“Well, don’t look at me. I don’t know why you leave things lying around if they’re so important.” Janet thumbed through some sales slips as if nothing had happened. “Anyway I need you to do those errands if you’re going to be working tonight,” Janet said as she walked into the storeroom.
“Why don’t you and Benny stay here,” Henry suggested to Jessie, “while Violet and I do the errands. We’ll get back lickety-split to help you look for your monkey.”
After Violet and Henry left, Jessie and Benny searched Penny’s shop high and low. The only monkey they found was a little one hanging from a plastic tree.
“I know I put it under the counter,” Benny said. “It couldn’t just walk away.” Benny crinkled his forehead. “Penny told Mrs. Frye she likes it when I make people laugh with my monkey faces while Henry takes pirate pictures.”
“Which we can’t do until your brother and sister get back with the film, by the way,” Janet said as she approached Jessie. “Well, as long as you’re here, cover the shop for a while. You’ll have to hunt for Benny’s toy later. Right now, I have to pick up those shipments Penny mentioned.”
Several customers came into the store. There was no more time to be upset or to hunt for a lost coconut monkey.
About twenty minutes later, Janet returned.
Benny tiptoed over to the storeroom to see what she was up to. “Janet locked some boxes in the closet,” he whispered to Jessie when he returned. “What if it’s those coconuts Penny ordered?”
Jessie hated to see the disappointment on Benny’s face. “Maybe Penny can set aside one of them for you if yours doesn’t turn up. We’ll ask Penny about it when she gets back. I don’t want to bother Janet anymore.”
An hour later Violet and Henry returned.
“Did you find Benny’s lost monkey?” Violet asked.
Benny shook his head. “It’s missing, not lost. We put it under the counter. Now it’s not there.”
Then Benny had an idea. “You know how Henry threw out my monkey at the picnic area? Maybe this one got thrown out by mistake, too. Don’t some of the cleaning people come by after the store closes?”
The older children weren’t too sure about this. Still, it couldn’t hurt to look through the trash.
“I told Penny I’d take some empty cardboard boxes down to the recycling bins,” Henry said. “Right before closing time, why don’t we all go to the recycling area and search down there for Benny’s monkey.”
Penny called half an hour before closing time. “Penny says you can leave,” Janet told the children after she hung up the phone. “She was delayed and asked me to close up the shop.”
“Sure thing,” Henry said. “We’re going to the recycling room to dump all these empty cardboard boxes. Is that okay?”
Janet didn’t answer right away. “I guess so. I’ll help you out.”
“That’s okay. They’re easy to carry,” Henry said.
Janet followed the Aldens out anyway. She didn’t go back to the shop until the elevator doors closed.
When the elevator doors opened again, the Aldens stepped into the large, empty recycling room.
“Hello!” Henry yelled.
“Hello!” Henry’s voice echoed right back.
“It’s kind of creepy down here,” Benny said. “Can we look real fast, then go?”
“Let’s stick together,” Henry said. “We’ll dump these boxes into this cardboard recycling bin, then do a quick look around for your monkey.”
After the children dumped their boxes, Jessie pointed to another bin ahead. “Look, that one says ‘P.E.’ That must be where the paper trash from Penny’s Emporium goes.”
Henry and Jessie got to work. Both of them carefully lifted out sales slips, wrappings, and other kinds of paper. Jessie and Henry reached the bottom of the bin.
“There are lots of papers and empty bags, but no shopping bag with a coconut monkey inside,” Henry told Benny.
Jessie slowly put the wastepaper from Penny’s shop back into the bin again. The last bunch of papers she picked up was a thick stack of forms that looked clean and smooth.
“Hey, wait!” she said. “I don’t think these shipping orders belong here. Penny saves all of them to match up with the bills that come in with her shipments.”
Shipping orders in hand, the Aldens walked over to the elevator. They watched the floor numbers above the doors. None of them lit up.
“What’s wrong, Henry?” Benny asked. “How come it’s taking so long to come down here?”
“Maybe the freight elevator doesn’t run after the mall closes,” Henry said. “I didn’t realize it was so late. We’d better try the stairs.”
But when the children climbed the stairs, they found that all the doors leading to the mall were locked.
The stairwell was dark. Only the glow of the exit signs gave off any light at all.
“Hello! Hello!” Jessie called out.
“Hello! Hello!” her voice echoed back.
“Let’s at least get up to the level where Penny’s shop is. Maybe we can get the attention of the security people by banging on the door. They’re bound to go by sooner or later.”
Jessie and Henry took turns looking out the small window on the stairwell door. A couple of times, they saw security people go by on their motorcarts. But they were too far away to hear or see the children.
A very long time went by. To pass the time, Violet told the story of Corduroy the toy bear in a department store.
Just when Jessie wondered if anyone would come by she spotted someone approaching.
“It’s Hap,” she said. “He’s coming out of Penny’s shop. Isn’t that odd? The store is closed now. Why would he be in there?”
Jessie banged on the door and yelled, “Hap! Hap!”
Hap heard the banging and looked around. He couldn’t tell where the noise was coming from. He boarded his motor-cart and started to drive away.
Jessie banged again, louder this time. Hap stopped the cart and got off. Jessie waved in the small window of the heavy metal door. She banged and banged again to get Hap’s attention.
“He heard me!” she told her brothers and sister.
Hap unlocked the door and found the children on the other side of it.
“Thank goodness you heard us,” Jessie told Hap. “We got locked in the recycling room after hours. The only way we could get out was up the stairs. But these doors were locked.”
Hap was not as glad to see the Aldens as they were to see him. In fact, Hap looked downright angry. “The doors are locked to keep people out of the mall after hours.”
The children looked down at their feet. They knew they didn’t belong in the mall after it closed. Why did they always seem like such nuisances around Hap?
“We’re sorry,” Jessie said. “We were looking for something Benny lost.”
“Not that blasted monkey?” Hap asked.
“We found some missing papers.” Henry held up Penny’s shipping orders.
“I’ll take those,” Hap said, taking the papers from Henry. “What was Mr. Bolt thinking when he invited kids to work like they were grown-ups? Well, it’s a wonder this mall runs at all.”
Hap walked the children to an exit door that led outside. “Now, go home. No dillydallying.”
The children stepped into the cool night air. There were still tourists walking around on the docks, having a good time. But tonight the Aldens didn’t feel like carefree tourists, just very tired children who needed to go home. |