Cam Jansen and the Barking Treasure Mystery Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  What happened to Little Treasure?

  “She’s wrong,” Eric whispered. “I’m sure no one stole her dog. It just ran off.”

  Cam said, “Click,” again.

  “We’re just lucky we’re on a boat,” Eric went on. “Little Treasure could not have gone very far. ”

  Cam opened her eyes.

  She told Eric, “When we first saw her on the boat, she had her dog. Then, after she went to see the fireboat, it was gone. Someone in that crowd stole Little Treasure.”

  “That’s silly,” Eric said. “No one would steal a dog.”

  Cam shook her head and told Eric, “That woman looks rich. I think someone took Little Treasure and plans to send a note. I have your dog. If you want her back, you’ll have to pay a ransom, a lot of money.”

  The Cam Jansen Adventure Series

  #1 Cam Jansen and the Mystery of the Stolen Diamonds

  #2 Cam Jansen and the Mystery of the U.F.O.

  #3 Cam Jansen and the Mystery of the Dinosaur Bones

  #4 Cam Jansen and the Mystery of the Television Dog

  #5 Cam Jansen and the Mystery of the Gold Coins

  #6 Cam Jansen and the Mystery of the Babe Ruth Baseball

  #7 Cam Jansen and the Mystery of the Circus Clown

  #8 Cam Jansen and the Mystery of the Monster Movie

  #9 Cam Jansen and the Mystery of the Carnival Prize

  #10 Cam Jansen and the Mystery at the Monkey House

  #11 Cam Jansen and the Mystery of the Stolen Corn Popper

  #12 Cam Jansen and the Mystery of Flight 54

  #13 Cam Jansen and the Mystery at the Haunted House

  #14 Cam Jansen and the Chocolate Fudge Mystery

  #15 Cam Jansen and the Triceratops Pops Mystery

  #16 Cam Jansen and the Ghostly Mystery

  #17 Cam Jansen and the Scary Snake Mystery

  #18 Cam Jansen and the Catnapping Mystery

  #19 Cam Jansen and the Barking Treasure Mystery

  #20 Cam Jansen and the Birthday Mystery

  #21 Cam Jansen and the School Play Mystery

  #22 Cam Jansen and the First Day of School Mystery

  #23 Cam Jansen and the Tennis Trophy Mystery

  #24 Cam Jansen and the Snowy Day Mystery

  DON’T FORGET ABOUT THE YOUNG CAM JANSEN SERIES FOR YOUNGER READERS!

  PUFFIN BOOKS

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Young Readers Group, 345 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A.

  Penguin Group (Canada), 10 Alcorn Avenue, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4V 3B2

  (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)

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

  Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland

  (a division of Penguin Books Ltd)

  Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a

  division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd)

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  New Delhi - 110 017, India

  Penguin Group (NZ), Cnr Airborne and Rosedale Roads, Albany, Auckland,

  New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd)

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  Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

  Registered Offices: Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R ORL, England

  First published in the United States of America by Viking,

  a division of Penguin Putnam Books for Young Readers, 1999

  Published by Puffin Books, a division of Penguin Young Readers

  Group, 2001, 2005

  Text copyright © David A. Adler, 1999

  Illustrations copyright © Susanna Natti, 1999

  All rights reserved

  THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS HAS CATALOGED THE VIKING EDITION AS FOLLOWS:

  Adler, David A.

  Cam Jansen and the barking treasure mystery / David A. Adler ; illustrated by Susanna

  Natti.

  p. cm.—(The Cam Jansen series ; 19)

  Summary: When a woman’s poodle disappears during a boat ride around the city, Cam

  uses her photographic memory to solve the mystery.

  eISBN : 978-1-101-07601-9

  [1. Dogs—Fiction. 2. Boats and boating—Fiction. 3. Mysteries and detective stories.]

  I. Natti, Susanna, ill. II. Title. III. Series: Adler, David A. Cam Jansen adventure; 19.

  PZ7.A2615Caab 1999

  [Fic]—dc21

  98-52517 CIP AC

  RL: 2.2

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  Best wishes for happy reading

  to my good friends

  Doni, Josh, Demi, and Davey

  Chapter One

  “The frog,” Mabel Trent said, and laughed. “Do you remember the frog?”

  Mrs. Shelton laughed, too. “Of course I remember it. It jumped out of your desk and scared Miss Donovan.”

  “Poor Miss Donovan,” Mabel Trent said. “She dropped her books and yelled at the frog, ‘Get out of my class!”’

  Mrs. Shelton laughed. “And you put cream cheese in Mr. Casper’s jar of white paint,” she said. “You sure did some crazy things.”

  Cam Jansen whispered to her friend Eric Shelton, “She must have gotten into lots of trouble in school.”

  “Mom wouldn’t laugh if I did those things,” Eric said. “She would punish me.”

  When Mabel Trent was in sixth grade, her family had moved far away. But she and Eric’s mother were still good friends. Now she was visiting the Sheltons. They were waiting in line for a boat ride around the city.

  “Look,” Eric said. He pointed to a sign. It listed the sights they would see on the ride and the rules for passengers. “Near the end of the ride, we see a pirate ship that is 200 years old.”

  “I want to remember this list,” Cam said. Then she blinked her eyes and said, “Click.”

  Cam has an amazing photographic memory. It’s as if she has a camera in her head, with photographs of whatever she has seen. Cam says “Click” whenever she wants to remember something. She says it’s the sound her mental camera makes.

  Cam’s real name is Jennifer. But when people found out about her amazing memory, they called her “The Camera.” Soon “The Camera” became just “Cam.”

  Mrs. Shelton bought four tickets. Then they waited in line to go on the boat.

  “You’ll love this ride, Little Treasure,” the woman in front of them told the small gray poodle in her arms. Then she told the short, bald man in front of her, “I call her Little Treasure because that’s what she is.”

  The woman was wearing a long red dress and lots of expensive jewelry. She carried a large, red leather bag. Little Treasure’s collar was red and had jewels in it.

  Cam closed her eyes and said, “Click.”

  “What are you doing?” Eric asked.

  “I’m looking at the picture I have of that sign,” Cam whispered, with her eyes still closed. “And rule number six says, ‘No animals allowed.”’

  Cam opened her eyes and said, “They won’t allow Little Treasure on board.”

  The line moved forward. A man in a sailor uniform was taking tickets.

  �
��I’m sorry,” he told the woman in the red dress, “but animals are not allowed.”

  “This is not an animal,” she said. “She’s my Little Treasure.”

  “Well, she looks like a dog and dogs are not allowed.” Then he said, “Next.”

  Mrs. Shelton gave him the tickets. Then she, Mabel Trent, Cam, and Eric walked onto the deck of the boat.

  There were benches outside, along the rail of the deck. There was a covered area, too, with seats and a snack bar.

  The boat was crowded. Most of the seats were taken.

  “Please, could you move down,” Mabel Trent asked a thin man with a bushy beard. He was sitting on a bench by the rail.

  The man moved to his left.

  Then Mabel Trent asked a short, bald man sitting on the left to move, too. The man didn’t seem to hear Mabel Trent.

  “Please,” she said loudly. “Could you move down?”

  “Oh,” the man said. He picked up a shopping bag and moved to his right.

  “There,” Mabel Trent said. “Now we all have a place to sit and everyone is happy.”

  “I was happy before,” the man with the bushy beard mumbled.

  There was a rumbling. Then the boat moved away from the dock.

  “Welcome aboard. I am Nancy, your tour guide.”

  Mabel Trent looked around. Then she called out, “Where are you, Nancy?”

  “There she is,” Cam said, and pointed to a large speaker box mounted on a metal pole.

  Mabel Trent waved to the speaker box and shouted, “I’m glad to meet you, Nancy. I’m Mabel Trent.”

  “Please look at the large red-brick building on the port side,” Nancy announced. “It was once used as a film studio. The movie Happy Rider was made there.”

  “Oh!” Mabel Trent screamed. “I loved Happy Rider.” She hurried to the other side of the boat and shouted, “There it is!”

  “Look,” Cam whispered to Eric.

  “I am looking,” he said.

  “No, over there,” Cam told him. She pointed to the woman in the long red dress. “Where’s her Little Treasure?”

  Chapter Two

  “Maybe she let a friend take care of Little Treasure,” Eric whispered.

  Cam said, “I don’t think so.”

  “And now,” Nancy announced, “take a deep breath. Do you smell something sweet and chewy? That large gray building on the port side is a bubble gum factory.”

  Eric took a deep breath. Cam didn’t. She just watched the woman in the long red dress.

  Cam nudged Eric.

  “Look at her,” Cam whispered. “She’s talking to her leather bag.”

  They watched the woman put her hand in the bag. Then she leaned forward and seemed to be talking to her hand.

  Cam whispered to Eric, “I think Little Treasure is in there.”

  “Look on the starboard side now,” Nancy said. “That’s the side facing the open sea. You’ll see a fireboat.”

  “That’s over there,” Mrs. Shelton said, and pointed to the other side of the boat.

  “That’s right, a fireboat,” Nancy said. “There are fires even here in the water. Well, not really in the water, but on boats. The fireboat has hoses and a large pump on board and searchlights for use at night.”

  “I want to see this,” Eric said.

  Eric hurried to the starboard side of the boat. Cam went there, too.

  The fireboat was not moving. A fireman was standing in the stern of the boat, holding the end of a hose spraying water. A large crowd had gathered by the rail of the tour boat to watch.

  Cam and Eric found two places by the rail, just to the right of the woman in the long red dress.

  Cam wanted to look into the woman’s red leather bag, but she couldn’t. The woman held it on her left shoulder.

  People crowded all around Cam, Eric, and the woman in the red dress.

  “Hey, I want to see. I want to see,” a small boy said. He pushed through the crowd. Cam and Eric squeezed together and made room for him by the rail.

  “I’m a visitor,” Mabel Trent shouted, “and I have a camera. I want to see, too, and I want to take a picture.”

  Mrs. Shelton stood in the back of the crowd and watched as her friend pushed her way to the rail.

  The fireman pointed the end of the hose up. Water sprayed high into the air.

  “It’s like a fountain,” Mabel Trent said. She looked through the viewfinder of her camera and pressed the shutter button.

  Click.

  The fireman slowly turned the hose toward the tour boat.

  “Don’t spray us!” Nancy called to him. “Don’t spray us!”

  He didn’t. He laughed and turned the hose the other way.

  As the tour boat moved past the fireboat, people moved away from the rail. Cam followed the woman in the red dress to the back of the boat. The woman looked at Cam and smiled. Cam smiled, too.

  Very few people were sitting there.

  The woman sat down. She carefully put her red leather bag on the seat to her left. Cam sat next to the bag. Eric sat next to Cam.

  Cam tried again to look into the bag.

  The woman moved the bag to the seat on her right, away from Cam.

  “And now,” Nancy announced, “if you look way out on the starboard side, you might be able to see an oil tanker.”

  Cam, Eric, and the woman turned and looked behind them.

  “I can’t see it,” Eric complained.

  “There it is,” Cam said, and pointed. She hurried to the other side of the woman. “You can see it better from here.”

  While Eric and the woman looked to the right, Cam looked in the woman’s bag.

  “Oh, my,” Cam said. She was surprised. “Your Little Treasure is not in there!”

  The woman winked at Cam and said softly, “Of course not. I wouldn’t have my Little Treasure in there. Animals are not allowed.”

  “No,” Cam said. “You don’t understand. Little Treasure really isn’t in there!”

  The woman looked in her bag.

  She put her hand on her chest and sighed. “My treasure, my Little Treasure is gone!”

  Chapter Three

  There were tears in the woman’s eyes. She still held her hand to her chest and said, “I love my Little Treasure and she loves me.”

  Eric looked in the bag. Then he said, “Maybe she jumped out.”

  The woman took a tissue from her bag. She wiped her eyes. “No,” she said softly. “Little Treasure is a good dog. She would never jump out.”

  “Maybe she was frightened,” Cam said. “Boat rides can be scary.”

  “No,” the woman insisted. “She’s been on boats before. She loves boat rides.”

  Then the woman said in a loud, sure voice, “She was stolen. Someone reached into my bag and took her out. Lots of people see my Little Treasure and want her.”

  “We’ll tell Nancy,” Eric said. “She’ll announce that a dog is missing.”

  Cam said, “We’ll tell the captain.”

  “No,” the woman told them, and shook her head. “We won’t tell anyone. I snuck Little Treasure on board and I’ll find her. I’ll just walk around the boat and talk. When she hears my voice, she’ll run to me.”

  “And we’ll help you,” Eric said. “My friend Cam has a photographic memory. She’s good at finding things and solving mysteries.”

  “Good,” the woman said. She got up. “Let’s do it!”

  She walked to the open area of the boat and talked softly. It seemed that she was talking to herself.

  “Here I am, Little Treasure,” she said. “It’s me, Lila. Here I am, Little Treasure,” she said again. “It’s me, Lila.”

  Cam and Eric walked to the open area, too. Then Cam stopped. She closed her eyes and said, “Click.”

  “She’s wrong,” Eric whispered. “I’m sure no one stole her dog. It just ran off.”

  Cam said, “Click,” again.

  “We’re just lucky we’re on a boat,” Eric went on. “Li
ttle Treasure could not have gone very far.”

  “Let’s all wave,” Nancy announced, “to the two young women water-skiing past us on the starboard side.”

  Lots of people waved and the water-skiers waved back. But Cam just stood there, with her eyes still closed.

  Cam opened her eyes.

  She told Eric, “When we first saw her on the boat, she had her dog. Then, after she went to see the fireboat, it was gone. Someone in that crowd stole Little Treasure.”

  “That’s silly,” Eric said. “No one would steal a dog.”

  Cam shook her head and told Eric, “That woman looks rich. I think someone took Little Treasure and plans to send a note. I have your dog. If you want her back, you’ll have to pay a ransom, a lot of money. ”

  Chapter Four

  “I saw you,” Mabel Trent said, as she and Mrs. Shelton walked toward Cam and Eric. “And you didn’t wave.”

  “Eric and Cam are good children,” Mrs. Shelton told her. “Let them do what they want.”

  “But waving is fun,” Mabel Trent said. Then she waved to a woman wearing a large straw hat sitting by the rail.

  The woman looked at Mabel Trent, but she didn’t wave back.

  Mabel Trent waved again, this time with both her hands.

  The woman pushed the straw hat up, away from her eyes. She looked at Mabel Trent and shook her head.

  “Oh, my goodness,” Mabel Trent said very loudly. “Don’t you remember me?”

  Mabel Trent walked quickly to the woman, reached out, and grabbed her hand. She shook it and asked, “How are you? How are you?”

  The woman looked at Mabel Trent and said slowly, “I’m fine.”

  “Well, you look terrific,” Mabel Trent told her. “You look happy and healthy. You look just great!”

  “Do you think so? Do you really think so?” the woman asked.