Mystery in the Mall (6 page)

“Let’s at least get up to the level where Penny’s shop is. Maybe we can get the attention of the security people by banging on the door. They’re bound to go by sooner or later.”

Jessie and Henry took turns looking out the small window on the stairwell door. A couple of times, they saw security people go by on their motorcarts. But they were too far away to hear or see the children.

A very long time went by. To pass the time, Violet told the story of Corduroy the toy bear in a department store.

Just when Jessie wondered if anyone would come by she spotted someone approaching.

“It’s Hap,” she said. “He’s coming out of Penny’s shop. Isn’t that odd? The store is closed now. Why would he be in there?”

Jessie banged on the door and yelled, “Hap! Hap!”

Hap heard the banging and looked around. He couldn’t tell where the noise was coming from. He boarded his motor-cart and started to drive away.

Jessie banged again, louder this time. Hap stopped the cart and got off. Jessie waved in the small window of the heavy metal door. She banged and banged again to get Hap’s attention.

“He heard me!” she told her brothers and sister.

Hap unlocked the door and found the children on the other side of it.

“Thank goodness you heard us,” Jessie told Hap. “We got locked in the recycling room after hours. The only way we could get out was up the stairs. But these doors were locked.”

Hap was not as glad to see the Aldens as they were to see him. In fact, Hap looked downright angry. “The doors are locked to keep people out of the mall after hours.”

The children looked down at their feet. They knew they didn’t belong in the mall after it closed. Why did they always seem like such nuisances around Hap?

“We’re sorry,” Jessie said. “We were looking for something Benny lost.”

“Not that blasted monkey?” Hap asked.

“We found some missing papers.” Henry held up Penny’s shipping orders.

“I’ll take those,” Hap said, taking the papers from Henry. “What was Mr. Bolt thinking when he invited kids to work like they were grown-ups? Well, it’s a wonder this mall runs at all.”

Hap walked the children to an exit door that led outside. “Now, go home. No dillydallying.”

The children stepped into the cool night air. There were still tourists walking around on the docks, having a good time. But tonight the Aldens didn’t feel like carefree tourists, just very tired children who needed to go home.

When the children came down to breakfast the next day, they were sleepier than usual. They were quieter than usual, too.

Mrs. Frye tried to perk them up. “Have some of my famous blueberry pancakes. Those will wake you up.”

Henry dug into a stack of pancakes. “These are delicious. We sometimes make these when Mrs. McGregor, our housekeeper, has a day off.”

Mrs. Frye refilled the milk pitcher. “And when will you children get a day off to be plain old slugabeds?”

Henry poured himself another glass of milk. “Maybe when Grandfather gets back. Penny needs us today. It’s Janet Trainor’s day off. We won’t be seeing her today.”

When the children arrived at the mall, they had some extra time to go window-shopping. They strolled through the far end of the mall, where they hadn’t visited before.

Benny finally visited the train store. Henry and Jessie stopped to check out tents at a camping store. Violet browsed through a shop that sold nothing but beads. She bought a small bag of them along with some cord to make a necklace for Mrs. Frye.

As he strolled along, Benny stared up at the huge round skylight at the top of the mall. “This mall is humongous,” he said.

“It sure is.” Jessie took hold of Benny’s hand. She didn’t want him to bump into anyone while he was staring at the ceiling.

“We’ve only seen about half the shops, too.”

The children stopped in front of the South Seas Shop.

“Maybe they sell things from Hawaii,” Violet said.

Jessie looked closely in the window. “They do, but only expensive things, like fabrics and jewelry and antiques from the Pacific Islands.”

This made Benny think about his missing coconut monkey. Even though the South Seas Shop didn’t look like the kind of store that sold anything like that, he peeked in anyway.

Jessie followed Benny and also peeked in. There, standing at the cash register, was Janet Trainor.

“Hi, Janet,” Jessie said, stepping into the store. “You work here, too?”

Janet’s face turned almost as pink as the hot pink fabric on display behind her. “Uh, well, yes. I do work here part-time on my days off. I’m ... uh ... saving money to go back to college, so I need two jobs.”

Henry wondered about this. “Wouldn’t Penny give you more hours if you wanted them? We’re going back to Greenfield soon, so there will be a lot of work to do.”

Janet said nothing. At that moment, a man came up to the cash register to pay for a Hawaiian shirt. Janet turned away from the Aldens and didn’t speak to them again.

“Should we mention to Penny that Janet works here?” Henry asked his brother and sisters when they left the store.

Jessie thought about this. “Why not? If Penny knew Janet needed money for school, she might offer her more hours to work.”

By this time, the Aldens were in front of Penny’s Emporium. Penny waved the children over. She held up the stack of shipping orders the children had found the night before. “Hap dropped these shipping orders off with a note. He said you children found them in the recycling center. Did you throw them away by mistake?”

Henry shook his head. “No, we were looking for Benny’s monkey—it’s missing again. We wondered whether it might have gone out with the trash by mistake. While we were looking for it, we found the slips in the recycling bin. Hap took them from us. I guess he didn’t trust that we’d give them to you.”

Penny smiled. “Don’t be afraid of Hap. He’s always poking around here to fix problems. I wish he could fix the problem I have now, though.”

“What is it?” Jessie asked.

“For the life of me, I can’t locate the shipments that go with these slips. They’re for the coconut monkeys.” Penny scratched her head. “Well, I’ll have to ask Janet when she comes back to work. She’s never around when I need her—always up to something else instead of what needs doing.”

“Like working in another shop,” Benny blurted out. When he saw Jessie’s eyes open like saucers, he covered his mouth. “Oops.”

Penny stared at Benny. “Janet is working in another shop? Which one?”

“The South Seas Shop,” Henry answered. “She said she needed another job to save money for school.”

Penny looked totally confused now. “I’ve offered her more hours, but she told me she didn’t have time.” Penny bit her lip. “Perhaps she doesn’t like working for me.”

The Aldens looked at one another. What could be more fun than working for Penny?

Penny picked up the shipping orders. “Well, I’ve got to track down the shipments that go with these slips. I’m going to double-check the storeroom one last time.”

That’s when Benny almost jumped up and down. “Know what? Know what?” he asked Penny. “Janet put some boxes in the closet and locked it. We saw her, didn’t we, Jessie?”

Jessie nodded. “Good for you, Benny. I forgot about that. Maybe the missing monkeys are in the boxes!”

The children followed Penny into the storeroom. Penny took out the keys she carried around on her belt loop. She unlocked the closet, hoping to find her missing shipments. But when she opened the door, the shelves were completely empty.

“Where did those boxes go?” Penny asked, looking at Benny. “You actually saw her put them in there, right?”

“Lots of boxes,” Benny said, very sure of himself.

Penny shut the door. “No point in locking the closet. The shipments aren’t there. Now, why on earth did Janet lock those monkeys anyway? She knew I wanted to put them out in the store right away.”

The Aldens followed Penny out to the shop.

“Uh-oh,” Violet said. “There’s that man again from the freighter. Whenever he’s here, he never looks like he’s shopping.”

Jessie walked over to him. “May I help you?” she asked the young man.

“I was wondering if the store manager was here,” the man answered. “She was ... uh ... helping me pick out some presents the other day, but I had to leave.”

Jessie nodded toward Penny. “There she is. I’ll call her over.”

The young man frowned. “Not her.”

“You mean Janet,” Jessie said. “She’s at the South Seas Shop today. She’ll be back in here tomorrow, I think.”

Without even saying thank you, the young man left.

Jessie didn’t have time to tell the other children or Penny about the crewman. Several tour groups were visiting Hope Harbor. Most of them wanted souvenirs and pirate photos of themselves.

When five o’clock rolled around, Jessie had forgotten about the crewman’s visit. Penny shooed the Aldens away. “It’s time for fun. You’ve worked long enough. Hap Merchant is coming by the shop to help me out. You know how he is around children, even nice ones like you Aldens. Now go off and have a good time.”

“A good time for me would be finding my monkey,” Benny said to the other children as they left the store. “Can we go to that shop with the Hawaiian stuff? Maybe they have things made out of coconuts.”

The older children thought this was unlikely, but they decided to go to the shop anyway.

Although it was only five o’clock, the South Seas Shop was dark when the children arrived.

“That sign says, ‘Closed Until Seven,’” Henry said.

Benny pushed the door open anyway. “I don’t think it’s closed.”

The Aldens followed Benny. At first they didn’t see any customers or salespeople.

“Come on, let’s go,” Henry whispered. “Nobody’s here.”

“Shhh,” Jessie said. “Somebody is here. Listen.”

When the children stood still, they heard soft murmuring voices coming from the back of the shop. They tiptoed in a few steps more.

Violet pointed. “Look back there.”

Huddled around a small table were three people. One of them was a man wearing big magnifying glasses like jewelers wore.

“It’s Janet and the crewman from the freighter,” Henry said. “The other person must be the store owner. I can’t tell what they’re looking at.”

Benny grabbed Henry’s arm and pointed to his nose. He was about to sneeze!

Henry took Benny’s hand. Violet and Jessie followed them.

Too late!

“Kerchew! Kerchew!”

The Aldens galloped from the store. When Jessie turned around, she saw three people at the table squinting. Thank goodness the close-up spotlight over the table blinded them from recognizing the Aldens.

Henry led the other three children out a back door. They were in the hallway now, behind the South Seas Shop.

“Whew, that was close,” Henry said.

“Sorry I had to sneeze,” Benny said. “The more I tried not to sneeze, the more I had to.”

“I couldn’t tell what they were looking at, could you?” Henry asked.

“It looked like they had a bunch of old, dusty pebbles,” Benny said. “Hey, look, the back door to the shop is open.”

Henry pushed the door gently.

The storeroom was filled with bolts of fabric, masks from the Polynesian islands, and antiques from around the world.

“Hey, look at these!” Jessie said when she nearly knocked over a stack of boxes. “The label says, ‘Penny’s Emporium.’”

The Aldens knew what to do. These were Penny’s boxes, and they were in the wrong place. Without saying anything, each child took a couple of boxes, except for Benny, who could manage only one.

“These boxes didn’t just walk here,” Jessie said, tiptoeing into the hallway with the boxes in her arms. “Either Janet or that crewman moved them from Penny’s storeroom.”

“It had to be Janet,” Henry said, gently closing the door behind him. “Let’s face it, every time there was a shipment coming to Penny’s shop, she tried to get it before anyone else. I don’t know how that crewman from the freighter figures in, but he and Janet know each other better than they let on.”

Jessie took out the Swiss Army knife she always carried in her pocket. She opened one of the boxes.

“Omigosh!” she said, startled at the sight of rows of smiling monkey faces staring back at her. “These are the Hawaiian coconuts Penny ordered.”

Benny couldn’t get over seeing so many coconut monkeys in one place. “Is mine there?”

Henry opened the other boxes. All of them were filled with coconuts just like the ones Benny had lost. “Well, if yours isn’t in here, there are lots of others just like them. Janet and that crewman must be looking for something inside these coconuts.”

“Maybe one of them took Benny’s monkey to see if there was something inside it,” Violet said. “Janet was always around when Benny’s coconut was around. And she was gone a lot when his coconut was gone.”

Benny could hardly catch his breath. “Don’t forget Hap. He had my monkey in the cleaning cart.”

Jessie replaced the box lid. “You’re right. And he never seemed to want us getting the shipments, either. Anyway, we’d better get these back—”

Suddenly a spot of light blinded Jessie. Then, one by one, it blinded the other children.

“What are you doing here?” a booming voice called out.

When the flashlight finally went off, the Aldens found themselves staring up at a very angry Hap Merchant.

“You children don’t belong here. And these boxes don’t belong to you, either. Why did you bring them here?”

Without waiting for an answer, Hap went over to a storage closet in the hallway. He came back with a hand truck. “Stack those boxes here. These are going back to Penny’s. I’ll have to tell her what you’ve been up to.”

“But ... but—” Jessie began.