The Mystery of the Missing Pop Idol Read online

  “But what if your daughter’s hurt?” asked Jessie. “What if she needs you? I know if any of us went missing, Grandfather wouldn’t stop looking until he’d found us.”

  “Madlynn Rose and I got into an argument earlier today,” said her mother. “She’s young and doesn’t like the life of a famous pop star—not all of the time, at least. She threatened not to perform for the show today, though I told her that she had to, that it’s her job.”

  “That’s kind of sad,” said Violet. “Maybe she just wants to be a young person. Maybe she wants to have friends and have fun and go to school.”

  “My manicures and pedicures aren’t going to pay for themselves, are they?” said Mrs. Rose.

  “But we heard you on the phone earlier,” said Henry, “saying that your daughter’s disappearance would be big news.”

  “I was talking to my daughter’s talent agent,” said Mrs. Rose. “I told him what I really think is going on.” She looked around, then whispered so that only the Aldens could hear.

  “I think it’s all a stunt by that producer, Lester Freeman.”

  “You think he’s behind it?” Violet asked. “He’s so nice.”

  “He may be nice,” said the pop star’s mother, “but he’s always worried about Pop Star Sensation’s ratings. If you’re looking to get to the bottom of this, I would suggest you look no further than the producer of her television show.”

  CHAPTER 7

  Video Evidence

  On the way back to the TV studio, the Aldens passed the audition line. Lonny Dreams was playing her beautiful song again, and many people gathered around to listen.

  “Everybody telling me what to do …”

  “Hey, gang,” said Henry, “maybe we should stop for a moment and figure out what we’ve learned so far.”

  “There’s a furniture store,” said Jessie. “I bet we could find somewhere to sit in there.”

  “That sounds like a good idea,” said Violet. “These shoes are hurting my feet.”

  The Aldens went into the furniture store and found the softest, most comfortable couch they could. It was shaped like an L and had a shiny wooden coffee table in front of it. Henry and Jessie sat on one side of the couch, while Violet and Benny sat on the other. Violet put her sore feet up on the table.

  “So far, we know who is not behind Madlynn Rose’s disappearance,” said Henry.

  “That’s right,” said Jessie. “We know it’s neither of the judges. It’s not Esty Gadooj or Wilfred Mayflower.”

  “Even though he is still mean and scary,” said Benny.

  “And we know it’s not Sophia,” said Jessie. “Or Mrs. Rose.”

  Violet wasn’t paying close attention to her siblings. She had taken the alphabet stickers out of the pack that they had bought from the bookstore and was trying to spell her name.

  “I can’t find a V,” Violet said. “We must have left some of the letters on the ground in the store. The only other letter I have in Violet is an E. And here’s a D, an R, an A, and an M.” Violet spread the letters she had on the coffee table. “All I can spell with these is dream.” She noticed she didn’t have enough of the right letters to also spell out Madlynn Rose, but she did have enough to spell Lonny.

  Jessie interrupted her thoughts. “Violet, you can play with those after we solve this mystery.”

  “Yeah,” said Henry. “We just have to talk to our last suspect—Lester Freeman!”

  Violet nodded and swept the letter stickers back into the package. Then she and the others left the furniture store to return to the Pop Star Sensation set.

  Benny knocked on the door to the audition room once again. The door flew open. This time Mr. Mayflower answered.

  “What are you children doing here again?” asked Wilfred Mayflower. “I hope you’re here to tell me that silly pop star has been found and that we can get on with the show.”

  “We’re sorry, Mr. Mayflower,” said Violet, closing the door once she and her siblings were inside the studio. “We’re still trying to find her.”

  “I didn’t expect you to have found her,” Wilfred said.

  “But we’re really good at solving mysteries,” Benny said.

  “I highly doubt that,” said Wilfred. “Children are horrible at most everything, except for making a lot of racket and making me angry.”

  “But you’re always angry,” said Benny.

  Wilfred didn’t have a reply for that.

  “Like my brother, Benny, said, we’re trying to help,” said Henry. “We need to talk with Lester Freeman. We need to ask him some questions.”

  “I’d like to ask Lester some questions too,” Wilfred said, “but I don’t know where he or his camera crew have run off to.”

  Wilfred Mayflower stomped off in a huff, leaving the children alone in the studio surrounded by the judges’ table, the many TV screens, and the Pop Star Sensation sign.

  “We’ve got to find Mr. Freeman,” Violet said. “We have to ask if he knows anything about Madlynn Rose’s disappearance.”

  From behind the table and big sign came a few musical sounds. The Alden children followed them.

  The Pop Star Sensation band sat fiddling with their instruments. The bass player tuned the strings of his bass. The drummer impatiently tapped the pedal of his bass drum. The guitarist strummed his bright red guitar, playing the chords for Madlynn Rose’s hit song. Violet couldn’t help but stop and sing along.

  “It feels like time to say hello,

  But, sorry, now I’ve got to go.

  One last thing you’ve got to know,

  This won’t be good-bye, oh no.

  This won’t be good-bye.

  This won’t be good-bye.”

  Next to the band sat Esty Gadooj. The lights of her costume weren’t flashing anymore and now she looked bored.

  “Miss Gadooj!” said Jessie. “We need your help. Do you know where Mr. Freeman is? We’ve got to ask him about Madlynn Rose.”

  “He’s out with the film crew,” Esty Gadooj replied. “They’re in the mall somewhere. I told them it was no use.”

  Suddenly there was a clatter and a crash. Benny hadn’t been looking where he was going and had fallen into an open and empty guitar case.

  “Oops!” Benny said, climbing out of the case. “I accidentally bumped into that rack of guitars, and I fell. I’m okay though.”

  “Let’s make sure all of these guitars are okay,” said Jessie. She walked over to the guitar rack, where several guitars were swinging after being bumped by the youngest Alden.

  Jessie looked the guitars over to make sure they hadn’t been chipped or scratched. There were six spaces on the guitar rack, but only four guitars. She couldn’t help but notice that the four were orange, yellow, green, and blue. She turned and saw the band’s guitarist with a red guitar.

  “Those guitar colors make a rainbow,” she said, pointing from the red guitar to the others. “Well, almost. There’s not a purple guitar.”

  Henry pointed to the empty space at the end of the rack. “But if there was a purple guitar, it could go right there. Then you’d have your rainbow, Jessie.”

  “I guess I would,” said Jessie. “It’s a good thing Benny didn’t damage any of them. It would have cost a lot to have them repaired.” She turned to the band members and apologized for the trouble.

  “And we’re sorry for bothering you, Miss Gadooj,” said Violet.

  “And all of you musicians too,” said Henry.

  No closer to solving the mystery of the missing pop star, the Alden children sadly shuffled back to the TV show set. There, something on one of TV screens made Benny Alden very excited.

  “There I am!” shouted Benny. “On the big TV!”

  “It’s this morning’s taping,” said Jessie.

  “If they recorded us,” said Henry, “then maybe they recorded what happened here in the studio before we got here.”

  “Maybe they recorded what happened to Madlynn Rose!” said Violet.

&nbs
p; “Excuse me, sir,” said Jessie to one of the Pop Star Sensation crew members sitting in front of the TV screen, “can you rewind the recording to the beginning?”

  The man at the controls shrugged. “Sure. It’s easy. You kids can even work the keyboard yourself, if you’d like.”

  “I’d love to,” said Henry.

  In a second, the Aldens were watching the Pop Star Sensation set as it had looked at the very start of the day.

  On the screen, all three judges sat at their table—grumpy Wilfred Mayflower, flashy Esty Gadooj, and the not-yet-missing Madlynn Rose.

  In the video, Madlynn Rose whispered something that the children couldn’t hear into Esty Gadooj’s ear. Then Madlynn Rose got up from her seat and walked to a side door of the studio. Without looking back, she walked out and the door closed behind her.

  “Wait!” Violet said. “Henry, could you go back a bit? I think I saw something.”

  Henry rewound the film.

  “Pause it,” said Violet. “Right there.”

  There, on the screen, in the doorway that Madlynn Rose had just walked out of, was the figure of a very creepy-looking man wearing dark sunglasses and a dark suit.

  “Come on,” said Violet. “We’ve got to find him.”

  CHAPTER 8

  The Strange Man

  The Aldens hurried out into the Silver City Mall. Henry led the way.

  “Hey!” a voice shouted from the audition line. It was Lonny.

  “Lonny,” said Henry, already out of breath, “have you seen a strange man?”

  “I’ve seen lots of strange men today in this audition line,” Lonny laughed. “I’ve seen silly-looking old ladies and men dressed like cowboys. Why, I even saw a whole group of kids in matching outfits.”

  “Well,” said Henry, “we’re looking for a guy with—”

  “There he is!” Benny shouted, spotting the strange man in the dark sunglasses not far from where he and his siblings stood.

  But the man realized he’d been seen. He began to run in the other direction, and the children chased after him. The man was faster though, and he weaved through the mall crowds until the Aldens lost sight of him. The children slowed to a stop.

  “We lost him,” Henry sighed.

  “Wait, where’s Violet?” Jessie asked, looking around for her sister.

  “I think her shoes were slowing her down,” said Benny.

  “The other question is, where is the strange man?” Henry asked.

  The three Alden children waited for their sister to catch up. While they waited, they looked around, scanning the crowd and the entrances to the many busy shops.

  “He’s not over that way,” said Benny, pointing toward the video game store.

  “All I see there are mannequins with colorful blue jeans and jackets,” said Jessie, pointing to one of the clothing stores.

  “All I see there is a mannequin with a dark suit and dark sun—it’s him!” shouted Henry.

  The mysterious man had hidden himself in the display of one of the clothing stores. Next to a mannequin wearing a beautiful evening dress and another wearing a fancy leather jacket, the man they were chasing was trying to stand perfectly still. But once he saw that the Alden children had spotted him, the man leaped from the display and again began to run.

  As the man ran, he dodged people left and right, sometimes bumping into them. He knocked the shopping bags out of a woman’s hands. He nearly collided with a café table. He narrowly avoided getting tangled up in a long line of children.

  Jessie stopped to help the woman with the shopping bags while Henry and Benny dashed through the crowd after the man. The man reached the food court and ran past the table where the Aldens had eaten their lunch only a short while earlier.

  Benny saw the cup of ice he’d spilled still lying on the floor. And then he saw the man’s feet hit the patch of icy, slippery water.

  “Aaaah!” the man shouted as he slipped and fell flat onto the floor of the Silver City Mall.

  “We’ve got you!” Benny Alden shouted as he and Henry and Jessie finally caught up to the strange man who now lay on his back, staring up at the mall ceiling.

  “Who are you?” Henry asked the man.

  “And do you know about Madlynn Rose?” added Jessie.

  “Okay, okay,” said the man, “you’ve got me. I’ll answer your questions. Just help me up first.”

  Henry reached down and helped the man up. Jessie pulled out one of the chairs from the table where the children had eaten their lunch and let the man sit.

  “Thank you,” the man said. “I thought I could outrun you since it’s my job to be fast and strong. I guess I couldn’t. Or I couldn’t outrun that slippery puddle.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Benny. “That was my mess.”

  “And this is my mess,” said the man. “You see, I’m a bodyguard.”

  “What’s that?” asked Benny.

  “I watch over famous people,” the man explained. “I protect them and make sure they stay safe.”

  “That sounds like fun,” said Benny. “Kind of like being a policeman, huh?”

  “Kind of,” the man laughed. “Well, I’m the bodyguard for one famous person in particular.”

  “Who?” Benny asked.

  “I can’t say,” said the man.

  “You said you would answer our questions,” said Jessie.

  “Fine,” said the man. “I’m the bodyguard for the famous pop star, Madlynn Rose.”

  “If you’re her bodyguard, then what happened to her?” Jessie asked. “She’s missing, so you must not have done your job very well.”

  “Did you make her disappear?” asked Benny.

  “I guess you could say that,” said the man. “Or I let her disappear anyway. Although I know where she’s been the whole time.”

  “Do you know where she is now?” asked Henry.

  “I know where she was when I left her,” said the man. “But I can’t tell you where that is.”

  “Why not?” asked Jessie.

  “Because it’s a secret,” the bodyguard said. “I promised I wouldn’t tell.”

  “Hold on, guys,” called Violet, walking across the food court toward them.

  “Violet!” Jessie exclaimed. “Where have you been?”

  “And who are all those people?” Benny asked.

  Violet had a line of people following close behind her, including a man with a shirt that said Sunglasses Galore, Lester Freeman and his camera crew carrying clipboards and cameras, Madlynn Rose’s mother carefully walking along with her freshly painted toenails. The receptionist from the Silver City Salon and Spa and Super Fan Sophia followed Mrs. Rose. Behind them marched Esty Gadooj and the Pop Star Sensation band, all followed by a sweating, huffing, and puffing Wilfred Mayflower.

  “I know where Madlynn Rose is,” said Violet.

  CHAPTER 9

  A Ratings Bonanza

  “Where is she?” Benny asked.

  “How did you find her?” Henry asked.

  “Where did you go?” Jessie asked. “We thought you had fallen behind.”

  “I did fall behind,” Violet said. In one hand she held her pair of fancy dress shoes. “My shoes were hurting my feet and I couldn’t keep up with you when you ran after the man in the sunglasses.”

  “This man’s job is to guard Madlynn Rose,” said Benny. “But he’s not very good at his job, because Madlynn Rose is still missing.”

  “No, she’s not,” said Violet. “But I’ll get to that part in a second. Look what I’ve got here.”

  She held up the two items in her other hand: a pair of flower-shaped sunglasses and a wig.

  “All day long, we’ve seen clues,” Violet said. “I heard someone sing with a really pretty voice that sounded a little familiar…Then I found these sunglasses…”

  “Are you going to pay for those glasses?” asked the man wearing the glasses store shirt. “Or do you plan on returning them?”

  “Here, you can have them back,�
�� said Violet. “Then I passed the salon. There on the shelf I saw this”—Violet held up a wig of long blond hair.

  “You better return that,” said the receptionist, “because I know you don’t have the money to pay for it.”

  Violet handed the wig to the woman from the salon.

  From the back of the audition line, the Aldens noticed a friendly face nodding to them—as if to say that it was okay to reveal her secret.

  “Lonny Dreams—or Madlynn Rose,” said Violet, “will you come out and join us?”

  Out from the crowd stepped the girl wearing sunglasses and a blond wig and carrying the guitar case covered with stickers.

  “Lonny Dreams,” said Henry looking at the name on the guitar case. “I get it now. L-O-N-N-Y D-R-E-A-M-S. It’s an anagram for M-A-D-L-Y-N-N R-O-S-E.”

  “And those stickers on your guitar case,” pointed Benny, “those are from the bookstore.”

  “You’re right,” the girl said, opening the guitar case and taking out the purple guitar from inside it.

  “The purple guitar!” said Jessie. “That’s the one that was missing from the last spot on the guitar rack. The guitarist had the red one from the first empty spot. Then there were orange, yellow, green, and blue guitars. Like the colors of the rainbow. The last one is this purple one!”

  “Yes,” the girl said, handing the purple guitar to the guitarist of the Pop Star Sensation band.

  Then the girl took the flower-shaped sunglasses she was wearing off of her face, and the long, blond wig she was wearing off her head. And the girl who everyone had thought was a singer named Lonny Dreams—everyone except for Violet Alden—turned back into the pop star named Madlynn Rose.

  A crowd had gathered around, and when they recognized Madlynn, they all cheered.

  “This is great footage!” shouted Lester, directing his cameramen to film what was happening.

  “I can’t believe I’m getting this for my website!” said Super Fan Sophia, holding up her tablet and recording the scene.

  While the producer and the camera crew and Sophia were all smiles, someone still did not look very happy.