Baby-Sitters' Fright Night

  I hoped.

  Patting the chair to keep my bearings, I edged around and crept forward.

  And stopped again. Suddenly. So suddenly that I heard the footsteps in the dark behind me before they could stop, too.

  Someone was in there with me.

  I wasn’t alone after all.

  “Bad pumpkin,” scolded Abby, “bad pumpkin.” She unclipped the pumpkin from its “leash” and held it up and waved her finger at it. “Baaad pumpkin.”

  “Poor pumpkin,” Stacey said, grinning. “What has it done to deserve all that?”

  Our group, the largest one, had gone for a tour of Pickering Wharf, which was as much a shopping expedition as a tour. “Like the South Street Seaport,” Stacey remarked, looking around. “It’s a shopping mall in a historical disguise.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked, as we meandered through the maze of shops and galleries and restaurants and food stands that lined the wharf.

  “You know, this was once a wharf, full of ships docking to load and unload. South Street Seaport is the same. It was once one of Manhattan’s working piers. Now it’s full of shops.” She grinned suddenly. ”Of course, I do like to shop.”

  That was when Abby careened into us. “There you are,” she said breathlessly.

  “Where else would we be?” asked Mallory.

  Abby shook her head. “Weird,” she muttered. “One minute I was looking at the sign for the whale-watching tours, and the next minute I was sort of, I don’t know, pushed to one side. Then someone bumped me from the other side and I grabbed my wallet to make sure my pocket wasn’t getting picked —”

  “Good thinking,” Stacey put in. “Sometimes, crooks work together. One distracts you and the other steals your wallet.”

  “I know,” said Abby. “Anyway, I got all turned around, and I figured I was lost. I saw this alley and thought I’d cut through it, because I was sure you would be on the other side. And then I had the strangest feeling I was being followed.”

  “You didn’t go down a dark alley by yourself,” Mallory gasped.

  “No! There were people around, and it wasn’t really an alley. It was lined with shops. You just couldn’t drive cars through it. Anyway, I looked over my shoulder, and I could have sworn that I saw someone duck back into one of the shops. So I ducked into another shop and saw you guys outside through the window.”

  Looking over my shoulder nervously, I said, “Followed?”

  “Nah,” said Abby. “I wasn’t really being followed. Why would anybody do that? It was all the dastardly work of my bad-luck pumpkin.”

  And that’s when she held it up and started to scold it.

  We shopped for a little while longer, being careful not to become separated from one another or the group. Then we converged on the food stands for lunch. After that, footsore and stuffed and (some of us) burdened with packages, we headed back to the inn.

  Kristy hadn’t returned yet. I straightened up the room a little and flopped back on the bed, calling “Come in,” when Abby and Stacey and Mallory knocked on the door.

  “Where’s our fearless leader?” Abby asked, flopping down on the other bed.

  “I guess her group hasn’t come back yet,” I answered.

  Mallory frowned. “There are only two other groups. And Eileen’s group is back, the one that Ms. Bernhardt was leading.”

  “Then she must be with Mr. Blake. He and Mrs. Blake took the other group,” said Stacey.

  “Nooo,” I said slowly. “Kristy did Mr. Blake’s tour already. Why would she do it again?”

  “She probably stopped by the library or something,” I suggested, but I felt a faint tickle of worry. I sat up. “We should check.”

  We checked. We checked the front desk. We checked the dining room. We checked (casually, to avoid arousing any suspicion) to see if Kristy had stopped by anybody else’s room.

  She hadn’t. Of course she hadn’t. She would never miss a meeting of the BSC, especially an emergency meeting.

  The afternoon was ticking away. Mr. and Mrs. Blake returned.

  No Kristy.

  Super-casually, I asked Mr. Blake if Kristy had liked the tour with him that morning. “Kristy didn’t go with me today. She did that yesterday,” he replied. He laughed. “I’m going to be qualified to be a tour guide before this is over.”

  I forced myself to smile.

  “No Kristy,” I reported to the others, who were hovering unobtrusively near the elevator.

  “Time for an emergency meeting,” said Stacey in a low voice. “Sans Kristy.”

  We went back up to my room. That’s when Abby said, “Oh. Now I remember. Kristy said something about a clue this morning, when I asked her about going to the wharf. ‘I don’t need to shop for new clues,’ she had said. I just thought she was making a dumb joke about shopping for clothes.”

  “I don’t think it was a dumb joke,” I said. “I mean, I think she meant something by it.”

  “Maybe that means she had a new clue,” said Mallory.

  “It has to,” agreed Stacey. “But what?”

  “Maybe she just figured out something that we overlooked,” offered Mallory. She pulled the mystery notebook out of her briefcase and opened it. We pored over it again.

  I said slowly, “You know, you have tons of stuff in here about Martha Kempner, Mal, but the one thing you don’t have is that she was the only one who didn’t head for the museum when the crime was reported. Look: Ms. Furusawa, Mrs. Moorehouse, even Harvey Hapgood. Plus the newspaper spy, Sean Knowles, was right on the scene. But not Ms. Kempner. Could that be a clue?”

  “Why? How?”

  “Maybe because she was guilty and didn’t want to return to the scene of the crime,” Stacey suggested.

  Abby was shaking her head. “No, no, no. The obvious thing to do would be to go to the scene of the crime with everyone else. Leave your fingerprints around and stuff like that, to cover for yourself in case you left evidence behind without realizing it.”

  “Ms. Kempner could be the one,” I said stubbornly. “And Kristy figured it out, and then Kempner found out somehow and kidnapped her.”

  Mallory had picked up the room phone. “Hello, front desk? … Yes, is Ms. Kempner in her room? … No? … No, thanks. I’ll try again later.”

  She hung up. “Ms. Kempner isn’t in her room. She told Mr. Hewson that she was going to the newspaper office, to do some more research on the diamond.”

  “What about Harvey Hapgood and Sean Knowles?” asked Abby.

  Abby went to her room, and Mallory went to hers, where they called to check. They returned to report that Mr. Hapgood and Mr. Knowles were gone, too, to a famous tearoom that had a fortune-teller (Mr. Knowles) and on a carriage tour of Salem (Mr. Hapgood).

  “Any one of those could be a cover,” Abby pointed out. “We should check their alibis.”

  “How … oh. We could call the newspaper and see if Ms. Kempner is there, or has been there,” I said, my hand on the phone.

  “Ditto the tearoom,” said Abby, springing to her feet to rush back to her room and call.

  “I guess we could call the tour company and see if anyone matching Mr. Hapgood’s description was on the carriage ride,” said Mal. “But those tours are kind of random. I mean, if you’ve made a reservation, they take your name, but you don’t really have to make a reservation.”

  She returned to her room.

  We quickly discovered that 1) no one named Martha Kempner or matching Ms. Kempner’s description had signed in to use the newspaper files that day; 2) Mr. Knowles had not been to the tearoom, because the tearoom closed early, so he wouldn’t have had time; 3) Mr. Hapgood had called to cancel his carriage tour just before he was supposed to take it, and hadn’t even complained about forfeiting his deposit.

  “None of them have alibis!” cried Abby, when we met back in my room to compare notes. “Could they all be working together?”

  “I don’t know,” I said, trying to keep the panic out of my voice.
“But …” I pointed at the window. “It’s getting dark, and Kristy is still missing. And in case you haven’t noticed, a storm is blowing up.”

  We still hadn’t told the adults that Kristy was missing. I was just beginning to wonder if we should when an enormous clap of thunder rattled the window — and all the lights went out.

  “That’s it. Homework done. At least for now,” said Claudia with a sigh. She looked at the clock on her desk. “And just in the nick of time.”

  “Are you sure you’re ready to stop? My mom could probably wait, if you need to work longer,” I said.

  I had stopped by Claudia’s house on my way home from the library, so that my mom and I could give her a ride over to Kristy’s for the parade.

  “Hey, don’t worry,” said Claudia. “I’m not worried.”

  “Do you want me to check with my mom? We still have a little more time,” I persisted.

  “Like you want to sit here and watch me do homework,” said Claudia. She made a face.

  I shrugged. “That’s what I’ve been doing at the library this morning.”

  Claudia pulled a worse face. “Well, I don’t know about you, but I’ve had it up to here with school. Not that I don’t appreciate your concern, Shannon.”

  “Are you getting help from your teacher?” I inquired.

  “Nah. I mean, I have before. But I hate to have to keep asking. When I ask in class, everyone looks at me like I’m a goon. And when I stay after class to ask, I always feel like some dumb little kid.” Claudia stood up abruptly. “Forget it. Let’s go to the parade.”

  The Brewer-Thomases were all ready when we arrived. “This parade was a great idea,” said Kristy’s mom, when she let us in.

  “It’s a natural,” agreed Nannie, who was holding what appeared to be a baby bunny in her arms: Emily Michelle, sporting long ears, with a pink nose and whiskers painted on her cheeks. A big felt carrot was sewn to her jumpsuit.

  Karen was dressed as a jack-in-the-box, with a gaily painted cardboard box held on by two shoulder straps. She kept crouching down and springing up.

  “I’ll do this during the whole parade,” she declared, “so people will know who I am.”

  “It makes my legs ache just to think about it,” Claudia remarked to me.

  I nodded. Kids were beginning to arrive for the parade, along with parents and their cameras of every kind. Video memories were in the offing, as well as scrapbook moments.

  The Rodowskys showed up with disgusting monster masks on, carrying a collection of piñatas that roughly resembled Bo, and leading Bo himself on a leash.

  “Oh, this is excellent,” cried Claudia, and swooped over to greet her fellow artists.

  Jessi appeared with her family. Her sister Becca was dressed as a princess, right down to glittery high heels on which she was wobbling, somewhat erratically, and clutching her father’s arm. My eyes widened when I saw Squirt, Jessi’s baby brother. Squirt, who is about a year and a half old, is fond of playing with pots and pans in the kitchen. Riding on his mother’s shoulders and waving his hands happily, he was wearing a pot backwards on his head (made of aluminum foil, I think) and had on an apron with a potholder tied to it.

  “He’s coming as the king of the kitchen,” explained Jessi, seeing my expression.

  Logan joined us as Claudia returned. “The two Pike wagons just pulled up,” he said out of the corner of his mouth, like a gangster in some old movie. “Everybody ready?”

  We nodded solemnly.

  Jordan and his claim to magic fame had gone too far. In fact, it had gone to his head — not the magic, but the power his pretense to magical abilities was bringing him. Not only was he claiming credit for things such as his siblings’ good grades on tests (never mind how much hard work they had put into studying), but he was also warning people that if they didn’t do what he told them to do, he would put spells on them. Bad spells.

  For instance, when Vanessa had refused to let Jordan have her dessert at dinner. “This spells trouble for you,” Jordan had said, giving her a warning look.

  “Pooh to you,” retorted Vanessa.

  “Vanessa, be careful,” Claire had gasped.

  Vanessa had shrugged.

  And then she had fallen and cut her knee and had to have a tetanus shot (“just as a precaution,” her mother had insisted, despite Vanessa’s vehement objections). And Jordan had said, “See? I told you so.”

  This time, Vanessa didn’t say “Pooh.”

  The other kids were treating Jordan as if he were a king, and of more than just the kitchen.

  He led the way toward us now. He was dressed as — what else? — Merlin the magician. His siblings followed him at a respectful distance.

  “Oh. I forgot my magician’s wand,” said Jordan, stopping. He looked over his shoulder expectantly.

  “I’ll get it,” cried Nicky.

  “I’ll help,” Claire offered, and they raced back to the Pike station wagons to retrieve it. When they returned, Nicky breathlessly handed the cardboard wand (a dowel with a glitter-and-gold-coated cardboard star stapled to it) to Jordan. He took it, lowered his head like a royal prince, and didn’t even say thank you!

  We were stepping in just in time.

  Jordan walked up to us and raised his wand. “I want to lead the parade,” he announced.

  “Oh, no,” I said. “The youngest and smallest are going to go first.”

  He shook his head. “No. I should lead it.”

  “Why?” asked Logan.

  “We’ve already decided how the parade is going to be organized, Jordan,” said Jessi. She glanced over at us, then said, “You can’t make us do everything you want, you know.”

  “I can,” said Jordan, frowning. “And I will.”

  He withdrew, and turned his back on everyone. I saw him whisk his book out of one of the big pockets of his magician’s cape (which was, I think, an old choir robe). A moment later he returned. We watched as he raised his wand and closed his eyes. His lips began to move.

  His brothers and sisters edged away, looking from Jordan to us and back uneasily.

  Then he lowered his wand. “Well,” he said.

  I made my face blank. I turned to Jessi. “We must make Jordan the leader of the parade,” I said in a flat, wooden voice.

  Jessi nodded. “Yes, we must.”

  “We must,” echoed Logan.

  “We must,” agreed Claudia.

  Moving stiffly, Claudia took Jordan by the shoulder and propelled him to the front of the group of kids gathered on the lawn.

  The kids were ready. People from the neighborhood were out on their lawns and on the sidewalk. The street had been temporarily blocked off (thanks to Kristy’s stepdad).

  “Let the First Annual Stoneybrook Halloween Costume Parade begin!” Claudia said. She motioned Jordan forward. We moved forward, too, to stand by Claudia, and signaled everyone else to stay in place.

  Jordan the mighty magician strolled forward. He reached the middle of the road. He took a few more steps and turned.

  “Come on,” he said.

  “Oh, no. You must lead the parade,” chanted Claudia. “You must be out front.”

  Jordan frowned. He turned and took a few more steps forward, then turned again.

  “Come on,” he said.

  “We cannot,” said Jessi. “We have been ordered to let you lead the parade.”

  “We must obey,” Logan put in.

  “But …” Jordan frowned harder. He turned and walked several more steps. A few people applauded. A few other people laughed.

  “Don’t laugh at me!” shouted Jordan, raising his wand. He looked at his wand. He looked back at the rest of the kids, standing in Kristy’s yard.

  “I order you to start the parade,” he commanded us.

  “We have,” I replied. “Lead on, oh mighty magician.”

  Jordan’s face turned red. “You’re supposed to do what I tell you!” he shouted.

  “We are under the power of your spell,
” said Jessi. “We cannot disobey.”

  “Then I hearby change the spell,” said Jordan.

  “I felt no change of spell,” intoned Logan. “Has the mighty magician changed the spell? Perhaps it is not in his power.”

  “Look in your book and have the spell unmade,” called Vanessa, “so we can join in the parade.”

  Jordan reached into his pocket and pulled out his book. He opened it, then closed it again.

  “Can’t you find the right spell?” asked Byron.

  His face bright red, Jordan said, “No!”

  No one said anything. The great magician looked at his subjects. Then he slowly walked back toward them. He stopped in front of Jessi and Logan and Claudia and me. “It’s not really a book of spells,” he said in a low voice, “it’s just an old book of poems. And I’m not really a magician. I just pretended.”

  “You didn’t make me find my lucky penny?” asked Nicky.

  “Or make me get a tetanus shot?” added Vanessa, looking vastly relieved.

  “No. Not any of that stuff. It just happened. I can’t cast spells. I just pretended, for fun.”

  Claire cried, “I’m not going to get to fly? You promised.”

  “I … it was just a joke, Claire. I didn’t really …”

  But his little sister wasn’t listening. She took a deep breath. Tears welled up in her eyes. She stamped her feet, and her colorful cardboard wings flapped wildly. “Nofe air!” she howled.

  It looked as if she was about to revert to an old bad habit, a full-blown temper tantrum. And I couldn’t blame her. If I had believed I was going to fly and my big brother had told me it was all a “joke,” I certainly wouldn’t laugh.

  Claudia bent over and picked Claire up and began to soothe her.

  “I’m sorry,” said Jordan, looking miserable. “I’m sorry, Claire. I can’t make you fly, but I could carry you on my shoulders during the parade.”

  Claire sniffled. “Really?”

  Jordan nodded. “You’ll be up high in the air. Would you like that? You can even hold my magic wand, okay?”

  Claire sniffled again, then hiccuped. Then she nodded and smiled.