Cam Jansen and the Secret Service Mystery (5 page)

“Hey!” Eric said. He bent and picked up
something small, brown, and hairy from the floor. He held it by just one hair and said, “I think I’ve seen this somewhere.”

“We’ve all seen it,” Cam said. “We have to show it to Officers Taylor and Gold. It may help them find the thieves.”

Eric showed the brown, hairy thing to Ms. Benson.

“What is it?” she asked.

Cam held it under her chin.

“It’s a fake beard,” Cam said. “The thief put it on to fool us.”

Eric said, “We have to show it to those police officers.”

Ms. Benson shook her head and said, “I’m sorry. This is not a day for you to be wandering in the halls looking for the police.”

“They may not even be here,” Beth said. “They may be on their motorcycles chasing the thief.”

“I’ll call the office,” Ms. Benson said. “I’ll tell Mrs. Wayne about the beard. She’ll find the police.”

When they returned to their classroom, Cam and Eric looked out the window. The long black cars were still in front of the school. The news truck was there, too. But two of the police motorcycles were gone.

“Tell me if you see anything,” Cam said to Danny.

“I see you,” Danny said. “I see Eric and Beth and Jane and Aaron.”

“Stop it!” Cam said. “I agree with Beth. You’re not funny. Please, just tell me if you see anything happen outside.”

Ms. Benson called the school office. Then she taught a lesson on personal pronouns.

“I’m having trouble listening,” Cam whispered to Eric. “I keep thinking about the necklace.”

“Me, too,” Eric said.

Cam looked over at Danny. He shook his head. Nothing had happened outside.

“Danny,” Ms. Benson said. “What’s a personal pronoun?”

“Me?” Danny asked.

“Very good.”

“Hey,” Danny whispered to Beth. “What did I say?”

“
Me
is a personal pronoun.”

Danny smiled.

“Jane, please give me other examples of personal pronouns.”

“He, she, we, and I,” Jane said.

Ms. Benson talked on and on about personal pronouns. She gave examples of how they can be used in sentences. Then she told the class to open their grammar workbooks.

“Please, do the problems on page ninety-two.”

Cam opened her workbook. She tried to do the work. But she kept thinking about the necklace.

“Hey! Look!” Danny said. “The motorcycles are back.”

Cam, Eric, and others in the class rushed to the windows. Ms. Benson went, too. The motorcycles stopped. Two police officers got off the motorcycles.

“Look,” Beth said. “It’s Officers Taylor and Gold. I bet they caught the thief.”

“If they did,” Eric said, “it’s because of Cam. She solved the mystery of the noise. She knew what was stolen.”

Beth said, “I wonder why they came back.”

“We just have to wait,” Ms. Benson said. “I’m sure Dr. Prell will tell us what happened.”

“When?” Eric asked.

“Later,” Ms. Benson said. “After the governor and the Pearls leave.”

The children returned to their seats.

Ms. Benson told the class, “I’m sure you’re all too excited to listen to a geography lesson. So we’ll have our silent reading time now.”

Cam took a book from her desk. It was a mystery. She opened it. But instead of reading,
she thought about everything that had happened that morning. She hoped Mrs. Pearl would get her necklace back.

Ring! Ring!

Ms. Benson lifted the telephone handset.

“Hello. . . . Yes. . . . Oh, yes.”

She put the handset down.

“Dr. Prell, Governor Zellner, the Pearls, the Secret Service agents, and the police are all coming to our room.” Then she looked straight at Danny and said, “I expect everyone to be on his best behavior.”

“I will,” Danny promised.

Eric said, “We all will.”

“Straighten your desks, please,” Ms. Benson said to the class.

She looked around the room.

“Oh, my,” she said. She hurried to the side of the room and closed the closet doors. She saw a mess of papers on her desk. She quickly pushed them all into the middle drawer. She straightened the window shade beside her desk.

There was a knock on the door.

Ms. Benson took one last look at the room. Then she walked over and opened the door.

The bald Secret Service agent and the one
with short dark hair and a mustache walked in. They looked at the children. One opened and closed the closet doors as he walked to the back of the room. The other walked along the chalkboard toward the windows. He looked under Ms. Benson’s desk. Then he walked to the back of the room, too.

Next, the two female Secret Service agents came in with Governor Zellner. Then Dr. Prell, the Pearls, Mrs. Adams, Officers Taylor and Gold, and some newspeople walked in.

“Look at Mrs. Pearl,” Cam whispered to Eric. “She’s wearing the necklace.”

“We all came here,” Governor Zellner said, “to thank the girl and boy who helped the police catch the two thieves.”

Mrs. Pearl smiled. “I have my necklace.”

One of the newsmen called out, “Let’s get a picture of you with the two children.”

Dr. Prell asked Cam and Eric to stand between the governor and Mrs. Pearl.

“He’s not the boy,” Officer Taylor said. “It was that one.”

He pointed to Danny.

“Me?” he asked.

“Yes,” Officer Gold said. “You told us that Mrs. Adams stopped them, that she told them to move their car.”

Lights flashed as newspeople took lots of pictures of Cam and Danny with Mrs. Pearl and her necklace. They also took pictures of them with the governor and the two police officers.

“Tell us what happened!” one of the newsmen said.

Officer Gold told the reporters about the
dropped book and the fake Secret Service agent.

“The thief pushed me and Sam behind the desk,” Mrs. Pearl said. “We thought he was one of the Secret Service people.”

“He wasn’t,” the blonde agent said. “We’re here to watch Governor Zellner. We didn’t see what was happening with the Pearls.”

“He pushed us and said, ‘Keep down!’” Mrs. Pearl said. “I think that’s when he pulled off my necklace.”

“This girl described the thief to us,” Officer Gold said of Cam. “And this boy sent us to Mrs. Adams.”

“Their car was blocking the back door,” Mrs. Adams said, “and I was expecting a delivery. I thought it was a teacher’s car, so I wrote the license-plate number down. I was checking the list I have of teachers’ license numbers to see whose car it was. That’s when those two came by.”

“And that’s how we caught them,” Officer Taylor said. “We had the plate number, so it was easy. Another police officer spotted the car. There was a short chase and we caught them.”

“What a great story!” one of the newsmen said. “It has everything. It has a famous man.”

Governor Zellner smiled when he heard that.

“It has lots of children, a generous couple, a car chase, and a happy ending.”

“This story is not done,” Governor Zellner told the newspeople. “I hope Dr. Prell, Ms. Benson, and Mrs. Adams will bring this class to the state capital. I’ll show them the state assembly and senate. Then they’ll come to my office where we’ll honor these two brave children and Mrs. Adams.”