Cam Jansen and the Graduation Day Mystery

by David A. Adler

  Cam closed her eyes. She said, “Click!” Cam bumped into a tall man wearing a black cap and gown.

  “Excuse me,” the man said.

  She bumped into the cat.

  Meow!

  Eric took Cam’s hand.

  “Yes,” Cam said with her eyes still closed. “I’m looking at the picture I have in my head of Grandpa’s shopping bag, and it’s brown and not very big. It has two small brown rope handles.”

  Cam opened her eyes.

  “I haven’t seen anyone carrying a bag like that,” Mr. Shelton said.

  They looked under rows and rows of chairs near the platform, but they didn’t find the bag.

  “Let’s go back,” Mr. Shelton told Cam and Eric. “It’s not here.”

  As they walked back to where Eric’s family was sitting, they looked under all the rows of chairs.

  When they got back, Mrs. Shelton was still holding Howie. He was sleeping. Grandpa was next to them. On the chair on the other side of Grandpa was the bag with the toys, animal crackers, and apple juice.

  “We didn’t find it,” Mr. Shelton told Grandpa.

  “This is terrible,” Grandpa said. “The gift I had in there can’t be replaced. And my camera with all my pictures of the graduation is also in there.”

  “Is the gift worth lots of money?” Donna asked.

  “Yes. And it’s been in the Shelton family for almost one hundred years.”

  “I think I know what happened,” Donna said. “I think Harry took Grandpa’s bag.”

  “That’s it!” Diane said. “He took Grandpa’s shopping bag by mistake.”

  “I think she’s right,” Mr. Shelton told his father.

  “Yay!” Diane said. “We did it! Donna and I solved the mystery.”

  “You solved one mystery,” Cam said, “but Grandpa Shelton still doesn’t have his bag. Maybe someone found it and gave it to the security people.”

  “Now there’s another mystery to solve,” Eric said. “We think Harry took Grandpa’s bag, but where is Harry? We don’t even know his last name. We have to find out who this Harry is and where he is. We have to get Grandpa’s bag back.”

  Chapter Four

  “What do we do now?” Eric asked.

  “We do what Cam suggested,” Mrs. Shelton said. “We tell the security people what happened. Maybe the boy didn’t take Grandpa’s bag, and someone found it. Maybe his mother realized it wasn’t his bag and gave it to one of the guards.”

  Cam and the Sheltons went to the gate at one end of the field. A man and woman in green and yellow uniforms were sitting behind a table. Grandpa told them what happened. Eric showed them the bag they had—the wrong bag.

  “It sounds like a simple mistake,” one of the guards said. “Hopefully the woman and the little boy who took your bag will come back here with it.”

  Grandpa told the guards what was in his bag.

  “My camera is digital. When you find it, look at the pictures and you’ll know it’s mine. Almost all of the ones I took today are of my son.”

  “That’s me,” Mr. Shelton told the guards.

  “Give us your cell phone number,” the first guard said. “We’ll call you if the woman and her son come back.”

  “What about this bag?” Grandpa asked.

  “Leave it here.”

  Grandpa left the bag on the table. Then he wrote his cell phone number on a small piece of paper. The guards gave him a card with their number.

  “I’m Janet Jones,” the woman guard said.

  “I’m Paul Cogan,” the other guard said. “I hope we find your things.”

  Cam and the Sheltons walked away from the table.

  “What do we do now?” Grandpa Shelton asked.

  “Dad is a college graduate,” Mrs. Shelton said. “We will still go to Green Stripes Restaurant and celebrate. We can walk there. It’s just a few blocks away.”

  Mr. Shelton held Donna and Diane’s hands. Mrs. Shelton put Howie in a stroller.

  The cat followed them as they walked through two large stone columns at the entrance to the campus.

  Mr. Shelton stopped.

  “Good-bye,” he said to the columns and to the college. “And thank you.”

  He started walking toward the restaurant.

  Mrs. Shelton stood by the entrance to the college.

  “Aren’t you forgetting something?” she asked.

  Mr. Shelton looked at Donna and Diane. He looked at Howie in his stroller. He looked at Grandpa, Eric, and Cam.

  “No,” he said. “Everyone is here.”

  “What about your cap and gown?” Mrs. Shelton asked.

  “Oh! Am I still wearing them?”

  Mr. Shelton took off his cap and gown. He put them in a zippered bag strapped to the back of Howie’s stroller. Then the Sheltons and Cam walked to Green Stripes Restaurant.

  “Look at the line,” Grandpa Shelton said.

  “I called. They’re expecting us,” Eric’s mother told him. “We shouldn’t have to wait.”

  Mrs. Shelton went to the front of the line. She spoke to a woman in a green striped dress. Mrs. Shelton waved to her family and Cam.

  Eric told the cat, “You can’t come in with us.”

  Meow!

  The cat sat on the sidewalk. She watched as Cam and the Sheltons followed the woman in the green striped dress into the restaurant.

  “Wow!” Cam whispered to Eric. “This is a fancy place.”

  The tables were covered with green striped cloths. The waiters wore green striped bow ties and jackets. The woman in the green striped dress led the Sheltons and Cam past lots of tables and lots of people. She led them down a few steps to the lower level of the restaurant.

  “Please be seated,” she said when they came to a long empty table. “Your waiter will be here soon.”

  She brought a high chair for Howie.

  “Look at the walls. Look at all the pictures,” Eric whispered. “This place is like a museum.”

  Cam and Eric sat on one side of the table. Grandpa sat next to Cam.

  A tall man in a green striped jacket came to the table. He gave everyone a menu.

  “My name is Roger,” the waiter told everyone at the table. “Our brunch specials today are orange-glazed tuna and old country French toast.”

  “I don’t want old toast,” Diane said. “I want it to be new.”

  Roger smiled.

  “The French toast is fresh,” he said. “It’s the recipe that’s old.”

  The children each ordered French toast. Eric’s parents and grandfather ordered the fish.

  “It’s not just my surprise for Ben that’s gone,” Grandpa said while he waited for his meal. “All the pictures I took are gone, too.”

  “I have a camera,” Eric’s mom said. “Ben still has his cap and gown. When we get home we’ll take new pictures.”

  “We could do that,” Grandpa said sadly, “but it won’t be the same. I took a picture of Ben getting his diploma. He had such a great big smile.”

  “Look at all the people here,” Eric whispered to Cam. “I bet lots of them were at the graduation.”

  Cam looked around.

  “I think you’re right,” she said.

  Eric whispered, “Maybe Harry and his mother are here. Maybe he doesn’t even know he took the wrong bag.”

  “Let’s look,” Cam said.

  Chapter Five

  Eric told his mother that he and Cam were going to take a walk through the restaurant.

  “Don’t bother anyone,” his mother said. “And don’t get in the way of any of the waiters.”

  Cam and Eric looked at the people in the lower level of the restaurant. Several children were sitting at a table in the corner.

  “Look,” Eric whispered. “Look at the boy in the blue shirt. He looks like Harry.”

  Cam shook her head and whispered, “That’s not him.”

  “Are you sure?”

  Cam closed her eyes and said, “Click!”

&nbs
p; Cam told Eric, “Harry had on a white shirt, dark blue pants, and black shoes. His hair was combed back.”

  Cam opened her eyes. She pointed to the boy in the restaurant and whispered, “That’s not him.”

  Eric said, “You never clicked for the college guards. You never told them what Harry and his mother look like.”

  “Excuse me,” a waiter said. He held a tray of dirty dishes high over his head as he walked past.

  Eric said, “Let’s ask Grandpa to call the guards.”

  Cam and Eric went back to their table. Roger had brought them a basket of rolls and pats of butter.

  “These rolls are hot,” Diane said. “Watch this.”

  She broke open a roll and dropped in a pat of butter.

  “It’s melting!”

  Eric’s grandfather called the guards. He asked if they had found his bag. Grandpa listened for a moment and then sadly shook his head. He gave his cell phone to Cam. She closed her eyes and said, “Click.” Then she described Harry and his mother to the guards.

  “Now let’s check upstairs for him,” Eric said to Cam.

  Cam and Eric walked to the upper level of the restaurant.

  “This is a strange mystery,” Cam told Eric as they climbed the steps. “We know who has Grandpa’s things. We just don’t know how to find him.”

  Cam and Eric walked from one table to the next. There were lots of children in the restaurant, but none of them was the boy who sat behind them at the graduation.

  “Those are the doors to the kitchen,” Cam said. “We’ve been through the whole restaurant. Harry isn’t here.”

  Eric walked to a quiet corner near the kitchen doors.

  A waiter carrying a tray of dirty dishes walked past. He pushed open a swinging door and went into the kitchen.

  “What do we do now?” Eric asked.

  Cam shook her head. She didn’t know.

  The other kitchen door swung open. A waiter walked out with a tray covered with plates of French toast.

  “That’s our waiter,” Cam said. “That’s Roger.”

  Another waiter followed Roger with three plates of tuna.

  “They’re carrying French toast and fish,” Eric said. “That’s our food. Let’s go.”

  Chapter Six

  “Excuse me,” Eric said as he hurried past the two waiters.

  “Excuse me,” Cam said.

  They went down the few steps to the lower level of the restaurant and to their table. Mrs. Shelton was holding and feeding Howie.

  “Our meals are coming,” Eric said.

  The two waiters came to the table with French toast and three tunas.

  “Yummy,” Diane said as she held a small pitcher over her toast and covered it with syrup.

  The twins got syrup on their faces and clothes.

  When they were done eating, Roger brought them dessert menus.

  Eric’s parents and Grandpa Shelton ordered tea and cookies. Cam, Eric, and Donna asked for ice cream.

  “I don’t want ice cream,” Diane said. “I want a big piece of chocolate cake.”

  After Roger left, Diane told her sister, “The chocolate cake has gooey chocolate cream inside. That’s what my friend Carol told me. She’s been here lots of times.”

  Grandpa stood.

  “This is when I planned to give you a special gift. It was my grandfather’s gold watch. The watch was his graduation gift to my father. It was my father’s graduation gift to me. Ben, it was going to be my gift to you. I don’t have the watch to give, but I’m still very proud of you.”

  “Thank you, Dad,” Mr. Shelton said, and hugged his father.

  Roger brought the desserts.

  “Yummy,” Donna said after she tasted her ice cream.

  Diane poked her cake with her fork.

  “Hey, there’s no chocolate cream.”

  Roger took a small pad from the pocket in his apron.

  “You asked for chocolate cake,” Roger said. “That’s chocolate cake.”

  “Where’s the gooey cream?”

  “There’s no cream in the regular chocolate cake,” Roger told Diane. “It’s in the chocolate mousse cake.”

  “Moose! My friend didn’t say there’s a moose with horns in the cake. She said it had cream.”

  “It’s a different kind of moose,” Roger explained. “It’s not spelled the same.”

  He smiled. “I’ll change it for the one with cream.”

  Roger took Diane’s cake away.

  “Names and spelling are important when you order food in a restaurant,” Mrs. Shelton told Diane.

  Cam put down her spoon.

  “Did you hear that?” she whispered to Eric. “Names are important.”

  “Of course names are important. My name, Eric, means ‘mighty one.’”

  “A name can solve this mystery. A name can help us get back Grandpa’s things,” Cam said. “I remember exactly what Harry and his mother look like. I just have to remember the name they called out when Dr. Guterman gave out the diplomas.”

  Chapter Seven

  Roger brought Diane a slice of chocolate mousse cake.

  Diane stuck her finger in the cream and tasted it.

  “Yummy,” she said.

  “Please, thank Roger,” her mother told Diane. “And please, eat with a fork.”

  “Thank you,” Diane said to Roger.

  Diane broke off a large piece of the cake with her fork.

  “‘Choo! Choo! All aboard!’” Eric said. “That’s what the boy called out.”

  “He cheered for someone when she went to get her diploma,” Cam said. “He yelled, ‘Yay, Margery!’ ”

  “Eat your ice cream before it melts,” Mrs. Shelton told Cam and Eric.

  They each ate some ice cream.

  “We have to find a woman named Margery who just graduated from your dad’s college,” Cam said. “She’ll know who the boy is. Then we’ll find Grandpa’s bag. Donna and Diane can tell us Margery’s full name.”

  Roger cleared away their dessert dishes.

  “My sisters can’t help us,” Eric said. “They don’t know the names of the graduates.”

  “They have lots of printed lists of their names,” Cam said. “The names of all the graduates are in the programs.”

  “Diane,” Eric asked. “Can I see one of the graduation programs?”

  Diane took a handful of crumpled papers from her pocket. She gave them to Eric.

  “I have more,” she said.

  Diane took another handful of papers from her other pocket and gave those to Eric, too.

  “You have to give them back when you’re done,” she said. “When we get home, Donna and I will need them to play our graduation game.”

  Eric uncrumpled two of the programs. He gave one to Cam.

  “I’m looking for first names that begin with ‘M,’” Eric said as he ran his finger down the list of names.

  “Michael . . . Martin . . . Margaret . . . Another Michael . . . Here’s a Margery. Margery Dubin.”

  “I found one, too,” Cam said. “Margery Miller.”

  “Is that it?” Eric asked. “Are there just two graduates named Margery?”

  “That’s it. Now we have to call the guards at the college. Maybe they can find the two Margerys.”

  Roger came to the table with a small plate. On it was the bill for the meal.

  “I’ll take that,” Mrs. Shelton said.

  “No, I’ll pay,” Grandpa told her. “Ben is my son, and this celebration is my treat.”

  “Grandpa,” Mrs. Shelton said, and smiled. “Can we share?”

  Grandpa nodded.

  Eric’s mother and grandfather paid the bill. Then Eric asked his grandfather to call the guards. He told him that Margery Dubin or Margery Miller could help them find his bag.

  Grandpa spoke to the guards. Then he closed his cell phone.

  “They’ll check with the college office to find the two women’s telephone numbers. If they can, they’ll call them, and
if one has my bag they’ll ask her to bring it to the college.”

  “What do we do now?” Eric asked.

  “We walk back to our car,” Grandpa said.

  “Look at the twins,” Mrs. Shelton said. “We’re not going anywhere with them looking like that.”

  Diane had chocolate cream on her face, hands, and dress. Donna had melted ice cream on her face. They were both sticky with syrup.

  Everyone waited while Diane and Donna went to the bathroom and washed. Then Cam and the Sheltons left Green Stripes.

  Howie started to cry. Mrs. Shelton took him from his stroller and held him.

  Meow!

  “The cat waited for us!” Eric said. He bent down and petted the cat. “Cam said names are important, so we should give her a name.”

  Diane said, “Let’s call her Mrs. Talbot. She was my kindergarten teacher.”

  “No,” Eric said. “Let’s call her CC. That’s short for College Cat.”

  “CC,” Donna said. “I like that.”

  “Cam,” Eric said. “Your great photographic memory solved another mystery.”

  “No,” Cam said, and shook her head. “I didn’t look at pictures in my head to find Grandpa’s bag. I remembered something Harry said.”

  “Right now nothing has been solved,” Grandpa said. “I still don’t have Ben’s gift or my camera.”

  They all walked for a while. They came to the two stone columns at the entrance gates to the college, and Mrs. Shelton stopped.

  “I forgot where I parked my car.”

  Cam smiled. She closed her eyes and said, “Click!”

  “Your car is near the corner of Seventh and Franklin,” Cam said with her eyes still closed. “It’s between a red SUV and a motorcycle.”

  Cam opened her eyes.

  Grandpa took a paper from his pocket and said, “I know where I parked my car. I wrote it down.”

  “Wait,” Eric said. “Before we go home, let’s talk to the guards.”

  “You can stay with Grandpa,” Mrs. Shelton said. “Howie was good for a long time, but now he’s restless. I need to get him home.”

  The twins went with Mrs. Shelton. Grandpa, Mr. Shelton, Cam, and Eric walked back onto the college campus.