The teenagers looked at June in amazement.
“How do you know?” Bev asked June who was still wild eyed and looking around the room.
“Come on. Let’s go inside the gym away from these people,” Molly suggested. The other three shook their heads in agreement and headed back inside the gym. Molly looked around and noticed the bleachers opposite the stage were opened a few steps. “Let’s go sit on the bleachers,” Molly said as she led the entourage toward them.
“June, are you okay?” Harold said as they sat down.
“I will be,” June said as she took a deep breath.
They all sat in silence waiting for someone to do something. Molly asked herself, what would Holmes do? She decided to start asking questions.
“Okay, June, can you just tell us what happened?”
“Well, Ron, Betsy and I came out to work the concessions during intermission. Mrs. Young joined us just before other people were coming out, too. We were all busy selling and we all took care of our own sales.”
“What does that mean?” Bev interrupted.
“We each collected the money from the customer, made change if we had to, and placed all the money in the box,” June answered Bev’s question.
“Keep going with your story,” Molly said. “Let’s try to get through it without asking questions.”
“Okay,” June started again. “When we were busy with customers, the lights dimmed twice meaning the intermission was over and people began returning to the gym. I told the others to go on inside and that I would finish up. When everyone left, I wiped off the tables and put the candy and soda back in their boxes. I counted the money and placed it back into the money box. I made a note as to how much and placed it in my pocket. I left the money box on the chair and scooted it beneath the table. I went back to catch the second half of the play. I sat in the back near the door and when the final curtain call started, I went back to the lobby. I went to check the box and the money. When I opened it, all the money was gone except for two dollar bills and four quarters.”
“Three dollars,” Harold said. “The price of an admission, a candy bar and a soda.”
Molly thought over her story and asked, “Where’s the money box now?”
“I put it in my gym locker ,” June answered.
“Good, we know where it is,” Bev said nodding her head.
“Are you sure you were alone?” Harold asked.
“Yes! Yes, I am sure. Everyone was going back for the second half of the play!” June exclaimed as she started to rock back and forth in her seat. “I am going to be in so much trouble!”
Harold moved closer to his sister, pulled her closer to him and hugged her.
“It will be all right,” Bev said. “We will figure it out.”
Molly leaned back against the bleachers behind her and closed her eyes. She began to visualize the scene as June had told it. She could see the lights in the atrium blink twice and people start filing through the doors back into the gym. There was June telling Ron and Betsy to go on ahead and she would finish up. They laughed and June smiled as she grabbed the candy from the table and dropped them into box beside the table. She pulled a second box onto the table and withdrew the soda from the ice container and placed them in the box. June pulled the half-filled box from the table to the floor.
“June, what happened to the ice bucket?” Molly asked.
“I don’t know. I think it is still there.”
“Harold, will you go and see if it is there now?”
Molly closed her eyes again and returned to her review of June’s story. June turned her attention to the money box. It was still open with the money crammed inside it. June shook her head and pulled the bills out, separating them by value, leaving the change inside. At least that is what Molly would have done it.
“How much money was there?” Molly asked, keeping her eyes closed. She heard the gym door open and Harold’s footsteps draw closer to them.
“The bucket is still there, and all of the ice has melted,” Harold reported. “The two boxes are where she left them, on the floor. Molly, I saw your Dad’s car outside. So is my Mom. I guess she came to get June.”
“Okay,” Molly opened her eyes. “I guess we got to go but first, a couple more questions and then a quick plan before we go outside. How much money was stolen?”
“I have it here on my note,” June looked at the paper she pulled from her pocket and looked at Molly. “Two hundred and ninety-seven dollars. I even wrote down that it was fifteen tens, thirteen fives, twelve dollars in quarters and sixty one- dollar bills. That was before they left the three dollars.”
“I knew you would do that!” Molly said. “Harold, where did you leave the money for what you gave us when we were leaving?
“I didn’t. I was going to give the money to June later.”
“Okay,” Molly said. “Now, before you and Bev go get the money box, one more question, June, was there anything else you could remember? Anything at all?”
“No,” June said. “I told you guys everything.”
“Okay, go and get the box. Harold and I will wait for you here.”
Molly watched the two girls walk toward the girls’ locker room door and once they were inside, she turned to Harold.
“You go home with your Mom, too. June has to take the box to your house and don’t say anything to your parents,” Molly instructed Harold. “Do you have a fingerprint kit at home?”
“Actually, I do,” Harold answered smiling. “I see where you are going with this.”
“Bring the box and the print to my house tomorrow then the three of us will figure out how to bring the case to the club.”
The locker room door opened, and the two girls walked to join them. June had her coat on and was holding the brown money box. Bev zipped up her jacket.
“Let’s go,” Harold said stepping toward his sister. “We are not going to say anything to Mom and Dad, okay?”
“Okay,” his sister answered him as she hugged him as she started to cry.
“Shhh, it will be okay, June,” he hugged her tighter. “It will be all right, Sis, I promise.”
Molly and Bev watched the siblings embrace. Bev stepped forward and joined the hug. Molly stepped did the same and wrapped her arms around everyone and said, “We have to go before they come in to get us.”
They slowly unfolded and headed toward the gym door. Molly was the last one out and paused to look at the tables. The two tables were empty except for the ice bucket on the far end of the table. The two boxes sat on the floor just as Harold had confirmed. Four brown folding chairs were pushed neatly at the edge of the table closest to the wall. She looked at the third chair and on the back of it was an off-white sweater.
“June?” Molly called out. “Is that your sweater?”
June stopped and looked at the table and said, “No. I don’t know who’s that is.”
Molly nodded and followed them out into the night.
“Molly!” Billy yelled from the front of the house. “Harold and Bev are here!”
Molly jumped off of her bed and hurried to the front door. Harold and Bev met her in the living room. Harold was carrying the box and Bev was rubbing her hands together.
“It’s getting cold out there,” Bev said.
“Let’s go to my room.”
“Well, hello there,” Mrs. Bennet said as she entered the room. “What’s going on?”
“We are going up to my room to do a school project,” Molly said as she turned to go there.
“I am baking cookies. Do you want some?”
“I could go for some cookies,” Harold said.
“Of course you could,” Bev said. “So could I. Thanks, Mrs. Bennet.”
Molly sighed as she followed her friends behind her mother into the kitchen.
Cookies in hand, Harold sat on the desk chair as Molly and Bev sat on her bed. Molly had already set up the slide projector on top of the desk facing the wall like she had done before.
“Did you get any prints?” Molly asked Harold.
“Yes I did,” he said as he opened the box, removed four slide frames, and handed them to Molly.
Molly took then from him, stood up, and reached across Harold to the slide projector. She slipped the four slides into the carousel.
“Bev, can you turn off the lights?
Bev got up from the bed and did what she was asked to do. When thew lights went out and the room appeared a little bit darker, Molly turned on the projector and sat back on the bed. She picked up the remote and clicked it. A dark image appeared on the wall. Harold fiddled with the focus ring around the lens of the projector and the image became clear.
“I think we have a fingerprint,” Bev whispered.
To be continued…
My First Stories 