Authors: David A. Adler

The Green School Mystery (5 page)

BOOK: The Green School Mystery

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Mrs. Apple wore a white apron and white gloves. Her hair was in a net. She held a bread knife and was cutting a hero roll in half.

Mrs. Apple said, “Today’s lunch is sloppy Joes. I can’t stop and make you a special sandwich.”

“You can’t because you’re busy,” Cam asked, “or you can’t because all you have are hero rolls?”

Mrs. Apple put down the roll she had just cut.

“Well,” she said, “I can’t for both reasons. This morning the baker brought me hero rolls. He didn’t bring me regular sandwich bread.”

“That’s just what I thought,” Cam said. “Let’s go,” she told Eric. “We have to speak to Dr. Prell.”

Cam quickly left the kitchen. Eric followed her.

“I don’t get it,” Eric said. “You brought your lunch from home. Why do you want a cheese sandwich?”

Cam and Eric hurried to Ms. Benson.

“We need to see Dr. Prell,” Cam told her teacher. Then Cam leaned close and whispered, “You know what it’s about.”

“Go ahead,” Ms. Benson said.

“She’s probably in her office,” Cam said. “She’s probably there telling the police all about the stolen dimes.”

They hurried to the main office.

“We need to see Dr. Prell,” Cam told Mrs. Wayne, the principal’s secretary.

“Why?” Mrs. Wayne asked. “Was there a fight? Is someone hurt? Is someone sick?”

“No,” Cam told her. “It’s about the dimes.”

“Oh,” Mrs. Wayne said. She looked to be sure no one else was listening. Then she leaned forward and whispered, “Do you know all those dimes were stolen? Right now Dr. Prell is telling two nice police officers what happened.”

“Are they in her office?” Cam asked.

Mrs. Wayne shook her head and said, “They’re not here. They went to the gym to see Mr. Day.”

“Let’s go,” Cam said.

“Why?” Eric asked. “What’s going on?”

“I remembered something I saw when we came to school this morning,” Cam told him. “I think I might know who stole the dimes.”

“What did you remember?”

“Let’s go to the gym,” Cam said. “I’ll tell you everything on the way.”

“And please,” Eric said as he followed Cam. “Tell me why you wanted a sandwich?”

Cam laughed.

“I don’t want another cheese sandwich. My dad already made me one. I just wanted to know if Mrs. Apple had sandwich bread.”

“Why?” Eric asked. “Hero rolls are better.”

Cam said, “When we came to school this morning, the man delivering the milk pushed an empty cart past us. He had brought in all the milk and was going back to his truck.”

“You think he stole the money?”

“No,” Cam said. “Do you remember what the man from the bakery had on his cart?”

Eric shook his head. He didn’t remember.

“There were only a few loaves of bread on his cart.”

Cam and Eric walked past the empty display case just outside the gym.

“Why didn’t he bring in the loaves of bread with the hero rolls?” Cam asked. “And if he delivered bread, why couldn’t Mrs. Apple make me a sandwich?”

“Maybe she was busy,” Eric said. “Maybe she didn’t have cheese.”

“No,” Cam said as they entered the gym. “She said she didn’t have sandwich bread.”

Two police officers were in the gym, a tall woman and a not-so-tall man with a short beard. They were talking with Dr. Prell and Mr. Day.

“Hey,” the not-so-tall police officer said when he saw Cam. “There’s the girl with the photographic memory. Do you remember me?” he asked Cam. “I’m Officer Oppen.”

“And I’m Officer Davis,” the other police officer said.

Cam nodded. She remembered them.

“Tell me,” Officer Oppen said. “Is there some picture in your head that will help us find the stolen money?”

“I think so,” Cam said. “I think I might know who took the dimes and how he got them out of the school.”

Chapter Eight

Officer Oppen opened his detective pad.

“Please, tell us,” Officer Davis said. “Who took the dimes?”

“This morning,” Cam said, “we saw someone from the bakery push a cart into school. On it were what looked like just a few wrapped loaves of bread.”

Officer Davis shook her head. “Of course the man from the bakery had bread on the cart.”

Officer Oppen closed his detective pad.

Cam said, “But we have sloppy Joes for lunch. He must have already brought in a cart loaded with hero rolls. Why didn’t he bring the bread in with the heroes?”

“Tell them the rest,” Eric said. “Tell them what happened when you asked Mrs. Apple for a sandwich.”

“She didn’t have sandwich bread,” Cam said. “That’s because the man from the bakery wasn’t bringing in loaves of bread. He was bringing in bricks! He took the bricks from the ones on the side of the school. Then he put the bricks in bread wrappers so no one would know what he was doing.”

Dr. Prell said, “The bricks were for the skylights.”

“The bricks he snuck into school were the ones I found in the box,” Mr. Day said. “He used them to replace the dimes. That way, when I lifted the box it felt like there were rolls of dimes in it.”

“But there weren’t,” Eric said. “The dimes were gone.”

Officer Davis asked Dr. Prell, “What bakery do you use?”

Dr. Prell thought for a moment. Then she shook her head. She didn’t know.

“I know,” Cam said.

Cam closed her eyes. She said, “
Click!

“This morning I saw the truck,” Cam said with her eyes closed. “The name of the bakery is Angela’s Wings. It was truck number seven. The telephone number was also on the side of the truck.”

Cam told them the bakery’s telephone number.

Officer Oppen called the bakery. He asked about truck number seven. Then he said, “Please send it back to the school on Jefferson Street.”

When he was done talking on the cell phone, Officer Oppen told Dr. Prell and the others, “Truck seven hasn’t come back. The driver is still making deliveries.”

“Or maybe he’s at the bank,” Mr. Day said. “Maybe he’s changing lots of rolls of dimes for dollar bills.”

“The man I spoke with will call him,” Officer Oppen said. “I didn’t say anything about the money. He probably thinks you need more bread.”

“We’ll wait for him,” Officer Davis said.

“Jennifer and Eric,” Dr. Prell said, “you can go back to the cafeteria. We’ll tell you if you were right about the missing dimes.”

Cam and Eric returned to the cafeteria. Cam sat at a table with Amy, Beth, Hector, and Danny. Eric went to the counter to get the school lunch.

“Look at me,” Danny said. “I have a green shirt and a red mustache and beard.”

Danny had spread tomato sauce on his face. Sauce had also spilled on his shirt and pants.

Beth told Cam, “Mrs. Apple gave him a sloppy Joe, and now we have a sloppy Danny.”

“Hey, I’d like that,” Danny said. “I’d like a sandwich named after me.”

“I wouldn’t eat it,” Amy told him. “It would probably taste funny.”

Cam opened her lunch bag. She took out a cheese sandwich.

Eric came to the table with a tray and a sloppy Joe.

“Can you tell us why you’re late to lunch?” Amy asked. “Can you tell us what’s going on?”

Cam’s mouth was full of bread and cheese. Eric’s mouth was filled with meat and sauce. They both shook their heads. They couldn’t tell Amy about the mystery.

“Five minutes,” Mrs. Apple called out. “You have five minutes to finish your lunches and clear your tables.”

“Oh, my,” Eric said. He quickly took another bite of his sloppy Joe. “Gye valve noo barry.”

“What did he say?” Danny asked.

Cam told him, “Eric said, ‘I have to hurry.’”

Cam, Eric, and the others finished their lunches. They cleared the table. They were on their way back to their classroom when Mr. Day stopped them.

“Dr. Prell wants to see you in her office,” he said.

“Me?” Danny asked. “What did I do?”

“No, not you. She wants to see Cam and Eric.”

Cam and Eric followed Mr. Day to the principal’s office. Dr. Prell, the two police officers, and a young man were there. Next to Dr. Prell’s desk was a cart. On it was a bakery box loaded with rolls of coins.

“I tell you,” the young man said, “I don’t know how those coins got in my truck.”

“I think I know,” Officer Oppen said.

“You’ll have to come with us,” Officer Davis told him.

“Thank you,” Officer Oppen said to Cam and Eric as he walked out with the delivery man. “You helped us solve this mystery.”

“Yes, thank you,” Dr. Prell said.

“Maybe you should give them a reward,” Mr. Day said.

“We already got a reward,” Eric said. “We got gold-and-green buttons.”

“And finding the dimes will help our environment. That’s also our reward,” Cam said.

Eric agreed.