Stacey and the Mystery Money Read online

  “But you said Betty could tell right away,” said Dawn.

  “I know,” I replied. “She said it felt too smooth. Regular bills are engraved, and you can feel the ink on them. But my bill was just flat.”

  Kristy reached into her pocket. “Maybe we should all check our money,” she said. She took out a ten-dollar bill and some ones, put her nose up to them, and stared at them closely. “They seem fine to me,” she said.

  Soon, everyone had pulled out their wallets and dug around in their purses. We were passing money around, rubbing it between our fingers, and examining it with a magnifying glass that Claud keeps in her desk drawer. “These all seem fine,” said Dawn. “Hey, Stace, maybe you should check out the treasury!”

  I nodded. “Good idea,” I said. “But I don’t have it with me, since this isn’t a regular meeting. I’ll check it as soon as I get home.”

  I think some of my friends were almost hoping to find counterfeit bills, just because they thought it would be exciting. But I never wanted to see another fake bill as long as I lived. I was glad when Kristy announced that all our money seemed okay.

  While we were sorting out whose money was whose, the phone rang. Kristy answered it, listened, and handed it to me. “For you, Stacey,” she said.

  “Hello?” I asked.

  “Hi, Stacey. This is Charlotte. I called your house, but your mommy said you were over at Claudia’s.”

  “Hi, Charlotte,” I said. “How are you?”

  “I’m fine, except that I’m worried about you. Are you still going to be able to baby-sit for me?”

  “Sure!” I said. “Why wouldn’t I?”

  “I thought maybe because you got arrested, you wouldn’t be allowed to baby-sit anymore.”

  “Charlotte,” I said, trying not to sound impatient, “I told you, I wasn’t arrested. Please stop worrying. The police questioned me, but now that’s all over, and I’m fine.”

  “Okay,” she said in a small voice. She didn’t sound convinced.

  “I have to go, Char,” I said gently. “I’ll see you soon, okay?”

  “ ’Bye, Stacey.”

  I hung up the phone and sighed. “I wish Charlotte hadn’t seen the police come. This has really upset her.”

  “She’ll be all right,” said Kristy. “Hey, speaking of Charlotte, I wonder if she’d be a good friend for Georgie Hoyt. He seems kind of lonely, and she lives near him.” She told us about her sitting job at the Hoyts’. I listened, hoping to hear more about Terry.

  He and I had talked a few times at school that week, but I hadn’t exactly gotten to know him yet. He had learned my name, and he smiled shyly and said, “Hi, Stacey,” when he passed me in the hall, but that was about it. Kristy didn’t seem to have any new information, and I didn’t want to ask her about him. Claudia was the only one who knew about my crush so far, and I wanted to keep it that way.

  Our “nonmeeting” ended soon after that. We had decided to break up into teams to do research on counterfeiting that week, but I wasn’t really looking forward to it. I mean, I did want to see those criminals caught, but part of me also just wanted to forget about counterfeit money.

  When I got home that afternoon, my mom told me that someone had called for me. “I know,” I said. “Charlotte, right? She called me at Claudia’s.”

  “No, it was a boy,” answered my mother. She smiled at me. “He didn’t leave a message, but he did say he’d call back.”

  I wondered who it could be. Sam hadn’t been calling me too often, since we’d talked about seeing other people. In fact, I had heard through the grapevine that he had been calling up this girl in his grade named Kathy. Calling her and dating her. I knew it was what we had decided to do, but I still felt jealous and hurt. So when the phone rang half an hour later, I answered it in my frostiest voice.

  “Is that you, Stacey?” asked the boy on the other end. “This is Terry Hoyt.”

  I managed not to gasp out loud. “Oh, hi!” I said. “How are you?”

  “I’m fine. Um, listen, I was wondering —” He paused, and then seemed to gather up his courage. “Would you like to go to the movies with me on Friday?”

  I automatically thought for just a second about Sam, and whether dating Terry would be disloyal to him. But in the next second I remembered Sam and Kathy, and I blurted out, “Yes, I’d love to!” We talked for a while longer, about school mostly, and then we said good-bye. I hung up the phone and leaned back on the couch, thinking about those gorgeous hazel eyes.

  At first, when we had talked about it in Claudia’s room, I hadn’t been all that interested in researching counterfeiting. But by lunchtime on Monday, I was totally psyched for it. Why? Well, first of all because I had another horrible nightmare on Sunday night. In this one I was being questioned by a mean-looking police officer. Bright lights were shining in my face, and he kept saying, over and over again, “You knew it wasn’t real. You knew it wasn’t real.” He was shaking a ten-dollar bill in my face.

  Then, on top of that, when I reached school I found out that the story of my experience with the fake money had spread quickly. I found out about that when Cokie Mason came up to me in the hall after social studies. “Trying to pass fake bills, I hear,” she said. Cokie is not one of my favorite people. “I thought you and your friends made plenty of money. I guess your baby-sitting business must be falling off.”

  I was so mad I couldn’t say a thing. But I decided then and there that I would catch those counterfeiters no matter what it took. In fact, I decided to go along with each of the teams my friends had formed, and do all the research I could.

  I headed for the lunchroom and found my friends sitting at their usual table. Terry Hoyt was sitting across the room, but I hardly glanced at him. I was on a mission. “Hi, you guys,” I said, putting my tray down next to Claudia. I glanced at my food and realized that I wasn’t hungry at all. (If I had been, I would have been in trouble, since the “beef stew” looked like something you might clean out of the bottom of a drain.) I glanced at Kristy and Mary Anne. “Are you almost done?” I asked them. “Let’s hit the library.” They were one of the teams, and they had planned to check out the school library to see what they could find.

  “Whoa, you’re in a hurry, aren’t you?” asked Kristy. “We just sat down.”

  I could hardly eat, since I was so eager to get started, but because of my diabetes I had to eat something. I finished off my salad and a roll, and then I just sat and stared at Kristy and Mary Anne, which I think made them nervous. They gulped down their food. Then Mary Anne sighed and said, “Well, we might as well get going.”

  When we reached the library, we fanned out in different directions. Mary Anne went to the card catalog. Kristy hit the encyclopedias. And I just paced nervously. Finally, the librarian asked me if she could help me find something.

  “Oh, uh, well,” I said. “I’m trying to learn how to make counterfeit money.”

  She gave me a strange look.

  “I mean —” I said, blushing, “not for myself. I want to find out how other people do it. You know, criminals.”

  She nodded. “Well,” she said, “you might try the encyclopedia.”

  I pointed to Kristy. “That’s what she’s doing,” I said. “And my other friend,” I pointed to Mary Anne, “is checking to see if you have any books on the subject.”

  “Good idea,” the librarian said. “Then I suppose the next thing would be to check on whether there have been any recent newspaper or magazine articles on the topic.”

  I nodded. “There have been some,” I said, “at least in the newspaper. How do I get copies of those?”

  She showed me how to use the newspaper index to find out the dates of the articles. Then she went into a closet and found the actual newspapers, and showed me how to make copies of the ones I wanted. I copied three articles, including one from that morning that mentioned a “local teenager” who had been questioned regarding a counterfeit bill. I read that one quickly. Then I ran over
to Kristy. “Look!” I said, showing it to her. “That’s me, isn’t it?”

  She looked it over and nodded. “They don’t mention your name, though. That’s good.”

  I put the copies into my notebook, after folding them carefully. “There isn’t really any new information in these,” I said, “but it’s good background stuff. Have you found anything?”

  “Not much,” Kristy admitted. “These encyclopedias are kind of out of date. But I took some notes on the history of counterfeit money.”

  Mary Anne joined us. “They don’t have any books on counterfeiting,” she said. “Just books about coin collecting.”

  I looked over at three boys who were standing by the dictionaries, whispering and laughing. “There’s Alan Gray,” I said. “Do you think he’s doing the same thing we are?” No way did I want Alan Gray, the most obnoxious boy in school, to crack this case before we did.

  “They’re probably just looking up dirty words,” said Kristy. “Good way to waste a lunch hour.” She looked disgusted.

  Just then, the bell rang. “Shoot,” I said. “Time to get back to class. And we’ve hardly found anything.”

  “That’s okay,” said Kristy. “We’re just getting started. It may take awhile.”

  I knew she was right, but I was feeling impatient. The sooner we got rid of these counterfeiters, the better. I went to my classes, but I couldn’t concentrate, not even in math. Luckily, Mr. Zizmore didn’t seem to notice. Usually I’m his favorite student, since I actually enjoy math problems, but that day I couldn’t have told you what X equaled if my life depended on it.

  After school, I made quick plans with Dawn and Claudia. They were going to pick me up at the Stoneybrook Public Library on their way downtown to do their research at the police station. While I waited for them, I would work with Jessi and Mal in the reference room. I was hoping we’d have better luck there than Kristy and Mary Anne and I had had at school.

  “Don’t forget to ask my mom for help,” said Claudia. “She knows everything about that place.”

  Jessi and Mal were waiting for me when I arrived at the library. They had already checked the card catalog and found one book that might have a chapter or two on our subject. Jessi went looking for the book, and Mal and I sat at a table, planning our next move. Then Mrs. Kishi came over to see us.

  “Hi, girls,” she said, in a normal tone of voice. I guess she doesn’t have to whisper in the library, since she’s in charge of it. “Stacey,” she went on, “I was sorry to hear about your trouble on Saturday.”

  I didn’t know what to say. Mallory jumped in. “We’re trying to find out about counterfeiting,” she said. “Where can we look?”

  “Well, for the most up-to-date information,” replied Mrs. Kishi, “you can try the periodical guide.” She led us to a shelf of green books and showed us how to look up our subject. “Make a list of the magazines you want,” she said, “and one of the clerks will find them for you.”

  Mal and I got to work, and soon Jessi sat down next to us with a book in her hand. She started to page through it while Mal and I looked up counterfeiting in the indexes Mrs. Kishi had shown us. Soon we had quite a list. Mallory took it to the desk, and a few minutes later a stack of magazines sat in front of us.

  We learned some interesting things from those articles. For example, the paper that money is made out of is from a “secret recipe.” These tiny blue and red fibers run through it, and it’s almost impossible to make paper that looks the same. Also, we found out about all the ways people try to make money. Some people take a one-dollar bill and bleach out the parts that say “1” or “One.” Then they copy them on a fancy color copying machine, after making them look like twenty-dollar bills, or other big bills. That kind of fake is pretty easy to spot, though.

  Meanwhile, Jessi had set aside the book, after marking a few pages to copy later. She was leafing through some of the magazine articles and she showed me one of them. “Look at this,” she said. “It says that because of the new kinds of color copying machines, it’s easier to make phony money. Before, you had to know how to do engraving, and photography, and all kinds of stuff. But now all you need is a good copier.”

  “That’s true,” said Mallory, “but it says here that the Secret Service is already figuring out new ways to make money harder to copy on those machines. They’re putting in special threads and strips that can only be seen when you hold up the bill to light. If a bill doesn’t have them, it’s fake.”

  “Check this out,” I said, showing my friends the article I was reading. “It says that passing counterfeit money is a felony! I’m lucky I’m not in jail right now.”

  “You’re not in jail,” said Jessi, “but somebody else should be. I hope we can catch him. Or her.”

  We read for a while longer. I have to admit that learning about counterfeiting was pretty interesting. Some of the people who have done it were real artists who spent their lives figuring out the best way to copy money. Others were just crooks who did it the easiest way possible. Also, I found out something I’d never thought of, which is that some people make counterfeit coins. You wouldn’t think you could get rich making fake pennies, but I guess if you made enough of them, you could.

  Some of the stuff we learned made me a little nervous, too. For instance, how serious a crime it is to make or pass counterfeit money. I mean, one entire branch of the Secret Service spends all their time going after counterfeiters.

  Jessi and Mal and I took the articles we’d found, plus the book Jessi had discovered, to the copy machine to make copies. “Let’s try something,” said Jessi, pulling a dollar bill out of her pocket and putting it onto the machine.

  “No way!” I said. “Are you nuts? I mean, I know you’re just fooling around, and Mal knows, but if you got caught copying that —” I blew out some air and rolled my eyes.

  Jessi put the bill back in her pocket. “Sorry,” she said. “You’re right. I don’t know what I was thinking. I guess I just wanted to see what it would look like, even though this isn’t a color copier.”

  At that moment, Claudia and Dawn showed up, ready to head for the police station. I left Jessi and Mal to finish the copying and the three of us rode downtown on our bikes. “Do you guys have a plan?” I asked them.

  “Not really,” said Dawn. “We’re just going to ask for whoever’s in charge of this case, and see if they’ll give us more information about what kind of bills are being passed and stuff.”

  We walked into the police station, still breathing hard from our ride. Dawn led us to a desk where a police officer was sitting. He looked up. “Well,” he said, “if it isn’t Nancy Drew herself.” He grinned at Dawn. “Caught any more dog-nappers lately?”

  Dawn blushed, but she looked kind of flattered. I realized that the officer must be the one she’d dealt with not long ago, when she was trying to track down these people who were stealing dogs in the Stoneybrook area. At first the officer hadn’t paid much attention to her, but when she actually cracked the case, he admitted that she was a pretty good detective. We — the members of the BSC — even got our pictures in the paper then!

  “We’re interested in that counterfeiting case,” she said. “Can you tell us who’s in charge of it?”

  “I can tell you, but you won’t get anything out of him,” said the officer. “This is big stuff. We’re not talking about a missing Pekingese or something, you know.”

  Dawn nodded. “I know. But we thought —”

  “Tell you what,” the man said. “There’s no way the sergeant will talk to you. But I can give you one of these fliers,” (he rummaged around on his desk), “that we passed out to the local merchants. That’ll give you some information.” He lifted up a pile of papers, then put it back down. “Huh,” he said. “Guess we’re out of them. Oh well. Listen, I think you’re better off just staying out of this one, anyway. These guys are serious criminals. You don’t want to get mixed up with them.” He winked at us, smiled, and went back to his work.
We had no choice but to leave.

  “Dead end,” said Dawn as we left the building.

  “Not really,” replied Claudia. “I bet we can get hold of one of those fliers. Let’s go see Betty at the Merry-Go-Round.”

  “Great idea,” I said. I knew I could probably also get one from my mom, but maybe it was just as well that she didn’t know I was playing detective.

  When we reached the Merry-Go-Round, Betty was waiting on a customer. She smiled at us, but she looked busy. We dawdled around for a few minutes, looking at earrings and hair accessories — Claud even picked out a scarf that she wanted to buy — until Betty was free.

  “Oh, Stacey,” she said, stepping out from behind the counter. “I’m glad to see you. I felt so bad about what happened the other day.”

  “It’s okay,” I told her. “It wasn’t your fault. You did the right thing.”

  “I guess so. But who would have thought they would grill us like that? I needed a long, hot bath when I got home, I can tell you.”

  We talked for a while about our experience at the police station, and about how my friends and I were hoping to help catch the criminals, and then I asked her about the flier. Betty went back behind the counter and pulled a piece of paper out of a drawer. “This is it,” she said. “You can have this one. It’s extra.”

  I gave it a quick look. The heading said Merchants Are the First Line of Defense, and it told what to do if a customer gives you a fake bill. “This is interesting,” I said. “Thanks.”

  Betty smiled. “Sure. Good luck catching those guys. And whatever you do, don’t tell Mrs. Hemphill what you’re up to. She’ll broadcast it all over town by tomorrow morning.”

  I laughed and put the flier into my notebook, along with the copies I’d made at the school library. I had learned a lot that day, and I was beginning to get an idea of what the BSC was up against. It wasn’t going to be easy, but I thought we were on the way to cracking the case. Maybe I would be able to sleep through the night soon, without having nightmares.