The Mystery of the Television Dog Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Copyright Page

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Poochie has been kidnapped!

  Cam opened her eyes. She looked through the window again and said, “I was right. The dog in there is not Poochie.”

  “How can you tell?” Eric asked. “That dog looks like Poochie to me. He’s white with black spots.”

  “It’s the spots,” Cam said. “The spots on the dog in the bookstore are not in the exact same places as the spots on Poochie.”

  Cam pointed to the picture of Poochie on the cover of The Poochie Story. “Look at this and then look at the dog in the store. You tell me if they’re the same.”

  “You’re right,” Eric said. “Some of the spots on the dog in the store are in the wrong places.”

  The Cam Jansen Adventure Series

  DON’T FORGET ABOUT THE YOUNG CAM JANSEN

  SERIES FOR YOUNGER READERS!

  The author wishes to thank his editor, Deborah Brodie, for her continued help, encouragement, and friendship.

  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, 1981

  Published by Puffin Books, 1991

  Reissued 1998

  This edition published by Puffin Books,

  a division of Penguin Young Readers Group, 2004

  Text copyright © David A. Adler, 1981 Illustrations copyright © Susanna Natti, 1981

  All rights reserved

  THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS HAS CATALOGED THE 1991 PUFFIN BOOKS EDITION

  UNDER CATALOG CARD NUMBER: 90-53364

  eISBN : 978-1-101-07606-4

  RL: 2.0

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  To my nephews, Donnie, Hillel, and Jonathan

  To their parents, Joseph and Arlene

  And to their dog, Cloudy

  Chapter One

  It was a warm summer day. Cam Jansen, her friend Eric Shelton, and Eric’s twin sisters, Donna and Diane, were waiting in a long line outside Lee’s Bookstore. They were all waiting to meet Poochie, the famous television dog.

  Cam pointed to a sign in the front window of the store. “It says that Poochie will be here at noon.”

  “That’s ten more minutes,” Eric said.

  Cam looked through the bookstore window. Inside there was a large table. Piled on one side of the table were books. On the other side there was a large photograph of Poochie and a sign that said:Buy The Poochie Story

  the new best-selling book by the

  star of the television program Hero Dog.

  Donna pulled on Eric’s sleeve. “There’s nothing to do. I’m tired of waiting.”

  Eric was holding a large shopping bag. He reached into the bag, took out a book, and said, “You could read. Is this your book or Diane’s?”

  “It’s mine,” Donna said.

  Cam looked at the book. It was called Pig Tales. “I know this book,” Cam said. “I read it three years ago when I was in the second grade. What page are you up to?”

  “Nineteen.”

  “Page nineteen. Let me see what I can remember.”

  Cam closed her eyes and said, “Click.” She always says, “Click,” when she wants to remember something. When people ask Cam why she says, “Click,” so often, Cam tells them, “It’s the sound a camera makes, and my mind is a mental camera.”

  “There’s a drawing on the top of the page,” Cam said, with her eyes still closed. “There’s a pig wearing a hat and a bow tie. The pig is chasing a tractor with two roosters in it.”

  “What does the sign on the side of the tractor say?” Donna asked.

  “‘Cluck, Cluck Farms. A nice place to live.’ ”

  People say that Cam has a photographic memory. They mean that Cam can remember an entire scene. Her mind takes a picture of it. When Cam wants to remember something, even a detail, such as the color of someone’s shirt or what is written on the side of a tractor, she just looks at the picture stored in her brain.

  Cam’s real name is Jennifer Jansen. But when people found out about her amazing memory, they called her “The Camera.” Soon “The Camera” was shortened to just “Cam.” Now the only people who call her Jennifer are her parents, her teachers, and an aunt in London who has never met Cam and never heard her say, “Click.”

  Donna turned a few pages in the book. “What about the drawing on page twenty-five?” she asked.

  Cam’s eyes were still closed. As she thought, she ran her fingers through her hair. Cam has what people call red hair, even though it is more orange than red.

  “The pig is wearing a baseball uniform,” Cam said.

  “What about the stick?” Donna asked.

  “She can’t remember everything,” Eric told his sister.

  “That stick is a bat,” Cam said. “And the pig is holding it in his right hand.”

  “You’re right,” Donna said to Cam. “And you’re wrong,” she told Eric. “Cam can remember everything.”

  Just then a long dark blue car drove up. It stopped right in front of the bookstore. The driver got out. He was wearing a dark blue uniform and cap. He walked around the car, opened the door, and waited.

  First a man dressed in white got out. Sewn on the back of his shirt were the words, “Poochie’s Trainer.” Then out came a dog.

  “It’s Poochie! It’s Poochie!” the people waiting in line shouted.

  Cam opened her eyes.

  Poochie was a white dog with a large black spot across his back. A few smaller black spots were on his back and his right front leg.

  Poochie walked slowly into the bookstore. He looked ahead as he walked, and his tail pointed up. The trainer followed him.

  Cam wanted to remember Poochie. She looked straight at the dog and said, “Click.”

  Chapter Two

  As Poochie walked past, a dog barked. But it wasn’t Poochie barking. The man in line just ahead of Cam, Eric, and the twins was holding a white dog with black spots. The dog looked just like Poochie. The man was also holding a small open box of dog biscuits.

  The man’s dog barked again.

  “Stop that, Cloudy. Be quiet,” the man told his dog.

  The man was tall, heavy, and wore eyeglasses. And he had long red hair, just like Cam’s.

  Cam, Eric, and the twins looked through the bookstore window. They saw Poochie jump onto a chair and from the chair onto the large table. He sat down between the pile of books and the Poochie photograph. Poochie’s trainer sat on the chair.

  Mr. Lee, the bookstore owner, called out, “Say hello to Poochie. You can shake his paw. And if you buy The Poochie Story, Poochie will autograph it for you.”

  “I’ll buy a book,” the first man in line said.

  The man paid Mr. Lee for the book. Then Mr. Lee opened the book to the front page and gave it to Poochie to autograph.

  The trainer opened an ink pad and put it on the table next to the book. Poochie pressed one of his
paws onto the ink pad, and then he pressed it onto the front page of the book.

  The line was moving slowly. As Cam, Eric, and the twins waited, a small boy walked out of the bookstore with his mother. The boy held up a copy of The Poochie Story and said, “Look what I have! Poochie signed my book!”

  The boy’s mother held up her hand for everyone in line to see. There was ink on it. She smiled and said, “And Poochie signed my hand.”

  “I guess he uses the same paw to sign the books and shake hands,” Eric said.

  Eric reached into his pocket. He took out some money and said, “Well, I’m buying a book for all of us to share. Poochie can use that paw to sign it.”

  “And I’m going to shake his paw,” Donna said.

  “So am I,” Diane said.

  “We all are,” Cam told them.

  Cam, Eric, and the twins were inside the bookstore now. Their turn to meet Poochie would be next. The red-haired man just ahead of them was buying a book.

  The man reached into his pocket for the money. As he did, the box of dog biscuits fell onto the table. Some biscuits fell out, and the man’s dog jumped after them. Poochie jumped, too.

  “Get that dog and those biscuits away from Poochie!” the trainer yelled.

  “Get your Poochie away from my dog’s biscuits!” the other man yelled back.

  While the two men were yelling, the dogs were chasing each other around the table. Books flew off the table. One almost hit Cam. The photograph and the sign fell.

  “Woof.”

  “Poochie, stop fighting!”

  “Woof, woof.”

  “Cloudy, get over here!”

  The red-haired man grabbed a dog. “Bad Cloudy. Bad Cloudy,” he said as he left the bookstore with him.

  “And you, Poochie,” the trainer said. “You should be ashamed of yourself.”

  Mr. Lee put the sign and the photograph back in place. Then he picked the books off the floor and arranged them in a pile.

  “Now sit, Poochie,” the trainer said. But the dog didn’t sit. ,

  “Sit!” the trainer said again.

  The dog barked and wagged his tail. But he didn’t sit.

  “There’s a long line out there,” Mr. Lee told the trainer. “Poochie can stand while he shakes hands and autographs books.”

  “This just isn’t like him,” the trainer said. “Poochie should sit when I tell him to.”

  “Whose turn is it now?” Mr. Lee called out. “Whose turn is it to shake hands with Poochie, the famous television dog?”

  Chapter Three

  “I’m next. I’m next,” Donna told Mr. Lee.

  “Then I go,” Diane said.

  Mr. Lee smiled. “I’ll bet you two are sisters,” he said.

  Donna and Diane are identical twins. They were even dressed alike, so it was easy to tell that they are sisters. Only their hair was different. Diane’s hair hung straight down, but Donna had braids.

  Donna smiled at the dog. “Hello, Poochie,” she said. “I love your show. I watch it every Tuesday night.”

  Then Diane and Cam shook the dog’s paw, and Eric bought a copy of The Poochie Story. Poochie pressed his paw onto the ink pad and then onto the front of the book. Then the trainer gave the book to Eric.

  As they left the store, Cam looked through The Poochie Story.

  “It says here,” Cam read, “that before Poochie became a television star, he was a real hero. A house was on fire, and he barked and barked until someone called the fire department.”

  Cam read as she walked. Diane held Cam’s hand to keep her from walking into things. At the corner Diane stopped Cam. They all waited for the light to change.

  “I’m hungry,” Donna told Eric. “I want one of the sandwiches you have in the bag.”

  “Before you eat, you have to wash your hands,” Eric told her. “You just shook Poochie’s paw. Your hands must be dirty.”

  Donna held out her hands. She turned them over a few times and said, “No, they’re not. My hands are clean.”

  “Let me see,” Cam said. She looked at Donna’s hands. Then Cam looked at her own hands and at Diane’s.

  “Something is strange,” Cam said. “It could be that the dog we shook hands with wasn’t the real Poochie.”

  Cam ran back to the bookstore. Eric, Donna, and Diane followed her. Cam looked through the bookstore window. Then she closed her eyes and said, “Click.”

  “What’s she doing?” Diane whispered to Eric.

  “Just be quiet. She’s trying to remember something.”

  Cam opened her eyes. She looked through the window again and said, “I was right. The dog in there is not Poochie.”

  “What!”

  “Look at your hands,” Cam told Donna and Diane. “And look at mine. They’re clean. We shook Poochie’s paw. It’s the same paw he used to sign the books, but no ink rubbed off.”

  “Maybe the ink dried,” Eric said.

  “That’s what I thought. That’s why I said, ‘Click.’ I looked at the picture I have of Poochie in my mind and I looked at the dog in the bookstore. They’re not the same.”

  “How can you tell?” Eric asked. “That dog looks like Poochie to me. He’s white with black spots.”

  “It’s the spots,” Cam said. “The spots on the dog in the bookstore are not in the exact same places as the spots on Poochie.”

  Cam pointed to the picture of Poochie on the cover of The Poochie Story. “Look at this and then look at the dog in the store. You tell me if they’re the same.”

  Eric, Donna, and Diane looked at the picture of Poochie on the cover of the book, Then they looked through the bookstore window. They looked back at the book and then through the window again.

  “You’re right,” Eric said. “Some of the spots on the dog in the store are in the wrong places.”

  Chapter Four

  Donna ran into the bookstore. She pushed ahead of an old man waiting for Poochie to autograph his book.

  “That’s not Poochie! That’s not Poochie!” Donna yelled as she pointed to the dog on the table.

  “Of course it is,” Mr. Lee said. “Now get in line like everyone else.”

  Cam, Eric, and Diane came into the store. Donna pointed at Cam and said, “You can ask her.”

  Mr. Lee turned to the dog’s trainer and said, “This is Poochie. Isn’t it?” “Of course it is. Just watch.”

  The trainer turned to the dog and said, “Poochie, raise your right paw.”

  The dog just looked at the trainer.

  “RAISE YOUR RIGHT PAW!”

  The dog did nothing.

  “All right, Poochie, don’t raise your right paw. Just show me what a sad dog looks like.”

  The dog barked and wagged his tail.

  “He’s not doing what you tell him to because he’s not Poochie,” Donna told the trainer.

  Cam took one of the books from the table. She pointed to the photograph of Poochie on the cover and said, “Look at this and look at the dog. You’ll see that they’re not the same.”

  Mr. Lee took the book from Cam. He looked at the photograph and then at the dog.

  “It’s the spots. Some of the spots are in different places,” Cam told him.

  Mr. Lee looked at the photograph again and then at the dog.

  “You’re right,” he said. “This is not Poochie.”

  “The dog I brought here was Poochie. I’m sure of it,” the trainer said. “This is only my first week on the job, but I know they wouldn’t give me the wrong dog.”

  “It was that red-haired man with the dog biscuits,” Eric said. “He must have taken the wrong dog home. This must be Cloudy.”

  When the people waiting in line heard that the dog on the table wasn’t Poochie, they left the bookstore.

  “I took time off from work to meet Poochie,” one woman complained as she left.

  “And I put on a suit and tie,” a boy said.

  The trainer sat down. He looked up at the ceiling and said, “I don’t know w
hat I’m going to do now.”

  “Well, I do,” said Mr. Lee. “I’m calling the police.”

  As Mr. Lee walked toward the telephone, Cloudy jumped off the table and ran out of the bookstore.

  “Get him!” Mr. Lee told Cam, Eric, and the twins.

  “No, let him go. If he’s not Poochie, I don’t want him,” the trainer said.

  Cam didn’t listen to the trainer. She ran out of the bookstore and followed Cloudy.

  Eric and the twins ran after Cam. They caught up with her at the corner. She was waiting for the light to change.

  “Why are you following Cloudy?” Eric asked.

  “They don’t want this dog,” Donna said. “They want Poochie.”

  Just then the light changed. “Just come with me and keep your eyes on that dog,” Cam said as she hurried ahead.

  Cloudy was almost at the next corner. Cam ran quickly down the block. The others followed her.

  They followed Cloudy past a busy shopping mall and a block where some old houses were being torn down. Then the dog walked through a hole in a fence. He walked through a backyard to a block lined with small houses.

  Cam, Eric, and the twins squeezed through the fence. Then they saw Cloudy run onto the front porch of one of the houses.

  “I was right. I knew he’d lead us somewhere,” Cam said. “Now we have to get Cloudy before he goes inside.”

  Chapter Five

  “Here, Cloudy. Here, Cloudy,” Cam called.

  The dog turned and looked. But he didn’t come to Cam. He lifted his paw and started to scratch on the front door.

  “What’s in your bag?” Cam asked Eric.

  “Sandwiches and books.”

  “What kind?”

  “Storybooks.”

  “No, the sandwiches. What kind of sandwiches?”

  “Meat loaf.”