Table of Contents
Dedication
Copyright Page
Title Page
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Something doesn’t seem right.
Then the guide led the class to another dinosaur skeleton.
“This is the skeleton of a Coelophysis,” the guide said. “Seel-o-fy-sis,” she said again slowly.
Cam was busy studying the dinosaur’s tail.
“Something is wrong,” she whispered to Eric.
Cam closed her eyes and said, “Click.” She kept them closed for a while. Then she looked again at the dinosaur’s tail.
“I was right,” Cam said to Eric. “Something is wrong. Three of the dinosaur’s bones are missing.”
The Cam Jansen Adventure Series
DON’T FORGET ABOUT THE YOUNG CAM JANSEN SERIES FOR YOUNGER READERS!
To two wonderful people, my parents
PUFFIN BOOKS
Published by Penguin Group
Penguin Young Readers Group,
345 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A.
Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R ORL, England
Penguin Books Australia Ltd, 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia
Penguin Books Canada Ltd, 10 Alcorn Avenue, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4V 3B2
Penguin Books (N.Z.) Ltd, 182-190 Wairau Road, Auckland 10, New Zealand
First published in the United States of America by The Viking Press, 1981
Published by Puffin Books, 1991
Reissued 1997
This edition published by Puffin Books,
a division of Penguin Young Readers Group, 2004
Text copyright © David A. Adler, 1981
Illustrations copyright © Susanna Natti, 1981
All rights reserved
THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS HAS CATALOGED THE 1991 PUFFIN BOOKS EDITION
UNDER CATALOG CARD NUMBER: 90-53367
eISBN : 978-1-101-07600-2
RL: 2.4
http://us.penguingroup.com
Chapter One
“Slurp.”
Cam Jansen was drinking milk through a straw. She tilted the container to get the last few drops.
Cam was eating lunch in the cafeteria of the Kurt Daub Museum. She was there with her fifth-grade class. Her friend Eric Shelton was sitting next to her.
Cam pointed to the teacher. The teacher was standing on a chair with a finger over her mouth.
“Look,” Cam said to Eric. “Ms. Benson is waiting for us to be quiet.”
“Our tour will begin in twenty minutes,” Ms. Benson said. “But first I must ask those of you who brought cameras along to keep your cameras in their cases. The taking of photographs in the museum is not allowed.”
Ms. Benson got down from the chair.
“See,” Cam said to Eric, “I told you not to bring your camera. Last time I was here someone was told to leave the museum because he was taking pictures.”
“Well,” Eric said, “maybe I can’t take pictures, but you can. Take a picture of me now with your mental camera.”
Cam’s mental camera is her memory. She can take one look at a page in a book, close her eyes, and remember every word on the page. “It’s easy for me,” Cam often explained. “I have a photograph of the page stored in my brain. When I want to remember what I saw, I just look at the photograph.”
When people found out about Cam’s amazing photographic memory, they stopped using her real name, Jennifer. They started calling her “The Camera.” Soon “The Camera” was shortened to “Cam.”
Cam looked straight at Eric and said, “Click.” She always said, “Click,” when she wanted to remember something. Cam says that “Click” is the sound her mental camera makes when it takes a picture.
“Close your eyes,” Eric said. “Now what do you remember?”
Cam thought for a moment. Then she said, “There’s a drop of mustard on your collar. You should wipe it off!”
Eric looked down. There was a drop of mustard on his collar. He took a napkin and wiped it off.
“On the side of the milk container you just bought,” Cam went on, “it says, ‘Edna’s. Our cows send you their love and their milk.’
“You’re wearing a blue shirt. The top button of the shirt once came off and someone sewed it back on.”
“You’re right,” Eric said. “But how did you know about the button?”
Cam opened her eyes. “It’s the thread,” she said. “I remembered that the top button was sewn on with white thread. The other buttons have light blue thread.”
Ms. Benson was standing on a chair again. She said to the class, “Clean your tables and then get into a double line.”
Cam and Eric quickly threw away the empty milk containers and the wrappings from their lunches. Then they got in line.
Ms. Benson led the class up the stairs to the museum lobby. They were met there by a young woman in a purple dress.
“I’m Janet Tyler,” the woman in the purple dress said. “I will be your guide. Please stay together and follow me.”
The guide led the class to the Air Travel room. She pointed out the models of the earliest flying machines. There was a full-size model of the 1903 Wright brothers’ airplane.
Ms. Tyler took the class to a weather station room with a solar energy exhibit. Then she led the class into a large room with a very high ceiling.
“This next exhibit is my favorite,” the guide told the class.
“Mine, too,” Cam whispered to Eric.
Chapter Two
The class followed the guide into the room. Glass cases filled with old tools, bones, rocks, and photographs lined the walls. On a platform, in the center of the room, was part of the skeleton of a very large dinosaur, the Brachiosaurus. Some of the bones from the skeleton were lying on the platform. The wires had come loose and the skeleton was being repaired.
“This is the skeleton of a Brachiosaurus. Brake-e-o-sawr-us,” Janet Tyler said again slowly so everyone could hear how the word was pronounced. “The Brachiosaurus was the biggest dinosaur. It weighed over fifty tons. That’s more, I’m sure, than all the children in your whole school weigh together.”
Then the guide led the class to another dinosaur skeleton. It was much smaller than the Brachiosaurus. Its mouth was open and its hands were stretched out as if it were ready to grab something to eat.
“Look at those teeth,” someone in the class said.
“And look at that tail. It’s so long and pointy.”
“This is the skeleton of a Coelophysis,” the guide said. “Seel-o-fy-sis,” she said again slowly. “Now you may know about some dinosaurs, but I’m sure no one knows anything about the Coelophysis.”
“I do,” Cam said.
Everyone turned to look at Cam. They were surprised that she knew about the Coelophysis. Ms. Benson had never mentioned it when she taught the class about dinosaurs.
Cam had read about the Coelophysis. She wanted to remember exactly what the book said. She closed her eyes and said, “Click.”
When Cam said, “Click,” the guide started to laugh. She covered her mouth with her hand.
“The Coelophysis,” Cam said with her eyes still closed, “was one of the first dinosaurs. It was about eight feet long, including its tail. It weighed no more than fifty pounds. It was a meat eater and . . .”
“Yes, thank you,” the guide said be
fore Cam had a chance to finish. “What you may not know is that these bones were discovered by Dr. Kurt Daub, the scientist who started this museum.”
“Are people still finding dinosaur bones?” Eric asked.
“Yes,” Ms. Tyler answered. “I’ll be going on a dinosaur hunt in a few weeks, and I hope to find some myself.”
Someone else asked, “Are all those bones real?”
“No. Dr. Daub didn’t find a complete skeleton. Some of these bones were made from plaster of Paris.”
There were many other questions, but Cam stopped listening. She was busy studying the dinosaur’s tail.
“Something is wrong,” she whispered to Eric.
Cam closed her eyes and said, “Click.” She kept them closed for a while. Then she looked again at the dinosaur’s tail.
“I was right,” Cam said to Eric. “Something is wrong. Three of the dinosaur’s bones are missing.”
Chapter Three
Cam raised her hand and tried to get the museum guide’s attention. But Ms. Tyler looked past her.
The guide pointed to a boy wearing a suit and a bow tie. “You have a question.”
“I want to know why they are called dinosaurs.”
Ms. Tyler smiled. “The name ‘dinosaur’ comes from two words, ‘dino’ which means ‘terrible,’ and ‘saur’ which means ‘lizard.’ So when we call them dinosaurs, we are really calling them terrible lizards.”
“What did dinosaurs eat?” another boy asked.
“Some ate meat. Some ate plants, and some ate the eggs of other dinosaurs.”
Then the guide looked at Cam. She smiled. “It seems that the red-haired girl, the one who says, ”Click,‘ has a question.”
“What happened to the tail?” Cam asked. “The last time I was here, it had three more bones. They were right here.”
Cam pointed to the part of the tail near the hip. Farther down, there were bones that hung down from the tail like ribs. Where Cam pointed there weren’t any bones.
“There’s nothing missing on this dinosaur,” the guide said quickly. “Now, are there any other questions?”
“But there are some bones missing. I’ve been here before and—”
“I’m here every day, and this skeleton looks the same as it always does.”
The guide answered a few other questions. Then she told Ms. Benson that the tour was finished, and she walked away.
Ms. Benson was a short woman. She stood on her toes so the whole class could see her.
“It’s still early,” Ms. Benson said. “You have an hour to go through the museum by yourselves. At two-thirty all of you must be in the front lobby. If you don’t have a watch, please stay near someone who does.”
“Let’s go to the gift shop,” Eric said to Cam. “I want to buy presents for my twin sisters and my brother, Howie.”
In the gift shop there were shelves of books and racks of postcards. Kits to make airplane models and models of dinosaurs were piled on a table with toys and games.
“All I have is a dollar,” Eric said. “I hope I can find something.”
While Eric looked around, Cam opened a big book called Dinosaurs. There was a whole page on the Coelophysis, but there was no illustration of its skeleton. The book told about how the Coelophysis hunted for food and how it might have looked, but it did not say how many bones the Coelophysis had in its tail.
“Look what I bought for the twins,” Eric said a few minutes later. He reached into a bag and took out two small whistles, each in the shape of a Brachiosaurus. Cam took one of the whistles and blew into it. It was a dog whistle. It made a sound dogs could hear clearly, but Cam and Eric could hardly hear it.
“These whistles are for calling dogs,” Cam said. “Why did you buy them? Your family doesn’t have a dog.”
“I know, but these whistles are also toy dinosaurs, and they’re just twenty-nine cents each. Everything else costs too much.”
Eric reached into the bag again and took out two postcards. “Look at these,” he said. “This one is for Howie.” It was a picture of a hot-air balloon. “And this one is for me.” The second postcard had a picture of the Coelophysis skeleton.
“Let me see that,” Cam said.
Cam looked at the postcard carefully. Then she closed her eyes and said, “Click.”
“This is it!” she said, waving the postcard. “This is the way the skeleton looked when I saw it the last time I was here. Let’s go to the dinosaur room. You’ll see. Some bones are missing.”
Cam and Eric quickly walked through the museum.
“All right,” Cam said when they stood in front of the Coelophysis skeleton. “You count the bones hanging from the tail of the skeleton. I’ll count the ones on the postcard.”
Cam counted the bones on the postcard a few times. Then she said, “I counted thirty-four on the tail. How many did you count?”
“Thirty-one.”
Chapter Four
Cam looked at her watch. It was two-thirty.
“Come on, Eric,” she said. “It’s time to go.”
Eric put the postcards and whistles in his pocket, and they went to meet the class in the lobby. Ms. Benson asked the class to line up. Then she led them to the school bus.
On the bus Cam and Eric talked about the missing dinosaur bones.
“Why would anyone want them?” Eric asked.
“And how could anyone steal the bones?” Cam added. “The skeleton is wired together. In the time it would take to unhook a bone, I’m sure someone would walk by and see what they were doing.”
The bus stopped in the school parking lot. Ms. Benson stood up.
“It’s after three o‘clock,” she said. “So you may all go home.”
It was a warm spring day. Cam and Eric had ridden their bicycles to school that morning. They went to the rack behind the school to get their bicycles.
As Cam unlocked her bicycle, she said, “The bones can’t be taken when the museum is open. There are too many people around then, and too many guards. It must be done after the museum closes. Let’s go back there. Maybe we can find out what’s going on.”
“But the museum closes early today,” Eric said. “We won’t have any time to look around.”
Cam put rubber bands over the cuffs of her pants to keep them from getting caught in the bicycle as she rode.
“All we have to look for is a place to hide,” Cam said. “We don’t have to be home until six today. We can stay in the dinosaur room after the museum closes and watch to see what happens.”
Cam was already on her bicycle. She started to ride away before Eric could tell her that he didn’t want to hide in the museum.
Eric got on his bicycle. He pedaled hard, but he couldn’t catch up with Cam. By the time he locked his bicycle in front of the museum, Cam was halfway up the steps. He caught up with her in the dinosaur room.
A bell sounded.
“The museum closes in five minutes,” a guard called out.
“Let’s leave now,” Eric said, “or we’ll be locked inside.”
Cam crawled under a glass case filled with photographs. Eric followed her.
Cam whispered to Eric, “You can leave if you want to, but I’m staying.”
The bell sounded again.
From their hiding place Cam and Eric could see only the bottoms of the other ex hibit cases and the feet of the dinosaur skeletons. A few people walked past the glass case, but all Cam and Eric could see were their legs. Then it was quiet.
“We did it,” Cam said.
It was quiet for a while. But soon Cam and Eric heard footsteps. A man was walking from one case to the next. He stopped at Cam and Eric’s case. Then he bent down and looked straight at Cam and Eric.
Chapter Five
It was one of the museum guards.
“Come with me,” he said.
The guard led them out of the dinosaur room, through the museum lobby, to the office of the museum director. The guard knocked on the door and walked in. Cam
and Eric followed him.
The walls of the office were covered with paintings of prehistoric animals. There were statues of famous scientists and large stuffed animals all over the room. Cam and Eric couldn’t find the director among all those paintings and statues.
“Didn’t you hear the bell?” the director asked.
Then Cam and Eric saw him. He was sitting between a statue of a woman scientist and two stuffed owls.
“Yes, we heard the bell,” Cam said. “But three dinosaur bones are missing. Someone is stealing bones from the tail of the Coelophysis skeleton, and we want to see who it is.”
“That’s impossible,” the director said, stroking his beard. “Nothing is missing. But if you want to watch over the Coelophysis, you can come back tomorrow when the museum opens.” Then he said to the guard, “Now please take these children to the door and make sure that this time they leave the museum.”
Cam and Eric followed the guard to the front entrance. The guard opened the door with a key and let them out.
“Now what?” Eric asked.
“There’s nothing we can do,” Cam said. “We can’t get back inside, so let’s go home.”
While Cam and Eric started to unlock their bicycles, a truck rode past them. It backed into the museum driveway. A sign painted on the side of the truck said, “Beth’s Milk Tastes Best.”
“That’s strange,” Cam said. “Milk is usually delivered early in the morning, not late in the afternoon.”
A man in a white uniform got out of the truck. He was carrying an empty milk box.
“Maybe some of the milk went bad,” Eric said, “and he’s picking it up.”
The milkman knocked on the garage door. The door opened and he went inside. He came out a few minutes later, carrying a large brown bag in the box. He put it in the truck.
“There’s probably a whole bunch of containers of sour milk in that bag,” Eric said.
Cam Jansen & Mystery of the Dinosaur Bon Page 1
