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Authors: David A. Adler

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BOOK: Cam Jansen and the Barking Treasure Mystery

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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

“
M
aybe 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

T
here 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. “Little 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?”