The Baby-Sitters Club Mystery #14: Stacey and the Mystery At the Mall (The Baby-Sitters Club Mysteries)

by Ann Martin

  “But my presents!” Hannah wailed as Jessi steered her gently toward the door. “I didn’t even get to open them, and now they’ll all burn up!”

  Jessi didn’t try to answer that. She knew she couldn’t waste time saving presents in a burning mall, but she didn’t want to scare the birthday girl. “Let’s go,” she said. “I bet your mom and sister are wondering where you are.” She hurried Hannah to the exit door which Mr. Magee was holding open. Then she and Hannah stepped outside into the bright sunlight.

  “Over here, Hannah!” called Mrs. Powers, who was standing near a lightpost with the group of children. Hannah ran to her.

  Jessi, blinking, turned to look at the mall. She didn’t see any flames or smoke, and she wondered if there really was a fire.

  “Hey, Jessi!” I shouted. I had seen her come out, and now I ran to meet her. Mallory joined us.

  “Do you think there’s really a fire?” Jessi asked.

  I shook my head. “I don’t think so,” I said. “I’ve already talked to Alan Gray and Logan, and to people from a couple of stores, and nobody saw or smelled anything.”

  “Must have been a false alarm,” said Mal.

  We stood talking for a while. Fire engines pulled up, and the fire fighters jumped out and ran into the building, but nothing else happened. They didn’t come back to get hoses or anything. On the other hand, they weren’t about to let us into the mall until they were positive there was no fire.

  After about fifteen minutes, Mrs. Powers told Jessi that she and the girls were going to leave. “I’ll drop by later to pick up the presents,” she said. “But I think for now we’ll just continue the games at home. Thanks for all your help.”

  Jessi said good-bye to Hannah and the rest of the girls, and then we stood around and waited some more. Finally, Kristy showed up, looking important in her security cap.

  “False alarm,” she said, without our even having to ask. “And I already saw the videotape from the camera posted near the box.”

  “Wow, really?” I said. “What did you see?”

  “Nothing conclusive,” said Kristy. “But there was one weird thing. Right after the alarm went off, those three blonde kids ran past the camera. And they looked scared to death.”

  “Ahh!” said Kristy, flopping back on my bed. “This is great. Just like we planned — no work, no baby-sitting, no meeting. Total relaxation.” She picked up my copy of #1 Fan, a magazine I sometimes buy, and started to leaf through it.

  Kristy, Mary Anne, and I were hanging out at my house after school on Thursday. We had been looking forward to this afternoon ever since we had planned it, weeks ago. Project Work had been taking up a lot of our time, but there was only one more week to go. Then we’d return to our busy schedules of school, sitting, meetings, and more sitting. For just this one afternoon, we had planned to take it easy. Later, Kristy was going to Mary Anne’s house for dinner and my mom had offered to take me out to my favorite restaurant.

  Claudia had an art class that afternoon, and Mal was sitting for her brothers while her mom took the girls shopping. Logan had track tryouts, and Shannon was sitting for the Rodowskys. Jessi had planned to spend some time with Becca, working on a garden they were planning for the Ramseys’ backyard.

  Mary Anne leaned over Kristy’s shoulder to look at the magazine. “There’s Cam Geary,” she said. “Doesn’t he look gorgeous in that blue shirt? Blue is his favorite color, you know.” Mary Anne has had a major crush on Cam Geary for a long time. She’s always telling Logan he looks just like Cam.

  “Is that why you bought Logan a blue shirt?” Kristy asked.

  “No!” exclaimed Mary Anne, blushing. “Well, maybe that was partly why. But blue happens to be Logan’s favorite color, too.”

  I picked up another magazine. “Cam’s okay,” I said, “but he’s kind of young. I like older guys, like Steve Matthews.” I showed my friends a poster-sized pullout of a guy with dark hair and deep brown eyes.

  Kristy threw down her magazine. “I don’t know,” she said. “None of these guys seems real to me. I mean, I’d want to know how well they can catch a line drive to third base. That kind of thing matters more to me than looks.”

  “I guess Bart’s perfect for you, then,” I said. “I’ve seen him do some amazing things on a baseball field.” Bart Taylor is Kristy’s sort-of boyfriend. He coaches a softball team for little kids, just as Kristy does. Sometimes Kristy’s Krushers and Bart’s Bashers play each other.

  Kristy sighed loudly.

  “Thinking about Bart?” asked Mary Anne.

  “Not really,” Kristy said. “I’m thinking about what we’re all thinking about, even though we don’t want to admit it. I’m thinking about what’s going on at the mall.”

  Mary Anne and I looked down at the floor. It was true. As hard as we were trying, we couldn’t really relax and forget about the problems at the mall.

  “Let’s just talk about it,” said Kristy. “There’s no point in pretending we aren’t worried about them.”

  “Them” — the three blonde kids. Since Tuesday, when Kristy had seen them run past the video camera after the alarm had been pulled, none of us had spotted the kids even once. We didn’t see them leave the mall on Tuesday, after the fire alarm. And we didn’t see them anywhere on Wednesday. And they hadn’t shown up at Mal’s story hour, which was unusual, since they had been coming regularly. They didn’t appear even once in the videotapes Kristy had reviewed late Wednesday afternoon.

  Now Kristy stood up and started to pace around. “It’s so weird,” she said. “I didn’t even realize how much I was used to seeing them. They always showed up on the tapes at one point or another. Some days I’d see them four or five times. First they’d be sitting near the fountain, and then I’d see them walking through the food court — they were just, like, always there. And now they aren’t.”

  Mary Anne frowned. “I hope they’re okay,” she said. “What could have happened to them?”

  “What if it has something to do with the fire alarm?” I said. “After all, that’s the last time we spotted them.”

  “Do you think they pulled it?” asked Mary Anne.

  “They’ve never caused trouble before,” said Kristy. “They wouldn’t pull it just for fun.”

  “Maybe they thought they saw a fire,” I said.

  Kristy snapped her fingers. “I just remembered something,” she said. “On that videotape — the one from the camera by the fire alarm? — guess who I saw right before the alarm went off and the kids ran by? Mr. Morton. He looked pretty upset, too. I didn’t think much of it. He’s the mall manager, and he’s always showing up on the tapes.”

  “But you said you used to see him talking to those kids all the time,” I said. “And we agree something’s not quite right about him. What about the problem with the funds at the mall — that whole bankruptcy thing?”

  “I wonder if he was talking to them that day,” said Kristy slowly.

  “What if he was?” asked Mary Anne. “He’s a nice guy, right? So, he talks to people at the mall. Why should that mean anything bad?”

  Kristy sat down on the floor, and I stood up and took her place pacing around the room. I was thinking about Mr. Morton. I went over everything we knew about him. He had only managed the mall for a few months. He was a really nice, likable guy. He was willing to do all kinds of things to improve the mall and its image. The mall was in financial trouble.

  “I wonder if —” Mary Anne began, but I interrupted her.

  “Whoa!” I said. “I think I just figured it all out!” I stood stock still next to my desk. Mary Anne and Kristy looked shocked. “Well, maybe not all of it,” I went on. “But listen. I think I know what’s going on. You know how everybody says Mr. Morton is such a nice guy? Well, that’s the problem.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Kristy.

  “What’s wrong with being a nice guy?” asked Mary Anne.

  “I’ll tell you,” I said. I started to pace again, aroun
d and around. Past the desk, past the closet, past the bureau, past the bed. Then I started talking fast. “That’s how he got himself — and the mall — into such a mess. He’s such a nice guy that he can’t say no to anybody. He wants to do everything he can to help the mall and the community. So he says yes to benefit concerts, special discount programs, and even day-care centers.”

  “But those are all good things,” said Mary Anne, looking confused.

  “I agree.” I stopped pacing and stood near my current favorite poster (it’s a photo of a basset hound with a funny-sad expression). “But they cost money. In order to do those things, Mr. Morton must have run through all the money in the mall’s account. Then maybe he started to, well, ‘misappropriate funds,’ like it said in the newspaper, to cover up his mistakes.”

  “Ohhh!” said Mary Anne. She was beginning to look excited.

  “And then,” I went on, “it came out that the mall was close to bankruptcy. So he couldn’t play around with the accounts anymore. But he didn’t want to start saying ‘no’ to everybody. So then —”

  “So then he started stealing things!” said Kristy, jumping to her feet. “All those big things, the camcorders and the treadmills and the wide-screen TVs!”

  “Oh, no!” cried Mary Anne, putting her hand over her mouth.

  “Oh, yes!” said Kristy. “Stacey, you’re a genius! This explains everything. Mr. Morton must be the one stealing that stuff, because he’s the only one who would know how to get around security to do it. He’d know how to dodge them on their rounds, and even how to avoid the video cameras so he wouldn’t show up on tape.”

  “He couldn’t have stolen all those big things by himself, though,” said Mary Anne.

  “No, he must have people working for him. People who would know where to sell the stuff, and people to help him take it. Like that guy you ran into in the stockroom, Stacey.” Kristy was really excited now, and so was I. Mary Anne just looked dismayed. She can’t stand to think the worst of anybody, even if it’s somebody she barely knows, such as Mr. Morton.

  “The guy in the stockroom,” I mused, remembering that scary, masked face. Then I had a terrible thought. “Maybe those three kids are working for him, too!” I said.

  “Oh, no,” said Kristy. “He wouldn’t do that. Too risky. I mean, that’s really serious business, getting kids involved in a crime.”

  “But what if,” Mary Anne said slowly, “what if the kids found out what he was doing?” She glanced up at me, and I saw how frightened she looked.

  For about thirty seconds, there wasn’t a sound in my room. Mary Anne sat staring at her hands. I looked at the basset hound poster, without really seeing it. And Kristy plopped down on the bed again and just sat there, frowning.

  “If they found out,” I said finally, “I guess Mr. Morton would be pretty scared. Maybe pretty angry, too.”

  “He’d have to do whatever it took to keep them quiet,” said Kristy in a low tone.

  “And now they’re missing,” Mary Anne whispered.

  There was another silence.

  “Maybe they’re just hiding,” I said hopefully, after a minute. “Washington Mall is huge, but they probably know every inch of it by now, if they really are living there. I bet they’d know how to stay hidden.”

  “That’s right,” said Mary Anne, grabbing at the chance to feel optimistic. “They’re probably hiding.”

  “I hope they are,” said Kristy. She stood up, and suddenly she looked full of energy. “But I’m not counting on it. It’s time we found out. We have to get to the mall right away!”

  “I’ll call Charlie and see if he can give us a ride,” Kristy said.

  “Who else can help us?” I asked. “We need all the people we can get.”

  “I bet Claudia’s back from art class by now,” said Mary Anne. “And maybe Jessi can come. Mal and Shannon are both sitting, though, and I doubt Logan is done with his tryout yet.”

  We got busy making phone calls, and before long Claudia and Jessi had joined us at my house. Two minutes later, Charlie (good old Charlie) had pulled up in Watson’s van. He honked the horn and we came running out.

  On the way to the mall, Kristy explained everything.

  “Don’t you think you should consider going to the police?” asked Charlie. “This sounds serious. I mean, there are three kids missing.”

  Kristy thought for a minute. “Okay, how’s this?” she asked. “I don’t really want to get the police involved unless we have to. I think it would scare those kids if they saw cops searching the mall, and they might hide themselves even better. How about if we give ourselves a deadline?” She glanced at her watch. “It’s three-thirty now. If we don’t find them by five-thirty, we’ll call the police.”

  “Good idea,” said Jessi. “I have to be home no later than six, anyway. I left Becca with Aunt Cecelia, on the condition that I would get home in time to help with dinner. So, let’s synchronize our watches, like on TV.”

  “Okay.” Claudia checked her Swatch and announced that she was already synchronized with Kristy. The rest of us made sure the time on our watches matched theirs.

  Charlie pulled up at the mall entrance. “I’ll drop you off and go park,” he said. “I’ll catch up to you, wherever you are. I want to help find those kids.”

  We ran into the mall and gathered near the main escalators. “I’ve been thinking,” I said. “We have to be careful about this search. I mean, we want to find the kids as soon as possible, but we don’t want to scare them off. Also, we don’t want to make anybody suspicious, especially Mr. Morton.”

  “That’s right,” said Kristy. “Plus, we don’t know if anybody else at the mall is working with him. So we can’t assume that anyone is trustworthy.”

  “We have to work fast, and work quietly,” said Jessi. “No problem. Should we split up into teams?”

  “That’s a good idea,” I replied. “We do have a lot of ground to cover. How about if Claud and I start on the top floor and work our way down, while you and Kristy and Mary Anne work from the main floor up?”

  “Okay,” said Kristy. “What are we waiting for? Let’s go for it! We can check in with each other at Critters in, say, half an hour?”

  The search was on. I felt as if I were in one of those adventure movies in which the hero has to find a bomb within one hour, or else it will blow up the whole city. You know, the kind of movie where they show a clock ticking away the minutes, and you feel more and more tense as the minute hand moves nearer and nearer to midnight? Well, in our case the minute hand was moving nearer to five-thirty. Here’s how our search went:

  Three-forty: Claud and I headed into the Cheese Outlet, and Mary Anne, Jessi, and Kristy hopped onto the escalator. In the cheese store, Mr. Williams was glad to see us and wanted us to taste some free samples. “We’re in kind of a hurry,” said Claud. “But thanks.” We glanced around the store, but didn’t dare ask Mr. Williams if he had seen the kids. What if he were working with Mr. Morton?

  Three-fifty: We checked the upstairs bathrooms. Charlie showed up just in time to look into the men’s room. Report: no kids, but some sign of them. Charlie found a comb on the sink in the men’s room, and in the women’s room I found a towel — the stolen one? — draped over one of the stalls to dry. “We could be right behind them!” I said. “Let’s keep moving.”

  Four-ten: After searching through Stuff ’n Nonsense, the candy store (I had to drag Claud away from the jelly-bean display), and Soundscapes, we were beginning to feel frustrated. Since the bathrooms, we had seen no sign of the kids.

  Four-fifteen: We met up in front of Critters. Nobody else had seen any sign of the kids, either. We decided to re-form our teams and stay on the bottom three floors, where we’d spotted the kids most often. Jessi and I went down to the BookCenter, while Claud stopped in at the Artist’s Exchange and Mary Anne visited her boss at Critters. Charlie and Kristy moved ahead to the food court, where we would all meet again in ten minutes.

  I cru
ised up and down the aisles in the BookCenter, peering over displays and checking behind the puppet theatre. “Jessi!” I hissed at one point. I gestured toward a small blonde kid who I could only see from the back. He — or she — was nestled into one of the reading corners with a book. Jessi crept along one of the shelves, trying to remain hidden, until she could check out the kid’s face. Just as she looked back at me and shook her head, I felt someone behind me.

  “Can I help you girls?” asked Ms. Munro. “Aren’t you friends of Mallory’s?”

  “No — I mean yes — I mean, we are friends, but we don’t need any help, thank you,” I stammered. “We’re, uh, just looking.” It wasn’t a lie. We were just looking. We weren’t looking for books, though.

  Four-twenty-five: We met at a table in the food court. “Nothing to report,” said Claudia. “The Artist’s Exchange was pretty empty.”

  “Same with Critters,” said Mary Anne. “I did spot Mr. Morton on my way down here, but he was on the up escalator. He looked kind of preoccupied.”

  “We have something to report,” said Kristy. “According to this guy Harry, who works at Casa Grande with Logan, somebody used the kitchen again last night.”

  “So the kids are still around!” said Mary Anne. “What a relief.”

  “We still have to find them, though,” said Kristy. “And they seem to be lying low. Charlie and I are going to check the second-floor bathrooms next.”

  “I’m going to go back upstairs to Cinema World,” said Jessi. “Maybe I can find out if anybody slept there last night, if I ask carefully.”

  “Mary Anne and I can check the women’s room down here,” said Claud. “Although I doubt we’ll find anything there. This is beginning to seem hopeless! How will we ever find three kids in this huge mall?”

  “We just have to keep trying,” I said. “I want to stop in and see April. How about if we meet by the fountain in a few minutes?”