Mary Anne and the Secret in the Attic

  Also, Stacey’s parents recently got divorced. Her dad lives back in New York, and Stacey goes to visit him as often as she can. But most of the time it’s just Stacey and her mom against the world. (I can relate to that, since it was just me and Dad for so long.)

  Anyway, despite her troubles, Stacey’s one of the most cheerful, fun-loving people I know. And she loves to be around kids, which makes her a great baby-sitter.

  Now that you’ve met the president, vice-president, and treasurer of our club, I bet you’re wondering who the secretary is. Well, it’s me. (Surprise.) I really like my job, maybe because I’m naturally neat and organized. What I do is to keep the record book up to date. The record book is where we write down all kinds of information about our clients — not just their names and addresses and their kids’ names, but their kids’ favorite foods, favorite games, allergies, and so forth. I love keeping track of those things. I also keep track of the club members’ schedules, which isn’t as simple as you might think. There are Kristy’s softball games (she coaches a team called Kristy’s Krushers), Claudia’s art lessons, and Stacey’s trips to New York to take into account, for example. And I have to be aware of the schedules of our alternate members, Logan Bruno and Shannon Kilbourne. They don’t come to meetings, but they can fill in if we need extra sitters. Shannon lives in Kristy’s new neighborhood, and I’ve already told you that Logan is my boyfriend.

  I’ve never had a problem keeping up with the record book, but if I ever couldn’t make it to a meeting, Dawn would take over my job. In fact, she could take over anyone’s job — she’s what we call our alternate officer. I think Dawn’s just as happy not to have a major job; she loves the club, but she doesn’t exactly crave power or responsibility.

  Now Dawn, Stacey, Claudia, Kristy, and I are all thirteen and in the eighth grade. But two of our club members are eleven years old and in the sixth grade. Mallory Pike and Jessi Ramsey are our junior officers. “Junior” means that they can only sit after school or on weekend days — no nighttime jobs unless they’re sitting for their own families. This is fine with them, and fine with us. They get plenty of work, and we get freed up for evening jobs.

  Jessi and Mal are best friends and, like me and Kristy, they’re a case of opposites attracting. Mal comes from a huge family (eight kids!), has red, curly hair, and glasses and braces, and likes to do quiet things like read and write and draw. She’d like to illustrate children’s books some day. Jessi comes from a regular-sized family (three kids), has black hair, brown eyes, and beautiful chocolate-colored skin, and likes to spend her time dancing. She’s studying to be a ballerina.

  The two of them do have a lot in common, though. They both wish their parents would stop treating them like children (Mal would love to get contacts; Jessi would like to be able to wear mini skirts), they both love to read (especially horse stories), and they’re both great baby-sitters.

  In fact, that day in Claud’s room, Mallory was telling us about baby-sitting for her brothers and sisters the day before. Her face was lit up with excitement. “Nicky and Vanessa are both really into their Heritage Day projects,” she said. “I think a lot of our regular clients will be, too. They’re making a big deal of it at the elementary school. Everybody’s supposed to do some kind of historical research — about their family tree, or about Stoneybrook, or about how their family came to Stoneybrook, or whatever. They’re supposed to come up with projects and skits and stuff, and then there’s going to be a big fair where they can show off what they’ve learned.”

  Heritage Day sounded like fun — something to look forward to. I left that day’s meeting with something new to think about, but you know what? I still hadn’t been able to forget about my dream.

  “Look at this one, Mary Anne!” Charlotte held up an old, sepia-toned photograph of a serious young woman.

  “Wow,” I said. “Look at those braids piled up on her head. Imagine how long her hair must have been when it was unbraided!”

  It was a Friday evening, after a BSC meeting, and I was sitting for Charlotte Johanssen. She’s one of our favorite kids to sit for; she’s fun to be with, and smart, and almost never gets into mischief. That day she was already hard at work on her Heritage Day project. Charlotte’s a great student — in fact, she skipped a grade so that even though she’s barely eight years old, she’s in third grade.

  Charlotte had told me that everyone in her class was working on their family trees. Each student was supposed to research his family history, and find out when and why his family had ended up in Stoneybrook. For some kids, the job would be fairly easy; if they’d moved to Stoneybrook recently, they wouldn’t have to do much research. But a lot of families have lived in this town for generations, and Charlotte’s was one of them.

  “I asked Dad if he knew why his grandparents moved here,” said Charlotte, who was still holding the picture. “But he didn’t know. It’s going to be really fun to try to find out!” Charlotte loves a mystery, and she’s a pretty good detective. She couldn’t wait to get started. It’s great to see a kid so excited about a school project.

  “Is that your great-grandmother?” I asked, still looking at the photo.

  “Yup,” said Charlotte. “See, here on the back it says her name: ‘Berit Marie Hjielholt Johanssen.’ I guess Hjielholt was her name before she got married to my great-grandfather.”

  “It’s so funny to look at this young woman and hear you call her your great-grandmother,” I said.

  “I know,” Charlotte replied. “Isn’t it weird to think that these people who I’m related to lived their whole lives so, so long ago? This picture is from when she graduated from college in Denmark.”

  I looked at the picture again. Charlotte’s great-grandmother had been very beautiful. There was something about her eyes — they were large, and dark, and very expressive. Even though she looked serious in the picture, you could see a little spark of good humor in her eyes. I held the picture up next to Charlotte’s face to see if there was any resemblance. At first, I didn’t see any. The woman in the picture had blonde hair, and Charlotte’s is brown. They both have dark eyes, but Charlotte’s didn’t look too much like her great-grandmother’s. Then I saw it. The dimple. “Charlotte!” I said. “You have a dimple in the exact same place as your great-grandmother had one!”

  Charlotte grabbed the picture. “Let’s see!” she said. “You’re right. Hers isn’t showing a lot, because she isn’t smiling. That’s just how mine is. But you can tell it’s there. Neat!”

  I could see that Charlotte suddenly felt connected to the person in the picture, and I was happy for her. But I have to admit that I also felt a twinge of jealousy. Charlotte had that picture, plus a whole box of other pictures, scrapbooks, letters, and other things — all about her family. I don’t think my father and I have any of that stuff. At least, I’ve never seen it. I think he got rid of it after my mother died, because looking at those things was just too painful for him. (Lucky thing he kept his high school yearbooks, at least. Otherwise I might not have a new stepsister now!)

  I was starting to feel kind of sorry for myself, but I snapped out of it when Charlotte’s dog, Carrot, ran into the room. Carrot is a little schnauzer, and he loves to be in the middle of things.

  “Carrot, no!” said Charlotte, as he started to nose through the box on her lap. “Out of kitchen!”

  I laughed. It always sounds so funny to hear the Johanssens tell their dog to get “out of kitchen” — especially when you’re in the living room, or the garage, or even outside. It’s an all-purpose command that just means “get out of here.” Dr. Johanssen, Charlotte’s mom, started to say it when she wanted the dog out of the kitchen while she made dinner. But now they all say it, anytime and anywhere, because it’s the only command that Carrot ever really pays attention to. (Well, he does know how to “say his prayers,” by putting his paws in your lap and laying his head on them.)

  Carrot scampered off — heading toward the kitchen, which made me giggle —
and Charlotte and I went back to looking through her box. She pulled out a scrapbook full of yellowed newspaper clippings and leafed through it for a minute. “This would be great for the fifth-graders,” she said. “They’re doing this project of making a pretend ‘one-hundred-year-old newspaper.’ It’s going to have all the news from Stoneybrook, but from a hundred years ago. They’re going to print it up and everything!” She put the book aside and picked up a bundle of letters. “I’ll have to spend some time reading these,” she said. “They’re from my great-grandmother to her mother, who still lived in Denmark. And look! The return address is Stoneybrook. They were already living here by then.”

  I reached into the box and pulled out an old photo album. “Who are these people?” I asked, pointing to a picture on the first page. It was a big group photo with a bride and groom in the middle of it. The men wore carnations in their buttonholes, and the women wore their hair in fancy buns. Nobody was exactly smiling — I guess people didn’t say “cheese” in those days — but they looked happy, anyway.

  “Let’s see,” said Charlotte. She took the picture out of its slot in the book and looked at the back. “Oh, those are some cousins of my great-grandmother’s,” she said. “The Ottes. They were German.”

  Charlotte had obviously learned a lot about her family already. I could see that she didn’t really need my help with her project, but it was fun to work with her anyway. We went through the whole box, checking to see what she would have to work with as she put together her family tree.

  “This is the most fun project of all,” said Charlotte as she sifted through the box. “I’d rather do this than work on a skit, or do the Stoneybrook history project, or anything. It’s much more exciting to find out about your own family.”

  I nodded. “Hey, look!” I said, pulling a small, leatherbound book from the box. “This looks like a diary.”

  Charlotte glanced up, excited. “Really?” she asked. “Let’s see.” She opened the little book carefully and looked at the first page. “This is awesome!” she said. “It’s my great-grandmother’s diary, and it starts with her voyage from Europe.” She paged through it for a few minutes. “Wow,” she said, in a hushed voice. “Here’s an entry about her seeing the Statue of Liberty for the first time, as the ship sailed into New York Harbor.”

  What a find! Charlotte was going to have one of the best projects in her class, I was sure of it. While she was looking at the diary, I had continued to go through the contents of the box. It was nearly empty by now, but I felt around in the corners and came up with a delicate locket. It was gold, with flowers engraved on it. The initials B.M.H. were etched in fancy script on the back side. There were tiny diamond chips in a half circle near the bottom. At the top was a link that could attach the locket to a chain. I showed it to Charlotte.

  “Oh, it’s so pretty,” she said. “Do you think it has a picture inside?” She looked it over, trying to figure out how to unfasten it. “I can’t get it open,” she said, handing it to me. “Can you try?”

  I checked the locket over until I found a little slit in the side where I could fit my thumbnail. Carefully, I pried the locket open. I recognized the girl in the picture right away. “It’s your great-grandmother again,” I told Charlotte. “But she’s younger here.” In fact, she was just a little girl. She wore a high-necked white dress and high, buttoned boots, and white ribbons in her curly blonde hair. And she looked very much like Charlotte.

  I gave the locket to Charlotte, and she held it and gazed at the picture. “We could be twins,” she breathed. “Except for our hair. Only she was alive a hundred years ago. Isn’t that incredible?”

  A chill ran down my spine. I felt as if history were coming to life.

  “I’m going to ask my mom if we can find a chain to put this locket on,” said Charlotte. “Maybe I can wear it for special occasions.” Her eyes lit up. “Maybe I can even wear it to the picnic!”

  “What picnic?” I asked.

  “Our school is having a special old-fashioned picnic the day before Heritage Day,” said Charlotte. “There’ll be historical games, and food like they ate in olden times, and if you want to, you can dress up in antique clothes! It’s for kids and their parents. My dad can’t go, but my mom promised to take me.”

  “Sounds great,” I said. I tried to sound enthusiastic, but once again I was feeling those twinges of jealousy. I’d never gone on a picnic with my mother. I’d never done anything with her. I’d never had the chance to ask her about her parents, or their parents, or any of that stuff. I had no idea how my mom’s family had ended up in Stoneybrook — and I’d probably never be able to find out, since my dad wouldn’t talk about her.

  Charlotte kept on talking, telling me more about the picnic and about the other Heritage Day activities. But I wasn’t really paying attention. I was thinking about my own particular family history, and about how little of it I knew. I was suddenly realizing that, in a very basic way, I had no idea who I was.

  “See you soon, Charlotte,” I said as I left her house later that evening. I’d made supper for her (string beans and fish sticks) and gotten her into her pajamas by the time her parents came home. We’d spent most of the evening working on her Heritage Day project, and my head was spinning with the names of all of her relatives. The family tree was partly complete, and Charlotte was about to start on the “personal history” part of her project. She was going to try to figure out exactly when and why her great-grandmother had come to Stoneybrook.

  “ ’Bye, Mary Anne,” said Charlotte. “Thanks for helping me.” She hitched up her pajama bottoms, yawned, and waved to me as I headed out the door.

  As I rode my bicycle home, I thought some more about the photographs and letters we’d been looking through. Charlotte had her whole family history practically at her fingertips. All I had was my own history — the ticket stub from the “Remember September” dance I’d gone to with Logan, a sand dollar from a trip to the shore, my Mickey Mouse ears from the time I went to Disneyland, and a few pictures from a vacation the entire BSC had taken in New York City. As much as I loved those souvenirs, I needed more.

  I thought again about asking my dad about the past. I knew he could give me answers to some of my questions. But then I thought of how he’d looked that morning at breakfast, talking and laughing with Sharon. He was so happy since he’d married her and had put the past behind him. How could I do anything that might jeopardize that happiness?

  By the time I reached my house, I was really feeling down. I slammed the front door and walked through the living room. I went into the kitchen and started opening cabinets, as if I was looking for something to eat. But the cans and jars on the shelves were just a blur. I wasn’t even very hungry. There were two notes on the table, one from Sharon and my dad saying they’d gone out to a late dinner, and one from Dawn saying she’d gone to the movies. It was fine with me that nobody was home. I felt like being alone.

  I took some crackers and a glass of ginger ale into the living room and flopped down on the couch. I picked up a book Dawn had been reading and flipped through it. Ghosts I Have Known, it was called. Dawn loves anything to do with ghosts, but I can take them or leave them. I put the book down, picked up the remote for the TV, and pressed the ON button. I ran through all the channels, but I didn’t see anything worth watching for more than ten seconds. I turned the TV off, and watched the screen fade to black.

  Tigger had jumped up onto the couch, and he was sniffing at my crackers. They didn’t seem to interest him, which didn’t surprise me. They didn’t even interest me, since they were the healthy kind that Sharon buys. No salt, no sugar, no white flour … no taste. “Oh, Tigger,” I said, picking him up and burying my nose in his fur, “how can I find out more about who I am?”

  Tigger purred and dug his claws into my shoulder, but he didn’t answer, of course. Maybe I needed to talk to someone who could talk back. I decided to call Kristy. I picked up the phone that sits on the end table and dialed her numbe
r. She answered on the second ring.

  “Hello?” she said. I could hear shrieking in the background, and a dog was barking loudly.

  “Hi, it’s me,” I said. “What’s going on over there?”

  “Hi, me,” she said. “I’m sitting for David Michael and Emily Michelle, and they’ve just discovered a way to make Shannon bark. David Michael blows in her ear, and it works every time.”

  Shannon is a puppy. She’s a Bernese mountain dog, which means she’s a big puppy who’s going to be a big, big dog. She’s the sweetest, most gentle puppy I’ve ever seen, which is a good thing. She gets quite a workout from those kids.

  “How are you?” she asked. “Are you home from your job already?”

  “I’ve been home for a while,” I said. “And I’m fine. Except — Kristy, does your family save stuff, like old pictures and letters?”

  “Sure!” she said. “Why?”

  “Oh, it’s just that —” I heard a sudden explosion of barking.

  “Shannon!” said Kristy. “Hush. I’m trying to talk on the phone. David Michael, don’t blow on her for a while, okay?” The barking stopped. “What were you saying?” she asked.

  “Oh, nothing,” I said. “I was just wondering … where does your family keep all that stuff? Is it stored away, or can you look at it any time?”

  “It’s in the attic, I think,” she said. “Or no, maybe it’s —” the barking started up again. “David Michael Thomas!” said Kristy. “I thought I told you to stop that!”

  “Sorry.” I heard David Michael’s little voice.