John, Mike, Ben and Sally have formed a detective club called the Barton Avenue Detectives. The following story is the sixth of six cases contained in this collection.

Money, Money, Money (part 4)

Everyone started talking at once, shouting questions at Chris and telling each other what must have happened.

"He found the money!" shouted John.

"My own brother," cried Ben. "I'm rich!"

"Way to go, Chrissy boy," called Mike.

"Where did you find it?" asked Jessica.

"Where's the rest of the money?" said Sally, and everybody joined in on the same question.

But Christopher just sat there and wouldn't say a word although the detectives asked him over and over again. They grilled him, they pleaded with him, they threatened him, they tried everything they could think of, but they couldn't get a word out of him.

"I don't trust you guys," he told them, and that was that.

"But I'm your brother!" pleaded Ben.

Chris nodded, as if that was exactly what he meant.

"I know the way you guys are," he said. "Once I tell you where the money is you'll just forget all about me. You won't even let me into the Monopoly game."

"Are you kidding?" exclaimed John. "Of course we'll let you in. We'll give you anything you want, just name it."

"I can play Monopoly with you?" asked Chris suspiciously.

"Of course you can. We'll even let you have all the railroads."

"Wait a minute," said Mike. "Those are mine."

"I want Boardwalk and Park Place too," said Christopher.

Ben turned white but John told Chris he could have them.

"And I want the greeny ones," added Christopher, pointing to the properties that John had on his side of the board. John hesitated for a fraction of a second, then handed them over.

"We'll all give you something," he told Chris. "Come on, you guys. If you want to see that money you better start coughing up."

Everybody passed a set of properties over to Christopher, but he still wasn't satisfied.

"I want you guys to let me play Monopoly with you whenever I want," he said.

That was no problem, everybody agreed to it right away.

"And I want to come to your detective meetings," said Chris.

That took a little more time, but finally everyone agreed to it too.

"You're too young to be a full detective with a badge," John explained. "But you can be a detective cadet if you want."

Chris decided that would do. But he wanted one thing more. "Cookies," he told them. "You have to buy me some cookies."

"Buy you cookies?" said John. "You're practically a millionaire. You can buy all the cookies you want."

"I want you guys to buy them. You owe it to me."

"I think Mom's got some arrowroots downstairs," said Ben.

"Those are baby cookies," said Chris. "I want good ones. Oreos, that's what I want. It's Oreos or nothing."

Everyone groaned but they searched through their pockets and managed to scrape together a few dollars.

"He would pick Oreos," grumbled Mike as they went down to Joe's Milk Store to make the purchase. "They cost a fortune."

A little while later, after he was suitably stuffed with cookies, Christopher led the detectives into his back yard.

"The money's in there," he told them, pointing to the sandbox. Then he went into the house for a glass of milk.

The Kids from B.A.D. dove into the sandbox and started digging. It didn't take them long to find something. After a few moments John gave a triumphant cry and pulled a large paper bag from the sand. Everyone crowded around.

"Come on!" said Mike. "Hurry up and open it!" "Open it! Open it!" echoed the others, pressing closer.

"Okay, okay, give me some room here," John told them. "And don't get your hopes up yet. It could just be another bag of garbage. It might not be the one we're looking for at all."

But when John finally opened the bag it was just the one they were looking for. It was full of money: ones and twos, fives and tens, twenties and fifties, hundreds and hundreds of them, all crumpled together in one big beautiful bagful. Ten thousand dollars! It looked like a million!