Mary Anne and the Music Read online

  Abby Stevenson takes care of herself, too. Like Stacey, she has a lifelong health problem. In her case, it’s asthma plus allergies. But Abby doesn’t let her asthma slow her down. She’s a whirlwind of activity, always laughing and joking and running circles around everyone else.

  Abby moved to Stoneybrook recently, along with her twin sister, Anna, and their mom. Anna and Abby are identical twins, so naturally they look a lot alike, with their thick, dark, curly hair and glasses (sometimes they wear contacts). But nobody has trouble telling them apart. They wear their hair differently, for one thing. Anna’s is short and Abby’s is long. And their personalities are different. Anna is more serious, especially about her music. She’s a talented violinist and practices all the time. We asked both twins to join the BSC when they moved here, but only Abby felt she had the time.

  Anna and Abby’s dad died when they were nine. Abby doesn’t talk about him much. I have a feeling it would make her too sad. And Abby doesn’t spend much time being sad. She’s full of fun and games. In fact, I think she’d make a perfect athletic director for our cruise ship. Abby loves sports and is a natural athlete — or at least, that’s what Kristy, who would know, tells me.

  Abby is our club’s alternate officer, a job that used to belong to Dawn before she moved away. If any officer can’t make it to a meeting, Abby takes over her duties.

  The BSC also has two junior officers who are younger than the rest of us. Everyone I’ve mentioned so far is thirteen, but Mal and Jessi are eleven. They aren’t allowed to baby-sit at night unless it’s for their own families, but they take plenty of afternoon jobs.

  Mallory Pike would be the perfect story-hour person for our ship’s day care center. First of all, she’s great with kids. She’s the oldest of eight siblings. Vanessa, Nicky, Jordan, Byron, Adam, Margo, and Claire are the other seven. Try saying their names in under two seconds the way Mal can. So Mal has plenty of experience. Second, she’s the best storyteller of all of us. She’d like to write and illustrate children’s books someday. Mal is white, with reddish-brown hair and wears glasses and braces, both of which she hates.

  Jessi Ramsey, Mal’s best friend, is African-American, with black hair and dark, dark eyes. She’d make an excellent aerobics teacher for our ship’s workout center. Jessi is in great physical shape because she studies ballet. She has a younger sister named Becca and a baby brother known as Squirt. Her parents both work, so her aunt Cecelia moved in with the family to help out.

  Now you’ve met everyone in the BSC. Oops, that’s not exactly true. I almost forgot about our associate members, who don’t come to meetings but who are on call for those times when we’re overwhelmed with work. One of them is Shannon Kilbourne, who lives in Kristy and Abby’s neighborhood and goes to private school. The other is Logan. He’s an excellent baby-sitter because he’s so patient and kind.

  Anyway, back to our meeting the day after Granny and Pop-Pop headed out to sea. Remember how I was wondering about what could possibly ruin their trip? Well, try this: a house full of water.

  That’s right. Something went very, very wrong with their plumbing and their house was flooded, not even twenty-four hours after they left! Sharon heard about it from a neighbor who was keeping an eye on the house. She called during our BSC meeting to ask a favor.

  “I know it’s not your usual type of job,” Sharon told Kristy when she called. “I’ve already been in touch with my parents over a shipboard phone and told them I’d take some time off from work and handle everything. I don’t want them to cut their trip short. But I’ll need help. Would the BSC be willing to be part of my cleanup crew? I’ll pay your usual fees.”

  Of course, we agreed. I pulled out the record book and drew up a schedule, making sure that at least one club member would be on hand every day for as long as the job took. I planned things so that I’d be there most of the time, especially for the next few days when everybody else was already booked up with jobs. We’d see to it that Granny and Pop-Pop’s house was back to normal by the time they returned. From ship’s crew to janitorial staff was quite a change, but my fantasy would have to be put on hold for a while longer. The BSC had work to do.

  “Oh, Sharon,” I said. I couldn’t seem to say anything else. But Sharon understood.

  “I know,” she answered. “I know. It’s awful, isn’t it?”

  It was Saturday morning, and we were sitting on the bottom step of Granny and Pop-Pop’s basement stairs. It was the first time I’d been over there since the flood, and I couldn’t believe my eyes. The damage was far, far worse than anything I’d imagined.

  Granny and Pop-Pop use their basement quite a bit. It includes a rec room, the downstairs bathroom, and the spare bedroom that Pop-Pop uses as an office ever since he retired.

  Sharon had called our plumber as soon as she’d learned of the flood. He and his crew had turned off the main valve, pumped out most of the water (it had been over a foot deep in some parts of the basement!), and vacuumed out some more, but that was all they’d had time to do. They’d be coming back on Monday to figure out what had gone wrong, assess the damage to the plumbing, and start work on fixing it. Until then, we were on our own.

  “I don’t even know where to start,” said Sharon, shaking her head as she looked around. She sounded as if she were in shock.

  Me? I was still speechless. I knew how Granny and Pop-Pop felt about their little house. “It’s our nest,” Granny would say lovingly, whenever someone complimented her on some curtains she’d made or on the way she’d decorated. And Pop-Pop was proud of the way he kept up the place, doing whatever small tasks were needed himself instead of hiring someone the way many of their friends did. He’d worked hard on converting the rec room into a cozy space for entertaining, and he’d built some of the shelves and cabinets in his office himself, hammering and sawing his evenings away in the tiny workshop he’d set up in a corner of the basement.

  From our perch on the stairs I could tell that there was still plenty of moisture in the basement. The musty smell was the first clue. Also, the carpet was about three shades darker than its usual light blue, so I knew it was saturated. Clumps of sopping-wet magazines and newspapers were strewn around the floor. I saw a wicker wastebasket that I knew belonged in the bathroom. It must have floated out when the water was high.

  I sighed. We had our work cut out for us.

  Sharon stood up. “Well, let’s take a look around and see if we can figure out what to do first,” she said.

  We stepped onto the carpet, and I felt it squish beneath my sneakers. “This carpet is going to have to come out,” I said. “Do you think it can be dried and saved?”

  Sharon shrugged. “I think that’s a question we’re going to be asking a lot today,” she said. “And I have a feeling that in many cases the answer is going to be no. Water damage is hard to overcome.”

  We squished down the hall and into the rec room.

  “Oh, boy,” muttered Sharon.

  “Ugh,” I said. “What a mess.”

  The tan plaid couch was soaked at least halfway up, and so was the matching recliner. The legs of the coffee table showed where the high-water mark had been. The beautiful hooked rug Granny had worked on all last winter — a floral pattern featuring roses and ivy — was ruined beyond repair.

  “The TV and the stereo look okay,” said Sharon. “Good thing they’re up high.”

  When she said “stereo,” I had an awful thought. “What about the records?” I asked. Granny and Pop-Pop have a huge collection of old records, mostly from when they were younger. They love to come down to the rec room after dinner, put on a stack of their big-band albums, and dance a few turns around the room. I’ve seen them do it more than once, and I’ve always thought it was so romantic.

  “Doesn’t look good,” commented Sharon, pointing to the floor-level shelving beneath the stereo cabinet. All the records were stored there, which meant they’d all been underwater. “But maybe they can be salvaged,” she went on. “We’
ll come back to them.” I knew she wanted to keep going until we had a complete understanding of the damage.

  We looked around some more.

  “It’s lucky those photo albums happened to be up there,” I said, indicating a higher shelf. A large shelving unit filled one wall of the rec room, and everything on the upper shelves was dry.

  “Oh, Granny would have been devastated to lose those,” said Sharon with relief. “Let’s take them upstairs today to make sure they don’t absorb any more moisture than they already have. It’s so damp down here.”

  I realized I was going to be doing a lot of carrying over the next few days. Practically everything that could be moved would have to be taken out of the basement so it would have a chance to dry. Fortunately, we’d been having a spell of sunny days. With luck, the weather would hold and we’d be able to dry things quickly by bringing them outside.

  “These games are a total loss,” said Sharon, pointing to a stack of board games piled on a lower shelf. Their cardboard boxes were soaked and peeling. “Somehow I don’t think Granny will mind very much. I kind of doubt she and Pop-Pop have been playing Clue too often lately.” She grinned at me, and I giggled. We would need to keep our sense of humor as we worked.

  “Can you imagine Pop-Pop insisting to Granny that it was Colonel Mustard, in the library, with a candlestick?” I asked. I knew Granny and Pop-Pop had kept the games around for kids who visited, but it was funny to picture the two of them rolling dice and moving pieces around a board.

  Once we’d checked out the rec room, we moved on to the bathroom. Since it’s all tiled, there wasn’t much damage, except for the wastebasket floating off. You could see the marks where the water had been, and everything would need a good cleaning, but nothing was ruined.

  The spare bedroom was another story. It was a disaster. I nearly cried when I saw the beautiful quilt Granny had made, soaked from the bottom up. (The quilt was long enough to reach the floor.) The colors were running and the quilt lay limply on the bed. “What a shame,” I said. But Sharon wasn’t listening or paying any attention to the quilt.

  Her gaze had gone to the tall, four-drawer file cabinet next to Pop-Pop’s desk on the other side of the room. She practically ran to it and yanked open one of the bottom drawers. She pulled out a dripping-wet bundle of papers and tossed it aside. “Old tax records,” she said over her shoulder. “Pop-Pop saved them longer than he needed to.” She opened the next drawer and peered inside. “Files from his last job,” she said. “They’re pretty damp but they look okay. He can go through them and salvage anything important.”

  Then she pulled open the drawer above that one, looked inside, and let out a huge sigh of relief. “Dry,” she said. “Thank goodness.”

  “What’s in there?” I asked, curious.

  “History,” said Sharon quietly. “Granny and Pop-Pop’s letters and papers. From the time they were kids and writing childish notes to friends and relations, all the way through until today. They probably fill up this top drawer, too.” She pulled the drawer open, looked inside, and nodded.

  “Wow,” I said. “I never knew they were here.”

  “I did,” said Sharon. “And I’ve always meant to help Granny and Pop-Pop sort and preserve them. I’ve been kicking myself ever since I heard about the flood. I was afraid they’d been lost forever.”

  “It’s a good thing they weren’t in the bottom drawers,” I said.

  “A very good thing,” agreed Sharon. “And this time I’m going to make sure they’re safe.” She shut the drawers. “We’ll take them upstairs today. That’ll be a start, anyway.” Then she turned to look around at the rest of the room. “So what else is ruined in here?” she asked.

  We took a quick inventory. The bottom drawer of the dresser had been underwater, but it hadn’t held anything more than mothballs. Another hooked rug, this one with a moon-and-stars design, had been soaked and possibly ruined. And Pop-Pop’s entire collection of old National Geographic magazines, which had taken up the whole bottom shelf of a long bookcase, had turned into a soggy, pulpy mess.

  “Well,” said Sharon, “I guess it’s time to start working.” She gave me a smile. “I’m glad we wore old clothes. It’s going to be a messy job.”

  “Where should we begin?” I asked.

  Sharon considered for a moment. “I think we’ll need help with heavy jobs like taking up the carpet and moving big pieces of furniture,” she said. “For now, let’s concentrate on taking the lighter items upstairs. We can begin with everything that’s damp but not ruined. The stuff that’s soaked can wait, and so can the dry things, except for those letters. I’ll take them up on my first trip.”

  We decided to stow everything on the little screened-in sunporch, where it could stay if the weather turned bad. During sunny days, we could put things outside to dry.

  “I’m starting in here,” said Sharon. “Why don’t you tackle the stuff on the shelves in the rec room?” She reached into a pocket of the apron she was wearing and pulled out two pairs of yellow rubber gloves. “These might be a good idea,” she said, handing me a pair.

  Those gloves were definitely a good idea. You wouldn’t believe what a mess water can make! I found out as soon as I started pulling things off the shelves. Books would come apart in my hands. Magazines were like slimy sea creatures. That musty odor was even stronger now. And the shelves themselves were showing signs of water damage. The longer I worked, the more I realized what a huge job we had in front of us. It wasn’t going to be easy to bring Granny and Pop-Pop’s house back to its normal state.

  After I’d worked awhile on the shelves, I turned to the records, carrying loads of them up the stairs. Fifteen loads, to be exact. Records are heavy, and wet records are even worse. And Granny and Pop-Pop own a lot of records.

  When I finally finished with the records I went back to the shelves. I’d just finished clearing one of the lower ones when I noticed something odd about the paneled wall that provided the backing for the shelving unit. In one spot, the paneling looked a little crooked. Just a little. It was nothing you’d ever notice, as long as the shelf was full. I reached back to touch it, and a piece of the paneling fell forward, revealing a space behind it. A little cubbyhole. What could be inside? I reached in and felt around. At first I thought the space was empty. Then my hand found a corner of something, and I reached in deeper with both hands and pulled out a box.

  A tightly wrapped, slightly soggy box about the size and shape of a toaster. I turned it over in my hands. Then I gasped. Written across the top in bold black letters (a little runny from the dampness) was the following warning:

  I didn’t.

  Open the wrapper, that is.

  Not right away, anyway. I mean, sometimes I wonder if things like curses should be taken seriously. I fitted the piece of paneling back in place, put the wrapped box aside, and kept on working, clearing off shelves and carrying things upstairs. I must have passed Sharon on the stairs six or seven times, but I didn’t say a word to her about what I’d found. Somehow I just wanted to keep it to myself and think about it for a while.

  And think about it is just what I did. Fortunately, the work I was doing didn’t take much brain power. If it had, I would have been in trouble. All I could concentrate on was that mysterious package. What was inside it? Who had hidden it in the wall, and why? What if I were to open it? Would I really be cursed? What kind of curse would it be?

  Opening it was probably worth the risk, since curses aren’t usually real anyway. Right? I mean, how many people do you know who have actually been cursed?

  Plus, if I didn’t open the wrapper, whatever was inside would probably be ruined. It needed a chance to dry, just like everything else that had been in the basement. Curse or no curse, maybe it was my responsibility to open that wrapper.

  All these thoughts were going through my head as I made my trips up and down the stairs, and finally I gave in. I picked up the box and set it on top of the stereo cabinet. Then, after taking a
deep breath, I began to unwrap it.

  Immediately, my hair turned white, my fingernails grew three inches, and every bone in my body began to ache.

  Just kidding. Actually, nothing happened. Instead, the wrappings fell away to reveal a beautiful little chest covered with fancy carvings of flowers and vines.

  I put the wrappings aside and took a closer look at the chest. I traced the carvings with my finger, marveling at how intricate they were. Every petal and leaf looked real. I’d never seen carving like that.

  The box had a gold clasp on one side and hinges on the other. I didn’t see any kind of lock. Obviously, I could open the chest if I wanted to. Did I want to? I wasn’t sure. I couldn’t help thinking about that curse. Maybe I’d gone far enough by opening the wrapper. Maybe I would just be asking for trouble if I opened the chest as well.

  I picked up the wrapper again and examined the handwriting on it. It didn’t look familiar. As far as I knew, the writing was neither Granny’s nor Pop-Pop’s. Nor was it Sharon’s. And anyway, that curse stuff just wasn’t her style. Who had this chest belonged to, and why had that person hidden it?

  “Whew! I’m ready to quit for the day. How about you?”

  I jumped at the sound of Sharon’s voice. She had appeared in the doorway of the rec room. She wiped her brow and smiled at me. For a second, I was tempted to hide the little mahogany chest. It felt like a secret I wasn’t sure I wanted to share. But instead, I heard myself asking her about it.

  “See what I found?” I said, holding it up. “It was sort of hidden away.” I didn’t mention the wrapper or the warning.

  “It’s lovely,” said Sharon, coming closer to take a better look. “All those carvings!”