Tonya howled with laughter. “Are you serious?”
“Lauraaaaa,” I warned.
“One day I went into her room,” Laura continued, “and she jumped on her bed, like I’d caught her in a crime. Her cheeks were all stuffed with candy like a chipmunk.”
I couldn’t believe this. Laura — my guest, the girl I was sacrificing my privacy for — was making fun of me to a total stranger!
I didn’t deserve this. “See you later,” I said, pushing my way through the front door.
I was furious. I stormed home. I snapped at Mr. Hatt, who was in the kitchen. I went to my room and started painting, just to calm myself down. I heard the others come home, Caryn with her mom, Janine with Steve, and Laura with her ego, but I ignored them. I just splattered jagged lines of blacks, grays, and purples on my canvas.
It didn’t help. I had to face Laura.
I was pretty sure I’d heard her and Caryn in their room. I stalked across the hall. I took a deep breath, flung open her door, and said, “Laura —”
I was wrong. The room was empty.
Except for a pair of long scissors on Laura’s bed. With small pieces of glossy magazine photos stuck to the blade.
Not to mention sections of headlines. Headlines with big letters, like the ones pasted to the threatening notes …
“Hmm, that wasn’t there yesterday,” Mr. Hatt said as he drove up to the lighthouse.
“Who wrote that, Daddy?” Caryn asked.
“Some prankster,” Mr. Hatt replied. “Once we fix this place up, kids will leave it alone.”
Mary Anne gulped. “M-m-maybe we shouldn’t go in there.”
“I’ll go in first and look around,” Mr. Hatt said, climbing out of the car.
Stacey, Mary Anne, and Caryn followed him to the front door. As Mr. Hatt pushed his key into the lock, Stacey noticed deep dents in the door, near the knob. “Did someone try to break in?” Stacey asked.
“Many times, over many years,” Mr. Hatt replied with a chuckle. “Some of these dents are full of rust. Thank goodness the locks held.”
Stacey looked up. “I guess the window’s too high for anyone to climb in.”
“Much too high,” Mr. Hatt said under his breath as he pushed the door open.
He disappeared inside. Stacey looked around nervously. An elderly couple was strolling across the narrow strip of sand, and a young man leaned against a nearby streetlight, looking out toward the water.
“The place looks fine,” Mr. Hatt said. “Now, would you girls please cart down as much debris as you can from the second floor? I need to go downstairs and check the auxiliary generator.”
“Sure,” Mary Anne said.
“Yyyyyes!” Caryn exclaimed. “I want to go to the roof!”
“You go with her,” Stacey said to Mary Anne. “I’ll start cleaning up the second floor.”
Mary Anne and Caryn headed for the top. Stacey climbed to the middle floor. Even in broad daylight, with the window facing south, the lighthouse was dark inside. The piles of equipment had not been moved yet, and Stacey imagined a mouse running out at any moment.
She began gathering smaller stuff into a pile — old plastic cups, broken pieces of china, boxes, and little metal doohickeys. Through the open window, the gentle lapping sound of the water began to ease her mind. She looked out at the distant gray hump of Long Island and the expanse of water, which began at the base of the lighthouse.
That was when she spotted the young man again. Moments before he had been leaning against the light pole. Now he was staring at the lighthouse intently.
Stacey moved closer to the window. The man turned nonchalantly and walked away, down the narrow strip of sand next to the dock. He stopped at a nearby jetty and sat.
A shiver ran through Stacey. The guy looked as if he were around college age. What was he doing here, all alone on a Saturday, staring at the lighthouse? Who was he?
Stacey moved in front of the window. She leaned out slightly and peered at the guy, trying to see if she could recognize anything familiar about him.
A voice behind her whispered, “Do-o-o-on’t …”
Stacey spun around.
No one was there.
“Muh — Muh —” The word caught in her throat. She swallowed and tried again. “Mary Anne, I’m coming upstairs!”
LOCAL BOY ICY VICTIM
The grim wait of an entire town has been put to an end today. Sixteen-year-old Adrian Langley, who was rescued from the icy waters of Long Island Sound three days ago, was pronounced dead at Stoneybrook Hospital today, as a result of head trauma and overexposure.
Early reports claimed that the young Mr. Langley had fallen while wandering onto thin ice near the Stoneybrook lighthouse. However, according to the coroner, his head injury was consistent with a fall of twenty to thirty feet. An inspection of the lighthouse revealed Mr. Langley’s fingerprints on both floors. The window on the second floor was open, and the main door of the lighthouse was locked.
Mr. Langley was found in the water, in shock and barely breathing, by Mr. Alexander Hatt, a local businessman who owns the lighthouse. Mr. Hatt had stopped by to check the premises, he says, when he saw a bobbing motion in the water.
Mr. Hatt had no further comment. An investigation is pending.
The staff of the Stoneybrook News extends deepest condolences to Homer Langley for the tragic loss of his son.
Actually, Mallory should have written herself. Shelmadine was a woman who lived in the late nineteenth century and had her own observatory on an island off Cape Cod. I looked it up.
Ahem.
Anyway, Mr. Pike’s early present was a giant, super-fantastic telescope. He spent all of Sunday morning assembling it.
Mal told us later that her brothers and sisters were insane with excitement. When he was finished, Mr. Pike took the telescope outside. The kids practically fell over each other, following him.
By the way, for handy reference, here are the names and ages of Mal’s siblings: Claire (five); Margo (seven); Nicky (eight); Vanessa (nine); and the triplets, Adam, Byron, and Jordan (ten).
Jessi arrived just as Mr. Pike was setting up the telescope on a tripod. “Cool!” she said.
“We get to look through it before the babysitters!” Margo cried.
“Boys before girls!” Nicky cried.
“No fair!” Vanessa squealed.
“Time out, everybody!” Mr. Pike yelled. “Mom and I have to leave for our concert. I was hoping to have time to supervise you, but I don’t. So I can do one of two things. Put this back inside until I come home —”
“NO-O-O-O!” screamed the kids.
“Or trust you to take turns, treat this with respect, and listen to everything Jessi and Mal say.”
“We will!” came a chorus of voices.
“Scout’s honor,” added Jordan.
“You’re not a scout,” Nicky grumbled.
“Be gentle,” Mr. Pike said softly to Mallory. “It’s a delicate instrument.”
With that, he was off.
“Okay, line up in age order,” Mallory called out. “Claire first.”
Claire squealed with delight. Margo, Nicky, and Vanessa fell into line behind her.
The triplets, Adam, Byron, and Jordan, were jostling each other for position.
“I’m forty seconds younger than you,” Adam said, elbowing in front of Jordan.
“Yeah, but I’m more interested in astrology,” Jordan retorted.
“At least I know it’s astronomy,” Byron said.
“So, you’re still ugly,” Adam snapped.
“What does that have to do with anything?” Byron asked.
“See? You admit it!”
Mallory harrumphed. “Byron … Adam … Jordan — that was your reverse order of birth.”
The triplets grumbled into line. Jessi brought the picnic bench over and Claire scrambled on top of it.
“I don’t see the comic,” Claire said as she peered through the lens.
> “Comet,” Vanessa corrected her.
“It’s afternoon,” Nicky said. “You’re just supposed to look at things around the yard up close.”
Claire jumped down from the bench. “This is boring.”
Margo stepped up next. “Ooooh,” she said. “I see the neighbors in their underwear!”
“Let me see!” squealed the Peeping Pikes.
Mallory quickly yanked Margo away.
“I was just joking!” Margo said, stepping back up to the telescope.
As Margo continued her turn, Vanessa suddenly announced, “I made up a rhyme!”
“Oh, no,” the triplets groaned.
Vanessa is the poet of the Pike family. I believe she even thinks in rhyme. She held up a sheet of paper and began to read:
“ ’Comet, comet, in the sky,
Nice to see you, flying high!
We learned about you in our class;
Are you made of ice or gas?
You will be my very first comet …’
Vanessa paused. “Um, that’s all I have so far.”
“I can finish it!” Adam shouted. “ ‘Vanessa’s poems just make me vomit!’ ”
Byron, Jordan, and Nicky burst out laughing and slapped high fives all around.
Vanessa was steaming. “ ‘If my brothers are on the playground, will you please bomb it?’ ” she snapped.
“This stinks!” Margo announced. “I can only see tree bark and stuff.”
“Well, just wait until the night of the comet,” Vanessa said as she stepped up to the telescope. “You’ll be glad we have this.”
“What’s so special about a dumb comet, anyway?” Jordan complained. “I’ve seen a million of them.”
“When?” Vanessa asked.
“In the summer,” Jordan replied. “At night.”
“Those are shooting stars, oatmeal brain,” Adam said. “They’re different.”
“How?” Jordan asked.
“They’re, uh, smaller,” Adam fumbled. “And they’re not named after people. You never heard of the Veehoff Shooting Star, right?”
“Veehoff was the name of a person?” Nicky asked. “Like, Veehoff Jones?”
“It was the name of the astronomer who discovered the comet, almost a hundred years ago,” Mallory said. “Shelmadine Veehoff.”
The kids cracked up. “Shelmadine?” Margo cried out.
“Oh my darlin’, oh my darlin’, oh my daaaarlin’ Shelmadiiiiine …” Jordan warbled.
“Haley had a comet named after her,” Claire piped up. “She told me.”
“That’s Halley’s Comet,” Vanessa said. “It’s named after another astronomer, not Haley Braddock.”
“How do you know?” Claire retorted.
“I think astronomers are very selfish,” Margo said. “They should name comets after regular people, too.”
“See that?” Adam pointed to the big maple tree in the Pike yard. “From now on, that will be known as the Adam tree.”
“I call the Claire picnic table!” Claire shouted.
“The Margo cloud!”
“The Nicky bush!”
“The Byron house!”
“The Jordan world!”
Vanessa turned from the telescope. “You can’t name the whole world for yourself, greedy.”
“Oops, I have to use the Vanessa toilet,” Jordan taunted her.
Vanessa darted away from the telescope and began chasing Jordan around the yard.
“My turn!” Nicky stepped up to the lens.
“Hey, I wasn’t done!” Vanessa cried.
“Too late!” Nicky said. “You forfeit!”
“Do not!” Vanessa retorted.
“If you two are going to argue, step aside,” Adam said.
The kids were jostling against the telescope, pushing each other.
“Hold it!” Mallory shouted. “Anyone who’s ready can go inside for a Jessi and Mal snack!”
“YAAAAAAAAY!”
Instant Pike stampede.
“You go ahead and look through the telescope first,” Mal whispered to Jessi. “We’ll exchange places after I pour the milk.”
Pretty clever, huh?
Once a good baby-sitter, always a good baby-sitter.
“Weeeee three kiiiings of Ooooorient aaaare …” blasted the tinny speakers of Janine’s computer.
I was trying to concentrate on a Nancy Drew novel. In about ten minutes I was supposed to leave for the lighthouse with Mr. Hatt. We were going to meet Kristy, Stacey, and Abby there.
Today, Sunday, was the Painting of the Stoneybrook Lighthouse. It was a gorgeous day, warm for December, and Mr. Hatt wanted to take advantage of the weather.
Why was I reading? To relax myself. The recent developments in the lighthouse mystery had totally blown me away. I’d hardly slept the night before. I kept dreaming that I was being chased through the lighthouse by a ghost in tatters and chains.
I tried hard not to think about the ghost. It was a figment of my imagination. It had to be. I didn’t want to be distracted from the real mystery.
Who had written that message on the lighthouse wall? The man who was staring at the lighthouse? Who was he? According to Stacey’s description, he was too old to be a friend of the Hatt kids, too young to have known Mr. and Mrs. Hatt.
All night long, my mind tossed around theories about the culprit:
* * *
— It was the guy Stacey saw, and he was a friend of Laura’s. After all, she was the one who didn’t want her family to settle in Stoneybrook — and enjoyed working with scissors and magazines!
— The same guy, but he was a friend of Steve’s. Another specialist in trouble-making.
— It was Laura herself.
— Steve himself.
— Mr. Hatt.
* * *
Aaaaagh. How could I possibly sleep knowing I might be living in a house full of criminals?
Maybe I wasn’t, though. Maybe the bad guy was part of the Langley family. A cousin or something.
That was another weird thing. According to the newspaper, Mr. Hatt had pulled Adrian Langley from the water. He’d tried to rescue Adrian. So why did Mr. Langley hate Mr. Hatt so much?
Nothing made sense. And now, on top of it all, I had to deal with Janine’s Computer Concert.
“Could you turn that down, please?” I asked.
“Pretty good sound, huh?” Janine replied, ignoring my request. “It’s a new music CD-ROM. It has classical, rock, Christmas carols —”
Christmas?
Oh, groan. Poor old Christmas. I’d been concentrating on the Hatts and the lighthouse, and the holiday season was whizzing by.
I counted slowly in my head. “Oh my lord, only nine more days until Christmas.”
“Ten,” Janine said. “You’re slipping.”
“I haven’t done any shopping! Everything’s been so crazy around here. What am I going to do?”
“Go with the Hatts later on,” Janine suggested. “During Phase Two.”
“Huh?”
“Earth to Claudia. While you and your friends are working at the lighthouse, Mrs. Hatt and her offspring will be shopping for Mr. Hatt at the mall. Then, when they’re through, Mrs. Hatt is going to trade places with her husband at the lighthouse, and he’ll take the kids shopping for her. You can go with them. QED. So relax.”
“QED?”
“Quod erat demonstrandum,” Janine explained. “Also known as quite easily done.”
“It’s all Greek to me,” I muttered.
“Latin,” Janine corrected me.
“Why aren’t you with them, instead of here, making me feel stupid?”
“I’ve done most of my shopping.” Janine smiled. “At least for the important gifts.”
“Like mine?” I said slyly. “Oh, and Jerry’s, of course.”
Janine’s smile disappeared. “Jerry who?”
“Ooops. Are you two fighting again? Is that why he hasn’t called the last few days?”
Jan
ine sat at her computer and turned off the music. As she clicked her mouse, she said, “Actually, I finally told him about Steve.”
“Told him what about Steve?”
Janine was blushing. “Please, Claudia. You know.”
Huh? What was going on here? Was she talking about the same Steve I knew? The Steve who hadn’t said more than three sentences all week?
Were he and Janine having a … a thing?
Impossible. Ridiculous.
I wanted to pull her hair out.
I calmly placed my Nancy Drew book in my pillowcase. I put on a pair of thick winter socks. “See you,” I said as I left.
I didn’t stick my tongue out at her until I was out the door.
Janine. Caught between two suitors. The thought was too much to bear. I pictured Jerry and Steve, like two knights, dueling it out for fair Janine’s hand.
As I reached the top of the stairs, I realized something awful.
What if Jerry were really angry at Janine? He wouldn’t dare try to pick a fight with Steve. At least not face-to-face. But he might try something sneaky. Underhanded. Something that involved words, not fists.
Something like a threatening letter, maybe.
* * *
On the ride to the lighthouse, my mind was doing jumping jacks.
Jerry? Quiet Jerry Michaels, a stalker? Maybe he was the voice in the lighthouse. In movies, guys like Jerry always have secret evils lurking within. You never know.
I glanced at Mr. Hatt. He seemed to be in a great mood. (I would be, too, if I knew my whole family had gone shopping for me.) He blasted holiday music over the car radio and hummed along tunelessly.
We picked up Stacey first. She swept through her front door, wearing a black cashmere coat with a silk scarf.
Me? I had on my mom’s old Hollofil vest over an old acrylic sweater.
“Oh, is this going to be messy?” Stacey asked.
Fashion definitely had to take a backseat today. I set Stacey straight. She ran back inside and changed into something a little more funky.
Next stop, the Brewer/Thomas mansion, where Kristy and Abby were waiting.
“I have a slight allergy to paint,” was the first thing Abby said. “I have to be in a well-ventilated place.”