"Martin, Ann M - BSC029 - Mallory And The Mystery Diary" - читать интересную книгу автора (Martin Ann M)

I turned over and tried to fall asleep myself, but I was trembling with excitement. A haunted house. A century-old mystery to solve. It was all too much!
Chapter 8.
I hadn't been able to wait to tell the BSC members about my mystery, so I spread the word in school the next day, and at that afternoon's club meeting, we discussed things between job calls. Everyone was fascinated, of course, especially Stacey, but I didn't realize just how fascinated Kristy had been until I read her entry in the club notebook.
It was a rainy Saturday on the following weekend. It was also one of the weekends when Karen and Andrew, her little stepsister and stepbrother, were staying at their father's house. Kristy likes those weekends. It makes Watson's mansion feel fuller. More importantly, she loves being with Karen and Andrew.
Shortly after lunch, Kristy's mother and Watson took off for a meeting of the parents' council at the private school that Karen goes to and that Andrew and Emily will one day attend, and Nannie took off for bowling.
Kristy's grandmother is really neat. She doesn't seem like a grandmother at all. She has all these friends and hobbies and activities (being in a bowling league is one of her favorites), and she drives this rattly old car that she painted pink and calls the Pink Clinker.
After the adults had left, Kristy's big brothers went to a pep rally at Stoneybrook High Ч and Kristy's baby-sitting job began. She found herself facing four bored children.
David Michael, the oldest (he's seven, in case you forgot), whined, "I'm bo-ored." (David Michael can be a champion whiner.)
Karen, who's six and not a bad whiner herself, added, "I want to go outsz-ide." Andrew, four, just said, "Yeah." And Emily asked hopefully, "Cookie?" Kristy looked at her new little sister. Emily Michelle has short, jet-black hair and dark eyes that are so pleading they could make you say yes to anything. She's adorable. However, her speech is not great for a two-year-old. One reason is that the language she heard from birth until the time she boarded a plane to the United States was Vietnamese, and now she hears only English. Also, no one is sure what kind of care Emily got in the orphanage in Vietnam, but we're betting no one had much time to spend with any of the kids there. Emily's pediatrician in Stoneybrook calls her "language delayed," so the Brewers and Thomases have spent hours talking to Emily, reading to her, and trying to teach her words and phrases. When she makes the effort to ask for
something in English, she usually gets it.
So when she asked for a cookie, Kristy said, "Sure!" Then, brightening, she added, "Why don't we all have a snack?"
"We just had lu-unch," whined David Michael.
Oh, boy, thought Kristy. The kids must really be bored if they're turning down food.
She got a cookie for Emily Michelle and tried to think of ways to entertain the children that afternoon. She knew she'd have to come up with something good. They'd already colored, watched Sesame Street and Pee-wee's Playhouse, played Candy Land and Chutes and Ladders, and built a fort with a moat around it out of blocks.
And then Kristy's great idea came to her. Her great ideas usually come out of the blue. I mean, she wasn't thinking about me or Sophie or the mystery right then Ч she was thinking about whining children Ч but she found herself saying excitedly, "Let's explore the attic!"
"The attic?" squeaked Andrew.
"The fourth floor?" cried David Michael.
"Where Boo-Boo won't go because of Ben Brewer's ghost?" added Karen.
"More cookie?" said Emily.
Kristy grabbed another cookie for Emily.
"The third floor," Karen began importantly, "and the attic above it are both haunted. You know that." She put her hands on her hips.
Karen believes in ghosts and witches. (I was beginning to understand why.) She believes that old Ben Brewer, Watson's great-grandfather, was haunted by a headless ghost, and then turned into a recluse. After he died, he became a ghost himself, and both he and the headless ghost haunt the third floor of the house (which no one uses), as well as the attic. Boo-Boo, Watson's old cat, refuses to go above the second floor, which Karen has told the other kids is a sure sign that the third floor is haunted. As she says, animals can sense those things.
Needless to say, the kids (except for Emily, who was too little) were afraid of the idea of exploring the attic, but Kristy could tell they were intrigued, too.
"Who knows what we'll find up there," said Kristy. Then, remembering the trunk and Sta-cey's attic, she added, "Old clothes to dress up in, maybe some old books. Even some old toys."
"Old skeletons," said Karen.
"Old ghosts," said Andrew.
"I doubt it," Kristy replied. "Come on. Let's just see what's there. If we find anything scary or hear any funny sounds, we'll come right back downstairs."
"I'm not afraid of ghosts," announced David Michael suddenly. "Especially headless ones. A headless ghost couldn't even see you."
"Ben Brewer isn't headless," Karen pointed out, but Kristy was already walking resolutely toward the stairs, and Karen and the others were following her.
Kristy carried Emily up the three flights of stairs because Emily is a slow, one-step-at-a-time stair-climber. Karen, Andrew, and David Michael huddled behind Kristy. When she paused at the top of the third flight and fumbled for the light switch, she wasn't sure what she'd find. Unlike Stacey's attic, which is small, Kristy's attic is the entire fourth floor of the house Ч room after room. But Kristy had never been past the head of the stairs, where she had dropped off stacks of magazines, or gone after Christmas tree ornaments. Watson keeps all the important things right there.
Now Kristy flicked on the light and walked boldly into the room and toward the first doorway she saw. The kids followed her like duck-
lings after their mother. They passed the Christmas decorations, boxes, and magazines, and found themselves in a room full of furniture, every piece covered with a white sheet.
"Aughh!" screeched Karen. "I think this is the furniture from Old Ben Brewer's room! Look, there's his bed . . . and his rocking chair ... and his Ч "
"Aw, you don't know this stuff is Ben's," said David Michael, apparently on friendly terms with the dreaded ghost.
Andrew and Emily didn't say anything. Kristy had put Emily down, and she and Andrew were both gripping her hands.
Everyone wandered into the next room.
"Oh, cool!" Karen exclaimed. "Kristy was right. There are old toys up here!"
The room was a dusty mess, and it was dark, even with some light filtering through a dirty window, but it was the most interesting of the rooms so far. Karen had run to a brass doll's bed with two ancient-looking dolls nestled in it. Andrew found a set of tin soldiers. And Emily spotted a rocking horse, pulled Kristy over to it, and said, "Up?"
Of course, Kristy lifted her onto the horse right away and held her in place while Emily rocked happily. The kids had been playing in
the quiet room for almost five minutes when, at the same moment, Emily said, "Down," and Kristy realized that David Michael wasn't there.
"David Michael?" she called.
Andrew and Karen looked up from their toys.
"Have you seen David Michael?" Kristy asked them.
They shook their heads.
"Oh, brother. You'd think he'd tell me if he was going back down Ч "
"Morbidda Destiny," interrupted Karen in a whisper.
"What?" said Kristy.
"The witch next door. I can see her house out the window. I bet she's a friend of Old Ben Brewer's and has powers in this attic and she and the ghosts have got David Michael Ч "
"BOOH"
Everyone jumped a mile as David Michael burst out of an old wardrobe in a corner of the room. Emily began to cry.