by Charles Tang
Mr. Bindry seemed about to leave but changed his mind. “All right. But just keep these kids out of my hair until Saturday. I’ll price the books out in the courtyard. They can work in here.”
“I agree you need peace and quiet to do your job,” Miss Chase said. “So, here’s what we can do. The children need some fun. I’d like them to take a little time off for some sightseeing today and part of each day they’re here.”
“But we don’t need to go sightseeing,” Jessie said. “We like helping with your shop just as much. Honest.”
Miss Chase smiled. “Now Ezra, how can you resist this lovely family?”
“Hrmph!” Mr. Bindry repeated. He was interested in books, not children.
“I guess ‘Hrmph’ means the arrangement suits you?” Miss Chase asked.
“Hrmph!” Mr. Bindry answered.
“Okay, children,” Miss Chase said. “You’ve done plenty for today. I want you to take a break and go over to the French Market for milk and beignets. Before Mr. Bindry gets started, go out to the book tables and choose any books you’ve had your eyes on. They’re yours.”
“Choose any books they’d like?” Mr. Bindry shouted, not mumbling at all now. “There might be something here worth hundreds or even thousands of dollars. You can’t mean they can choose any books?”
Miss Chase folded her arms. “That’s exactly what I mean.”
Henry picked up some books from the mystery table. “These are by my favorite writer,” he said, holding up two mysteries. “Olivia Chase.”
“Same here,” Jessie said, holding up two other Olivia Chase mysteries.
Benny found an old copy of The Boy’s Handbook. “Is this worth a lot of money, Mr. Bindry?”
“Hardly!” Mr. Bindry sniffed. “Every boy your age had a copy years ago. They’re as common as yesterday’s newspaper.”
Benny held onto the nice old book all the same.
“What about you, Violet? Don’t you want to choose anything?” Miss Chase asked.
“Thank you so much, Miss Chase,” Violet said softly. “But I’m happy with my fairy tales.”
“Fairy tales? What fairy tales?” Mr. Bindry asked Miss Chase.
Violet held out her copy of The Little Mermaid. “Can you tell if this is worth anything? It’s part of a boxed set.”
Mr. Bindry’s eyes widened, and he reached out to examine the book. “Worth something? If it’s what I think it is, it’s . . .” The old man stopped talking. “It’s practically worthless.”
Violet bit her lip and hugged the books tightly. “It’s not worthless to me. I’m going to keep the whole set next to my bed so it doesn’t get sold by mistake.”
“Keep out one book for now, okay, Violet?” Jessie suggested. “That way we’ll have something to read if we sit in the park later.” Violet nodded and disappeared upstairs to put the rest of the set away.
Miss Chase saw how Mr. Bindry had upset Violet. She guided him to the far end of the courtyard to get him away from the Aldens. “I can’t have you talking so sharply to these children, Ezra.”
But Mr. Bindry just wouldn’t drop the subject. “If you hire someone to fix a car, you don’t give the car away before the mechanic opens the hood, Olivia. How can I do my work if you’re giving everything away before I even start?”
Miss Chase calmly peeled back the plastic coverings over the book table. “There are plenty of books for you right here, Ezra. I’ll get you a notebook and some pencils so you can get started right away.”
“Mr. Bindry is so grumpy,” Benny told his brother and sisters after they went back inside the bookshop.
“Miss Chase will calm him down,” Jessie said. “She knows what to do. Now let’s put these buckets and sponges away, grab our backpacks, and go to the French Market.”
“Do we have to talk French at the French Market?” Benny asked as he finished cleaningup. “All I know is ‘French fries.’ ”
Henry dumped two pails of water into a small sink in the back of the store. “Don’t worry,” he said.
“I know what I want at the French Market,” Benny said. “Those Benny things. . . .”
“Beignets,” Violet said when she came backdownstairs with everyone’s backpacks for their outing. “They are yummy.”
“Mmm, sounds good to me. Oops,” Henry said when they stepped out into the street and he almost tripped. “Here’s Miss Chase’s newspaper. Let’s check for her ad.” Henry opened to the classified section. He ran his finger up and down the columns of job ads. “Hmm. It must be in tomorrow’s paper.”
“Hey, wait a minute!” Jessie cried. “How did Mr. Bindry know about Miss Chase’s ad for a book expert if it’s not in the paper yet?”
Chapter 5
The Face in the Photograph
The Riverfront Streetcar was jammed with people visiting New Orleans just like the Aldens. Everyone seemed to be wearing a silly hat or carrying a colorful souvenir umbrella to shade themselves from the hot sun.
“New Orleans is just like a carnival,” Violet said, holding onto the center pole of the streetcar. “They seem to have little parades going on all the time.”
“I’m so squished I don’t need to hold onto anything,” Benny said. “This streetcar is so crowded.”
“Just hang in there, Benny,” Henry said. “Miss Chase told us the French Market is only a few stops down the line.”
As the streetcar rolled along, the Aldens tried to look at everything at once. Just a few feet from the tracks, the sidewalks were filled with street musicians, food carts, artists painting portraits of tourists, and people buying trinkets from sidewalk stands. The Aldens could hardly wait to join in.
“Jackson Square! Jackson Square!” the conductor called out when the streetcar finally came to a stop.
“Does everyone have everything?” Jessie asked.
The younger children felt for their backpacks. The Aldens liked to carry around whatever they might need on their outings — cameras, books, sketch pads, and snacks in case they got hungry, which they always did.
“Everything’s still here but kind of mashed,” Benny said. He looked into his backpack to make sure his cowboy wallet, his new book, and his box of raisins were safe and sound.
“My sketch pad and coin purse are here. But wait, Jessie. Look at your backpack!” Violet cried. “The flap came untied.”
Without even checking, Jessie ran alongside the streetcar to see if anything had fallen from her backpack. “Wait!” she called out to the conductor.
But the Riverfront Streetcar had pulled away.
“Too late,” Jessie said. She put her pack down on a sidewalk bench. “I’m sure I tied the flap down tight before we left.”
Jessie emptied her backpack on the bench. “Let’s see if I still have everything. Here’s the street map. The Thermos. My address book. My camera and wallet. My mystery book. What else did I have in here? Oh, good, your book is here, too.” She picked up The Little Mermaid that Violet had stuck in there for reading later on.
With that, Jessie repacked everything and closed the flap. Then she put down her pack on the bench so she could check the map. “Now let’s see where we are. According to the map, the French Market and the café Miss Chase told us about should be right in front of us.”
“Let’s just follow that nice smell,” Benny said, sniffing the air.
The other children took a deep whiff, too. A wonderful scent of fried dough, chocolate, and coffee floated around them.
“Mmm, it’s coming from over there,” Violet said as the children stood on their tiptoes to see over all the people crowding the big square.
“Then let’s go,” Benny said, pulling on Jessie’s arm.
Jessie folded the map and bent down to put it away. “Oh, no,” she cried, “my backpack is gone!”
The children looked high and low around the bench and retraced a few steps, but the green backpack was gone.
“Wait. Look at that woman over there,” Henry told Jessie. “Isn’t th
at your pack dangling from her arm?”
Jessie didn’t take the time to answer. With the other children right behind, she chased after the woman through the crowd, never taking her eyes off the backpack.
When Jessie finally caught up, she tapped the woman’s shoulder. “Excuse me,” she said, all out of breath.
When the woman turned around, the children all cried at once: “Sarah Deckle!”
Jessie spoke first. “Sarah, is that my backpack you’re holding? I left it on a bench so I could read a map. When I turned around, it was gone.”
“Why . . . why, yes, I took it. I . . . I mean I saw it lying there on the bench back there. I was going to see if there’s a Lost and Found office nearby. Here, take it.”
Jessie took the green backpack and slipped her arms into the shoulder straps. “Whew. That was careless of me. Thanks.”
Without even a “You’re welcome,” Sarah Deckle disappeared into the crowd.
“Boy, she didn’t seem too happy to give that back to you,” Henry said. “I mean, if she was going to the Lost and Found like she said, she should have been pleased you turned up so soon.”
“Maybe she wasn’t going to the Lost and Found,” Violet said. “Maybe she wasn’t going to give it back.”
“I’m just glad I found it,” Jessie said.
“Now can we eat at that good-smelling restaurant over there, Jessie?” Benny asked. “It says ‘Café.’ I know that means coffee, but I hope they have plain old chocolate milk, too.”
“It’s called Café du Monde, Benny,” Violet said, taking Benny by the hand. “It means ‘The People’s Café.’ ”
Benny pulled Violet. “Well, I’m a people, so let’s get going!”
The children found a table for four in the open-air café.
“I’ll get us some of those beignet doughnutsfor all of us, while you hold the table,” Henry said. “Can I get some money from your wallet, Jessie?”
Jessie took out her camera and handed Henry her backpack.
“I just love New Orleans,” Jessie said. “I’m going to try out the new instant camera Grandfather gave me for my birthday.”
Jessie stepped back and snapped a picture of Benny making a silly face while Violet giggled at him.
“The photo only takes a couple of minutes to develop,” Jessie said. “It’s almost ready.”
Jessie pulled hard, and a photo slid out of the camera. Everyone watched closely as a picture developed right before their eyes.
“Here I am! Here I am!” Benny said, excited to see himself appear as if by magic in the photo.
Sure enough, there was Benny’s silly face and Violet laughing at it.
“Fried beignets coming up!” Henry said a few minutes later when he returned with a tray of doughnuts.
Pretty soon the plate of beignets in front of the Aldens was a plate of crumbs.
“You’ll never guess who was in line with me,” Henry said when he had finished eating. “Sarah Deckle. She was right behind me.”
“It’s so crowded, I don’t see her anywhere, Henry,” Violet said. “Do you, Jessie?”
“Me neither,” Jessie said, turning her head this way and that. “I guess Sarah Deckle likes these special doughnuts too.”
The children left the café and went out to Jackson Square.
“Stand by that big statue of Andrew Jackson on his horse,” Jessie said. She arranged Henry and Violet on either side of Benny. Then she stepped back, trying to get everybody in the picture, including the huge bronze horse and its rider.
“Who’s Andrew Jackson?” Benny asked Henry as he tried to talk and smile at the same time.
“A war hero from a long time ago during the Battle of New Orleans,” Henry said.
“Got it!” Jessie said. She pulled out the instant photo and waited for it to develop.
A few minutes later, the picture was ready. “Oh, no!” Jessie laughed. “Look. I cut off the horse’s head and Andrew Jackson in the photo.”
“That’s okay,” Henry said to Jessie. “It takes a while to get used to a new camera. We have lots more places to see in New Orleans, so you’ll get plenty of practice with your picture taking.”
Ten pictures later, the Aldens collapsed in a little park overlooking the Mississippi River.
“Whew, sightseeing is a lot of work!” Henry said, stretching himself on a patch of green grass along with the other children.
“It sure is,” Jessie agreed. “I brought along a small Thermos of lemonade. We’ll share it.”
The children cooled off with small sips of lemonade while they watched all the riverboats arriving and departing on the river.
Jessie snapped her last picture of the busy scene.
“Can I see? Can I see?” Benny looked over Jessie’s shoulder as the instant picture developed.
“Here, I’ll spread out all the pictures we took,” Jessie said. She arranged the photos in rows on the grass so everyone could get a look.
Henry chuckled as he studied the pictures. “Gosh, Benny. You made a silly face in every single picture, even at that old New Orleans cemetery we visited!”
“I like making faces,” Benny said with a laugh. “Hey, there’s another face in every picture. But it’s not a silly one.”
The children leaned in to get a better look.
“It looks like Mr. Phillips!” Violet cried. “He’s in the picture Jessie took at the café. Then next to the horse statue. And here in the cemetery. Doesn’t that also look like him in this shot of the dock you just took?”
“You’re right, Violet,” Jessie said. “Let’s see if the person is still down there in case it is Mr. Phillips. Some of these pictures are a little blurry.”
The children raced down to the riverboat dock. But by the time they got there, the last boat had pulled away, taking with it all the people in Jessie’s photo.
Chapter 6
The Shadow Knows
“I’m so full, I can hardly walk up these stairs,” Benny said as the children climbed up to Miss Chase’s apartment. “And guess what? I’m not even hungry! That jumble dish we had for dinner sure filled me up.”
“You mean the jambalaya,” Violet said.
Jessie stepped into the apartment first. “It’s so dark in here. Miss Chase was nice to leave the door unlocked, but I sure wish she had left a light on. I can’t see a thing. She must have gone to bed early.”
Henry felt around in the dark for a light switch and flicked it on. “Hey, what’s that?” He pointed to a crumpled note lying near the front door and smoothed it out. He read it aloud:
“Dear Aldens,
I hope you’ve had a wonderful day and evening out in New Orleans. I went out to dinner, too. I have locked the door. I’ll be back around ten o’clock. I have my key, so be sure to lock up when you get home.
’Night all,
Olivia Chase.”
Henry lowered his voice to a whisper. “We’d better go back out.”
“Come along, Violet. You, too, Benny,” Jessie whispered.
Thinking about the cozy cot on the sleeping porch, Benny wasn’t too happy about turning back. “Why can’t we go in?”
“You shouldn’t go into a house if the door is unlocked when it shouldn’t be. There might be a burglar inside. Miss Chase said she locked the door,” Jessie said. She took Benny by the hand and led him back downstairs and into the courtyard.
“Let’s go out to the street and find a phone booth. It can’t hurt to call the police to make sure no one is prowling nearby,” Henry said. “There’s something strange about Miss Chase’s apartment being unlocked. Just yesterday, the courtyard was unlocked when it wasn’t supposed to be.”
Henry unlocked the courtyard gate, and the children stepped onto the sidewalk. Then Benny saw someone step from the shadows of the bookstore doorway.
“Look!” Benny pointed to a figure who darted down the street. “I think that person just came out of the bookstore.”
The children ran to the shop do
orway. Jessie pulled and pushed the door, but it wouldn’t budge. When everyone looked down the street again, the shadow had vanished.
“Benny, are you sure you saw someone come out of the shop?” Jessie asked.
Benny scrunched his forehead. “It was so dark, I couldn’t see. I couldn’t even tell if it was a she or a he.”
The children heard footsteps on the sidewalk. They belonged to Miss Chase. “Are you just coming home, too?” she said, surprised to see the Aldens. “You must be tired out. Let’s get you off to bed after your long day.”
“But . . . but,” Violet began, “we think there was a prowler in the bookshop or in your apartment. The back door was unlocked, and your note was bunched up on the floor.”
“And know what else?” Benny broke in. “A person jumped out of this doorway but then disappeared. Henry was just about to call the police.”
Even in the dim street light, the children could see that Miss Chase looked worried. She checked up and down the street and inside the bookshop windows. “You children did just the right thing. Calling the police is a good idea. I’ll make the call.”
Less than five minutes later, a cruiser arrived in front of the bookshop. Two police officers got out carrying flashlights.
“We got your call, Miss Chase,” one of them said. “First, let’s check out the shop.”
With that, the police examined the bookshop door lock. “Well, it doesn’t look forced or anything. Can you unlock it, Miss Chase?”
“Do you see anything missing or disturbed?” one of the police officers asked Miss Chase when they got inside the shop.
“Not that I can tell. You see, we’ve been unpacking books and cleaning and throwing things out,” she explained. “Everybody’s been so busy, if someone touched or took anything, it would be hard to tell.”
The police led everyone out to the courtyard and flashed their lights up and down the brick walls and book tables. “How about out here? Is everything in order?”
Miss Chase sighed. “Again, it’s impossible to say, Officer. Everything looks fine. The children said they found my apartment unlocked. I’m sure I locked it, before I left.”
