The Day American Eagle Got Robbed

It was December 17^th, 2004 and the store American Eagle was having a huge blowout Christmas sale from the 16^th to the 18^th. So far the turnout had been great and they had sold so very many items making a pretty big profit. On the morning of Friday the 17^th, Paula Patutsky, the store’s manager, came to unlock the doors to get ready for hopefully another big day of business. She came, walked around the corner to American Eagle, and stopped right in her tracks. You would have thought that she had seen a ghost because her cherry red cheeks turned a snow white color as she tried to get herself under control. “Wake up Paula!” she told herself, “This isn’t real; it’s just an awful nightmare.” Even reassuring and making sure that she really was awake didn’t help the fact that on this Friday, which was supposed to have the most shoppers, American Eagle’s products were ALL GONE! The store was completely bare; nothing was in sight. Soon shoppers came about just to join the misery. There was a new detective in town so Paula called her as fast as her fingers could dial. “Hi, I need to speak with Janel, the new detective!” Paula whispered with her voice raspy and quick.

“I’ll solve your crimes big or small……….It’s Janel!” exclaimed Janel ready to take on any crime.

“Umm. I am Paula Patutsky the American Eagle store manager. I walked to my store and vavoom everything was gone. The store is bare. I even checked and double-checked that I locked it last night.”

Janel replied, “I’ve heard of you and I will be down in just a jiffy. See ya then!” When Janel arrived at the mall there was a huge crowd around American Eagle. “Move it people. They don’t call me detective for nothing you know.” Janel said in a huff. After using the crowd for a search crew and searching the entire mall, Janel thought that it would be best if she took a few days to find suspects and get some clues that they could build on. One week later, Janel arrived back with her so called “suspects”. There was Sheila, a regular mom shopping for her kids, and Alexis, a college student needing an extra job to get some more money for the holiday shopping. First, Janel interrogated Sheila. “Why would you do such a crime?”

Sheila answered, “I didn’t do it. My family is plenty rich and if I need to get my kids some presents then we definitely have the money to do so.” After further interrogation with Sheila, Janel found her innocent as she always had been. “Now”, Janel said softly to herself, “I’d better find some good clues to make Alexis look as guilty as possible.”

Questioning Alexis went like this. “Where were you at the time of the crime?” asked Janel suspiciously.

“I had just gotten back from college to see my parents at the crack of dawn. We had planned to go shopping the following day, but my dad, a mall policeman, told us about the robbing of American Eagle.”

“SO”, replied Janel, “If you did take the stuff then your dad could cover for you with him being a mall policeman and all. Right?”

“Well…. I suppose that might work, but I wasn’t even near the store when it happened and I didn’t want THAT many things from American Eagle,” spoke Alexis carefully choosing her words with each gulp of air. The next day Janel told Paula that she thought Alexis was guilty of the crime.

On the 20^th of December, a mysterious masked lady took some of the American Eagle products into Alexis’s room from her own storage place where she had stored them. The next morning Janel walked to Paula’s house to say, “Oh my gosh. I went to Alexis’s house to ask her some more question and in her room and…… there is about half of the stolen items!”

“I’ll check it out as long as we find the stuff in the end.” said Paula with a touch of optimism. Near the end of the day after visiting Alexis’s house Paula finally thought that maybe Alexis really was guilty. Just because her alibi was the she wasn’t near the crime, she said that she had wanted extra money for gifts. Maybe she did this to not have to work and get money because she would already have all the presents that she needs. The pieces of the puzzle were finally fitting together. Paula made a mad dash to Janel’s house at 12:03 p.m. After knocking and not seeing that Janel was home, she walked around to the backyard since the gate was open. “Wow,” thought Paula, “What a massive pool. I don’t think she’d mind if I took the cover off a little and felt the water temperature. I have wanted to have a pool party and after we find the items that would be a first-class time.”

And now she turned up the pool cover and…………………………………………

There were ALL the missing American Eagle products! “She seemed so nice, but why?”

“Oh, I’ll tell you why!” exclaimed Janel as Paula quickly turned around, “I just got out of jail. People from corner to corner across the country have been trying to capture me. I’m too fast and sneaky for all the them though. I knew that you would never even think to accuse your cheerful, crime stopping detective. Your town needs some crime in it. Pretty amusing joke if you ask me.”

“I didn’t ask you and thanks to my curiosity you will be in jail again once and for all!” Paula screamed satisfactorily. At 1:17 A.M, Janel was hauled off to the slammer and Paula rushed to the mall to fill the shelves once more and make it Christmassy for the holidays. On the 22^nd of December, thankfully American Eagle had a whopping 2,348 customers and made a profit that even Bill Gates would approve of. The Christmas season turned out just perfect………….except on the other side of town where Janel sat down on the rock hard jail bed with a grunt.

The End!!!!! And the Christmas season was joyful!!!!