Cam Jansen and the Sports Day Mysteries
Page 1
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Cam Jansen - The Backward Race Mystery
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
Cam Jansen - The Soccer Game Mystery
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
Cam Jansen - The Baseball Glove Mystery
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
Cam Jansen Memory Games
A hit and a missing glove
Eric swung. He hit the ball high over the third baseman’s head.
Everyone still sitting on the bench ran to the fence right behind home plate. Those in Ms. Benson’s class hoped the ball would go over the left fielder’s head. Mr. Dane’s class hoped the ball would be caught.
Cam ran home. She crossed home plate. Then she turned to see what would happen. Beth and Danny were running toward home, too.
Felix, the left fielder, held up his glove. The ball was over his head. He chased after it.
“Go! Go!” Ms. Benson called out.
Eric touched first base. He ran toward second. Felix chased after the ball.
“Go! Go!” Ms. Benson called again.
Eric ran from second to third. Felix grabbed the ball.
Eric touched third base and ran toward
home. Felix threw the ball to Sarah who was standing in front of home plate. The ball reached Sarah before Eric did. Sarah tagged Eric.
“You’re out, Eric!” Mr. Day shouted.
“That’s okay,” Danny said. “Three runs scored. We’re winning, 3-1.”
The players on Mr. Dane’s team walked off the field. The players on Ms. Benson’s team turned from the fence. They went back to the bench.
“Hey,” Hector said. “Where’s my glove?”
“Where’s mine?” Danny asked.
“All our gloves are gone,” Eric said. “Someone stole them.”
PUFFIN BOOKS
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Young Readers Group,
345 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A.
Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario,
Canada M4P 2Y3 (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)
Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland
(a division of Penguin Books Ltd)
Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia
(a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd)
Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park,
New Delhi - 110 017, India
Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale North Shore 0632,
New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd)
Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue,
Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa
Registered Offices: Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
First published in the United States of America by Viking and Puffin Books, divisions of
Penguin Young Readers Group, 2009
Text copyright © David Adler, 2009
Illustrations copyright © Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 2009
Illustrations by Joy Allen
All rights reserved
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Adler, David A.
Cam Jansen and the Sports Day mysteries : a super special /
by David A. Adler ; illustrated by Joy Allen.
p. cm.
Summary: Supersleuth Cam Jansen solves three mysteries
during her class’s Sports and Good Nutrition Day.
eISBN : 978-1-101-15553-0
[1. Schools—Fiction. 2. Sports—Fiction. 3. Mystery and detective stories.]
I. Allen, Joy, ill. II. Title.
PZ7.A2615Caqln 2009
[Fic]
2008029568
The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any
responsibility for author or third-party Web sites or their content.
http://us.penguingroup.com
For Dr. Reneé M. Hamada
Happy 36th!
—D.A.
To Jeff and Isaac, my baseball boys!
—J.A.
Cam Jansen
The Backward Race Mystery
CHAPTER ONE
“Look at my face,” Danny said. “You’ll really want to remember it. One day you’ll say you went to school with the great Danny Pace.”
Beth shook her head. “That’s not what I’ll say,” she told him. “I’ll say I went to school with corny Danny Pace.”
“I’m great at sports,” Danny said. “I might win an Olympic gold medal.
“Maybe you’ll win a medal, but it will be for bad jokes,” Beth said.
Danny pretended to swing a baseball bat. “Bam!” he said. “Just wait until I come to bat in the baseball game. I’ll hit the ball a mile.”
Danny was holding a baseball glove. He pretended it was a bat and swung it right into Cam Jansen.
“Ow!” Cam said. “Put that away.”
“I’m sorry,” Danny said.
He put his glove on his head.
Today was Sports and Good Nutrition Day for the fifth grade. Fifth graders would go to Franklin Park. They would run races, play soccer and baseball, and have a picnic lunch.
“Franklin Park is much bigger than our schoolyard,” Cam Jansen’s teacher, Ms. Benson, had told the class. “That’s why we’re going there instead of having Sports Day at school.”
Cam Jansen and her class were walking to the park. The other fifth-grade class, Mr. Dane’s class, was ahead of them.
Ms. Benson turned and held up her hands. The children stopped. “Please,” she said. “Let’s stay together.”
“Stay together,” Danny’s father said as he walked toward the back of the line.
Mr. Pace and several other parents had come along to help. Mrs. Wayne had come along, too. She was the principal’s secretary.
“Hey,” Mr. Pace whispered when he came to Danny. “When I was in fifth grade I was really great at sports. Do you know how high I could jump? I could jump higher than a house.”
“Wow,” Danny said. “That’s really high!”
“Sure,” his father told him. He laughed. “A house can’t jump.”
“Listen to this,” Danny told his father. “Yesterday in school I saw an egg in the hall. Do you know where it came from?”
“Did it come from the cafeteria?” Mr. Pace asked.
“No,” Danny said and shook his head. “It came from a hen.”
“Those jokes are terrible,” Beth said. “Let’s get to the park.”
“We’ll play baseball when we get there,” Danny said. “We’re playing against Mr. Dane’s class.”
Danny stepped back, took his hands from his pockets, and swung his pretend bat again.
“I think the races are first,” Mr. Pace told his son. “Then you play soccer.”
“Cam can tell us,” Eric Shelton said. He was Cam’s best friend. “The schedule was on the board in our room. Cam just has to look at the pictures she has in her head.”
Cam has wha
t people call a photographic memory. It’s as if she has lots of photographs in her head, pictures of everything she’s seen. To remember something, she just looks at the pictures.
Cam closed her eyes. She said, “Click!”
Click is the sound a camera makes when it takes a picture. It’s also the sound Cam makes when she looks at the pictures she has in her head.
“The races are first,” Cam said with her eyes still closed. “There’s an egg-balancing race, a potato-sack race, and a backward race. We rest. Then we play soccer, eat lunch, rest some more, and then play baseball.”
Cam’s real name is Jennifer, but when people found out about her amazing photographic memory, they called her “The Camera.” Soon “The Camera” became just “Cam.”
Danny said, “The races and games are all against Mr. Dane’s class. We’ve got to beat them!”
Ms. Benson and her class walked past a bookstore, a fruit store, and a bank.
“That’s Zelda’s Bakery,” Beth said, and pointed to a store near the end of the block. “They make a chocolate cupcake with rainbow sprinkles. It’s great.”
“Cupcakes have lots of sugar,” Mr. Pace told Beth. “I don’t think anyone should eat lots of rainbow-sprinkle cupcakes.”
“My dad buys the oat bran muffins,” Eric said. “He says they are good for him.”
Just then two old women hurried out of Zelda’s.
“They’re coming this way,” Danny said.
Four other people hurried out of Zelda’s. They went the other way.
Eric said, “There must be trouble at Zelda’s.”
“Maybe the sprinkles are fighting,” Danny said. “Maybe they’re jumping off the cupcakes.”
“This isn’t funny,” Beth told him. “Those women look scared.”
CHAPTER TWO
Eric said, “Maybe there’s a fire at Zelda’s. Fires are scary.”
Cam watched the front of Zelda’s. She wondered if anyone else would leave the store.
“The two women are coming this way,” Beth said. “Let’s ask them what happened.”
They were walking slower now. One was tall and thin. The other was short and heavy. They walked past Ms. Benson and the children at the front of the line.
The larger woman stopped by the bank. She leaned against the wall. She put her hand to her heart.
“I have to rest,” she said.
The thin woman stopped, too.
“Hello,” Mr. Pace said to them. “Are you okay?”
The thin woman looked at her friend. “I’m okay,” she said. “Sadie, are you okay?”
“Yes, Martha,” the woman named Sadie said.
“What happened at Zelda’s?” Beth asked.
Cam looked away from the front of the bakery. She wanted to hear what happened at Zelda’s.
“It was horrible,” Martha told Beth. “‘Give me your money.’ That’s what he said.”
“That’s what who said?” Beth asked.
“The man with the floppy red hat said that,” Martha answered. “He sounded angry.”
“He talked real fast. I think he was in a hurry,” Sadie said. “I think maybe he was on his way to his job. Maybe he didn’t want to be late.”
Martha shook her head and said, “You’re wrong, Sadie. That was his job. He’s a thief.”
“What else was he wearing?” Eric asked.
“He wore that big red floppy hat, an old blue jacket, blue jeans, blue sneakers, and large sunglasses,” Martha answered. “We saw his clothing, but we didn’t see his face. The hat and sunglasses hid it.”
“That’s right,” Sadie said. “He also had something green with a wire attached in his ear. I think it was an earphone.”
Martha said, “I think he was listening to music.”
Cam closed her eyes. She said, “Click!”
“I saw him,” Cam said with her eyes still closed. “Just after you ran out of Zelda’s, he left, too. He went the other way.”
Cam opened her eyes.
“Hey,” Danny said. “We’re going that way. Maybe we’ll see him.”
Sadie stepped away from the wall. She took a deep breath and said, “I feel better now.”
“If we see a man in a big floppy red hat,” Danny’s father said, “we’ll call the police. I brought along a cell phone.”
“He took only three dollars from me,” Sadie said. “That’s because I take along only as much money as I need. I was buying a loaf of bread, so I just needed three dollars.”
“He took more from me,” Martha said. “He took lots more money and my gold bracelet.” She wiped away a tear. “My children gave me that bracelet for Mother’s Day.”
“We have to go to the park,” Mr. Pace said.
Sadie told Martha, “You’ll buy another bracelet. Your children will never know the one they gave you was stolen.”
“But I’ll know,” Martha said.
“Let’s go,” Mr. Pace told Danny and the others.
“My friend Cam Jansen will catch the thief,” Eric told the two women. “She’s a great detective. She’ll get your bracelet and money back, too.”
“Let’s go,” Danny’s father said again.
“Yes,” Mrs. Wayne added. “Let’s go.”
Cam, Danny, and Beth followed Mr. Pace and Mrs. Wayne.
Eric waited until the others were a few steps ahead. Then he whispered to the women, “Don’t worry. Cam is amazing. She’ll get your things back.”
Sadie took a small card from her purse. She wrote on it. “This is my telephone number. Call me when she gets our things.”
Eric took the small card. Then he ran to catch up with the others.
CHAPTER THREE
A police car sped past Cam and her friends. It stopped in front of Zelda’s. Two police officers got out. They went into the bakery.
Mrs. Wayne said, “I wonder what’s happening in there.”
“I’m wondering, too,” Danny said. “I’m going in.”
“No you’re not,” his father told him. “You’re going with us to Franklin Park.”
As they walked past Zelda’s, Cam, Eric, Mrs. Wayne, and Danny looked in. Two police officers were there. They were talking to a very thin woman.
“That thin woman is Zelda,” Eric whispered to Cam. “She loves to bake.”
“Let’s go,” Mr. Pace said.
Just past Zelda’s was a narrow driveway. Along one side of the driveway was Zelda’s. Along the other side was a tall metal fence. At the end of the driveway was a large open metal trash container.
“Hey, look at that!” Danny said. “There is something red in the trash.”
Danny hurried down the driveway.
“Wait! Wait!” his father called.
Mr. Pace hurried after his son.
Cam and Eric watched Danny step onto a wooden box by the side of the trash bin. He reached into the trash and took out something red.
“Look at this!” Danny said as he ran toward Cam.
Danny had a large red hat.
“I found it in the garbage,” Danny said. “It was right on top.”
“You shouldn’t have taken that hat,” Mr. Pace said. “I don’t want you mixed up in any robbery. We should give that hat to the police and then go to the park.”
“Yes, let’s go,” Beth said. “Ms. Benson is way ahead of us. Everyone is way ahead of us.”
“Danny, that hat is a clue,” Mr. Pace told his son. “You must give it to the police.”
“But I like this hat,” Danny said. “Look at me.”
He put on the floppy red hat. He turned so everyone could see how he looked.
“Ha!” Beth said. “I bet crooks don’t wash their hair much. I bet that hat has cooties.”
“Cooties!” Danny said.
He threw the hat to the ground.
“I’m giving that to the police,” Mrs. Wayne said. “But first, I’m looking in the trash for more clues.”
Mrs. Wayne took the hat off the ground. Then she wal
ked along the driveway toward the trash bin.
“Come on,” Cam whispered to Eric. “Let’s go with her.”
Mrs. Wayne, Cam, and Eric hurried down the driveway. Eric stood on the box by the side of the bin and looked in.
“Just look,” Mrs. Wayne told him. “Don’t touch anything.”
Eric said, “I see a large pair of sunglasses.”
Cam told Eric to look for a blue jacket.
“There it is,” Eric said. “And there’s a green wire hanging out of the pocket. I bet that’s the wire Sadie and Martha saw.”
Cam and Eric looked around the trash bin. The area was clean. The driveway and backyard of the bakery were surrounded by the metal fence.
Eric said, “We knew the thief was wearing a large red hat, sunglasses, a jacket, and an earpiece with a green wire. Those were our only clues. Now that the thief is not wearing this stuff we’ll never find him.”
“I’m giving this hat to the police. And I’m telling them where to find these other things,” Mrs. Wayne said. “Then we have to get to the park.”
Because of the fence, there was no way out of the backyard except down the driveway.
“Look!” Mrs. Wayne said. “We don’t have to walk around. There’s a back door to the bakery.”
Mrs. Wayne opened the door. She, Cam, and Eric walked past large ovens, two women mixing dough, a young man decorating a cake with icing, and a young man taking loaves of bread from an open oven.
“You can’t be here,” one of the women told Mrs. Wayne, Cam, and Eric.
“They’re with me,” Mrs. Wayne said. “I’m Dr. Prell’s secretary. She’s the principal.”
“This is a bakery, not a school,” one of the women told Mrs. Wayne.
“Okay,” Mrs. Wayne said. “We’re leaving.”
She walked with Cam and Eric past the workers to the front of the store.
One of the police officers was a tall woman. The other was a not-so-tall man with a short beard.
“Hey, aren’t you the clicking girl?” the not-so-tall officer with the short beard asked Cam. “Do you remember me? I’m Officer Gil Oppen. I met you at your school.”