The Pet Shop Mystery Read online

  Mr. Fowler threw down his pen. “Now, how do you know this cousin of yours didn’t order just turtle food? Do you think customers don’t get plenty mixed up? If I had a dollar for every mistake customers make, I wouldn’t need this job.”

  It was no use. Mr. Fowler wasn’t helping at all. Henry pulled out his wallet. He reached in for some dollar bills he’d earned from his paper route customers. “Can I pick out another water bottle and the hamster food now? I’ll pay for them.”

  Henry put the sales slip on the counter. “Oh, by the way, this note was on the back,” Henry told Mr. Fowler. “I thought you might want it.”

  Not looking at Henry, Mr. Fowler muttered again. “Go ahead. Pick out a water bottle. And the hamster food, too. You don’t have to pay. But hurry up about it. It’s time to close the shop. I have paperwork to do in back.”

  Benny overheard this and looked up at the clock. He had just learned to tell time. “But the little hand is only near the five. Mrs. Tweedy stays open until six o’clock.”

  Mr. Fowler went to the front door. He flipped over the OPEN sign so it said CLOSED. “Mrs. Tweedy isn’t here now. I decide when the shop opens and closes. Now get a move on, all of you.”

  Henry held up the water bottle and hamster food he’d picked out. “Shouldn’t you ring this up so you can keep track of what I returned and what I bought?”

  Mr. Fowler kept holding the door open. “Never mind that. Out. Out. Just go.”

  The Aldens scooted out and heard the door bang behind them. They all turned around at the same time, only to see the shade come down over the door and the lights go out.

  The Pretty Bird Pet Shop was closed for the day.

  CHAPTER 5

  Special Delivery

  One by one, the lights went on inside the houses the Aldens passed. There was only one more delivery left.

  “My stomach is growling,” Benny said. “Mrs. Tweedy didn’t tell us how hungry this job would make us.”

  “Hang on, Benny,” Jessie said. She checked off all but the last order slip. “Mrs. McGregor said she’d have dinner ready for us at six-thirty. We should be done by then.”

  Soo Lee put her hand in Jessie’s and looked up. “Six-thirty? Is that a long time from now?”

  Jessie checked her watch. “An hour or so. But you know what? I packed some cheese and crackers. Have some now so you don’t get too hungry. Henry and I just have a delivery of diet cat food to drop off at this house.”

  “Goody!” Benny lifted Jessie’s backpack from the delivery wagon. He sat down on the grass with Violet and Soo Lee.

  “Jessie, why does it say BEWARE OF DOG if they have a cat?” Violet asked when she spotted a warning sign on the front lawn.

  “Oh, no,” Jessie answered. “That means there’s an unfriendly dog. They must have a guard dog and a fat cat. Let’s get this delivery over with quickly, Henry.”

  The two older children went up the porch steps and rang the doorbell. They could hear the dog through the mail slot in the door.

  “Grrr. Grrr.”

  “I hate that low, growly sound,” Henry said to Jessie. “I hope the owner puts the dog in another room.”

  “Brutus! Down! Quiet! Who’s out there?” a man inside shouted.

  Jessie’s throat felt dry. She swallowed and cleared her throat. “It’s your delivery from the Pretty Bird Pet Shop.”

  The man’s voice was very loud now. He had to shout above the dog’s barking and growling. “Go away. I didn’t order anything.”

  “We have your ten-pound bag of diet cat food,” Henry called out.

  “There’s no cat here. If you don’t leave, I’ll have to let Brutus out,” the man inside said to the Aldens.

  The door opened suddenly. Jessie and Henry stepped back, their hearts pounding. The light behind the man made it impossible to see his face. But they couldn’t miss the sound of the dog’s angry growling or his size. He was huge.

  “We have your cat food,” Jessie repeated, barely able to speak.

  The man shook his head. “I don’t own a cat. I don’t even like cats. There’s just Brutus here. He sure doesn’t like cats, I can tell you that. So just go back to where you came from, you two, or I’ll have Brutus chase you away.”

  “Sorry to bother you,” Henry said. “We must have read the wrong number on the sales slip.”

  “Put your glasses on next time,” the man said over the dog’s growls, “instead of bothering people at home.” With that, the man slammed the door.

  “Phew.” Henry raced down the path with Jessie. “I thought we were going to be that dog’s dinner.”

  Jessie walked under the streetlight to see better. She flipped through the order slips. Finally she found the one she was looking for. “Right here. It says right here that One-twenty Maple Street gets a ten-pound bag of Diet Meow Chow.”

  “Well, I’m not going to argue with a mean man and a mean dog. Besides, I’m so hungry, I could almost eat some Meow Chow myself. We’d better ask Mr. Fowler about it. Somebody might be waiting for this order.”

  Jessie nodded. “We have to go back to the pet shop anyway. We need to get a dog flea collar for Cody at Seventy-one Maple instead of the cat collar that was marked on the order slip.”

  “I’d rather face Brutus again than ask Mr. Fowler about these mistakes,” Henry said. “But I guess he’s the only one who can help us figure out these deliveries.”

  The younger children were chilly and tired. Henry explained that the deliveries weren’t over yet. “Tell you what. No need for all of us to go back. Jessie can take you home. I’ll get the deliveries straightened out.”

  “But we want to come,” Benny said. “That’s our job. Besides, I’m not hungry anymore.”

  Everyone laughed at Benny’s remark.

  “Those aren’t words we hear too often from Benny,” Henry said to Soo Lee. “Let’s get going, then. Maybe Mr. Fowler is at the shop finishing the paperwork he talked about.”

  The Pretty Bird Pet Shop was dark when the Aldens returned. All they could see inside were the dim lights of the aquariums. The bird cages were covered. The small animals seemed to be curled up, asleep in their dark cages.

  “Mr. Fowler is gone,” Jessie said. “I guess we can’t straighten out those orders after all.”

  Henry waved the children toward the back. “Let’s check the storage building before we leave.”

  The Aldens didn’t mean to be sneaky, but they were very quiet children. That’s how they happened to hear Mr. Fowler before he heard them.

  “Just in time,” Mr. Fowler said to someone the children couldn’t see. “I’ll be done with them a couple of days from now when Mrs. Tweedy is gone again.”

  The children stiffened when they heard the flapping of heavy wings and a terrible squawking.

  “Get her in the cage,” a second man’s voice said. “And hurry up about it. I didn’t have time to clip her wings. She wouldn’t last long in this weather if she flew away. Open the cage door.”

  The Aldens heard a chattering sound, then Mr. Fowler’s voice. “Is that monkey tied up? The last thing I need is a monkey running all over the place. I’m telling you, these people had better be telling the truth about wanting it. This macaw parrot I can unload easy. But a monkey? Who’d buy it?”

  “Yip, yip, yip,” the Aldens heard coming from the storage building.

  “Awk, awk, awk,” the children heard when one of the men slammed the cage door shut. “Awk, awk, awk.”

  Jessie straightened up. “Come on, Henry. We’ll find out what’s going on. The rest of you stay here,” she whispered. She raised her voice. “Mr. Fowler? Mr. Fowler? Are you back there?”

  “Those kids again!” Jessie and Henry overheard Mr. Fowler say as he came out of the storage building. “I told you the shop was closing at five o’clock. What about your deliveries?”

  Henry stepped forward to explain. “That’s why we came back, Mr. Fowler. One of the slips said to deliver a cat flea collar, but the custo
mer needs one for her dog. And another slip had the wrong address.”

  Jessie thought she noticed a small smile pass over Mr. Fowler’s face.

  “Oh, and where was that?” Mr. Fowler asked, hiding the smile now.

  “Nowhere special,” Henry said. He wasn’t about to let Mr. Fowler know about Brutus. “All we want to do is get the right orders to the right customers.”

  That’s when Henry nearly jumped out of his sneakers. “Hey, hey! What’s this?” he asked, when he felt something heavy leap onto his shoulder.

  “This is George. It’s a woolly monkey,” a strange man said, stepping out from the shadows. “And I’m Jack Badham … uh … I’m from the, uh … Tropical Animal Society. My friend Walter here is going to watch this monkey for a couple of days until we can ship him out to a zoo.”

  Jessie reached up to pet the nervous, chattering monkey. “Good. He doesn’t belong in a pet shop. There, there, George. Don’t be afraid.”

  The monkey had huge eyes. He didn’t seem quite as frightened when he heard Jessie’s voice.

  “I won’t hurt you.” She looked at Mr. Badham. “Why don’t you bring this monkey to the Greenfield Animal Shelter for now? There’s more room than in this pet shop. Our friend Dr. Scott works there. She can take care of any kind of animal.”

  “That is none of your concern, little girl,” Mr. Fowler said. “This monkey and the parrot Mr. Badham just brought here will be going to a famous zoo in a few days. They’ll be treated better there than at any shelter. What do you want now anyway?”

  Henry spoke up. “We just want to take care of Mrs. Tweedy’s customers the way we promised her. We need a dog collar. And we have to find out who gets this diet cat food. Do you know?”

  Mr. Fowler unlocked the shop, but he didn’t allow Jessie or Henry inside. When he returned, he handed Henry a dog collar and a new order slip. “Here’s where the collar goes. Leave the cat food here. Now get a move on.”

  “What was all that chattering, Jessie?” Violet wanted to know. “It was too dark to see. We heard all kinds of strange sounds.”

  Jessie pulled the delivery wagon down Main Street. The sight of the monkey was upsetting, but she didn’t want to worry the younger children. “Mr. Fowler is watching two animals for now. They’re going to a zoo in a few days. At least that’s what Mr. Fowler told Henry and me.”

  Benny pulled on Jessie’s sleeve. “Was there a real live monkey like the man said?”

  “Yes,” Jessie answered. “A real live monkey, but a very nervous one, Benny. And a bird that we didn’t get to see. It was making an awful squawk and sounded miserable.”

  Benny looked up at his sister. “Do you think George and the noisy bird were the mysterious delivery Mr. Fowler wrote about on that receipt?”

  Jessie nodded. “Yes, I think so. But now there’s another mystery. Why are those animals at the Pretty Bird Pet Shop?”

  CHAPTER 6

  A Hand in the Window

  The Aldens had only a half day of school the following day. After dropping off their books and feeding Watch and Pipsqueak, they headed for the pet shop.

  “Goody, a half day of school,” Benny said when they got to Main Street. “That means a half day of playing with animals.”

  Henry wasn’t quite as sure about that. “Don’t count on it, Benny. Mr. Fowler might not need us for that long.”

  “Or want us for that long, either,” Jessie added quietly. “But at least Mrs. Tweedy will be in today before she goes off again. Maybe she’ll talk to Mr. … Hey, look in the window of the pet shop.”

  “Omigosh!” Henry cried. “Someone’s trying to grab Grayfellow. Can you tell who it is? All I can see is someone’s arm.”

  As soon as Henry spoke, the arm disappeared from the small door that led to the display window.

  “Let’s go,” Jessie said. “Maybe we can find out who that was.”

  Today the Pretty Bird Pet Shop was packed. The “mystery arm” could have belonged to anyone. Mr. Fowler was there. Mrs. Tweedy was in back of the store with several customers. Jessie’s classmate Arthur was on his way out the door.

  “That old woman is here, too,” Soo Lee whispered. “I hope she doesn’t yell at us again.”

  The shop was busier than the Aldens had ever seen it. Never before had there been a monkey in the Pretty Bird Pet Shop. Or a macaw parrot, either.

  “Looks like Mr. Fowler brought the animals in from the storage building,” Jessie said. “Henry and I will check on Grayfellow,” Jessie told Violet, Benny, and Soo Lee. “You three can go see if you can meet the monkey and the new parrot.”

  When the younger children got close to the crowd, they heard Mrs. Tweedy. “No, I’m sorry. These animals are not for sale. We’re just caring for them until they go to a proper home at the zoo. Now please, step back so they don’t get frightened.”

  After the customers left, Mrs. Tweedy called the children. “Come on over, Soo Lee, Violet, Benny. Let me introduce you to George and Rainbow. George is a woolly monkey. Rainbow is a macaw. They’re both from South America.”

  George was sitting on Mrs. Tweedy’s shoulder. He gazed down at the children with his huge brown eyes. “Yip, yip,” he said.

  “Yip, yip,” Benny said back.

  Soo Lee was more interested in the new parrot.

  “Rainbow looks like all the colors in my crayon box. Blue, yellow, red, green, orange, purple.”

  Mrs. Tweedy smiled. “Indeed, she does have the colors of a crayon box. Rainbow is quite beautiful. Imagine her flying through the rain forest. I hated to trim her wings this morning, but I had to. I was worried she’d fly far away and go searching for her real home.”

  Violet could see how nervous Rainbow was. The large, long-tailed bird walked back and forth in her cage. “How did Rainbow and George get here from the rain forest?” Violet wanted to know.

  Mrs. Tweedy’s eyes grew shiny and sad. “Mr. Fowler said they were probably brought into the country illegally and bought by someone who couldn’t care for them. Whoever it was dropped them off in front of my shop last night. Poor Rainbow. Most parrots sold in shops are born and bred here. They are used to being indoors and don’t mind it. But Rainbow and George came from a real forest.”

  “Are George and Rainbow homesick?” Soo Lee asked. “I get homesick for Korea sometimes.”

  Mrs. Tweedy smiled. “I think they are homesick, Soo Lee. They belong outdoors again. Mr. Fowler said he has made arrangements for them to go to a zoo that has a tropical area. They will be more at home there.”

  While Mrs. Tweedy spoke with the younger children, Henry and Jessie tried to calm down Grayfellow. “Go home. Go home,” he repeated.

  “I guess when he saw someone at the little door, he wanted to go out,” Jessie said. “I’ll fetch some seeds to quiet him down. I can’t tell who opened the door, can you?”

  Henry shook his head. “All I know was that the person was wearing a light-colored jacket or shirt. About half the people in the shop have something like that on, including me! Even Mrs. Tweedy does.”

  “Who else is wearing a light-colored top?” Henry asked Jessie when she returned with a handful of bird food.

  “Mr. Fowler, Mrs. Doolittle, the old woman who told Benny how to comb Doughnut. She seems nicer now that Mrs. Tweedy is here,” Jessie said. “She has on a light-colored sweater. But I don’t think she’d let Grayfellow out. All she does is complain about how everybody else treats the animals.”

  Henry held out a large seed for Grayfellow. The parrot plucked it from Henry’s hand. He cracked it open in no time at all.

  “Who else is in the store?” Henry asked. “I thought I spotted that boy Arthur.”

  Jessie nodded. “He was in the store, but he had on a dark blue denim jacket. I tried to say hi to him, but he ran out. He’s so shy.”

  By this time Grayfellow was up on Henry’s hand. “Watch. Watch,” the bird said.

  Henry laughed. “No, you don’t, Grayfellow. You’re not going to take my
watch apart.”

  “He does love shiny things,” Jessie said. “I wonder why that is with parrots.”

  “He’s finally settling down,” Henry said when he heard the bell on the shop door jingle. “We got here just in time. Grayfellow could have gotten out again.”

  Henry and Jessie headed to the bird area in the back of the shop. Violet had already filled Rainbow’s water bottle and food dish.

  “Come see Rainbow,” Violet said in her soft voice. “She wants to go home.”

  “Go home! Go home!” the Aldens heard Grayfellow yell all the way from the store window in front.

  Mrs. Tweedy laughed. “That’s the first funny thing that’s happened all day. Every night I tell Grayfellow that I have to go home. That’s how he knows those words.”

  “Smart parrot,” Benny said. “Well, I don’t want to go home. I want to stay here and take care of animals.”

  “And so you shall,” said Mrs. Tweedy. “I’m so glad you children are here. I’ve been upset with Mr. Fowler about Rainbow and George. I suppose he was doing a good deed, but it breaks my heart to see these beautiful wild creatures cooped up.”

  George let Benny scratch his head through the cage. “It’s nicer in here than in the cold storage building, isn’t it, George?”

  Mrs. Tweedy looked alarmed. “What do you mean? Were these animals in the unheated building?”

  Henry nodded. “That’s where Mr. Fowler’s friend dropped them off last night. We had to come back because the orders got mixed up.”

  Mrs. Tweedy’s jaw dropped. “That’s not at all what Mr. Fowler told me. He said the animals were left in a cage in front of the store. A note said the owner couldn’t take care of George and Rainbow anymore.”

  Benny had something to add. “That happens at the animal shelter, too. People sometimes leave their pets if they get too big.”

  “Or too much trouble,” Violet said in a sad voice. “Maybe some people shouldn’t get pets.”

  Mrs. Tweedy was upset now. “Certainly not pets who belong in the wild. I’m going to speak to Mr. Fowler and get to the bottom of this.”