Monkey Trouble (6 page)

Simio hooted at Mr. Newton. Then he came out from the bushes and made a grab to get the shoe back.

“Oh, no you don’t,” Mr. Newton told the monkey. “What did you do with my other shoe?”

Benny grabbed Jessie’s arm. “Doesn’t that look like the one we found earlier in the main office?” Benny asked. Jessie nodded in agreement. “We already solved that mystery!” Benny called to Mr. Newton. “It’s in the lost-and-found.”

“Great work,” Mr. Newton told Benny. “Now we have to find that camera!” He went around the bushes and sorted through Simio’s hiding place. “A cell phone, a flip-flop, and half a sandwich. Where did you get this stuff?” he asked Simio.

“Oooh, oooh,” Simio answered, jumping up and down.

“I think this monkey has escaped more times than we know,” Henry told Mr. Newton.

“That explains a lot,” Mr. Newton said, his head disappearing behind the bush as he finished the search. “I found the other flip-flop, but unfortunately no camera,” he reported at last.

“Are you sure?” Blake asked. “It has to be there.”

Mr. Newton shook his head sadly as he got up and dusted off his pants. “I’m sure,” he said.

Mr. Newton addressed the students. “Okay,” he said. “Enough monkey business for today. We need to give up the search. If we don’t hurry, we’ll never see all the new zoo babies before the spring break tour ends.”

The tour group began to follow Mr. Newton on the path toward the next animal pen, where the baby gorillas lived.

Blake was disappointed. He walked up next to the Aldens and turned to Henry. “Isn’t there anything more you can do?” Blake still looked very, very tired.

Henry said, “I’m not sure. Maybe we can come up with an idea.”

“Annika’s still a suspect, right?” Blake said hopefully.

“She’s still on the list, but there really isn’t any evidence that points to her,” Henry told him.

“But she wants to win the contest,” Blake said. “And if she wins, she’ll get to be on the school newspaper staff. Aren’t those reasons enough?”

“I suppose those are good reasons to keep her on the list. We’ll talk to her now,” Jessie said, taking out her notebook and looking at Annika’s name. “And we’ll let you know what we find.” She put an X though Simio’s name on the suspect list.

Blake nodded and hurried ahead to the gorilla cage. When the Aldens got there, Mr. Newton was already explaining about the mama gorilla, an ape named Harriet. “Gorillas usually only have one baby,” Mr. Newton said. He pointed at a leafy nest in the center of the cage. “But sometimes, they can have twins.” Up popped two little gorilla heads. “We named the babies Mojo and Jojo.”

“Twins!” Griffin and Matthew did a happy dance.

“Just like us,” Matthew said.

“Only furrier!” Griffin replied.

“They are so cute!” Annika tossed back her short brown hair before she snapped a picture of the twin gorillas.

“Annika, are you sure you don’t have two cameras?” Benny asked her.

“Oh, come on,” Annika said, turning to face him. “Is Blake still trying to convince you I stole his?” She waved her camera near Benny’s face. “This is my camera!
My
camera!”

“Okay, Annika,” Henry said. “Since Blake’s is still missing, we needed to check with you.”

“Please tell Blake to stop accusing me of taking his,” Annika said much more softly. Then she walked away.

“Well, this is a first,” Jessie said as she slowly put her notebook in her back pocket.

“A first what?” Benny asked.

“The first time we have crossed off all our suspects and run out of clues before we solved a mystery,” Jessie said.

“We can still solve it,” Henry told her.

“How?” Violet asked. “Tonight is the pizza party. The zoo tour is almost over!”

“I honestly don’t know what we will do,” Henry said. “But we can’t give up yet.”

B
y the start of the pizza party, the Aldens hadn’t solved the mystery. Blake’s camera was still missing.

Jessie opened the door to the Greenfield Zoo Education Center’s red barn. The place was decorated with balloons and streamers.

“I smell pepperoni,” Benny said. “And veggie pizza. And . . .” He sniffed the air. “. . . a couple of plain cheese pies, too.” Benny rubbed his belly and smiled.

“You have an amazing nose,” Violet said, pointing to a table along a side wall. On top of it were the three types of pizzas Benny’s nose had predicted.

“Pizza makes every party perfect,” Benny told Jessie.

“The only thing that would have made this party better,” Henry said, “is if we’d solved the mystery of Blake’s missing camera.”

Jessie agreed. “I’m disappointed, too. I went over the suspect list a thousand times. I just can’t figure it out.”

Violet shrugged. “I hope Blake’s not too sad at how things turned out. There’s still a possibility that one of his other pictures will win.”

“Well, I hope one of our pictures wins,” Benny said. He grabbed Henry’s arm. “Come on, Henry. The pizza’s getting cold, and everyone’s waiting for me to take the first slice, just like Mr. Newton promised.”

The Aldens went to the pizza table and everyone grabbed a few slices, following Benny. Then they sat in the circle of folding chairs.

Matthew and Griffin came to sit beside them. They were dressed in twin zoo shirts with monkeys on them.

“It’s a picture of Simio,” Matthew told Benny.

“It does kind of look like him,” Benny said, leaning in to study the shirt.

“We wanted to always remember that funny monkey,” Griffin said.

Sophie joined the circle. She had her blond hair pulled back in a ponytail.

Sophie was wearing her swim charm bracelet. When Mr. Newton showed up, he was wearing his tennis shoes.

“We did solve a few mysteries,” Benny told Jessie. “We found a bracelet and a missing shoe!”

Jessie smiled. “I guess it wasn’t all bad detective work, huh?”

“No,” Violet said. “We did pretty well. Two out of three.”

Blake was sitting at the opposite side of the circle. “No one will ever know how great my giraffe picture was,” Blake said sadly. “It was an artistic masterpiece!”

“Oh, give it up already,” Annika told him. “You lost the camera. The contest results have been decided. Stop complaining.”

“I wouldn’t complain if you hadn’t taken it,” Blake said, standing up and waving his pizza crust at her.

“They’re fighting again,” Violet said to Henry. “Can you get them to stop?”

“I think once Mr. Newton announces the winner, it’ll be over,” Henry said. “There won’t be anything more to argue about.”

All the remaining children took seats in the circle. Annika came to sit by the Aldens, as far away from Blake as she could.

“I got all of your photos developed after the tour ended,” Mr. Newton said. “The zoologist judges looked at all the pictures. It was hard to decide because there were so many good ones.” He took out a zoo pass and held it up. “There is only one grand prize, but today we’ll also award second and third place winners.”

Mr. Newton asked the kids to make drum roll sounds by patting their hands against their thighs.

“Third place, for his picture of Simio, is . . . Griffin!” Mr. Newton told Griffin to come to the front of the room.

“Thank you,” Griffin said, taking a bow. “Third place is good for me!” Mr. Newton gave Griffin a coupon for a free ice cream at the snack bar.

“Oooh,” Benny said. “That’s a yummy prize!”

“You have to share the cone with me,” Matthew told his brother. “It was my camera.”

“I do not have to share,” Griffin said. “I was the one who took the picture.”

“They’re as bad as Blake and Annika,” Henry whispered to Jessie.

“They are worse,” Jessie whispered back. “I bet they fight all day!”

Mr. Newton went on with the presentation. “In second place,” he said, “with a shot of her brother and a butterfly on his head is . . . Violet Alden!”

“How’d you know I took the picture?” Violet asked Mr. Newton with a huge smile. “I was sharing the camera with Henry, Jessie, and Benny all day.”

Mr. Newton showed her the winning shot. The butterfly was on Benny’s head, and Henry and Jessie were in the background of the photo.

“You were the only one not in the picture,” Mr. Newton said. “It wasn’t too hard to figure out.”

“Oh,” Violet said with a smile. “Good detective work, Mr. Newton.”

“Thanks.” Mr. Newton gave Violet a coupon for a supersize popcorn bucket.

“Yippee!” Benny cheered. He held out his hand to take the ticket from Violet.

“No way,” she said. “I’m keeping it in my purse. I know you,” she winked. “You’ll eat the whole thing by yourself.”

Benny laughed, rubbing his hands together. “You read my mind,” he said.

Mr. Newton brought out an easel that was covered with a sheet. “Here’s the grand prize winning photo,” he said. “I had a big poster of it made. Are you ready to see?”

The children all got up from their chairs and gathered around.

“And in first place, winning a year pass to the zoo, is . . .” Mr. Newton whipped off the sheet.

Beneath it stood a picture of a baby giraffe, wobbly on its legs, standing next to its mother.

“Annika Gentry!”

“Oh my gosh!” Annika jumped up and down. She danced around and cheered.

Mr. Newton handed her the zoo pass and a small blue first-place ribbon. “Congratulations,” he said, shaking her hand.

“Thanks so much,” Annika told him. Annika went over to Benny. “You were my witness!” she said. “Tell Blake that he has to let me be a photographer for the newspaper.”

“You made her a deal,” Benny said to Blake.

“Oh, fine,” Blake said. “I’m not a sore loser. You can take pictures for the paper.”

Annika was so excited, she jumped forward, grabbed Blake, and hugged him.

He quickly stepped backwards out of her arms. “No hugging on the newspaper.” Annika laughed.

“I want to see your picture close-up,” Blake said, moving through the crowd. “It’s good,” he started to give Annika a compliment, but stopped. “Mr. Newton!” he called in a loud voice. “Hold everything! Annika didn’t win the contest.”

The room went silent.

“I won the contest.” He pointed at the photograph. “I took this picture!”

H
enry, Jessie, Benny, and Violet rushed over to where Blake and Annika were standing.

“What do you mean?” Benny asked.

“Her name was on the camera, right?” Violet asked Mr. Newton.

“Yes,” he said, confused. “I was very careful not to mix up one student’s pictures with the others. I’m certain that this photo came from Annika’s camera.” He squinted at the picture over his glasses. “How do you know it’s yours, Blake?”

Blake said, “I know how I framed the shot. I put the tree in the far left corner and the baby’s legs in the right. This is my picture. I am positive.”

“I was standing next to you,” Annika said. “It might be mine.”

“No way,” Blake told her. “This is not yours!”

“I—”

But before Annika could defend herself, Henry jumped in with an idea. “Mr. Newton, can we see all the pictures from Annika’s camera?”

Mr. Newton went to the back of the room and found the envelope that contained her photos. While he was gone, Annika and Blake stood like statues, silently glaring at each other.

Jessie took out her notebook and pen. She wrote down Annika’s name on a clean page and next to that, she wrote down Blake’s name. Underneath she wrote: “Winning picture?”

Mr. Newton came back with the photos from Annika’s camera. “I would search the pictures myself. But I don’t know what you’re looking for,” he said.

“I’m not exactly sure yet, either, but I’ll know when I see it,” Henry replied.

Mr. Newton nodded, then handed the envelope of photos to Henry.

Jessie helped Henry. They organized the pictures on the floor by which animals they’d seen during the spring break program. They grouped together the penguins, the giraffes, the butterflies, and all the other animals into small picture piles.

“There are lots of photos,” Benny said once Henry and Jessie stepped back from the pictures. “But only one of a giraffe. That was a really great picture. No wonder it won.”

“Huh?” Annika said, scanning the photos. “I took lots of giraffe shots. Where are my other pictures?”

Henry’s head popped up. “That’s it! Benny, you are a genius!”

“I am?” Benny asked. “Oh, right,” he added. “I am.”