Free The Mystery of the Circus Clown by David A. Adler Page B

in a puddle on the way home.”
    Aunt Molly closed her handbag. “I’m going back to the ticket booth,” she said. “Do you want to come along?”
    “I brought some money,” Eric said. “I’d like to buy some ice cream for all of us.”
    Cam, Eric, and Aunt Molly walked to the large round lobby that surrounded the arena. Long lines of people were waiting to buy food and circus posters, banners and books. Other groups of people were talking and eating. Cam and Eric looked for the ice cream stand. Aunt Molly went the other way, toward the ticket booth.
    As Cam and Eric walked through the lobby, they came to a crowd of laughing people. Cam stood on a bench behind the people to see what was happening.
    “It’s a clown,” Cam told Eric.
    The clown was wearing a large white jacket, and pants with red and blue stripes, and he was carrying a large brown shopping bag. The clown was short, had curly red hair, a tiny white hat, and a large red rubber nose. Two large green stars and a big smile were painted on the clown’s face.
    Eric climbed onto the bench next to Cam. They watched and laughed as the clown dropped a coin. The clown bent to pick up the coin and bumped into a woman. The clown bowed to apologize to the woman and then bumped into someone else. As the clown was bowing and bumping into a woman in a red dress, Cam closed her eyes and said, “Click. ”
    Cam and Eric saw Aunt Molly and got down from the bench. Aunt Molly was walking slowly. She looked around as she walked. She seemed to be lost.
    Cam ran up to her and asked, “What are you looking for?”
    “The Lost and Found,” Aunt Molly said. “The ticket booth didn’t have my wallet. But don’t worry. I’ll find it. You go and get your ice cream.”

    There were two lines for ice cream, one right next to the other. Cam and Eric picked what they thought was the shorter line. They were standing right behind a woman and her two children, a boy and a girl.
    “The clown that bumped into Mommy didn’t have a real nose,” the boy told his sister.
    “Yes, he did,” the girl said. “I’m right, aren’t I, Mommy?”
    “No. I’m right,” the boy said.
    The woman smiled and told her children, “You’re both right. The clown really has two noses. He has a clown’s nose that isn’t real, and right under that nose is a real one.”
    “What’s coming next in the circus?” the boy asked.
    Cam closed her eyes and said, “Click.”‘
    She was looking at the picture of the circus program she had stored in her mind.
    “In the second half of the circus,” she told the children, “you’ll see Benny’s Dancing Bears. And there’s Maria, a woman who is ‘held in the air as she swings through the air.’ You’ll see Manny’s Monkeys. Polly’s Pink Poodles ride bicycles, and the Bailor Brothers have another high-wire act. Then the circus ends with a really big parade.”

    “Oh, good. Another parade,” the girl said.
    The line moved slowly. When the woman’s turn came, the man behind the counter gave the children ice cream. Then the woman reached into her handbag for the money.
    “Just a minute,” the woman said. “I can’t seem to find my wallet.”
    As she searched through her handbag, the man took the ice cream pops back from the children.
    “Step aside,” he said. “Let the others go.”
    Cam and Eric paid for their ice cream. They had started to go back to their seats when they heard a woman in the next line say, “My wallet is gone! I know I had it before, and now it’s gone!”

Chapter Four
    “That’s the third woman who’s lost her wallet,” Eric said.
    Cam looked at the woman in the next line. She was wearing a red dress. Cam closed her eyes and said, “Click.” Then she said, “Click,” again.
    “Come on,” Cam told Eric when she opened her eyes. “We have to find that clown.”
    Cam ran to where the clown had been just a few minutes earlier. A few people were standing there eating popcorn and cotton candy. But the