by David Adler
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
A Cam Jansen Memory Game
The start of a sweet mystery!
“I baked all week,” Ken said. He sadly shook his head. “The wedding is in three hours. I don’t have time to bake all those desserts again.”
Mr. Jansen looked at the many trays of cookies and cakes on the tables. “You could take the cakes you gave us to the wedding.”
Ken shook his head.
“Thank you, but they wouldn’t be nearly enough,” Ken said. “And what about the wedding cake? The bride and groom wanted a tall, beautiful wedding cake, and that’s what I baked.”
Bob turned to Cam. “This is exciting,” he said. “We have just three hours to find the cake.”
PUFFIN BOOKS
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Registered Offices: Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
First published in the United States of America by Viking,
a division of Penguin Young Readers Group, 2010
Published by Puffin Books, a division of Penguin Young Readers Group, 2011
Text copyright © David Adler, 2010 Illustrations copyright © Penguin Young Readers Group, 2010 All rights reserved
THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS HAS CATALOGED THE VIKING EDITION AS FOLLOWS:
Adler, David A.
Cam Jansen and the wedding cake mystery / by David A. Adler ;
illustrated by Joy Allen.
p. cm.
Summary: When Cam and her father go to a talent show at the local senior center, Cam’s help is needed to find out who stole a wedding cake from the delivery truck.
ISBN : 978-1-101-55257-5
[1. Talent shows—Fiction. 2. Stealing—Fiction. 3. Mystery and detective stories.]
I. Allen, Joy, ill. II. Title.
PZ7.A2615Caw 2010
[Fic]—dc22 2009048129
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 Kendra Levin,
Cam’s friend and muse—mine, too.
—D.A.A.
To Angie, a great teacher,
and her awesome class!
—J.A.
Chapter One
“Hey,” Danny said. “What color is a hiccup?”
“That riddle is just silly,” Beth told him. “I hope you won’t tell it at the talent show. And you always talk too fast when you tell your jokes.”
“Fast talking makes my jokes even funnier.”
Eric said, “Beth and I will juggle. That’s not silly.”
“And I’ll do memory tricks,” Cam Jansen said.
Mr. Jansen was driving everyone to the senior center. Cam was in the front seat of the car, next to her father. Her friends Eric, Danny, and Beth were in the backseat.
Cam and her father help out at the senior center. This year they helped plan the Fall party and talent show. Cam asked her friends to be in the show. This was Eric, Danny, and Beth’s first visit to the senior center.
“So, what color is a hiccup?” Danny asked again.
Mr. Jansen stopped the car. He waited for the traffic light to change to green.
“How could we know the answer to that?” Mr. Jansen asked Danny. “We’ve heard hiccups, but we’ve never seen one.”
“It’s burple,” Danny said, and laughed. “A hiccup is burple.”
The light changed to green. Mr. Jansen turned onto a quiet street with large old houses and big front lawns.
“It’s funny,” Danny said. “A hiccup is like a burp and ‘burple’ sounds like ‘purple.’ So a hiccup is burple.”
“It’s silly,” Beth told him.
Mr. Jansen parked his car in front of the senior center. He parked between a blue truck and a yellow truck. Ken’s Bake Shop was printed on the side of the blue truck parked in front. Mr. Fancy Fix-It was printed on the side of the yellow truck.
“Look,” Cam said, and pointed. “Lucy Lane is taking pictures.”
“Lucy Lane is a photographer,” Mr. Jansen told Cam’s friends. “She will make lots of copies of the pictures. Then Cam and I will help the seniors send them with holiday cards to their friends and family.”
Cam and the others got out of the car. They hurried up the front walk.
“Take my picture,” Danny said to Lucy Lane.
Lucy Lane was standing just a few feet from an old man with a white mustache.
“I will,” she told him. “But first I’m taking Bob’s picture.”
“Everybody calls me ‘Old Bob,” the old man said. “I own a bookshop. I was on my way into the center when this nice woman said she’d take my picture.”
“Smile,” Lucy Lane told Old Bob.
He smiled and she took his picture.
Then she turned to Cam and the others.
“Smile, everyone.”
Mr. Jansen, Cam, Eric, and Beth smiled. Danny stuck out his tongue. Lucy Lane took their picture.
Cam looked at Lucy Lane and said, “Smile, please.”
Lucy Lane put her digital camera down. She pushed her hair back and smiled.
Cam blinked her eyes and said, “Click!”
“Cam, take my picture, too,” Danny said.
Danny stuck his tongue out.
Cam looked at Danny, blinked her eyes and said, “Click!”
Lucy Lane held up her camera. “Here, take a look,” she said. Danny and the others looked at the picture on the small screen on the back of her camera.
“I’m sorry,” Cam said. “You can’t look at the pictures I took. Only I can see them. They’re all up here,” she said, and pointed to her head.
Cam has an amazing memory. It’s as if she has a camera in her head and pictures there of everything she’s seen. When she wants to remember something, Cam just looks at the pictures she has in her head. Cam says “Click!” is the sound her mental camera makes when it takes a picture.
“Let’s go inside,” Mr. Jansen said. “It’s almost time for the talent show to begin.”
Mr. Jansen, Cam and her friends, Lucy Lane, and Old Bob all went into the building.
“Hello! Hello!” a young woman in a long red dress said to Eric, Beth, and Danny. “I’m Judy.”
Cam whispered to Eric, “She’s the director of the senior center.”
“Thank you for helping,” Judy told Mr. Jansen, Cam, a
nd her friends. “The main hall is ready. The lights and microphone are set. It’s almost time to start.”
Mr. Jansen, Cam, and the others followed her into a large room. Lots of chairs were set up in rows. They all faced a small stage. People were standing by tables on the side of the room. Many of the people held canes. Some had walkers. On the tables were trays of cakes, cookies, and fruit. There were also pitchers of water and ice tea.
“Please, find seats,” Judy told the seniors. “You can eat later. The show is about to begin.”
Chapter Two
Mr. Jansen stood by the microphone.
Cam and her friends sat in the first row of seats facing the stage. Lucy Lane and a man wearing a white apron sat behind them.
“This is Ken,” Lucy Lane told Cam and her friends. “He baked the cakes and cookies for the party.”
Mr. Jansen waited while the seniors went to their seats.
“That reminds me,” Danny whispered. “I’ m hungry.”
“You just want some cookies,” Beth said.
“I don’t just want some cookies,” Danny whispered. “I want lots of cookies and lots of cake.”
Mr. Jansen held the microphone. When everyone was seated he said, “Good morning. Welcome to the Fall party and talent show. Our show begins with jokes. Here is the very funny Danny Pace.”
Mr. Jansen gave Danny the microphone. Danny bowed and everyone applauded.
“Listen to this,” Danny said, really fast. “I told my teacher to please not punish me for something I didn’t do. She said she wouldn’t. Then I told her I didn’t do my homework.”
No one laughed.
“I built a dog house and hammered a nail. Wow! That hurt! It was my fingernail.”
Danny waited. But again, no one laughed.
“Then I dropped the hammer on my toe and do you know what I did? I called a tow truck.”
This time Danny didn’t wait for people to laugh. He quickly told another joke.
“I dropped the hammer on a leopard. Wow! That hit the spot! And I once heard a singing cow. It made beautiful moo-sic.”
“His jokes aren’t funny,” Ken the baker whispered to Lucy Lane.
“And he talks so fast,” Lucy said.
Mr. Jansen got on the stage.
“Thank you. Thank you,” Mr. Jansen said.
“No, wait. I have more jokes. Do you know what’s cold and white and flies up and down and up and down? It’s a mixed-up snowflake.”
Mr. Jansen took the microphone from Danny.
“Thank you, Danny Pace,” he said.
Cam, Eric, Beth, and a few other people applauded.
“Now,” Mr. Jansen told the seniors, “we’ll see some memory magic.”
Cam got up on stage and stood next to her father.
“Here is my daughter Jennifer Jansen, the girl with the amazing photographic memory.”
Jennifer is Cam’s real first name. But when people found out about her great memory, they started calling her “The Camera.” Soon “The Camera” became just “Cam.”
Cam bowed and people applauded.
“Please, come up here,” Mr. Jansen said to Lucy Lane and Ken the baker.
When they were onstage, Lucy Lane whispered to Mr. Jansen, “We can’t stay very long. We’re going to a wedding.”
Cam looked at Lucy and Ken. She closed her eyes and said, “Click!”
Cam turned and faced the wall behind the stage.
“What color is Lucy’s shirt?” Mr. Jansen asked.
“It’s blue,” Cam answered.
Cam’s eyes were still closed. She was still facing the wall.
Cam said, “There are small white flowers on Lucy’s shirt. In the middle of each flower is a red dot. And there are ten buttons down the front of her shirt.”
Lucy pointed to each of her buttons as she counted them out loud. Cam was right. There were ten.
“She’s amazing,” Ken said.
Old Bob stood and called out, “What about me? You saw me outside when Lucy took my picture.”
“You have a white mustache,” Cam said with her eyes still closed.
“What about my shirt?”
“Your shirt is white with green stripes. You have two pens in your shirt pocket. You’re wearing black pants and white sneakers.”
“Wow!” Bob said. “She really does have a great memory.”
Cam opened her eyes. She turned and bowed.
People cheered and applauded.
Lucy Lane whispered to Mr. Jansen, “We really have to go.”
“Let’s thank Lucy, who took your photographs, and Ken, who baked all the cookies and cakes,” Mr. Jansen said. “The photos and cakes are their gifts to the center.”
The people in the audience applauded some more. Then Lucy Lane and Ken left the room.
“Now,” Mr. Jansen said into the microphone, “here are two great jugglers, Eric Shelton and Beth Kane.”
Eric and Beth walked onto the stage. Each held two red rubber balls. They stood beside the microphone and bowed. Then they stepped to the front of the stage several feet apart and faced each other.
Eric threw a ball to Beth. At the very same moment, Beth threw a ball to Eric.
Just then Lucy and Ken hurried back into the room. They rushed down the aisle. Eric and Beth turned to look at Lucy and Ken, and the two balls bounced off the stage.
“I can’t find my keys,” Ken told Mr. Jansen. “On the way out I reached into my pocket and the keys to my truck were gone!”
Chapter Three
“That’s terrible,” Mr. Jansen said.
“It’s worse than terrible,” Lucy Lane said. “The wedding is in three hours, and we have to get there. Ken baked pastries, cookies, and a cake for the wedding and I’m taking pictures.”
“Hey,” Old Bob said. “Who stole the keys? That’s a mystery. I love mysteries.”
“I have my car here,” Mr. Jansen told Lucy and Ken. “I can drive you to the wedding.”
Ken shook his head.
“My cake is in the truck. If I can’t get into my truck, I can’t deliver the cake.”
“I read lots of mysteries,” Bob said. “And do you know what? I always solve the mystery before the end of the book.”
“Cam Jansen doesn’t solve mysteries in a book,” Eric said. “She solves real mysteries.”
Bob said, “I think someone reached into Ken’s pocket and stole his keys.”
Cam went to the window and looked out.
“The truck is still here,” Cam said. “If someone stole the keys, he would have taken the truck. I think Ken just misplaced his keys.”
Lucy told Ken to check his pockets.
“I’m right-handed,” Ken said, “so my keys are always in this pocket.”
Ken reached into his right pants pocket.
“Nothing!”
He reached into the pocket on the left side of his pants.
“No keys.”
“You drove here,” Eric said. “You had your keys then.”
“You brought trays of cookies and cakes in here,” Lucy said. “You used your keys to unlock the back of the truck.”
“Yes, I did. Maybe I dropped the keys on the walk.”
Lucy and Ken left the main hall of the senior center. Then they left the building. Cam stood by the window. She watched Lucy and Ken walk slowly down the front walk looking for Ken’s keys.
“Let’s get back to our show,” Mr. Jansen said into the microphone. “Here again are two great jugglers, Eric Shelton and Beth Kane.”
“Hurry,” Eric whispered to Beth, “before something else happens.”
They started juggling.
“Ken found his keys,” Cam called from the window. “He left them in the back door of his truck.”
Eric caught the first ball Beth had thrown. He quickly threw it back to Beth. She caught the ball Eric had thrown and quickly threw it back to him.
Bob joined Cam by the window.
“Look,” Bob said. “Ken i
s opening the back of his truck.”
Eric and Beth kept juggling. But many of the people in the audience were not watching them. They were waiting to hear what Cam and Bob would say next.
“Lucy and Ken look upset,” Bob said. “Now they’re coming back.”
Eric and Beth stopped juggling.
Lucy and Ken hurried into the main hall.
“I found my keys, but the pastries, cookies, and cake are gone,” Ken said. “Someone stole everything I baked for the wedding.”
Chapter Four
“I baked all week,” Ken said. He sadly shook his head. “The wedding is in three hours. I don’t have time to bake all those desserts again.”
Mr. Jansen looked at the many trays of cookies and cakes on the tables. “You could take the cakes you gave us to the wedding.”
Ken shook his head.
“Thank you, but they wouldn’t be nearly enough,” Ken said. “And what about the wedding cake? The bride and groom wanted a tall, beautiful wedding cake, and that’s what I baked.”
Bob turned to Cam. “This is exciting,” he said. “We have just three hours to find the cake.”
Judy, the director of the senior center, hurried to the front of the room.
“I just called the police,” she said. “They’ll be here soon.”
“I’m going outside,” Bob said. “Maybe this girl with the amazing memory and I can solve the wedding cake mystery before the police even get here.”
Bob quickly left the room. Judy, Ken, and Lucy followed him.
“A real mystery!” an old woman with curly white hair said. “This is the best party we’ve ever had.”
She went outside, too. Lots of seniors followed her.
“Let’s go,” Danny said.
Cam and her friends followed Mr. Jansen past the tables with the cookies, cakes, and drinks.
Danny took a few large chocolate chip cookies off a tray. He put one in each of his front and back pants pockets. Then he took a large oatmeal raisin cookie and bit into it.
