Monkey Trouble by Charles Tang Page B

looking at his pictures and giggling. He’d taken off his baseball cap, and each time he laughed, Nico’s shaggy hair bounced up and down.
    Jessie and Violet each took opposite corners of the room. Henry noticed that Sophie was packing up her stuff, getting ready to leave. He headed over to quickly look at her photos.
    “Can I take a look at your pictures?” Henry asked. When Sophie agreed, he took them out of her envelope and flipped through her pile. “You have a bunch of nice giraffe shots,” Henry told Sophie.
    “Thanks,” she said. She took back the pictures and put them away.
    A few minutes later, the Aldens got together.
    “Nico took silly shots,” Benny told the others. “They are mostly of the kids in the tour group, not of zoo animals. So those couldn’t be Annika’s.”
    “I didn’t find Annika’s pictures, either.” Henry said to his brother and sisters. “But I did see a lot of really great giraffe pictures. Everyone took some of the baby giraffe. Sophie showed me hers. She had a few that were taken straight on, from about the same place where Violet and I were standing. The baby was looking right at the lens and—”
    “Wait a second!” Violet stopped Henry in the middle of his sentence. “Did you say Sophie had good giraffe photos?”
    “Yes,” Henry said. “Pretty ones.” He put his hand over his mouth. “Oh no!”
    The Aldens looked around the room for Sophie. She was almost out the door. “Stop! Sophie!” Benny shouted. “We need to see your pictures again.”
    “You already saw them,” Sophie said. “My dad’s waiting outside.”
    Jessie said, “It’s important.”
    Violet and Benny stood in the doorway. Henry held out his hand until Sophie gave in, handing him the photos.
    “You have lots of giraffe photos, but you couldn’t have possibly taken them, Sophie,” Jessie said.
    “You didn’t have a camera the first day. That’s when we saw their habitat,” Violet said.
    Benny added, “Plus, you don’t even like giraffes. You’re scared of them!”
    Sophie’s face turned red. She opened and closed her mouth a few times to talk, but nothing came out. Finally she said, “Oh! I didn’t even realize it! These aren’t my pictures. They must be Annika’s. Mr. Newton, where are my pictures? I don’t have any giraffes on mine.”
    “Those are yours,” Mr. Newton said, looking at the photos and the name on the envelope.
    “Nope,” Sophie said, shaking her head. Her ponytail wiggled. “There must have been another mix-up. I don’t like giraffes. These can’t be mine.”
    She tried to hand Mr. Newton the stack of photos, but they fell to the floor with a whoosh.
    Henry bent to pick them up. “These are yours, Sophie.” He held up a picture of a baby chimp. “There’s your swimmer charm, dangling in the corner.”
    Sophie lowered her eyes. She was caught.
    “I am so sorry, Annika,” Sophie said. “I didn’t mean to take your camera. Honestly. I meant to take Blake’s.”
    “What?!” Blake said, hearing his name and rushing over.
    “Well,” Sophie began. “It wasn’t fair that you got two cameras. I didn’t want to enter the contest. I just wanted to have photos for memories.” She went on, “So after lunch, when you were putting your sack in the cooler, I took one of yours. They were both in your over-the-shoulder bag, and I snuck one out.”
    “But Annika had already switched cameras accidentally with Blake. That happened before Blake put the one he was using that day into his bag,” Jessie finished. “So the camera you stole was actually Annika’s, not Blake’s.”

    Sophie looked down at her shoes. “I feel very bad about the whole thing.”
    “You shouldn’t have stolen Blake’s camera,” Mr. Newton told Sophie. “Even if you thought it was unfair for him to have two, stealing is wrong.”
    “I know,” Sophie said.
    Mr. Newton went out to the front of the zoo to find Sophie’s father, Mr. Webb, and explain what had happened.
    “I