“Wake up sleepyheads!” Jessie said the next morning. Jessie tickled Violet’s and Benny’s feet.
“Stop it, Watch,” Violet mumbled. Still dreaming, she thought she was back in Greenfield where the family dog, Watch, liked to wake up the children one by one.
Jessie laughed. “It’s me, not Watch, silly. No wonder you’re both so tired. I heard one of you get up during the night.”
Violet finally opened her eyes. She pulled the covers over her head to keep out the light. “That was Benny who got up.”
“Did not,” Benny protested.
“Did too,” Violet said.
Violet sat up on her cot. “Then I guess you were sleepwalking. I heard you.”
Benny had no idea what Violet was talking about. “I didn’t get up. But I think I heard somebody, too. Maybe it was Henry.”
“It wasn’t me,” Henry said. “I slept like a rock last night.”
“We better hurry up and get ready,” Jessie said. “Mr. Bindry will arrive any minute to finish pricing the books. And the painters are coming today.”
“Can we go down to the shop right now?” Benny asked. “Maybe somebody left footprints or fingerprints in the baby powder or dropped some of those pieces of paper we hid all over the place.”
Henry said, “I’ve already checked the shop. If anybody was snooping there last night, they didn’t walk on the floor or touch anything. The only prints down there now are the ones we made last night.”
“Darn!” Benny said.
Henry had another idea. “Don’t be too disappointed, we can try some other detective tricks. How would you like to shadow any suspicious people we see today?”
Benny liked this new idea very much. “Like they do in Miss Chase’s books? Goody!”
Jessie laughed. “That’s if we can find someone to follow, Benny. Now shadow me out to the kitchen for breakfast.”
Jessie and Benny played a tracking game, but it didn’t go very well. Benny tried to follow his sister down the long apartment hallway. But whenever Jessie turned around, Benny bumped smack into her!
“What are you children laughing about so early in the morning?” Miss Chase asked.
Jessie could hardly stop giggling. “Benny’s trying to shadow me, but he keeps bumping into me instead.”
“Well, shadows are attached to people, so that’s why I stayed close to Jessie,” Benny said. “Anyway, we’re going to follow any suspicious people we see. Maybe one of them is the person who ran down the street last night!”
Miss Chase loved Benny’s plan. “Well, let me give you a few tracking tips. First off, you don’t want to stay so close to the person that you bump into them! Just tiptoe a few feet behind or nearby, not too close and not too far.”
“What if the suspect sees me?” Benny wanted to know.
“You can pretend to be doing something else,” Jessie said. “Tying your shoe or something like that.”
Miss Chase looked very pleased. “You children seem to know my books inside out. I’m sure if anyone is up to something around the Aldens, he or she won’t get away with it for long. You’ve learned all my little mystery tricks. Now all you need is a suspect.”
“Speaking of suspects, Miss Chase,” Jessie said, “we suspect someone was following us around yesterday when we went sightseeing. Let me get my backpack, and I’ll show you what I’m talking about.”
Jessie ran back to the sleeping porch. As she was leaving, she saw someone in the courtyard. It was Mr. Bindry.
“Good morning, Mr. Bindry,” Jessie cried out in her friendliest voice. “My brothers and sister and I will be right down in a minute to help you out.”
She waved at Mr. Bindry, but he wasn’t in a waving mood.
“He’s always so crabby,” Jessie said to herself as she walked back to the kitchen. “He even pretended not to see me!”
“So let’s see what you children were up to in New Orleans yesterday,” Miss Chase said when Jessie spread out her photos on the table. “Ah, what a nice shot of the Café du Monde! All that’s missing are the beignets.”
“That’s because we ate them all,” Benny said proudly.
Miss Chase picked up another photo. “I see you visited the cemetery.”
“And you know what?” Violet asked in a quiet voice. “We saw a funeral procession. And a small band playing music. People waved to us to walk behind the band in the procession, too. Isn’t that strange?”
“No,” Miss Chase explained, “people down here find the music and the funeral processions a comfort to them when a person dies. It’s okay for strangers to join them.”
Miss Chase went through Jessie’s photos one by one. Suddenly she was perfectly still.
“Is something the matter, Miss Chase?” Violet asked.
Miss Chase said, “I just noticed something strange about these pictures, that’s all.”
Benny could sit quiet no longer. “I know! I know! You saw Mr. Phillips, too! That’s what we saw when we looked at all the pictures together.”
“You children are even better detectives than I thought,” Miss Chase said. “Wait just a second.”
Miss Chase went out to the living room and pulled out something from her desk. When she came back to the kitchen table, she had a large magnifying glass in her hand. “Let’s get a closer look.”
“Now there’s no mistaking that this is Mr. Phillips,” Henry said when he looked through the magnifying glass.
“The question is, why was Rex Phillips following you?” Miss Chase asked. “Did he come up to you at all, wave, or say anything?”
Jessie shook her head. “We were so busy having a good time, we didn’t notice him at all until we looked at the pictures. The only person we ran into that we knew was Sarah.”
“Sarah Deckle?” Miss Chase cried. “Where did you see her?”
“Near Jackson Square,” Jessie explained. “It was kind of strange, too. I put down my backpack on a bench so I could read my map, and my backpack disappeared.”
Henry broke in. “Then we saw Sarah Deckle walking up ahead with Jessie’s backpack. She said she was on her way to the Lost and Found to turn it in.”
“And you know what?” Benny asked. “She didn’t even seem glad that Jessie turned up.”
Miss Chase took off her glasses and seemedto be thinking. Finally, she spoke up. “Was everything there when you got it back from Miss Deckle?”
“Yes,” Jessie said. “Kleenex, a small Thermos, my camera, my wallet, and Violet’s Little Mermaid book. She’d brought it along to read. . . .”
Suddenly Violet said, “I’m going to put The Little Mermaid back with the other books.” Violet ran up to the sleeping porch.
She was back in a couple of minutes. “The rest of the fairy tales are missing!” Violet cried out.
“When was the last time you saw them?” Miss Chase asked the children.
“I don’t remember,” Jessie said.
“I’m not sure either,” Violet added. “I gave Jessie The Little Mermaid to bring along whenwe went out yesterday. I put the rest of the set by my bed. But I can’t remember when I last saw them on the night table.”
“You mean they disappeared last night?” Henry asked.
Benny crinkled his forehead. “Or maybe while we were having breakfast this morning.”
Jessie thought of something else. She leaned over the balcony. “Mr. Bindry, Mr. Bindry,” she called down.
“Why are you calling Mr. Bindry?” Benny asked.
“He was here just a few minutes ago,” Jessie answered. “Maybe he saw someone come up the stairs to the sleeping porch.”
“Or maybe,” Henry said in a low voice, “Mr. Bindry was the someone who came up to the sleeping porch.”
“Guess what?” Benny asked. “Now we have a suspect.” |