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 5)

No one said a word for a long time. They all just stared at the money in the bag.

"Holy goalies!" whispered Ben finally, and he reached in to touch some of it. But John suddenly closed the bag and pulled it away. He looked quickly over his shoulder at the nearby back yards. None of the neighbours was anywhere in sight. That was just what John was hoping for. When he turned back to the other detectives he was smiling in a rather odd way. It was more of a grin really, very much like the tycoon grin he had worn during the Monopoly game. Only this grin was distinctly more greedy.

"Are you guys thinking what I'm thinking?" he whispered.

Mike looked at Ben. Ben looked at Mike. Suddenly they were thinking just exactly what John was thinking and they were grinning too.

"Finders, keepers," said Ben.

"Losers, weepers," finished Mike.

"You said it," agreed John. "I bet our detective club could find lots of excellent ways to use this money."

"Yeah!" said Ben. "We could buy walkie-talkies!"

"And handcuffs and bullet-proof vests!" added Mike.

"Listen you guys, we don't have to settle for small stuff like that," John told them. "There's enough money in this bag to buy a whole patrol car!"

"Yeah!

"John Jenkins, I don't believe you! " cried Sally, grabbing the paper bag. John tried to get it back again but Jessica stepped in front of him.

"You're acting just like you did in the Monopoly game," she told him angrily.

"Worse," agreed Sally. "Don't you understand, John? This isn't our money just because we found it. It belongs to the bank."

The smile on John's face froze in place as. he started to think about it.

"We have to give it back," explained Jessica.

John's smile faded even more as he realized that they did.

"She's right," admitted Mike.

"It wouldn't be honest to keep the money," said Ben. "If we're really detectives and everything, we have to be honest."

"Yeah, I guess so," said John, disappointed. Then suddenly his face brightened. "Hey, look, I know what. Maybe we could charge the bank something on account of all the trouble we had finding the money for them-just a couple of thousand or so to cover our expenses. I mean, the bank'd never miss it; they have lots of money already. And then we could buy at least a motorcycle or something."

John looked hopefully at the others but he already knew what their answer would be. He was right. They were shaking their heads.

"We have to give all the money back to them," said Sally.

"Oh all right. You're right. I knew you were right all along," said John. "But I'll tell you one thing: we better walk over to the bank and hand the money over now because the longer we keep it the harder it's going to be."

"Yeah," said Ben. "We better get over there. You coming, Mike?"

"Sure I am. We'll all go," said Mike, but he didn't sound very enthusiastic about it.

"Right," said Jessica. "Come on."

But Jessica didn't move. Neither did Sally. Now that it was definitely decided that they would take back the money she wasn't feeling all that happy about it. None of the detectives was. It seemed a shame to have to return it so soon. No one wanted to keep it, exactly, but nobody, wanted to give it away.

"It's too bad really," said Sally. She opened the bag to take one last look inside. "The bank's just going to lock the money back up in their vault and we'll never get to see it again."

Just then, Christopher came back outside from the kitchen.

"Found the bag yet?" he asked.

"We found it," said Sally. "Coming down to the bank with us?"

"To the bank? What for?"

"We have to give the money back," said Ben unhappily.

"Give it back!" cried Christopher. "Hey, no way! I need that money." He ran over and snatched. the paper bag away from Sally before anyone could stop him.

"Come back here!" shouted Mike.

"Where do you think you're going?" demanded Jessica.

"Upstairs," Christopher called back as he ran through the door. "We're playing Monopoly, aren't we? You promised!"

The Barton Avenue Detectives just stood there staring for a moment. Then they started to smile.

"He's right," said Jessica. "We did promise him."

"And detectives always keep their promises," added Mike.

"The bank wouldn't mind if we just borrowed the money for a while," said John. "It isn't like we were going to spend it."

"Banks lend out their money all the time," agreed Sally.

"Okay!" cried Ben. "Come on, let's do it!"

The rest of the afternoon was wonderful. They started the Monopoly game all over again, only this time they played with real money. Christopher had a streak of beginner's luck and pretty soon he had most of the money. But nobody cared. They just laughed and laughed when they landed on his hotels. After all, everyone was rich and it didn't matter if they lost a few hundred now and then. By the end of the game they were just throwing the money at him, scattering the bills everywhere.

When Ben's mother came in to see what all the noise was about she could hardly believe her eyes. There were twenties on the furniture and fifties on the floor, there were ones and twos and fives and tens just floating in the air like leaves on a windy day.

"What in the world is going on here?" she demanded. "Is that money? Good heavens, it is money! Oh, my Lord!"

"Don't worry, Mom, we're going to clean it up," Ben told her.

"I guess I better go phone somebody to come and get it," said John, and he went downstairs. He called the police and the newspaper too.

The story was on the front page the next day, with a picture of everybody playing Monopoly with the stolen money. The assistant manager from the bank was in the photo too, as banker for the game. All the detectives got credit for finding the money, but the reward from the bank went to Christopher. His parents put it into a savings account for him, and every month the interest was more than enough for a bag of Oreos.

"lt's just like the Cash-For-Life Lottery," Ben told his brother. "Only you're getting cookies for life instead of money."

That suited Christopher just fine. The way he saw it, cookies were better than money anyway.