A Mysterious Note
On the way home, the Aldens planned their pet shop schedules. Jessie walked along the sidewalk, reading her list.
“I divided all the chores. Some have to be done every few days. But some jobs are daily—like filling water bottles and feeding the animals who need to eat every day.”
“Like me?” Benny asked, stopping in the middle of the sidewalk. “I have to eat every day. And lots more than once. I wouldn’t make a good turtle or fish.”
Jessie gave Benny a friendly pat on the shoulder.
“You do make a good helper, though. After school we’ll do our newspaper route on the way to the pet shop. As for the pet-sitting and deliveries, we can do some of those jobs at the end of the day, on our way home.”
The children turned into the driveway. When they caught a whiff of something delicious, they walked a little faster—so fast that they missed seeing Arthur Byrd in the shadows. He had followed the Aldens all the way home from the Pretty Bird Pet Shop.
Watch and Mrs. McGregor, the family housekeeper, were in the kitchen when the children burst in with their news.
“We have jobs! Guess what kind?” Benny cried. He raced over to the stove to see what was cooking for dinner. “Yum! Beef stew.”
He sniffed the cornbread cooling on the counter. “When’s dinner?”
Mrs. McGregor sliced into the cornbread and held out a piece for Benny. “Test this to make sure it’s done. We’re eating at six-thirty instead of six. Your cousins Joe and Alice are coming to dinner with Soo Lee. That’s why I made cornbread to go with the beef stew your cousin Joe likes so much.”
Benny smacked his lips. “And I like so much, too.”
Mrs. McGregor’s beef stew disappeared in no time. Joe Alden had an extra helping, and so did Benny. The only one who didn’t seem to eat much was Soo Lee Alden, the little Korean girl Joe and Alice Alden had adopted.
“Don’t you like beef stew?” Benny asked Soo Lee. “It’s good.”
“I have a surprise,” Soo Lee answered, “but I can’t tell.”
“Shhh,” Cousin Alice said to Soo Lee. “We’re almost done. In a few minutes you can show Benny your surprise.”
Now Benny Alden had a problem. He loved surprises, and he loved dessert. How could he sit still when he was waiting for both of them? “Can you give me a clue, Soo Lee?” he begged.
Soo Lee’s brown eyes were serious. She shook her head without saying a word.
“Now, Benny, don’t make it so hard for Soo Lee,” Mr. Alden said. “When you’re seven years old, it’s hard to keep secrets.”
Henry came in from the kitchen with Jessie, just in time to keep Soo Lee from telling her surprise.
“Gingerbread, everybody!” Jessie set down a glass plate with a big square of gingerbread on the table. Henry carried in a bowl filled with whipped cream.
After the grown-ups took their servings, Benny passed the cake plate to Soo Lee. “I know Mrs. McGregor’s gingerbread isn’t the surprise.”
Soo Lee took a tiny piece. She didn’t like sweets nearly as much as Benny did. She watched Benny clean every last crumb from his plate. Finally she whispered to her mother, “Can I show Benny our surprise now?”
Cousin Alice gave Benny a huge grin. “Yes, now is the perfect time. Everybody out to the boxcar.”
The three adults and five children trooped to the boxcar.
Everyone could hear Watch whining from the house. This only made the children more excited about Soo Lee’s surprise.
“Not another parrot?” Benny cried, hoping it just might be.
Soo Lee shook her head. “It’s not a parrot.”
“Hey, you brought your new hamster, Squeaky!” Benny cried when he saw a small animal cage on a table. “That’s a good surprise, Soo Lee.”
“That’s not the surprise,” Soo Lee said.
Cousin Joe took Benny by the hand. “Look inside.”
Benny stood over the cage and looked in. “Hey, Squeaky lost weight!”
Alice and Joe couldn’t keep from laughing.
“Not only did Squeaky lose weight,” Alice Alden began, “but we also discovered that Squeaky isn’t a he but a she. She had a litter of hamster pups two weeks ago. That’s Soo Lee’s surprise.”
Soo Lee opened the cage door. She gently lifted a tiny golden mouselike creature out of the cage. “There were two boy hamsters and two girl hamsters. You can have this boy hamster because you’re a boy, Benny.”
Benny looked up at Grandfather, who had returned from quieting down Watch. “May I keep the hamster, Grandfather? It doesn’t look like he eats too much.”
“Hamsters make wonderful pets, Benny,” Mr. Alden said. “Agnes told me what happened a few weeks ago when Mr. Fowler started working there. He mixed up the male and female hamsters. By mistake he sold Alice and Joe a female hamster that was about to have pups, instead of a male hamster.”
Alice picked up the hamster pup and stroked it. “Imagine our surprise two weeks ago,” she began, “when Soo Lee and I went to feed Squeaky and we found a cage full of little Squeakies! They were quite pink and bald and no bigger than my little finger.”
“They grow faster than we do, Benny,” Soo Lee told her cousin. “I kept the babies a secret the whole time.”
Mr. Alden was smiling. “I know it’s not really funny, but Agnes said several people who bought hamsters when Mr. Fowler first started working got the same surprise. Hamsters, hamsters, and more hamsters!”
Alice returned the pup to the cage. “Some people asked for their money back. But we knew just the place for one of Squeaky’s pups. Some of the neighborhood children will get the others in the litter.”
Soo Lee looked up at her cousins. “Mrs. Tweedy told my dad I can work at the shop, too.”
“We know, we know.” Violet hugged Soo Lee. “It will be so much fun taking care of the animals. We can’t wait.”
Cousin Joe handed Henry a bag with the words PRETTY BIRD PET SHOP on it. “You’ll find hamster food and a water bottle in there, Henry.”
Henry reached into the bag. “Hey, there’s a mix-up, Cousin Joe. This is turtle food. And I don’t see a water bottle in here, either.”
Joe Alden shook his head. “Not again! Mr. Fowler took the phone order for the cage and supplies before we came over here. He’s so disorganized, I bet he forgot. There will be hamster babies all over Greenfield with the way he does things. The sales slip is in the bag—unless Mr. Fowler forgot that, too. Maybe when you go to the pet shop you can exchange the turtle food.”
After the grown-ups went back inside, the younger Alden children took turns playing with Benny’s new hamster. They voted on names for the hamster and decided on “Pipsqueak.”
Jessie was too busy thinking to play with Pipsqueak. “I can’t figure out why Mrs. Tweedy hired somebody who keeps mixing up everything, including hamsters. Can you, Henry?”
Henry scratched his head. “I can’t figure it out, either. Mrs. Tweedy told Grandfather that Mr. Fowler had a good recommendation from another pet shop. But he doesn’t seem to care about animals enough to make sure they get the right kind of—”
“Henry. Look at this sales slip!” Jessie interrupted when she started to put the receipt back in the bag. “There’s a message on the back.”
Henry leaned over Jessie’s shoulder. “‘Delivery, five o’clock Thursday. One macaw and one woolly’ … I can’t make out what that word is.”
“Tomorrow’s Thursday,” Jessie said, “our first day of work. So I guess we’ll find out what a woolly something-or-other is. A macaw is a parrot, the biggest kind. It’s funny Mrs. Tweedy would get a delivery when she’s going to be away.”
“Especially a parrot,” Henry said. “Didn’t she just tell us she doesn’t ever plan to sell any large birds, not even Grayfellow?”
Jessie folded the receipt in half. She put it in the bag with the turtle food. “I sure hope we find out what Mr. Fowler is up to tomorrow at five o’clock.”
; CHAPTER 4
Mix-ups and Fix-ups
The next afternoon, the Aldens zoomed through their paper route. Jessie even put Soo Lee to work so everyone could get to the Pretty Bird Pet Shop as soon as possible.
“Last one, Soo Lee,” Jessie said when they reached the end of the route. “Usually we let Watch bring a paper up to this house. He likes to play with Cody, the dog who lives here. But we have to leave him home now that we’re working at the pet store, so you can put the paper on the porch. Don’t worry. Cody’s friendly.”
Soo Lee skipped up the steps to the house. The sleepy golden retriever lying on the porch thumped her tail when she saw Soo Lee.
“Good girl!” Jessie said. “We’ll stop by this house again on the way home. I noticed on Mrs. Tweedy’s list that Cody is supposed to get a new flea collar. You can deliver that, too.”
“I like my job,” Soo Lee said.
The children turned the corner onto Main Street. An elderly woman and several children stood in front of the Pretty Bird Pet Shop. Grayfellow was back on his perch in the sunny display window so people could watch him.
“Grayfellow is a good advertisement for the shop,” Jessie said when she saw all the attention the parrot was getting. She pulled on the front door. It didn’t budge. “What’s going on? This door is stuck.”
Henry gave a pull. The door didn’t move.
“Can’t you children read?” the elderly lady said to the Aldens. “Look at the sign on the door. It says CLOSED.”
“Closed in the middle of the day?” Henry cried. “Mr. Fowler is supposed to keep the shop open when Mrs. Tweedy is away.”
The old woman didn’t look a bit friendly. “It’s a good thing, too, keeping all these schoolchildren out of this shop for a change.”
The Aldens were much too polite to tell the woman how much Mrs. Tweedy liked having children in her shop.
Henry whispered to his brother and sisters. “Let’s go out back. Maybe Mr. Fowler had some chores in the storage building. He probably needed to close the shop for a few minutes. Now that we’re here, we can help him out.”
The children walked down a narrow passage to a small building in back of the pet shop.
“Look, there’s a light on,” Jessie said. She stood on tiptoe to look inside. She wasn’t tall enough. She knocked at the door.
There was no answer.
“I’ll give Benny a boost up to that small window,” Henry suggested. Henry easily swung Benny up. “Can you see anything, Benny?”
“I see Mr. Fowler, and he sees me.” Benny rapped on the window. “Can we come in, Mr. Fowler?”
Henry set Benny down on the ground and gave another good knock. “It’s the Aldens,” he shouted. “We came to help with the shop. If you unlock it, we can get started.”
“What should we do?” Jessie asked when no one came out. She dragged over an old milk crate to stand on so she could see inside the storage building. “There are two large empty birdcages in there,” she whispered. “Mr. Fowler just threw a cover over them.”
At last the door opened. Mr. Fowler stepped out. “Don’t you kids have homework or that paper route to finish?”
Benny smiled up at Mr. Fowler. He did not smile back. “We did our paper route. Today we start our new jobs. That’s what Mrs. Tweedy said.”
Mr. Fowler double-locked the storage building. “Mrs. Tweedy doesn’t know everything. That’s why she hired me.”
“She told Grandfather that you go bird-watching,” Violet said in her gentle voice. “I like to watch birds, too.”
Violet’s voice seemed to quiet Mr. Fowler. “Well, as long as you’re here, you might as well get started with the list Mrs. Tweedy gave you. But mind you, that’s all you do. Don’t go snooping where you don’t belong.”
Jessie tried to stay calm. “We’ll just do the jobs she checked off, Mr. Fowler. And anything else you want done, too.”
Mr. Fowler took out his big key ring and unlocked the front and back doors to the shop. “What I want is to manage this shop in peace. That’s what I was hired for.”
The Aldens didn’t say another word. They got straight to work. No use bothering Mr. Fowler on their very first day.
Henry brought in some heavy pet food boxes from outside. He opened each one and counted what was inside.
“Young man!” Mr. Fowler demanded. “Why are you taking so long? Just put the cans up on those shelves and be done with it.”
Henry showed Mr. Fowler a sheet of paper. “I was just checking that everything listed on this slip is in the box. Two cans are missing. Mrs. Tweedy shouldn’t get charged for them. I can call the company if you want.”
Henry couldn’t tell if Mr. Fowler was mad at him or at the pet food company. “I make the phone calls around here, young man. You just unpack those boxes.”
“Yes, sir,” Henry agreed, but Mr. Fowler’s remarks bothered him. Why didn’t Mr. Fowler check the delivery? Didn’t he want to save Mrs. Tweedy money?
The other children tried not to get upset for Henry. There was so much to do.
Violet showed Soo Lee how to fold a small stack of newspapers so they would fit the canary and parakeet cages. The girls went about their jobs quietly so the birds wouldn’t get nervous.
Jessie went from cage to cage with Benny. She showed him how to refill the water bottles with fresh water and fill the food dishes with just the right amount of food.
Mr. Fowler watched everything they did until he couldn’t stand it anymore. “What are you taping to each cage, young lady?”
Jessie swallowed hard before she spoke. “I cut out pictures of each kind of food that the animals should get. I’m sticking the pictures on each cage so Benny won’t get the food mixed up.”
“If Mrs. Tweedy didn’t hire a bunch of kids, we wouldn’t have to worry about mix-ups,” Mr. Fowler said.
The Aldens said nothing, but they couldn’t help thinking. Wasn’t Mr. Fowler the one who got things mixed up?
The small brass bell over the front door rang off and on for the next hour. Customers came in, but the Aldens sent them all to Mr. Fowler. They didn’t want to upset him.
One of those customers was the elderly woman they had seen in front of the shop. “Who said you could comb that guinea pig, little boy?” the woman asked Benny while she waited for Mr. Fowler to get off the phone.
Benny stopped combing Doughnut. His ears turned red. “It’s my job,” he finally said.
The old woman came over and picked up Doughnut from Benny’s lap. “This is how you do it,” she told Benny as she combed Doughnut.
Mr. Fowler was off the phone at last. The old woman handed the guinea pig back to Benny. “Now do it the way I showed you.”
Benny sat down. Doughnut lifted his head so Benny could comb him again.
“What’s the matter?” Jessie asked when she saw Benny looking gloomy and just sitting with Doughnut.
“That lady, the one we saw outside, said I didn’t know how to groom Doughnut.” Benny made sure the old woman couldn’t hear him. “She showed me how, but it’s the same way I was doing it already.”
Jessie scratched the top of Doughnut’s head. “Just go ahead. Mrs. Tweedy thought you did fine, and she’s the boss.”
The phone rang. Mr. Fowler seemed to be busy with the elderly lady, so Jessie picked up the receiver.
Before Jessie could speak, a man started talking at the other end. “I’m on my way, Walter. So shut down the shop. I’ll meet you by the storage building in back. Five o’clock sharp.”
Puzzled, Jessie held the receiver before hanging up. Was this a wrong number? It couldn’t be. Mr. Fowler’s first name was Walter. Jessie wrote down the man’s message and took it over to Mr. Fowler. “Someone just left this message for you.”
Mr. Fowler snatched the note. “Who said you could answer the phone, young lady? That’s not on the job list.”
“I … uh … I was right by the phone, and you were busy so … I’m sorry,” Jessie apologized. “I just wan
ted to help.”
Mr. Fowler was really cross now. “If you want to help, get your delivery wagon loaded up. It’s about time for you kids to go home anyway. Do your deliveries like you told Mrs. Tweedy, on your way home, away from this shop.”
Jessie scooped up several orders from the counter and took them out to her brother. “These are the delivery orders,” Jessie told Henry. “Mr. Fowler wants us to make the deliveries now.”
Henry scratched his head. “What for? The store doesn’t close until six. It’s not even five o’clock yet.”
Jessie made sure all the boxes fit nice and snug in the wagon. “Let’s just do what Mr. Fowler says. He’s making Violet, Benny, and Soo Lee afraid to do anything. And that old woman keeps scolding them, too.”
“Oh, no,” Henry said. “And this is only our first day. Let’s wait until five o’clock to see if anybody shows up. I’ve been meaning to ask Mr. Fowler about the mysterious message on our receipt anyway.”
When Jessie and Henry went into the shop again, the old woman was gone. Mr. Fowler was on the phone again. “Yes, that’s right. I’m expecting them this afternoon. You can come by tomorrow after I close up the shop. Wait, never mind. Make that late Sunday after the shop closes at six. ’Bye.”
Henry and Jessie looked at each other. Did Mr. Fowler’s phone call have anything to do with the note? There was only one way to find out.
Henry reached under the counter. He pulled out the bag Cousin Joe had given the children. Henry cleared his throat to get Mr. Fowler’s attention.
“What is it now?” Mr. Fowler snapped. “My cousin Joe Alden gave me this receipt for a hamster cage Benny got from my cousins,” Henry began. “It says there’s supposed to be hamster food and a water bottle, too. But the bag only had turtle food in it.”
Mr. Fowler stared at Henry an awfully long time. “What are you talking about? Are you saying I made a mistake with this order?”
Henry shifted from one foot to the other. “Well, not exactly, sir. Maybe my Cousin Joe wanted turtle food, too. But he said he ordered hamster food and a water bottle. They weren’t in the bag, even though they’re on the slip.”