The Case of the Old Man in the Mailbox

by Brian C. Jacobs

  Chapter 14

  Something Smells Rotten in Canada

  My third period class met in the classroom first in order to take roll and then went to the library, so by the time I got to the front desk, Scooter and AJ were already gone. I looked around and spotted them across the room, sitting at one of the library computers where students could go to check e-mail, surf the web, and (every once in a while) actually research something school-related.

  “Hey, guys,” I said as I walked up. “What do we know so far?”

  “I went to the furniture gallery website,” Scooter said without looking up. He was clicking on various tabs, looking at the different styles of furniture that the company offered. He stopped when he found the page that showed a couch looking identical to the one down in the shelter—I mean, our headquarters.

  “I found the type of furniture Mr. Mathisen has… actually, that we have. But I don’t see any notice anywhere on this website that they have a recall on this or any other line of furniture.”

  “What do you think that means?” AJ asked.

  “Well, like I said, it all smells fishy to me,” he responded. “But maybe they just haven’t updated their website.”

  “Well, let’s call them,” I suggested. “We should be able to get an answer out of them over the phone.”

  “Yeah, but they are up in Vancouver, Canada. We will have to wait until we get home to call, since it would be an international call. Hopefully, they will still be open then.”

  “Shoot, I wanted to get to the bottom of this now!” I whined.

  “Actually, we might be able to call from here,” AJ said. “Mrs. Jennings had to make a call last week after Gerald Higgins passed out in the hallway outside our classroom. They thought maybe he was allergic to something, and so they had to call his parents to find out. But they were on a trip with Gerald’s older brother, visiting colleges down in Florida.”

  “I remember that,” I added. “They thought maybe he had a reaction to peanut butter or something.”

  “Yeah, he turned out to be OK—just exhaustion from gym class the period before. Anyway, I was up at the board when she called, so I saw the code she typed in before she dialed the actual phone number that was on the piece of paper she had. I bet if the code worked to call Florida, it will work for an international call, too.”

  “So we just have to find an empty classroom where we can use the phone,” Scooter concluded.

  “Hey, let’s head to mine,” I suggested. “Everyone from my class is right here in the library.”

  “Perfect,” Scooter said as he wrote down the number from the website. We then did our best to nonchalantly move toward the library exit.

  Well, my assumption was correct, and no one was in my classroom when we got there. We all agreed Scooter would watch the door in case anyone headed toward our classroom, AJ would type in the code, and then I would try and fake my way through a conversation with the furniture people without bringing too much attention to myself.

  I walked over to the phone hanging on the wall next to the white board and reached for the receiver when Scooter stopped me.

  “Wait, Ty, this will help.” He reached in his backpack and pulled out a device that looked like a kazoo with a dial on it. He tossed it over to me.

  “This will help you not to sound like an eight-year-old.”

  “Hey, my voice is not that high,” I squawked, and my voice cracked. Talk about bad timing. Scooter and AJ started laughing out loud but quickly recovered, knowing that any minute someone might ruin our “alone time” in the classroom.

  I moved on, “So what is this, anyway?”

  “Oh, just a little something I made a couple of months ago. I call it a pitch dilator. I use it to lower or raise the key of songs hear on the radio so I can play along with my guitar. If you talk through the pitch dilator and turn the knob to about -5 or -6, you should sound a lot more like an adult.”

  “Hmm, OK,” I said. For fun, I turned the knob to +3. “How do I sound?” I spoke into the pitch dilator. The voice we all heard come out sounded like I had just inhaled helium from a balloon.

  “OK, so it works. Let’s do this for real.” I turned the knob to -5 and spoke again, “How about now?”

  The tone had a slight mechanical ring to it, but it definitely made me sound a lot older. And with time running out, it would have to do. If asked, I could always blame the slight metallic ring on a bad phone connection.

  AJ picked up the phone and dialed the code as he remembered: 91269. He immediately got a beep-beep-beep. It sounded like a busy signal. He hung up, picked up the phone, and tried again—same result. He looked up at me. “Uh-oh, I know I have the right number. Mrs. Jennings was saying the numbers under her breath while she dialed them.”

  Our lookout, Scooter, was starting to get a little antsy. “What was the number, Aidge?”

  “91269.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Positive.”

  AJ and me stood silent for a moment with puzzled looks on our faces. Scooter had his “pondering” look on his face. I could almost see the wheels turning behind that frowny-smiley expression.

  Finally, Scooter spoke up, “You said Mrs. Jennings’ class, right?”

  “Yup, fifth period.”

  “And her classroom is down the hall and around the corner, right?”

  “Uh… yeah.”

  “Ok, one sec.” He poked his head out the door for a second. When he came back in, he said, “Try 91359.”

  “But, Scoot, I know I had the ri—”

  “Just do it! 91359.”

  “OK.” AJ reluctantly dialed 91359. The phone gave a click-click and then a dial tone. We stood there stunned for a second, and then I began dialing the furniture gallery. While I finished dialing, Scooter explained.

  “The code is 9, then the room number, and then another 9. I am guessing Mrs. Jennings’ room number is 126. This one is 135.”

  I finished dialing, and as the phone began to ring, I decided I would play the “concerned grandparent” angle with the furniture company. I held Scooter’s pitch contraption up to my mouth and then held the phone as best I could so AJ would also be able to hear what was being said on the other end of the line.

  A young woman answered the phone. “Jungle Furniture Company. How may I direct your call?”

  “Yes, Ma’am, I am not sure who I should ask, but I received a letter from your company announcing a recall of the furniture I purchased. I am concerned about the nature of the recall. I often have my two grandkids over, and I am worried about having dangerous furniture in my home with two little ones running around.”

  “Um, I don’t know, Sir. I am not familiar with a recall on any of our furniture lines. Let me transfer you to customer service,” the voice replied.

  The phone began playing saxophone music. I thought I recognized the tune as the theme song from some movie my sister forced me to watch, but with no words, I couldn’t really place it. I took a moment to tell AJ and Scoot what I had learned so far. Finally, a man picked up on the line.

  “Mr. Mathisen, Mrs. Robins informs me that you have some questions concerning our recall on the A-line of furniture you purchased. My name is Ronald Snelling, and I am head of our Customer Service Department here. What questions can I answer for you? And when can we arrange to pick that furniture up for you?”

  I turned and gave a puzzled look to AJ. I could not remember—had I given Mr. Mathisen’s name when I introduced myself? I didn’t think so. Warning bells were sounding in my head.

  “Mr. Mathisen? Are you there?” Snelling asked.

  “Yes, Sir, I apologize—I must have been listening to the elevator music too long. What did you say was the problem with the furniture?”

  “Actually, I didn’t. But it is a design flaw we’ve discovered, and we felt it best to just refund money and recover the furniture before anyone gets hurt.”

  “Oh no! I have my grandkids come over here often, so I would not wan
t them to be hurt. But I have sort of grown attached to my furniture. Maybe you can explain the problem and I can try and fix it myself? I am pretty good with tools. I—”

  “No, don’t do that, Sir! You mustn’t do that!” Snelling screamed into the phone. His voice then softened. “Er, I mean, you really shouldn’t do that, we would not want to be liable for any harm that comes from that. We strongly suggest you leave the repairs up to us, and like I said, we will gladly refund your money or replace the furniture. We even have some men with a truck in your area. You still live in Silverdale, correct?”

  This conversation was getting a little too close for comfort. I needed to turn the heat down and give us a chance to think this through.

  “Fine, I will let you guys take care of it—but I want a full refund! And yes, I do live in Silverdale, but today is not a good day. I will be over at my daughter’s house until late this evening. Can I call you back tomorrow and make pick-up arrangements?”

  “That would be fine, Mr. Mathisen, and we will have your refund with us when we pick up the furniture. But I strongly encourage you not to delay and let us take care of this as soon as possible.”

  “Thanks for your concern, but like I said, I will not even be home until tomorrow, so it does not make sense to deal with this until then. Good day.”

  I hung up the phone, even though I am pretty sure Snelling was trying to say something else. Without saying another word, I headed toward the door. AJ followed. Scooter joined us at the door, and I handed him back the dilator, and then we hurried back to the library. We had maybe been gone a short enough time to not be missed yet.

  As we re-entered the library—separately, of course—it appeared that third period had moved along rather nicely and uneventfully without us. We still had fifteen minutes left in the period, so we headed over to the Reference section, where we could talk more freely. No one ever really went to the Reference section to look at the books, so it was a great place to have a private conversation.

  As usual, AJ was the first to speak up. “Dude, that guy sounded pretty anxious to get his furniture back—a little too anxious!”

  “I know!” I responded. “And you know what else sounded suspicious? He called me Mr. Mathisen. I didn’t introduce myself as Mathisen, did I?”

  “No, you didn’t, Ty!” AJ was excited.

  Scooter then chimed in, “If that is the case, then my suspicions were correct. I think there is some sort of scam going on here. I’ll bet they were targeting Mathisen because they thought he would be an easy target. Old, single, loner; on paper, he makes an ideal candidate for getting duped.”

  “So what’s the scam, Scoot? Do you think Jungle Furniture is even a real company?” AJ asked.

  “Let’s go with what we know: I saw the Better Business Bureau symbol on their website, so they have to be legitimate. They probably sell lots of furniture to lots of people. Plus, if they were scamming everybody, then why would they have assumed you were Mr. Mathisen?”

  Scooter continued, “That fact alone tells us they have only one scam going, and Mathisen is the target. I’ll bet this Snelling guy is conducting his own scam within an otherwise legitimate business, and probably only a few others at the company know what he is doing, or would even suspect him of it.”

  “So what do we do now?” AJ asked.

  “I think we need to do some more research on this Snelling guy specifically when we get home, and in the meantime, we play along.”

  “You mean like actually return the furniture?” AJ asked, dumbfounded.

  “Well, I think tomorrow we should call him back and at least set up a time for them to pick up the furniture. But, no, I don’t intend on giving them any furniture back.”

  We threw out some theories as to what the scam might be and agreed to call the furniture store again from the headquarters; it seemed safer to call from there than one of our homes. By then, third period was over, and we moved on to lunch and then three more periods of the routine life of a junior-high student. Finally, the school day lost its grip of boredom on us, and we piled on the bus for the seventeen-minute ride home.