The Mystery of the Monster Movie Read online

  Table of Contents

  Dedication

  Copyright Page

  Title Page

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Why would someone take a reel of film?

  “They’re arguing about something up there,” Cam told Eric. “But I don’t know what they’re saying. Come on. Let’s go up there and listen.”

  “How could you let something like this happen?” one man said. It sounded to Cam and Eric like the theater manager.

  “I didn’t let anything happen,” another man said. “I showed the first reel, just as I always do. But when I looked for the second reel, it was gone.”

  “Look at this mess. I’ve asked you to clean it up. It’s probably buried under all these coffee cups and newspapers.”

  “It’s not buried anywhere. I put it right here on the table. I didn’t lose it. Someone took it.”

  The Cam Jansen Adventure Series

  DON’T FORGET ABOUT THE YOUNG CAM JANSEN

  SERIES FOR YOUNGER READERS!

  To Sally Cipriano

  PUFFIN BOOKS

  Published by Penguin Group

  Penguin Young Readers Group,

  345 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A

  Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R ORL, England

  Penguin Books Australia Ltd, 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia

  Penguin Books Canada Ltd, 10 Alcorn Avenue, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4V 3B2

  Penguin Books (N.Z.) Ltd, 182-190 Wairau Road, Auckland 10, New Zealand

  First published in the United States of America by The Viking Press, 1984

  Published by Puffin Books, 1992

  Reissued 1999

  This edition published by Puffin Books,

  a division of Penguin Young Readers Group, 2004

  9 10

  Text copyright © David A. Adler, 1984 Illustrations copyright © Susanna Natti, 1984

  All rights reserved

  THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS HAS CATALOGED THE 1992 PUFFIN BOOKS EDITION

  UNDER CATALOG CARD NUMBER: 91-67505

  eISBN : 978-1-101-07596-8

  RL: 2.4

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  Chapter One

  It was a cold winter Sunday afternoon. Cam Jansen and her friend Eric Shelton were waiting in line outside a movie theater. Cam’s parents were with them.

  Cam’s eyes were closed.

  “What’s the big headline on top of the movie posters?” Eric asked.

  “That’s easy,” Cam said. “‘Monster Movie Month Continues. Now Showing—’ ”

  “And what’s printed on the first poster?” Eric asked.

  “Let’s see,” Cam said with her eyes still closed. “There’s a parade of giant brown, white, and black shoes. ‘Shoe Escape,’ it says. ‘Starring Joe Roberts, Angela Kane, and Robert Allen.’

  “I can tell you what’s on the other poster, too,” Cam said. “And I can tell you what you’re wearing and that one of your shoe-laces is untied.”

  Eric tied his shoelace as Cam opened her eyes. Cam has what people call a photographic memory. They mean that Cam’s mind takes a picture of whatever she sees. When Cam wants to remember something, even a detail like a name on a movie poster, she just looks at the picture stored in her brain.

  “Do you know the last time I saw Shoe Escape?” Cam’s father asked. “It was one week before our wedding. It was really something.”

  “Yes,” Cam’s mother said. “I wore a beautiful white gown. My hair was set in curls.”

  “At the beginning of the movie,” Cam’s father said, “everything is quiet. Children just like you and Eric are going to school. Ordinary people, like your mother and me, are going to work. And they’re all wearing shoes.”

  “I wore white shoes at our wedding,” Cam’s mother said.

  “You know,” Cam’s father went on, “sometimes I see just ordinary people, like that woman with the red hat or that man over there with the cane, and I think that I saw them in Shoe Escape. That’s what’s so great about this movie. It’s about ordinary people and ordinary shoes.”

  A light snow began to fall. Cam’s mother told Cam and Eric to close the top buttons on their coats.

  “Cam, take a good look at me,” Eric said as he buttoned his coat. “I want to test your memory again. This time I bet I’ll stump you.”

  “Cam remembers everything,” her mother said.

  Cam took a few steps back and looked straight at Eric. She said, “Click,” and closed her eyes. Cam always says “Click” when she wants to remember something. She says it’s the sound her mental camera makes when it takes a picture.

  Cam’s real name is Jennifer Jansen. When she was younger, people called her “Red” because she has red hair. But when they found out about her amazing photographic memory, they began calling her “The Camera.” Soon “The Camera” was shortened to “Cam.”

  “This time I tricked you,” Eric said. “I asked you to take a good look at me. If you did, you should have seen the posters right behind me, too.”

  “I did.”

  “How many spider legs are there on the second poster?”

  The line started to move. But Cam just stood there. Her eyes were still closed.

  “What are you doing?” Eric asked.

  “I’m counting legs. There are five spiders on the poster and each has eight legs. That’s forty legs.” Cam opened her eyes. “Am I right?”

  “Yes,” Eric said. “Now come on. Your parents are way ahead of us.”

  Cam and Eric caught up with Cam’s parents at the ticket window.

  “Two adults and two children,” Mrs. Jansen said. Then she passed some money through the window.

  “How old are the children?” the ticket seller asked.

  “They’re both ten.”

  The ticket seller gave Cam’s mother two purple tickets, two green tickets, and some change. Then Cam, Eric, and Cam’s parents went into the theater.

  The lobby was crowded and warm. A few people were standing and talking. Others were waiting in line to buy popcorn and soda.

  “We can get food later,” Cam’s father said. “I want to get good seats. And I don’t want to miss anything.”

  They went through the swinging doors and into the theater. Soft music was playing. People were sitting in many of the seats. Cam’s father found four empty seats near the front of the theater. Cam and Eric took off their coats and sat down. Then they looked up at the dark, blank screen and waited.

  Chapter Two

  Cam’s father turned and looked at the balcony and at the rest of the theater. “Look how crowded it is here!” he said. “And I’ll bet lots of these people saw Shoe Escape when it first came out. They want to see it again, just as I do.”

  Cam tapped her mother on her shoulder and asked, “Can Eric and I get some popcorn?”

  Mrs. Jansen gave Cam some money and said, “Get two buckets. One for you and Eric, and one for your father and me.”

  “I wonder why Shoe Escape has never been shown on TV,” Cam’s father said as Cam and Eric squeezed past him.

  As Cam and Eric walked down the aisle toward the swinging doors, Mr. Jansen called to them, “Hurry back.”

  The lobby was still crowded. There were a few people waiting to buy popcorn, candy, ice cream, and soda.

  “I’ll wait in line,” Eric said. “I want to test your memory again. Look at me, the way you did the last time.”

  Cam stood back and looked at
Eric. She was also careful to look at the other people in line. There was a short, heavy man with a gray beard. After him there were a woman with a large red hat, two older boys, a woman in a pink running suit, and Eric. Cam looked at them all. She closed her eyes and said, “Click.” Then Cam opened her eyes and looked at the price list and at the woman behind the counter. Cam closed her eyes again and said, “Click.” She was walking toward Eric with her eyes still closed when she heard someone shouting.

  “I paid for a full bucket of popcorn! This one is half empty!”

  Cam opened her eyes. It was the man with the gray beard who was shouting. He was showing the people in line his bucket and asking them, “Does this look full? Does this look full?”

  Eric whispered to Cam, “That bucket is almost full. I don’t know why he’s making such a fuss.”

  The theater manager came out. He asked the woman behind the counter what the problem was. She pointed to the man with the beard.

  “Oh, it’s you, Mr. Bender,” the manager said. “Look, I don’t go to your theater to make trouble. I wish you wouldn’t come here.”

  “Well, in my theater,” Mr. Bender said to the people in line, “our popcorn buckets are filled to the top. And people coming to Bender’s Bargain Theater get to see a triple feature—three great movies for the price of one.”

  The theater manager took the bucket from Mr. Bender. He gave it to the woman behind the counter. “Please pour some more in for Mr. Bender,” he said.

  The woman poured a huge scoop of popcorn into the bucket. When Mr. Bender walked away with it, popcorn spilled. He left a trail of popcorn from the counter to the doors of the theater.

  The next woman in line wanted change for the telephone. The boys bought soda and popcorn. The woman in the running suit bought two ice cream cones. Then Cam and Eric bought two medium-size buckets of popcorn. They were filled to the very top.

  Just as Cam and Eric opened the doors to the theater, the lights dimmed. The movie was about to begin.

  Cam and Eric rushed to their seats. As they sat down, soft marching music started to play. The music became louder, and the screen lit up with a picture of a marching band. At first the screen showed the marchers’ faces. Then it showed their feet and their shoes. Then two words seemed to shoot out onto the screen: “Shoe Escape.”

  There were pictures of the movie’s stars: Joe Roberts, Angela Kane, and Robert Allen. After their faces and names were shown on the screen, their shoes were shown.

  “I think I’ve seen that woman somewhere,” Cam whispered to Eric when Angela Kane was shown.

  “Well, I don’t think she’s the real star of this movie. I think her shoes are,” Eric said.

  Cam took a handful of popcorn and looked up at the screen. It was early in the morning. A man was just finishing getting dressed. He was tying his shoes. When the man ate his breakfast, one of the threads holding his shoe together broke. Another thread broke. As the man walked along a busy street on the way to work, threads on both shoes opened up. His shoes were coming apart.

  The man stopped and waited at a corner. Other people stopped, too. The threads on their shoes were opening up.

  Without looking away from the screen, Cam quickly ate the popcorn in her hand. As she took another handful, Eric whispered, “This is scary.”

  “It’s only a movie,” Cam told him. “It could never happen.”

  The man was standing in an elevator. Other people in the elevator were talking to him, wishing him a good morning. Then the screen showed their shoes. The threads on the other shoes were breaking, too.

  The man got off on the eighth floor of the building. But the doors to the elevator didn’t close. The man sat down at his desk. He felt something move beneath him. It was his shoes. They walked off his feet and ran out the office door. In the hall other shoes were running. They all ran into the elevator. The doors closed. At the seventh floor the doors opened and more men’s and women’s shoes ran in. Then the screen became dark.

  “What happened?” Cam asked.

  “It’s the shoes,” her father said. “They’re all getting together. The movie gets real exciting now.”

  “I don’t mean about the shoes. Why did the movie stop?”

  Chapter Three

  “While we wait,” Eric said to Cam, “let’s finish that memory test.”

  Cam closed her eyes. She said, “Click.”

  “What color shoes was the woman just ahead of me in line wearing?”

  “You’re trying to trick me again, Eric. She wasn’t wearing shoes. She was wearing a pink running suit and white sneakers.”

  “What color eyeglasses was Mr. Bender wearing?”

  “He wasn’t wearing eyeglasses.”

  “What color were his shoes?”

  “Brown.”

  “That’s right,” Eric said.

  Cam opened her eyes. People around her were talking. Some wanted to know why the movie had stopped. Others wondered what the shoes did next.

  “I think the shoes all go dancing,” a man behind Cam said.

  “No. Shoes don’t like to dance. They all go to a shoeshine stand.”

  “I think they run to the park and play football.”

  Cam’s father shook his head. Then he turned around and said, “None of you is right. But I won’t tell you what happens. That would ruin the fun.”

  “Dad,” Cam said, “can I get some soda? All that popcorn made me thirsty.”

  Mr. Jansen gave Cam some money. She and Eric squeezed past Cam’s parents. They were just about to walk into the lobby when the theater manager walked in.

  “Let’s wait and hear what he says,” Cam told Eric.

  The theater manager walked onto the stage. He buttoned his jacket, straightened his tie, and waited. A few people in the theater saw him standing there. They stopped talking. Then others saw him. Soon the theater was quiet.

  “We seem to be having some trouble with our film Shoe Escape. I am sorry for the delay, but I do promise that the film will begin again shortly.”

  The theater manager started to walk off the stage. Then he stopped, smiled, and said, “And I can tell you, this movie will be worth the wait.”

  “Come on,” Cam said to Eric. “Let’s get our soda before the movie starts again.”

  Cam and Eric rushed into the lobby. The theater manager was right behind them. There was a line of people waiting to buy refreshments. Cam and Eric stood at the end of the line. The theater manager walked past them and up a dark, narrow staircase in the corner of the lobby.

  “We’re next,” Eric said.

  “Can I help you?” the woman behind the counter asked.

  “We’d like two small cups of soda, please,” Cam said. “I want cola.”

  “And I want orange,” Eric told the woman.

  The woman took two cups from a large stack of cups on her side of the counter. She filled each with soda and held them out to Cam and Eric. Cam put the money on the counter and reached for the soda. Just then they heard some yelling.

  “It’s from up there,” Cam said. She pointed to the narrow staircase.

  Cam ran to the staircase. Eric followed her.

  “But what about your soda?” the woman behind the counter called out.

  “They’re arguing about something up there,” Cam told Eric. “But I don’t know what they’re saying. Come on. Let’s go up there and listen.”

  “Maybe it’s none of our business,” Eric said.

  But Cam was already halfway up the stairs. Eric followed her.

  The staircase led to a narrow door. The small plastic sign on the door said: PROJECTION ROOM. KEEP OUT. The door was partly open.

  “How could you let something like this happen?” one man said. It sounded to Cam and Eric like the theater manager.

  “I didn’t let anything happen,” another man said. “I showed the first reel, just as I always do. But when I looked for the second reel, it was gone.”

  “Look at this mess. I’ve asked you
to clean it up. It’s probably buried under all these coffee cups and newspapers.”

  “It’s not buried anywhere. I put it right here on the table. I didn’t lose it. Someone took it.”

  “Did you hear that?” Eric whispered. “Someone stole a reel of film.”

  “Sh.”

  “It’s your job to make sure that there’s a movie showing on that screen,” the theater manager said.

  “I know,” the other man answered. “I was here just about the whole time.”

  “Start showing the second movie. Then we’ll both see if we can find the missing film.”

  “Come on, Cam,” Eric said. “He’s coming out.”

  Chapter Four

  Cam and Eric raced down the steps. Just as they reached the lobby, the theater manager started down the steps.

  “Oh, there you are,” the woman behind the counter said to Cam and Eric. “Take these sodas before they spill.”

  Cam and Eric took the two cups of soda. Then they followed the theater manager into the theater.

  “What took you so long?” Cam’s father asked when Cam and Eric came to their seats.

  “Sh,” Cam’s mother said. She pointed to the theater manager. He was standing on the stage.

  “I must tell you again that I’m sorry,” the theater manager said. “We have a problem with our first feature. While we try to work on that, we hope you’ll enjoy watching our second feature, The Monster Spiders. It will begin in just a few minutes.”

  Cam whispered to her mother, “The second reel of Shoe Escape is gone. Someone stole it.”

  Cam turned and watched the theater manager as he walked past. The lights dimmed. Music started to play.

  “Look,” Cam said. “He stopped at Mr. Bender’s seat.”

  “Sh. The movie is starting,” Cam’s father said.

  “They’re arguing.”

  Cam’s mother and Eric turned. Cam’s father didn’t.