Cam Jansen and the Joke House Mystery (4 page)

Gary Gold put his cell phone away.

“Susan, when the police get here, try to keep them from upsetting our guests.”

“Sure, Boss.”

“Now I’ve got to get going. I’ve got to introduce the next act.”

He turned and saw Cam and Eric.

“Why are you still here?”

“We’ll solve this mystery,” Eric told him. “We’ll find that silver plate.”

“The police will find it. Please just find your seats. You don’t want to miss the next act. It’s a funny woman named Molly Jansen.”

“The thief is one of the people in the Joke House,” Cam whispered. “Somehow no one saw him take the plate, and no one saw him hide it.”

“Him or her,” Eric told Cam. “The thief might be a woman.”

Cam and Eric returned to their table.

“Did you find the plate?” Cam’s father asked.

“Not yet,” Eric answered. “But we will.”

Gary Gold was standing on the stage.

“It’s time for our next comedian,” he said into the microphone. “Please welcome a funny woman named Molly Jansen.”

People applauded. Cam looked across the table at Aunt Molly. She was clapping, too.

“Molly,” Mr. Jansen told her. “You’re clapping for yourself.”

“Oh! Is it my turn?”

Molly walked onto the stage. She stood by the microphone and smiled.

“Tell some jokes,” Mr. Jansen called out.

“Oh, jokes.”

Molly thought for a moment and then asked, “Why is the chicken a dirty double-crosser? It’s because it ran out of juice.”

No one laughed.

“No, that’s not right,” Molly said. “It’s because it might crack up.”

“What is she talking about?” a woman at the next table asked.

“She’s pretending to be mixed up,” the man next to her answered, “and it’s funny.”

Cam whispered to Eric, “Aunt Molly isn’t pretending.”

“Wait! Wait!” Molly said. “I wrote the jokes down.”

She took the tissue from her pocket and looked at it.

“This doesn’t have the riddle questions on it. It just has the answers.”

She turned the tissue over.

“More answers. But that’s okay. The answers are the funny part.”

She looked at her tissue and read from it.

“To get to the other ride.”

She looked up and said, “That’s why the chicken crossed something. I just don’t know what it crossed.”

People laughed.

“Did you know that elephants like to go on car trips?” Molly asked. “But the car has to have a cup holder.”

More people laughed.

“Listen to this,” Molly said. “An orange crossed the road and then it stopped. Do you know why it stopped?”

Molly waited.

No one told her why the orange stopped in the middle of the road, so Molly looked at her tissue.

“It stopped to get to the other side,” she read. “Oh, no, to get to the other slide or ride, or something.

“Oh, and did I tell you about the dirty double-crossing chicken?”

“You told us,” someone called out.

Molly turned and looked at Gary Gold.

“That’s all I have on my tissue,” she told him, “so I think I’m done.”

Gary Gold stood next to Aunt Molly.

“Let’s hear it for Molly Jansen.”

Lots of people applauded. Mr. Jansen, Cam, and Eric clapped the loudest. Molly bowed, waved her tissue, and walked off the stage.

“Look at that,” Eric whispered. “Aunt Molly walked right past the small table. Everyone who walks on or off the stage walks past it.”

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

“Uncle Sid walked past the table, and he had that large bag of props,” Cam said with her eyes still closed.

Aunt Molly returned to her seat.

“You were great,” Mr. Jansen told her.

“I should have practiced more,” Molly said. “Then I wouldn’t have mixed up all the jokes.”

Cam opened her eyes. She turned and looked at the bag next to Uncle Sid.

“Maybe Uncle Sid took it,” Cam whispered to Eric. “We have to sneak over there and look in his bag. We’ll do it when the next comedian is telling jokes. Maybe then we won’t get caught.”

Eric said, “Maybe then we’ll find the silver plate.”

“I hope you’re ready for some knock, knock fun,” Gary Gold said. “Please welcome Knock, Knock Norm.”

A young man in an orange jacket that was much too big for him walked onto the stage.

He tapped twice onto the microphone.

Knock, knock!

“Who’s there?” people in the audience called out.

“It’s me, Knock, Knock Norm.”

He tapped again on the microphone.

Knock, knock!

“Who’s there?”

“Hatch.”

“Hatch who?” people in the audience asked.

“Please, cover your nose when you sneeze.”

Some people laughed.

Eric said, “I don’t get it.”

Mr. Jansen explained, “‘Hatch who’ sounds like
achoo,
the noise you make when you sneeze.”

Knock, knock!

Mr. Jansen, Molly, and lots of other people called out, “Who’s there?”

“This is our chance,” Cam whispered.

Norm said, “Lettuce.”

Cam quietly left her seat. Eric followed her. They crawled to where Uncle Sid was sitting.

“Lettuce who?”

“Lettuce in. It’s cold out here.”

Cam and Eric crawled under the table.

“It’s dark here,” Eric whispered.

“Sh!” Cam told him.

Cam reached into the bag and took out the book with blank pages. She took out the rubber chicken, coffee cup, cardboard clock, comb, and two rubber balls.

“There’s no plate,” Cam whispered.

“No plate?” Eric asked.

He crawled over to look in the bag. On the way, he touched someone’s shoe.

“Hey! Who’s under there?”

Suddenly several people bent down and looked under the table.

“What are you doing with my bag?” Uncle Sid asked.

Cam and Eric sat up and banged their heads on the bottom of the table.

“Get out of there!” Uncle Sid said.

Cam and Eric crawled out. Cam told everyone at the table about the missing prize.

“You thought I took it?” Uncle Sid asked. “I wouldn’t steal that plate. I want to win it.”

Cam said, “It’s just that you walked past the small table at the edge of the stage and your bag is big enough to hide the plate.”

Uncle Sid said, “Lots of people walked past that stage.”

“Look!” someone at one of the other tables said. “The police are here.”

Two police officers walked through the kitchen door. One was a man with a brown mustache. The other was a woman with curly black hair. They walked past the small table at the edge of the stage.

“Knock, knock,” Norm said quickly.

“Who’s there?” lots of people asked.

“Donna,” Norm answered. “Donna arrest me for telling bad jokes.”

Gary Gold stepped onto the stage. He stood by the microphone and said, “Let’s hear it for Knock, Knock Norm.”

A few people applauded. The others at the Joke House were watching the police officers.

Norm went to his seat.

“There will be a short break in our show,” Gary Gold said.

Cam looked at the police officers. She looked at Gary Gold. Then she looked at the small table at the edge of the stage.

Cam closed her eyes and said,
“Click!”

She said,
“Click!”
again.

“Eric,” Cam said, and opened her eyes. “I think I know where to find the missing plate.”