Free Cam Jansen and the Valentine Baby Mystery by David A. Adler, Susanna Natti Page A

table. They were eating. He looked at Cam, Eric, and Beth. They were eating, too. Danny sat down. He took the bread off his chin and bit into it.
    “Your mother is nice,” Eric said to Danny. “She’s a reading teacher,” he told Cam and Beth. “In first grade, when I was having trouble learning to read, she helped me.”
    “Cam,” Beth said. “How is
your
mother? When will she have the baby?”
    “Soon, I think,” Cam answered. “Maybe in a few weeks. She said I’ll be surprised.”
    “What’s the surprise?” Eric asked. “You know you’re getting a sister.”
    “Maybe the surprise is, she’ll be like Cam,”Danny said. “She’ll have a picture memory, too. She’ll be born holding a camera. Instead of crying
‘Boo hoo,’
she’ll cry,
‘Click! Click!’
”
    Cam has an amazing photographic memory. It’s as if she has pictures of whatever she’s seen stored in her head. Whenever she wants to be sure she remembers something, she looks at it, blinks her eyes, and says,
“Click!”
Cam says that’s the sound her mental camera makes when it takes a picture. When Cam wants to remember something she’s seen, she says,
“Click!”
again.
    Cam’s real name is Jennifer Jansen, but when people found out about her amazing memory they started calling her, “The Camera.” Soon “The Camera” became just “Cam.”
    Danny said, “We can call your new sister
Film
Jansen or
Flash
Jansen or
Click
Jansen.”
    Cam said, “I like the name Alice. It means ‘truth.’”
    Cam, Eric, and Beth had finished eating their lunches. They put the wrappers from their sandwiches and their empty milk containersin their lunch bags and threw them away.
    “Hurry,” Beth told Danny. “Lunchtime is almost over.”
    Danny took a big bite of his apple. Before he chewed it, he took a big bite of his heart-shaped cookie. His mouth was full. As he chewed the apple and cookie, crumbs fell onto the table.
    Rrrr! Rrrr!
    “That’s the bell,” Beth said. “Let’s go.”
    Cam, Eric, and Beth started to leave the lunchroom.
    “Wghmt aw we!” Danny said.
    “What?” Beth asked.
    Cam told her, “I think he said, ‘Wait for me.’”
    Danny threw away his wrappers. He wiped the cream cheese and jelly off his face with his sleeve and said, “I’m ready.”
    They left the lunchroom and walked toward their classroom.
    The halls were decorated with large paperhearts. In the middle of each heart was a message. Among them were,
I Love to Learn
,
I Love to Read,
and
I Love School.
    The children turned the corner. Their classroom was straight ahead, at the very end of the hall.
    “Hey,” Cam said. “Someone is talking to Ms. Benson.”
    “Maybe it’s your mother,” Beth said to Danny. “Maybe you’re in trouble.”
    “No,” Danny said as they got closer. “It’s Eric’s mother.”

C HAPTER T WO
    Eric ran to his mother.
    “Why are you here, Mom? Is something wrong?”
    “I came for Cam,” Mrs. Shelton said. “Her mother is about to have the baby.”
    Ms. Benson told Eric, “Your mother is taking Cam to the hospital, so she can be there when her sister is born.”
    Cam, Beth, and Danny were by the door to the classroom now. Ms. Benson told Cam the good news. She told her to get her coat and books and go with Mrs. Shelton.
    “I want to go, too,” Eric said.
    “You know, Eric is Cam’s very best friend,” Mrs. Shelton said. “It would be nice for both of them if he could go, too.”
    Ms. Benson smiled and said, “Eric may go.”
    “What about me?” Danny asked. “I’m also Cam’s friend.”
    “I can’t just let you leave school,” Ms. Benson said. “I’ll need a note from your mother or father.”
    Cam and Eric put on their coats. They gathered their books. They were ready to leave the classroom when Danny called out, “Wait for me!”
    He gave Ms. Benson a note.
    “This must be one of your jokes,” Ms. Benson said after she read the note.
    “It’s not a joke,” Danny said. “I want to go with