Baby-Sitters' Haunted House

by Ann M. Martin

  “Does that mean Seth and Lisa don’t need me to sit?” Claudia asked.

  “They’re hoping that you’ll go with them to take care of the kids. The adults want to be free to explore the area. The Menderses have this idea that they might open a health food store. And since Seth is a carpenter and knows a lot about construction, he can help them evaluate potential store space and tell them how much it would cost to fix it up.”

  “Didn’t you say that the Menderses have four children?” Claud asked. “With Karen and Andrew, that makes six kids I’d be taking care of.”

  “Don’t faint yet, Claud,” I said. “Lisa thought of that, too. She’d like another sitter to go along to help with the Menders kids.”

  “I’ll go,” Dawn said. “I love the idea that the Menderses want to open a health food store. I could help them. I’ve been in enough of them.”

  Mary Anne spoke up. “I read all about Reese and I’d love to go there. I mean if Dawn doesn’t.”

  “I’m sorry to disappoint you,” I said, “but since Karen and Andrew are my steps, it seems like I should be the one to go.”

  Claudia and Dawn shot me nasty looks. I guess they were still angry at me for insisting that we work hard at the beginning of vacation.

  Shannon said, “I don’t want to go anywhere for the next few weeks. I’ll be away at camp for all of August. Count me out.”

  Mal and Jessi had been quiet through this whole discussion. Finally Mal said, “I’d love to go. I’m used to taking care of lots of kids.”

  “It’d be so great to get away,” Jessi said wistfully.

  “You guys,” I said. “I’m supposed to call Lisa right back. She needs one extra sitter and five of us want to go. What am I going to tell her?”

  “Well, I don’t even know if my parents will let me,” Claud said.

  I realized that none of us had permission. (Though I was pretty sure I’d get it without any trouble, since I’m related to Karen and Andrew.) “Okay,” I told the others. “I’ll call Lisa back and tell her we’re finding out who can get permission to go. But since whoever goes leaves on Saturday, we better have an answer for Lisa by our Friday meeting.”

  “Let’s ask Logan to come to the meeting,” Dawn suggested.

  * * *

  When I arrived at Claudia’s for the meeting on Friday she greeted me with, “I can go. I’ve already started packing.” All over her room — our BSC meeting room — were piles of clothes, and Claud was dragging her huge suitcase out of the closet. Claudia never goes anywhere without a zillion changes of clothes.

  Next, Mary Anne arrived. “Wait until you hear,” she said. “Reese is the most amazing place. I’d love to tell the Menderses all about it. They’ll want to live there for sure.” She was carrying two library books on the history of Maine and a travel guide to New England seaside towns.

  Just then Dawn came bounding up the stairs and into Claudia’s room. “Great news. My mother said I can go, no problem. Actually, Mary Anne’s dad said she can go, too. And you know what I did? I went over to the health food store and asked them how they opened the store, where they buy wholesale . . .” She held up a notebook. “I took notes for the Menderses.”

  “The sitting job is for the kids,” I said crossly. “Not the parents.”

  Shannon and Logan ran into the room right behind Dawn. Then Mal and Jessi showed up. “We couldn’t get permission to go to Reese,” Jessi said.

  “But we can take over the day jobs of whoever goes,” Mal added.

  “Great,” I told them. “Then I can go. Between Mal and Jessi for my daytime jobs, and Shannon for the night ones, I’ll be covered.” I reached for the phone. “I’ll call Lisa.”

  Dawn clapped her hand over the phone so I couldn’t pick up the receiver. “Not fair,” she said. “Kristy, you’re the one who said we all had to work. Now you’re going on vacation?”

  “But Karen and Andrew are part of my family,” I said. “Besides, it’s not a vacation. It’s a job sitting for four kids. And I have permission.”

  “Well, I have permission, too,” Dawn said.

  “Me, too,” Mary Anne said.

  “Me, three,” said Claud.

  “I’m the president,” I said. “There wouldn’t be a Baby-sitters Club without me.”

  The phone rang. Dawn took her hand away so I could answer it. (I was feeling pretty bad about how I was behaving — extremely bossy and more than a little selfish.)

  The caller was Lisa, wanting to know who the second sitter would be. I know Lisa pretty well, so I felt I could be honest with her. “Lisa,” I said, “Mary Anne, Dawn, Claudia, and I all got permission to go. Now we’re trying to figure out which one of us will take the job.”

  “Oh,” Lisa said. “That sounds to me as if maybe all of you want to go.”

  “Something like that,” I told her.

  Lisa was silent for a second, then said, “I wonder if it wouldn’t be more fun for the kids, and for the sitters, if all four of you came. It could be a vacation for everyone that way. The mansion is huge, so there’s plenty of room. Instead of paying you, you’d get an all-expenses-paid trip to Maine. What do you think?”

  I grinned at the others. They were still angry at me for my “I’m-the-president” outburst, and they wouldn’t smile back. I couldn’t blame them. I’d been pretty obnoxious.

  I told Lisa, “I think that’s a great idea. Let me talk to the others and I’ll call you right back.”

  When I told everyone Lisa’s idea, Dawn, Mary Anne, and Claudia began hugging and hooting. Suddenly Mary Anne stopped and said, “But what about all the baby-sitting jobs we’ve lined up here?”

  “Jessi and I can take a lot of them,” Mal said eagerly. “You guys, just leave the BSC to us.” They actually looked happy about the idea of getting rid of us. I guess we hadn’t been much fun to be around lately.

  Logan put an arm around Mary Anne. “I hate the thought of your going away for ten days, Mary Anne,” he said. “But I know how much you want to go to Reese. So I’ll take over as many of the jobs as I can.”

  “Me, too,” Shannon said. “I could use the money.”

  The meeting ran overtime, but we managed to come up with a schedule that freed Claudia, Mary Anne, Dawn, and me for a two-week working vacation in Reese, Maine.

  We were going to leave the next morning. That was barely enough time for Claudia to pack!

  On Saturday morning Dawn and I woke up at seven o’clock. We were going to Maine and we still had packing to do. We ran back and forth between each other’s rooms with questions such as: “Are you taking your navy stretch pants?” (Dawn to me); “Should I take sneakers and sandals?” (me to Dawn); and, “Do you think I should pack my cowboy boots?” (Dawn to me). At one point — actually mid-point between our rooms — we bumped into one another as we asked in unison, “How many T-shirts are you bringing?”

  At quarter to ten, Sharon (who’s Dawn’s mother and my stepmother) dropped us off at the Engles’ house. We hugged her good-bye. (We’d said good-bye to my dad earlier.) A van was parked in the driveway. Seth had rented it so he could drive eight of us to Maine. Extra expenses such as this were one of the reasons we weren’t getting paid for sitting.

  As Sharon drove off, Seth and Lisa came out of their house lugging suitcases.

  “Do you want some help?” Dawn asked.

  “If you could go out back and collect Andrew and Karen,” Lisa said, “we can manage this.”

  Dawn and I walked around the house to the backyard. We could hear Karen and Andrew discussing the seating arrangements for the trip. “You can sit next to Claudia,” Karen said.

  “Kristy, too,” Andrew said. “I want to sit with Kristy and Claudia.”

  “But I want to sit between Kristy and Mary Anne,” Karen told him. “We cannot fit five in a seat.”

  Andrew looked up and saw us. “Dawn, Kristy, Claudia, and Mary Anne,” he shouted. “I want to sit next to all of them.”

  “You cannot, Andrew
!” Karen yelled back. “It is impossible!”

  Dawn and I exchanged a smile. Karen can be so precocious (that means smart for her age).

  “Hi, guys,” Dawn said. “Isn’t this a perfect day for a trip?”

  “We have four baby-sitters,” Andrew said as he jumped up and ran over to us. “One — two — three — four.”

  “Yes,” I said. “And you can take turns sitting with each of us during the trip. How about that?”

  “Yeah!” Andrew shouted as he ran off to tell his mother the good news.

  As soon as we were in the frontyard again, Claudia and Kristy arrived in Charlie’s car. Claudia’s suitcase was so big and heavy that it took Charlie and Kristy to carry it. The rest of us wore ordinary shorts and T-shirts for travelling, but not Claud. She had on a pair of bright blue Lycra biker shorts, a black lacy tank top, a man’s white dress shirt, baggy purple and white checked socks, red high-tops, and a pair of big gold hoop earrings with a brightly colored wooden parrot perched on each hoop. She was carrying this humongous, bright yellow, plastic beach bag stuffed with junk food for the trip.

  “Hi, everybody,” Claudia called out. “I hope we’re not late. My parents took ages to say good-bye. You’d think we were going away forever.”

  Kristy, weighed down with her end of Claudia’s suitcase, mumbled, “I wonder where they got that idea. Could it be because you packed everything you own?”

  “Claudia,” Dawn teased, “we’re visiting Reese, not moving there.”

  At ten-thirty we were all finally buckled into the van and ready to begin what should have been a six-hour-plus drive to Reese, Maine. For us, the “plus” ended up being an extra three-and-a-half hours. One hour for lunch at a diner, one hour for getting lost, and one-and-a-half hours for a picnic supper.

  Even with my trusty guidebook of historical New England towns and Lisa’s detailed road map, we made a wrong turn that detoured us through part of Vermont. I was sort of glad, though, because it meant that on our way to Reese, Maine, we went through charming, historic villages in four New England states: Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Vermont. Before we reached each town I read aloud from the guidebook. So as we were driving through, we already knew about the town’s history, current and past industries, tourist attractions, and even the names of the best places to eat and sleep.

  I might have gotten a little carried away. Once, as we were zipping along on a highway that bypassed a number of historic towns, Lisa said, “Mary Anne, I think the children might get more out of that book if you stuck to the towns we actually pass through and didn’t read about the ones we’re not even seeing.”

  I looked around the van. Next to me, in the middle seat, Kristy and Andrew leaned against one another. They were sound asleep. In the backseat, Claudia and Karen were playing cat’s cradle and humming “A Bear Went Over the Mountain.” Dawn was listening to her Walkman. I’d pretty much lost my audience anyway.

  I was staring out the window and feeling bad about boring everyone to death, when Seth asked, “Mary Anne, where should we stop for a picnic?”

  I flipped to the handy index in the back of the guidebook and looked up state parks. I found one that didn’t take us too far out of our way. I was glad we ate our supper picnic style. It gave everybody a chance to run around and burn off some of the excess energy we’d stored up from being in the van all day.

  But finding the park, eating, and cleaning up took a lot of time. So it was late when our van passed through the gates of the Randolph estate. Even though it was dark out, we could see the mansion — white and massive — on top of a hill at the end of the winding driveway.

  “Wow!” was all I could say. We were amazed by the size of the mansion. It was four stories high, with a six-columned entranceway. Five brick chimneys pierced the cloudy night sky. And there was an authentic widow’s walk on the roof.

  “Look,” Claudia said. “It has a deck on the top. How strange.”

  “That’s a widow’s walk,” I explained.

  “Why is it called that?” Karen asked.

  “Because that’s where a woman went to watch for her husband’s return from long whaling trips. She could get a good view of the ocean from up there.”

  “Then how come it is not called the ‘wife’s walk’?” Karen asked.

  Before I could answer, Karen came up with the answer herself. “Oh, I know,” she said. “Because sometimes the boat sank and the husband drowned in the sea and no one knew yet. So the woman walking up there was a widow, but she did not know it yet. That is sad.”

  I told you Karen was precocious.

  As we tumbled out of the van, Mr. and Mrs. Menders hurried outside to greet us. Behind them I could see the Menders kids standing in the brightly lit front hall of the mansion.

  We unloaded our stuff and brought it inside.

  Mr. and Mrs. Menders were really glad to see Seth and Lisa. And Karen and Andrew had met the Menders kids before, so they weren’t total strangers.

  When we’d dropped our luggage in the hall, Mr. Menders said, “Let’s all sit around the table in the dining room. We’ll have some lemonade and make introductions in there.“ As we followed the Menders family into the dining room, I thought that they seemed a little lost in the big place.

  We took seats at one end of the huge dining room table. (I’m going to stop saying massive, huge, and big. Trust me, everything in this place — except the people — was oversized.) When we had passed around the lemonade, Mr. Menders said, “Why don’t we go around the table and introduce ourselves. Say your name and something about yourself. That’ll help the sitters get to know the kids and vice versa.” I decided that Mr. Menders must be a corporate business type who was used to running meetings.

  Jason, who’s nine, introduced himself by saying, “I’m Jason. How come if there are four sitters, and there are four of us, and two of us are guys, two of you aren’t guys, too?”

  Lionel, who’s fourteen (and too old to need a sitter) said to his parents, “I’m not sure why we have a gaggle of sitters in the first place. We don’t need help to figure out that Reese is a nowhere place to be. I mean, the house is swell, but the town is nothing.”

  “Actually,” I began, “Reese was once —”

  Dawn kicked me under the table. I realized she was telling me to be quiet. It probably wasn’t the best time to begin a historical lecture about Reese.

  “We’ve already discussed this, Lionel,” his mother said. “Your father and I think you could use some company during this vacation. The girls are your age. They’ll help you meet other kids.”

  Lionel sighed and said, “Whatever.”

  My instant assessment of Lionel Menders was: pretentious and unhappy. He may not have needed a baby-sitter, but it was clear to me that he could use some friends, and a change of attitude.

  “I think Reese will be lots of fun,” ten-year-old Jill said. I noticed that she had moved her chair close to Dawn’s. Then I noticed something else: When we arrived, Jill’s hair had been in a long braid down her back. Now, her hair was draped loosely over her shoulders, just like Dawn’s. She listed her likes and dislikes. Likes: swimming, dressing up, dancing, summer, teenagers. Dislikes: People who act like babies, winter, being bored.

  Martha, a seven-year-old, introduced herself by saying her name. Period. OK, she was shy. And being a shy person myself, I could tell that Martha was a little overwhelmed by Karen’s bubbly, outgoing personality. I overheard Karen tell her, “We are going to have so much fun. I am great at meeting new people. You will be the most popular person in Reese in no time.”

  “I don’t know,” Martha said meekly. “I miss Boston.”

  Next the baby-sitters and the adults introduced themselves. (I was right about Tom Menders being a corporate businessman.) When the introductions were finished, Mr. Menders told us, “You’ll meet Mr. and Mrs. Cooper in the morning. They’ll be making our meals, cleaning up, and generally being helpful.”

  My friends and I e
xchanged a glance. A mansion with a caretaker couple! Even if the kids were going to be a challenge, we were going to be taken care of, food-wise and otherwise. We were used to baby-sitting jobs for which we had to do everything.

  “Of course,” Mrs. Menders said, “since there are so many of us, we’ll all be pitching in.”

  “Of course,” Kristy said.

  “But when it comes to household matters,” Mrs. Menders continued, “the Coopers are in charge.”

  “Did they come with the mansion?” Kristy asked.

  “No,” Mr. Menders said, “we’ve just hired them for the summer. But if we decide to stay, we hope they will, too. They’ve already proven to be very helpful. They’re quite charming and have lived here since they were young.”

  “Don’t forget that little matter of Mrs. Cooper’s voice,” Lionel put in.

  “What?” Dawn asked.

  Lionel began speaking in the deep, accented voice of a horror movie narrator. “Mrs. Cooper doesn’t ha-ave a vo-oice. She’s afflicted with chronic laryngitis. There may be permanent injury to her vocal cords. Ve-ry sta-range.”

  Lionel put on a menacing expression to match the scary voice he was using.

  “Oh, Lionel,” Jill said matter-of-factly, “quit it.”

  “Lionel’s always trying out different characters,” Jason said by way of explanation. “He’s going to be an actor.”

  “I am an actor, my dear boy,” Lionel said. “Please, be precise,” (Now he was impersonating a rich English gentleman.)

  “Well, gang,” Mr. Menders said, “it’s after ten. Let’s set the girls up in the west wing and call it a night. Shall we?”

  We carried our luggage (Mr. Menders helped Claudia) up the wide marble staircase and down a long corridor, through a doorway that led to another set of stairs, that led to the hallway of the third floor. We and our charges would occupy eight bedrooms which opened onto this hallway — four on each side. “Okay,” Mr. Menders said. “Your first job is to figure out who sleeps where. Our kids will tell you which rooms they’ve already claimed.”