The Triceratops Pops Mystery

by David A. Adler

  “Yuck! What is that?” Cam asked.

  “It’s a Ripe Banana song.”

  “Yuck,” Cam said again. “It sounded more like a rotten banana song.”

  Cam thought for a moment. Then she leaned close to Eric and whispered, “Maybe a thief broke open the cases, took off the white rectangles, and stuffed the CDs in his shirt.”

  “Maybe,” Eric said.

  “I’ll look for the broken cases,” Cam told him.

  Eric said, “I’ll check the registers. Maybe I’ll find someone buying the Triceratops Pops CDs. Maybe there’s no mystery at all. You just got here too late to buy any.”

  Cam walked along the aisles. She looked under the tape and CD cases and behind them. She also looked at what people had in their shopping baskets.

  Near the back of the store Cam felt a draft of cold air. She turned and saw that the back door was open. And there was no security gate there.

  Cam was just starting toward it when she heard a loud “Beep ... Beep ... Beep” coming from the front of the store.

  Chapter Five

  Cam rushed down aisle six, past Jordan, to the store entrance.

  Eric pointed to a man standing by the security gate. The guard opened a bag he was carrying.

  Cam looked at the man. She blinked her eyes and said, “Click.”

  “This is it,” the guard said as he took out a videotape rented from another store. “These always set off our alarm.”

  The man was about to leave.

  “I’m sorry,” the guard said. “I’ll have to check your other bag, too.”

  The guard was wearing a name tag. HELLO. I’M ERNIE’S HELPER. MY NAME IS BARRY was printed on the tag.

  The man with the videotape was holding another large paper shopping bag. Cam got closer to see what was in the bag.

  “It’s a watermelon,” the man said. “I’m having a party tonight, and this will be dessert.”

  Barry the guard looked in the bag. Cam looked in, too. It was a watermelon.

  “It’s a big one,” Barry said.

  “I’m having a big party,” the man told him as he left the store.

  The bottom of the watermelon bag was wet and left a spot on the floor. Barry the guard wiped the floor and then went back to his seat near the cash registers.

  Cam told Eric, “Come with me. I’ll show you how the thief got out.”

  Eric followed Cam to the back door.

  “There’s no guard here,” Cam whispered, “and there’s no security gate.”

  Cam and Eric walked closer and looked out. The door opened out on a back street and driveway.

  “Excuse me,” said a woman pushing a handcart loaded with boxes. She was making a delivery.

  Cam and Eric moved aside and let the woman walk past. Then they started to walk through the back door.

  A tall woman wearing a yellow and green striped jacket stopped them. “This exit is for emergencies only. If you want to leave you’ll have to go out the front door.”

  On the woman’s jacket was a name tag that said: HELLO. I’M ERNIE’S HELPER. MY NAME IS SUSAN.

  Cam and Eric walked away from the door.

  Eric said, “Maybe the thief got out when Susan was on her lunch break.”

  “Sh,” Cam whispered. “Look.”

  Cam pointed to a woman wearing a large raincoat. The woman was walking along the back aisle of the store.

  “She’s wearing a raincoat and it isn’t raining,” Cam whispered. “It hasn’t rained all week.”

  Cam and Eric followed the woman. She stopped by a rack of videotapes. She took a tape from the rack and looked at it.

  The woman turned and saw Cam and Eric watching her. She quickly returned the tape to the rack and walked down aisle four.

  “Did you see that?” Cam asked.

  “What?”

  “Her pockets are full. I’ll bet she’s got the stolen CDs.”

  Eric said, “Or maybe she just has a rain hat and gloves in her pockets.”

  Cam and Eric walked quietly to aisle four. They stood at the end of the aisle. They pretended to be looking at the CDs. But they were really watching the woman in the raincoat.

  The woman turned and saw Cam and Eric watching her. Cam smiled at the woman. Then Cam blinked her eyes and said, “Click.”

  The woman turned and walked away.

  Cam whispered to Eric, “I just took a picture of her with my mental camera. I want to remember what she looks like. She might be the CD thief.”

  Cam and Eric walked to the end of aisle four. They looked down aisles three and five.

  “Where did she go?” Cam asked.

  Just then they heard a loud “Beep . . . Beep ... Beep.”

  Chapter Six

  “That’s her,” Cam said. “She’s trying to leave the store.”

  Cam and Eric rushed to the front of the store. The woman in the raincoat wasn’t there. Barry the guard was looking through a teenager’s knapsack. He took out a bag with blank tapes that the boy had just bought at Ernie’s. He took out books, papers, a lunch bag, and a videotape from the rental store.

  “This is it,” Barry said. “These tapes always set off our alarm.”

  Barry helped the boy repack his knapsack.

  After the boy left, Cam asked the guard, “Did you see a woman wearing a raincoat walk past here?”

  Cam closed her eyes and said, “Click.”

  “She has white hair and brown eyes,” Cam said with her eyes still closed. “She’s wearing tiny earrings, dark red lipstick, eyeglasses, sneakers, and white socks.”

  “I didn’t see her,” Barry said.

  Cam opened her eyes. She leaned close to the guard and whispered, “She’s wearing a raincoat and it isn’t raining!”

  Barry the guard leaned even closer and whispered, “I didn’t see her.”

  Barry went back to his seat near the cash registers.

  Cam said to Eric, “Then she’s still here. She may be hiding from us. Or she may be in some corner taking off the magnetic strips.”

  Eric followed Cam past the racks of videotapes of old movies and television shows. They walked down aisle one. Then, as they turned to walk up the next aisle, Cam stopped and pointed to a woman just ahead of them.

  “She’s not wearing a raincoat,” Eric said. “That woman works here.”

  “I know she works here. She’s Susan. But if Susan is in here, who’s watching the back door?”

  Cam and Eric went quickly to the back door. It was open.

  “Maybe this is how the raincoat woman got away,” Cam said as she walked through the door.

  Cam and Eric were standing on a narrow driveway at the back of the mall. Trucks were parked by the back doors of some of the stores and workers were unloading the trucks. NO PARKING. LOADING ZONE was painted on many of the doors.

  “I don’t see her,” Eric said.

  Cam and Eric walked out across the driveway. They turned and looked both ways. Then, as Cam turned again and looked into the store, she saw the woman in the raincoat.

  “There she is!”

  Cam and Eric hurried across the driveway. But before they could get into the store Susan reached out for the door. She didn’t see Cam and Eric as she pulled the door closed.

  Cam tried to open the door. It was locked. She knocked and banged, but no one came to open it.

  There was a large sign on the door. EMERGENCY EXIT. PLEASE ENTER THROUGH MALL.

  Cam gave the door one last knock. Then she and Eric walked around to the front. They entered the shopping mall. Someone dressed in a bear costume was about to hand Eric a flyer when Cam said, “We have no time for that.”

  “No, thank you,” Eric said.

  Eric put his hands in his pockets.

  “Grrr!” the bear growled.

  Cam and Eric hurried through the crowded mall to Ernie’s. They were about to walk in when Cam stopped.

  Cam pointed to the floor and asked, “Do you see that?”

  Eric looke
d down at a small, wet trail.

  “The thief is not in Ernie’s,” Cam said. “He left a long time ago.”

  Chapter Seven

  Cam closed her eyes and said, “Click.”

  “The thief has short brown hair,” Cam said with her eyes closed. “He’s wearing sunglasses, a green shirt, blue pants, and sneakers.”

  Cam opened her eyes and said, “Let’s tell the guard.”

  Cam and Eric went into Ernie’s.

  “Some CDs were stolen and we know who did it,” Cam told Barry the guard.

  Barry smiled. Then he turned away.

  “He stole six Triceratops Pops CDs and maybe some others, too,” Cam said.

  “I have a job here,” Barry said. He wasn’t smiling anymore. “I don’t have time for children’s games.”

  “You should listen to Cam,” Eric told Barry. “She has an amazing photographic memory. She’s solved lots of mysteries.”

  Cam closed her eyes and told Barry, “The third button on your shirt is open.”

  He closed the button.

  “Your tie is crooked.”

  He straightened his necktie.

  “And the number on your badge is 3640897.”

  “It is! You do have an amazing memory. Now tell me why you think some CDs were stolen from here.”

  Cam told Barry all about the missing discs. Then she told him about the thief. She was excited and spoke very fast.

  “The CDs were taken and your gate beeped. The man was wearing sunglasses. You checked his bags and found a rented videotape and a watermelon. You should have held the tape and made him go through the gate again. It would have beeped.”

  Cam took a deep breath and went on.

  “The bottom of the watermelon bag was wet.”

  “That’s right,” Barry said. “After he left, I wiped the floor.”

  Cam told Barry, “Whole watermelons are wet on the inside, not on the outside. He must have cut a hole in the side of the watermelon and hollowed it out. That’s where he hid the CDs.”

  “What do we do now?” Barry asked.

  “We look for him,” Cam said. “I can give you his exact description. I have a picture of the thief stored in my head.”

  “Not yet,” Barry said. “First I have to tell my boss that I’m leaving the store.”

  When Barry came back he and Eric listened as Cam described the thief. Then they went outside to search the mall.

  “Look how many people there are here,” Barry said. “We’ll never find him.”

  Eric said, “He left so long ago, he’s probably home already.”

  Cam looked at the floor. She tried to follow the trail of watermelon juice. But too many people had walked on it and too many other things had been spilt on the floor.

  Barry pointed to a man wearing sunglasses and asked, “Is that him?”

  “No,” Cam said. “The thief is shorter and is wearing sneakers.”

  Barry walked slowly through the mall. Cam and Eric followed him.

  “What about him?” Barry asked and pointed again.

  Cam shook her head and said, “No.”

  By now they had walked across the mall and were standing in front of the video rental store. Eric looked at the store. Then he looked at Cam.

  “We don’t have to search for the thief,” Eric said. “We can go to his house. I know how we can get his name, address, and probably even his telephone number.”

  Chapter Eight

  Eric told Cam, “You just have to say ‘Click.’ Look at the picture you have in your head of the thief and at the videotape Barry took from his bag. The rental store can tell us who took out that tape. And there it is, the name of the thief.”

  Eric went on, “I’m sure they have his address on their computer records. They probably have his telephone number, too, his credit card number, his date of birth, and lots of other things about him.”

  Cam closed her eyes and said, “Click.”Then she said, “He rented Jungle Jake Returns.”

  “Jungle Jake Returns!” Eric asked, “Why would anyone want to watch that?”

  Barry said, “He probably rented it just to fool our security system.”

  Cam, Eric, and Barry went into the store. Barry explained to the clerk there why they needed to know who had rented Jungle Jane Returns.

  “I can’t tell you that,” the clerk said. “Our computer records are private.”

  “Take a look at my badge,” Barry said. “I’m an Ernie’s security guard. I believe the man who rented that tape is a thief.”

  “I can’t just give you his name. I have to check first with my boss. Wait here. I’ll be right back,” the clerk said. Then he walked quickly to the back of the store.

  “Look at all the tapes they have here,” Eric said. “Some of these were in movie theaters just a few months ago.”

  “Ernie’s has tapes, too,” Barry said, “lots of tapes.”

  “This is where you find the most popular tapes,” Cam said. She pointed to a slot in the front of the store. “People return the tapes here. As soon as the clerk checks them in, you grab them. When I come here with my parents we always look here first.”

  Someone outside the store dropped in a tape. It slid down a small tunnel and into a wooden box.

  “There’s a tape now,” Cam said.

  Eric looked into the box. “I saw that movie. It was good.”

  Another tape slid down the tunnel.

  “Yuck!” Eric said. “It’s an exercise tape.”

  Barry looked at his watch.

  “I can’t wait here all afternoon,” Barry said.

  “They sell candy here, too, and popcorn,” Cam said. “I love to eat popcorn while I watch a movie.”

  Barry looked at his watch again.

  “I’m going back there,” he said. “I’ll speak to his boss myself.”

  Just then another tape slid down the tunnel. Cam looked into the box.

  “It’s Jungle Jake Returns!”

  Chapter Nine

  Barry turned and ran out the door. Cam and Eric followed him.

  A man wearing sunglasses, a green shirt, blue pants, and sneakers was walking from the store. When he saw Barry, Cam, and Eric coming toward him, the man started to run.

  “That’s him!” Cam shouted. “He’s the thief.”

  The man was carrying a large shopping bag. He bumped into people as he ran. But he didn’t stop.

  Cam, Eric, and Barry were careful not to run into people. Because they were being careful, the man was getting away.

  Then the man turned to see how close they were. And he ran right into the man in the bear costume.

  “Ahhh!” the man screamed when he saw the bear. He dropped the shopping bag.

  “Grrr!” the bear growled.

  The man grabbed at the handles of his shopping bag. But it was too late. Cam, Eric, and Barry had caught up with him.

  When the man dropped the bag, the watermelon broke. Inside the bag was the broken watermelon, and lots of CDs and watches.

  Barry asked, “Did you steal these watches from Benders?”

  The man said, “I bought them.”

  “Show me the sales slip,” Barry said.

  The man didn’t have one.

  Barry held onto the man’s arm and told Cam and Eric to get the police.

  They found two police officers in a car patrolling the parking lot. Cam told them about Barry, the thief, and the stolen CDs. The officers got out of their car. They followed Cam and Eric into the shopping mall and arrested the thief.

  “We’ll have to take the watches and CDs, too,” one of the officers said. “We’ll need them as evidence of the crime.”

  “Can’t you leave just one of the Triceratops Pops CDs?” Cam asked. “That’s why I went to Ernie’s.”

  “Please,” Barry said. “Leave us just one of those.”

  The officer gave Barry one of the Triceratops Pops CDs. Barry gave it to Cam.

  “The case is sticky with watermelon juice,” B
arry said. “But you can wash that off. The CD inside isn’t damaged.”

  Cam took money from her pocket and said, “I’ll pay for it.”

  “No you won’t,” Barry said. “Both of you are heroes. That CD is a reward for helping to catch the thief. Come to the store and I’m sure my boss will reward you with more CDs.”

  Eric asked, “Can we get a Ripe Banana Band CD?”

  Barry said, “Of course.”

  Cam looked at Barry’s watch.

  “We can’t go back to the store now,” she said. “It’s late. We have to meet my father by the bank.”

  “Well,” Barry said, “you can come back to Ernie’s anytime and claim your reward. I’ll even introduce you to Ernie. He’ll want to meet both of you.” Barry smiled. “And don’t worry. Even if you wait a long time to come back to the store, I’ll remember you. I have a good memory, too.”