Stacey and the Mystery of Stoneybrook

Toaster!”

  Things got pretty silly for awhile. When the popcorn was done they trooped into the living room to play Chutes and Ladders. The game wasn’t half over when Karen started up again.

  “I heard Ben Brewer walking around last night. His footsteps went up and down, up and down. He was pacing. He was restless. Finally he stopped and sat down. I heard the bed creak. Then he took off his boots. The first one dropped. Boom. Then the second.”

  And just as she said “second,” there was a huge clap of thunder. Everybody jumped, and Karen shrieked and leapt into Kristy’s lap. She’d even scared herself that time. Her Ben Brewer stories are about the ghost who supposedly lives on the third floor. (Proof? Boo-Boo won’t go above the second floor. Animals are sensitive to ghostly presences, according to Karen.) Karen’s stories are mostly old hat by now. But the storm’s timing had sure contributed to the drama of this one.

  Thunder was really booming then, and the yard outside was lit up by lightning. It was pouring. Kristy had all four kids piled into her lap, and they just sat and hugged each other and watched the storm. Finally the thunder and lightning moved on, though the wind and rain didn’t seem to let up much.

  “Okay, time for bed, you guys,” Kristy said. “David Michael, Andrew, and Karen, brush your teeth and get your pajamas on. I’ll put Emily Michelle down and then come and read to all of you.”

  Kristy knew that the kids were a little spooked, but it had gotten late while they waited for the storm to pass, so she figured they’d be sleepy.

  No such luck. She read five chapters of Ozma of Oz (they were going through all the Oz books, since they’d just seen the movie), and everyone was still wide awake. Then she sang some lullabies with them. “All the Pretty Little Ponies” was Karen’s favorite. The Ghostbusters song, “Who Ya Gonna Call” was David Michael’s. Finally Kristy tucked them all in, sleepy or not, and told them it was bedtime. She went downstairs and sat on the couch to read.

  “Kristee-e-e-e-e, I need a drink of wa-a-a-a-ter.” That was David Michael. He was in a whiny mood. Kristy brought the water, and he made her stay while he drank it. She waited, then closed the door to his room almost all the way and went back downstairs.

  “Kristy?”

  Karen was standing at the door of the living room. “I can hear Ben again,” she said. “He’s walking around.”

  “It’s just the wind,” said Kristy. “Go back to bed, Karen.”

  Then Emily called, and of course Andrew wanted a drink, too. Kristy thought they’d never go to sleep. But finally the house was quiet. Quiet, that is, except for the wind rattling the shutters outside.

  Kristy found that she couldn’t concentrate on her book. In fact, she couldn’t stop thinking about the old house and the experiences Charlotte and I had there.

  She wandered into the kitchen and ate the last handful of popcorn. She washed out the bowl. She opened the refrigerator door, looked inside, and closed it without having any idea of what she’d seen in there. Then she tiptoed upstairs to check on her brothers and sisters. Everybody was fast asleep. Kristy figured that that was a good thing, except that all of a sudden she felt kind of lonely. (I think she was at what my mom would call “loose ends.”)

  Finally, Kristy ended up downstairs in the library. (That’s right. Watson’s mansion is so big that there’s a whole room just for his books.) The library at Watson’s is a cozy place, with big red leather armchairs, lamps that look like they’re made out of stained glass, and, of course, hundreds — maybe thousands — of books.

  Kristy looked around and spotted a big carton in the corner. She remembered Watson telling her that he’d just bought some old books at an estate sale. She also remembered him saying that some of the books were about the history of Stoneybrook. She was hoping that maybe she could find something out about that old house!

  She pulled a couple of books out of the box and took a look at them. They were kind of dusty, and they smelled like they’d been in someone’s basement for awhile. The covers were cracked and the edges of the pages were yellowed. She opened one of them. Right away she spotted the name Brewer. Wow! Watson’s family really had lived in Stoneybrook for a long time.

  She kept reading, just standing there by the cardboard box. There were other names she recognized, and places, too. Of course, there was no record of her old neighborhood: That whole area had just been woods and farmland at one time. But she found a chapter on the building of the library, and one on what the great blizzard of ’88 had done to Stoneybrook. (That actually sounded kind of fun — people could walk out onto the snow from their second-story windows!)

  Kristy took an armload of books over to one of the armchairs. She switched on a lamp, made herself comfortable, and settled in to read. The storm still blew outside, making the doors shake. Rain splattered against the windows. But Kristy was lost in “Olde Stoneybrooke.”

  She couldn’t find a thing about the old house, though. She skimmed through each of the books, looking for information on the turreted mansion. Then she went back and paged through each one again. There was absolutely nothing.

  She was about to give up when a crumbly piece of paper fell out of the book she was holding. She unfolded it carefully, but even so, it ripped a little along the crease. It was very, very old. It was a map.

  It looked hand-drawn, and the locations were all hand-lettered. She turned it this way and that, trying to figure out how it related to the town she knew. It was a very early map of Stoneybrook. Only a scattering of houses were shown, along with a bank and a church. The church was still there, and so was … the house itself. Kristy had finally located “our” old house. At first she couldn’t quite make out the writing in the area in and around the house. What did it say?

  “Oh, my lord,” said Kristy out loud. (That’s one of Claud’s favorite expressions, and we’ve all picked it up.)

  From what she could see on this incredibly old map, Kristy figured out that the entire town of Stoneybrook had been built over ancient burial grounds. And “our” house was built on — oh, my lord — the most sacred spot of all!

  Kristy noticed that the map was shaking. Then she figured out that it was her hands that were shaking. She let go of the map and it drifted to the floor. Kristy thought again about all the things that Charlotte and I had told her that day. She was scared out of her wits.

  She decided not to read another word in those books. She decided to put the map away and never look at it again. She decided she wished that her mom and Watson would come home SOON.

  Kristy got up and turned off the lamp she’d been using. She picked up all the books and brought them over to the carton in the corner. As she packed them away, she suddenly got the strangest feeling that she was being watched (she told me this later). There was a definite presence in the room. She didn’t want to turn around, so she just kept packing the books into the box, very carefully. The presence was still there. Finally, she knew she had to turn and look. She wheeled around quickly and saw Sam and Charlie just standing there in the doorway, grinning and making horrible faces at her. She screamed and fell into the nearest chair. Sam and Charlie didn’t stop laughing for at least half an hour.

  I was walking down Fifth Avenue, past Rockefeller Center. Gary Rockman was running after me, calling my name over and over.

  “Stacey,” he said. “Stacey, please come to me!”

  I woke up with a start, back in my regular old bed in Stoneybrook. It was morning. Gary Rockman was nowhere in sight, but someone was calling my name. It was Charlotte, and she didn’t sound too good.

  I went into the guest room. Charlotte was in bed, the covers tangled around her legs. She looked flushed and hot. I put my hand on her forehead. She was burning up!

  “Stacey, my throat hurts. I feel awful.” Charlotte looked awful. A couple of tears ran down her cheeks. “I miss my mommy,” she said.

  “I know, Charlotte, but don’t worry. We’ll take good care of you.” I ran for the thermometer, and while Charlotte held it
in her mouth, I went to find my mom. She came upstairs with me and we took a look at the thermometer. A hundred and two degrees. Charlotte was definitely sick. Mom and I glanced at each other. I knew she was feeling as bad as I was for the way we’d played down Charlotte’s earlier symptoms. I’d been so sure it was just that Charlotte was nervous and homesick.

  Charlotte’s parents had left a list of emergency numbers. I checked it to see which doctor we should call, and it said she went to Dr. Dellenkamp. Mom went downstairs to call for an appointment. I helped Charlotte get up, wash her face, and get dressed. She moved slowly. Finally we all piled into the car and drove to the doctor’s office.

  When we walked into the waiting room, we could see right away that it was going to be awhile before we saw the doctor. There was a woman with a crying baby, another mother trying to convince her toddler to sit and play quietly with some blocks, and a girl about my age who was sitting there alone, kind of hunched over. She looked like she had a stomachache. Mom decided that she might as well get the grocery shopping done, since I was there to wait with Charlotte, so she took off.

  Charlotte and I sat down on the couch. It was kind of an ugly couch, made of that fake leather stuff that sticks to your legs when you try to get up. Why do waiting rooms always have such ugly furniture? Charlotte put her head in my lap and closed her eyes. I stroked her hair. It’s the worst feeling when you’re sick and you have to be anywhere but home in bed.

  Charlotte seemed comfortable, so I looked at the table by the couch to see what magazines they had. Oh, boy. I had a choice between a July 1979 Reader’s Digest and this month’s Highlights for Children. I picked up Highlights, just to see if it had changed any since I used to look at it in my pediatrician’s office. Nope. There were good old Goofus and Gallant, same as ever. Even as a kid I’d thought that Gallant was kind of a goody-goody.

  I was still paging through the magazine when the outer door opened and the most gorgeous guy walked in, holding the hand of a little boy who must have been his brother. I stared. Blond curly hair, blue eyes … he reminded me of Scott, this lifeguard I’d had a crush on once in Sea City, New Jersey. He looked back at me, and then I saw his gaze fall to the magazine I was holding. I dropped it like a hot potato. He smiled at me, as if to say he understood.

  I was totally humiliated. Luckily, the receptionist called Charlotte then, and I went with her into the examining room, still blushing.

  The examination didn’t take long. Dr. Dellenkamp knew what it was right away.

  “Tonsillitis again?” Charlotte wailed.

  “That’s right, Charlotte. Back on the old penicillin,” the doctor said. “We may have to do something about those tonsils at some point,” she said to me quietly as Charlotte hopped off the table. “But for now, since her parents are away, we’ll just hit the germs again with this.” She wrote out a prescription.

  “Charlotte has trouble taking pills, so we usually give her liquid penicillin. She should take a teaspoon of it four times a day. She’ll feel better pretty quickly — in a day or so, I’d say.”

  The doctor put her arm around Charlotte as we walked out. “I know you must miss your parents, but you be a good patient for Stacey. She’ll take care of you just fine,” she said. She winked at me as we said good-bye.

  My mom was waiting for us. Fortunately, the gorgeous guy was busy keeping his little brother’s hands out of the aquarium, so I was able to dash out of the waiting room without meeting his eyes again.

  We stopped by the drugstore to pick up Charlotte’s prescription. As soon as she saw the bottle she started to … well, she started to whine. There’s no nicer way to put it.

  “I hate that stuff,” she moaned. “It tastes so awful that I want to throw up when I take it. Do I have to take it? Oh, I want my mommy. It’s not fair!”

  I knew how she felt, but really. Her whining was a little hard to take, especially since she didn’t let up the whole way home.

  When we got to our house, I went into the kitchen for a spoon. Charlotte stayed in the living room, where she’d thrown herself on the couch. When I walked in, she turned over so that her face was buried in the pillows.

  “I won’t take it,” she said. “I’d rather be sick.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Charlotte, look. It says ‘New Cherry Flavor’ on the bottle. Maybe it’ll taste better than last time.” I opened the bottle and sniffed the liquid inside. Oh, ew. It did smell vile. There’s nothing worse than that fake “cherry” flavor, unless it’s phony banana. Yick.

  “It smells okay, Charlotte,” I lied. “Come on, all you have to take is a teaspoon. If you hold your nose, you’ll hardly taste it. And I’ll make you an ice-cream soda with ginger ale. You can drink that to take away the bad taste.” I was bribing her, and I knew it. This wasn’t the right way to go about getting that medicine down her throat.

  “No,” she said flatly. Oh, well. My bribe hadn’t worked anyway. She burrowed deeper into the couch cushions. This was really getting frustrating. I tried not to feel angry at Charlotte. She wasn’t feeling well, she missed her parents, she was worried about her grandpa, and she was stuck in a strange house. I guess I might have felt cranky and uncooperative, too, if I’d been her.

  If I were her…. Suddenly I had a brainstorm. Maybe taking just a teaspoon full of nasty medicine wouldn’t seem all that terrible if she could see what I had to go through every day, just to stay healthy. It just might work.

  “Charlotte, you know I have diabetes, right?” I knew she knew, because I’ve discussed my diabetes with Dr. Johanssen, in front of Charlotte.

  Charlotte kind of grunted, but she didn’t budge from her “nest” in the couch.

  “Want me to show you the medicine I have to take?” I asked. “We’ll forget about yours for now.”

  That got her moving. She followed me upstairs and I opened the desk drawer where I keep all my equipment. I tried to explain a little bit about diabetes and why it makes me sick and how insulin helps to keep it in check. I’m not sure how well she followed me. She’d probably never heard of a “pancreas” before.

  “I didn’t used to have to do this, but since I haven’t been feeling too well lately, now I have to check my glucose level a few times a day,” I said. “All I do is prick my finger, like this —”

  Charlotte gasped as I pricked my finger and squeezed out a tiny drop of blood. I wiped it onto something called a test strip and put the strip into a little machine. In a minute the number came up. 110. That was just about normal for me at this time of day. Charlotte was fascinated.

  “Knowing what my number is helps me make sure to take the right amount of insulin. When I’m ready to take my insulin, I load up this syringe and give myself a shot.” I wasn’t going to show her how I did that. It might really scare her.

  The shots don’t hurt me anymore — I’m so used to them by now. But to someone else, especially someone Charlotte’s age, it might be frightening.

  I told her some more about what it meant to be a diabetic. Like how this was something I’d have to deal with every day for the rest of my life. And how I had to be extremely careful about what I ate, and why. Charlotte’s eyes got rounder and rounder. She’d had no idea of what I went through just to control my illness.

  “Shots every single day? Oh, Stacey, you’re so brave,” she said when I’d finished explaining everything.

  “Not really, Charlotte. This is just how things are for me. I don’t have any choice in the matter,” I said. “Anyway, it feels good to take care of myself.”

  Well, after all that, it was no trick at all to get Charlotte to take her medicine. She barely made a face as she swallowed it down.

  “Good girl,” I said. “Now, let’s get you into bed.”

  She changed into her pajamas while I put a clean pillowcase on her pillow. I always think it feels good to have a fresh pillowcase to rest your head on when you’re sick. I also set up her room for the day. I brought in our little portable TV and stocked the shelves with mo
re games, drawing paper and crayons, and books.

  While Charlotte got settled into bed, I went down to the kitchen to make her a snack. I set up a tray with that ice-cream soda I’d promised her. When I’m sick, my mom always puts a flower in a little vase on my dinner tray, so I did that, too. Charlotte deserved to be spoiled a little; just think, she’d been getting sick all that time and nobody had paid attention to her complaints. I got myself a glass of ice water and took the tray upstairs.

  Charlotte and I spent the whole day in her room, playing every game I had. Yes, that does include War, if you’re wondering. We also watched TV and I read to her for awhile before she dropped off for a nap. While she slept, I just stayed in the room and read to myself. It was a peaceful afternoon.

  That night, Charlotte called her parents. She wanted to let them know that she was sick but getting better. She also wanted to check on her grandfather. She talked to her mom for just a few minutes, and by the end of the call she was beaming. Her grandpa’s operation had gone very well and he was feeling much better. The Johanssens would be back home on Thursday, just as they’d planned. Charlotte was definitely on the road to recovery.

  By Sunday morning, Charlotte was feeling much better. Penicillin does work fast. It hadn’t been easy getting her to take her medicine on schedule — she still hated it — but at least she had taken most of it.

  Charlotte came downstairs for breakfast, and Mom made special sugar-free blueberry pancakes. Yum. I love them because they’re so good on their own that I don’t even miss being able to have maple syrup. Charlotte ate a big stack of them. She was definitely better.

  But Dr. Dellenkamp had said that even if she was feeling all right, Charlotte should take it easy on Sunday and Monday. She wasn’t supposed to go to school until Tuesday.

  Tuesday seemed a long way off. I was sick of playing War, sick of being Professor Plum in Clue, and very sick of TV. I was even sick of reading Charlotte’s Web.

  What were we going to do all day? I think Charlotte was just as tired as I was of being cooped up, especially now that she was feeling more normal.