The spaghetti sauce smelled absolutely delicious. Mom was giving it one last stir as we walked into the kitchen.
“Charlotte, you can sit here, across from Stacey,” she said. She filled our plates and brought them to the table. It’s usually my job to set the table, but I guess I’d gotten a break on account of Charlotte being there. Then Mom brought her own plate over, along with a huge salad.
We all dug in. All but Charlotte, that is. She just sat there, looking down at her plate as if she didn’t recognize what was on it. I knew something had to be wrong, since she usually loves spaghetti.
“What’s the matter, Charlotte?” I asked. “Do you want me to cut up your meatballs?” Maybe she just needed a little babying.
“I guess I’m just not hungry,” she said in a small voice. “It looks delicious, Mrs. McGill, but …” She looked like she was going to cry again.
“That’s all right, Charlotte,” my mom said. “If you get hungry later there’ll be plenty left over.” Mom must have been thinking the same thing I was: Charlotte was just feeling too nervous and upset to eat right now. There was no point in forcing her.
I finished my meal quickly while Charlotte waited. I’d told her she could go into the living room and watch TV, but she didn’t seem to want to leave my side. She helped me clear the table, and she stuck right by me as I stacked the dishes into the dishwasher.
“Are my parents still on the plane?” she asked. I worked on figuring out the answer. Let’s see, I thought. They left for the airport at around 4:30, their flight left at 5:30 and lasted … how many hours? But before I could finish my calculations, Charlotte came up with more questions.
“When they land at the airport, what will they do with all those suitcases? Will somebody meet them? Are they going straight to the hospital to see Grandpa?”
I could see that Charlotte needed some distraction. I turned on the TV. Luckily, The Cosby Show, one of Charlotte’s favorites, was on. That kept her occupied for half an hour, but as soon as it was over, the questions started up again.
“They must be at the hospital by now. Do you think Grandpa is happy to see them? Grandpa must be scared about his operation. How do they close him up again when it’s all over?”
Brother. After I’d explained how stitches work and why a zipper wouldn’t be practical, I suggested another game of Clue. But halfway through the game I could see that Charlotte was getting restless. How could I distract her before she came up with another round of questions?
“Have you ever played War, Charlotte?” I asked as I dug into my desk drawer for a deck of cards. She had never played that game, so I taught her how. “See, you split the deck in half, and then we each turn over a card at the same time. Whoever has the higher card wins. And when we both turn over the same card, we have a War, like this: one, two, three, WAR! The winner of that gets all those cards. And whoever gets all the cards in the deck first, wins.”
Charlotte loved playing War. Personally, I’ve always thought it was about the most boring card game on the face of the earth, but that night I played twelve games in a row, very happily. Anything to keep Charlotte’s mind off her traveling parents, her sick grandpa, and her own homesickness.
After the twelfth game (which Charlotte won), I suggested that it was time for bed. I had some homework to do once she was asleep, and it was getting late. Slowly, she changed into her pajamas. Slowly she brushed her teeth. I could see that she was stalling. She was probably nervous about sleeping in a strange bed.
I tucked her in and gave her Goobaw to hold. And then, even though Charlotte is a great reader, I read to her from Charlotte’s Web. She loves that book, and I love to read to her. “I’m proud to have the same name as that spider,” she always says.
After three chapters, just as my throat was beginning to hurt from so much reading aloud, I could see that Charlotte’s eyelids were drooping. A few moments later, I stopped reading, and sure enough, she’d fallen asleep.
I tiptoed out of the room, leaving the door open a crack so I’d hear her if she woke up. For a moment I thought about skipping my math homework. I was exhausted! I never would have guessed that having Charlotte visit would take so much energy. It would probably get easier as the week went on, I thought. I hoped. I sat down at my desk and blitzed through the math problems as fast as I could.
By the time I finally got into bed I was too tired even to finish a chapter of the book I was reading, Summer of My German Soldier. I turned off my light and fell asleep right away. When I woke up the next morning, sunlight was streaming through the window. Birds were singing outside. Mom was puttering around in the kitchen downstairs. And Charlotte was sleeping, all cuddled up next to me in my bed, still clutching Goobaw.
Charlotte and I got home from school at around the same time on Friday. Mom rushed out for a job interview just as I walked in the door. “Hi, girls! See you at dinnertime,” she said as she ran out the door. She looked pretty professional, all dressed up in a suit.
I made a snack for the two of us (Triscuits with mustard spread on them and a piece of cheddar cheese on top — yum!), but Charlotte only picked at the food.
“I don’t feel so good, Stacey. My throat’s all itchy and I feel dizzy,” she said.
I felt her forehead, but she didn’t seem hot. I thought she was probably just still having a hard time adjusting. After all, she’d made it through a full day of school — how sick could she be? Anyway, she’d survived the first twenty-four hours without her parents, and I knew it could only get easier as time went on. But I figured she could still use some distraction, and I wasn’t about to play any more games of War for awhile.
“Let’s walk down the street and take a look at that old house they’re tearing down,” I said. Charlotte agreed to the plan, but first we cleaned up from our snack and changed out of our school clothes. (This all took some time, since Charlotte was still sticking to me like glue.) Finally we set off down the street. I still wasn’t all that interested in the old house, but it was something different to do.
It was only about four o’clock when we got to the house, but the workmen had already left for the day. The big old place stood there silently, looking a little forlorn with its porch railings ripped off and its front door gone. There were straggly bushes on both sides of the house and overgrown gardens in front of it. Vines climbed up the porch and twined themselves around the second-story windows. The grass in the yard was almost up to Charlotte’s knees. The place seemed oddly quiet all of a sudden.
“Without that front door, the house looks like a person with a tooth missing,” said Charlotte. “Let’s go inside and look around!”
“No way,” I said. “They’ve started tearing out all the fixtures inside. There could be holes in the floor, or the ceiling might start to come down. We could really get hurt.”
My mom had told me that the Stoneybrook Historical Society had asked the developer to save certain parts of the house, since he was being allowed to tear it down. There was supposedly a huge marble fireplace that was in perfect shape, and the society wanted to preserve it. I wondered if they’d taken that out yet. Also, there were supposed to be some neat old lighting fixtures, from way back when Stoneybrook first got electricity. It was going to take awhile to get all that stuff out of the house. Once they’d removed it all, they could just knock down whatever was left.
Charlotte and I walked around the outside of the house, fighting our way through the weeds and brambles. I had to admit that it was a pretty neat old place, even if I didn’t think it rated right up there with Gary Rockman as hot news. It was built on a huge scale. There was a long porch that wrapped around the front of it, and a smaller one at the back door. One of the upstairs rooms had big windowed doors that opened out onto a little balcony.
It also had several little towers sticking up here and there. Imagine having your bedroom in one of those round turrets — you could pretend you were Rapunzel or something. Charlotte liked that idea. “Or what if there was a
secret trapdoor, so you could be up there and nobody would ever know,” she said. One of the things I love about her is her imagination. She is so creative.
As I was checking out the towers, trying to decide which one I would choose for my room, I saw something that made the hair stand up on the back of my neck. There was a face in the window of one of the towers, and it was looking right back at me! I gasped and turned to Charlotte to see if she’d seen it, but she was examining the gingerbread trim on the porch roof. I looked back quickly, but the face had disappeared from the window. Maybe it hadn’t really been there in the first place. I was probably just imagining things.
I walked on ahead to catch up with Charlotte. When I found her, her face was dead white. “Did you hear that noise, Stacey?” she asked.
“What noise? I don’t hear —” Just then, I did hear it. Something was clanking rhythmically. It sounded like chains being dragged across the floors.
“Oh, that’s just, um … loose pipes! Yeah, that’s it. I’m sure it’s just the plumbing, Charlotte.”
I wasn’t really all that sure, but I hoped there was no way that Charlotte would be able to tell. Anyway, I knew the workmen were also removing some of the plumbing and fixtures for preservation. Mom had said that there were antique radiators and also some of those big old bathtubs that sit on clawed feet. Maybe the men had been working on pulling that stuff out today, and some of the pipes had been left to bang against each other. That really could explain the noises we’d heard. Couldn’t it?
We kept walking around the house. It was kind of sad to see it looking so shabby. Most of the windows were broken, and the shutters hung crookedly. The paint was peeling. And what was that near the back door?
I couldn’t believe my eyes. It was a gigantic, and I mean huge, swarm of gross flies, just like in The Amityville Horror. That movie has to be the scariest thing I’ve ever seen. It’s about this family that moves into a house that has ghosts or spirits in it, and all these horrible things keep happening. The flies were the least of it, believe me! Scenes from the movie flashed through my mind as Charlotte and I looked at the flies, but I gritted my teeth, took Charlotte’s hand, and kept walking around the house. We’d gone almost all the way around it by now anyway. I wasn’t going to let some dumb old spooky house get the better of me.
“Oooooohhhhhhh …”
What was that? I looked at Charlotte. Had she moaned? She looked back at me. We kept walking.
“Oooooooooohhhhhhhh …” I heard it again, and this time I knew it hadn’t come from Charlotte. It had come from the house. I tightened my grip on her hand, and we took off. That spooky old house had gotten the better of me. We were history.
We made it back to my house in record time. Charlotte was looking a little shaky. I was feeling a little shaky myself. But once we were away from the house I felt better. It was like there was a bad feeling coming from that place. I didn’t plan to go back there any time soon.
“What do you think made that noise, Stacey? That was scary,” said Charlotte.
I couldn’t really come up with an answer, and I just wanted to forget all about the house for now, so I dodged the question. “I don’t know, Charlotte. But guess what? I have a Baby-sitters Club meeting at five-thirty, and you get to come with me!”
I’d checked with the other members to see if it would be okay to bring Charlotte. With my mom out on a job interview, I didn’t know what else to do with her. But even Kristy had said it would be fine to bring her.
Charlotte got all excited. She knew it was an honor to be invited to a club meeting. Not too many “outsiders” had attended meetings. She decided she wanted to change back into her school clothes. This was an important occasion for her.
“Does this mean I’m an honorary member, Stacey?” she asked. “I’ve always wanted to be in a club, and the Baby-sitters Club is the greatest. Should I bring my allowance money so that I can pay dues?”
I explained that paying dues really wouldn’t be necessary, and she looked a little disappointed. To cheer her up, I asked her to help me organize my Kid-Kit. By the time we’d finished that job, it was 5:15. Time to head over to Claudia’s. Charlotte begged to be allowed to carry the Kid-Kit, and even though we don’t usually bring them to meetings, I said she could.
When we walked into Claud’s room, I could feel Charlotte getting shy again. Everybody else was already there, and I guess she felt a little overwhelmed at seeing all the baby-sitters in one place. But then Dawn patted the bed and invited Charlotte to sit next to her.
“Doritos, Charlotte?” Claudia offered the bag to her. Charlotte just started at Claud’s earrings. They were pretty wild. One was shaped like a little record, and the other looked like a stereo. I nudged Charlotte.
“Oh! Yes … I mean, thanks, Claudia. I love Doritos.”
“I like your blouse, Charlotte,” said Mary Anne. That was nice of her. Charlotte’s blouse wasn’t anything special. But Mary Anne is sensitive, and she knew her comment would help put Charlotte at ease.
Kristy took off her visor, leaned over from her spot in the director’s chair, and stuck it on Charlotte’s head. Charlotte grinned.
“Wait’ll we tell you guys what happened this afternoon,” I said. “Remember that old house they’re tearing down? Well, we went over to take a look at it, and —”
“We heard the scariest noises!” finished Charlotte.
“And you wouldn’t believe what I saw,” I said.
“Stacey, Charlotte — we want to hear all about it, but it’s time to start the meeting,” said Kristy. She brought the meeting to order, and we took care of business for awhile. The phone rang a few times and we assigned jobs. Then there was a lull in the action.
“Claud, remember that movie we saw, The Amityville Horror? Well, this afternoon was just like a scene out of that movie, I swear,” I said. “Remember those flies?”
Claudia shrieked. “Ew! I’ll never forget them. They were totally disgusting.”
“Well, we saw a whole swarm of them over at that house. And I saw a face at one of the windows, too.”
Charlotte looked at me. I hadn’t told her about that. I’d figured she was scared enough as it was.
“It was probably just one of the workmen,” said Dawn.
“Yeah,” said Jessi. “He was probably surprised to see you, too.”
“No, that was the really weird thing,” I said. “There were no workmen. They were all gone — long gone, it looked like. And it was only around four when we got there, too.”
Charlotte looked really scared all over again. In fact, she looked like she might start crying. Kristy must have noticed, too, because just then the phone rang and she said, “Charlotte, want to answer that?”
Charlotte looked over at Kristy. “Me?” she asked.
“Yeah, you!” said Kristy.
Charlotte beamed. Then she realized she’d better grab the phone. It’d been ringing for awhile by then.
“Baby-sitters Club,” she said. “No job too small!”
The room was quiet for half a second as we all looked at each other. Mallory was the first to crack up, and soon we were all hysterical. Charlotte was a natural!
“And if she ever catches Boo-Boo again, she’s going to put a spell on him. He’ll still look like Boo-Boo, and he’ll still come when we call him, but something about him will be different. He won’t purr anymore, and his tongue will be as cold as ice, not warm like it is now.” Karen was really on a roll.
Andrew was sitting on Kristy’s lap, and David Michael was huddled on the floor near her feet. Emily Michelle was rooting through the toy basket, looking for her “baby.” She was the only one in the room who wasn’t spellbound by Karen’s tale.
Kristy usually has no patience for Karen’s silly ghost stories, but after hearing what Charlotte and I had been through that afternoon, she was all set to be totally spooked.
It wasn’t that late yet, but the sky was completely dark. Thunder rumbled in the distance, and ligh
tning flickered. The storm was on its way.
Andrew looked up at Kristy. “She won’t really do that, will she? I like Boo-Boo the way he is.”
Kristy shook herself. Andrew really looked scared. She had to break the mood before things got out of hand. “Of course not, Andrew. Karen’s just telling stories again. Listen, you guys. How about if I make a big bowl of popcorn and we play a game or two of Chutes and Ladders?”
“Popcorn! Yea!” said David Michael. “Can we play the Name Game while you make it?”
Kristy sighed. The Name Game gets tiresome fast, but the kids love it. “Okay. Who’s first?”
“Me!”
“I am!”
“No, me!”
They all yelled at once. Kristy should have known better. She stalled for time, opening and closing cupboards and setting up the popper. “Okay, let’s do Emily first. Then she can decide who’s next. Ready? Here goes.” And Kristy started to sing:
“Emily Emily bo bemily
Bananafana fo femily
Me mi mo memily
Emily!”
Karen joined in, and so did David Michael. Andrew got some of the words right, but he got stuck on the “bananafana” part and just kept doing it over and over.
“Who’s next, Emily?” Kristy asked. Emily pointed to Karen, who’s a favorite of hers. They all sang, Karen loudest of all.
“Karen Karen bo baren
Bananafana fo faren
Me mi mo maren
Karen!”
The Name Game continued as Kristy made the popcorn. Running out of names didn’t stop them: They just went around the kitchen, singing about everything they saw:
“Toaster toaster bo boaster
Bananafana fo foaster
Me mi mo moaster
Stacey and the Mystery of Stoneybrook Page 3
