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Authors: David A. Adler

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BOOK: The Mystery of the Carnival Prize

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Many of the children got up and walked to their booths. “You’re my assistants,” Ms. Benson told Cam, Eric, and the other children still sitting. “I want you to walk around and see that everything is in order. There may be lost children. Some booths might need change. And I want all of you to keep your eyes on the bicycles. Last year, one was stolen.”

Ms. Benson looked at her watch. She clapped her hands and said, “It’s ten o’clock. Let’s open the gates. It’s time for the carnival to begin.”

Chapter Two

“Let’s check the bicycle rack,” Cam said to Eric.

“No. I have to find Donna and Diane. My mother told me to look out for them.”

The schoolyard was already crowded. There were groups of children waiting in lines at the Button Jar Guess and at the Water Gun Shoot.

“Try your luck here. Win a great prize!” the girl at the Boat Race called out.

“Test your knowledge,” the girl at the Trivia booth said.

“Great prizes here. Easy to win!” the boy at the Beanbag Toss shouted.

Eric stood on one of the schoolyard benches. He looked at the children standing near the many booths. Then he looked down at Cam and told her, “I don’t see them.”

“Maybe they’re with the bicycles.”

Cam and Eric walked to the bicycle racks. There was a long line of bicycles, all locked up. They found Donna’s and Diane’s bicycles. But the two girls weren’t there.

“Look,” Cam said and pointed to a red-and-blue bicycle. “This one isn’t locked. That’s probably what happened last year. Someone didn’t lock his bicycle and it was stolen.”

“I have to find Donna and Diane.”

“I’ll help you look,” Cam told Eric. “I just want to take a picture of this bicycle. I want to remember what it looks like in case it’s missing later.”

Cam looked straight at the bicycle. She said, “Click,” and blinked her eyes. Then she told Eric, “I have a picture of the bicycle stored in my brain. Now we can look for the twins.”

Cam and Eric walked past a few girls at the Water Gun Shoot. They were shooting water guns and trying to put out the flame on a candle a few feet away. A boy at the Boat Race was blowing through a straw at a toy sailboat. He was trying to send it across a large tub of water.

“I see my sisters,” Eric said. “They’re at the refreshment stand.”

Donna and Diane were waiting in line behind an older girl. The girl had long brown hair, and braces on her teeth.

“I’ll take a cup of cola,” the girl said.

The boy behind the counter pointed to a sign above him and said, “We have orange juice, apple juice, and milk.”

“Yuck,” the girl said. “Health food. All right, give me some of those whole-wheat pretzels and orange juice.”

The boy gave her a bag of pretzels and a cup of juice. The girl paid him and began to walk away. Then she stopped and said, “Let me see the coins I paid you.”

The boy held out his hand.

“I need this one,” she said, and took one coin back. “It’s my lucky dime.” She gave the boy another dime and walked away.

“I’ll have some orange juice,” Donna said.

“And I’ll have apple juice,” Diane told the boy.

Cam and Eric waited while the two girls drank the juice. Then Eric said, “I thought you planned to win a stuffed animal. Why aren’t you at one of the game booths?”

“I don’t know which one to try,” Donna said.

Bong! Bong!

The boy at the Dime Toss booth was hitting the bottom of a large metal pot with a wooden spoon. “We have a winner! We have a winner!” he shouted.

“Look,” Eric said. “It’s the girl who just bought pretzels and juice. I guess she really did have a lucky dime.”

“And look at that stuffed animal she won, a teddy bear,” Donna said. “Just what I want.”

“Why don’t we try the Dime Toss?” Diane asked.

“It’s almost impossible to win,” Eric told his sister. “That’s what Freddy, the boy running the booth, told us. That’s why he’s giving away such good prizes.”

“Look,” Cam said. She pointed to the schoolyard gate. Cam said, “Click,” and closed her eyes. She said, “Click,” again.

“What are you pointing at?” Eric asked.

“Someone just rode out on a bicycle. It’s the same bicycle we saw before, the one that wasn’t locked.”

Chapter Three

“S
top!” Cam yelled as she ran toward the gate. “Get off that bicycle!”

Eric and the twins followed Cam. They ran past the Baseball Throw and the refreshment stand. As they passed the Water Gun Shoot, one of the children missed the candle and hit Eric’s ear.

At the gate, Cam waved her arms and yelled, “Stop!” But the girl on the bicycle didn’t even turn around. She kept right on riding.

“What do we do now?” Eric asked as he wiped the water off his ear.

“I want to see where she’s going.”

While Cam and Eric stood by the gate, a few children came into the schoolyard. And a few left. The girl who had just won the Dime Toss was talking to a tall boy with curly blond hair.

“I can’t see her anymore,” Cam said. “Let’s tell Ms. Benson what happened. She’ll know what to do.”

Cam, Eric, Donna, and Diane ran to Ms. Benson. They told her about the unlocked bicycle.

“We yelled to the girl and told her to stop,” Cam said. “But she didn’t. She just kept on riding.”

“Maybe she didn’t hear you.”

“She heard us, all right,” Eric told Ms. Benson. “Cam yelled really loud.”

“Did you see who the girl was?”

“No. I only saw her from the back. She was wearing a green sweater and she has long black hair.”

“Can you describe the bicycle?”

Cam said,
“Click,”
and closed her eyes. “It was a girl’s bike. It was red with some blue stripes and two baskets in the back.”

Ms. Benson blew her whistle. She waited until it was quiet. Then she blew the whistle a second time and called out, “If anyone left a red-and-blue bicycle unlocked in the schoolyard, please come and see me.”

The schoolyard became noisy again. The fifth-graders running the booths called out for children to try their luck. Cam and Eric waited with Ms. Benson. But no one came to tell them that a bicycle was missing.

“Maybe the bicycle wasn’t stolen,” Ms. Benson said.

“No, I’m sure it was stolen. That’s why the girl didn’t stop when I called to her,” Cam said.

“Well, you don’t have to wait here,” Ms. Benson said. “I’ll call you if anyone comes for the bicycle.”

“Then let’s try the Button Jar Guess,” Donna said. “The prize for the closest guess is a really big stuffed animal. It’s a kangaroo mother with a baby in her pouch.”

Cam, Eric, and the twins walked to the Button Jar Guess. There was a line of children waiting to guess the number of buttons in the jar. Before Cam got in line, she walked very close to the jar, said, “Click,” and blinked her eyes. Once Cam was in line, she said, “Click,” again and closed her eyes. Then she started counting.

“One, two, three ...”

“What’s she doing?” Diane whispered.

“She’s looking at the picture of the jar she has in her head,” Eric explained. “She’s counting the buttons.”

“Thirty-seven, thirty-eight, thirty-nine ...”

“It’s my turn,” Diane said. She gave the boy running the game a nickel. He gave her a card. Diane wrote her guess on the card.

“Sixty-two, sixty-three, sixty-four ...”

Donna and Eric guessed next. Then it was Cam’s turn. Her eyes were still closed.

“Ninety-four, ninety-five, ninety-six ...”

“Let’s go,” the boy running the booth told Cam. “Your memory won’t help you with this game. Most of the buttons are hidden in the middle of the jar.”

Cam opened her eyes. “Counting the buttons that I could see will help me to guess.” Cam wrote down a number on the card and gave it to the boy.

Bong! Bong!

Freddy, the boy at the Dime Toss, was hitting the bottom of a large pot with a wooden spoon. “We have another winner,” he called out.

A tall boy with curly blond hair, who was wearing a red baseball cap, was standing near the booth. He was smiling and holding a large furry toy elephant.

“Let’s try that game,” Donna said.

“We can try it,” Eric said. “But I don’t , think we’ll win.”

As Cam, Eric, and the twins walked toward the Dime Toss, a girl on a bicycle rode past. Cam looked at her and said,
“Click.”
Then she said,
“Click,”
again and closed her eyes.

“That’s the bicycle,” Cam said when she opened her eyes. “And that’s the girl who stole it.

“Come on,” Cam said as she ran after the bicycle. “Let’s catch her.”