Mary Anne's Bad-Luck Mystery Read online

  This book is for

  Aunt Martha

  and in memory of

  Uncle Lyman

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  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

  Letter from Ann M. Martin

  About the Author

  Scrapbook

  Copyright

  “You know,” said Kristy Thomas, “I’ve been thinking. If I took a bunch of these old wilted peas and put them in the mashed potatoes — evenly spread out — and then took my fork and smushed them all down, my lunch would look almost exactly like —”

  “Stop!” I cried. “Stop right there. I don’t want to know what you think it would look like.”

  “Do you want to know what I think it would smell like?” Kristy asked.

  “Absolutely not,” I replied, turning green. “Please. Don’t say another word about the lunch. Why do you buy the hot lunch every day, anyway? Why don’t you buy a salad or something?”

  “Because,” replied Kristy, “it’s so much more fun to say disgusting things about the hot lunch.”

  Everyone laughed. We couldn’t help it.

  “We” were five of the members of the Baby-sitters Club — Kristy, me (Mary Anne Spier), my friends Dawn Schafer and Claudia Kishi and Logan Bruno. (I guess you could call Logan my boyfriend.) It was a Monday and it was eighth-grade lunchtime at Stoneybrook Middle School. That meant we were sitting around our usual table. In front of Kristy and Logan and me were hot lunches; in front of Claudia was a tunafish sandwich; and in front of Dawn, the health-food nut, was a lunch from home — an apple, some cottage cheese, a plastic container of this brown-rice casserole, and something Dawn called trail mix, which really looked more like birdseed.

  Dawn is from California, which explains a lot.

  “Just out of curiosity,” spoke up Logan, “what would the peas and mashed potatoes look like, Kristy?”

  “Oh, please! Oh, please! Don’t egg her on,” I exclaimed. “Logan, why are you doing this to me?”

  “It’s fun watching you turn green,” Logan replied.

  The five of us began to laugh again. We really are great friends. And we always sit together. Well, at any rate, us girls always sit together. Logan only sits with us about half the time. The rest of the time, he sits with his other friends. Understandably, those other friends are boys. If you were a thirteen-year-old guy, do you think you could sit with a table full of girls every lunch period?

  No.

  Kristy is my oldest friend in the world. She used to live next door to me. In fact, we lived next door to each other all our lives — until last summer. Last summer, Kristy’s mom, who was divorced, got remarried. The man she married lives in a gigantic house, a mansion really, on the other side of our town, which is Stoneybrook, Connecticut. So Kristy and her mom and her three brothers (Sam and Charlie, who are in high school, and David Michael, who’s just seven) moved into Watson Brewer’s house. Now Kristy also has a little stepbrother, Andrew, who’s four, and a little stepsister, Karen, who’s six. (They live with Kristy’s family every other weekend. The rest of the time they live with their mother and stepfather.)

  I miss Kristy a lot, even though a very nice family moved into her house, and even though I’ve become really close to Dawn. Dawn moved to Connecticut from California last January, about ten months ago. She and I hit it off right away, and now she and Kristy are both my best friends, even though they are very different people. Here’s a comparison of the three of us:

  Kristy is outspoken. “Big mouth” might be a better way to describe her. She’s sort of a tomboy, is full of ideas, and acts like a blender on high speed. By that I mean she’s going, going, going all the time. Sometimes I just want to say to her, “Give it a rest, Kristy!” Kristy doesn’t care much about how she looks (she always wears jeans, a turtleneck, a sweater if necessary, and sneakers), and she is not interested in boys. In fact, she doesn’t like most of them. (Logan is an exception.) Kristy basically thinks that boys are like flies — pests. That’s because she’s been unfortunate enough to know mostly the annoying ones. Kristy likes sports and children and is the founder and president of the Baby-sitters Club, which I’ll tell you more about later. She has brown hair and brown eyes. She and I are the two shortest girls in the entire eighth grade.

  Dawn is, well, she’s Dawn. She’s this California girl who’s trying to get adjusted to life on the East Coast — to cold weather and to people who’d rather eat a steakburger than soybeans. Like Kristy, she’s also adjusting to some changes, in her family. The reason she moved here was that her parents got divorced. Her mother had grown up in Stoneybrook, so she brought Dawn and her younger brother, Jeff, back to her hometown. Only it didn’t exactly work out. Jeff was really unhappy, and finally, a few weeks ago, went back to California to live with his dad, so now it’s just Dawn and her mother. (They’re very close.) Unlike Kristy, Dawn does care about how she looks — and she’s pretty good-looking. She has waist-length hair the color of wheat. Actually, it’s almost white. And piercing blue eyes. And she wears trendy clothes, but she’s very individualistic about it. In fact, she’s just generally an individual. Dawn does things her way and doesn’t care what other people think. She isn’t snobby, she’s just very sure of herself.

  Now I, on the other hand, am not self-assured like Dawn, and I’m not outspoken like Kristy. I’m quiet and shy. So why am I the only one of my friends with a steady boyfriend? I don’t know. Maybe it’s because I’m sensitive. People are always telling me I’m sensitive. When I was younger they meant it as too sensitive — in other words, a baby. Now they mean it as caring and understanding. I must say that when my friends are upset or having problems, they come to me pretty often. They don’t always come for advice. Sometimes they just come to talk, because they know I’ll listen. Like Kristy, I don’t care too much about the clothes I wear, although lately I’m taking more of an interest. It’s fun to dress in baggy sweaters or short dresses, or to put on bright jewelry or hair clips or something. (I used to go to school in boring old jumpers and loafers.) Like Dawn, I live with just one parent — my dad. My mom died when I was really little, and I don’t have any brothers or sisters. I do have a pet, though. He’s my gray kitten named Tigger. I don’t know what I’d do without him.

  So, that’s Dawn and Kristy and me. Now let me tell you about Claudia and Logan. Talk about people being different, wait until you hear about Claudia. Claudia Kishi is the most exotic, interesting person in the eighth grade. Honest. First of all she’s Japanese-American and has this long, silky, jet-black hair, these dark eyes, and a perfect complexion. Then there’s the matter of her clothes. Nobody, but nobody, dresses like Claudia. At least, nobody in our grade. (We used to have a friend, another member of the Baby-sitters Club, named Stacey McGill, who dressed kind of like Claudia. But Stacey moved back to New York, where she used to live. And anyway, trust me, Claudia is unique.) The best way to get this point across is to describe to you what Claudia was wearing at lunch that day. It was her vegetable blouse: an oversized white shirt with a green vegetable print all over it — cabbages and squashes and turnips and stuff. Under the blouse was a very short jean skirt, white stockings, green anklets over the stockings, and lavender sneakers, the kind boys usually wear, with a lot of ru
bber and big laces and the name of the manufacturer in huge letters on the sides. Wait, I’m not done. Claudia had pulled the hair on one side of her head back with a yellow clip that looked like a poodle. The hair on the other side of her head was hanging in her face. Attached to the one ear you could see was a plastic earring about the size of a jar lid.

  Awesome.

  Some more things about Claudia: She is not a good student. She loves art and mysteries. She’s addicted to junk food.

  On to Logan. It’s a little hard to describe him because I like him so much. Do you know what I mean? I mean that I think everything about him is incredible and handsome and wonderful, and that probably isn’t entirely true. So I’ll have to try hard to be realistic. In terms of looks, Logan is perfect. Well, maybe not perfect. Maybe more like unbelievable. No. Let’s just say he has blondish-brown hair … and he looks exactly like Cam Geary, the most gorgeous boy TV star I can think of. In terms of personality he’s understanding and funny and likes kids, which means a lot to me. Logan used to live in Kentucky, so he has this interesting southern accent. For instance, he pronounces my name “May-rih Ay-on Speeyuh.” And he says “Ahm” instead of “I’m” and “Luevulle” instead of “Louisville” (which is the city he lived in). It is simply too hard to describe Logan anymore. Really, all you need to know is that we understand each other completely, and we like each other a lot.

  “So,” Claudia said, after we’d stopped looking at Kristy’s disgusting lunch tray, “who’s going to the Halloween Hop?”

  “The Halloween Hop?” said Kristy disdainfully. “Is it time for that again?”

  “Halloween is coming up soon,” Dawn pointed out.

  “I really love this time of year,” Claudia said dreamily.

  “Why?” asked Kristy. “You get dressed up every day.”

  “Ha-ha,” said Claudia.

  “Oh, come on. I’m only teasing.”

  (Kristy’s mouth gets her in trouble a lot.)

  “Well,” I said, hoping to calm Claudia down, “Logan and I are going to the Hop.”

  “In costume?” Dawn wanted to know.

  Logan and I looked at each other and shrugged. “We can’t decide,” I told my friends. It might be fun to get dressed up, but sometimes you can feel pretty silly. Especially if a lot of kids don’t wear costumes.

  It was right then that I got the creepy feeling that someone was staring at me. You know? When the skin on the back of your neck begins to crawl? It’s as if you can feel each individual hair back there.

  It is not a pleasant feeling.

  Was I spooked because we were talking about Halloween, or was someone really staring at me?

  Very slowly I looked over my left shoulder.

  Two tables away, Grace Blume, Cokie Mason, and two other girls were pointing in our direction and snickering. It was hard to tell who they were pointing at, but I think it was Kristy. Probably because she was wearing the same clothes she’d been wearing for the last seven weeks.

  Or was it me? Quickly, I checked to see if there was mashed potato on the end of my nose, or if my sweater was on backward or something. I looked okay … didn’t I? This is what I mean about not being self-assured like Dawn. At the slightest sign of trouble, I assume that whatever is going wrong has something to do with me, or is my fault.

  I glanced back over at Grace and Cokie. (Just in case you care, Cokie’s real name is Marguerite. Who knows where “Cokie” came from.) Grace and Cokie and their friends were still staring at us.

  I heard Grace say something about “stuck up.” Okay, so I know some people think our club is snobby because we sit together all the time. At least, we do lately. Last year, Kristy and I used to sit with other friends — the Shillaber twins, mostly. And Stacey (who was still in Stoneybrook then) and Claudia used to sit with a big group of kids, boys and girls — Rick Chow, Dorianne Wallingford, and Pete Black, to name a few. (Dawn, being an individual, would go back and forth between our group and the other one.)

  If you want my honest opinion, I think there are some hurt feelings this year. The people we used to spend time with feel left out because the Baby-sitters Club is our new group. I feel kind of bad about that, but I don’t know what to do. I guess the twins and Rick and Dorianne and everyone will have to be their own groups.

  “Hey,” Kristy whispered. (We all leaned over to hear her better.) “If Cokie took a picture of Logan it would last longer. Right now she’s boring holes in the back of his head with her eyes.”

  “That does it,” said Logan. “I’m going to the boys’ table. I’m tired of being razzed for sitting with you guys.”

  “You mean with us girls,” I corrected him. I understood Logan well enough to know that he wasn’t mad, just annoyed. Sometimes he does take flak for being the only boy in the Baby-sitters Club.

  “Too late,” Kristy announced as the bell rang, signaling the end of lunch. “You can abandon us tomorrow, Logan.”

  Logan grinned.

  We all got to our feet.

  “Hey, don’t forget,” Kristy said as we began to scatter. “Club meeting today. See you at five-thirty!”

  I just love checking our mailbox. There is something about getting mail that is exciting. Going out to the box each afternoon is sometimes the highlight of my day. You never know what will be in it. There could be anything — letters (they’re the best, of course, but only when they’re addressed to me), catalogues, coupons, the Stoneybrook News (I like to read about crime — burglaries and mysteries and stuff, and interesting magazines. Plus, around holidays and your birthday, you can start watching for packages and greeting cards.)

  The only problem with our mail is that it isn’t delivered until about five o’clock in the afternoon. That’s all right on a school day, but during the summer you could die waiting for that blue-and-white truck to come down the street.

  Anyway, on the afternoon of the day that Kristy grossed me out with her lunch, I baby-sat for this little kid named Jamie Newton until almost five-thirty. Then I rushed over to Claudia’s for our meeting of the Baby-sitters Club. But on the way, I just couldn’t resist a quick peek in our mailbox.

  When I opened it, it was stuffed! Just the way I like it. I sorted through bills (boring), some ads (kind of interesting), two magazines (yea!), and then I saw it — a letter addressed to me! Oh, wow! I was ecstatic.

  Since it was five-thirty by then, I grabbed the letter, stuck it in my pocket, shoved everything else back in the box, and ran across the street to Claudia’s. I didn’t want to be late for the meeting.

  Maybe now would be a good time for me to tell you just what the Baby-sitters Club is. Well, as I mentioned earlier, it was Kristy’s idea and she started it. She got the idea a little over a year ago (when she still lived next door to me), after she noticed how hard it was for her mom to get a sitter for David Michael if Kristy wasn’t available. Sometimes Mrs. Thomas would have to make four or five calls before she found a person who was free. So Kristy thought there must be other parents around here with the same problem. Then she thought how terrific it would be if a parent could make just one phone call and reach several sitters at the same time. So she got together with Claudia, Stacey, and me since we all did a lot of baby-sitting, and we formed the club.

  Here’s how the club works. Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday afternoon from five-thirty until six o’clock, the members gather in Claudia’s bedroom. Claudia has her own private phone and private phone number, and parents call us at Claudia’s when they need to line up a sitter. There are six of us in the club now, plus two associate members (I’ll explain all that later), so our clients are bound to wind up with a sitter. With eight of us, somebody is always free.

  How do our clients know when and where to reach us? Because we advertise, that’s how. Kristy’s busy brain is always clicking along, thinking of important stuff like advertisements. That’s one reason she’s club president. (Also, the club was her idea, so who would you expect to be president?)

  C
laudia is the vice president. We felt that was only fair, since we were going to be meeting in her room and using her phone.

  I’m the secretary. I suspect that this is mostly because of my neat handwriting, but I would like to think that it’s also because I’m organized and can manage things well. As secretary, it’s my job to keep our club record book up to date. The record book is where we keep track of our job appointments, our clients, and their names and addresses and stuff.

  Dawn is our treasurer. That used to be Stacey McGill’s job, but when she moved back to New York, Dawn took over. (Dawn had joined the club several months after it started, and she became our alternate officer. She could take over the job of anyone who couldn’t make a meeting, sort of like a substitute teacher.) Anyway, as treasurer, it’s up to her to keep a record of the money we earn, and to collect club dues and see that our treasury doesn’t get too low. We use the treasury money to pay Charlie to drive Kristy to and from the meetings, since she now lives too far away to walk; to buy food for club slumber parties; and to replace the stuff in our Kid-Kits. (Kristy invented Kid-Kits. They’re boxes that we sometimes bring along when we baby-sit. We keep them filled with our old games and toys, plus new coloring books and crayons and things. Kids love them, and their parents love us for bringing them!)

  Now, I said before that the club has six members plus two associate members. Logan is one of the associate members. The other is a girl named Shannon Kilbourne, who lives across the street from Kristy in Kristy’s fancy new neighborhood. The associate members don’t come to the meetings; they’re people we can call on in a pinch — when none of the regular club members is free to take a job. This way, we never have to disappoint a client.