The Circus Mystery Read online

  Once the circus performers took their final bows and the circus band stopped playing, people began to make their way to the exit. Then, suddenly, Maya and Jerry heard shouting from different parts of the big top!

  “My wallet!”

  “My phone!”

  Jerry and Maya immediately recognized one of the voices.

  “Help, my necklace is gone,” shouted Vivian Leander!

  CHAPTER 5

  A Mosquito Bite and a Runaway Balloon

  “Nobody leaves the tent!” shouted the police chief.

  A man standing near the exit dropped the tent flap to make sure that no one left the big top.

  “I need all the performers and anyone who has lost anything to gather around,” ordered the police chief.

  Jerry and Maya followed the police chief down to the ring, where the circus performers and some members of the audience were waiting.

  Trocadero looked around nervously.

  Bobo the clown had taken off his fake nose. A tear ran down his cheek.

  Greta, the unhappy popcorn seller, looked more furious than ever.

  Alice, the balloon seller, was kicking up sawdust.

  The ringmaster’s forehead was beaded with sweat.

  “I don’t have time for this,” Ali Pasha yelled. “I need to drink my protein shake before the next show, otherwise my muscles will be as soft as spaghetti.”

  “I need you all to be completely quiet,” said the police chief.

  The ringmaster looked at the police chief with surprise. He was the ringmaster, wasn’t he? Shouldn’t he be the one asking for complete quiet? But the police chief continued, unconcerned. It was his investigation, after all.

  “Now, please tell me what is missing.”

  “My lovely necklace,” Vivian Leander said, sniffling.

  “My wallet is gone,” said Roland Sussman rather crossly.

  “And my cell phone has disappeared,” said the burly man who had lost the wrestling match against Ali Pasha.

  “Prepare to be searched,” said the police chief briskly, looking at the performers. “Line up.”

  The performers lined up in a long row. Then the police chief began to search their pants and pockets.

  He even lifted up Trocadero’s black hat. But he didn’t find a thing there.

  The police chief sighed and began to pace back and forth in the sawdust. The rest of the people in the audience were starting to get restless, and Ali Pasha’s complaints were getting louder.

  “That’s it,” said the police chief finally. “You may exit the tent.”

  The performers and the crowd filed out of the big top.

  Outside, Alice had started selling her balloons again.

  A little girl chose a balloon and paid. Alice handed the cash to the monkey, Sylvester, and he put it in his now-bulging backpack.

  The little girl laughed, took her balloon, and ran happily away.

  Jerry took a long look at the little monkey.

  “Hmmmm, something’s not right,” he whispered to Maya.

  “I know. Things don’t seem to be as they should,” replied Maya. “But let’s go. The police chief wants to talk to us.”

  Jerry and Maya could see the police chief leaving the circus grounds with long, slow strides and walking up the hill where the two detectives had left their bikes.

  At the top of the hill, the police chief stopped and sat down on the grass. It was a lovely summer evening, and a few tiny mosquitoes were dancing in the warm air.

  “Darn it!” he said as he looked out over the sprawling circus below. “They stole phones and jewelry right in front of our eyes! Did either of you see anything?” he asked.

  Jerry and Maya shook their heads no and told the police chief what they discovered just before the show began.

  The ringmaster didn’t make enough money, according to his wife, Greta.

  Greta, the popcorn seller, was tired of selling popcorn.

  The magician learned and perfected his tricks in prison.

  The strong man owed money to a man whose nose he had broken.

  The police chief nodded and said, “Everyone in the circus seems to be a suspect. But where in the world are the stolen items? As you could see, I searched everyone thoroughly.”

  “Ouch!” yelped Maya. A mosquito had just bitten her shoulder.

  For a split second, she forgot about the balloon she was holding. She let go of the string to swat away the mosquito, and the balloon quickly took flight, sailing up toward the turquoise evening sky.

  “Oh no.” She sighed. “It was so lovely . . .”

  And then she fell silent.

  “Oh, of course!” she yelled. “That must be how they do it!”

  The police chief turned to Maya. “That must be how who does what?”

  Jerry, however, didn’t react. He was deep in thought. “He didn’t bow . . . ,” he said finally. “Sylvester the monkey didn’t bow when the little girl bought a balloon just now.”

  “How rude,” said the police chief, who didn’t have a clue what Maya’s balloon or Sylvester’s bad manners had to do with anything.

  “Now I get it!” said Maya and Jerry at almost the same time.

  The police chief looked from one to the other.

  “Now you get what?” he asked.

  They explained to the police chief what they had just realized, and he grew more and more excited the more he understood. Just as the second show was about to start, the three of them raced down the hill toward the circus. It was time to catch a thief!

  CHAPTER 6

  The Trap Is Set

  The police chief, Jerry, and Maya sat in their same places close to the ring, and soon the second show of the evening started.

  The ringmaster was nervous. Something was happening in his big top that he didn’t like.

  When the world’s strongest man made his entrance, the police chief waved frantically.

  “What do you want?” asked Ali Pasha.

  “To win one hundred dollars,” shouted the police chief. “I want to beat you at wrestling and win one hundred dollars.”

  “Just a minute, police chief. Ali Pasha must lift the weights first.”

  “Go on, then, but hurry. I need a good, strong hug,” said the police chief as he pulled off his tight jacket.

  Ali Pasha lifted his weights and flexed his muscles. But the whole time, he was looking nervously at the police chief. Nobody had ever been that excited to wrestle him before.

  When Ali Pasha put down his weights, the police chief sprang nimbly over the edge of the ring. The crowd hooted with delight.

  Ali Pasha and the police chief circled each other like two lions in the wild.

  Then the police chief suddenly said, “I think you have something on your shoe, Ali.”

  When Ali Pasha leaned forward to see, the police chief lunged at him. In a flash, the police chief had grabbed Ali Pasha around the waist and flung him high up in the air. Ali landed with a thud, sawdust fluttered, and the crowd roared.

  The police chief took the prize money from the ringmaster and returned to his seat next to Maya and Jerry.

  “High-school wrestling champion,” he whispered to Jerry and Maya as he put his jacket back on.

  “This calls for a celebration!” he shouted. “Two balloons over here, please!”

  The police chief bought balloons from Alice, and the show went on.

  When the last performer had left the ring and the music had stopped, the same scene unfolded as in the earlier show. A few people in the crowd discovered that they had lost something valuable and began to shout.

  “Take it easy, everyone,” said the police chief. “You will soon have your items back.”

  Just before the man at the exit closed the tent flap, Sylvester the m
onkey came skipping over to Alice.

  The police chief gathered the circus performers in the ring once again. But this time, he was much more sure of his next move.

  “Thanks to Jerry and Maya, my two assistants, I now know the identity of the circus thief,” he said, striding back and forth in front of the crowd.

  “You cheated,” hissed Ali Pasha when the police chief walked past him. “That shoe trick isn’t fair!”

  But the police chief calmly continued his walk.

  Trocadero, Ali Pasha, Bobo the clown, the ringmaster, Greta, and Alice—with Sylvester perched on her lap—looked suspiciously at one another.

  “Would the guilty party please step forward and return the stolen goods?” asked the police chief in a mild voice.

  Nobody from the circus wanted to own up.

  “Perhaps I should call for reinforcements,” threatened the police chief. Then he pretended to look for his phone in his jacket.

  “What’s this? No phone? Would you believe that even I have been robbed? Jerry, borrow the ringmaster’s phone and call the police station in Pleasant Valley!”

  The ringmaster handed his cell phone to Jerry. The police chief called out a phone number without taking his eyes off the circus performers. Jerry dialed the number and soon, they heard a shrill telephone ringtone from . . .

  That’s right—the little monkey’s backpack!

  CHAPTER 7

  A Monkey with a Heavy Load

  Everyone looked at the monkey in astonishment. The ringtone was coming from inside his backpack! The police chief nodded.

  “Precisely. It’s actually my phone that Jerry is calling.”

  Sylvester the monkey tried to bite the police chief’s hand when he took the backpack away from him, but the police chief grabbed him by the scruff of his neck and handed him over to Alice.

  Alice glared angrily at the police chief and at Jerry and Maya.

  “Sylvester is innocent,” she insisted. “I’m the thief. But how did you realize it was me? It could have been anyone! Trocadero, for instance—the former prisoner!”

  “Someone who has been in prison is no more suspect than anyone else,” said the police chief sternly. “He has already paid for his crime—hasn’t he?”

  Trocadero looked gratefully at the police chief.

  “But it could have been Ali Pasha, the brute who always uses too much force,” continued Alice.

  “Ali Pasha is the world’s second best wrestler,” said the police chief proudly. “And yes, he’s angry and strong. But, forgive me for saying, I doubt he could dream up a plan this crafty.”

  Ali Pasha was so angry now that he was growling. But the interrogation continued.

  “It could have been my stepmother, Greta the popcorn seller, who’s sick of selling popcorn for my father. Or why not my father himself, who is so short on money? How did you figure out that it was me?”

  Jerry cleared his throat.

  “None of the people you’ve named would have been able to get the stolen goods out of the big top. First of all, we thought the thief had hidden the stuff somewhere. But when Maya lost hold of her balloon, we got the idea that necklaces, watches, and cell phones could have floated up over the heads of the crowd.” Jerry paused and looked at Alice. Then he continued, “After you had stolen something, you tied the loot to a balloon and let it float up and out of the opening in the roof of the big top. The crowd didn’t notice because they were too busy watching the show.”

  “And,” Maya continued, “when the little monkey’s backpack was so heavy after the first show that he couldn’t manage to bow anymore, we realized who was collecting the stolen goods from the top of the tent.”

  Now Jerry took over the story. “But you were crafty. We have to admit that. You only stole from the people who had been part of the show. Trocadero pulled a ten-dollar bill from the under Roland Sussman’s chin, Bobo the clown sat on Vivian Leander’s lap, and just now you took the police chief’s phone after his wrestling match with Ali Pasha. That way, our suspicions would be directed at the circus performers and not at you—you, who actually had the best opportunities to steal, when you were walking in the narrow gaps between the benches and selling balloons.”

  Now everyone in the big top was looking at Alice.

  Then she did something that surprised them all!

  CHAPTER 8

  A Grateful Thief Was Caught

  The balloon girl threw back her head and laughed! She laughed until tears streamed down her cheeks.

  “Finally,” she said, “thank you.” She dried her tears. “Thank you for helping me.

  I stole things so that I could escape from this dreadful circus. If you only knew what it’s like to travel around the country, in all kinds of weather. Pitching the tent, taking it down, never getting to go to a real school, never having any friends . . .” She sighed heavily and continued. “I’ve tried to persuade my father that we should settle down in a nice place and live there—but he’s always so short on money, and he has so many bills to pay. So the circus has to carry on touring.”

  The ringmaster burst out with a strange noise—a sobbing, wheezing sound—and then leaped forward in a flood of tears and hugged his daughter.

  “Oh, sweetheart,” he said. “If I had only known how you felt all these years!”

  The ringmaster and his daughter stood locked in a big hug. Everyone else looked on with smiles on their faces.

  “Stop crying like a baby!” said Greta. “Act like a grown-up for once and look at what a horrible daughter you have.”

  “That’s enough!” roared the ringmaster. His wife’s mouth snapped shut.

  He took a deep breath and went on. “Take your red-nosed clown and leave! Take the magician, take that protein shake–mad Ali Pasha, take the whole circus and go! My daughter and I are going to stay here in . . .”

  He looked uncertainly at Jerry and Maya.

  “Pleasant Valley,” replied Maya.

  “You are welcome to stay here in Pleasant Valley,” said the police chief. “I know the school is looking for a new caretaker. Maybe that would be something for you. And Alice, I’m sure a bright girl like you would be an excellent student in a regular school, studying English, history, and math. Do you think you’d like that?”

  Alice looked at the police chief happily, but her smile quickly faded. “But what will happen to Sylvester?”

  Jerry and Maya saw that the police chief was getting emotional. He liked the idea of the ringmaster and his daughter living a life they both enjoyed.

  “I imagine we could find something for our little friend,” he said finally.

  So the police chief, Maya, and Jerry walked with the ringmaster and his daughter to the police station in Pleasant Valley.

  Because of the circumstances and Alice’s age, the police chief decided not to charge her with any of the thefts.

  Jerry and Maya looked at him in surprise.

  “A monkey!” exclaimed the police chief as he threw up his arms. “The stolen goods were collected and hidden by a monkey! How would it look if all the prisons in the country were full of monkeys?”

  The ringmaster and his daughter hugged each other again.

  Jerry and Maya laughed; they could see that the town’s police chief had muscles of steel but a heart of gold.

  A few days later, the residents of the little town of Pleasant Valley were thrilled to read the following story in the newspaper:

  The Hotel’s Newest Employee Is One to Watch

  A large crowd of spectators gathered today in Market Square to watch a curious event: a little monkey jumping from window to window at the Pleasant Valley Hotel.

  According to the police chief, who recommended this new window-cleaner to the hotel manager, the monkey learned his climbing skills in the circus.

 
The school’s new caretaker was seen in the crowd, enjoying the day with the school’s newest student.

  THE CAFÉ MYSTERY

  Photos and Apple Pie

  “Mmm, pastries!” said Maya.

  “Cakes and muffins! Yum,” added Jerry.

  “Can you believe everything that’s been happening in there?” asked Maya, gesturing toward Café Marzipan, Pleasant Valley’s best bakery. “It’s hard to imagine anything bad happening when you see all the good things in the window. Let’s get something to eat and see what we can find out.”

  “Wait a second,” said Jerry. “Let’s take a photo first.”

  Jerry and Maya now had a new digital camera for their detective agency, and Jerry was taking photos of everything, everyone, and every pastry they saw. You never knew where an important clue might come from!

  He took a step back and pointed the camera. Maya leaped in front of the shop window so that she could be in the picture, too.

  “You always want to be in the photos!” laughed Jerry. “You’d make an excellent model, but I want to get a picture of the pastries.” Jerry took a couple of pictures even though Maya kept jumping in with a fancy pose.

  Then they went into the bakery, which was on Church Street, next to Mohammed Carat’s jewelry shop.

  Jerry ordered a muffin and Maya chose a cupcake. The young girl at the cash register was surprisingly quiet and seemed upset about something. It looked like she had been crying.

  The two young detectives paid for their treats and looked around the bakery for a place to sit.

  “Hello there, my little helpers,” they heard someone call. “Come over here and sit with me.”