Stacey and the Haunted Masquerade 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

  “Stacey?”

  “Here!” I called out. Then I continued to draw suns, planets, stars, and hearts on the front cover of my social studies notebook. It was a bright, sunny fall morning, and I was sitting in creative doodling class, otherwise known as homeroom.

  Homeroom. What a strange name. It’s a room, all right, but it’s nothing like home. Unless your home happens to have chalkboards, fluorescent lights, and seven rows of barely awake eighth-graders who are whispering, passing notes, brushing their hair, or scrambling to finish the last three questions of their math homework, while a teacher (Ms. Levine, in my case) tries to take attendance, keep some order, and make announcements.

  I don’t know about you, but, thankfully, my home isn’t anything like that. For one thing, my mom hardly ever takes attendance. (Just kidding.)

  I mostly use homeroom as a time to gather myself together for the day. None of my good friends is in my homeroom, so I don’t have anybody to whisper with or pass notes to. (Sheila McGregor and I used to pass notes back and forth, but we don’t anymore, which is a long story I’ll tell to you some other time.) I always take care of my hair and clothes before I leave the house in the morning, since both of those things are pretty important to me, so I’m never brushing my hair or checking my outfit in the classroom. And I never leave my math homework unfinished. English homework, maybe, but never math. I actually like math, and I’m good at it, so I usually breeze right through any assignments.

  I always sit next to Sheila McGregor in homeroom. Why? Because my name is Stacey McGill, which means Sheila and I are alphabetically related. Like Sheila, I’m thirteen, and I go to SMS — Stoneybrook Middle School — which is in Stoneybrook, Connecticut. Unlike Sheila, and unlike most of my classmates, I did not grow up in Stoneybrook. I grew up in New York City, in Manhattan. (My parents are divorced, and my dad still lives in New York. Even though I chose to live in Stoneybrook with my mom, I still visit him there as often as I can.) And, not to be a snob about it, my urban roots do set me apart a little from the rest of the SMS student body. It’s not that I’m better than them, it’s just that I’ve seen more (including sad things, such as homeless people, and terrific things, such as the Caribbean Day parade) and done more (not too many kids in my class can say they’ve been to the opera, or to an exhibit of French avant-garde painters) than a lot of Connecticut kids my age.

  I don’t think I’m really all that different, though. Oh, sure, maybe I dress with a little more style and sophistication (I love to shop), and maybe my perm is a little wilder than most (my long blonde hair looks best when it’s super curly), but basically I’m just your average, everyday teenager.

  Except for one thing. I have diabetes. In case you don’t know what that is, it’s a lifelong disease, and a pretty serious one. My body doesn’t make this stuff called insulin, which is necessary for processing sugars and carbohydrates. That means two things: one, I have to give myself insulin to make up for the fact that I don’t produce it myself (I inject it, which isn’t nearly as big a deal as you’d think), and two, I have to keep a very close eye on my blood sugar, which I do by testing my blood regularly and by being extremely careful about what I eat. I have to keep track of every bit of food I consume, every day. And sweets are pretty much out. When we first found out I had diabetes, my parents were incredibly overprotective, especially since I’m an only child. They’ve eased off a bit, because I’ve taken more and more responsibility for caring for myself. By now, it’s almost routine. But even so, diabetes is a major part of my life.

  It’s only a part, though. I don’t see myself as a sick person at all. I can do anything my friends can do (except pig out on chocolate bars), and I try never to let my diabetes bother me. And, while I’m definitely not glad I have diabetes, I think dealing with it has helped me grow up a bit faster than some of my classmates.

  Take Todd “Totally Immature” Long, for example. Half the time he still acts like a fifth-grader. That morning in homeroom, he was trying his hardest to drive Ms. Levine nuts by clicking his ballpoint pen about seventy zillion times a minute. Every time she looked up to see where the sound was coming from, he’d stop and give her this innocent smile. Then, when she looked down at her attendance sheet again, his smile would turn into a devilish grin and he’d start clicking again. Ms. Levine finally decided to ignore the noise, which was the smartest thing for her to do.

  I ignored him, too. I blocked out that irritating clicking noise by humming my current favorite song, “Sister Sally” (by the group Great Blue Whales) as I doodled on my notebook. By then I was drawing linked hearts with the caption S. M. + R. B. = LUV. My boyfriend’s name is Robert Brewster, and I really do luv him. In fact, he’s the most luvable guy I’ve ever met. I drew a string of hearts across the top of the back of my notebook, and I was trying to decide if I should keep going and cover the whole notebook with them when suddenly a storm of static erupted from the loudspeaker over the classroom door.

  “Yow!” yelled Todd, clapping his hands over his ears.

  “Why can’t they fix that thing?” cried Sheila.

  I wondered the same thing. I have never heard one announcement at SMS that didn’t start with an earsplitting burst of static. It usually doesn’t last long, though, and it didn’t that morning. Soon, I could hear a voice through the noise. It was Mr. Kingbridge, our assistant principal. Mr. Kingbridge is okay, except for the fact that he has no fashion sense. I mean none. He wears the most ridiculous ties, the silliest jackets, and the ugliest shoes I’ve ever seen. At an awards night one year, he won the prize for worst dressed. I’ve thought of offering to be his fashion consultant, but I can’t figure out how to do that without insulting him. After all, he’s an adult. Supposedly, he should know how to dress himself by now.

  Anyway, that morning the static took over the first part of his message, but we heard the tail end of it. “Go, Chargers!” he said enthusiastically. That meant he’d been talking about the SMS football team. I glanced at Sheila, who is a cheerleader. She was wearing a big “Go Chargers” button. She glanced back at me, and then looked away quickly. I don’t think she has ever understood why I once turned down a chance to be on the cheerleading squad, or why Robert, who used to be on the basketball team, quit (he hated the special treatment athletes are given, and thought it was unfair). I think she does understand why I stopped hanging out with her and her friends, though.

  Sometimes I don’t understand why I ever wanted to be part of Sheila’s group. I went through a very confusing time recently, when I thought I might be outgrowing my old friends, who belong to a club called the BSC (for Baby-sitters Club — more about that later). I’m ashamed to say that I treated those old friends horribly. But I’m happy to say that they eventually forgave me when I discovered that my “new” friends (Sheila’s crowd) were not the kind of people I wanted to hang out with. I’m a member of the BSC again (I wasn’t, for a while), and that makes me happy.

  Anyway, back to Mr. Kingbridge. As usual, he was blabbing on and on, and nobody in the room was paying much attention to him. But then he said something that m
ade us all sit up and listen.

  Something about a dance.

  A Halloween masquerade, to be exact. The first one to be held at SMS in twenty-eight years, according to Mr. Kingbridge. Immediately, even before I heard any of the details, I loved the idea. I mean, I’m way too old to be dressing up for Halloween, right? But part of me — the kid in me, I guess — misses the chance to be somebody else, just for a night. I began to think about costumes. I could be Cleopatra, and Robert could be Antony. Or we could be Bonnie and Clyde, or Jack Sprat and his wife. And if Robert weren’t into dressing up, so what? I could be Marilyn Monroe or Wonder Woman. I could be anybody!

  “… and we’ll need lots of volunteers to make sure this dance is a success,” Mr. Kingbridge continued, his voice booming over the loudspeaker. “Let’s erase those unpleasant memories of the past, and have a ball! Sign up as soon as you can to serve on the decorations committee, the refreshments committee, the tickets committee …”

  Mr. Kingbridge droned on and on, but I tuned out. I was too busy thinking about costume ideas. I couldn’t wait to see how my friends would dress up. This dance was going to be awesome!

  * * *

  Later, during lunch period, everybody was talking about the dance. I was sitting at a table with my best friend Claudia Kishi, who’s in the BSC, and some other BSC friends: Kristy Thomas, Mary Anne Spier, and Abby Stevenson. Alan Gray was at our table, too, and so were Pete Black, our class president, and Logan Bruno, Mary Anne’s boyfriend.

  “The only thing I don’t understand,” Alan was saying, “is what Kingbridge meant by ‘unpleasant memories.’ ”

  Pete rolled his eyes. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a coin. “Here’s a dime, Alan. Go buy yourself a clue.”

  “Huh?” Alan asked. “What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying you’re clueless,” said Pete. “Think about it. The dance is scheduled for Friday night, and Halloween is on Saturday.”

  “So?” asked Alan, looking bewildered.

  “So, Kingbridge has it all figured out. Friday night is Mischief Night,” explained Pete, “but if we’re all busy with the dance, there won’t be any mischief, so no ‘unpleasant memories.’ ”

  “Ohhh,” said Alan, nodding. “That makes sense.” For a second he looked disappointed. Then he smiled. “Oh, well. We’re too old for shaving cream and toilet paper stunts, anyway. Right?”

  The rest of us looked at each other in surprise, then burst out laughing. Alan Gray is the last person I would ever expect to hear say he’s too old for anything. I can picture him pulling whoopee cushion tricks well into his nineties. But maybe he was turning over a new leaf.

  “If you say so, Alan,” I said, still giggling. “Anyway, the dance is going to be great. The only hard part will be deciding who — or what — to go as.”

  That was the beginning of a discussion about costumes that lasted for the rest of lunch period, and in fact, for the rest of the day. I wasn’t the only one who was looking forward to dressing up. I guess there’s a lot of kid in all of us.

  “Who ya gonna call?”

  “GHOSTBUSTERS!”

  Jessi led the chant, and we screamed out the response, then burst out laughing.

  “I am already so sick of that movie!” exclaimed Kristy.

  “It’s on, like, five times a week,” said Mal, “and I don’t think my brothers and sisters are ever going to be sick of watching it. But I am. If I hear that theme song one more time, I just might —” She pretended to barf.

  Ghostbusters had been playing on our local cable channel lately, and it was going to run through October. It’s a fun movie, and I’ll admit I’ve seen it more than a couple of times, but I knew just what Mallory meant. A month’s worth was a bit much.

  It was Wednesday afternoon, and my friends and I were gathered in Claudia’s room, waiting for the BSC meeting to start. What’s the BSC? Well, maybe this is a good time for me to stop and explain. (Pay attention, now. There will be a quiz on this material!)

  The BSC, or Baby-sitters Club, is a group of very different people who have one thing in common: we love taking care of kids. The idea for the BSC was a simple one. Parents can reach a bunch of experienced sitters by making just one phone call.

  A simple idea, but a great one. The club has been a success almost from the beginning. At first, the BSC advertised with flyers and posters, but we hardly ever have to do that anymore. We have a long list of regular clients, and they know that they can reach us every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, from five-thirty to six. There are seven members of the BSC, plus two associate members who help out when we’re swamped, so parents are pretty much guaranteed a sitter when they call. And not just any sitter. BSC sitters are the best! Why? Because we care so much about our clients, and we go the extra mile to prove that.

  For example, we keep complete records on our clients — not just names and addresses, but allergies, favorite foods, and other useful information. We also write up every job in our club notebook, so that all the members stay up-to-date on what’s happening with our regular clients. And we aren’t the kind of sitters who plop the kids in front of the TV while we gab on the phone. We love to play with our charges and keep them happy and occupied. Sometimes we even bring Kid-Kits with us. Kid-Kits are boxes we’ve filled with books and toys and games (mostly hand-me-downs, but they’re new to the kids) and stickers and markers — all kinds of things. Our clients love them.

  I missed the BSC a lot when I wasn’t a part of it. I missed the meetings. I missed our clients. And, even though I had convinced myself that I had outgrown them, I missed my friends most of all.

  The members of the club really make the BSC special. Somehow, the mix of personalities works. (For a while there, my personality didn’t fit in, but I think that’s in the past.) Sometimes when I look around Claudia’s room during the meetings, I’m amazed that we get along so well when we’re such different people.

  Take Kristy Thomas, for example. She’s the president of the BSC, and the one who came up with the idea for the club. That day, she was dressed (as usual) in jeans, a turtleneck, and running shoes, with a baseball cap plunked over her brown hair. She was sitting (as usual) in the director’s chair at Claudia’s desk, with a pencil stuck (as usual) over one ear. I watched Kristy eye Claudia’s digital clock, and when it clicked to five-thirty, I mouthed the words along with her as she said (as usual): “I hereby call this meeting to order.”

  Kristy is so predictable.

  But only in some ways. In other ways, she’s totally unpredictable. Kristy’s like a whirlwind, a tiny tornado (she’s short for her age) that whips around, full of energy and motion. For example, besides running the BSC, Kristy coaches a softball team (called Kristy’s Krushers) for kids who are not involved with Little League.

  I’ve never met Kristy’s father, because he ran out on her family quite a while ago. But I know her mom, and I can see that Kristy takes after her. Kristy’s mom is one strong woman. After Mr. Thomas left, she raised four kids — Kristy and her three brothers (Sam and Charlie, who are fifteen and seventeen, and David Michael, who’s seven) — on her own. That couldn’t have been easy.

  But things aren’t so tough for Kristy and her family anymore. That’s because Kristy’s mom married this super-nice guy named Watson Brewer, who just happens to be a millionaire. Now Kristy and her mom and brothers live in his mansion, along with Kristy’s grandmother, plus, every other month, Watson’s kids from his first marriage (Karen and Andrew, who are seven and four), plus two-year-old Emily Michelle, a Vietnamese orphan whom Kristy’s mom and Watson adopted together. Plus a whole menagerie of pets.

  Kristy’s home life is the opposite of mine. Sometimes I think I’d enjoy all the chaos and confusion of the Brewer/Thomas household, but mostly I prefer the nice quiet way my mom and I live. Kristy, on the other hand, thrives in her busy environment.

  Kristy’s best friend is Mary Anne Spier. Mary Anne is short, like Kristy, and also has brown hair. They both
have brown eyes, too. But personality-wise, she and Kristy are like night and day. Mary Anne is quiet and sensitive and very neat. For instance, that day, as Kristy started the meeting, Mary Anne was bent over the club record book, updating her information on our schedules. (Mary Anne is the BSC’s secretary, and she does a terrific job.) She erased something carefully, and then, printing precisely, wrote something else in its place.

  Like mine, Mary Anne’s home life is fairly quiet. She lives with her dad, her stepmom, and her kitten, Tigger. But Mary Anne’s family has been through a lot of changes in recent years. First of all, Mary Anne grew up without a mom. Mrs. Spier died when Mary Anne was just a baby. Mr. Spier did a great job of raising Mary Anne on his own, although he did go overboard in the strictness department for a long time. He eased up a little bit when he remarried, though.

  The woman he married happens to be the mother of Mary Anne’s other best friend, Dawn Schafer. How that happened is kind of a wild story, but (deep breath!) here goes: Dawn’s mom grew up in Stoneybrook and dated Mary Anne’s dad when they were both in high school. But they didn’t stay together. Instead, Dawn’s mom went to college out in California, married a man named Jack Schafer, and had two kids, Dawn and her younger brother, Jeff. Unfortunately, that marriage ended in a divorce, and Dawn’s mom moved herself and her kids back to Stoneybrook. Dawn and Mary Anne met and became best friends (Dawn joined the BSC), found out their parents used to date, and brought them back together. (Whew!)

  So now everybody’s living happily ever after, right? Well, not exactly. First, Jeff didn’t adjust to life in Stoneybrook, and he ended up moving back to California to live with his dad. Next, Dawn started missing her dad and Jeff, and ended up going out there for an extended visit. We thought that visit would get California out of her system, but no. It turned out that Dawn, who had always felt torn about where her “home” really was, decided that it was in California. So now she lives there full time, and Mary Anne is an only child again. It’s been a turbulent time for Mary Anne, but she’s handled it well. She has plenty of support, too. She and Kristy are closer than ever these days, and I know Mary Anne shares many of her feelings with her boyfriend, Logan.