The Midnight Mystery

  “That will be a good project for a rainy day,” Henry said. “Now, let’s just finish up a couple more things in here. We’ll think about lunch after the clocks sound at noon.”

  Benny heard his stomach rumble. “I already have a clock inside me that says it’s lunchtime. If we’re quiet, you can hear it.”

  But the Aldens heard something else.

  Tap. Tap. Tap.

  “Where’s that coming from?” Jessie asked.

  Tap. Tap. Tap.

  “It’s going faster,” Violet said. “What’s on the other side of this wall?”

  Jessie scrunched her forehead. “Either the big coat closet or the entryway, I’m not sure. Let’s go find out. It’s the same sound we heard last night, but now it’s not windy out. It must be something else.”

  The children left the library. The tapping sounded closer.

  Henry pointed to the closet door. “It’s coming from in there,” he whispered. “See? There’s light coming from under the door.”

  Jessie went up and knocked.

  “I’ve got my hands fall!” a voice answered. “Just push if you need to come in here.”

  When Henry opened the door, the children found themselves facing Mr. Percy. He was huddled over a small table in the closet. He held a tiny hammer in his hand. On the table lay a bent iron hinge next to an open jewelry box, with a circle of dancers in the middle of it.

  “What is it?” he asked without turning around. “This is delicate work. The hinge to one of Alice Putter’s jewelry boxes is bent, and I mean to unbend it. Dust will get into the parts if I can’t get the top to fit tight. What do you need in here?”

  “Nothing,” Henry said. “We heard tapping and wondered where it was coming from. I guess it was you with that little hammer.”

  Violet stepped closer to Mr. Percy. “That hinge is so small. Is it hard to tap it into shape without breaking it?”

  Mr. Percy looked at Violet. For a second, he almost seemed as if he were going to show her how to fix the hinge. “Not if you know what you’re doing and you don’t have four children barging in. Yesterday, it was dogs, now it’s kids. Can’t a man work in peace around here?”

  “We’ll be quiet and still,” Violet said in her sweet way. “I would just like to see how you fix things.”

  Mr. Percy pushed his magnifying glasses up on his bald head. “There’s not enough light for a man to work around here with four other people looking on,” he grumbled.

  Benny took off his hat to show Mr. Percy. “Know what? You could borrow my flashlight hat. I made it by myself ... well, almost by myself. Violet helped me sew on the mirror.”

  Mr. Percy put his glasses back on his nose. “Hmm.” He studied the flashlight hat. Now he didn’t seem in such a big rush to send the Aldens away. “Hmm,” he repeated. He handed Benny back the hat. “I don’t need to borrow it. I suppose you can stay.”

  “Thank you,” Violet said. “I would love to watch what you’re doing. I made a crayon saver for the invention convention. I think I need a thinner, longer screw to go inside the lipstick tube I’m using to hold the crayon stub. The screws from Grandfather’s toolbox are too big. It would be fun to have lots of supplies and tools like you have.”

  Mr. Percy didn’t skip a beat with his tapping. “Well, why would a child have tools like mine? They cost a pretty penny.”

  Benny reached into the pocket of his jeans. “I have a pretty penny.” He hoped Mr. Percy would get the joke. “Here.”

  Before Mr. Percy could take it, the penny rolled off the table into an open cardboard box on the floor.

  Benny bent down to find his coin. “Hey why is this here?” he asked. “It’s one of the invention boxes from the garage.”

  Mr. Percy stepped in front of Benny. “Leave that be!” He reached into his own pocket, then put a penny on the table. “Take this one. Now we’re even. I don’t want anyone going through that box or anything else in here.”

  Benny’s mouth fell open, but nothing came out.

  “No, now you all have to leave. I need to finish with this,” Mr. Percy said. “You’re blocking the light with all your heads and hats and such.”

  The Aldens turned to go out.

  Violet looked back. She hoped Mr. Percy would help her with her invention another time when he wasn’t so busy.

  But Mr. Percy was busy. He cut a long piece of duct tape from the roll in his toolbox. He quickly closed the cardboard box and taped it shut. The box was sealed tight. Benny wasn’t going to get back his penny, that was for sure.

  “Boy, Mr. Percy works at the strangest times and strangest places around here,” Henry said as he walked back to the garage with the other children.

  “I know,” Jessie said. “I wonder if he was working and making tapping sounds just like now that first night we were here. Don’t forget he told Ms. Putter that he heard the scarecrow squeaking during the night.”

  “Maybe he just thinks about fixing pretty things and forgets the time,” Violet said.

  “Sometimes if I get ideas when I wake up at night, I want to get up and draw them right away.”

  “Then you need a flashlight hat,” Benny said, turning his off.

  The Aldens returned to the garage to tell Martha they were going to lunch.

  Martha looked up from the papers in her hand. She was counting out loud: “... nine ... ten ... eleven ... twelve. This is the third time I’ve had a box missing. How many inventions did you bring over to the main house?”

  “Eleven,” Henry answered. “I counted them.”

  “They all had the forms attached, too,” Violet said. “I matched and counted every one.”

  Martha looked over Violet’s shoulder. “Oh, Mr. Percy, there you are. What’s that box you have?”

  Mr. Percy walked past the Aldens, straight over to Martha. He handed her a cardboard box sealed with duct tape. “I found this in the house. Thought you might need it. Can’t imagine why the delivery truck dropped it off there.”

  Benny looked at Violet with wide eyes. “But, but ...” he whispered. “That’s the box my penny fell into. Only it didn’t have tape or anything.”

  Mr. Percy looked at Martha. “Well, the problem is solved.” He walked away.

  Martha checked her watch. “I’ll unpack this one after lunch. I have to get going someplace.”

  The children started walking back to the main house.

  “The problem isn’t solved,” Violet said. “Mr. Percy was nice to us until Benny tried to get his penny from that box. He knows we’re helping unpack the boxes. What difference would it make if we saw what was inside?”

  Henry nodded slowly. “All I can think is that Mr. Percy has something to hide.”

  CHAPTER 4

  A Curious Phone Call

  Benny kicked at the gravel as they continued walking back to the house. “I didn’t get my lucky penny,” he said. “Now it’s an unlucky penny.”

  As the children crossed the front yard, Ruff and Tumble ran to greet them.

  “Why are they outside?” Jessie asked. “Ms. Putter put them in the screen porch before she left.”

  Benny sat down on the porch steps. “Hey, you guys,” he said to Ruff and Tumble.

  “It’s lunchtime for you, too. Where’ve you been?”

  Jessie bent down to pet the dogs. “They got into the pond, I’d guess. They’re all wet. I wonder how they got loose.” She went to the main door. “I’m going to bring their dog dishes out to the porch so they can eat out here and not get the house all wet.”

  Ruff and Tumble tried to follow Jessie. They waddled over to her, ready to scoot inside where their food was.

  “Let’s bring our lunch out here, too,” Violet said. “I feel sorry for them.” She went over to the window. “Look, there’s poor Midnight indoors. She’ll be relieved that Ruff and Tumble have to stay on the porch.” Violet leaned closer to the partly open window, where Midnight sat, staring at the dogs. Then Violet spotted something strange. “Come here,” she
whispered to her sister and brothers.

  Peeking through the open window, the children saw Martha wandering in the entryway. She had a book in her hand, and she was reading aloud from it.

  “Half of me is part of the day.

  Half of me is clear.

  Pick me up, then turn me down,

  For passing time to appear”

  Jessie motioned everyone away from the window. “It’s one of the riddles! The answer is an hourglass,” she whispered. “Martha must have come in the side door just now. Didn’t she say she had to be someplace? Let’s wait a little bit to see what she does.”

  They didn’t have to wait long. A minute after all the clocks stopped their noisy noontime sounds, Martha came out to the porch.

  “What are you kids doing here?” she asked. She was empty-handed, but the children saw something sticking out of her jacket pocket.

  Henry stepped forward. “We came to make our lunches. Would you like some, too? We would have asked you before, but we thought you said you were going somewhere.”

  “I was, but it was noon, so I ...” Martha didn’t finish. “I mean ... uh ... well, yes, noon is lunchtime.”

  Benny looked up at Martha. Maybe she would be friendlier if they all ate lunch together. “You can have one of my cookies from the cookie jar.”

  Martha hesitated before speaking. She seemed confused by all the Aldens standing there. “That won’t be necessary,” she said. “I usually eat lunch in town at the Red Rooster Diner. That’s where I’m going now.”

  The Aldens looked on as Martha headed to her car.

  “Maybe she doesn’t like cookies,” Benny said after Martha drove off. Then he thought about this. Who didn’t like cookies?

  “You know what’s stranger than turning down cookies?” Henry asked. “Martha said she came to the house because it was time for lunch. Then she said she eats at the Red Rooster Diner every day. She must have rushed over here for some other reason.”

  “Let’s eat,” Jessie said. “It’s twelve-ten. Too bad we were outside when the clocks sounded.” Jessie opened the door, then stood still, listening. “There’s that tapping sound again — and a phone ringing. I didn’t think there were any working phones in this house.”

  The other children stopped to listen. The tapping stopped, but the ringing didn’t.

  “We’d better answer that,” Jessie said, stepping forward.

  The ringing stopped, and a man’s voice came from the kitchen.

  “I guess you could say the inspiration struck at midnight,” the voice said. “I just need to put a few more pieces together. The surprise will be ready in time for the convention.”

  The Aldens heard footsteps. They weren’t sure whether to leave the house. When the oak door from the kitchen swung open, the children stood there like statues, facing Brad.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked. “Are you eavesdropping on my phone calls?”

  “No!” Jessie said. “We just came in to make lunch.”

  Brad stared at the children. “Well, come back in twenty minutes or so. I need to use the big kitchen table to finish a project. The light in the cellar is too dim for work.”

  Benny almost offered Brad his flashlight hat, but he didn’t think Brad would appreciate it.

  Henry was glad that he’d grown a couple inches over the summer. Just by standing tall, he could see over Brad’s shoulder into the kitchen. On the long kitchen table sat a large wooden crate. Sticking out from the crate was an object that Henry couldn’t quite identify — it looked like a curved frame of some kind. He couldn’t quite tell.

  Brad let the kitchen door swing shut, with the Aldens outside of it. Through the crack in the door, the children saw Brad push whatever it was down into the crate.

  The next thing the children heard was more banging, only louder this time.

  “He sure didn’t want us to see whatever he has inside that crate,” Henry said.

  “Yeow,” Midnight cried as she walked up to Benny and rubbed against his legs.

  Benny bent down to stroke the cat. “Midnight doesn’t want to wait for lunch, either.”

  Jessie looked up at the grandfather clock. “We have twenty minutes to wait. Let’s see if we can figure out a piece of that riddle Benny read.”

  “Good idea, Jessie,” Henry said. “That’ll pass the time. Speaking of time, the grandfather clock is about to chime on the half hour.”

  Sure enough, at the next click, the grandfather clock made a deep rich sound when the minute hand passed over the six.

  Violet stared up. “Look how beautiful the painted moon face is. Alice Putter was a very talented artist.”

  The children stood still, admiring the clock.

  Suddenly, Henry smacked his forehead. “The riddle! What are the words again?”

  “When the moon is in the sky,” Violet said. “No, that’s not it.”

  “When the moon is out at night,” Jessie guessed. “Is that the first line? Too bad Martha took the riddle book away so fast. Now I can’t remember the exact words.”

  “I know!” Benny announced. “When the moon’s at twelve o’clock.”

  Jessie hugged Benny. “That’s exactly it! Hey, what if the moon in the riddle isn’t a real moon? It could be something like the painted moon on the clock.” She looked at Benny’s excited face. “Do you remember the rest of it?”

  Benny took off his hat, as if he were thinking so hard he needed to let his thoughts fly out. But this time, the right words didn’t come.

  None of the Aldens could remember the whole riddle.

  “Here’s what I do remember,” Jessie said finally. “Ms. Putter mentioned that her grandmother used to write riddles to remind herself of her secret hiding places.

  What if this riddle leads to a hiding place?”

  Benny liked this idea very much. “Know what? Maybe the riddle tells the secret hiding place for the missing plan book!”

  Henry stared at the clock face almost as though it were going to talk back to him. He walked around one side of the clock, then the other. He rapped on the bottom panel to see if it opened. “I just have the feeling Jessie is right — that the moon in the riddle might not be a real moon. And I have a hunch something special happens when the clock strikes twelve. If only we could turn the hands back.”

  “We might harm it,” Violet said. “We’ll have to wait until Ms. Putter comes back.”

  Jessie had another thought. “Or we could ask Mr. Percy. Oh, never mind. He acted so strangely when Benny looked in that box, who knows what he might do if we told him we wanted to see inside the clock?”

  What if someone else hid the plan book, not Alice Putter?” Henry suggested. “After all, Isabel has all the others. Just this one is missing. Let’s just keep an eye out for the book and for who might have a reason to take it.”

  The Aldens thought about this as they went to the dining room to work. They moved dishes, plants, and knickknacks into a nearby closet to clear space for the inventions yet to come. The job didn’t take long, even after they searched around for the missing plan book.

  Jessie checked her watch. “Ten more minutes before we can use the kitchen. Let’s check in the library room. It could be behind other books or in the closets.”

  “I don’t see anything like one of those black plan books,” Henry said after he checked a magazine rack under the window. “Oh, good. Brad’s walking across the lawn. I guess we can use the kitchen now.”

  “Good thing,” Jessie said. “Ruff and Tumble are howling for their lunch out on the front porch.”

  When the Aldens came into the kitchen, they went straight to the refrigerator. Inside they found a bowl of tuna fish salad Ms.

  Putter had left for them, along with a loaf of sliced bread and a bowl of grapes and peaches. On top of the refrigerator was a cookie jar the shape and color of a shiny red apple. The Aldens liked apples just fine, but they loved cookies.

  In no time, they had set up their sandwich assembly line
the way they did back home.

  “What does inspiration mean?” Benny asked Jessie. “That’s what Brad said. ‘The inspiration struck at midnight.’”

  Jessie cut a sandwich and handed the plate to Benny so he could put pickles on it. “Inspiration means getting an idea,” Jessie said. “You know how sometimes you get good ideas about things when you wake up in the middle of the night? That could be what Brad meant.”

  Henry stopped pouring himself a glass of milk. “Or maybe Brad’s midnight idea came from the grandfather clock.”

  CHAPTER 5

  Noises at Midnight

  That night Jessie stopped the clocks in the bedroom so everyone would get a good night’s sleep. But it wasn’t so easy to stop Ruff and Tumble from snoring. Their snuffly, wheezy snores woke up Jessie. She lay there for a few minutes, listening. Finally, she rolled out of bed and tiptoed across the chilly floor. As long as I’m awake, she thought, I might as well visit the grandfather clock. “Stay!” she whispered when she heard the dogs stir.

  Of course, with Jessie up, Ruff and Tumble wanted to be up as well.

  “All right, all right,” Jessie whispered. “You can come downstairs, too. I hope it’s not midnight yet.” Was she too late to hear the grandfather clock go off? She went out to the hall with her flashlight.

  The steady tick of the clocks sounded so cozy, Jessie almost returned to bed. She aimed her flashlight at one of them. “Two minutes to midnight.”

  Like all dogs, Ruff and Tumble didn’t need a flashlight to find their way through the dim hallway. They scooted past Jessie, down the stairs, and out of sight. Jessie started after them, then froze. She was almost certain she had heard a woman’s voice coming from the first floor.

  Before Jessie could decide what to do, the house filled with gongs and chimes and cuckoos. It was midnight again.

  Jessie leaned cautiously against the banister and looked down. “It’s Martha!” she whispered to herself. She watched as Martha aimed her own flashlight up, down, and behind the chiming grandfather clock. Martha appeared to be mumbling something, but Jessie couldn’t hear what it was.