Abby and the Secret Society

  What about Cokie? Again, I don’t know her very well, since I’m new here, but I can say one thing for sure: she and I will never be best buds. Cokie is always looking out for Number One, if you know what I mean. Her overall attitude is, “What’s in it for me?” She’s done a lot of nasty things to members of the BSC, but the nastiest of all, and the one that nobody will ever forgive, was when she tried to steal Logan away from Mary Anne. How could she?

  Just thinking about it made me mad. I glared at Cokie, who was glaring at Kristy, who was glaring at Alan, who was still pretending to hide behind Cary. Rick, who is one of the nicer guys at SMS, just ignored the whole scene.

  Kristy had asked Cokie why she was interested in working at Greenbrook. “It seems strange that you’d want to go there,” she’d said.

  That was when Cokie started acting bent out of shape and insisting that it wasn’t strange at all.

  “I didn’t mean to offend you,” said Kristy (lying through her teeth). “It’s just that renovating a club seems like such dirty work. Not your style.”

  Cokie sniffed. “Well, you’re right,” she said. “Normally I wouldn’t be interested. But I’m doing it so I’ll have an ‘in’ at the club. They’re going to need hostesses — beautiful ones — when it opens.”

  Alan snorted. “You?” he asked. “You’re not —” Just then he caught the full force of Cokie’s glare, and he saved himself. “You’re not, um, old enough to be a hostess, are you?”

  Cokie shrugged, rummaged in her bag, and pulled out a pot of lip gloss. “I guess I’ll find out,” she said. She unscrewed the top of the pot, dipped her little finger into it, and started to smooth shiny pink gloss onto her lips.

  “What about you?” asked Alan, turning to Cary. “Why are you going to work at Greenbrook?”

  “I need the money,” Cary said seriously. Then (I think I was the only one who noticed this, because he quickly ducked down, pretending to check his backpack) he blushed and looked very embarrassed. A nanosecond later he had changed the subject, and soon he and Alan were goofing on this English teacher, Mr. Fiske, who has vile taste in ties.

  Soon the bus driver drove past the Greenbrook sign and followed the long drive to the main building. When the bus stopped, we all piled out.

  “Hey, there!” called Nikki, emerging from the main building with Stephen in tow. Two women and a man followed her out the door. One of the women had flaming red hair in a mass of curls around her head. The other had straight, platinum blonde hair cut in a precise bob. The man, who looked Asian, was small and wiry and wore a black smock with many pockets.

  “I’m so glad you’re all here,” said Nikki, smiling. “Let’s see if I remember everybody’s names.” She pointed to each of us in turn. “Cary, Alan, Kristy, Stacey, Abby, Rick, and Marguerite. How’s that?”

  Everybody nodded and smiled, except for Kristy, who was too busy staring at Cokie to answer. “Marguerite?” she asked, raising her eyebrows.

  “You know that’s my real name,” said Cokie defensively, turning to face Kristy. Then she lowered her voice. “It makes me sound older, don’t you think?”

  Kristy just smirked. Cokie, looking defeated, turned back to Nikki. “You can call me Cokie,” she mumbled.

  “Fine,” said Nikki. “Welcome, everyone.”

  Kristy stepped forward. “I just wanted to let you know that not everyone in the BSC will be here every day,” she said. “Some members will show up every day, but we have to keep on top of our business, too.”

  “I understand,” Nikki replied. “All of you are welcome anytime, and you can work as many or as few hours as you want. I’ll leave sign-in sheets at the reception desk inside. Now, I’d like to introduce some of the Greenbrook team. This,” she said, putting her hand on the man’s shoulder, “is Mr. Kawaja. None of us would be here now if it weren’t for him. He’s responsible for keeping this club from turning into a jungle.”

  Mr. Kawaja nodded briefly, but did not smile or speak.

  “And this is Darcy, our decorator,” continued Nikki, indicating the blonde woman, “and Ms. Cureton, our architect.” They smiled at us. “As far as work today,” said Nikki, “I have several different jobs available.” She consulted the clipboard she’d been carrying. “First, I’ll need someone to help Stephen with his reading homework while I go over some bills.”

  “I’ll do that,” volunteered Stacey, smiling at Stephen. He gave her a tiny, shy smile in return.

  “Great,” said Nikki. “Second, Mr. Kawaja is looking for helpers to work on cleaning up the grounds. The first task will be to start at the maintenance shed and pick up all the sticks and twigs that have fallen over the winter. We’ll put them in a pile and have a bonfire one night soon. Is that your plan, Mr. Kawaja?” She turned to him, smiling. He nodded, and I thought I saw one corner of his mouth twitch slightly, but I really couldn’t say that he smiled back.

  “I’ll help with that,” I said quickly. I wanted to be outside. It wasn’t too cold, and while the sky wasn’t exactly blue, I could see the sun peeking through the clouds once in a while.

  “Me, too,” said Cary.

  Ugh.

  “I can pick up sticks,” volunteered Alan, flexing his biceps like a body builder.

  Double ugh. Oh well, I didn’t have to stay with them. We could cover different parts of the grounds. I was still happy to have an outdoor assignment.

  “I need someone to follow me around and take down notes for me as I look over the buildings,” said Ms. Cureton.

  “I’d love to do that,” said Kristy. “I’ve always wondered what an architect does.”

  “I’ll come!” said Rick at the same time.

  “I’ll take both of you,” Ms. Cureton said.

  “And I desperately need someone to assist me,” said Darcy. “We’ll be reupholstering all that hideous furniture in the lounge, and we need new carpeting as well. I need someone to hold up the fabric swatches so I can make a decision.”

  “Swatches?” Cokie spoke up. “I love swatches! I’ll help you, Ms. —”

  “It’s just Darcy,” said the woman. “You know, like Madonna or Cher.”

  “Darcy,” repeated Cokie, sounding impressed. Behind her back, Alan and Cary mimicked her starstruck look, letting their eyes cross and their mouths hang open. Luckily, nobody but me seemed to notice.

  “We’re set, then,” said Nikki. “Have fun, everybody.”

  “But don’t go into the maze,” Stephen said suddenly. He hadn’t said a word before that. He’d just been standing close to and slightly behind his mother, watching as we divided into teams.

  “The maze?” I asked. “What’s that?”

  “Oh — oh, it’s nothing,” said Nikki. “It’s just that there’s this garden maze on the grounds. You know, one of those old-fashioned mazes made out of high hedges? We’d rather you didn’t enter it.”

  “Why, will we be lost forever if we do?” cracked Alan.

  Nikki didn’t smile, and I noticed that Mr. Kawaja looked more serious than ever. “Just avoid it, if you would,” Nikki said firmly. Then she stood up a little straighter. “All right, then? Let’s start working!”

  We split up and set off in different directions. Nikki, Stacey, and Stephen went into the main building, with Cokie and Darcy following them. Rick, Kristy, and Ms. Cureton headed toward a small pagoda-like building near the tennis courts. And Alan, Cary, Mr. Kawaja, and I set out for the maintenance shed, which was tucked behind the main building. It was filled with rakes, shovels, and all kinds of smaller gardening tools, as well as bags of peat moss and fertilizer. A riding lawn mower and a small tractor were parked in the middle of the shed.

  Alan hopped into the seat of the tractor and made motor noises. “Vroom, vroom,” he said. He looked around, grinning, waiting for us to laugh. I rolled my eyes. Cary shook his head. And Mr. Kawaja frowned and made a hand signal that said, unmistakably, “Get off the tractor. Now.”

  Alan climbed off.

  Then Mr. Kawaja
handed us each a pair of gardening gloves, and took us outside to show us a row of wheelbarrows lined up against the shed wall. Then he looked at me expectantly. (I wondered if he were physically unable to speak.)

  I realized he wasn’t going to tell us anything further. “I’ll head over that way,” I said, waving toward the tennis courts and taking one of the wheelbarrows.

  Mr. Kawaja nodded.

  Alan and Cary each grabbed a wheelbarrow, too, and took off in different directions. For me, at least, the rest of the day at Greenbrook was great. I worked on my own, feeling my muscles stretch as I stooped to pick up branches, then threw them into the wheelbarrow. I covered a good amount of territory, from the tennis courts to one of the formal gardens.

  Only two things about the afternoon seemed weird. First of all, I kept seeing this big white limousine cruising around the club, circling on the roads that connect the main building and the other buildings on the grounds. The windows of the limo were tinted, so there was no way I could see inside. I wondered who was riding in it, and why they were circling like a great white shark.

  The other weird thing happened when I ran into Mr. Kawaja near the formal garden. I was walking along a hedge, picking up small evergreen branches, when suddenly he appeared before me, glaring at me and shaking his head. I was surprised, until I realized that the hedge must be part of the maze Stephen and Nikki had mentioned. Once I figured that out, I was dying to look into its entrance (wouldn’t you be curious?), but Mr. Kawaja crossed his arms and stood directly in my path, so I had no choice but to turn and walk away.

  Other than that, our first day at Greenbrook was a success. True, something seemed a little “off” about the place, but hey, a job’s a job. It wasn’t as if there were anything sinister about what I’d seen. I wasn’t going to let my imagination run away with me. I was just going to work hard and try to make it through February.

  Tuesday was my second day of work at Greenbrook. I’d been looking forward to it all morning. Claudia and Mary Anne made up the rest of the BSC crew that afternoon, and while Cary and Cokie were both on hand, Alan and Rick were not.

  Once again, Nikki met the bus and helped assign jobs. Cokie ran off with Darcy (both of them talking excitedly about “paisley damask window treatments”), and Claudia volunteered to work with Ms. Cureton. Cary, Mary Anne, and I followed Mr. Kawaja to the maintenance shed, where, without saying a word, he handed out pruning shears to each of us. Then he led us into the garden and showed us how to shape and prune the shrubs.

  Mary Anne and I started working on opposite sides of a giant bush. It looked dead to me: all I could see was a tangle of bare brown twigs. But when I said so, Mr. Kawaja pointed out small swellings on the tips of the branches, and I realized that they were the beginnings of buds. I worked carefully after that; suddenly it was easy to imagine how the bush would look in the summer, covered with green leaves. Mary Anne and I snipped away, piling the twigs we cut off into a wheelbarrow parked on the garden path that meandered past our bush.

  The day was, as the weatherman had promised, partly sunny. I’ve never completely understood the difference between “partly cloudy” and “partly sunny,” but in this case “partly sunny” meant that the sun spent more time warming the top of my head than it did hiding behind the clouds. It wasn’t too cold out; I was wearing a down vest over a wool shirt, and I was perfectly warm, except for a refreshing tingling around my nose and ears. I felt so glad to be outside, doing something, that I started to sing while I pruned.

  In case you’re wondering, Anna is the twin who received all the musical genes. I sing like a frog.

  But Mary Anne didn’t seem to mind. In fact, she grinned at me through the branches and joined right in. I led us through every song I remembered from my mom’s “girl groups” tape, starting with “Leader of the Pack” and running through “Dancing in the Street,” “Please Mr. Postman,” and “My Boyfriend’s Back.” I adore all those old girl-group hits.

  Finally, we sang this Supremes song called “Stop! In the Name of Love.” I couldn’t help myself. I put down my pruners and started adding choreography, Motown style. Hand gestures, spins, the whole bit. Mary Anne followed along, belting out the lyrics — something she never would have done if we hadn’t been in the middle of a deserted garden.

  “Stop! in the name of love,” I crooned, holding out a hand in front of me like a traffic cop.

  “Before you break my heart,” sang Mary Anne, pointing first at me, then at herself, then tracing a heart in the air.

  We yodeled the next line at the top of our lungs.

  Then we repeated the line, a little softer. Just softly enough, in fact, so that we could hear another voice joining ours for the chorus. Mary Anne and I stopped singing and exchanged surprised looks. Then she clapped a hand over her mouth, and her eyes grew round as she looked past me, over my shoulder to the path where the wheelbarrow rested. I turned around just in time to see a tall, blackhaired man break into loud laughter.

  “Which one of you is Diana Ross?” he asked, smiling.

  “Sergeant Johnson!” Mary Anne cried, blushing a deep, deep red. “What are you doing here?”

  “Enjoying the show, at the moment,” he said, still grinning. He nodded to me. “Aren’t you Abby?” he asked.

  “I am,” I answered. “And I think I owe you a big thank you, for saving my life at Shadow Lake.”

  Sergeant Johnson waved a hand at me. “It was nothing,” he said. “All in the line of duty.”

  Maybe I should back up a second here and explain who Sergeant Johnson is and why he knows the members of the BSC. First of all, you should know that the BSC members have been involved in more than one Stoneybrook mystery. (That’s why we have a mystery notebook, in which we keep track of clues and suspects and such.) We’ve been mixed up with all kinds of nasty criminals, a fact I didn’t know when I agreed to go on what was supposed to be a fun skiing vacation at Shadow Lake recently. It turned into the scariest weekend of my life. Sergeant Johnson helped to save the day by taking a tip from Mary Anne seriously and making a timely call to the Shadow Lake police.

  The other members of the BSC got to know Sergeant Johnson the first time they helped the Stoneybrook Police solve a mystery. Ever since then, he’s been in our corner. He’s always been receptive to club members who’ve offered him suspicions, clues, or possible evidence.

  “Are you girls working for Ms. Stanton-Cha?” Sergeant Johnson asked.

  We nodded. “How about you?” I asked. He hadn’t given Mary Anne a straight answer when she’d asked why he was there, and I was curious.

  “Actually, I’m here on police business,” he said. Then he paused. “Or maybe it’s personal business,” he continued, scratching his head, “since I’m not on the force’s clock right now. I’m here on my own time.”

  “Do you often do police work on your own time?” I asked. Mary Anne nudged me, and I knew she thought I was asking too many questions. But I was interested.

  “Not often,” he replied, shaking his head. “This case is different, though. According to the department, it’s closed. But I don’t see it that way. This case is very close to my heart, and it won’t be closed for me until … until … Well, let me see where to begin.” Sergeant Johnson gestured toward a bench.

  “When I was a kid, my best friend was David Follman,” he began, as soon as we were settled on the bench. “When we grew up, I became a cop and he became a reporter. Thirty years ago, he began an investigation into some dirty doings at Dark Woods.”

  “Like how creepy they were about not letting certain people join?” I asked.

  “Worse than that. David had heard rumors about a secret society operating out of the club, a group of men who were involved in a blackmail and extortion ring. They were powerful, made more powerful by banding together. They acted illegally to force the local townspeople and merchants to do what they wanted them to do: to vote a certain way, for example, or to use a certain contractor to build their new schoo
l.”

  “That’s awful!” cried Mary Anne.

  “David thought so, too,” said Sergeant Johnson. “He went undercover to try to infiltrate the society. And I think he was succeeding. But before he could publish his findings, or even share them with me, David died.”

  “Oh!” Mary Anne gasped. I felt a knot start to grow in my stomach. I hate to hear about people dying suddenly, because it makes me think of my dad.

  “How did he die?” I asked.

  “In a car accident,” Sergeant Johnson answered, and my knot grew tighter. “A mysterious car accident. Nobody was ever able to figure out why his car went off the road where it did, up near an embankment on Route Five. There were no skid marks, and nothing was wrong with his car’s steering. But David died instantly when the car rolled down the hill.”

  “And you think he was murdered,” I said slowly. This was heavy stuff.

  “I do,” said Sergeant Johnson. “But I’ve never been able to prove it. Everybody on the force thinks I’m crazy to keep the case alive, but I just haven’t been able to let it go. And now that this club has reopened, I think I’ll do some real investigating.”

  “Do you have any clues at all?” asked Mary Anne, leaning forward with a gleam in her eye. I could see that she was already hooked by this mystery. I was, too.

  “Only one,” Sergeant Johnson answered, “and I’ve never been able to make sense of it. The last thing David ever said to me was ‘Watch where you step.’ I’ve always been convinced that somehow this was a riddle, a clue I should have been able to figure out. But I have no idea what it means.” He shook his head.