The Mystery of the Stolen Corn Popper (4 page)

“Yes.”

“All the exit guards are looking for her. She hasn’t left the store.”

“She will,” Cam said. “She’s coming here now with another stolen shopping bag.”

Cam and Eric stood by the guard and waited. Shoppers walked past them as they came into the store. Others left carrying full Binky’s shopping bags.

“She should have been here by now,” Eric said.

Cam watched as a short woman carrying four loaded shopping bags, two in each hand, tried to get through the door. Then Cam said, “Maybe she has a secret way to get out of the store. Or maybe she puts on a disguise before she leaves.”

Eric whispered, “Or maybe she’s a partner with a guard at one of the exits and the guard lets her go past.”

The music stopped again. “Attention, all shoppers. For the next ten minutes only, with every five-pound box of taffy you buy, you get a free two-pound bag of jelly beans. That’s right, shoppers, free jelly beans.”

A woman carrying a full Binky’s shopping bag was walking into the store. “Where is that?” she asked the guard. “Where are those free jelly beans?”

The guard told the woman how to get to the candy department. Cam watched as the woman walked off. Cam rubbed her chin and thought for a moment. Then she told Eric, “Come with me. I think I know where to find the shopping-bag thief.”

“
W
here are we going?” Eric asked.

“That woman carrying the shopping bag
into
the store made me think,” Cam said as they walked.

“What’s there to think about?” Eric asked. “That woman probably forgot to buy something, so she came back. That’s why she was walking into the store carrying a shopping bag.”

“Maybe,” Cam said, “and maybe not.”

Eric followed Cam to the other end of the store. They walked through the curtain, sheet, and towel department to Gift Wrap and Returns.

Cam looked at the long lines of people waiting to return something they had bought. Then she found her. The woman in the blue dress was in the middle of the last line.

“There she is,” Cam whispered.

“Now I understand why she didn’t have the corn popper when we saw her,” Eric whispered. “As soon as she steals a shopping bag, she returns whatever is in it and keeps the money.”

Cam said, “And that’s why none of the exit guards saw her. She never left the store.”

Then Cam told Eric, “I’ll wait here. You, get one of the guards.”

Eric took a few steps away. Then he came back. “I think I’ll get Guard Number 397, the one with the ketchup stain. I know he’ll come.”

Eric walked off. Cam stood at the end of one of the other lines and watched the woman.

There were two shoppers in line ahead of the woman in the blue dress. Cam watched as a woman behind the Returns counter gave the, money to the first shopper in line. The man counted the money and walked away. Everyone in the last line moved a step closer to the Returns counter. Now there was only one shopper ahead of the woman in the blue dress.

An old man lifted a large suitcase onto the Returns counter. He spoke to the woman behind the counter and then showed her the zipper on the suitcase. The woman took the suitcase and returned the money he had paid. The old man smiled and walked away. Now the woman in the blue dress stepped up to the counter.

The woman in the blue dress took a box and a receipt out of the shopping bag and put them on the counter. Then she took two more boxes from the bag and put them on the counter, too.

Cam looked into the curtain, sheet, and towel department to see if Eric was coming with the guard. He wasn’t.

The woman behind the Returns counter gave the woman in the blue dress some money. The woman in the blue dress smiled and walked quickly away. She walked past Cam.

“Excuse me,” Cam said as she ran in front of the woman, “do you know where I can find the taffy?”

“I’m sorry, I don’t,” the woman said.

“If you buy taffy, you get free jelly beans. Don’t you like jelly beans?” Cam asked.

“I don’t like jelly beans. I don’t like taffy. And I’m in a hurry,” the woman said. “Now, will you please get out of my way?”

The woman gently pushed Cam aside and walked off. Cam ran ahead of her and asked, “Have you ever tasted a red jelly bean? They’re really good.”

“I told you, I’m in a hurry. I have no time for jelly beans.”

“What’s your hurry?” someone asked. It was Guard Number 397. Eric was with him.

“I have shopping to do.”

“You mean you have stealing to do. We know about the shopping bags.”

The woman started to run. But two other guards were walking up the aisle. They caught her.

A woman with red hair and a bright green dress walked quickly up to the guards. “Come with me,” she said.

The guards and the shopping-bag thief followed the woman with the red hair. She turned to see that they were all behind her. Then she pointed to Cam and Eric and said, “You, too.”

C
am and Eric followed the woman into a large office. The curtains, the walls, the carpet, and the chairs in the office were all green.

“I’m Betty Binky,” the woman in green told the shopping-bag thief. “This is my store, and people like you are bad for business. First, you are going to return all the money you got for the things you stole.”

The thief took some bills and coins from her purse and gave them to Betty Binky.

“And now,” Betty Binky said, “you’ll be taken to our security office.”

The guards took the thief out of the office. When they were gone, Betty Binky smiled at Cam and Eric.

“You’re the two children who helped us catch that woman, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” Cam said. “But she almost got away. We were looking for someone carrying the stolen shopping bags. We thought she would try to leave the store with them. And when we saw her without the stolen bags, we thought we made a mistake.”

“What will happen to that woman?” Eric asked.

“We’ll call the police. She may go to jail.”

Betty Binky smiled again and asked, “Now what did you come here to buy?”

Cam closed her eyes and said,
“Click.”

“She has an amazing memory,” Eric whispered to Betty Binky. “Cam always says
‘Click’
when she wants to remember something.”

“I know,” Betty Binky whispered to Eric. “Mike Coats told me. He’s Guard Number 397.”

“We each need two notebooks,” Cam said with her eyes still closed, “a memo pad, four pencils, a large eraser, two blue pens, a ruler, index cards, and a large box of colored paper clips.”

Betty Binky made a list of all those items. Then she pressed a button on her desk. The office door opened, and two Binky’s Helpers, wearing green dresses, came in. Betty Binky gave them the list and said, “Please, get all these things, and two Binky’s surprise packages.”

After the two women had left, Betty Binky said to Cam and Eric, “Your teacher must be Ms. Benson. She’s the only one who asks for colored paper clips. She worked here when she was in college. She’s very nice.”

Cam looked around the office and then said, “You really like green, don’t you?”

“I
love
green,” Betty Binky said. “Grass is green. Leaves are green. And my eyes are green.”

Just then, the office doors opened. The Binky’s Helpers carried in two shopping bags with the school supplies and the surprise packages. Eric opened one of the surprise packages.

“Candy,” Eric said as he reached into the package, “gumdrops, jelly beans, lollipops, and taffy.”

“And it’s all green,” Cam said.

“Green is the best color for dresses, carpets, and chairs,” Betty Binky said. “And it’s the best flavor for candy.”

Cam and Eric each bit into a gumdrop. “This is good,” Cam said.

“Of course it’s good,” Betty Binky said, and laughed. “It’s green.”

Cam and Eric laughed, too. Then they shared their green candy with Betty Binky and the two Binky’s Helpers.