"Martin, Ann M - Baby-sitters Club Mystery 022 - Stacey and the Haunted Masquerade" - читать интересную книгу автора (Martin Ann M)

"In my room," said Marilyn promptly. "I heard the sound in there this morning,"
"The detector is ready," said Carolyn, checking a few wires. "LetТs go!"
The three of them headed upstairs. Marilyn led them into her room, which is very yellow:
the bedspread, the carpet, and the wallpaper are all the same sunny shade. It seemed, according to Claudia, an unlikely setting for "ec-toplasmic activity."
But Carolyn set to work, walking around the perimeter of the room with her detector. She looked deadly serious as she aimed the flashlight-funnel attachment this way and that and monitored the flashing lights. Marilyn, meanwhile, followed her sister, pressing her ear to the wall every few steps in order to listen for the ghostly noises.
Claudia sat on the bed, watching them and thinking about how cute they looked. Ghost-buster fever was spreading: first the Pikes (she had read Abby's and Mal's notebook entry) and now the Arnolds. But it seemed harmless, and the kids were having a lot of fun with it, so why not play along?
Suddenly, just as she'd passed the closet door, Carolyn stopped in her tracks. Marilyn nearly bumped into her, but she stopped, too. Claudia noticed the girls' eyes had widened. "What is it?" she asked.
"The ghost," whispered Carolyn. "I hear it."
"So do I," said Marilyn.
Claudia smiled. "Do you have a reading on your detector?" she asked. She joined the girls, and as she drew closer she noticed that
Carolyn had let the detector fall to her side, and that Marilyn's face was much paler than it had been only a few moments before. Suddenly, she realized that the girls were serious. She pressed her ear against the wall and listened. Then her eyes widened, too. "Oh, my lord!" she gasped. "I hear it!" She listened carefully, and heard a scratching and clawing sound. Visions of long, clawlike fingernails flashed into Claudia's mind. For a second, she felt panic rising within her. Then she remembered that she was the baby-sitter, and that she was responsible for the girls. It wouldn't do to lose her head. She took a deep breath. "It must be just some branches brushing against the house," she told the twins.
"There's no tree on that side," Carolyn said.
"Maybe itТs the wind," Claudia suggested.
"There's no wind today," said Marilyn.
"Could it be the house settling?" Claudia asked hopefully.
"Nope," said Marilyn. "I know what that sounds like. My dad explained that, once when I heard scary creaking noises at night. This is nothing like that."
Each of them put an ear against the wall again and listened. Finally, Claudia gulped. "It's moving," she said. "Now it sounds as if itТs coming from high up. Is the attic above this room?"
The girls nodded.
"I'm going to go up and check things out," said Claudia. "Where are the stairs?"
"I'll show you," said Carolyn. She ran out of the room, and Claudia and Marilyn followed.
"We'll come with you," Marilyn offered, when the three of them stood at the bottom of the stairs.
"No," said Claudia. She was feeling more than slightly terrified, but she knew this was something she had to do on her own. "You two wait down here. But can I borrow your flashlight?"
Carolyn detached the flashlight from her detector and handed it over. "Be careful," she said solemnly.
"I will be," Claudia answered. Then she turned and headed up the stairs, flashlight at the ready.
"I would have hated to be the girls at that point," she told us later. "All they saw was me disappearing up the stairs. But then, a few seconds later, they heard me scream. They must have been scared out of their wits. So was I. When I saw those eyes staring back at me I nearly passed out!"
Luckily, Claudia did not pass out. Instead, she shone the flashlight at the eyes and caught sight, just in time, of a fat, gray squirrel as it
turned to run out of a hole in the eaves of the roof. After that scare, I don't know how she had the presence of mind to stick a piece of cardboard over the hole, but she did, and the squirrel was locked out, at least temporarily. (The Arnolds could deal with it in the morning.)
After a comforting dinner of macaroni and cheese, Claudia spent the rest of the evening helping the girls make "Professional Ghost-buster" signs for their doors. Then she made one for her own door. The three of them were pretty proud of themselves. After all, itТs not every day you actually bust a ghost!
Chapter 9.
"Twenty-eight years ago?" Sharon, Mary Anne's stepmother, raised her eyebrows. "You're asking a lot. I can't even remember what I had for dinner last night."
Mary Anne and I looked at each other and raised our eyebrows. I had to work hard to stifle a grin. Sharon can sometimes be a bit of a flake. ItТs true that she's a wonderful, smart, loving person. ItТs also true that she's not very organized, and she's always losing her keys or forgetting to turn on the oven when she's baking potatoes.
While Claud was sitting for the Arnolds that Thursday evening, Mary Anne, Logan, and I had gone to Mary Anne's house after our emergency meeting. Why? Because I had blurted out my theory that the vandalism at school might have something to do with that last Mischief Night dance twenty-eight years
earlier. Mary Anne had picked up on the idea immediately, and pointed out that her dad and stepmother had both lived in Stoneybrook at that time and might remember something about the dance. So there we were, sitting in the living room, asking questions.
"I remember plenty of dances in high school," said Mary Anne's dad, smiling softly at Sharon, as if he were remembering romantic moments the two of them had shared long ago. "But middle school? I don't remember going to many dances at all, and I certainly don't remember anything 'tragic' happening at a dance."
"Are you sure?" Mary Anne pressed. "This would have been a Halloween dance, or at least a Mischief Night dance."
"Halloween . . . you know, I do remember something," Sharon began slowly. "Richard, wasn't there a dance once where a teacher was hurt?" She frowned. "Or even killed?"
Mary Anne, Logan, and I exchanged glances.
"A teacher was killed?" I asked.
"Mr. Green, wasn't it?" Richard said in a far-off voice. "You're right, Sharon. I do remember something, but itТs hazy. I know I wasn't at the dance. I would only have been in Ч letТs see Ч sixth grade, and most dances
back then were for the older kids."
"So what happened?" asked Mary Anne, to urging her father along.
"You know, I'm really not sure," he said. "I'm trying to remember, but not much is coming back. Something happened, and that teacher Ч Mr. Green? Ч died because of it. But I can't recall what it was."
We swiveled to look at Sharon. She shook her head. "I can't remember either," she said. "It was pretty terrible, though. I seem to recall girls crying in the halls." She closed her eyes for a moment, and I could tell she was thinking as hard as she could. Then her eyes popped open. "But Richard, you're wrong about the teacher's name. It wasn't Mr. Green. It was Mr. Ч Mr. Brown."
"ThatТs it!" he cried. "Mr. Brown. Absolutely. Now that you say it, I know thatТs right."
"Mr. Brown," I said, making a note in the little notebook I had brought with me. "Wow, thanks for your help. Now that we know something really did happen, maybe we can find out more about the specifics."
"But how?" asked Logan.
"Maybe we could find some old issues of the SMS Express," Mary Anne began, but her father started shaking his head.
"You won't find any old enough," he said.
"The school didn't have a paper then."
"But the town did," Logan said. He glanced at his watch. "If we hurry, we can make it to the library before dosing time and look through some old issues of the Stoneybrook News," He stood up, and so did Mary Anne and I.