Free The School Play Mystery by David A. Adler

CHAPTER ONE
    “I ... I ... I ...” Eric Shelton said. “Oh, I can’t do this!”
    Eric looked at the papers he was holding. “It’s too scary.” He shook his head. “I can’t do this,” he said. “I just can’t.”
    Eric wore a long black jacket, white shirt, black bow tie, and black boots. He stood on the stage of his school’s auditorium. He was the star of the school play, Stories of President Lincoln.
    “Of course you can,” his friend Cam Jansen told him. “You’re smart and honest. You’ll make a great President Lincoln.”
    Eric smiled.
    “I love the second half of the play,” Cam told him. “I love it when you put on that top hat and beard. You look just like President Lincoln.”
    “But I won’t remember my lines.”
    “Sure you will,” Cam told him. “You have a great memory.”
    “No,” Eric said. “I have a good memory. You have a great memory.”
    Now Cam smiled.
    “Here,” Eric said. He gave Cam his papers. “Test me. See if I know my lines.”
    “I don’t need the script.” Cam pointed to her head. “I have a picture of it right here,” she said.
    Cam closed her eyes and said, “Click.” “It’s six cents,” Eric said. “I made a mistake this morning when you were in the store.”
    “You walked all this way to bring me six cents?” Cam asked with her eyes still closed.
    Cam reached out and hit Eric’s nose. “Oops! I’m sorry,” Cam said.

    Eric moved her hand to his shoulder.
    Cam patted Eric’s shoulder and said, “Now I know why people call you Honest Abe.”
    Eric applauded. “That was great,” he said. “You know Susie’s part.”
    Cam opened her eyes, “I know everyone’s part,” she said. “I have a picture in my head of every page of the script.”
    Eric was right. Cam does have a great memory. “I have a mental camera,” she says, “and pictures in my head of just about everything I’ve seen.”
    Cam says, “Click, ” when she wants to use her mental camera. She says Click is the sound her mental camera makes.
    Cam’s real name is Jennifer. But when people found out about her amazing memory, they began calling her “The Camera.” Soon “The Camera” became just “Cam.”
    “Where’s Susie?” Ms. Benson called out. “Where’s Jane? Where’s Hillel? Hurry! Hurry!”
    Children ran to their places.
    “Cam, is everything in order back here?”
    “Yes,” Cam answered.
    “Good. I’m counting on you.”
    Ms. Benson fixed Eric’s bow tie and Susie’s collar. Then she told Cam, “Let’s go out front.”
    Cam followed Ms. Benson into the hall. Two children sat there behind a table. On the table were schoolbooks, a comic book, a few animal crackers, a pile of tickets, and a shoe box.
    “Sara and Danny, this is no good,” Ms. Benson said. “I want just the box and the tickets on the table.”
    Sara and Danny took everything else off the table.
    There was a slit in the top of the shoe box. The sides were neatly taped to keep the box closed.
    “The money goes in here,” Ms. Benson said. She pointed to the top of the shoe box.

    “And don’t take off the tape. Just put the money in the box. Tickets are one dollar each, so you shouldn’t have to make change.”
    “I think we’re ready,” Cam said.
    Ms. Benson looked at her watch.
    “OK,” she told Cam. “Let’s open the doors.”

CHAPTER TWO
    Cam turned the latch on the doors to the school yard. Ms. Benson pushed the doors open.
    “Welcome. Welcome,” Ms. Benson said to the people who walked in. “Just line up by the table. Sara and Danny will be happy to sell you tickets. Remember, all the money we raise goes to charity. It’s for Ride and Read, to bring homebound elderly people to the library.”
    An old woman was the first in line. “My granddaughter is in the play,” she told Sara. “She’s Mary Todd Lincoln.”

    The next woman in line said, “My nephew is taking care of the lights. That’s important, too.”
    Cam walked past the long line of people