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

"Do you want to show her a perfect comic?" I asked.
"Yes," said Buddy, sounding a little confused.
"Well, then, I'll be honest with you. You spelled some words wrong. Would you like to fix them first?"
"Oh. . . . Yes."
"I'll give you a minute of free time for every word you misspelled that you can find and fix by yourself."
"Wow!" Buddy set to work and found nine of the seventeen words. "Nine free minutes!" he exclaimed.
"And I'll give you an extra free one for working so hard."
"Gosh." Buddy was looking at me adoringly. It was kind of the way I used to look at my fourth-grade teacher, Mr. Barnes. I had
the world's biggest crush on Mr. Barnes. At the time, I thought I was in love with him. Was that how Buddy felt about me? I wasn't sure. If he did feel that way, maybe it wouldn't be such a bad thing. I've never worked as hard for any teacher as I did for Mr. Barnes. I got straight A's that year, something I'd never done before.
Anyway, Buddy showed his comic to his mother, but returned quickly to his room. "Now what are we going to do?" he asked.
"Now," I replied, "we are each going to choose one story in any comic book here, read half of it, and then make up our own ending to the story."
"Oh, boy!"
Buddy was in seventh heaven.
And I felt like a hero and a genius. Especially when Buddy decided to use his ten free minutes to begin his reading homework. (I think he did that because I was there to help him.) Whatever the reason, I felt as if I had made a breakthrough that day. I walked home feeling good right down to my toes.
Chapter 11.
"A seance! Are you kidding?" exclaimed Claudia.
"A seance?!" (That was Kristy.)
It was a Friday afternoon. Our BSC meeting was just about over. In the few minutes that were left, I had mentioned my idea to the other club members. As you can see, it was not going over too well. Although in all honesty, I have to admit that I thought most of my friends were afraid of holding a seance, and were covering up by acting appalled.
"Yes," I told them firmly. "A seance."
"Urn, Mal?" spoke up Jessi. "What is a seance?"
Before I could answer, Kristy said. "It's when a person wearing a turban on her head goes into a trance and the voice of George Washington comes out of her mouth. Then she collapses on the table from the effort of it all."
"Kristy!" I exclaimed.
"Huh?" said Jessi.
"A seance/' I said, "is when a group of committed people get together in the hope of contacting a spirit. They sit around a table holding hands, and one person Ч the chan-neler Ч calls for the spirit. If the spirit is around, it begins speaking through the chan-neler. Then the others can ask the spirit questions." I gave Kristy a look to let her know just what I thought of her explanation.
"Oh," said Jessi. "And you want us to try to contact Sophie so we can find out what happened with the portrait?"
"Right. Or Jared would do, I guess. We'll hold the seance at Stacey's house."
Stacey groaned.
"What if we can't contact Sophie or Jared?" asked Jessi.
I shrugged. "Then we'll be no worse off than we are right now."
"There aren't any such things as ghosts or spirits anyway," said Kristy for about the ninetieth time.
"You know what?" said Dawn, who had been sitting quietly on the bed. "A seance might be kind of interesting." (Dawn loves ghost stories as much as Claudia loves Nancy Drew mysteries.)
Mary Anne shivered. "Spooky, but interesting," she added.
"It could be funny," said Stacey, glancing at Kristy. I could tell that the two of them were trying not to laugh.
Mary Anne opened the club record book to the appointment pages. "We're all free tomorrow afternoon," she said. "Not one of us has a job, a class, or a lesson."
"Mary A-anne," said Kristy, who is almost as good a whiner as David Michael.
"Oh, come on. Maybe it'll be fun," said Stacey. "What harm can it do, anyway? We can have sort of a seance party. I'll buy some chips and stuff, the seven of us can get together, and who knows? We just might talk to Sophie or Jared."
"Sta-cey," said Kristy.
"I think it sounds like a great idea," said Claudia.
"Me, too," said Dawn, Mary Anne, Jessi, and I.
Everyone looked at Kristy.
"Oh, all right. I'll come," she said. "But only if I can be the channeler."
Kristy the channeler? This was my mystery and my idea. I wanted to be the channeler. But one problem with being eleven and having a lot of thirteen-year-old friends is that you have to give in to them pretty often, especially when someone like Kristy is putting her foot down.
"Okay," I said. "You can be the channeler."
We agreed to meet at Stacey's at four o'clock the next afternoon.
By 3:45 on Saturday, everyone except Kristy had arrived at Stacey's house. I guess my friends were a little more excited about the seance than they'd let on.
"Where do you hold a seance?" asked Dawn.
"We should hold ours in the attic," replied Stacey promptly. "That's where we found the
trunk. And it seems like a good place for ghosts."
"A little too good/' said Mary Anne. "I'm not going up into your attic to try to contact dead people. I've got goose bumps just thinking about it."
"I don't think that would work anyway," I spoke up. "I've seen lots of seances on TV, and everyone is always sitting around a table holding hands. You don't have a big table in your attic, do you, Stace?"