I had just checked the Raggedy Ann corner when I glanced up to see a frazzled-looking Miss Ellway dashing through the room. “Oh, my lord!” I whispered to myself. Where was Miss Ellway going? Was Claudia right in suspecting her? Had Miss Ellway set the fire — and was she now running away from the scene of the crime?
I barely had time to think about the possibility before I saw Miss Ellway returning, this time carrying a fire extinguisher. “Don’t worry, Mary Anne!” she cried, as she dashed past me. “It’s just a small fire. I think we can put it out.” Oops. Boy, did I feel bad.
I went back to checking the library for stray kids, just in case. Even if the fire was small, it would be safer to evacuate everyone. But by the time Kristy and I had lined up the kids, Ms. Feld told us that the fire was out and that everybody could return to whatever they had been doing.
I heaved a sigh of relief. The kids — and the books — were safe. But who had set the fire? Where had it been set, and what had been burned this time? I ran up the back stairs and into Mrs. Kishi’s office, pretending to be upset. “Is the fire really out?” I asked. “Where was it? This is getting so scary!”
“Calm down, Mary Anne,” said Mrs. Kishi. “Everything is all right. If you like, I’ll show you where the fire was, so you can see for yourself.” She led me back downstairs, to a trash can that sat outside one of the doors to the children’s room, in the hall where the bathrooms are. The hallway had been temporarily blocked off with a row of chairs. “See?” she said. “No fire. The police asked me to block it off until they arrive. The fire department will come, too. Then, once the janitor cleans up this mess, nobody would ever guess there even was a fire.”
And all the clues would be gone, too, I thought to myself. I leaned down to examine the contents of the trash can. All I saw at first were a few partially burned pieces of paper. Then I spotted something that made my heart race. A book! I looked closer, and saw the charred remains of a library copy of Tom Sawyer. I took a deep breath, stood up, and smiled at Mrs. Kishi. “I’m sorry I got so upset,” I said. “These fires really frighten me.”
“Me, too,” she agreed. “But the police don’t seem to take them very seriously. They think they’re just a series of pranks, and they say that the best thing to do is try to prevent future fires and just ignore these. The prankster probably wants attention, and it’s best not to give it to him — or her.”
I nodded. “Well, I better get back to work,” I said. “Thanks for showing this to me. I feel much better.”
I returned to the children’s room and found Nicky. “Ready to find those books?” I asked. And for the next hour, I was busy with my job.
During that hour, though, something was nagging at me, as though I had forgotten something, or something was missing. I couldn’t put my finger on what it was.
“Ready to go?” Kristy asked me at about five o’clock. “I’m going to walk Rosie home and then head for the meeting. Why don’t you come with us?”
“Okay,” I said, looking around. “I guess I’m done here.” I still had the feeling I had forgotten something, but I tried to shake it off. I grabbed my jacket and put it on. I reached into my pocket for my gloves, and pulled out the book list the demonstrators had given me. Something made me unfold it and look it over, and then I realized what had been nagging at me. As I read the list, I swear I felt a light bulb turn on in my brain.
“Kristy!” I hissed, pulling her aside. “I have to show you something. It’s about the fires!”
“Wait,” she whispered. “Not in front of Rosie. Wait till we drop her off at home.”
We left the library and walked quickly, hurrying Rosie along. As soon as we had seen her safely inside, Kristy turned to me. “What is it?” she asked.
“This,” I said, shoving the list into her hands. “A list of books those demonstrators want to ban.”
“So?” she said.
“Kristy, every one of the books that was burned is on that list.”
Kristy looked shocked. Then she glanced at the list and nodded. “You’re absolutely right. There’s Deenie and A Light in the Attic.”
“And there’s Tom Sawyer,” I said. “That’s the book that was burned today.”
“I guess we have some new suspects,” Kristy said grimly. “I thought those people were just book banners, and that was bad enough. But they might be book burners, too.”
“Mal will be so happy to hear that Nicky is off the suspect list,” said Jessi. “Not that anyone ever really suspected him, but — well, you know.”
Once again, Kristy had relaxed club rules. Even though it was an official BSC meeting, she was allowing us to start out by discussing something other than club business. Not only was she allowing it — she was pretty much leading the discussion. She and I had filled in the others on what had happened at the library that afternoon, and everybody was appalled. A third fire.
“I just can’t believe this,” said Shannon, who was reading through the book banners’ list I had passed around. “I can’t even figure out what could possibly be dangerous about some of these books.”
“It all depends on how you look at things, I guess,” said Stacey. “Some people seem to think the Bobbsey Twins are the only safe books to read.”
“But, really,” said Shannon. “This is ridiculous! I mean, A Wrinkle in Time is on this list. That’s a great book.”
“I know,” said Stacey. “And what about How to Eat Fried Worms? I mean, that’s just a harmless, funny book.”
“We think so,” I said. “But apparently some people disagree.”
“Yeah,” said Kristy. “And one of them believes that it’s better to burn those books than to let kids read them.”
“We don’t know that for sure,” I said. “I mean, I guess the book banners are our major suspects. Nicky’s off the hook, and now I’m almost positive that Miss Ellway is innocent, too.” I had told everybody about seeing her run toward the fire with the extinguisher. “But would they really endanger the whole library — and all the people in it — just to make a point?”
“They seem to feel pretty strongly about their cause,” said Kristy.
“That doesn’t mean that they’re criminals,” argued Stacey. “But maybe we should do a little investigating. Maybe we can talk to them and find out more about what they’re trying to do.”
“Oh, sure,” said Claudia. “Like we’re going to walk up to them and say, ‘Excuse me, but did you guys happen to set those fires in the library?’ ”
Stacey made a face at Claud. “That’s not what I meant, silly. Maybe we could pretend to be from our school paper or something.”
“That’s perfect!” I exclaimed. “They want publicity. That’s the whole point of demonstrating. Plus, they’ve written letters to the Stoneybrook News. They would probably love the idea of more exposure.”
The phone started ringing then, and we were busy for the next few minutes answering calls and setting up jobs. But before the meeting ended, we had decided on a plan.
First, Claudia and Stacey would approach the demonstrators and just talk to them a little, asking casual questions about why they wanted to ban books and finding out who the members of the group were. Then Jessi and Shannon would do some spying: following the members as they left the library and trying to find out what other types of activities they were involved in. Finally, Kristy and I would pose as reporters for the SMS newspaper, and try to ask a few more probing questions.
“The more we know about them, the better,” said Kristy. “And if we’re really lucky, maybe we’ll come up with some real evidence — evidence we can take to the police.”
I was full of energy when I left the meeting that afternoon. It felt good to have a plan — a plan for doing something that might lead to ending the fires in the library.
Kristy and I had agreed to wait for a few days before we approached the demonstrators in our “school newspaper-reporter” roles. We needed to hear what the others found out first.
At our Friday meeting, Claudia and Stacey told us that talking to the demonstrators had been pretty frustrating. “They didn’t want to discuss anything except how terrible those books on the list are, and how they poison children’s minds,” said Stacey. “I asked that woman in the green hat why A Light in the Attic was on the list, and she started to lecture me about profanity and violence. I tried to argue with her, since I didn’t really remember any of that kind of stuff in the book, but she just kept talking louder and louder.”
“I didn’t find out too much, either,” said Claudia. She was poking through a bag of M&M’s as she spoke, picking out all the brown ones. She insists that the brown ones taste best. “I hung back and watched everybody. I tried to figure out what kind of people they were, and if they were related. Like, if any of them were married couples or whatever. Anyway,” she went on, popping a whole handful of brown M&M’s into her mouth, “the main thing I discovered was —”
Just then, the phone rang, and Kristy held up a hand to Claudia. “Hold that thought,” she said. She picked up the phone and said, “Baby-sitters Club. Can I help you?”
The call was from Mrs. Hill, who was looking for a Saturday night sitter for Norman and Sarah. I checked the record book and saw that Shannon and Stacey were the only ones free. “You take it, Stacey,” said Shannon. “I was thinking about going to the movies that night anyway.”
Kristy called Mrs. Hill back and told her that Stacey would be there at six on Saturday. Then she hung up and turned to Claudia. “Okay,” she said. “So, what were you saying? It sounded like you found out something important.”
“Well, it’s important to me,” said Claudia, giggling. “And maybe to Stacey. But I doubt the rest of you will think it’s very meaningful.” She picked out a red M&M (her next favorite color) and ate it. “What I observed was that the book banners have very little fashion sense.” She grinned.
“Claudia!” said Kristy, cracking up. “I don’t believe you.”
Stacey picked up a pillow and bopped Claudia on the head. “You’re a nut,” she said, giggling.
“I’m serious!” protested Claudia. “You should have seen some of the outfits these people were wearing. I mean, I wouldn’t even call them outfits. Nothing matched, everything clashed, and they obviously don’t know a thing about coordinating accessories.”
We cracked up. “Oh, I can just see it,” said Jessi, wiping tears of laughter from her eyes. “We’ll go to the police and say, ‘Book these people. They’re in serious violation of every fashion rule, including hem length and color composition.’ They’d have to take us seriously.”
Claudia pretended to be offended. “Well, you all may not think it means much, but personally, I happen to think it’s a crime to dress like that.”
Once we got over our giggles, Jessi and Shannon made their report. “Well,” began Jessi, “I can’t say we learned too much, either. We followed the woman in the green hat for a while, but she just did normal stuff like grocery shopping and picking up dry cleaning. She seems to live over by the elementary school, in a regular-looking house.”
“We did notice one suspicious thing,” said Shannon. “Or at least I thought it was suspicious. After she picked up her dry cleaning, she stopped to look in the window of the bookstore, and after she had looked for a while she whipped out a notebook and wrote something down.”
“Oh, no,” said Kristy. “I wonder if they’re going to try to burn down the bookstore next.”
“I don’t know if they’re going to burn down anything,” said Jessi. “I didn’t get the feeling that they’re criminals. They all seem like regular moms and dads. We followed one of the men for a while, and all he did was pick up his little girl at the day-care center. I know it’s important to keep an eye on these people, but I don’t think we should forget about looking for other suspects, too.”
Kristy and I decided to check the library on Saturday, to see if the demonstrators were there. If they were, we would try to interview them. If not, we would wait until Monday.
* * *
“We’re in luck!” said Kristy, as we neared the library at about ten o’clock on Saturday morning. Sure enough, a small group of demonstrators was clustered near the library entrance.
I saw some new faces, men and women I hadn’t noticed on other days, and figured they must be people who only had time to demonstrate on weekends. But I saw some familiar faces, too. The man with the sign was there, and so was the woman with the green hat. Kristy and I held a quick discussion and decided to approach her first.
“Excuse me,” said Kristy. “I’m Kristy Thomas and this is Mary Anne Spier. We’re writing a story on book banning for our school newspaper, and we were wondering if we could interview you.”
“Me?” asked the woman. “Well, it would be my pleasure. My name is Bertha Dow. That’s D-O-W. Mrs. Bertha Dow.” She handed us copies of the list, along with a couple of pamphlets that looked as if they had been run off on a mimeograph machine.
Kristy nodded at me, and I gulped. It was time to ask some questions. I pulled a pad and pencil out of my backpack, and began. “What do you hope to accomplish by demonstrating?” I asked.
That was all Mrs. Dow needed to get started. She talked for fifteen minutes solid. I pretended to scribble notes, and I nodded and said “Mm hmm,” but most of what she said sounded pretty familiar. It was the same stuff she had told Stacey.
I could see that Kristy was growing impatient. Suddenly, she burst in with a question, a question I never would have asked. “Have you ever burned any books?” she asked.
The woman looked a little surprised. I, for one, was shocked. But I was even more astonished when the woman answered.
“Yes, I have,” she said. “I was part of a public demonstration in North Carolina, many years ago. We set fire to a pile of offensive books, thinking it was the best way to draw attention to our cause. Some of us were arrested, though, and the publicity was awful. I realized then that burning books is not a good idea, and I’ve never done it again.” She smiled sweetly at Kristy, who could only stare. “I think there are better ways to get our point across.”
Kristy was just standing there with her mouth open. I put my pencil and notebook away, thanked Mrs. Dow for her time, and pulled Kristy down the street.
“I can’t believe she actually admitted she burned books!” said Kristy. “I mean, even if they aren’t the ones setting the fires. What an awful thing to do!”
I agreed. “It is awful. But I believed her when she said she would never do it again. I’m not crazy about those people, but somehow I don’t think they’re setting the fires.”
“So we’re at a dead end again, aren’t we?” asked Kristy.
“I guess,” I said. “But I’m not ready to give up.” I wanted to solve the case more than ever — before another fire was set.
Shannon picked up Rosie Wilder at home that afternoon. Kristy couldn’t sit for Rosie, so Shannon was taking her place. It was a chilly afternoon, but the sun was out, and Shannon was in a good mood. “I hear you’re doing great in the Readathon,” Shannon said, as she and Rosie walked toward the library. “Do you think you have a chance of winning the prize for your grade?”
“Definitely,” said Rosie. “I’m good at winning contests, like spelling bees and things. Did you ever see all the ribbons and plaques I have at home?”
Shannon shook her head.
“I’ll show them to you later,” said Rosie, skipping along. “After we go to the library and get some more books, that is. I finished all these already.” She showed Shannon a pile of five or six books.
“Very impressive,” said Shannon. She wasn’t put off by Rosie’s boasting. Winning prizes was just a part of life for Rosie.
When they reached the library, they found Claudia there with Nicky. I was there, too, working. The children’s room wasn’t quite as busy as usual, since it was a Sunday, but it was still full of activity. Ms. Feld was trying to listen to reports, make up a bulletin-board displ
ay, and write up overdue notices. Miss Ellway was checking out books and helping new kids sign up for library cards.
“Is the children’s room always open on Sundays?” asked Shannon, sitting down at a table in the nonfiction room with Claudia and me. Rosie and Nicky wandered off to look at books.
“Just for a few hours,” I said, “but with the Readathon going on the kids really make use of the time. I can’t believe how many of them are here.”
Shannon snuck a few glances at Miss Ellway. “She doesn’t look like a firebug,” she whispered to me.
“I know,” I said. “But you know what I just thought of? I was talking to her before, and she mentioned that her brother owns a hardware store in town. That means there’s at least one other Ellway around. Maybe somebody else in the Ellway family is starting the fires.”
Claudia raised her eyebrows. “Good point, Mary Anne. They would all have a stake in destroying this place, wouldn’t they?”
“Shh!” I said. “I don’t want Miss Ellway to hear us.”
“But if they want the land back,” said Shannon, “they’re not doing a very good job of burning down the library.”
“That’s true,” said Claudia. “Maybe those little fires are supposed to throw people off the track. You know, everybody gets used to them, and then — boom! — the big fire is set.”
“Hmmm,” said Shannon. “You could be right.”
Nicky’s head popped up behind Claudia, startling us all. “If she’s right,” he said, “we better find out who those other Ellways are!”
“Nicky!” said Claudia. “Were you eavesdropping?”
Nicky blushed. “I — I was just walking by,” he said.