Mary Anne and the Silent Witness Read online

  Contents

  Title Page

  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

  Acknowledgment

  About the Author

  Also Available

  Copyright

  “Bye, Tiggy,” I cooed, bending down to rub noses with the softest, sweetest, cutest little gray tiger kitten in the world. It was a Monday morning in early April, and if I was going to be on time for school I had to head downstairs for breakfast within the next ten seconds. But it’s always so hard to say good-bye to Tigger. He’d already been downstairs for his own breakfast, and now he was back on my bed, curled up for his regularly scheduled early-morning nap. (To be followed by a mid-morning snack, a late-morning snooze, then lunch and a short play period, followed by a few early-afternoon z’s, which would lead to mid-afternoon munchies, and so on. Cats sure do have it all figured out. Eat, sleep, play, eat, sleep, play. What a life.)

  Anyway, it’s hard to leave Tigger, but I managed. Being on time for school is important to me. I grabbed my backpack, checked my hair and my outfit one last time in the mirror, took a final glance at Tigger, and left my bedroom. Then I paused in the hallway before going down the stairs, certain I’d forgotten something. What was it? I had my math homework, and the short paper I’d written for English. I’d said good-bye to Tigger. My socks matched (I glanced down again just to make sure), and I’d remembered to grab my jean jacket in case it was chilly out. So what was it that didn’t seem right?

  I looked around, and when my eye lit upon a closed door down the hall, I realized what I was missing.

  Dawn.

  Dawn’s my sister, or, to be technical about it, my stepsister. And behind that closed door is what used to be her bedroom. Now her bedroom is three thousand miles away — a situation I still haven’t entirely adjusted to.

  I guess I’d better back up and explain who I am and why I have a sister who doesn’t live in my house. It’s a little complicated, so stay with me.

  My name’s Mary Anne Spier. I’m thirteen and in the eighth grade at SMS (Stoneybrook Middle School), which is in Stoneybrook, Connecticut, the town where I’ve spent almost my whole life. I say almost because for a short time, when I was just a baby, I lived in Maynard, Iowa, with my grandparents. That was right after my mother died. At the time, my father was too overcome with grief to take care of me, so he sent me to stay with my mother’s parents.

  They loved having me. In fact, they loved me so much that they wanted to keep me with them forever. If my father hadn’t fought for me, I might be attending MMS (Maynard Middle School), and saying good-bye to my pet hog Wilbur instead of to Tigger. And I certainly never would have met Dawn.

  Dawn Schafer turned up in my life when she and her mom and her younger brother Jeff moved to Stoneybrook. Dawn’s mom had grown up in Stoneybrook (just like my dad), but had moved to California, married, and had Dawn and Jeff. But that marriage wasn’t meant to last. After the divorce, she brought her children back to Connecticut. When Dawn and I met, we became instant friends, which was a little unusual for me, since I’m normally very shy. She even joined this club I belong to, the Baby-sitters Club, or BSC (more about that later). Then, one day, when we were looking through some old yearbooks, we discovered that my dad (Richard) and her mom (Sharon) had dated each other when they were in high school, but had sadly parted ways. We thought that was the most romantic thing we’d ever heard of. We were wrong.

  The most romantic thing was when we brought the two of them back together and they wound up falling in love again, and getting married!

  Thinking about their wedding can bring sentimental tears to my eyes, even now. That’s the way I’ve always been. I cry easily, and the silliest things can make me feel all choked up. My boyfriend, Logan Bruno (the cutest boy at SMS, and the sweetest), likes to tease me about that.

  Marrying Sharon brought about some real changes in my father’s personality. He’d always been fairly strict with me, I think because he was raising me on his own. (He was also trying to prove to my grandparents that he could handle the job of raising me.) He used to make me wear little-girl clothes, for example, and keep my room decorated in little-girl style. To be honest, my dad was coming around even before he met Sharon (I’d begun to convince him that I was a responsible young woman), but now he’s really loosened up. Although “loose” is a relative term in my father’s case. He’s still the neatest, most organized person I know — next to me. (We both arrange our closets according to season and our sock drawers according to color, for example.) Sharon, by the way, is his (our) total opposite: She’s a bit of a flake when it comes to sticking to schedules or keeping things tidy. (She’s been known to save balancing the checkbook for a “rainy day” — which never comes — and has more than once forgotten to put away groceries until the ice cream becomes soup.)

  I know, I know, I still haven’t explained why Dawn doesn’t live down the hall from me anymore. Here’s the story: First of all, even before Sharon and my dad married, Jeff (Dawn’s brother) had realized that he would never enjoy living in Connecticut. He missed his dad and he missed California, so the only solution was for him to move back out there. Naturally, Dawn missed him and her dad like crazy, which meant that she ended up being bicoastal for a while. (That’s just a fancy way of saying that she spent a lot of time in the air, flying between the East and West Coasts.) After awhile her visits west lasted longer and longer, and finally, she decided California was her real home, and she moved there permanently. She still visits here, of course, but I doubt she’ll ever live in Connecticut again.

  And I doubt I’ll ever really be used to her not being here.

  It’s hard to return to living as an only child once you’ve had a sister around. Even though I have another best friend (her name’s Kristy Thomas), I know nobody will ever replace Dawn in my heart.

  I know that Sharon misses Dawn a whole lot, too. I could see it in her eyes when I entered the kitchen for breakfast. For just a fraction of a second, I could see her looking past me, as if she hoped that somehow Dawn had followed me down the stairs. There was a sudden sadness in her eyes, and then, just as suddenly, it was gone. I gave her a special smile and a quick hug, trying to put everything I felt into it and yet keep it casual. She hugged me back, and I had a feeling she’d taken in every message I’d been trying to send her. Sharon and I are pretty sensitive people, and both of us are good at sending and receiving those unspoken communications.

  “Morning, Dad,” I said, kissing the top of my father’s head as I walked past him toward the cupboard where we keep the cereal. He was reading the Stoneybrook News and eating a buttered cinnamon-raisin bagel; he looked up briefly and gave me a smile before he returned to his reading.

  I filled a bowl with Grape Nuts, added skim milk and a little maple syrup, poured a glass of orange juice, and sat at the table. Before we moved into this old farmhouse with Sharon and Dawn, my dad and I used to eat very differently. For breakfast, we’d have eggs and bacon. Lunches, when we were both home, usually involved cold cuts from the local deli. And we often had burgers or pork chops for dinner. But all that changed when we married into a health-conscious family. Now we eat a mostly vegetarian diet, and while you can’t make me like tofu, I will say that I don’t miss red meat all that much. (Of course, my dad and I still sneak in the occ
asional T-bone, when we can.)

  I was crunching away contentedly on my Grape Nuts when I heard my dad make a “tsk-tsk” sound. I looked up to see him shaking his head over something he was reading in the paper.

  “That’s a real shame,” he said.

  “What is?” I asked.

  “Fowler’s latest project,” he answered.

  “Ugh, that man!” exclaimed Sharon, making a face. She can’t stand hearing about Reginald Fowler. He’s this very rich, very flashy guy who made his money, as she says, by “selling off Stoneybrook, tree by tree.” He’s a developer, and it’s true that he’s changed the face of our town by putting up strip malls where there used to be fields, and office buildings where forests once stood. I don’t like Fowler much, myself. I’d rather have Stoneybrook the way it was when I was little, when it looked more like an old-fashioned small town.

  “What’s he up to now?” I asked.

  “He wants to build a huge new office complex,” my dad replied. “He says it’ll bring thousands of jobs to the area.”

  “More likely it’ll put thousands of dollars into his pocket,” said Sharon, with a little snort.

  “Where does he want to build it?” I asked.

  “On the land where Ambrose’s Sawmill stands,” said my dad. “You know, Miller’s Park?”

  “That’s awful!” I exploded, putting down my spoon so suddenly that milk droplets flew all over the table. “Miller’s Park is so beautiful.” I thought of the little stream that curves through the park, which is on the outskirts of town, and of the weeping willows that line the stream’s banks.

  “And the Historical Society just spent all that time raising money to renovate Ambrose’s Sawmill,” Sharon added. “How dare he?”

  My dad shrugged. “So far it’s just a proposal,” he said. “Maybe it won’t go through. He’ll have to take it to the town council, first. But Fowler is a powerful man. I wouldn’t be too surprised if that sawmill is torn down within a month or two.”

  He read a little further. “This is interesting,” he said. “It says here that there was a mysterious fire at one of the houses that sit on the edge of that land — one of the houses that Fowler would have to buy and knock down before he started his project.”

  “I bet Fowler set it!” said Sharon.

  “Now, now, that hasn’t been proven,” said my father. “But it does say here that the fire inspectors haven’t ruled out arson.” He began reading the paper again, and I continued to eat breakfast, and think about how sad it would be to lose those weeping willows.

  I finished my Grape Nuts without really tasting them, rinsed out the bowl and stuck it into the dishwasher, and kissed my dad and Sharon good-bye. Fowler or not, it was time to leave for school.

  As usual, my friends Stacey McGill and Mallory Pike stopped by for me. Then we headed for school, meeting Claudia, Jessi, and Logan on the way. Guess what we talked about on the way to school? No, not the BSC, although we are all members and we often do talk about club business during our walk.

  What we talked about was Fowler’s plans and how to fight them. That’s what I love about my friends. They, like me, believe in doing something to help whenever help is needed. No sooner had we started on the topic of the threat to Miller’s Park than we were planning a campaign of letters to the editor. “We’d better begin soon, too,” said Jessi. “I have a feeling this fight isn’t going to be an easy one.”

  As it turned out, Jessi couldn’t have been more right. The BSC versus Reginald Fowler turned out to be one of our toughest fights ever.

  “Why stop at letters to the editor? We should pull together a whole media campaign. Maybe the TV news people would be interested!” Kristy was talking fast, the way she always does when she knows she has a good idea, and her face was a little flushed.

  I know that face well. Kristy Thomas and I have been best friends forever, and I’ve seen Kristy come up with lots of good ideas. The best one, so far anyway, was her idea for the BSC. We were in the midst of a BSC meeting that Monday afternoon, and while we waited for phone calls we discussed the Fowler problem.

  The BSC began back in seventh grade, when Kristy had a major brainstorm. She realized, while watching her mom try to find a sitter for Kristy’s little brother, that parents would give anything to have a simple way to arrange for baby-sitters. Ever since then the BSC (with Kristy as president, naturally) has been meeting in Claudia’s room every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday afternoon from five-thirty until six. When parents call during those times, they are virtually guaranteed a responsible, reliable, experienced sitter.

  But the BSC isn’t only about making life easier for parents. We really care about kids; we write up all our jobs in the club notebook, so that every sitter knows what’s going on with every child. We also help our charges have fun; we all own and often carry Kid-Kits, which are boxes full of stickers, art supplies, and hand-me-down toys that kids just love. Lastly, the BSC is super-organized; the club record book contains detailed notes on every client — name, address, allergies, likes and dislikes — as well as information about every sitter’s schedule.

  In case you’re wondering, all of the above are products of Kristy’s Brilliant Brain, which never seems to stop working, just like the rest of her. Kristy’s always on the go, and always diving into things headfirst. Sometimes I’m amazed that we’re best friends; we are as different as night and day. We do look alike — both of us have brown hair and brown eyes, and we’re on the short side — but as far as personality goes, we’re opposites. Remember I told you I am shy and sensitive? Kristy is anything but.

  I wonder if it has to do partly with our family lives. For most of my life I was an only child with one parent, and I always received plenty of attention. In fact, more than I wanted. But Kristy grew up in a chaotic household, with two older brothers (Charlie and Sam) and one younger one (David Michael), all of whom shared one parent: Kristy’s mom (her dad walked out on the family when David Michael was only a baby). If Kristy wanted attention, she had to work for it. That was always the case, and it still is, maybe now more than ever. See, Kristy’s mother is married again, to a great guy named Watson Brewer, who just happens to be a millionaire. Kristy and her mom and her brothers moved across town to live in his mansion, which they also share (every other month) with Watson’s children from his first marriage, Karen and Andrew. Watson and Kristy’s mom also adopted a little Vietnamese girl, Emily Michelle, and soon after she arrived, Kristy’s grandmother Nannie moved in to help out. It’s a pretty full house (mansion, that is), even if you don’t count the animals! Kristy seems to thrive on the atmosphere there, and even seeks out more chaos. For example, she coaches a softball team for little kids, called Kristy’s Krushers. And, as she was demonstrating during our meeting that afternoon, she’s always on the alert for new problems to be solved, new ventures to begin, and new fights to be fought.

  “… and maybe we should organize some kind of protest or rally,” she was saying, still champing at the bit to wage the war on Fowler.

  “Come on, Kristy, chill!” said Claudia, passing her a bag of jelly beans. “I mean, everything you’re saying sounds great, but we can’t do it all at once. Let’s start small and move on from there.” Claud reached up to check that her ponytail was still on top of her head, Pebbles-style.

  Claudia Kishi, who is vice-president of the BSC (mainly because she has her own phone, with a private line), is Japanese-American, with long, jet-black hair and almond-shaped eyes. I’ve known her all my life, but I’m sometimes still amazed at how beautiful she is.

  Here are Claudia’s three main passions: art, art, and art.

  Not really. I mean, art is very important to Claudia, but it’s not the only thing in her life. For example, she’s also passionate about clothes (she believes that you are what you wear), junk food (she lives on the stuff, and provides munchies for every BSC meeting), and Nancy Drew mysteries (Claudia’s a terrific detective herself). Her parents disapprove of the junk food
and the mysteries, so Claudia’s become a master of deception, hiding books, candy, and chips in every little nook and cranny of her room.

  Claudia is not passionate about school. She makes good grades in art class, but that’s about it. She’s not dumb. She just doesn’t care much about dates and numbers and the exact way to spell things. Her older sister Janine does, though. Janine’s a true genius who takes college classes even though she’s still in high school. Fortunately, Claudia’s parents have begun to value Claud’s creative abilities as much as Janine’s academic talents.

  Claudia’s best friend, Stacey McGill, who was sitting next to Claudia on the bed that afternoon, spoke up next. “I agree with Claudia,” she said. “Let’s begin with letters to the editor and see what happens next. Meanwhile, I think there’s a little piece of business we’re forgetting today!” She said that last part in a teasing voice, holding up a manila envelope as she spoke.

  We all groaned. “That’s right,” said Stacey. “It’s dues day. Pay up, everybody.” She smiled around at us, ignoring our grumbling. Stacey is the treasurer of the BSC, and math whiz that she is, she does a great job. Although we each keep the money we make from sitting jobs, we do contribute a small amount to the club fund every week, just to cover expenses such as Claudia’s phone bill. It’s no big deal, really. We just like to give Stacey a hard time about it.

  Stacey, who has blonde hair (usually in a wildly curly perm) and blue eyes, is an only child who lives with her mom. Her parents are divorced, and her dad lives in Manhattan, where Stacey grew up. And, while Stacey chose to live in Stoneybrook with her mom, she’ll never really be a small-town girl. She’s a city person, and always will be, no matter where she lives. Stacey has a certain sophistication — partly reflected in her excellent taste in clothes — that stands out in Stoneybrook.

  She’s not a snob, though. Oh, she went through a period not long ago when she decided that the members of the BSC were too “immature” to hang out with, but that didn’t last long. She found out who her real friends were, and now she’s back in the club, where she belongs. I’m glad, too. I hated it when we were all mad at her.