It wasn't Henry's imagination.
The two teenage girls were definitely acting suspicious.
They grabbed their shopping basket and rushed away, disappearing around the end of the aisle.
"Hey, wait!" Henry called after them.
"Come back here! We want to talk to you."
He rushed after the girls, with Maggie and Cole right behind him.
"They did it!" Maggie exclaimed.
"They stole my money! I should have known it was them!"
"Just hold on," Henry told her over his shoulder.
"Don't start accusing them of stealing your money until I get a chance to ask them some questions."
They caught up to Jill and Ashley near the back of the store.
The two girls seemed annoyed when they saw the younger kids coming again.
"Why are you following us around?" Ashley demanded.
"We just wanted to say hi," said Henry.
"Maggie likes to keep in touch with her best customers. Right, Maggie?"
"Right," Maggie said, glaring at the older girls.
Henry was afraid she was going to say something rude to them.
But she kept quiet.
"So you guys are doing a lot of shopping today, huh?"
Henry said, glancing into the girls' shopping basket.
"Not really." Jill shot a look at Ashley. "We were just kidding around."
"That's right," Ashley agreed quickly.
"We're not really buying all this stuff. See? We're putting it back."
She reached into the basket, grabbed lip gloss, and stuck it back on the shelf.
Jill did the same thing with a pack of gum.
"That's weird," Cole said.
"Why would you pick up all that stuff if you weren't planning to buy it?"
Ashley shrugged. "I told you. We were just goofing around, having fun."
"That doesn't seem like much fun to me," Cole commented.
"Well, playing soccer doesn't seem like fun to me," Ashley snapped.
"And boys do that all the time, right?"
Cole was surprised. "What do you mean? Soccer is a blast!"
Henry glanced over at Maggie.
She was getting that impatient look on her face again.
"You two aren't fooling me," she burst out.
"I know what you were doing. You were getting ready to spend my money!"
"What are you talking about?" Jill asked.
"You know what I'm talking about!" Maggie went on.
"Someone stole the money from my lemonade stand!"
Ashley laughed. "Oh, right. I forgot about that."
"You mean you never found that money?" Jill added.
"Did you ask Ryan, that kid who's always skateboarding?
He's a troublemaker. He crashed into my mom's flowers a couple of weeks ago."
"It wasn't Ryan. It was you two!" Maggie insisted.
"No, it wasn't," Ashley said. "Why would we need a few dollars? We already have—"
"Quiet!" Jill hissed, elbowing her friend in the ribs.
"Oops." Ashley had a guilty expression on her face.
Then she shrugged. "But what's the big deal?" she asked Jill.
"We already agreed we're not going to use it."
"Use what?" Henry asked, feeling confused.
What were the girls talking about?
Jill had a guilty expression too.
She reached into the shopping basket and grabbed a candy bar.
She stuck it on a nearby shelf.
"It's nothing," she said.
"Maybe you'd better tell us," Cole suggested.
"Because you two are acting pretty suspicious."
"It's no big deal," Ashley said.
"Jill's mother gave us a fifty-dollar bill.
We were supposed to use it to buy sunscreen and some other stuff we need for summer camp."
Jill nodded. "We thought my mom wouldn't notice if we bought a few extra things.
But I guess we got carried away."
"Yeah. We realized it when you guys started asking us all those annoying questions."
Ashley shrugged. "So thanks, I guess."
Henry smiled. "You're welcome," he said.
Maggie was staring at them. "You mean you really didn't take my money?"
"Nope," Jill said.
"Besides we could buy a lot more with my mom's fifty dollars than we could with your two or three dollars."
"It was much more than that," Maggie corrected her.
"That's why I want to get it back!
I need it so I can take horseback-riding lessons."
"Oh. Good luck," Ashley said. She sounded more sympathetic now.
Jill seemed thoughtful. "I just remembered something," she said.
"I saw that little girl Nora grabbing something off the table while you were busy talking to her brother.
I thought she was just getting a napkin or something, but she was pretty close to that cashbox.
And she was acting kind of sneaky."
"Really?" Maggie said.
Henry and Cole looked at each other.
"I guess we know who to investigate next," said Henry.