great detail, how I had found the beaded headband and liked it so much (and how “darling” it looked on me) and paid for it with a twenty-dollar bill. She told them how we’d joked about the bill being counterfeit. And then she told them about the change she gave me.

  “The bill seemed fine to me,” she said. “I didn’t notice a thing wrong with it. Of course, if I had, I never would have given it to Stacey.”

  I was next. I told the same story, except from my point of view. The officers interrupted me more than once, to check on details. First they asked about where my twenty-dollar bill had come from originally. I couldn’t figure out why that mattered, but I told them that I’d gotten it from a client. Then they asked about the ten that Mrs. Hemphill had given me, and whether I’d noticed that it felt different. I hadn’t, of course, and told them so. I showed them the headband I’d bought, along with the receipt. Then I told them what had happened in the Merry-Go-Round. When I mentioned the earrings I had decided to buy, I suddenly realized I’d never gotten them.

  “What happens to that ten-dollar bill, anyway?” I asked. “I mean, I know you have to confiscate it, but do I get reimbursed?”

  The plainclothesman shook his head. “I’m sorry,” he said. “But this is just the way the system works. Sometimes innocent people lose out a little.”

  I was sorry to hear that, but I sure was glad to hear him use the word “innocent.” That meant that they believed my story.

  After I’d finished, Betty told her story. “… and then,” she said, when she got to the part about my handing over the ten-dollar bill, “she gave me the money and I noticed right away that something was strange about it. It just didn’t feel right.”

  “Good work,” said one of the uniformed police officers. “If only everyone was on the ball like that, we’d catch these guys in no time.”

  Betty flushed a little and looked proud. “Well, my boss trained us,” she said. “It’s not so hard if you know what you’re looking for.”

  We had finished telling our stories, so I figured the officers would let us go. I couldn’t wait to get out of that stuffy room. But they surprised me.

  “Okay,” said the plainclothesman. “Now that we’ve got the basics down, we need to go back over all of this information to see if it checks out. Then, after we do that, we have to ask you a few more questions about what you saw in the stores today.”

  I leaned back into my chair. Apparently we’d be stuck there for a while longer. The police started over again with Mrs. Hemphill, reading back her story (they’d been taking notes) and questioning her on every detail. She seemed to enjoy the attention, and went on and on until I felt my eyelids start to droop.

  Then the officers came back to me. They asked me again about the contents of my wallet when I had started out that day. They made me go over and over the exchange of the twenty for the ten and change. They even made me count out my change to make sure it had been correct. “We just need to be absolutely sure that the bill in question did come from the cash register at Bellair’s,” explained the woman in the dress, in a gentle tone. I think she could see that I was becoming impatient with all the questions.

  Betty spoke next. I could tell she was tired of telling about her amazing skills as a counterfeit bill detector. She sounded less proud and more bored every time she went over the details.

  “All right, then,” said the plainclothesman. He seemed to be in charge of the questioning. “Next, we need to ask what each of you saw in the stores this afternoon. Any strange people? Anybody who looked suspicious, for any reason at all? Did anything unusual happen, anything out of your normal routine?” This last question was directed at Mrs. Hemphill.

  By this time, even Mrs. Hemphill seemed bored with talking. Still, she managed to dredge up memories of the customers she had helped that morning. She got fired up again and started to talk in great detail about a mother pushing a stroller with twins in it, a young man looking for a birthday present for his girlfriend, and an elderly woman who wanted a “new look.”

  I expected the officers to break in at any moment and ask her to cut it short, but they didn’t. They seemed to want every last detail. I tuned out a little bit and started to think about my own memories of being in Bellair’s. When the officers began to question me, I was ready. “I saw a man with a hat on,” I remembered. “That seemed strange, since the weather is kind of warm, and anyway he was indoors. I also saw Mr. Fiske, my English teacher, but I didn’t say hello to him because I felt kind of shy. An
d I saw a woman carrying seven shopping bags. I remember, because I counted. I was amazed that anybody could do so much shopping in one day.”

  I was sure that nothing I told them was relevant to the case, but they listened closely anyway, and took notes. Then they turned to Betty again, and then they asked us all to go back one more time and see if we could come up with anything else. I was too exhausted to think by then, but Mrs. Hemphill couldn’t resist adding one more detail about the young mother’s outfit. Then, finally, the officers thanked us and let us go.

  All I wanted to do when I got home was flop down on my bed and sleep for a while. I was so tired out from all that questioning that I could hardly find the energy to tell my mom what had happened. But I did, and then I dialed the Johanssens’ number and spoke to Charlotte. She had calmed down by that time, but she still sounded relieved to know I wasn’t spending the night behind bars.

  When I finished with Charlotte, I was feeling more energetic. I decided to call my friends and tell them about my adventure. And by the time I’d finished talking to all of them, including Kristy, who was sitting at the Hoyts’ that night, we had decided to get together the next day, just so we could discuss my adventure together. This was the most exciting thing to happen in the BSC for quite a while!

  Kristy was looking forward to her job at the Hoyts’. She loves to be the first sitter for a new client. In fact, I think she feels that, as president, she should be the first BSC member to meet new clients. “I see myself as the representative of the club,” she once told me. “I think the clients are impressed that the president of the BSC will be their first sitter. And also, I feel a responsibility to check out new clients so we can be sure they’re okay.”

  Personally, I don’t think it matters which of us sits first, but these things are important to Kristy.

  “Watson told me to come inside with you when we get there,” Charlie said to Kristy as he drove her to the Hoyts’. “Since you don’t really know this family or anything.”