Mary Anne's Bad-Luck Mystery

  “You know what?” I said after a moment. “This charm is a curse. And we have to do something about it.”

  “That’s what Mallory said on Friday,” Kristy pointed out. “Remember? She said we had to ward off the evil forces.”

  “How?” Claudia demanded to know.

  Not one of us had an answer. Especially not Logan, who was looking at us as if we were all crazy. Who could blame him? I was willing to bet that over at Grace and Cokie’s table, they weren’t talking about charms and curses and evil forces. They were probably talking about the Halloween Hop.

  I glanced at them. Five people were at Grace’s table — Grace, Cokie, and three of the girls in their group of friends. They were staring at our table. I felt my face grow hot.

  “Shh, you guys,” I hissed. “I think we’re talking too loudly. People are listening.”

  “It’s no wonder,” whispered Dawn. “This is probably the most fascinating conversation they’ve heard in weeks.”

  Kristy, Claudia, Dawn, and I began to giggle. Cokie and her friends couldn’t stop staring at us, though, and Logan began to get that I’ve-had-enough-of-girls look. He escaped to a tableful of boys.

  “Let’s continue this discussion,” said Dawn, “but keep our voices down.”

  “All right,” the rest of us agreed.

  “We’ve got a little problem,” Dawn went on. “Okay. Mary Anne has a charm. The note that came with it said it’s a bad-luck charm.”

  “Right.”

  “And we didn’t really know whether to believe that until today,” Kristy added. “Now, Mary Anne has worn the charm to the Newtons’ and had bad luck there and worn the charm to school and found bad luck at school.”

  “There seems to be bad luck wherever I wear the charm. In fact, there’s bad luck wherever I am,” I said.

  My friends all edged away from me, sliding their lunches down the table.

  “Thanks a lot!” I exclaimed.

  The others looked embarrassed, but they didn’t apologize or move back.

  “Does anybody know anything about charms and curses?” asked Claudia.

  We all shook our heads.

  “I read a Nancy Drew book once called The Mystery of the Ivory Charm,” Claudia, our mystery-lover, went on, “but I don’t think it would help us.” She paused thoughtfully. “Well,” she said at last, “how can we find out about charms and curses and evil forces? We’ve got to do something.”

  “We better go to the library,” I replied.

  “Oh, I hate the library!” cried Claudia.

  “Even when you’re not there for a school assignment?” I asked her. “Even when you’re just there on your own?”

  Claudia made a face.

  “Well, I think we should go anyway,” I pronounced. “And I think we should ask Jessi and Mal to come with us. Claudia can go or not go. It’s up to her.”

  “No, it isn’t,” spoke up Kristy. “It’s not up to her. She’s going.”

  “I am?” said Claudia. “How come?”

  “Because this club sticks together,” was Kristy’s reply. “We’ll meet at the front doors to the school as soon as the last bell has rung.”

  End of discussion.

  And that was exactly what we did. Even Jessi, who has her steady sitting job on Mondays and Wednesdays, was able to go to the library, since the Braddock kids were sick with the flu. I invited Logan to join us, but he said he wouldn’t be able to go. I guess the thought of being with six girls who were doing research on witchcraft was too much for him.

  Even though I was wearing the bad-luck charm and it was really frightening me, I daydreamed contentedly all the way to the library. I kept thinking about books I’d read in which kids go to the library on just this sort of mission, and when they ask the librarian (who is always a white-haired woman about ninety years old) for books on witchcraft, she takes them to some musty old corner of the library (maybe even to the basement) and shows them these big, scary, dusty books that are older than she is. The books are weird, a little too helpful, and no one seems to know where they came from.

  Well, our visit to the Stoneybrook Public Library wasn’t like that at all.

  “What do we do first?” Claudia whispered, as soon as we were inside.

  I looked around for a white-haired, ninety-year-old woman. “Ask the librarian,” I replied.

  “No, we don’t have to do that,” said Mal and Jessi at the same time. (Since they both like to read, they probably go to the library a lot.)

  “We can just to go the card catalogue,” Jessi added.

  “Children’s room or adults’?” asked Kristy.

  “Adults’,” our experts replied immediately. “We’ll find much better stuff in the adult section.”

  “More informative,” Mal added importantly. “But we really have to behave and act grown-up. Librarians are always suspicious of kids in the adult section.”

  Mal and Jessi led the way to the adult card catalogue. Under the heading “Witchcraft,” we found cards for tons of books.

  “Do we have to copy down all of these numbers and look up each of these books?” asked Claudia. “I think I’m getting a headache. I better go home.”

  “No way,” said Kristy flatly.

  “Besides,” I added, “we don’t have to look for each book separately. They’re in the same section. See? The call numbers all start out the same way. If we find this area, we’ll have found the right section. That’s all we need.”

  Mal and Jessi looked at me admiringly. Their admiration was nice, but I felt like saying, “I know how to use the library, too, you know.”

  Considering that the Stoneybrook Public Library is a modern building that was put up just eight years ago, after the town outgrew the old library, I don’t know why I thought the witchcraft books would be in a lost, dusty, spooky corner. The new library doesn’t have any lost, dusty, spooky corners. The witchcraft books are just in a row of other books on metal shelves under a buzzing fluorescent light.

  One piece of good luck was that they were on the bottom shelf, so we could sit on the floor. We began pulling the books out and looking through their tables of contents.

  “Here’s one called On Witchcraft,” I said. “Here’s one called Witches Through the Ages,” Dawn said a moment later.

  “Here’s one called Strange Phenomena,” Jessi spoke up.

  “And here’s one called Charms and Spells,” said Kristy.

  “Why do we need all this witch and spell stuff?” I wondered out loud.

  “How else are we going to ward off the evil forces of the charm?” asked Mal.

  I shook my head. “I don’t know. I thought none of us knew. That’s why we’re here.”

  “Well, it has to be some sort of spell, doesn’t it?” Mal replied. “I figured we just didn’t know which one.”

  I shivered. “Okay. A spell.”

  We turned back to the books. I began to imagine midnight and a full moon, the six of us mixing up herbs and weird, hard-to-find things, and chanting a spooky rhyme.

  “Maybe we ought to ask Karen for advice,” I said, smiling.

  “Oh, no!” cried Kristy. Her little stepsister is totally into ghosts and witches. She even thinks that Mrs. Porter, the old woman who lives next door to Kristy, is actually a witch named Morbidda Destiny. “She’d never leave us alone if she knew what we were up to.”

  I wished I knew what we were up to. But I didn’t. Not really. So I turned back to the books. At five o’clock we each chose one to check out. Then we made a dash for Claudia’s house and our club meeting.

  Thursday

  Halloween is supposed to be scary, but I never realized just how scary it can be for some little kids. I was sitting for Jamie Newton today, and it turns out that he’s totally freaked-out by Halloween. Everything scares him. Don’t ask me why, but he’s afraid of trick-or-treaters. He’s even afraid of the costume parade that’s going to be held at his nursery school. (Or at least he was when I first got to his hous
e. He didn’t have a costume, either, because he said he was afraid to dress up.)

  Jessi was right. Jamie was spooked. (So were all us baby-sitters — but for a different reason.)

  As Mrs. Newton was leaving that afternoon, she said to Jessi in a low voice, “I hope everything will be okay. This is the first year Halloween has meant much to Jamie” (Jamie is four) “and he’s terrified. Mr. Newton and I have tried to make it sound like fun, but Jamie has only picked up on the scary stuff.”

  Jessi nodded. “Okay. Thanks for telling me.”

  (We sitters appreciate parents who warn us about problems that might come up while we’re in charge.)

  Then Mrs. Newton left with Lucy, Jamie’s baby sister, who was getting over an ear infection and had an appointment with the doctor.

  “Well, Jamie,” said Jessi, as Mrs. Newton’s car was backing into the street, “what do you want to do today?”

  Sometimes it’s not a good idea to ask an open-ended question like that. I mean, what if the kid’s reply is that he wants to skate around the kitchen floor on bars of soap — or do something even worse? But when you’re familiar with the kid you’re sitting for, you also know when it’s okay to ask such a question. And Jessi had sat for Jamie a few times and knew that he wouldn’t suggest anything weird.

  “I want to … I want to … I don’t know …” said Jamie vaguely.

  Jessi began to wish that she’d brought her Kid-Kit along. A sort of unspoken rule among us baby-sitters is that you always spend time with the kids you’re sitting for, unless you’re being paid extra to be a parents’ helper and are supposed to be washing dishes or folding clothes or something. This might seem sort of obvious, but you’d be surprised at how many sitters just wait until the parents leave and then park themselves in front of the TV until they return, never paying a bit of attention to the kids.

  Jessi had no intention of doing that. (None of us would.) “You want to play outside?” she asked Jamie.

  Jamie shook his head, his eyes growing big and frightened.

  “What’s wrong?” asked Jessi.

  “Trick-or-treaters might come by.”

  “Oh, not today, Jamie,” Jessi assured him. “It isn’t Halloween yet. There won’t be any trick-or-treaters until Halloween.”

  “I hope it’s never Halloween,” said Jamie.

  Jessi led Jamie to the couch in the living room and sat him down. “What are you so afraid of?” she asked.

  “Halloween,” Jamie replied simply.

  “But Halloween is fun,” said Jessi. “Honest. Everyone gets candy, and you dress up. You could be a ghost, or a witch —”

  Jamie covered his eyes with his hands. “No!”

  “Or Superman,” Jessi went on.

  “No ghosts! No witches!” Jamie cried.

  “But they aren’t real,” Jessi told him. “They’re just people dressed up.”

  “Ghosts and witches scare me. Especially ghosts.”

  “Why?”

  “They just scare me.”

  “Not all ghosts are mean,” said Jessi. And that was when she had her brainstorm. “Hey,” she said excitedly, “did you ever hear of Georgie?”

  “Georgie?” Jamie repeated.

  “Yeah,” said Jessi. “He was a ghost — a little ghost — and he was very shy. As shy as a mouse. He didn’t like loud noises or too much confusion. He lived in the attic of Mr. and Mrs. Whittaker’s house, and all he wanted was peace and quiet. And to be with his friends, Herman and Miss Oliver.”

  “Who are the Whittakers?” Jamie asked. “And who are Herman and Miss Oliver?”

  “If you really want to know,” said Jessi, “we could go over to my house and I could show you some of the books about Georgie.”

  “Well …” said Jamie, who looked pretty interested in spite of himself, “okay.”

  So Jessi buttoned Jamie into his jacket (a button came off in her hand), and retied his sneakers (one of the laces broke as she did so), and nearly had a heart attack.

  It’s the bad luck! she thought wildly. It’s Mary Anne’s bad luck being visited upon her friends again. In the moments that followed, Jessi panicked — but only in her mind. The Braddock kids have the flu, she thought, and Lucy Newton has had an earache — that’s a lot of sickness — and Jamie is overreacting to Halloween. And now the button and the shoelace. (Not to mention everything else that had happened.)

  Jessi took two deep breaths and tried to calm down.

  Jamie was looking at her oddly.

  “Okay,” said Jessi briskly. “If you’ll show me where the sewing box is, and if you know where the extra shoelaces are, I’ll fix you up and then we’ll go over to my house and find the Georgie books.”

  Which is exactly what they did.

  When Jamie was ready, Jessi left a note for Mrs. Newton, saying where they were going (in case Mrs. Newton came home early), and then she and Jamie left the house. Jessi carefully locked the door behind her.

  On the way to the Ramseys’, Jamie asked, “Is there anybody my age where you live?”

  Jessi shook her head. “Sorry, Jamie. My sister Becca is eight, and then I have a baby brother, Squirt.”

  “A baby?” said Jamie. “Like Lucy?”

  “Yes, but a little older. Squirt’s almost walking.”

  Jamie nodded. “Whose are the Georgie books?”

  “Well,” replied Jessi, “they used to be mine, and now they’re Becca’s, but they’re waiting to be Squirt’s. They’re perfect for someone who’s four years old, though. Just like you. That’s why I think you’ll like them.”

  “Hello?” called a voice when Jessi opened the front door to her house.

  “Hi, Mama. It’s me,” Jessi replied. “I brought Jamie Newton over for a few minutes. We’re going to look at some books.”

  Mrs. Ramsey appeared in the front hall. “Hi, Jamie,” she said.

  “Hi,” Jamie answered shyly.

  “I’ll explain later,” Jessi whispered to her mother as she and Jamie scooted by her on their way to the stairs. Then, “Be careful,” she warned Jamie as he started up the staircase. These days, she thought, you really can’t be too careful.

  “Where are the books?” Jamie asked when he was safely upstairs.

  “In Becca’s room,” Jessi replied.

  The door to Becca’s room was open, so Jessi went in, scanned her sister’s bookcase, and found a skinny picture book. She handed it to Jamie, and the two of them went into Jessi’s room to read.

  “This book,” said Jessi, “is called Georgie’s Halloween.”

  “Uh-oh,” moaned Jamie.

  “No, it’s okay. Really,” Jessi told him. “We’ll just look at the pictures first. Here. See these old people?”

  “Are they Mr. and Mrs. Whittaker?” asked Jamie.

  “That’s right,” Jessi replied. “And here are Herman and Miss Oliver.”

  “Herman’s a cat and Miss Oliver’s an owl!” Jamie exclaimed.

  “Yup. And there’s Georgie.”

  “That little thing?” said Jamie, pointing to one of the pictures. “But he doesn’t look mean at all. He’s smiling.”

  “He isn’t mean,” said Jessi. “Remember? He’s even shy.” And then Jessi read Jamie the story about the little ghost who was so shy that he wouldn’t enter the town’s contest for best Halloween costume, even though he would have won, hands down.

  “Well, that’s silly,” said Jamie when the story was over. “I would have entered the contest.”

  “You can be in your costume parade at school,” Jessi pointed out.

  Jamie looked thoughtful. “Maybe,” he said at last. “I wonder …”

  “You wonder what?”

  “If Mommy could make me a Georgie costume.”

  “You want to be a ghost?”

  “No. Georgie. Only Georgie. Then if there are any prizes, maybe I’ll win. I mean, Georgie could win. He could win his prize after all.”

  “Now that,” said Jessi, “is a great idea.” She
and Jamie smiled at each other.

  “Any more Georgie books?” asked Jamie.

  “Yup.”

  “Well … let’s read them!”

  Saturday

  Oh my lord that was my werst siting experyence ever.

  Claudia, it wasn’t that bad.

  Yes it was Mal. Just count up all the things that whent wronge.

  Okay. Well, there was the dinner.

  And the bird.

  Right, the bird. And Vanessa’s tooth.

  I think the tooth was the werst. Becuase of the bloode.

  The blood was bad, but the bird thing took so long to solve. And it made the triplets crazy.

  Well lets not arg How on erth do you spell

  Argue?

  Right.

  It was another one of those long two-person entries. They turn up in the notebook every now and then — when we’re taking care of the Pike brood (they usually need two sitters), or if Jessi and Mal are sitting together, which happens sometimes, since they’re younger.

  This entry was from a Saturday — two days after Jessi convinced Jamie that not all ghosts are scary. Claudia and Mallory sat for Mallory’s brothers and sisters.

  It was quite an ordeal. Really, as much as I like Mallory and her levelheadedness, I have to take Claudia’s side here. It was her worst baby-sitting experience ever. I’m even willing to go out on a limb and say that it was the worst experience any of us has ever had. Maybe it wasn’t as frightening as the time Dawn thought Buddy Barrett had been kidnapped, or the time I had to get Jenny Prezzioso to the hospital in an ambulance, but, well, so many things went wrong. And so many things went so very wrong.

  I might as well get it all out in the open here. Us sitters agreed that this was more bad luck being visited upon my friends. The spate of bad luck was hard to ignore. It wasn’t just a little accident here, a piece of unwelcome news there; it was one bad thing after another. Even bad things with Stacey in New York.

  Mr. and Mrs. Pike hadn’t been gone for five minutes when the first bad thing happened. The Pikes were out for a long, late evening, so Claudia and Mal had a big night ahead of them, starting with giving the Pike kids their dinner. Mr. Pike had cooked up a batch of some sort of casserole with hotdog pieces in it. Claudia thought it looked revolting, so she, personally, wasn’t too upset about what happened a few minutes later, but the Pikes — even Mallory — were. Apparently this dish is special to them. They call it Daddy Stew. And they were really looking forward to it, especially Byron, who loves to eat. He’s sort of a human vacuum cleaner.