I also talked to her about the mystery. She didn’t have any suggestions to offer, though. “Know what, Dawn?” she asked. “I think the best thing for you to do at this point is put all your energy into planning that party your club is throwing. If it’s a great party, the kids will have so much fun they won’t even miss trick-or-treating.”
I wasn’t so sure, but I decided to follow her advice. I knew I’d also be keeping my eyes and ears open. I just couldn’t give up my hope that the robber might still be caught.
Anyway, about the Barretts and DeWitts:
Stacey told me she had no idea what to expect when she took a Saturday job with the two families. As far as she knew, Mr. DeWitt and Mrs. Barrett might still be planning to buy the house in Greenvale. After all, if it was the only house they could afford that met all their needs, it would be hard to give it up, whether or not the kids were happy about the decision. Still, Stacey was hoping, as she walked to the front door, that the day wouldn’t involve a trip to Greenvale to take another look at the house none of the kids wanted to live in. She crossed her fingers as she rang the doorbell.
Mrs. Barrett, looking gorgeous in a plain blue dress, let her in. “Welcome, Stacey,” she said, with a smile. “You’re just in time for our announcement.” She led Stacey into the living room, where the seven kids plus Franklin sat silently.
Stacey was amazed. “It was a weird sight,” she told me. “All those kids sitting together in one room, and nobody giggling or crying or pinching anybody else. It was, like, a historic event: probably the first and the last time they will sit so quietly in one place.”
Stacey took a seat next to Buddy, who gave her a tight smile. “What’s up?” she whispered to him.
“They said they had an announcement to make,” he whispered back. “We figure they’re going to tell us that we have to move to Greenvale, whether we like it or not.”
“Not!” hissed Lindsey, who was sitting beside Buddy with her arms folded across her chest.
Buddy nodded sadly. “Not is right,” he murmured.
Stacey glanced at Suzi, who looked as if she’d been crying a bit. Taylor and Madeleine sat on either side of her, wearing matching pouts.
Marnie and Ryan were way too young to understand what was going on, but they could sense the tension in the air. They sat quietly, too, Stacey said, as if they knew this wasn’t the time to make a fuss.
After a minute, Stacey saw Mr. DeWitt and Mrs. Barrett exchange a look. Then Franklin stood up and paced around the room for a moment, coming to a stop in front of the fireplace. He faced the roomful of children with his hands behind his back. “Well,” he said, “as we told you, we have an announcement to make, and I guess the time has come.” He paused for a second. “We’ve reached a decision about the Greenvale house.”
Stacey looked at Buddy. He was wincing, preparing for bad news.
“We’ve decided not to buy it,” Franklin went on. Stacey, who was still watching Buddy, saw his jaw drop. She also heard gasps from some of the other kids.
Mrs. Barrett stood up next to Mr. DeWitt. “We want you to know that your opinions count in big decisions like this. And if staying in Stoneybrook is so important to you, that’s exactly what we’ll do.”
Buddy finally found his voice. “Yay!” he shouted.
The other kids joined in the cheering. Mr. DeWitt and Mrs. Barrett just stood there grinning. Then, when the cheering died down, Franklin lost his smile. “The bad news,” he said, “is that it won’t be easy to find a place big enough for nine people. Not one we can afford, anyway.”
“We’ll all help!” said Buddy.
“Yeah!” agreed Lindsey. “We want to help.”
“Great,” said Franklin. “You can start today. We have a list of houses to look at.”
Mrs. Barrett held up a clipboard. “They’re all in Stoneybrook,” she said.
More cheers.
“And the van’s waiting outside,” said Franklin. “So let’s hit the road.”
Stacey described that day to me as a “marathon.” “We drove to places in Stoneybrook I’d never even seen before,” she said. They saw really ugly houses, and houses that were falling down, and houses that weren’t even big enough for two people to live in. Finally, Franklin pulled the van up in front of one near SMS. OPEN HOUSE TODAY said a sign out in front.
“This is pretty,” said Mrs. Barrett, gazing at the house. It was yellow, with green shutters. “And it looks big.”
The kids jumped out of the van and began eyeing the house. “It has a nice porch,” said Buddy.
“I like the little tower with all the windows,” said Lindsey. “Can that be my room?”
“Hold on, there,” said Franklin. “No need to argue over rooms until we find out more about this place.” He led the kids inside the house, and they scattered, running up and down the halls, checking out the kitchen, and racing up the stairs to see the bedrooms. Stacey scurried around trying to keep the kids together. A realtor dressed in a neat red blazer stood in the living room. She shot dirty looks at the kids as they ran past her, but Stacey ignored her. She had her hands full.
Mr. DeWitt and Mrs. Barrett paused to talk to the realtor about the price of the house, while Stacey rounded up the kids. By the time she had them all together, Franklin was ready to leave. His face, Stacey noticed, was looking very white.
“But Dad,” said Lindsey, “I like this place. It’s perfect for us!”
“That may be,” said her father, herding her and the other kids out the door. “But it’s way, way out of our price range.”
Once they were out of the house, Mrs. Barrett turned back to take one last look. “It’s such a pity, Franklin,” Stacey heard her say to Mr. DeWitt. “It really is a lovely place.”
“It sure is,” said Franklin, “but we just can’t afford it, and that’s that.”
Guess what happened at the next three houses they drove to? Pretty much the same thing. Each of the houses looked good at first (although Franklin did have some questions about the roof of the second one). But as soon as the kids started to fall in love with the house, they’d find out that it cost too much.
By midafternoon, Mr. DeWitt and Mrs. Barrett were looking extremely discouraged. “This is pathetic,” said Mrs. Barrett, cradling her head in her hands. “At this rate, we’ll never find a house — and we’ll never be able to get married.”
Franklin tried to comfort her, but Stacey could see that he was feeling dejected, too.
“Come on, Mom,” said Buddy. “We can do it!”
“Yeah, let’s keep looking,” said Lindsey. “There has to be a house out there for us!” Stacey was glad to see that the kids were still hopeful.
Just then, Marnie piped up from the back seat. “House!” she said.
“That’s right,” said her mother wearily. “House.”
“House!” Marnie said, more vehemently.
Stacey saw that Marnie was staring out the window. The van was stopped at an intersection near the elementary school, and sure enough, when Stacey checked to see what Marnie was looking at, there was a house with a FOR SALE sign in front.
“Hey, look!” said Buddy. He’d noticed the sign, too. “That house is for sale. And it’s a nice one.”
His mother turned to look. “It’s not on our list,” she said doubtfully.
“Can’t we just look at it?” begged Lindsey. “It’s right near the school. And it has a nice little front yard.”
“A very little front yard,” said Franklin. “But you’re right, it is nice. I guess it wouldn’t hurt to get out and take a look.” He parked the van and everybody piled out.
First, they walked around outside. “There’s no porch,” said Mrs. Barrett.
“That doesn’t matter,” said Suzi. “Who needs a dumb old porch?”
Stacey could already see that the kids liked this house a lot.
And when the families went inside, the kids fell in love. “This is great!” said Buddy, when the owner showed t
hem a basement bedroom.
“But there are only four bedrooms,” said Mrs. Barrett.
“No problem,” said Buddy. “I can double up with Taylor.”
“And Suzi and Madeleine and I can share a room,” added Lindsey.
Mr. DeWitt and Mrs. Barrett exchanged a glance. “That yard really is awfully small,” said Franklin, looking out a window.
“Who cares?” asked Buddy. “We can play over at the school playground.”
“Play!” yelled Ryan and Marnie. “Swings!” added Marnie.
Mr. DeWitt and Mrs. Barrett stepped onto the front steps with the owner of the house while Stacey and the kids roamed around inside, looking over the living room (bright and cheery), the kitchen (ditto), and the backyard (smaller than the front, but it had a patio).
After a few minutes, Franklin called the kids together. “You all really like this house?” he asked.
“Definitely,” said Buddy.
“We love it,” said Lindsey.
“Well, the price is right,” said Franklin. “We may have found our new home.”
“Yay!” yelled the kids.
“Or maybe we should say you found our new home,” said Mrs. Barrett, gazing at the kids. “I have a feeling we’ll be very happy here.”
Stacey told me she felt like crying at that point, but she held it in. I practically felt like crying myself, when she had finished her story. Why is it that happy endings make people want to cry?
“I know! How about somebody from history, like, um, Marie Antoinette or Martha Washington?” Jill looked at me hopefully as she pulled a roll of orange crepe paper out of a grocery bag.
It was Friday, the day before Halloween. And since the clown robber hadn’t been caught yet — by us or by the police — my friends and I were moving along with our party plans. We had met at the elementary school gym as soon as school was out, and each of us was hauling a load of party decorations and favors. Some of the PTO members had offered to help us decorate the gym, but we’d decided it would be more fun to do it ourselves. We had the radio on, cranked high. The local station was playing all kinds of Halloween-related music, such as “Monster Mash.” We bopped around to the music as we worked to set up the gym for the party.
My friends seemed to be worried about the fact that I hadn’t figured out a costume yet. They kept coming up with suggestions, but so far none of them seemed right to me. “Martha Washington?” I said now, to Jill. “Get out of here! Anyway, it’s too complicated. Where would I find the old-fashioned clothes?”
“Okay then,” said Maggie, who was laying out orange tablecloths (printed with black witches and cats) on each of the ten tables we had set up. “How about a cavewoman? You know, with, like, a leopard-skin dress?”
“Yeah!” said Sunny. “And your hair up on top of your head with a bone through it, like Pebbles!”
I shrugged. “I don’t know,” I said. “I’d feel silly.”
“Feeling silly is part of what Halloween’s all about,” said Jill. “It’s the one day of the year when everybody gets to act like a little kid again, no matter how old they are.”
“That’s what I love about it,” said Sunny. “I’ve always had the best time on Halloween.” She bent to check on the bag of apples we’d brought for our bobbing-for-apples game.
“I just hope the kids have a good time this year,” I said. “I feel so bad about their not being able to trick-or-treat.”
“I heard that some of the parents feel really bad about it, too,” said Maggie. “In fact, Mrs. Johnson told me that a few parents are considering lifting the curfew just for that night and letting the kids go out after all.”
“You’re kidding!” said Maggie, dropping her end of the crepe paper she was helping Sunny stretch across the room. “That’s terrible! I mean, first of all, what about the robber? And what about our party? We’ve done all this planning and everything.” She looked around the room at the decorations.
“It’s okay,” I said. “I mean, I agree with you that it doesn’t seem safe for the kids to go out. But it’s their parents’ decision. And if they do go out, we can still have our party. We’ll just have it a little later.”
“Sure, that’ll work fine,” said Sunny. “Anyway, I know the kids are looking forward to the party. We couldn’t cancel it now, no matter what.”
I sighed. I had come to the gym prepared to concentrate on setting up the party. I had resolved to follow Stacey’s advice, and forget about the robber for the time being. But it wasn’t easy.
I shook my head to clear away thoughts of the mystery, and set to work on making the haunted house in one corner of the gym.
First, Sunny and I put up some partitions we’d gotten from the custodian. Then we set out tables covered with cheesecloth, which would feel like moss to kids with blindfolds on (we hoped). We hung stockings from a rope strung across the partitions — they would feel like spiderwebs. After that, we put out a bowl of cooked spaghetti (Carol told me this stuff called perciatelli works best), which was supposed to feel like cold, slimy worms. We put peeled grapes in another bowl (eyeballs, of course), and a pile of chicken bones (ew!) on a plate, for witches’ fingers.
“This’ll be great,” said Sunny, surveying the area. “Did you bring the tape?”
I nodded. “Jeff and I put the finishing touches on it last night,” I said. “Carol had some great ideas, too.” I got the radio/tape player. When I unplugged it, Maggie and Jill protested.
“We were listening to that,” said Jill.
“I’ll bring it back in a second,” I said. “Sunny and I just want to check out the haunted-house tape I made.”
“Cool,” said Maggie. “Can we come see what you guys did?”
“Make them wait!” yelled Sunny, from inside the partitions. “You can come in a minute, but you’ll have to wear blindfolds. We want to test this out!”
“Okay,” said Jill. “But if we test out your project, you’ll have to test out ours.”
She and Maggie had been setting up the disappearing chairs game, and also the pin-the-broom-on-the-witch poster.
“Deal,” I said. “We’ll be ready in a second.” I brought the tape player over to the partitioned area and plugged it in. Then I stuck in the tape Jeff and I had made, and pushed PLAY. I kept the volume down low so Maggie and Jill wouldn’t hear it until we were ready for them.
As the tape rolled, eerie noises started to come out of the speakers. There were clanging noises (Jeff, banging on a pot with a spoon), shrieks (Carol had borrowed a friend’s violin), and ghostly moans (me, summoning up all the scariest ghost stories I’ve ever read).
“Whoa, that sounds so weird!” said Sunny. “It’s giving me the chills.”
“I know,” I said, grinning. “Carol showed us how to slow down some of the sound effects for an even creepier sound.”
“It’s terrific. If I played this in my room while I was reading ghost stories, I think I’d jump out of my skin.”
I turned off the tape and took a glance around. “Do you think the house is ready?” I asked.
Sunny nodded. “Looks like it,” she said. “Shall we try it out on our first victims?”
“Definitely. We need a dress rehearsal for tomorrow night.”
We called Jill and Maggie over and made them put on blindfolds before they entered the partitioned area. Then Sunny ducked inside and turned on the tape while I began a speech we’d written. “Welcome,” I said in my ghastliest, ghostliest voice. “Welcome to the house of horrors! Please enter our haunted house, and enjoy the nasty surprises we have in store for you.”
Jill and Maggie giggled. “I hope it’s not too scary,” Jill said. “We don’t want to freak the little kids out.”
“We’ll tone it down for the youngest ones,” I said in my normal voice. Then I switched back to the scary one. “Enter!” I commanded, “and prepare to be horrified.”
I led them inside the partition. The tape was playing softly, and the moans seemed to surround us. ??
?Ooh,” said Maggie. “Sounds like a ghost with a bellyache.” She and Jill giggled again.
“You dare to laugh?” I asked, in my scary voice. “You won’t be laughing after you feel these worms we dug from the graveyard!” I took their hands and plunged them into the bowl of spaghetti.
“Ew!” shrieked Jill.
“Gross!” yelled Maggie. “Ew! It really feels like worms.”
Sunny and I grinned at each other. Then Sunny said, in a high witch’s cackle, “How about these finger bones?” She pushed their hands into the pile of chicken bones. “I use them in all my recipes,” she said with glee.
Jill and Maggie jumped back, right into the hanging “webs.” “Ugh!” said Jill. “What’s dangling all over me?”
“Spiderwebs,” I answered happily. “Now for the eyeballs.” I stuck their fingers into the bowl of peeled grapes.
“Aaah!” yelled Maggie. “That’s it! I’ve had enough!” She ripped off her blindfold. “You guys did a really, really good job,” she said. “The kids are going to love this.”
“I know,” I said. “They love gross stuff. The grosser the better, as Jeff always says.”
“Well, our pin-the-broom game isn’t gross,” said Jill, “but I think the younger kids will like it. Want to try it out?”
“Sure,” I said.
Sunny turned off the tape player and we headed over to the wall where they’d hung the poster. “You go first, Dawn,” she said. “I want to scope this out. I bet I can stick the broom in the right place on my first turn.”
“Oh, yeah?” I said. “We’ll see about that.” Maggie made me put on a blindfold, and then she and Jill spun me around three or four times, until I felt as if I might barf. I was pretty dizzy, and it took me a second to regain my balance. Then, holding the “broom” (a cardboard cutout) in front of me, I marched straight toward the poster. Or so I thought.
I heard gales of laughter behind me. “Other way, Dawn,” Jill finally said, choking the words out. I lifted my blindfold and peeked. Sure enough, I was headed for the refreshment table across the room. I pulled the blindfold back down, got my bearings, and headed to the poster. This time I hit it right. I stuck the broom where I thought it should go.