Christmas Chiller Read online

  Contents

  Title Page

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgment

  About the Author

  Also Available

  Copyright

  Kristy Thomas, president of the BSC, looked at the clock on Claudia Kishi’s desk. It read 5:31. Bad news. Our president believes in being On Time and the club secretary, Mary Anne Spier, was one whole minute late.

  Kristy frowned. “You’re la —” The words died on her lips as Mary Anne stepped aside and let the person behind her into the room.

  “Dawn!” cried the normally cool and sophisticated Stacey McGill, leaping to her feet to give Dawn Schafer a hug. We all followed suit, crowding around Dawn to welcome her and bombard her with questions.

  Then Kristy remembered what she’d started to say. “You’re late,” she said to Mary Anne. Then she grinned. “But I guess since our honorary member had to come all the way from California, we can overlook it this time.”

  We laughed. Mary Anne sat down on the floor next to Claudia’s bed, and I scooted over to make room so Dawn could sit between us. We had a very full house. Every single member of the BSC was in attendance. Counting Dawn, that was ten people.

  “First order of business,” Kristy said. “Welcome back, Dawn. Now, who’s going to be here over the winter holiday?”

  I hid a smile. That was typical of Kristy: Business is never far from her mind. Logan Bruno reminded her that he would be going with his family to visit relatives in his home state of Kentucky. Shannon Kilbourne told everyone about the ski vacation her family had planned.

  “And don’t forget that Claudia and I have to leave early today,” Stacey said. “Mom’s taking us to the station, to catch our train to New York City.”

  Mary Anne bent over the club record book, making notes on who was going to be where.

  Abby Stevenson said, “And double don’t forget my Hanukkah party this Friday night.”

  I looked around the room. We’re not just a club, I thought. We’re more like a small business — a small business made up of ten very different people.

  But maybe I should tell you more about the club before I introduce everyone.

  We meet three times a week — Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, from five-thirty until six — in Claudia’s bedroom. Why in Claud’s room? Because she has her own phone line, so that we don’t tie up her family’s line when we talk to clients. (That’s one reason Claudia is our vice-president.)

  We meet regularly to make sure there are specific times people can call us to set up baby-sitting appointments. Mary Anne writes all the appointments down in the club record book. The record book also includes our individual schedules (my advanced ballet classes, for example); our clients’ names, addresses, and phone numbers, and rates charged; and special information about the children for whom we baby-sit, such as allergies or phobias (like fear of cats). Mary Anne is in charge of the record book, except for the treasury section (that’s Stacey’s responsibility as treasurer), and I don’t think she has ever made a mistake.

  We pay dues to Stacey every Monday, and we always complain. The dues go toward Claud’s phone bill, gas money for Kristy’s brother Charlie (who drives Kristy and Abby to our meetings), supplies for our Kid-Kits, and, occasionally, club parties.

  Kid-Kits are boxes that we have each decorated and filled with lots of kid-friendly items. We take the kits along on potentially difficult baby-sitting assignments. For example, they’re excellent icebreakers on new jobs and a big help when kids have been cooped up in the house due to bad weather or illness. Many of the games, puzzles, toys, and books once belonged to us or to our younger brothers and sisters, but we also add new art supplies and stickers as needed. The kids never notice that some of the contents of the Kid-Kits are “recycled.” Besides, what kid can resist playing with some other kids’ toys?

  We also keep a club notebook, in which we write down a description of every job we go on. We are expected to read everybody else’s entries. That way, we stay up-to-date with what is going on with our baby-sitting charges. Kristy and Mallory Pike like writing in the club notebook. It’s a big pain for the rest of us, but we all enjoy reading it.

  Kristy is our president not only because of her keen organizational sense, but because the BSC was her brilliant idea. It came to her on the first Tuesday of seventh grade, as she watched her mother call one person after another, looking for a baby-sitter for Kristy’s younger brother. Kristy suddenly thought, What if you could dial one number and reach several reliable baby-sitters?

  With the help of Mary Anne, Claudia, and Stacey, Kristy soon had the club in gear. It was so successful that they had to recruit more baby-sitters right away. That’s when Dawn joined, followed by Logan and Shannon. Mallory and I became members when Stacey moved back to her hometown, New York City (temporarily, it turned out). Dawn also moved back home, to California, and then Abby became a member.

  As you can tell by the fact that we have to keep adding new members, the club is very successful. Most of our business comes from repeat clients, and practically all of our new business is due to satisfied parents’ (and children’s) word-of-mouth.

  Now you know what the BSC is. Who are we?

  You know a little about me — where I live, and that you can find me three afternoons a week at the BSC meetings and two afternoons at ballet classes. As you might have guessed, I love ballet. I hope to be a prima ballerina someday. Meanwhile, I get up every morning at 5:28 (before my alarm clock goes off at 5:29) to practice ballet at the barre my parents have set up for me in the basement. I am strong (ballet dancers have to be) and, I hope, graceful. I like to wear ballet-style clothes. Leotards in every color are a big part of my wardrobe, in dance class and out. I have dark brown eyes, light brown skin, and curly black hair that I often wear pulled back, ballet-dancer fashion.

  But ballet isn’t my whole life. I like horses and horse books and mysteries, too. Horses and mysteries are two interests I share with my best friend, Mallory. Mallory is a junior officer in the BSC, just like me. We’re junior officers because we are the youngest members of the BSC. (We’re both eleven and in sixth grade; everybody else is thirteen and in eighth grade.) Also, neither of us is allowed to sit at night except for our own families.

  Sitting for my family is relatively easy, since I only have two siblings, but Pike-sitting is major. That’s because Mallory is the oldest of eight kids, including brothers who are triplets. Being a member of such a large family means that Mallory has excellent baby-sitting skills. She’s also a good storyteller, which may be why she plans on becoming a children’s author someday. She’s already won an award for her writing.

  Mallory is not into ballet, however, or anything athletic. In fact, she got detention for the first time in her life when she refused to play volleyball in gym class!

  Mal is shorter than I am and she wears glasses and has braces. She has curly reddish-brown hair, blue eyes, and pale skin that sunburns and freckles easily.

  Mal sees herself as having one ad
ditional job in the BSC. She more or less oversees the BSC mystery notebook. We began keeping it (another Kristy idea) when we realized that we were becoming involved in a lot of mysteries. We needed a place to keep track of clues, suspects, events, and of course, our solutions to the mysteries.

  We all write in the mystery notebook, but Mal is practically a fanatic about keeping it accurate and up-to-date. Although we’ve teased her about this in the past (she once asked a teacher to bring her the notebook when she was on a class trip!), her careful record-keeping has proved invaluable.

  Kristy and Mary Anne are another set of best friends in the BSC. They’ve known each other since they were practically infants and have been friends for almost as long. They used to live next door to each other on Bradford Court (and across the street from Claudia), but not long ago, Kristy’s mother and Mary Anne’s father got remarried (not to each other) and now only Claudia still lives in the old neighborhood.

  Kristy, who has brown eyes and longish brown hair (which she usually wears in a ponytail), is the shortest person in the eighth grade and probably the most outspoken. As I’ve mentioned, she’s very organized and full of ideas. These are the qualities that make her an excellent president — today, of the BSC, and tomorrow, probably of some major corporation. Like Mal, Kristy has a large family. But hers is a blended family.

  Kristy’s father walked out on the family when David Michael, Kristy’s youngest brother, was just a baby. They had a tough time of it, especially at first. But Kristy’s mother and Kristy and her two older brothers worked hard, and things gradually improved.

  Then Kristy’s mother fell in love and got remarried — to a millionaire. So Kristy and her family moved across town to Watson Brewer’s mansion (yes, really) and Kristy acquired two new younger stepsiblings, then an adopted younger sister from Vietnam. Her maternal grandmother came to live with them, too, to help out. And have I mentioned that they have a Bernese mountain dog puppy, a cranky cat, assorted goldfish and other pets, and, according to Kristy’s stepsister, a resident ghost?

  It’s a good thing Kristy is organized and used to making herself heard!

  Mary Anne is the opposite of outspoken. She is very shy, although she can be as stubborn as Kristy in her own way. Like Kristy, she favors casual clothes (although she doesn’t wear practically the same outfit of jeans and a turtleneck or sweater every day, the way Kristy does).

  Mary Anne is the second shortest person in the eighth grade. She has brown hair, too, although hers is cut short, and brown eyes. She is very sensitive (even sappy commercials can bring tears to her eyes) and was the first person in the BSC to have a steady boyfriend (Logan, the only guy in the BSC). Her mother died when Mary Anne was too young to remember her, and for years and years Mary Anne was a very overprotected only child. Her anxious father had millions of rules for her. It took a lot of work on Mary Anne’s part to convince him that it was okay for her to grow up and try some things on her own, such as choosing her own clothes and hairstyle.

  Richard, Mary Anne’s dad, has become even more easygoing since he got remarried — to his high school sweetheart. She also happens to be Dawn’s mother. Mary Anne and Dawn found out about the old high school romance and played a big part in rekindling it.

  You see, Dawn Schafer’s mother moved back here from California with Dawn and Dawn’s younger brother, Jeff, after she and Mr. Schafer got divorced. Dawn and Mary Anne instantly became friends, and Mary Anne persuaded Dawn to join the BSC. Soon Dawn and Mary Anne became best friends. (Kristy wasn’t too happy about that at first. She didn’t see how Many Anne could have two best friends.)

  Anyway, after the wedding, Mary Anne and her father and her kitten, Tigger, moved to the old farmhouse on the edge of town where Dawn lived.

  Dawn is tall, with long blonde hair, blue eyes, and skin that tans easily. She has two holes pierced in each ear and her style is laid-back casual. But Dawn has strong opinions underneath her “everything’s cool” attitude. She’s very health-conscious, especially when it comes to food, and she’s a committed environmentalist. In fact, she’s the main reason all of us BSC members recycle and are aware of environmental issues.

  Dawn also loves mysteries, and she believes in ghosts. She discovered a secret passage in the old farmhouse and is convinced that the place is haunted. But the idea of a ghost doesn’t seem to upset Dawn much. She’s pretty calm about that too.

  Not long ago, Dawn realized that as much as she loved her new family, Connecticut, and the BSC, she wasn’t going to be able to shake off her homesickness. She made the difficult decision to do what Jeff had already done and return to California to live with her father, who has recently remarried. After she left, we made her an honorary member of the BSC. We miss her, which is one of the reasons it was such a nice surprise to see her at our meeting.

  Claudia and Stacey are also best friends. Claudia is an artist. And she’s a connoisseur of junk food and Nancy Drew mysteries. She’s not so crazy about school. Her sister is a genius, but only an ordinary one, the kind who makes perfect grades and takes college courses even though she’s still in high school. Claudia is an artistic genius, something her teachers and her parents, who like to see good grades, don’t always understand. But they will someday, when Claudia is famous.

  Claudia always manages to look terrific. That’s the artist at work — on the artist. For example, that Wednesday was cold and gray outside, but inside everything was brightened up by Claudia’s rainbow look. She had braided her long jet-black hair into a single braid with narrow red, blue, green, yellow, orange, and purple ribbons woven in. Her short red turtleneck dress had a braided yellow belt, and she was wearing purple tights, yellow scrunch socks, and black Docs. Her earrings were in the shape of Christmas trees, but they were painted in rainbow colors, instead of just green. On some people this might have been too much, but on Claudia, with her creamy skin and dark eyes, it looked fabulous.

  Stacey is also a knockout, but in a more sleek, magazine-model way. She is tall, very thin, and blonde, with dark blue eyes. That day, she was wearing a short dark blue skirt and a light blue and green patterned sweater that was cropped short in the front and hung long in the back. Her tights matched her skirt, and she wore navy ankle boots with pointed toes that looked like elf shoes. Gold star earrings dangled from each ear, and she’d twisted her hair into a sleek knot.

  Stacey’s fashion sense makes her seem a little more sophisticated than everyone else in the BSC (and most people at SMS). But even if you saw her in sweats, you’d notice that Stacey seems more mature than the rest of us. She has to be: Stacey has diabetes, which means that her body can’t process sugar properly. She has to watch what she eats (and when she eats) very, very carefully and give herself insulin injections every day. If she doesn’t do that, she could become ill and even go into a coma. For a while, Stacey’s parents were terribly overprotective, but Stacey has managed to convince them that she can behave responsibly about her diabetes, and they have calmed down.

  As I mentioned, Stacey is our treasurer. That’s because beneath that New York City sophistication is the brain of a math whiz. She not only understands math, she loves it. She hasn’t decided what she’s going to do with her amazing math abilities. Lately, she’s been talking about becoming a tax attorney, because she thinks it would be kind of fun to “fight with the Internal Revenue Service.”

  Fun? Go figure. I’m just glad she’s in charge of our finances!

  Abby is our newest member. She took over the job of alternate officer, which used to be Dawn’s. It means she can fill in for any other officer who’s absent. She’s of medium height and strongly built. Her thick dark brown hair is so curly it’s almost in ringlets. She has what fashion mags call an olive complexion (which according to Claudia means you look great in most colors except green and yellow) and a pointy face. She’s nearsighted and wears glasses or contacts depending on her mood.

  The Stevensons (Abby, her twin sister, Anna, and their mother) moved here re
cently from Long Island after Mrs. Stevenson got a great new job. Mr. Stevenson was killed in a car wreck a few years ago. Abby doesn’t talk much about that.

  On other subjects, though, she is definitely a talker. She has at least as many opinions as Kristy and she doesn’t hesitate to go nose to nose with our president when their opinions differ. Sometimes I half expect them to tear into each other and then, boom! Two seconds later they’re talking about sports.

  Abby is a sports fanatic, like Kristy. But Abby takes it one step further. She is a total jock. She’ll play any sport, anywhere, anytime. Soccer is her favorite, though. She’s a member of the school soccer team and has even played soccer as a partner with a Special Olympics team member.

  When it isn’t soccer season, Abby runs as much as she can and practices often to stay in shape. But staying in shape isn’t always easy for her. She has allergies and asthma. “Life makes me sneeze,” she says, blowing her nose and sometimes using her inhaler, which helps her breathe on days when the pollution is bad or the pollen count is high. Then she starts moving again at top speed, telling terrible jokes at the same time.

  Shannon and Logan are our associate members. Associates take the overflow baby-sitting jobs, the ones for which nobody else is available, or for which we need extra help. They don’t have to come to every meeting, or pay dues.

  Logan is as big a jock as Abby or Kristy. He plays at least one sport per season at SMS. He’s medium tall, with blue eyes and blondish-brown hair. Mary Anne thinks he looks like Cam Geary, the TV star.

  Since Logan is Mary Anne’s boyfriend, it’s only natural that she would think he’s cute. (And I have to admit that he is.) He moved to Stoneybrook from Kentucky and speaks with a soft Southern accent. He’s very polite and a good listener, something that Mary Anne really appreciates.

  He’s also an excellent baby-sitter. He’s taken some grief for being the only guy in our club and for baby-sitting, period. But Logan is cool. He just ignores the kids who don’t understand that guys can be good baby-sitters too. It’s their problem, he says, not his.