The Tennis Trophy Mystery

Table of Contents

 

 

 

“The office was just painted. It was blue before and now it’s yellow.”

“Yellow!” Danny said.

Eric and Danny looked through the window.

“It’s a big square banana. That’s what it is,” Danny said. “Mr. Day’s office is a big square yellow banana.”

“The cabinet looks a little empty,” Cam said, and looked through the window again. “I think something is missing.”

Cam closed her eyes and said,
“Click!”

“That’s it,” Cam said with her eyes still closed. “That’s what’s missing.”

Cam opened her eyes and looked at the top shelf of the cabinet. On the shelf were two silver trophies.

“He had three trophies on the top shelf,” Cam said. “Now he just has two. His tennis trophy is missing. ”

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)
Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, I 1 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park,
New Delhi - 110 017, India
Penguin Group (NZ), Cnr Airborne and Rosedale Roads, Albany, Auckland,
New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd)
Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank,
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 Young Readers Group, 2003
Published by Puffin Books, a division of Penguin Young Readers Group, 2005

 

 

Text copyright © David A. Adler, 2003

Illustrations copyright © Susanna Natti, 2003

All rights reserved

 

THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS HAS CATALOGED THE VIKING EDITION AS FOLLOWS:
Adler, David A.
Cam Jansen and the tennis trophy mystery / David A. Adler ; illustrated by Susanna Natti.
p. cm.—(A Cam Jansen adventure ; 23)
Summary: Cam Jansen, with Eric at her side, helps solve the mystery of
what happened to Mr. Day’s tennis trophy.

eISBN : 978-1-101-17966-6

[1. Lost and found possessions—Fiction. 2. Tennis—Fiction. 3. Teachers—Fiction.
4. Mystery and detective stories.]
I. Natti, Susanna, ill. II. Title.
PZ7.A2615Caqm 2003
[Fic]—dc21
2003005315

 

 

 

 

Set in New Baskerville

To Devorah, Shmuel, and Elana
—D. A.

 

 

 

To Selma and Whit Patrick
—S. N.

“Something smells really bad,” Cam Jansen whispered.

“We’re in gym,” Cam’s friend Eric Shelton told her. “It always smells bad here.”

“It’s not a gym smell,” Cam said. “It’s worse.

Cam and Eric were standing on their spots. Mr. Day, their gym teacher, was checking attendance.

“I saw Danny get off the bus this morning,” Mr. Day said. “I wonder why he didn’t come to gym.”

“Here I am.”

“Danny is not on his spot,” Mr. Day said quietly, and made a mark in his book. “And if he’s not on his spot, he’s absent.”

“I am on my spot,” Danny said, and quickly moved.

“Oh, there you are,” Mr. Day said.

Mr. Day closed his marking book. He unlocked his office door and put the book away. Then he came out with his hands over his head. “Hands up,” he called out. “Reach for the sky.”

Everyone in the class reached up and stretched.

“Hands together. Feet apart.”

The children put their hands together and moved their feet apart.

“Now,” Mr. Day told the class. “Do jumping jacks.”

Cam and her classmates jumped again and again. They jumped first with their feet apart and their hands together above their heads. Then they jumped and moved their feet together and their hands to their sides.

Most of the children jumped on their spots. Danny didn’t. Each time he jumped, he bumped into someone else.

“Hey, watch out!” Eric said.

“Ow!” Cam told Danny. “You landed on my foot.”

“Jump quietly!” Mr. Day called out.

Cam and Eric tried to be quiet. But Danny kept bumping into them.

“Ow again!” Cam said, and fell to the floor. “That’s the second time you landed on my foot.”

Eric and Danny stopped jumping. “Are you okay?” they asked Cam.

“Why are you talking? Why aren’t you jumping? Don’t you know the rules in this gym?” Mr. Day asked the three children.

“I do,” Cam, Eric, and Danny said.

“Danny, read rule seven aloud.”

Both boys turned to face the large sign on the wall of the gym. Cam didn’t turn to face the sign.

“When you enter this room,” Danny read from the sign, “go directly to your assigned spot. Remain there for attendance and exercises.”

“Eric, read rule eleven aloud.”

“Exercise time is
not
play time.”

“Turn around,” Mr. Day told Cam. “Face the sign and read rule fourteen aloud.”

“I don’t need to see the sign,” Cam said. “I can read it from the picture of the sign I have in my head.”

People say Cam has a photographic memory. They mean Cam’s mind takes pictures of whatever she sees. Whenever she wants to remember something, she just looks at the picture stored in her head.

Cam closed her eyes and said,
“Click!”

Whenever Cam wants to remember something, she says,
“Click!”

“My mind is like a camera,” Cam says, “and cameras go
click
!”

“Rule fourteen,” Cam said with her eyes still closed. “This gym is a place for quiet exercise and play. A quiet gym is a safe gym.”

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 “Cam.”

“While the class plays volleyball,” Mr. Day told Cam, Eric, and Danny, “you will stand against the wall in the corner opposite the sign. You will study the sign. Maybe then you’ll remember the rules.”