Baby-Sitters' Fright Night

  “Costumes? Why do they need costumes?” asked Hannie.

  “Salem is having a big Halloween parade this year,” I explained, “and all the SMS kids are going to be in it.”

  Karen practically levitated. “A parade? A parade!” she squeaked. “I want to be in a Halloween parade!”

  “Me, too!” cried Hannie.

  “Me, too,” said Andrew softly.

  Almost instantly all the other kids joined in.

  “Hey,” I said.

  Everyone kept talking at once.

  “Hey!”

  Everyone talked louder.

  Logan put two fingers in his mouth and whistled.

  That made everyone quiet down. “Thank you, ladies and gentlemen,” Logan said. Once again, he and I exchanged glances. Then he continued, “And now that I have your undivided attention, Claudia and I have an announcement to make.” He bowed in my direction, and Karen giggled.

  I bowed back. Then I said, “We’d like to announce that there is no reason you can’t have a Halloween parade of your own.”

  Cheers broke out, and then all the talking began again. Logan whistled once more.

  “We can’t plan a parade if everybody talks at once. We need to organize this. Who wants to take notes?”

  “I will,” offered Linny.

  “Good. The Stoneybrook Halloween Parade Planning Committee will meet in the den in …” Logan looked at his watch. “Three minutes.”

  A stampede broke out for the den. Soon Logan and I were refereeing a parade brainstorming session, which was not very different from utter chaos. Suggestions flew, arguments erupted, rivalries over who was going to lead and who was going to follow broke out. But by the time Watson could be heard coming in the front door, a route (along the street to the nearby park), a meeting place (Watson’s mansion), a time (afternoon, “so people can take lots of pictures”), and a phone chain (to notify everybody else the kids wanted to involve) had been set up.

  “Daddy, Daddy!” shrieked Karen dramatically. “You have a very important job.”

  “What’s his job, Karen?” I asked, as she jumped up and prepared to race down the front hall to her father.

  “He has to fix it so we can march down the middle of the street with no cars,” said Karen, and flew out of the room.

  “Well,” I said. “It looks like we’re going to have a parade. I just hope it doesn’t rain on it!”

  “Yeah,” Logan grinned. “I’d hate to be standing next to a real ghost — and be washed away!”

  Mallory snatched her notebook from Mr. Wu’s hand as if it were a life preserver. “Thank you,” she said.

  Over her shoulder, I could see that Jessi had not only put the notebook in an envelope and taped every possible opening shut, but she had also written Personal and Confidential all over it.

  Talk about making something look conspicuous.

  We’d spent a quiet morning in the local library doing research for our school projects. In addition to our short individual reports, all of us were going to make a map of Salem to be put on display at SMS. We were going to label and illustrate the things we thought were interesting and important.

  I’d honestly been suspicious of this morning in the library. I mean, all of us together? With creeps like Alan and lightweights like Cokie and Grace, how could anybody get any work done?

  Never underestimate the power of a librarian’s glare, especially when combined with the unexpected grasp of a teacher’s hand on your shoulder. Coach Wu swooped down on Cokie after the second giggle and that was the last we heard from her. And interestingly enough, Mrs. Bernhardt managed to be very near Alan at all times, even when he drifted into the stacks to do research.

  As a result, I got a lot more work done than I expected (and I think some other people did, too, in spite of themselves), and I was looking forward to the quiet time after lunch and before the parade. I didn’t see how Kristy and some of the others could jump to attention when Mr. Blake suggested yet one more “quick” sight-seeing excursion. Nor could I understand how Mallory could get so intense over the mystery notebook.

  But she did.

  Turning to me with the notebook pressed against her chest, Mallory declared, “I’m going into the inn library to work on this and bring it up to date.”

  “Whatever,” I said. I stifled a yawn and thought about a nap. “Don’t forget that the little kids’ parade is this afternoon.”

  “I know. And I haven’t forgotten that Mary Anne is baby-sitting for Nidia tonight during the grown-ups’ parade. I haven’t forgotten anything,” Mallory said earnestly. “And it’s all about to go in this book.” She gave it a pat.

  “Okay, Mal. We’ll come get you when it’s time for the kids’ parade and the shopping expedition.”

  Mallory nodded and charged down the hall that led from the main entrance of the inn to the library at the back.

  I turned in a more dignified manner (another yawn) and went upstairs to my room, stopping to call out to Mary Anne, who was playing on the swings with Nidia.

  Several outfits were scattered across Stacey’s bed, and the sound of splashing and the perfumy smell of bubble bath told me that she was submarining around in the bathtub.

  “It’s me,” I said (in case she hadn’t guessed). I hung the DO NOT DISTURB sign on the door, stretched out on the bed, and zonked out.

  I woke up to Stacey saying, “Abby! It’s time to go shopping.”

  “Shopping?” I sat up and yawned. “What happened to the kids’ parade?”

  “That, too,” said Stacey impatiently. “But Mrs. Bernhardt just came around and told everyone that if you don’t want to watch the parade, you can come with the group and have some time to shop at the pedestrian mall.”

  “I’m joyous,” I said, sitting up. “I better go get Mal. She’s probably still in the library.”

  She was. Her fingers were stained with ink and her glasses were crooked. She was bent over the notebook writing with such concentration that when I touched her shoulder she jumped.

  “Showtime,” I said.

  “Oh. Oh, right.” Mal straightened her glasses and closed the notebook carefully.

  The entire SMS group was going to turn out for the grown-ups’ parade that night, and at least half the group wanted to go out and buy things for their costumes.

  Fortunately, Ms. Garcia and Nidia weren’t the only ones going to the children’s parade that afternoon. Coach Wu and Mr. Wu were going, too, along with Mrs. Bernhardt, while the tireless Blake family went on yet another sightseeing excursion, this time to the Witch House, which isn’t the house where an alleged witch once lived, but the house of one of the judges in the Salem Witch Trials.

  We walked to the pedestrian mall and Mr. and Mrs. Blake herded their group (including Kristy) away. The place was swarming with little kids and more were pouring in every second.

  Stacey gave the crowd a quick once-over and took charge. Good thing, too. I’m not a big shopper. Stacey, of course, is practically a professional. Mallory and Mary Anne are about average, I suspect. They don’t mind shopping, but they don’t go out of their way to do it.

  The Essex Street Mall, which is for pedestrians only, isn’t very long but there are more than enough places to shop. Coach Wu told us we had to stay together in pairs (the old buddy system rears its ugly head), we couldn’t leave the mall area, and we had to meet back by the side entrance of the Peabody Essex Museum in one hour.

  Everyone scattered (in twos) but we hadn’t gone ten steps before the kids leading the children’s parade appeared. Mary Anne and Mallory made a U-turn to head back, oohing and ahhing over how cute they all were.

  “Look,” exclaimed Mary Anne. “There’s Nidia! She’s a cat.”

  “We already knew that,” I pointed out. “She walked over here with us.”

  Just then, Nidia saw us and smiled and waved.

  “And a very cute cat,” I added. “The cutest one in the parade.”

  We watched the parade as i
f we had never seen kids in costumes before. Until Stacey looked at her watch and switched back into her consumer mode. “Uh-oh,” she said. “We have less than forty minutes left to do our shopping. Let’s go!”

  We finished just as the parade was ending, and ran into Martha Kempner in the shoe store where we’d stopped to make a special sock purchase. She smiled and waggled her fingers at us, then returned her attention to her feet, which were strapped into silvery open-toed sandals with very high heels.

  Stacey whispered, “Well, they make her legs look longer.”

  “Yeah.” I snorted. “And those shoes are going to make her into a cripple if she keeps wearing them. Do you have any idea what high heels do to your feet, your legs, your back, your whole body? I mean, if men had to wear shoes like that, how long do you think high heels would be fashionable?”

  “We’re not here to talk about the politics of shoes,” said Mary Anne hesitantly.

  Mal said loyally, “Martha — Ms. Kempner always looks great.”

  “I’m surprised she can think with those instruments of torture on her feet. No wonder she writes books about murder,” I said.

  We made it back to the meeting place with nine seconds to spare. I know it was nine seconds because Kristy was there, keeping time.

  We spent the rest of the afternoon working on our costumes for the adult parade that evening, with a quick break for dinner before we went upstairs to make ourselves parade-worthy. When we emerged from our rooms afterward, in full regalia, we looked outstanding — a tribute to Claudia’s genius, our own ingenuity, and the wonders of recycling.

  Kristy was wearing her collie cap (which is in memory of her dog Louie, who died), a necklace made of dog biscuits and bones, and one of those fake nose-moustache-glasses combinations, and carrying a large magnifying glass. She was also wearing a name tag that said “Sherlock Bones.”

  Mallory, dressed almost entirely in orange (including a Day-Glo orange down vest of mine), had pinned cut-out paper pumpkins all over her body, connected with green yarn. She was wearing the top half of one of those hollow plastic pumpkins as a hat and carrying the pumpkin itself, from which trailed green yarn and paper leaves. She had borrowed my pet pumpkin and clipped it to her belt loop. What was Mallory? You mean you couldn’t tell? A pumpkin patch!

  Mary Anne was going as her kitten, Tigger. She wore whiskers and ears made of felt and mittens with fake fingernails trimmed into claws. The outfit was topped (or bottomed) off with a tail made of yarn attached to one of Kristy’s gray sweatshirts.

  Stacey had fallen back on her assortment of basic black clothing. Dressed in black from head to toe, she had painted her face with the numbers of a clock. She was Mother Time.

  My costume description comes last because I consider it the best — not Claudia’s idea, although Claudia inspired it (she’d suggested a soccer theme to me). I was wearing my shirt that read, “Soccer: Invented by men, perfected by women.” I had also attached one of those plastic blow-up globes to one shoulder and a plastic cup to the other. I was the women’s soccer World Cup, get it?

  No one did except me. But that was okay. I don’t mind being the only one around smart enough to laugh at my own jokes.

  When Ms. Garcia saw Mary Anne’s costume, she grinned hugely. “A big cat and a little cat. I’ll have to take a picture of this for my album.” Nidia, naturally, was delighted, too. It was quite a cute-fest to see the two cool cats together. Mary Anne was in charge of Nidia during the adult parade, so that Ms. Garcia could keep an eye on all of us.

  Salem was overflowing with people. Halloween is a huge celebration there. As our SMS group edged out of the house into the crowds of ghosts and ghouls, I heard Cokie start ragging on Eileen again.

  “Like my costume, Eileen?” she asked.

  I heard Eileen murmur, “No.” I didn’t have to turn around to agree. I’d checked out Cokie and Grace earlier. They were dressed as witches (how original) in stereotypical costumes: pointed hats, elaborate costumes, red nails. They were even carrying brooms.

  “What an interesting costume you have on, Eileen. What are you supposed to be?” Cokie prodded her.

  “I’m not wearing —”

  “You’ll have to show us how to fly these things later.” Cokie and Grace both cackled. Literally. That’s how they always laugh.

  People like Cokie and Grace were probably the ones who gave witches a bad name to begin with.

  Suddenly, Mallory edged in beside Eileen, who, having been singled out from the herd, was now being ignored by everyone. She grabbed Eileen’s elbow and said, “Come on, Eileen. Let’s get near the front where we can see.” With that, she dragged Eileen out of Cokie’s range.

  “Blood,” a creepy voice nearby intoned. “Bloooooood.”

  “Get lost, Alan,” I heard Kristy say.

  Alan was dressed as a vampire.

  Cary was wearing whiskers, a long pointed nose, furry ears, and had somehow attached patches of fake fur to his cheeks. “Rat man,” he kept explaining with a rodent smile.

  The parade was awesome. The street was jammed. Even if cars had been allowed to drive on it, they wouldn’t have fit. Ahead, I saw Mary Anne take Nidia’s hand. Nidia pressed close to Mary Anne the way a kitten does to a mother cat.

  We were on the buddy system again, and had decided on a meeting place if we got separated. But the teachers were keeping a pretty sharp eye on everyone, trying to prevent that from happening. Frankly, I was glad of it. The crowd surged and pressed around us with a life of its own, and if I’d been by myself, it might have been scary.

  “Alan! Get away!” I heard Kristy say, and then I heard her howl with rage.

  Alan slithered by and I instinctively stuck out my foot. Under normal conditions, he would have gone sprawling, but the crowd had become so thick that he just reeled sideways against someone before rebounding.

  He turned and stuck out his tongue at me. “Fangs a lot,” he said and oozed away.

  Kristy appeared, spitting on her hand and rubbing her neck. Two red dots glittered there. For one moment, I thought Alan had actually bitten her. And of course, that meant she’d have to get rabies shots, I thought, only half joking with myself.

  Then Kristy said, “It’s permanent ink. It’s probably going to stay on forever. He is such a jerk!”

  Someone crashed against me and it was my turn to reel back. A voice said, “Hey, watch it, kid,” and hands grabbed at my waist. I straightened up and turned and caught a glimpse of a white-sheeted figure disappearing into the crowd.

  My hands dropped instinctively to my waist pack. Had I been mugged by a ghost? Had my pocket been picked by a poltergeist?

  I looked down in disbelief. I had. My instincts had been correct. The person in the ghost costume had nabbed my waist pack.

  It was gone.

  “Hey!” I shouted. “Hey!” I pushed forward, then stopped as the crowd pushed me back. I could see at least three ghosts in the immediate crowd, any one of whom might have been the pickpocket ghost. Like witches, ghosts were a very popular costume.

  “Hey!” I shouted again, this time in frustration. I raised my voice. “Everyone be careful! There is a pickpocket in a ghost costume here!”

  No one even seemed to notice except Stacey, who as my buddy wasn’t supposed to get separated from me. “You had your pocket picked?” she exclaimed, turning toward me.

  “Not picked — removed. Someone took my waist pack,” I explained. My hands were shaking, thinking how easy it was for the robber. “Some creep in a sheet grabbed it, just like that.”

  “They must have cut the strap,” she said, with a knowing nod of her head. “I’ve heard about that before.”

  “Oh, well, it’s no big deal,” I said, trying to calm down. It really wasn’t, but it infuriated me that someone would do that. I took a deep breath. “It just had the key card to my room in it, and a couple of dollars. The key card isn’t labeled or anything, so that’s no problem.”

  “Still, you should r
eport it to the police.”

  “Tomorrow, maybe, not tonight. Come on, we don’t want to get left behind.” I forced myself to laugh, and then felt better. “I guess I can’t blame my pet pumpkin for this bad luck. I don’t even have it. Mal does.”

  We hurried and caught up with the others.

  Eventually, the parade had to go on without us. It was still growing in size, and the noise level was increasing exponentially, when we left to make our way back to the hotel. All kinds of ghosts and goblins were wandering the streets, and pumpkins leered from windows, Halloween flags snapped in the sharp air, silhouettes of witches and black cats could be seen outlined in the glass panels of doors and windows.

  Salem really did get dressed up for Halloween. It was, I thought somewhat cynically, a big business in these parts. I wondered what the people who’d been killed for refusing to confess to being witches would think of all this. After all, it was their deaths that had given Salem the reputation it was capitalizing on now.

  I stopped at the front desk to report the lost key, and Mr. Hewson promised me another first thing in the morning. I followed Stacey upstairs to our room.

  She was standing in the doorway when I arrived, a silhouette in black against the light coming from the room. It was a very dramatic pose, both hands up to her face, her legs braced as if she were about to spring into action.

  “Nice pose, Mother Time, but you’ll have to move. I’m wiped out,” I said.

  Then my jaw dropped.

  Our room was trashed. I mean, I’m not the neatest person in the world, but no way had I left it like that.

  Totaled. Ransacked. Destroyed. Words like that (and a few worse ones) came to mind.

  “I don’t believe this,” Stacey murmured, picking her way carefully into the room.

  “Believe it,” I said. I lifted my upended suitcase off the floor and set it down again. Where was I going to put it? My bed was completely torn apart. The mattress was off. The blankets were everywhere. The only thing the intruder hadn’t done was rip the pillows. The dresser drawers had all been yanked out. Shoes were scattered across the floor. Stacey’s jewelry box was open, lying on its side on the dresser.