Chapter Four
Cam was holding a padlock. The top of it had been cut. Cam ran toward the lion’s cage.
“Wait,” Eric called as he ran after Cam. “The monkey cage has a lock.”
But Cam didn’t wait. She ran right up to the guard, held out the lock, and said, “Look at this!”
The guard looked down at Cam and the lock. Then he looked up again.
“This is the monkey cage lock. Someone cut it and stole the monkeys,” Cam said.
Eric pulled on Cam’s sleeve and whispered to her, “That’s not it.”
“Try your key in this,” Cam told the guard.
The guard looked down at Cam again. Then he pulled a large key ring from his pocket. He picked out one of the keys and said, “This key fits the locks on all the cages. But it won’t fit that lock.”
The guard took the lock from Cam. He put the key in. The key fit. The guard turned the key and the lock opened.
“Let’s look at that cage,” the guard said. He walked quickly to the monkey house. Cam and Eric had to run to keep up.
“Whoever stole those monkeys put another lock on the cage door,” Cam said, as she ran alongside the guard.
The guard looked at the lock on the outside door of the first monkey cage. He tried to put his key in. It didn’t fit. He went inside the monkey house and picked up the telephone.
Billy rushed over to Cam and Eric. “What’s he doing here?” he asked Cam.
“Shh,” Eric said.
“This is Senior Guard Wally Russell,” he said into the telephone. “Someone switched the locks on one of the monkey cages. And some monkeys are missing.”
The guard listened for a short while.
Then he said, “Yes, I’ll wait here.”
The guard looked into the first cage. Billy was right behind him. “I knew those monkeys were stolen,” Billy told the guard. “I just knew it.”
Cam and Eric were standing by the door to the monkey house. “How could someone sneak a bunch of monkeys out of a zoo?” Cam asked.
Cam stood there looking out. At the far end of the path, she saw two guards running toward the monkey house. Behind them was another guard riding a small cart.
“That’s it!” Cam said. “Come with me.”
Cam and Eric ran out of the monkey house. They ran past the guards to the wide paved road near the zoo entrance. Cam stopped near a small boy and a man who were looking at a map.
“Did you see an ice-cream cart go past here?” Cam asked.
“No,” the boy said. “But we did see one when we were looking at the animals with four legs and the real long necks.”
Cam closed her eyes and said, “Click.” Then she said, “Come on, Eric. The giraffes are right down this road.”
Cam started to run off again.
“Stop! Just stop,” Eric called out. “I ran with you to get the guard and I ran back to the monkey house. I did that twice. Then I ran here. I’m not running anyplace else unless you tell me what’s going on.”
Cam stopped. She turned and told Eric, “When I saw the guard riding a cart, I knew where the monkeys were. They’re in an ice-cream cart. Those ice-cream men ride all over the zoo. And if you take the ice cream out, there’s room in one of those carts for two or three monkeys.”
“Maybe one of the guards with carts stole the monkeys,” Eric said.
Cam shook her head. “The guards have keys. A guard wouldn’t have to cut the lock.”
“But how will we get to see if the ice-cream man has any monkeys in his cart?” Eric asked.
“We can listen for strange noises coming out of the cart. Or we can tell the man we want to buy some ice cream. I’ll bet he says, ‘Sorry, I’m all out.’ ”
Cam smiled and asked Eric, “Will you come with me now?”
Eric nodded and they ran together toward the giraffes.
Chapter Five
Cam and Eric ran down the main road. They ran past the camel rides and the elephants to the giraffes’ cage. They found the ice-cream cart still there. The man was sitting on a bench and reading.
“We’d like to buy some ice cream,” Cam said.
The man closed his book. “I have ‘Piggy Back’ cones. That’s a cone with two scoops of ice cream. You can get rum raisin and strawberry or chocolate and lemon.”
“Yuck,” Eric said. “What horrible flavors.”
Cam leaned close to Eric and whispered, “He doesn’t really have any ice cream in there. He thinks by telling us those horrible flavors we’ll say, ‘No thanks.’ ”
“I’ll take a chocolate and lemon cone,” Cam told the man.
“And I’ll take rum raisin and strawberry,” Eric said.
The man opened the small door to his cart. He reached in and took out two cones.
“That’s seventy-five cents each,” he said, as he gave Cam and Eric the cones and two napkins.
Cam and Eric paid the man. Then Eric tasted the ice cream.
“Yuck,” Eric said again. “This stuff is terrible!”
“That must be the rum raisin,” the man said. “Everyone hates that flavor.”
Cam asked, “Are there any other ice-cream carts in the zoo?”
“Well, yes. There’s one near the zebras and another near the reptiles. But we all have the same flavors.”
Cam said, “Click,” and closed her eyes. Then she said, “The zebras are all the way at the end of this road, right past the camels and the bison.”
Cam and Eric walked quickly down the road. When they came to a trash can Eric stopped. He held his ice-cream cone over the can and shook it gently.
“What are you doing?” Cam asked.
“I’m trying to shake off the rum raisin scoop without losing the strawberry.”
Cam took the top scoop off of Eric’s cone and dropped it into the trash. Cam wiped her fingers on her napkin and said, “Let’s go.”
The ice-cream vendor was sitting on a bench near the zebras. She was sleeping with her feet resting on the ice-cream cart.
“She doesn’t look like someone who has just stolen some monkeys,” Eric told Cam.
“Shh,” Cam whispered. She crawled to the ice-cream cart. She put her ear next to it and listened. Eric put his ear against the side of the cart and listened, too.
“I don’t hear any monkeys in there,” Eric whispered.
“Neither do I,” Cam whispered.
“All you’ll hear in there is ice cream,” someone said in a loud voice. “And ice cream doesn’t talk.”
Cam and Eric looked up and saw the ice-cream woman standing there.
Eric stood and told the woman, “Some monkeys are missing. We thought they might be inside your ice-cream cart.”
“Monkeys! What I have in here is worse than monkeys,” the woman said as she opened the small door. “I have chocolate and lemon, and rum raisin and strawberry ice cream. I haven’t sold a cone all day.”
Cam licked her ice-cream cone and said, “It does taste pretty bad.”
The woman closed the small door and sat on the bench again. She put her feet on the cart. “Monkeys!” she said, and laughed as she closed her eyes.
There was a trash can nearby. Cam dropped the lemon ice cream into the trash. She took a few quick bites and finished the chocolate and the cone.
Cam and Eric walked toward the reptile house to find the third ice-cream cart. They walked past a pond. A man was standing there and throwing bread crumbs to the ducks and geese.
Quack, quack, honk, honk, the ducks and geese called as they chased after the bread crumbs.
Cam watched the ducks and geese eat the crumbs. She listened to the sounds they made. Then she closed her eyes and said, “Click.” She said “click” again.
Cam opened her eyes and told Eric, “I know just where those monkeys are. And they’re not inside an ice-cream cart.”
Chapter Six
“The honking sounds those geese made helped me solve the mystery,” Cam told Eric, as they quickly walked along the
main road. Then Cam saw that a crowd had gathered at the main entrance to the zoo. She ran ahead.
Eric took one last big bite and finished his ice-cream cone. Then he ran to catch up with Cam.
“Where have you been?” Billy asked, as he came out to meet Cam and Eric. “You missed everything. The zoo director and lots more guards came. Five monkeys were stolen.”
“I know where they are. I know who took them,” Cam said.
Cam found Senior Guard Wally Russell and told him, “I know who stole the monkeys.”
A short, fat man with a beard and thick eyeglasses was talking to a few of the guards. He turned and asked Cam, “How do you know who took them?”
“This is the girl I told you about,” Wally Russell told the man. “She’s the one who found the lock.”
“I’m Don Cooper. I’m the director of the zoo,” the man said, as he shook hands with Cam and Eric. “Now what can you tell me about the monkeys?”
“Some people drove in here with a truck. The back of the truck was filled with dirt. I thought they were doing some planting. But the truck passed us later. It was leaving the zoo and the back was still filled with dirt.”
“We’re not doing any planting. That truck didn’t belong here,” Mr. Cooper said. He walked quickly to the entrance and asked the guard if the truck rode past.
“About fifteen minutes ago,” the guard said.
Cam described the truck. Mr. Cooper called the police. He told them about the monkeys and the truck.
Mr. Cooper stood by the telephone. He folded and unfolded his arms. He put his hands into his jacket pockets and took them out. Then he clapped his hands and said, “Come on. I can’t just wait here. Maybe we can find that truck.”
Cam, Eric, Billy, and Wally Russell followed Mr. Cooper to the parking lot. Mr. Cooper opened the doors to an old green car. The backseat was filled with baby toys, balls, and dolls.
“Just push those aside,” Mr. Cooper said. “I use them when I play with the baby animals.”
Cam and Wally Russell sat on the front seat next to Mr. Cooper. Eric and Billy sat in the back.
As the car went through the gate, Cam said, “When the geese honked they reminded me of the truck. It honked at us twice.”
Billy said, “Did you know that some people keep geese as pets?”
“And I thought it was strange,” Cam went on, “for that truck to bring dirt into the zoo and take it out again.”
Mr. Cooper stopped just outside the zoo. There was a long line of cars ahead of him. Mr. Cooper waited. The traffic light at the end of the road was red. But when the light turned to green, the cars still didn’t move. Mr. Cooper honked his car horn.
“It happens every time,” Mr. Cooper said. “When I’m in a rush, there’s a traffic jam.”
The light turned red. Then it turned green again, but no cars moved.
“What’s going on up there?” Mr. Cooper asked, as he got out of his car and walked down the road. Cam and Eric followed him. And right behind them were Billy and Wally Russell.
There had been an accident. A small blue car had crashed into a large truck. The drivers were standing in the middle of the road and arguing.
“That’s it,” Cam said. “That’s the truck I saw in the zoo!”
Chapter Seven
A police siren sounded. The siren got louder and louder. Then two police cars turned the corner. Mr. Cooper waved his arms and the second car stopped.
“We can’t help you,” the officer said as he rolled down his window. “Some zoo animals have been stolen.”
“I know. I called you. I’m Don Cooper, the director of the zoo. And I think we’ve found the thieves.”
The police officer opened his car door and got out. Mr. Cooper told him the truck had been in the zoo at the time the monkeys were stolen.
The police officer walked over to the truck. Mr. Cooper, Cam, Eric, Billy, and Wally Russell were right behind the officer.
“Whose truck is this?” the officer asked.
“It’s mine,” a young man said. He was wearing a green baseball hat and a sweat shirt. “And she crashed into me.” The young man pointed to a woman standing next to the small blue car. “My neck hurts. And my back hurts. And my truck is dented.”
“You were turning?” the officer asked.
“Yes, and that woman crashed right into me. She shouldn’t be allowed to drive a car.”
“If you were turning and she was going straight,” the officer said, “she had the right of way.”
The woman said, “He wants me to fix his truck and pay for his bad back. But if I had the right of way, the accident wasn’t my fault.”
The woman looked at her car for dents or scratches. She didn’t find any so she got into her car and drove away.
The young man walked toward his truck. “Wait just a minute,” the officer told him. “I want to talk to you about some monkeys.”
The man turned. “I don’t know anything about monkeys,” he said.
“Then you won’t mind if I look around,” the police officer said.
He opened the truck door and looked inside. Mr. Cooper looked, too. They walked around the truck. Cam, Eric, Billy, and Wally Russell followed them. They all bent down and looked under the truck. They looked in the back of the truck, but they didn’t find any monkeys.
“Can I go now?” the young man asked.
The officer nodded. The young man climbed into the truck.
“Hurry,” Eric whispered to Cam. “Say ‘Click.’ Do something!”
Cam closed her eyes and said “Click” just as the truck started to move. The traffic light was red. The truck waited. Cam said “Click” again. Then the light turned green.
“Wait!” Cam called out as she opened her eyes. “I know where he has those monkeys hidden.”
The police officer blew his whistle and ran to the truck. “Pull over to the side of the road,” he said.
“Look at the sticks in the back of the truck,” Cam told the police officer. “I’ll bet they’re hollow. That’s so the monkeys can breathe. They’re in a cage under the dirt.”
The police officer and Wally Russell dug their hands into the dirt. “Hey, there’s a cloth here. And there’s something under the cloth. It feels like a cage.”
Mr. Cooper opened two latches at the back of the truck. The gate dropped down and he found his monkeys.
Mr. Cooper and Wally Russell pulled the cage out and put it on top of the dirt. There were holes in the top of the cage. Attached to each hole was a wooden tube.
Mr. Cooper looked closely at each of the monkeys. Cam, Eric, and Billy looked at them, too. Eric scratched his nose and put his hands behind his back as he looked. One of the monkeys scratched his nose. Then he put his hands behind his back. It was the very small monkey, the one that had copied Eric.
Chapter Eight
The young man with the green baseball hat drove his truck back to the zoo. Wally Russell rode with him. The police officer and Mr. Cooper followed in their cars. Cam, Eric, and Billy rode with Mr. Cooper.
“How did you know where to find the monkeys?” Mr. Cooper asked Cam.
“I had lots of pictures of that truck stored in my head. I looked at them and saw that the rakes and the shovels in the back had been moved around. But the sticks hadn’t. They were in the exact same places each time.”
“That wouldn’t happen if the sticks were not attached to the cage,” Eric said. “If the sticks were in a pile of dirt they would move around when the truck moved.”
“If you have pictures stored in your head,” Mr. Cooper said, “you must have a photographic memory.”
“She does,” Eric said.
“Well, your memory saved the zoo some valuable monkeys.”
“I have a good memory, too,” Billy said.
Mr. Cooper drove his car through the main entrance. He parked right outside the monkey house. The truck, two police cars, and three police officers were already there.
Mr. Cooper and
Wally Russell carried the box from the truck to the first cage. The young man with the green hat had the key to the lock on the first cage. He opened it. Mr. Cooper opened the box. “Go on,” he told the monkeys. “Get into your cage.” But the monkeys didn’t move.
Mr. Cooper took a few bananas from the trunk of his car. He threw them into the cage and the monkeys went in after them. Mr. Cooper put one of the zoo’s locks on the cage door. Then he turned to the young man and asked, “Tell me, what did you plan to do with those monkeys?”
“I was going to sell them,” he answered, keeping his head down. “I know some people who would pay a lot of money to buy a pet monkey.”
The young man got back into his truck. A police officer got in with him. Then he drove off with one police car riding ahead of him and the other following him.
“You children deserve some reward for saving our monkeys,” Mr. Cooper said. “I’ll give each of you free passes to the zoo. I’m going to take you someplace that isn’t open to most people. And I have something really special to give you.”
Mr. Cooper gave Cam, Eric, and Billy free passes to the zoo. Then the children followed Mr. Cooper to a building near the zoo entrance.
“This is the zoo kitchen,” Mr. Cooper said. He led them into a large room. “This is where we prepare the food for all the animals.”
The children watched as large “hamburgers” were being made for the lions.
“We mix vitamins and minerals in with different kinds of meat,” Mr. Cooper said.
Cam, Eric, and Billy watched as salads were made for the apes and monkeys. They saw live insects, mice, and chickens that were kept in the kitchen to feed the snakes, lizards, and alligators.
“Now,” Mr. Cooper said, “it’s time for your special treat.”
Cam, Eric, and Billy followed him to a bench outside the reptile house. A woman was sitting there reading. And she was holding onto the handle of an ice-cream cart.
The Mystery at Monkey House Page 2
