Free The First Day of School Mystery by David A. Adler Page A

yours?” Cam asked.
    “Oh yes. Thank you,” Mrs. Lane said. “This yellow one is a message from my boss. I’m glad you found it. And this pink one is my dry-cleaning ticket. I’m just losing everything!”

    Cam and Eric got off the bus and went to the back of the line.
    “Hold hands!” Mr. Day told them.
    Cam and Eric held hands.
    “I feel like I’m in kindergarten,” Eric said.
    “I am in kindergarten,” Tommy-in-Kindergarten said.
    “Quiet in the back!” Mr. Day shouted.
    The children walked past people stuck in their cars. Some were resting or reading. Others were talking on small telephones. Some people smiled and waved to the children.
    “Look,” Eric whispered. “Police cars! Maybe there was an accident.”
    Cam and Eric kept walking. Then they saw a large tree. When they walked past the tree they saw the front end of a small green car. It had crashed into the tree.
    “I hope no one was hurt,” Eric said.
    “Quiet in the back!” Mr. Day shouted.
    Cam and Eric walked quietly. Then, when they were close to the car, Cam whispered, “Stop.”
    Mr. Day and the other children kept walking. Cam waited until the others were a bit ahead. Then she whispered, “The car doesn’t look so bad, and there’s no ambulance, so maybe no one was hurt.”
    Police officers were standing by their cars, talking. Cam looked at the green car. She blinked her eyes and said, “Click!”

    Cam and Eric got close to the car and looked in.
    “There are papers on the front seat, a white one and a pink one,” Cam told Eric. “There’s a pair of sneakers on the floor and a tennis racket in the back.”
    Cam blinked her eyes again and said, “Click!”
    “Get away from there,” a tall police officer told Cam and Eric.
    “Let’s go,” Mr. Day called to them.
    Cam and Eric ran to the line. They quietly followed Mr. Day and the other children into the school. They went to Room 118, opened the door, and met their new teacher, Ms. Benson.

CHAPTER THREE
    “You must be Jennifer,” Ms. Benson said to Cam. “And you must be Eric. Your seats are in the back.”
    “How does she know our names?” Eric whispered.
    “She has a class list. All teachers do,” Cam told him. “Everyone else is here, so who else could we be?”
    Cam and Eric looked at the children already sitting at their desks. Lots of their friends and classmates from fourth grade were in Ms. Benson’s class. They were busy copying a list of classroom rules from the chalkboard.
    In the front of each desk, right in the middle, was a neatly written name tag. Cam and Eric found their name tags. Their desks were next to each other. They sat down and began to copy Ms. Benson’s classroom rules.
    Ms. Benson walked through the room. She looked at the children’s work and smiled. Then the door opened. Two police officers walked in. One was very tall, and one was not so tall and had a short beard.
    “I remember the tall policeman,” Cam whispered to Eric. “He told us to get away from the car.”
    Ms. Benson hurried to the front of the room.
    “I’m Officer Oppen,” said the not-so-tall officer. He showed her a slip of paper and asked, “Is this your car’s license-plate number?”
    Ms. Benson nodded.

    “Did you drive your car to school this morning?”
    “Yes,” Ms. Benson said.
    “You left the scene of an accident,” the tall officer told her.
    “No I didn’t,” Ms. Benson said quickly. “There must be some mistake.”
    “Please,” the officer with the short beard said. “You’ll have to come with us.”
    Ms. Benson turned to the class. “Sit quietly,” she said. Then she left the room with the tall officer on one side and the shorter one on the other.
    The children did not sit quietly.
    Danny got up. He put his hands on his hips and said in a high squeaky voice, “There must be some mistake!”
    Danny lowered his voice, pointed, and said, “You’ll have to come with us.”
    He laughed. “My mother told me not to get in trouble. Well,