Authors: David A. Adler

The Mystery at Monkey House (2 page)

BOOK: The Mystery at Monkey House

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“That’s very interesting,” Eric told Billy.

“I know that because I read lots of books about animals. I don’t say ‘Click,’ but I have a good memory. I remember what I read.”

The monkey house was a large brick building. Outside the building, along both sides, were cages. Part of each cage was outside the monkey house and part was inside. Cam, Eric, and Billy walked into the building.

The monkey house smelled. And it was noisy.

Cam sat on a bench in the middle of the house and looked from one cage to the next. Billy read the signs describing the different kinds of monkeys. Eric stood close to one of the cages and looked in.

Eric looked at the monkeys in the first cage. He stood with his hands behind his back. Cam noticed that a very small monkey was watching Eric. And the monkey was standing with his hands behind his back, too.

A monkey jumped onto a swing. Eric turned to look at it. The monkey watching Eric turned, too.

Eric watched the monkey swing. Then he walked to the next cage. When Eric walked, so did the very small monkey.

“Hey, Eric,” Cam called. “You have a friend in that cage.”

“What?”

Cam got off the bench. She pointed to the very small monkey and said, “That monkey is copying everything you do.”

Eric looked at the monkey. The monkey looked at Eric. Eric reached up and put his hands on his head. The monkey reached up, too. He put his hands on his head and smiled.

“Billy, come here,” Cam whispered. “You have to see this.”

Cam and Billy watched as Eric jumped. The monkey jumped, too.

Eric put his hands in his pockets, lifted one foot, and hopped. The monkey didn’t have pockets. But he put his hands at his sides, lifted a foot, and hopped many times in a big circle around the cage. Then the monkey sat on the floor of the cage, on top of a banana peel. The monkey rubbed his stomach and made a funny, laughing sound.

“Your monkey hops better than you do,” Billy said.

“Do something else,” Cam told Eric.

Eric scratched his nose. The monkey scratched his nose. Eric clapped his hands and jumped. The monkey did that, too.

“Now, I’ll do something the monkey can’t do,” Eric said.

Eric held his hands over his head. He leaned forward, took a little jump, and stood on his hands. Eric walked like that, upside down. Then he fell to the floor.

Eric looked up at the monkey cage. The very small monkey looked at Eric and smiled. Then the monkey stood on his hands and ran around the cage. Using his tail, he pulled himself onto a swing and made that funny, laughing sound again.

Eric began to laugh. Cam and Billy laughed, too.

“That monkey walks on his hands better than you do,” Cam said. “He hops and scratches his nose better, too. But I’ll bet you’re better at spelling and long division.”

“I’m not so sure,” Billy said. “Some monkeys are very smart.”

Cam put her arm around Eric’s shoulder. As they walked out of the monkey house, Cam said, “Well, no monkey is as smart as my friend Eric.”

Billy followed Cam and Eric out of the monkey house. There was a small crowd near the seal pool. Cam, Eric, and Billy went there to see what was happening.

It was feeding time for the seals. A woman was standing at the edge of the pool holding a bucket filled with small fish. The woman threw the fish to the seals. The seals caught some of the fish with their mouths. The other fish landed in the pool, and the seals swam to get them.

A baby seal was sitting on a large rock. It tried to reach the fish that landed nearby. But one of the bigger seals always got there first.

“Oh, give the baby something to eat,” a man in the crowd called out.

The woman threw some fish to the other side of the pool. The big seals all swam after them. Then the woman threw a few fish to the rock for the baby seal.

When her bucket was empty, the woman left the seal pool. Many of the people who had come to watch walked away.

“Let’s go to the reptile house. I want to see the alligators,” Billy said. “My father is a dentist, and whenever he sees an alligator he says, ‘Just look at those teeth.’ ”

As Cam, Eric, and Billy walked toward the reptile house, they passed a gift shop. They went inside. Billy bought a poster of a smiling alligator. Cam bought a banner. Eric found a book about monkeys.

Eric gave the book to the man behind the counter. The man put the book into a bag. Eric reached into his pocket for his wallet. Then he reached into his other pants pocket.

“Come on, pay the man,” Billy said.

“I can’t! My wallet is gone!”

Chapter Three

“A
re you sure you had your wallet with you?” Billy asked.

“I had it when I paid for the bus ride. And I had it when I paid the entrance fee to the zoo,” Eric said.

Cam closed her eyes and said,
“Click.”

“At the zoo entrance you put the wallet in your left pants pocket,” Cam said. Then she opened her eyes.

Eric reached into his pockets again. Both pockets were empty.

Cam closed her eyes. She said,
“Click”
a few times. Then she opened her eyes and said to Eric, “Come with me. I think I know where to find .your wallet.”

Eric and Billy followed Cam out of the gift shop. They had to run to keep up with her.

“Where are we going?” Billy asked.

“To the monkey house,” Eric said, and pointed to the large brick building ahead. “I’ll bet Cam thinks my wallet fell out when I was walking on my hands.”

Honk! Honk!

Cam, Eric, and Billy stopped to let a gardener’s truck filled with dirt pass. Then they went into the monkey house.

Cam, Eric, and Billy looked on the floor of the monkey house. Cam looked up. She looked into one of the monkey cages. Then she ran outside.

“I found it. I found my wallet,” Eric said. He opened it. “And the money is still here.”

Billy walked over to Eric. He looked at the wallet. Then Billy and Eric looked at each other, and they both said, “Where’s Cam?”

Eric and Billy ran toward the monkey house door just as Cam was coming in.

“I found my wallet,” Eric told Cam.

“They’re gone,” Cam said.

“Who’s gone?” Eric asked.

“The monkeys! The cage was full of monkeys, and now it’s almost empty!”

Cam led Eric and Billy to the first monkey cage. Eric’s monkey and a few of the other monkeys were missing.

“I think someone stole them,” Cam said.

Billy shook his head and told Cam, “No one would steal monkeys. The zoo keeper is probably feeding them somewhere. Or maybe the monkeys are being moved to another cage.”

“No,” Cam said and shook her head. “The monkeys are fed in their cage. Look. There are even some banana peels in there from the last feeding. And if they were moving the monkeys, they would have taken them all.”

Then Eric asked, “Where would they move monkeys?
This
is the monkey house.”

“Let’s tell one of the guards,” Cam said.

Cam and Eric ran out of the monkey house. Billy walked slowly after them. Cam stood on a bench and looked around. Then she jumped down and ran toward the lion cage. Eric and Billy followed her.

A tall, fat guard with a big moustache was standing there. His arms were folded.

“He looks like a walrus,” Billy whispered to Eric.

“Someone stole a bunch of monkeys,” Cam told the guard.

The guard looked down at Cam and smiled. “No one stole any monkeys,” he said.

He turned and pointed to a padlock on the door of the lion’s cage and said, “No one can open a cage. without a key.”

The guard folded his arms again. Cam, Eric, and Billy walked away.

Cam and Eric were quiet as they walked back to the monkey house. But Billy wasn’t. “I knew the monkeys weren’t stolen,” he said. “How could anyone steal a bunch of monkeys? I knew they weren’t stolen.”

While Cam and Eric looked inside the monkey house, Billy sat on the bench. He kept saying, “I knew they weren’t stolen.”

Cam and Eric looked on the floor near the first cage.

Cam whispered to Eric, “That guard would have told us if the zoo moved the monkeys. I still think they were stolen.”

Billy looked at the monkeys in the other cages. And he read the signs describing the monkeys.

Cam and Eric walked outside. They looked into the first cage. Then Cam saw something on the ground nearby. She picked it up and said, “Look at this. Now I
know
those monkeys were stolen.”

Chapter Four

C
am was holding a padlock. The top of it had been cut. Cam ran toward the lion’s cage.

“Wait,” Eric called as he ran after Cam. “The monkey cage
has
a lock.”

But Cam didn’t wait. She ran right up to the guard, held out the lock, and said, “Look at this!”

BOOK: The Mystery at Monkey House

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