Ice Cream Mystery (3 page)

So when Henry came walking toward them a little while later, Benny bounced up, shouting, “Did you get the job? Did you?”

Henry grinned, but he shook his head. “No. But I did get some interesting information. ”

He sat down on the bench and began to pet Watch.

“What did you find out?” Jessie asked.

“Well, they can’t afford to hire anybody right now, for one thing,” Henry said.

“We should have guessed,” said Violet.

“I offered to help out until they could afford to pay me, but Katy said no,” Henry went on. “She said they already had to let one assistant go and he would be the first one they hired back when they could,”

“Katy fired someone?” asked Jessie.

“Yes. When Brianna came, she laid off an assistant named Preston. Brianna’s doing his job and driving the ice-cream wagon,” said Henry. “To save money.”

“That must have made Preston very unhappy,” Violet said softly.

“Yes,” agreed Jessie. “Maybe unhappy enough to call in a phony order.”

“How do we prove it?” Benny asked. “We have to find clues.”

“One way we can do that is by checking out the Ice Cream Barn and its customers,” said Henry.

“We can’t just show up and stay and stay and stay,” objected Jessie. “That would look very suspicious. And weird.”

“No, we can’t do that,” said Henry with a smile. “But even though they couldn’t hire me as an assistant, I did get a job. For all of us.”

Benny’s eyes widened. “What?” he asked. “Driving Butterscotch?”

“No, nothing that exciting, Benny. But Brianna’s having a bunch of fliers and posters printed up. We’re going to help deliver the fliers and put the posters up all around Greenfield this afternoon. In return, we get gift certificates for free ice cream. Five scoops each!”

That afternoon, the Boxcar Children loaded up their backpacks and bicycle baskets with fliers and posters and tape. Violet and Henry went in one direction. Benny and Jessie and Watch went in another direction.

They put fliers on front stoops and in stacks on the counters of stores. They asked for store owners’ permission, and soon posters advertising the Ice Cream Barn and the new ice-cream wagon, pulled by “The Amazing Butterscotch,” hung in the windows of the hardware store, the pet supply shop, the bicycle shop, and just about every other store in town.

Jessie and Benny even put up a poster on the bulletin board outside the mayor’s office at Town Hall. They’d just hung a poster on a telephone pole near the post office when they met Mr. Bush.

He scowled harder than ever when he saw them.

“Hello, Mr. Bush,” said Jessie politely.

“Hi,” said Benny.

Mr. Bush leaned over to peer at the poster. “Take it down,” he said.

“What?” asked Jessie, startled.

“Take the poster down, or I will,” said Mr. Bush.

“Why?” asked Benny.

“Because you’re defacing public property,” Mr. Bush said. “You can’t put posters up without permission. Do you have the permission of the phone company to use their telephone pole for advertising?”

“Uh, no,” admitted Jessie.

Watch barked once. Mr. Bush didn’t notice. Benny squatted and put his arm around the dog. “Shhh,” he warned.

“Then take the poster down,” Mr. Bush said. He folded his arms.

Jessie didn’t know what else to do. She took the sign down. As she rolled it carefully, Mr. Bush snorted. “‘The Amazing Butterscotch,’ indeed,” he said in a scornful voice. Then he went into the post office without another word.

“He’s really, really mean,” said Benny.

“I guess he’s right, though,” said Jessie.

Benny wasn’t listening. “Really mean. Mean enough to play that melted-ice-cream joke,” he said.

Jessie blinked. “I hadn’t thought about that, Benny,” she said. “I guess he could have.”

“I think he did,” said Benny.

“We’ll have to talk it over with Henry and Violet. Let’s put up the rest of the posters and then find them.”

“Okay,” said Benny. To Watch he said, “Come on, boy. And if you see Mr. Bush, you can bark as much as you want!”

They found Henry and Violet outside the bookstore, talking to a tall, lanky boy not much older than Henry. The boy had straight black hair and round black glasses.

He was pointing at the poster in the window as Jessie, Benny, and Watch came up to them.

“So you’re the ones who’ve put up the posters all over Greenfield,” he said.

“Yes,” said Jessie. “The Ice Cream Barn is expanding.”

“And they hired you to put the posters up,” the boy went on.

“I guess you could say they did,” Henry began.

The boy narrowed his eyes angrily. “They hired you—two of you!—and they fired
me.
Said they couldn’t afford me!”

“Well, they’re not exactly paying us—” Jessie started to explain.

But the boy didn’t let her finish. “Fine,” he said. “Just fine. But they’re going to be sorry they didn’t keep me around. You’ll see.” He turned and almost ran away, his cheeks red with rage.

“Good grief!” said Jessie. “I think we just met Preston.”

“He’s mad, too,” said Benny.

Violet said, “He’s mad,
too
?What do you mean, Benny?”

“Mr. Bush got mad at us for putting up posters just now,” Benny explained. “By the post office.”

“Oh,” said Violet.

“Benny thinks Mr. Bush might be the one who phoned in the fake ice-cream order,” Jessie explained. “And after the way he acted just now, I think Benny could be right.”

“Maybe,” said Henry. “Or it might be Preston. He seems pretty upset.”

“I wonder if Brianna suspected Preston,” Jessie said.

“I don’t know,” Henry said. “But now we’ve got
two
suspects.”

“And a mystery,” said Benny.

“No dessert?” Grandfather Alden sounded surprised. “Not even you, Benny?” The Aldens had just finished dinner together. Grandfather knew that Benny
always
had room for dessert.

“I had ice cream this afternoon,” Benny said. “Two free scoops.”

“Big ones,” said Henry. “We all had ice cream this afternoon —although none of us had quite as much as Benny did.”

“I thought none of you seemed very hungry,” said Grandfather, a twinkle in his eye.

“We got paid in ice cream,” Violet explained. “For delivering fliers and putting up posters.”

“You told me about putting up the posters, but not about the ice-cream payment,” Grandfather said.

“We didn’t think you’d think it was such a good idea to eat ice cream so close to dinner,” explained Benny.

“Noooo, I don’t. But I guess you won’t do it again,” Grandfather said.

“No,” said Violet. “Not even to solve the mystery.”

Grandfather nodded. His four grandchildren had told him all about what had happened at the Ice Cream Barn. He knew if anybody could find out who had placed the fake order, it was them.

“Will you be going to the Ice Cream Barn tomorrow?” he asked.

“Probably,” said Henry. “Then we can look for more clues.”

“But I don’t think we’re going to eat as much ice cream,” said Jessie. “Even Benny has had enough for a while!”

But the Aldens didn’t go to the Ice Cream Barn the next morning. Instead they did a few errands for Grandfather and Mrs. McGregor. They mailed letters for Grandfather. They took Mrs. McGregor’s books back to the library. Then they stopped by the bike shop to put air in Benny’s bicycle tires.

That was when Violet noticed that the poster she had put up in the front of the bike shop wasn’t there.

She stopped. She looked at Henry. “Didn’t we put a poster up right over there, yesterday afternoon?” she asked.

Benny looked, too. “Yes,” he said. “Where is it?”

“It isn’t there,” said Jessie.

“Maybe the owner of the store took it down,” said Henry.

“But he said we could put it up,” Violet reminded him.

They went inside. As soon as he saw them, Louis, one of the store’s owners, smiled and said, “More posters today?”

“No. I mean, yes, maybe,” said Jessie. “Because the poster we put up yesterday isn’t there. Did you take it down?”

“No,” said Louis in surprise. He called over his shoulder to a woman repairing a bicycle. “Thelma, did you take that ice-cream shop poster down?”

“Nope,” Thelma answered.

“Okay, thanks,” said Jessie. They turned to go. Then Jessie turned back. “If we bring another poster, may we put it up in the window?” she asked. “On the inside?”

“Sure,” said Louis. “No problem.”

But there was a problem, the Aldens soon realized. Most of the posters they’d put up the day before had been taken down. Only the shops where they’d put posters on the insides of the windows still had posters up. And many of the places where they’d left stacks of fliers had no fliers left, either.

None of the store owners knew what had happened to the posters or the fliers. No one had seen them disappear.

“Maybe different people picked up all the fliers one at a time,” said Violet doubtfully.

“I don’t think so,” said Henry. “We put out too many fliers to be taken in one day. I think whoever took all the posters got rid of all the fliers they could find, too.”

“Someone who doesn’t like the ice-cream shop,” Benny said.

Jessie nodded in agreement. “And we need to find out who.”

“But now we’d better put up more posters,” Violet said. She added, “And put out more fliers.”

“Good idea. Let’s go,” said Henry. “And while we’re at the Ice Cream Barn, I think we need to talk to Brianna.”

“Why?” asked Benny.

“Because she knows something she’s not telling us. It might be a clue,” said Henry.

“Back for more ice cream today?” Katy called cheerfully as the Aldens came through the front door of the shop. She was serving a double scoop to one of two boys, while a familiar-looking thin blonde woman in sunglasses was poking at an ice-cream sundae in the corner. As Jessie glanced over, the woman slid a small notebook out from under her napkin and wrote something on it before hiding it under her napkin again.

“Not yet,” said Henry. “We thought we’d put up a few more posters and hand out some more fliers.”

“Great,” said Katy. “We have another big boxful out in the barn. Brianna’s out there. She can show you.”

The Aldens found Brianna outside the barn. She had a paintbrush in her hand and was studying something she had set on a small table covered with newspaper. Butterscotch watched sleepily from the shade of a nearby tree.

“What’s that?” asked Benny, skipping up to the table.

“Oh, hi. This? It’s a suggestion box. I just painted it. When it’s dry, I’m going to put it inside the shop. Customers can write down their ideas and opinions and stick them inside,” Brianna explained.

Violet bent forward to study the small wooden box. “It looks like the ice-cream wagon!” she said.

“It does? Good. It’s supposed to,” Brianna said. “What’s happening?”

“Well,” said Jessie. “We have a problem.”

“Someone took all our posters!” blurted Benny.

“And most of the fliers, too,” added Violet.

“What?” Brianna said, her voice going up.

“We came to get more to put up,” said Henry. “And we need to ask you a few questions.”

“Good grief,” said Brianna. She paused, thinking hard, then asked, “What questions?”

“There are at least two people we know about who don’t like the Ice Cream Barn. One is our neighbor, Mr. Bush,” Jessie said.

Brianna nodded.

“The other is Preston, Katy’s old assistant,” Henry said.

“Why would Preston hate the Ice Cream Barn?” Brianna said, looking very surprised. “He loved working with Granna Katy.”

“We met him yesterday when we were putting up fliers,” Violet said. “He was very upset about losing his job.”

“But it is only temporary, until we can pay him again!” Brianna protested. “You don’t think—do you think Preston made that fake order? And stole the posters?”

“Maybe,” said Violet.

“No! No, that’s not possible. I know Preston is upset, but he’d never do something like that,” said Brianna. “And Mr. Bush is just worried about having the wagon in the neighborhood. When he sees how well behaved Butterscotch is, he’ll get over it.”