by Charles Tang
“Stop!” cried Ms. Smitts. She grabbed the thief by the arm. He pushed her and the two struggled for just a moment. Then Ms. Smitts let go and fell down. The thief began to run.
As he did, police officers surrounded the picnic. Two of them grabbed the thief by each arm. Two more officers grabbed Ms. Smitts and helped her to her feet. And Mr. Bellows ran out to stand by the picnic blanket.
“Thank you,” said Ms. Smitts.
She tried to pull her arms free, but the officers held on.
“Let go,” she said. “Let me go!” She began to struggle.
The Boxcar Children and Soo Lee and Watch got up and walked over to Ms. Smitts. She stopped struggling and glared at everyone. “Why are you treating me this way?” she demanded. “Is this the thanks I get for trying to prevent a robbery?”
“No,” Jessie said. “That’s not it. You won’t get away with it this time, Ms. Smitts. We know you have the ruby ring. Give it back.”
CHAPTER 10
A Special Badge for a Real Detective
“That’s crazy!” Tori Smitts cried, pulling against the police officers who were holding her.
One of the police officers shook her head. “I’m afraid it isn’t, Ms. Smitts. We expected your partner, Mr. Map, to slip the ring to you when you grabbed him this time. We saw it happen.”
“It worked the first time,” Mr. Bellows said. “But it won’t work now.”
Seeing Mr. Bellows, Ms. Smitts’s eyes widened.
The other officers led the thief over to the others. His hat was gone and the handkerchief covering his face had been pulled around his neck. He was a pale man with piercing gray eyes and a thin, pointed chin.
“Meet Marvin Map,” the police officer said.
“I told you it wouldn’t work a second time, Marvin,” Ms. Smitts gasped.
“Be quiet,” Mr. Map ordered.
“We know you have the ring,” Benny said to Ms. Smitts. “You should give it back. And the necklace and the bracelet.”
“It wasn’t my idea,” said Ms. Smitts.
Mr. Map gave Ms. Smitts a disgusted look. “I don’t have the ring,” he said. “She does. She has the necklace and the bracelet, too.”
Ms. Smitts and Mr. Map glared at one another for a moment. Then Ms. Smitts reached into her pocket and pulled out the ruby ring. She put it into Mr. Bellows’s outstretched hand.
“The necklace and the bracelet are at my house,” she said. “In the back of a drawer in the basement.”
“Mr. Map gave you the necklace and the bracelet when he ran out of the antique shop, didn’t he?” Jessie asked.
Ms. Smitts nodded. “I managed to keep the lock on the glass case from snapping shut after Mr. Bellows showed the necklace set to Mr. Darden. That’s how Marvin got it out of the glass case so fast. But he didn’t have time to give me the ring. Mr. Bellows ran up behind me and I saw a police officer coming. Marvin had to run. When he did, he crashed into the bicycle. I saw him slip the ring into a box of cereal.”
“It should have been safe there,” Mr. Map growled.
“I tried to get it back right away,” Ms. Smitts went on. “But you wouldn’t throw the open box of cereal away.”
“Who broke into our house and stole a box of cereal?” Benny asked, looking from Mr. Map to Ms. Smitts.
“That was me,” Mr. Map admitted. “But the dog started barking, so I just grabbed a box of cereal and ran.”
Watch growled softly, as if remembering what had happened.
“You left footprints when you knocked over a flowerpot,” Jessie said.
“You dumped the cereal out by the boxcar,” Henry said.
Mr. Map nodded. “It was useless. The ring wasn’t in there. I remembered seeing other boxes of cereal when I ran into the bike. I figured I must have gotten the wrong box of cereal.”
“So you came back and saw us with the cereal when we were in the boxcar,” Violet said. “I felt someone watching us.” She shuddered at the memory.
“No, that was me,” said Ms. Smitts.
“That’s why the footprint we found by the stream was so much smaller,” Jessie said. “You made it.”
Nodding, Ms. Smitts said, “I doubled back to the boxcar and grabbed the cereal. But the ring wasn’t in that box, either.”
“We figured you hadn’t found it yet, or you would have realized what it was and gone to the police,” Mr. Map put in. “So I went back that night to check your garbage.” He made a disgusted face. “Nothing!”
“We didn’t know what else to do,” Ms. Smitts added, “so we started following you. And today you found the ring in the cereal box.”
“But we didn’t,” Henry said. “We found the ring the very first day.”
“You did?” Ms. Smitts said.
“Yes. We didn’t know it was a ruby ring. Benny gave it to Violet. She was wearing it when we went to visit you at the Karate Center,” Jessie explained.
“Oh, no! You mean this was all a trick?” cried Ms. Smitts.
“Yes,” Henry said. “When we realized that we had the ring and how it got into the cereal box, we set a trap using a new box of cereal — and the police.”
“See?” Benny said. “We did solve the mystery after all.”
“It was a dirty trick!” Mr. Map shouted. “Sneaky.”
“No, it wasn’t. What was sneaky was stealing the jewelry from Mr. Bellows,” Henry said.
“That’s right,” Benny added. “You were wrong. Stealing is wrong.”
“Mr. Map, Ms. Smitts, my advice to you is that you listen to what Benny Alden just said. It might keep you out of trouble in the future. Let’s go,” one of the officers said.
The police led the two thieves away.
“I have to go with the police,” Mr. Bellows said. “To identify the necklace and the bracelet.” He took a small box out of his pocket and carefully put the ring inside. “How can I ever thank you?”
“We’re glad we could help,” Henry said.
Mr. Bellows shook hands with Henry, Jessie, Violet, and Soo Lee. But when he got to Benny, Benny dropped to his knees. “Look!” he said. He picked something up from the cereal that had spilled across the picnic blanket.
It was a small silver cardboard star.
“It’s the last star,” Benny said happily. “Now I can send away for my detective’s badge!”
The next day was Grandfather’s birthday. But Violet and Benny had one thing to do before helping with the preparations.
“Hurry,” Violet said. “We haven’t got much time.”
“Here’s the mailbox,” Benny said. He opened it and dropped the envelope inside. He peered through the opening to make sure the letter had gone in. It was addressed to the cereal company. Inside were all the silver stars that Benny needed to get his detective’s badge.
They walked home quickly from the mailbox on the corner and hurried around to the boxcar.
Inside, Jessie was spreading a tablecloth across the old table. In the middle of it, she put a vase with flowers that she had picked that day. Outside, Soo Lee was hanging pinecones coated with glitter and paint and tied to ribbons on a small red maple tree near the boxcar. Benny ran to help her.
“Violet, would you hand me the tape, please?” Henry asked. “I dropped it.”
Violet hurried to pick up the tape and hand it to her brother. He taped the corner of the poster above the door. It said, HAPPY BIRTHDAY GRANDFATHER.
At that moment, Mrs. McGregor came out the back door. In her hands she held a beautiful cake, with pink and lavender roses and green leaves made of sugar. On top of the cake were blue candles.
“That is the best birthday cake I’ve ever seen,” Violet said, clasping her hands together.
“And the most delicious one you’ll ever eat,” Mrs. McGregor assured her. “Until my next one. Now, who wants to help me bring out the punch?”
“I will,” said Benny. He skipped alongside Mrs. McGregor as she went back to the house. “I could lick the frosting bowl for
you,” he volunteered.
Mrs. McGregor laughed.
Henry looked at his watch. “Cousin Alice and Cousin Joe will be here in ten minutes,” he said.
They all worked faster than ever. At last Violet tied a big bow on the Japanese maple tree.
A car pulled into the driveway.
Quickly everyone jumped into the boxcar and pulled the door closed.
Peering through a crack, they saw the back door open. Then they saw Mrs. McGregor gesture toward the boxcar.
“Do you think he suspects anything?” Jessie whispered.
“Not yet,” said Henry. He held on to Benny to keep him from jumping out of the boxcar too early. Benny held on to Watch.
Grandfather, Mrs. McGregor, Alice, and Joe walked toward the boxcar.
“Now!” whispered Henry.
Jessie pushed open the boxcar door and they all leaped out.
“Surprise!” they all shouted, and Watch barked loudly.
Then, as Mrs. McGregor, Alice, and Joe joined in, they all began to sing “Happy Birthday.”
Grandfather’s mouth dropped open in surprise. But when everyone had finished singing, he began to laugh.
“Are you surprised, Grandfather?” Benny asked.
“I sure am,” his grandfather answered. He looked at Joe and Alice. “Did you know about this?”
Joe and Alice nodded. Alice said, “That’s why we invited you to come visit — so there would be time to decorate the boxcar.”
Benny said, “Do you want some cake? Mrs. McGregor made it. It’s your favorite kind.” He paused and added, “Mine, too.”
Laughing, everybody went into the boxcar. Grandfather Alden blew out the candles on his cake. He cut it and gave everybody a piece, while Henry and Jessie poured the punch and Violet passed out the napkins.
“Let’s eat our cake and drink our punch outside under a tree,” Jessie said.
“Yes,” Violet agreed. “I know just the tree.”
“Come on, Grandfather,” Benny said.
When they reached the tree, Grandfather said, “My goodness! Another surprise!”
“It’s a Japanese maple tree,” Henry said. “We picked it out ourselves.”
“It’s a wonderful tree. And it has some very fine decorations,” Grandfather said.
“We made those,” Soo Lee told him.
They sat down in the grass under the new tree and ate their cake and drank punch. Mrs. McGregor gave Watch a special dog biscuit that she had saved for the birthday celebration.
“With the sun shining through the red leaves of this maple, they are the color of rubies,” Grandfather declared, looking up at his birthday tree.
“Some rubies,” Violet said. “Not all rubies are red.”
“Speaking of rubies,” said Joe, “Alice and I have something to show you.”
Alice reached into her shoulder bag and pulled out the latest edition of the Greenfield newspaper. “Your names are on page one,” she told the Boxcar Children.
Sure enough, the newspaper had printed the whole story of the stolen jewels and how Henry, Jessie, Violet, Benny, and Soo Lee had helped find and capture the robbers. The story even mentioned Watch.
“We’ll have to save this,” Henry said.
Benny sighed.
“What’s wrong, Benny?” asked Violet.
“I wish I had my detective’s badge,” Benny said. “I could have worn it when we solved the case. Then I would have been a real detective.”
Jessie laughed. “Oh, Benny. You don’t need a detective’s badge to be a real detective. You are one already.”
“Really?” asked Benny.
“Yes!” declared Jessie.
“Not only are you all real detectives,” said Grandfather Alden, looking around, “but you are my favorite detectives in the whole world. You are the very best.”
“Is that true?” Benny asked.
“It certainly is, Benny,” Grandfather said. “It certainly is.”
About the Author
GERTRUDE CHANDLER WARNER discovered when she was teaching that many readers who like an exciting story could find no books that were both easy and fun to read. She decided to try to meet this need, and her first book, The Boxcar Children, quickly proved she had succeeded.
Miss Warner drew on her own experiences to write the mystery. As a child she spent hours watching trains go by on the tracks opposite her family home. She often dreamed about what it would be like to set up housekeeping in a caboose or freight car — the situation the Alden children find themselves in.
When Miss Warner received requests for more adventures involving Henry, Jessie, Violet, and Benny Alden, she began additional stories. In each, she chose a special setting and introduced unusual or eccentric characters who liked the unpredictable.
While the mystery element is central to each of Miss Warner’s books, she never thought of them as strictly juvenile mysteries. She liked to stress the Aldens’ independence and resourcefulness and their solid New England devotion to using up and making do. The Aldens go about most of their adventures with as little adult supervision as possible — something else that delights young readers.
Miss Warner lived in Putnam, Connecticut, until her death in 1979. During her lifetime, she received hundreds of letters from girls and boys telling her how much they liked her books.
The Boxcar Children Mysteries
THE BOXCAR CHILDREN
SURPRISE ISLAND
THE YELLOW HOUSE MYSTERY
MYSTERY RANCH
MIKE’S MYSTERY
BLUE BAY MYSTERY
THE WOODSHED MYSTERY
THE LIGHTHOUSE MYSTERY
MOUNTAIN TOP MYSTERY
SCHOOLHOUSE MYSTERY
CABOOSE MYSTERY
HOUSEBOAT MYSTERY
SNOWBOUND MYSTERY
TREE HOUSE MYSTERY
BICYCLE MYSTERY
MYSTERY IN THE SAND
MYSTERY BEHIND THE WALL
BUS STATION MYSTERY
BENNY UNCOVERS A MYSTERY
THE HAUNTED CABIN MYSTERY
THE DESERTED LIBRARY MYSTERY
THE ANIMAL SHELTER MYSTERY
THE OLD MOTEL MYSTERY
THE MYSTERY OF THE HIDDEN PAINTING
THE AMUSEMENT PARK MYSTERY
THE MYSTERY OF THE MIXED-UP ZOO
THE CAMP-OUT MYSTERY
THE MYSTERY GIRL
THE MYSTERY CRUISE
THE DISAPPEARING FRIEND MYSTERY
THE MYSTERY OF THE SINGING GHOST
MYSTERY IN THE SNOW
THE PIZZA MYSTERY
THE MYSTERY HORSE
THE MYSTERY AT THE DOG SHOW
THE CASTLE MYSTERY
THE MYSTERY OF THE LOST VILLAGE
THE MYSTERY ON THE ICE
THE MYSTERY OF THE PURPLE POOL
THE GHOST SHIP MYSTERY
THE MYSTERY IN WASHINGTON, DC
THE CANOE TRIP MYSTERY
THE MYSTERY OF THE HIDDEN BEACH
THE MYSTERY OF THE MISSING CAT
THE MYSTERY AT SNOWFLAKE INN
THE MYSTERY ON STAGE
THE DINOSAUR MYSTERY
THE MYSTERY OF THE STOLEN MUSIC
THE MYSTERY AT THE BALL PARK
THE CHOCOLATE SUNDAE MYSTERY
THE MYSTERY OF THE HOT AIR BALLOON
THE MYSTERY BOOKSTORE
THE PILGRIM VILLAGE MYSTERY
THE MYSTERY OF THE STOLEN BOXCAR
THE MYSTERY IN THE CAVE
THE MYSTERY ON THE TRAIN
THE MYSTERY AT THE FAIR
THE MYSTERY OF THE LOST MINE
THE GUIDE DOG MYSTERY
THE HURRICANE MYSTERY
THE PET SHOP MYSTERY
THE MYSTERY OF THE SECRET MESSAGE
THE FIREHOUSE MYSTERY
THE MYSTERY IN SAN FRANCISCO
THE NIAGARA FALLS MYSTERY
THE MYSTERY AT THE ALAMO
THE OUTER SPACE MYSTERY
THE SOCCER MYSTERY
THE MYSTERY IN THE OLD ATTIC
THE GROWLING BEAR MYSTERY
THE MYSTERY OF THE LAKE MONSTER
THE MYSTERY AT PEACOCK HALL
THE WINDY CITY MYSTERY
THE BLACK PEARL MYSTERY
THE CEREAL BOX MYSTERY
THE PANTHER MYSTERY
THE MYSTERY OF THE QUEEN’S JEWELS
THE STOLEN SWORD MYSTERY
THE BASKETBALL MYSTERY
THE MOVIE STAR MYSTERY
THE MYSTERY OF THE PIRATE’S MAP
THE GHOST TOWN MYSTERY
THE MYSTERY OF THE BLACK RAVEN
THE MYSTERY IN THE MALL
THE MYSTERY IN NEW YORK
THE GYMNASTICS MYSTERY
THE POISON FROG MYSTERY
THE MYSTERY OF THE EMPTY SAFE
THE HOME RUN MYSTERY
THE GREAT BICYCLE RACE MYSTERY
THE MYSTERY OF THE WILD PONIES
THE MYSTERY IN THE COMPUTER GAME
THE MYSTERY AT THE CROOKED HOUSE
THE HOCKEY MYSTERY
THE MYSTERY OF THE MIDNIGHT DOG
THE MYSTERY OF THE SCREECH OWL
THE SUMMER CAMP MYSTERY
THE COPYCAT MYSTERY
THE HAUNTED CLOCK TOWER MYSTERY
THE MYSTERY OF THE TIGER’S EYE
THE DISAPPEARING STAIRCASE MYSTERY
THE MYSTERY ON BLIZZARD MOUNTAIN
THE MYSTERY OF THE SPIDER’S CLUE
THE CANDY FACTORY MYSTERY
THE MYSTERY OF THE MUMMY’S CURSE
THE MYSTERY OF THE STAR RUBY
THE STUFFED BEAR MYSTERY
THE MYSTERY OF ALLIGATOR SWAMP
THE MYSTERY AT SKELETON POINT
THE TATTLETALE MYSTERY
THE COMIC BOOK MYSTERY
THE GREAT SHARK MYSTERY
THE ICE CREAM MYSTERY
THE MIDNIGHT MYSTERY
THE MYSTERY IN THE FORTUNE COOKIE
THE BLACK WIDOW SPIDER MYSTERY
THE RADIO MYSTERY
THE MYSTERY OF THE RUNAWAY GHOST
THE FINDERS KEEPERS MYSTERY
THE MYSTERY OF THE HAUNTED BOXCAR
THE CLUE IN THE CORN MAZE
THE GHOST OF THE CHATTERING BONES
THE SWORD OF THE SILVER KNIGHT
THE GAME STORE MYSTERY
THE MYSTERY OF THE ORPHAN TRAIN
THE VANISHING PASSENGER
THE GIANT YO-YO MYSTERY
