Claudia and the Clue in the Photograph Read online

  “I’m fine,” I said, answering Kristy’s question. Then I held up a finger. “The door just slammed again. I bet that’s Stacey. I hear her clogs.” Stacey just got this really cool pair of blue suede clogs. We had featured them in the fashion shoot. I raised the camera to my eye and waited.

  Sure enough, Stacey walked in a minute later. “Do the ‘vogue’!” I cried. Without hesitating, Stacey struck a pose, tilting her face to the camera and letting her blonde, curly hair tumble down her back. Snap!

  Right away, I was sure that anybody looking at the picture I’d just taken would know Stacey McGill. There she was, looking gorgeous and sophisticated, dressed in a totally up-to-the-minute outfit. That’s Stacey. She grew up in Manhattan, and she still has that urban chic. She buys a lot of her clothes in the city, while she’s visiting her dad. (Her parents are divorced. Stacey chose to live with her mom in Stoneybrook, but she sees her dad pretty regularly.)

  Stacey is the BSC’s treasurer, and she’s the perfect person for the job. Get this — she actually likes math class! She has a ball collecting our dues, adding up all the bucks, and then portioning them out for things like my phone bill and Kristy’s transportation costs (her brother Charlie drives her to meetings). I wouldn’t take that job if you paid me a million dollars, but Stacey does it just for the fun of it. I guess it takes all kinds.

  If you looked very carefully at the picture of Stacey, you might be able to see a certain glow. That’s because she has a boyfriend these days, named Robert. I’m happy for her, I really am. But I have to admit I’m also a little bit jealous. First, because I’d like a boyfriend, too. I’ve even gone so far as to advertise for one, in this personals column I run for our school paper! But also because Stacey has been spending a lot of time with Robert. We had a big fight about that recently, but of course we made up. We always do. That’s how best friends operate.

  One thing you wouldn’t be able to tell about Stacey, just by looking at the picture, is that she has diabetes. Diabetes is a lifetime thing, but it doesn’t show. I would never have known if Stacey hadn’t told us all. Diabetes is a complicated disease to explain, and since I’m not exactly Doctor Science, I’ll just say that Stacey’s body doesn’t handle sugar well, so she has to be very careful about what she eats. Plus, she has to give herself shots (ouch!) of this stuff called insulin, just to keep things working right. Diabetes is a very serious disease, but Stacey handles it well.

  For example, that afternoon, after she had stopped posing and flopped down on my bed, Stacey helped herself to a pretzel, ignoring the jawbreakers and Fig Newtons. Then she smiled up at me. “Better focus on the door again,” she said. “Somebody else is coming.”

  Sure enough, I heard footsteps on the stairs. Kristy, Stacey, and I listened for a second. The footsteps weren’t as “thumpy” as Kristy’s had been. In fact, they sounded a bit tentative.

  “Mary Anne!” we all said at the same time. I picked up the camera again and focused. When Mary Anne walked in and saw me looking at her through the camera, she immediately threw her hands over her face. Snap!

  Another perfect shot. The picture would show Mary Anne’s short dark hair (she and Kristy, her best friend, have similar coloring, but Mary Anne has a much cooler haircut) and her carefully chosen outfit (not too trendy, but much more thought-out than Kristy’s). But it would also show something about Mary Anne’s personality. If I had to choose one word to describe Mary Anne Spier, it would be this: shy. If I could pick a few more words, I’d add: sensitive, good listener, romantic, and totally sweet.

  She’s also an excellent club secretary. Mary Anne is in charge of the BSC record book, and she does a great job, keeping track of all our schedules and jobs.

  Mary Anne grew up as the only child of a widower. Her mother died when Mary Anne was very young, and Mr. Spier brought her up all by himself. Now, I’ve known Mary Anne (and Kristy, too, for that matter) all my life, and I have to say I’ve seen her go through some big changes. For one thing, her dad was very overprotective for a long time. He treated her like a little girl until she was at least twelve. But Mary Anne isn’t a little girl anymore, and I think her dad knows that now. She has a steady boyfriend (a total sweetheart named Logan Bruno), and a mind of her own. Plus, like Kristy, Mary Anne also has a new family. Her dad remarried, and his wife — and Mary Anne’s stepmother — happens to be the mother of another BSC member, Dawn Schafer, who is Mary Anne’s other best friend. If I could snap a picture of Dawn, it would show a pretty, self-assured girl with long, long blonde hair and a sunny smile. She’d probably be wearing something casual but cool.

  How Dawn became Mary Anne’s stepsister — and why I can’t snap a picture of her — is kind of a complicated story, so stay with me, okay? Here goes. Dawn’s mom grew up in Stoneybrook, and dated Mr. Spier when they were both in high school. Then, she moved out to California, got married, and had two kids (Dawn and her younger brother, Jeff). Unfortunately, the marriage didn’t last, and after the divorce Dawn’s mom moved back to Stoneybrook, with Jeff and Dawn in tow.

  Dawn and Mary Anne became instant friends, discovered that their parents used to date, and brought them back together. Eventually, Richard (Mary Anne’s dad) and Sharon (Dawn’s mom) got married, and the two families settled into the old farmhouse where Dawn and her mom had been living. Sounds like a case of happily ever after, right?

  Well, not exactly. I mean, they are happy, but there’s more to the story. First, even before the wedding, Dawn’s brother decided that he’d never adjust to living in Stoneybrook. He ended up going back to California to live with his dad. Then, not too long ago, Dawn realized that she was really, really missing Jeff and her dad, so she headed out there, too. Not forever, though. Just for a long visit. We all miss her, but I know Mary Anne misses her most of all.

  When Dawn is in Stoneybrook, her BSC job is alternate officer. That means she can cover for any other officer who can’t make it to a meeting. While Dawn’s away, her position has been temporarily taken by Shannon Kilbourne, who is ordinarily one of our associate members. The other is Logan Bruno, Mary Anne’s heartthrob. A photo of him would show a curly-haired, long-legged, very cute guy. It wouldn’t show his adorable Kentucky accent, though. Associate members, by the way, don’t always come to meetings. That’s why I couldn’t take a picture of Logan that day. He usually just helps out when we have too many jobs to handle.

  Anyway, Shannon walked in right behind Mary Anne that afternoon, and I barely had time to raise my camera again. But fortunately, she stopped in the doorway for a second and glanced around the room. Snap!

  I had her. Shannon has blonde hair, a ski-jump nose, and a mischievous twinkle in her eye. But she also has a serious side — she’s one of the best students at her private school — and it would show in that snapshot. None of us knew Shannon too well until she started to come to meetings more regularly. She lives in Kristy’s new neighborhood and, as I mentioned, she doesn’t go to SMS. But now that we know her, we all like her a lot. Plus, she has two little sisters, so she’s great with kids, an important requirement for a BSC member.

  Shannon had barely reached her seat on the floor near the foot of my bed, when I heard more footsteps, plus a gale of giggles, coming from the stairway. I aimed the camera quickly, and shot our junior officers Jessi Ramsey and Mallory Pike as, still giggling, they squeezed through the door together. Snap! Snap!

  Those two pictures would tell a lot. For one thing, both girls were in both pictures, and that’s typical. Jessi and Mal stick together like glue, since they’re best friends. Here’s what else the photos would tell: that they’re a little younger than the rest of the BSC members (we’re thirteen, they’re eleven), that Mal has curly hair and glasses (you wouldn’t see her braces in the picture, since they’re the clear kind, and you’d miss the fact that her hair is reddish-brown) and that Jessi is African American, with the prettiest coal-dark eyes. You’d see the pile of books Mal was carrying and guess that she loves to read. (So does Jessi.
Horse stories are their favorites.) The sketch pad on top of the pile might give you a clue that Mal is a talented artist. And you’d know that Jessi has studied ballet for years, by the way she performed a quick but very graceful plié (that’s French for, um, bend-the-knee) for the camera.

  So, once again, I think I did pretty well at capturing those two. Here are some other things that wouldn’t show up in the pictures: Jessi has a sweet younger sister named Becca and an adorable baby brother called Squirt (his real name is John Philip Ramsey, Jr.). She also has an Aunt Cecelia, who lives with the family. Mal has seven siblings: Adam, Gordan, Byron, Vanessa, Nicky, Margo, and Claire. Whew! Just saying their names makes me tired.

  As soon as Jessi and Mal arrived that day, Kristy called the meeting to order. And as soon as Kristy called the meeting to order, the phone began to ring. And ring. And ring. Since it’s summer and all the kids are out of school, parents need us more than ever.

  As each call came in, Mary Anne checked the record book to see who was free. Finally, at five minutes to six, the phone stopped ringing, and she gave a huge sigh. “Phew!” she said, looking over the schedule. “We are booked!”

  Kristy nodded, smiling. “Cool,” she said.

  “Except for one thing,” said Mary Anne. “I hope we can make some time for a special project. I sat for the Barrett kids yesterday, and they were talking about that video we made for Dawn. Remember? Anyway, you know how crazy they are about her. They really miss her, and they want to make something else for her. Something that will make her homesick for Stoneybrook, so she’ll come back sooner. Buddy is dying to have her back here.”

  I raised my camera and took another picture of Mary Anne right then, knowing that it would show that Buddy wasn’t the only one who wanted Dawn back in Connecticut. Mary Anne had an I miss Dawn look all over her.

  We tossed around some ideas for a project, but didn’t come up with anything that seemed right. We agreed to give it some thought and talk about it again at our next meeting.

  “I hope you’ll have those pictures you took today to show us then, too,” Kristy said to me.

  “Absolutely,” I said. I couldn’t wait to get back into the darkroom and develop the roll I’d just shot. If I could manage it, I’d print up a whole series of pictures and have them displayed by the time everybody came over again. All I had to do was take one last picture, and I did that as soon as everybody had left. I faced the mirror, held the camera out to one side, and squeezed the shutter. Now I had a complete set (except for Dawn and Logan, of course). A Portrait of the BSC, I’d call it. And the subtitle would be, My Best Friends.

  Mary Anne’s entry in the club notebook goes on and on, but I’ll spare you the rest of her gushing. Actually, I was as excited as she was about the idea we hatched that Saturday afternoon. In fact, I was one of the three sitters who were in on thinking it up — but maybe I should start at the beginning.

  Mary Anne had a sitting job with Buddy, Suzi, and Marnie Barrett that day. (Buddy’s eight, Suzi’s five, and Marnie’s two, and together they can be quite a handful. They used to be known as the Impossible Three.) Like a good BSC member, Mary Anne always arrives at her jobs a little early, so she turned up at the Barretts’ house at the same time as Franklin DeWitt. Who’s Franklin DeWitt? He’s not one of the Founding Fathers, although to me his name always sounds like one I should have remembered for a history test. He is a father, though. A father who has custody of his four kids. And he was going to the Barretts’ because he’s Mrs. Barrett’s boyfriend, and he was picking her up for a date. Mrs. Barrett is a single (divorced) mom.

  Mr. DeWitt and Mrs. Barrett seem to be pretty serious about each other these days. Sometimes my friends and I speculate about what it would be like if they got married. The Brady Bunch would have nothing on the Barrett-DeWitt bunch!

  Buddy answered the door when Mr. DeWitt knocked, but instead of saying hello to his mom’s boyfriend, Buddy ignored him completely. He ran right past Franklin to Mary Anne. “Mary Anne!” he said. “Did you come up with an idea yet? It has to be a really, really good one!”

  Mary Anne, shocked at Buddy’s bad manners, was just about to tell Buddy to say hello to Mr. DeWitt, but then Mrs. Barrett did it for her. “Buddy Barrett,” she began, standing in the doorway with her hands on her hips. Mary Anne told me later that Mrs. Barrett looked gorgeous, as always, this time in a simple white dress with her beautiful chestnut hair flowing loose.

  Mrs. Barrett could be a model, honest.

  However, as she stood there glaring at Buddy, she looked more mad than anything else. “Can’t you say hello to Franklin?” she said. “Where are your manners, young man?”

  Buddy hung his head. “Hi, Mr. DeWitt,” he said, not meeting Franklin’s eyes. “Sorry. It’s just that I had something really important to ask Mary Anne about, and —”

  “That’s okay, Buddy,” said Mr. DeWitt, smiling. Then he turned to Mrs. Barrett. “We’d better head out if we want to find good seats.”

  “We’re going to an outdoor concert in Stamford,” Mrs. Barrett told Mary Anne, “so you won’t be able to reach us. But I left an emergency number on the kitchen table.”

  “Thanks,” said Mary Anne. We always appreciate it when Mrs. Barrett remembers to do things like that. She used to be pretty scatterbrained, but lately she’s been trying harder. Maybe it’s partly Mr. DeWitt’s influence.

  Suzy and Marnie came out onto the porch to say good-bye to the grown-ups, and they and their brother waved as Franklin’s car pulled out of the driveway. Mary Anne confessed to me later that Mrs. Barrett’s white dress made her think of weddings, and she actually had a tear in her eye as she watched the two of them drive off.

  Mary Anne never misses an opportunity to get sentimental.

  “So, how are the DeWitt kids?” she asked Buddy, as soon as she’d composed herself.

  “Fine, I guess,” said Buddy. “Now what about that idea? You know, for Dawn?”

  Mary Anne smiled. Obviously, Buddy only had one thing on his mind. “Well, I told everybody in the BSC about how you wanted to do something, and they agreed that we should come up with a project.”

  “So what’s it going to be?” asked Buddy.

  “Yeah, what should we do?” said Suzi.

  “Do!” echoed Marnie.

  “That’s the only problem,” Mary Anne admitted. “We didn’t think of anything yet.”

  Buddy’s face fell. “Oh,” he said.

  “But I’ll tell you what,” said Mary Anne. “Claudia’s over at the Pikes’, helping Mal sit for her brothers and sisters. Why don’t we go over there? I bet if all of us think hard, we can come up with a terrific idea.”

  “Yay!” said Buddy. “Let’s go right now!”

  “Mom said you have to feed all the pets before you go anywhere,” Suzi reminded him.

  “Merturple!” said Marnie.

  “Mer — what?” asked Mary Anne.

  “She means Mr. Turtle,” explained Buddy. “He’s her favorite. I like Frisky best, though.”

  “Frisky’s the gerbil,” Suzi said. “But he’s not really very frisky. Mostly he sleeps.”

  Mary Anne followed the kids to their playroom, where all the animals are kept. Buddy and Suzi fed them, introducing the new ones to Mary Anne. The Barretts used to have a dog, a funny-looking basset hound named Pow. But then Marnie became allergic to dogs, and they had to give Pow away. (Happily, he didn’t go far. In fact, the Barretts would be seeing their beloved mutt that day, since it was the Pikes who took him.) Anyway, now the kids have an ever-expanding menagerie of nonallergenic pets, and that day Mary Anne met them all, including the fifteen guppies named after famous baseball players.

  Finally all the pets were fed. Mary Anne left a note for Mrs. Barrett, and then she and the kids headed for the Pikes’ house, which is right down the block from the Barretts’. At the time they arrived, Mal and I were sitting on the front porch, watching the Pike kids do their thing.

  “Doing their thing”
means something different for each of the Pike kids. Here’s how the scene looked that afternoon: For starters, Jordan and Adam, two of the ten-year-old identical triplets, were teasing Nicky, who’s eight, about his new haircut.

  “You look like one of those cactuses out West,” said Adam.

  “Do not!” said Nicky.

  “Cactushead,” said Jordan.

  Nicky stuck out his tongue. “I know I am, but what are you?” he sang.

  Jordan and Adam shouted with laughter. “That’s backward, cactushead,” said Adam. “You’re supposed to say ‘I know you are but what am I?’ ”

  “I know that,” said Nicky, with dignity. He walked away from them — they were still laughing — and joined his younger sisters, Margo (seven) and Claire (five), who were busy dressing up Pow as a baby.

  “Can you help us tuck him into the carriage?” Margo asked. “Every time we try to squish one part of him in, another part sticks out.” Nicky was glad to stay and help, if only to avoid more teasing from his brothers.

  Meanwhile, Byron, the third triplet, was trying to retrieve a Frisbee from the porch roof, with Mal watching anxiously as he climbed along the gutter. Vanessa, who’s nine, was sitting on the porch rocker, oblivious to the chaos. She’s wanted to be a poet for as long as any of us can remember, and she’s happiest when she’s scribbling in one of her notebooks.

  When Mary Anne arrived with the Barrett kids, the first thing Buddy did was say hi to Pow. “He’ll stay in the carriage if you give him a Milkbone,” he advised the girls and Nicky. Then he joined us on the porch, and he and Mary Anne told us why they had come.

  Almost instantly, all the Pike kids dropped what they were doing and came over to join the discussion. Vanessa turned to a new page in her notebook, in order to take down ideas. Byron came down from the roof, without the Frisbee but with two softballs he’d found. Claire and Margo set Pow free, and Nicky, Jordan, and Adam made up and sat down to brainstorm.