At about 5:10 I was on my way out of the library when Miss Ellway stopped me. “Such a pity about Sean,” she said in a quiet voice. “But thank goodness he was caught before he did any real damage to this wonderful place.”
I guessed Miss Ellway was okay, after all.
By the time I arrived at the BSC meeting, everybody else was already there. “Here she is!” said Stacey, as I hurried into Claud’s room. “The greatest detective of the century!” Everybody clapped, and I gave a silly curtsy.
“Thank you, thank you,” I said. “I couldn’t have done it without my assistants, though.”
Claudia passed out snacks: Ring-Dings and Ruffles, and bagel chips for Stacey. “And since it’s a special occasion,” she said, “I even have dip for the chips.” She produced a bowl of onion dip, and we started to pig out.
Kristy called the meeting to order at five-thirty, and in between calls we talked about Sean and the fires. Mrs. Kishi had phoned Claudia to tell her about her talk with Sean and his parents, and Claudia filled us in.
“Mr. and Mrs. Addison went right to the library,” she reported. “Mom said there was a lot of hugging and crying going on.”
“I never thought Mr. and Mrs. Addison ignored Sean,” I said. “They seem like good parents.”
“I agree,” said Kristy. “But if Sean felt ignored, there’s a problem.”
“My mom said they talked about family therapy, and some special counseling for Sean,” said Claudia. “Also, the police are involved, but I don’t know what’s going to happen with that. Sean’s such a little kid.”
“Still, it’s a serious offense,” said Stacey.
“Did Sean say anything else about the fires?” I asked Claud. “Did your mom find out anything about the fire at school?”
“The police said it was unrelated,” Claud replied. “It was caused by a problem with electrical wiring.”
“I guess we were way off track suspecting those book banners,” mused Jessi. “I mean, I still don’t believe in banning books, but at least they weren’t burning them.”
“We were off track with Miss Ellway, too,” I added. “She’s not so bad, after all. I think it just took her a while to get used to being around all those kids.”
“What about Nicky?” asked Stacey. “He was a suspect, too — for a while.”
“Oh, right,” said Claudia. “I forgot to mention that. Sean explained how those matches got into Nicky’s pocket. See, he spotted them on the floor that day and realized they were his. He panicked, so he stuffed them into the nearest available hiding place. He felt really bad when he found out that the jacket belonged to Nicky.”
“Whew!” I said. “I’m glad we believed Nicky when he told us they weren’t his matches.”
Kristy leaned back in her chair and tugged at her visor. “Well, the main thing is we don’t have to worry about any more fires at the library,” she said. “We can be happy about that.”
I nodded, but somehow I wasn’t feeling terribly happy.
“What’s the matter, Mary Anne?” asked Claudia. “You look a little down.”
“It’s just that the Readathon is ending,” I said. “It’s been so much fun, and now it’s almost over.”
“You know,” Claudia said, “Ms. Feld told my mom you’re terrific with the kids. I bet she’d love for you to volunteer in the children’s room once in awhile. You don’t have to give up going there if you don’t want to.”
What a relief. I wouldn’t have to go back to watching sad movies in the afternoons, after all. “That’s great, Claud,” I said. “Hey, you guys,” I went on, “I hope you’re planning to come to the Readathon awards ceremony on Saturday.”
“We wouldn’t miss it for the world,” said Kristy.
* * *
Sure enough, by ten o’clock on Saturday morning, the members of the BSC were all on hand in the children’s room. Even Mallory was there! Her parents had agreed to let her attend, after she and Nicky had begged them for the entire week.
I had arrived early to help set up chairs in the space near the puppet theatre. Ms. Feld was rushing around, getting ready for the ceremony. She laid out the certificates that would be given to the children who had participated, checked and double-checked her list of winners in each grade, and even had time to give last-minute quizzes to a couple of kids who had finished books just before the final deadline.
Miss Ellway and I helped seat the kids and their parents. Mr. and Mrs. Pike were there, along with all the Pike kids. I spotted Charlotte Johanssen and her parents, and Norman and Sarah Hill with their parents. The Arnolds were there, and so were the Sobaks and the Hobarts and the Braddocks. Even Sean and Corrie Addison were there with their parents. Mrs. Addison took me aside and thanked me for “helping out” with Sean. She kept her arm around him, and seemed to be giving him plenty of attention.
The children’s room was noisier than I’d ever heard it, but when Ms. Feld stepped in front of the crowd, everybody quieted down. “Greetings!” she said. “We’re so happy to have you here. I’d like to thank all the participants who made our Readathon such a success.” Then she turned and smiled at me. “I would also like to thank Mary Anne Spier, who has been a tremendous help to me and Miss Ellway over these past weeks.”
Everybody clapped, and I saw Nicky Pike stick his fingers into his mouth to give a loud whistle. I blushed.
“First of all, I’d like each of our readers to come up here as I call out your name. You can hand our volunteers,” she gestured at two women sitting at the checkout desk, “the money you’ve earned, and they’ll count it. We’ll give you each a special Readathon certificate. After that, I’ll tell you the total amount of money you earned, and then we’ll announce the winners for most books read in each grade.” She smiled around at the kids and parents. “This money will go toward some wonderful new books for our children’s room, and I know you’ll be proud to say you helped to buy them.”
Again, there was applause. Then Ms. Feld began to call out names, and one by one the children came up to hand over their money. I have to confess I had a lump in my throat as I watched the kids march to the front of the room to turn in their money. And when Ms. Feld handed them their certificates, they smiled so proudly I had to work to hold back my tears. I knew Kristy would never let me forget it if she caught me crying at a Readathon ceremony.
Once the kids had received their certificates and were seated again, Ms. Feld took a few minutes to consult with the volunteers who had been counting the money. Then she turned back to the audience. “This is wonderful!” she said. “I know you’ll all be proud and happy to hear that we raised even more money than we had expected to. We’ll be able to buy quite a lot of new books.” She announced the figure, and everybody applauded and cheered.
“All right,” she said, as the cheering died down. “Now it’s time to announce the winner in each grade. Our winners will receive these special coupons,” she held up a handful of brightly colored papers, “for prizes donated by some of our local merchants.” She picked up her list of winners and began to read. “Our first-grade winner is Mathew Hobart,” she said. A big cheer arose as Mathew walked to the front of the room and shook Ms. Feld’s hand. She handed him a green coupon, and he turned to display it to the crowd. He was grinning from ear to ear.
“The prize for most books read by a second-grader goes to Marilyn Arnold,” announced Ms. Feld. Another cheer arose as Marilyn claimed her prize.
“I’m going to skip over the third-grade prize and come back to it, because it’s a special one,” said Ms. Feld. She smiled mysteriously. I looked around at the crowd, and noticed that Rosie Wilder was smiling, too. I figured she must have read so many books that she was going to get a special mention, along with her prize. As far as I knew, there was no question that she had read more books than any other third-grader.
“The fourth-grade prize goes to Sarah Hill,” Ms. Feld said. Sarah, smiling shyly, stepped forward to receive her coupon. The crowd had barely stopp
ed cheering when Ms. Feld announced the fifth-grade prize, which went to a boy I didn’t know named Bruce Boyd.
“And now, the third-grade prize,” said Ms. Feld. “This prize is a special one because of the extra effort a certain person put into winning it. Can you all please join me in congratulating Nicky Pike, for reading the most books of any third-grader.”
I was shocked — and I think a lot of other people in the audience were, too. Rosie Wilder turned pale, but then she recovered and yelled, “Yay, Nicky!” at the top of her lungs. Everybody else cheered, too, and I have to say the applause for Nicky was louder than the applause for any of the other winners. It didn’t hurt that he had his own nine-member Pike family cheering section.
Nicky had to walk by me on his way to receive his coupon, and as he passed he leaned over and whispered in my ear, “Surprise!” He walked proudly to Ms. Feld, shook her hand, and accepted his coupon. Then he turned to the audience. “I just want to say that I worked hard because I wanted to win this prize for Mary Anne. I did most of my reading at home, so I could surprise her. She’s the one who got me excited about reading. Thank you, Mary Anne!”
Okay, I admit it. That’s where I lost it. I started to cry, and I didn’t even try to hide it from Kristy. And when Charlotte yelled out, “Hooray for Mary Anne!” and the other kids started cheering, well — let’s just say I ended up about as soggy as I had been after watching Roman Holiday. Luckily, at that moment a smiling Miss Ellway leaned over and handed me a clean, starched white handkerchief.
So, there you have it. I was a cry-baby before the Readathon, and I ended up sobbing at the end of it, too. But I wouldn’t have missed it for anything. Fires and all, it was one of my best experiences ever.
Various groups have banned or tried to ban the books mentioned in this story from school and public libraries. For more information about book banning, visit the American Library Association online at www.ala.org/advocacy/banned.
The author gratefully acknowledges
Ellen Miles
for her help in
preparing this manuscript.
About the Author
ANN MATTHEWS MARTIN was born on August 12, 1955. She grew up in Princeton, New Jersey, with her parents and her younger sister, Jane.
There are currently over 176 million copies of The Baby-sitters Club in print. (If you stacked all of these books up, the pile would be 21,245 miles high.) In addition to The Baby-sitters Club, Ann is the author of two other series, Main Street and Family Tree. Her novels include Belle Teal, A Corner of the Universe (a Newbery Honor book), Here Today, A Dog’s Life, On Christmas Eve, Everything for a Dog, Ten Rules for Living with My Sister, and Ten Good and Bad Things About My Life (So Far). She is also the coauthor, with Laura Godwin, of the Doll People series.
Ann lives in upstate New York with her dog and her cats.
Copyright © 1994 by Ann M. Martin
Cover art by Hodges Soileau
All rights reserved. Published by Scholastic Inc. SCHOLASTIC, THE BABY-SITTERS CLUB, and associated logos are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Scholastic Inc.
First edition, February 1994
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher. For information regarding permission, write to Scholastic Inc., Attention: Permissions Department, 557 Broadway, New York, NY 10012.
e-ISBN 978-0-545-76949-5
Ann M. Martin, Mary Anne and the Library Mystery
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