Dawn Schafer, Undercover Baby-Sitter

  “Dawn!”

  It was Ms. Iorio. She had been staring intently at a portrait of Arthur Livingston that hung near the bottom of the stairs.

  “Hi, Ms. Iorio,” I said, puzzled as to why she was there. “Mrs. Keats and Mrs. Cornell aren’t home.”

  “I know — I mean, I can see that,” said Ms. Iorio. “I came by to deliver some papers, and nobody answered the door. I knocked and knocked, and finally I just let myself in.”

  “I can take the papers,” I offered. “Or I can find Amy for you. She’s here.”

  “Oh, no, that’s okay,” she answered. “I’ll just bring them by another time when all my clients are at home. See you!”

  She waved at me, took one more quick look at the painting, and then turned and let herself out of the big front door. I looked after her, bewildered. Something didn’t seem quite right about her story. For one thing, she wasn’t carrying any papers. She had a shoulder bag, but it didn’t look big enough to hold important legal documents. For another thing, I hadn’t heard her knocking at all. I was betting she’d just let herself in. And finally, it seemed as if she wasn’t all that surprised to find nobody but Amy home. I wondered if she had come by on purpose, knowing that Mrs. Keats and Mrs. Cornell would be out.

  In any case, I didn’t really have time to think about it. The tray was becoming heavier by the second, and there were five hungry kids waiting for me upstairs. I shifted the tray (a little of the lemonade splashed out of the pitcher, and two more carrot sticks rolled off the platter) and headed up the wide staircase.

  For the second time that afternoon, I heard raised voices as I came toward a closed door. It sounded as if the five kids were squabbling at full volume, with Abby’s voice rising above all the others, calling for peace.

  Since my hands were full, I gave the door a little kick with my foot, hoping somebody would hear and open it for me. No such luck. They were yelling too loudly.

  I put down the tray and opened the door. Suddenly, for about half a second, the shouting stopped as everyone glanced up at me. Then it began again. Abby looked totally exasperated.

  I brought the tray in and set it on the table. “What’s going on?” I asked Abby. Everyone was shouting at such high volume that I couldn’t even make out what they were talking about.

  “Pandemonium,” she answered, rolling her eyes. “Somehow, they figured out what their mothers are doing here — the inheritance, and the clues, and all of it. I guess Mrs. Cornell told Katharine a little bit about it, and she told the others, and then they put it together. Now everybody knows.”

  “So what’s the problem?” I asked.

  “The old family feud is in full swing again, I guess,” Abby replied.

  Just then, I heard Hallie yelling at Tilly. “Your mom won’t give my mom her clue!”

  “My mom says your mom is being stubborn!” Eliza shouted at Katharine.

  Jeremy just stood there in the middle of the room, bawling.

  “Ai, yi, yi!” I said to Abby. What a mess. It was as if the kids had slid back to square one, after all we’d done to bring them together.

  I climbed up onto a chair and whistled through my teeth, something my dad taught me how to do. It comes in handy once in a while. “Come on, everybody, calm down,” I yelled, holding my hands in a “T.” “Time out! Let’s chill.”

  Once I had their attention, I insisted that they sit down and have a snack. I knew that part of the reason the fight had erupted was because they were hungry and cranky.

  As soon as they’d eaten, the kids calmed down a little, and they started to talk like normal people, at normal volume.

  “It’s exciting, really,” said Eliza. “Just think, a treasure is hidden somewhere in this house.”

  “But why does it have to be such a big contest?” asked Hallie.

  “It doesn’t!” Katharine exclaimed, jumping to her feet. She began to pace. “I just thought of something. If we all work together, we could find the treasure and make our moms share it.”

  “But we need the clues,” said Tilly.

  “We already know one of them,” Eliza said. “ ‘The signature tells all.’ ”

  “And I know another,” I offered, without thinking twice. “Amy’s clue goes like this: ‘The first is always the most important.’ ” I thought the kids were on the right track. Why should the sisters compete with each other when cooperating would mean finding the treasure even sooner? It was time to end the secrecy.

  “Now all we need is your mom’s clue,” Hallie said to Katharine and Tilly.

  Just then, I heard voices from downstairs. “Hallie! Eliza! Jeremy! I’m home, kids!” It was Mrs. Keats.

  “Katharine! Tilly!” That was Mrs. Cornell.

  Up in the playroom, we all fell silent and looked at each other. “I think we should go talk to your moms,” I said.

  The kids stormed down the stairs and rushed to their mothers, who were standing in the front hall, talking to Amy.

  “Mom, Mom, why won’t you tell your clue?” Tilly yelled.

  “We have to work together!” shouted Hallie.

  “Treasure! Treasure! Treasure!” Jeremy chanted, jumping up and down.

  “Listen, Mom, it’s really important,” Katharine said seriously, grabbing her mother’s arm.

  “We looked all over for signatures, but we didn’t find the treasure,” Eliza told her mother.

  Everyone was talking and shouting at once, and the result was that no one could understand a word anyone said. Mrs. Keats clapped her hands over her ears. Mrs. Cornell frowned. Amy looked upset.

  “Hold on, hold on,” I said, trying to quiet the kids down. “Let’s explain what’s going on.”

  The kids fell silent, and Mrs. Keats and Mrs. Cornell turned to look at me. “Go on,” urged Mrs. Keats.

  I gulped. “Well, it’s like this,” I began. “The kids seem to think that each of you has a clue that is supposed to lead you to treasure — to your inheritance.” I didn’t want to let on that I’d known anything about this.

  “How did they find that out?” asked Mrs. Keats, frowning.

  “I overheard Mom talking to Amy,” Katharine said, looking meek. “I wasn’t eavesdropping or anything. I just heard her.”

  “That’s all right, Katharine,” said Mrs. Cornell, hugging her protectively and glaring at Mrs. Keats.

  “I thought we agreed not to bring the children into this,” said Mrs. Keats, tight-lipped.

  “Justine,” said Mrs. Cornell, “I didn’t intentionally —”

  “No, you never do anything intentionally,” said Mrs. Keats bitterly. “Just like you never tried to be Daddy’s little pet.”

  “Me? What about you! Always acting like Daddy’s sugarplum!” Mrs. Cornell shook her head disgustedly. “Like you ever really loved him the way I did.”

  “Nobody loved him as much as I did!” said Mrs. Keats, outraged. “Daddy was the center of my universe, and —”

  “Hold on, hold on,” said Amy, stepping between her two older sisters and holding up her hands. “I can’t take any more of this, and I can’t stand having my nieces and nephew hear it. How dare you mess up their lives with the same old junk that messed up ours?”

  “What’s this sudden concern for your nieces and nephew?” asked Mrs. Keats suspiciously.

  “Now that I’ve finally had the chance to spend some time with them, I’m growing to love them,” said Amy, smiling around at the kids. “They’re terrific — despite the fact that you two have poisoned them with your old, worn-out petty jealousy and insecurity.”

  Mrs. Cornell’s mouth was hanging open, and Mrs. Keats looked stunned. “How dare you —” she began.

  “I dare because we’re a family,” Amy interrupted. “And it’s time for a family meeting.”

  Her firm tone and matter-of-fact statement seemed to calm her older sisters down, and, meekly, they followed her into the sitting room. Abby and I and the kids followed along, too. Soon we were all settled. The adults sat in the hu
ge, overstuffed chairs while we sitters and the kids sprawled on the floor. This was the same room that Kristy and I had waited in when we arrived for our first sitting job at Livingston House, and the same ugly portrait of Arthur Livingston gazed down at us as we waited to see what would happen next.

  “Listen, Amy,” Mrs. Keats began. “I see what you’re saying about not ‘poisoning’ the children, and I even agree with it. But you just don’t understand. Daddy didn’t play the same games with you that he played with Sally and me.”

  “That’s right,” said Mrs. Cornell. She and Mrs. Keats were sitting as far apart as possible, and they’d barely glanced at each other. But now she nodded in agreement. “By the time you came along, things had changed. But with us, everything was always a contest. And that’s a hard habit to give up.”

  “But don’t you think it’s time?” asked Katharine, sounding very grown-up. “After all, he’s not around anymore. You have to live your own lives.”

  Mrs. Keats looked surprised. “That’s very mature of you, Katharine,” she said.

  “Katharine has always been wise,” said Mrs. Cornell. “She hates to fight, and she doesn’t hold grudges, or stay angry.” She beamed at her daughter.

  “Must have gotten all that from her father’s side,” I heard Amy mutter. Then she spoke more loudly. “All right, then, here’s my idea. I think we should forget about this contest, because it’s just not worth the damage it’s doing to our family. If we all work together to find the treasure, we can split the inheritance — and believe me, there’s enough for everybody.”

  “If you feel that way, why don’t you tell us your clue?” asked Mrs. Cornell.

  “I will,” said Amy. “As soon as the two of you agree to tell us yours, too.”

  Mrs. Cornell looked at Mrs. Keats.

  Mrs. Keats looked at Mrs. Cornell.

  “Please, Mom?” asked Katharine.

  “Do it!” urged Eliza.

  “Pretty, pretty please?” begged Jeremy.

  “It’ll be fun to work together,” said Hallie.

  “Come on,” said Tilly.

  I kept quiet, and so did Abby. This was a family matter. There was major tension in the room, and I could tell that both of the older sisters were still wrestling with the idea. They were so used to competing that the idea of working together must have seemed very strange.

  “Oh, all right,” said Mrs. Keats suddenly. “I’ll do it.”

  “So will I,” burst out Mrs. Cornell, almost simultaneously.

  “Dad would be proud of both of you,” Amy said, smiling. “He loved you very, very much, you know. He told me so often, in those last months. He was just never very good at telling you to your faces.”

  All three sisters had tears in their eyes. So did I, for that matter, and I noticed Abby’s eyes looking a little moist.

  “So tell, tell!” said Katharine, bouncing up and down in excitement. She jumped up to find a pencil and a pad of paper. “I’ll write them down. You start, Mom!”

  Mrs. Cornell hesitated. I could hardly stand it! Here was the only clue I didn’t know, and I was dying to hear it.

  “I’ll start,” said Amy, quickly. “My clue says, ‘The first is always the most important.’ Whatever that’s supposed to mean.”

  Katharine wrote it down.

  “That’s as strange as mine,” said Mrs. Keats. “Mine says, ‘The signature tells all.’ I don’t even know where to start looking.”

  “You think those are tough clues? Wait until you hear mine,” said Mrs. Cornell.

  I held my breath. Finally, I would know all three clues. Maybe the answer would come to me in a flash as soon as I heard the third.

  “My piece of paper says, ‘I didn’t do it, I was —’ ” Mrs. Cornell drew a line in the air with her hand.

  “I was what?” asked Mrs. Keats.

  “I was blank,” said Mrs. Cornell. “There’s just a line there. No word.” She shrugged.

  “Wow,” said Katharine softly, as she wrote it down. “That is tough.”

  It sure was. I was a little disappointed. No answer came to me, in a flash or otherwise. The clues had meant nothing separately, and they didn’t add up to anything, either, as far as I could tell.

  Everybody else seemed baffled, too. We all looked around the room, as if for inspiration. Arthur Livingston stared back to me from that hideous portrait, and I imagined him smiling smugly. He had created a puzzle that would not be easy to solve.

  We tried, that afternoon, we really did. But three sisters, five kids, and two baby-sitters could not make any sense out of those clues, no matter how hard we tried. We looked at them frontwards, backwards, upside-down, and sideways, but nothing we did seemed to change the very basic fact that, whether you took them together or separately, the clues seemed like nothing more than nonsense. The only good thing about the afternoon was that the whole family was working together. Something really great had happened at Livingston House, and I was glad to be a part of it.

  After we left Livingston House, Abby and I headed over to Claud’s for a BSC meeting. We spent plenty of time talking about the mystery, but we didn’t solve it, that’s for sure. When six o’clock rolled around and Kristy adjourned the meeting, I heaved a big sigh. I was exhausted, and ready to head home for a nice quiet dinner and an early bedtime.

  No such luck.

  “Ready for our night out?” Mary Anne asked me brightly as we left Claudia’s. With a sinking feeling, I remembered that I’d promised to go out with her for pizza and a movie. I spent the entire walk home trying to figure out how to tell her nicely that I was too tired to follow through on our plans.

  But then, just as we entered our house, the phone rang. It was Erica Blumberg, a friend from SMS. Apparently I’d promised to go out with her, too — for Chinese food and bowling. I groaned, and then told her I was going to have to reschedule. I couldn’t let Mary Anne down again. But Mary Anne didn’t seem to appreciate the gesture. As I hung up the phone, she folded her arms and glared at me.

  “What?” I asked. “I canceled with her!”

  “But why did you even make the plans with her in the first place?” she asked. “I must not mean very much to you, or else you wouldn’t keep forgetting about our plans.”

  “Oh, Mary Anne, that’s not true,” I said. “That’s not true at all. You mean a lot to me. I’m just so scattered lately. I don’t know what to do.” I had tried so hard to straighten out my schedule, but it hadn’t helped. I must have mixed up my color coding.

  It took a while to convince Mary Anne that she was still my best friend, but once I did she offered to help me with my overwhelming schedule. We talked about it for a while and came up with a fantastic idea: Friends Day!

  I would pick one day, sometime between now and the twenty-fourth. On the morning of that day, Mary Anne would help me organize a party for all my favorite sitting charges. In the afternoon I’d see SMS friends, and in the evening I’d have a barbecue and sleepover with my BSC buddies. We were both excited about the idea, and we spent the rest of the evening planning Friends Day.

  I came up with another idea, one I didn’t tell Mary Anne. I’d pick a separate day and plan Family Day. After what I’d seen take place at Livingston House, I was beginning to realize that I shouldn’t take my loving family for granted.

  “Tell us! Tell us!” That was Tilly.

  “No, wait until everyone’s here,” said Eliza. “We all have to hear it together.”

  I stood in front of the huge desk, shifting from foot to foot. This was crazy. What had I done? I’d promised these people something, and suddenly I wasn’t sure I could deliver it. Tilly, Eliza, and Jeremy sat staring up at me, while Amy paced back and forth near the door of the library, and Mrs. Keats stood wringing her hands.

  I felt like wringing my own hands. There I was, in the library of Livingston House, about to reveal the answer to Arthur Livingston’s puzzle. Or, at least, I hoped I had the answer. A few minutes ago I’d been sure. Now I was st
arting to doubt myself.

  “Mom and Katharine should be down any second,” said Tilly.

  “Where’s Hallie?” Mrs. Keats asked.

  “She’s coming,” said Eliza. “She can’t find her sweatshirt.”

  Amy kept on pacing.

  Finally, the door burst open and in came Hallie. Behind her were Mrs. Cornell and Katharine, who both looked as if they had just woken up.

  “Is it true?” asked Katharine.

  “Have you really figured it out?” asked Mrs. Cornell.

  “I think so,” I said. “I hope so.” I crossed my fingers and took a long, deep breath. “See, last night I had this dream,” I began, remembering. I thought back to how it had all started, in the wee hours of that very morning….

  In the dream, I saw a portrait of Arthur Livingston. I stared at the painting, trying to force it to give up its secrets. I stared and stared, looking for a clue, a tip, a sign.

  Nothing. Arthur Livingston just stared back at me.

  Then, suddenly, something happened — something so weird I almost fell over backward.

  Arthur winked.

  I rubbed my eyes. I couldn’t have seen what I thought I’d seen, could I? I looked again, and again he winked. Then he smiled. “Looking for something?” he asked. “It’s right in front of your nose. Step a little closer and you’ll see it.”

  I took a step forward, and fell through a trapdoor. “Aaaahhh!” I cried, as I tumbled down, down, down through black, airless space. As I fell, I heard Arthur Livingston laughing like a maniac.

  “Oh!” I cried as I landed with a thump. But I wasn’t at the bottom of some deep dark pit. I was in my bed at home, and my heart was pounding hard.

  “What was that all about?” I asked myself as I lay there trying to calm myself down. I realized that I had become obsessed with the mystery at Livingston House, so obsessed that I even dreamed about it at night. This wasn’t the first dream I’d had about the mystery, but somehow this dream was different. I felt that this dream meant something.

  Finally, my heart stopped pounding so loudly, and I was able to think straight. I glanced at my bedside clock and noticed that it was three-thirty in the morning, but I felt wide awake. I decided it couldn’t hurt to go over the clues one more time, even though we’d gone over them a hundred times at our meeting the afternoon before. Now that I knew all three of them, I felt that the solution to Arthur Livingston’s puzzle was within my grasp. I might as well try to work it out. It was going to be hard to fall asleep again now that I’d started to think about the mystery.