“He planned everything. Sent the notes, fiddled with the train controls so that it almost jumped the track, planted smoke bombs in the vents. And his plan almost succeeded.”
“He thought Jane Atlantic would see the ‘murder’ and investigate. Her big scoop would be about how Ronald Pierce had stolen the screenplay — and murdered the real author,” I said slowly.
Mr. Masters nodded. “He was going to let Ronald suffer through an arrest and trial, then come back after the sentencing and claim that he’d had amnesia from the fall. All along, he thought Ms. Atlantic had seen what happened. He’d mistaken you, Stacey, for her. That’s when things began to go wrong for Channing.”
“Wow,” said Abby. “Cool. Good work, Stace.”
Stacey rolled her eyes.
“Going after Daniel was a last-ditch, desperate attempt to get to Ronald,” Mr. Masters went on. “Channing swears he only wanted to scare Ronald, that he never would have hurt Daniel.” Mr. Masters’s mouth grew thin. “But from what I saw when we caught Channing, I’m not so sure.”
“What happens to him now?” asked Stacey.
“He’s being held for psychiatric observation,” said Mr. Masters. “Then we’ll see.”
“And Mr. Pierce?” I prompted him.
“We’re going to give story credit to Mr. Channing and Mr. Pierce. Mr. Channing will be paid appropriately.”
“Good thing,” I heard Abby mutter. “He’s going to need it for lawyers.”
“Mr. Pierce will keep teaching, but his screenwriting career is over.”
I nodded, satisfied.
Mr. Masters stood up. “And that’s it.” He smiled. “If someone had submitted this trip to me as a movie idea, I would have said it was too crazy to be believed. Shows you what I know.”
* * *
We emerged from the limo and cameras flashed.
“Who’re they?” I heard someone ask.
“Stars,” a different voice replied.
I hid a smile. We were just baby-sitters, but we were enjoying star treatment, including a ride in the director’s limo. Stacey, Abby, and I walked into the theater with Rock Harding — and Derek, Nicky, Greg, David Michael, Linny, James, and Buddy.
“Wave,” said Derek. “Smile.”
We looked at him. He was the expert. We waved and smiled.
I enjoyed it.
Maybe, I thought, as we settled into our places and the theater grew dark and quiet, I’ll be a movie director someday. I liked the idea. There would be lots of people to boss around, and creating the special effects would be super. Mal could write. Stacey could be the financial manager. Claudia could design sets and costumes. Dawn could cater. Abby could manage the stunts. Maybe Logan could help. Jessi could be one of the stars. And I would make Shannon and Mary Anne executive producers.
The more I thought about the idea, the better I liked it. As the title of the movie, Night Train to Charleston, came up on the screen, I imagined all our names up there — with my name at the top as the director.
Yes, definitely. The Baby-sitters Club forever, I thought, and settled back to enjoy the movie.
The author gratefully acknowledges
Nola Thacker
for her help in
preparing this manuscript.
About the Author
ANN MATTHEWS MARTIN was born on August 12, 1955. She grew up in Princeton, New Jersey, with her parents and her younger sister, Jane.
There are currently over 176 million copies of The Baby-sitters Club in print. (If you stacked all of these books up, the pile would be 21,245 miles high.) In addition to The Baby-sitters Club, Ann is the author of two other series, Main Street and Family Tree. Her novels include Belle Teal, A Corner of the Universe (a Newbery Honor book), Here Today, A Dog’s Life, On Christmas Eve, Everything for a Dog, Ten Rules for Living with My Sister, and Ten Good and Bad Things About My Life (So Far). She is also the coauthor, with Laura Godwin, of the Doll People series.
Ann lives in upstate New York with her dog and her cats.
Copyright © 1997 by Ann M. Martin
Cover art by Hodges Soileau
All rights reserved. Published by Scholastic Inc. SCHOLASTIC, THE BABY-SITTERS CLUB, and associated logos are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Scholastic Inc.
The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher. For information regarding permission, write to Scholastic Inc., Attention: Permissions Department, 557 Broadway, New York, NY 10012.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
First edition, June 1997
e-ISBN 978-0-545-79332-2
Ann M. Martin, Kristy and the Mystery Train
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