Mary Anne and the Music Read online

  I don’t know. He looked as if he wanted to speak, as if he wanted to speak very badly. But when he opened his mouth, no words came out. And when I tried to ask him questions, my voice was also silenced. It was as if the two of us stood on opposite sides of some invisible wall.

  And he was so very, very sad.

  My heart went out to him, and more than anything I wanted to comfort him, to give the right answer to the question in his eyes. But I couldn’t reach him. I couldn’t hug him. And I couldn’t make it all better.

  I hate that! To me, there’s nothing worse than seeing someone you care about (and somehow, I did immediately care about this sailor boy) feeling bad. Usually I can make people feel better with a hug or some kind words. But this time I was powerless.

  You probably think I’m nuts, right? Going on like this about a dream? The thing is, it’s hard for me to explain how real the dream was. The sailor looked as familiar to me as an old friend, even though I couldn’t figure out where I knew him from. And his presence in my dream was so vivid that I could see every button on his uniform, every detail of his face.

  As I lay in bed that morning thinking about the dream, I heard the phone ring. That brought me back into the real world, and I sat up and stretched. Immediately, my eyes fell upon the music box sitting on my dresser, and I forgot about the mysterious sailor. Here was a real mystery. A beautiful music box, hidden away long ago. Who had hidden it, and why? I wanted to find out.

  “Mary Anne!” called Sharon from downstairs. “Granny’s on the phone. Would you like to say hello?”

  I popped out of bed and pulled on my robe. “I’m coming!” I called. I ran out into the hall and picked up the upstairs phone. “Granny?” I said eagerly. “How are you? How’s Pop-Pop? Are you having a good time?”

  “We sure are,” said Granny. “We’re being pampered like kings and queens. I don’t know how I’ll ever go back to doing my own cooking and cleaning. And we go dancing every single night. It’s wonderful.”

  She sounded happy and relaxed. “Granny, I have to ask you something.” I said suddenly, without stopping to think about it. “When I was working over at your house the other day I found a music box hidden away.” I paused, wondering if she’d react.

  Granny didn’t say anything, so I went on. “It’s really beautiful, and it plays ‘Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.’ I’m dying to know who it belonged to. Was it yours?”

  “Mine?” asked Granny. Her voice sounded just a little bit strange, or was it the connection? Those ship-to-shore phones don’t always have the clearest sound. “No — no, dear,” she went on. “I don’t know anything about a music box. No, it must have belonged to someone else. Someone who lived in the house before we did, perhaps.” Granny’s voice was fading out. “Anyway, it sounds like we’re losing our connection. It’s great to hear you!”

  “It’s great to hear you, too,” I said.

  We said our good-byes, and I hung up. I headed back into my room and looked at the music box again. The more I thought about it, the more curious I became. I just had to know its story. I decided to do some detective work. I knew I could count on my fellow BSC members for help. They love a mystery, and together we’ve solved more than one. I resolved to show them the music box and tell them about the mystery at our next BSC meeting.

  Meanwhile, it was time to dress and head over to Granny and Pop-Pop’s for another day of work. Claudia was going to help out, and I knew Sharon had a big day planned. The plumbers and contractors would be on hand for part of the day, which would mean even more upheaval as they tore out pipes and cabinets that would need replacing.

  After a quick breakfast, Sharon and I drove over to the house, where we found work in full swing. The basement was bursting with noise and activity. Jim Prentice greeted us as we came down the stairs and introduced us to his assistant, Dooley, a small man with a crooked smile and a shock of white hair.

  “Nice to meet you, Mr. Dooley,” said Sharon.

  “Pleasure to meet you, too — but it’s just Dooley,” said the man. “No mister necessary.”

  I never did find out if Dooley was his first name or his last.

  What I did find out was that Dooley was a perfectionist. More than once that morning I saw him fiddling at great length over some tiny detail, frowning as he worked. Jim would try to hurry him along, but Dooley wouldn’t be hurried. Not only was he a fussbudget, but he was convinced that his way was the only way.

  “Can’t rush a job like this,” he’d say. “No point in doing it unless it’s done just so.” And he’d continue in his slow, methodical way.

  Meanwhile, Eddie and his crew were like a tornado, ripping through the rooms in no time. I’d heard about Eddie at Monday’s BSC meeting, so I wasn’t surprised to find that he was friendly and outgoing.

  “Hope you don’t mind that we started right in,” he told Sharon. “Jake, here, couldn’t stand to wait another minute to pull out those cabinets, could you, Jake?”

  Jake, who was straining hard as he worked to remove one of the water-damaged cabinets in the spare bedroom, grimaced.

  “Jake can’t stand taking orders from his big brother,” Eddie confided to us in a stage whisper. “He’s only working for me until he has enough money to start his own business. Isn’t that right, Jake?”

  “You bet, brother,” grunted Jake, who had just worked the cabinet free. “And hopefully you’ll come crawling to me asking for a job one day. I’d love to order you around for a while!”

  Eddie also introduced us to Lori, whom Abby, Jessi, Claud, and Mal had met at the Barrett-DeWitt job. Lori put down the pile of damaged shelving she was carrying in order to shake our hands. She wasn’t big, but she was obviously very strong. She offered to help us move the couch and the other heavy furniture upstairs, and Sharon accepted immediately.

  We started as soon as Claudia arrived. Lori showed us how to lift correctly, using our legs instead of our backs. Then she told us how we were going to move the couch up the stairs slowly, one step at a time. She put me and Claudia at the front, and she and Sharon took the back. “One, two, three,” she counted, and we lifted.

  The couch was heavy, but moving it wasn’t impossible, not with the four of us working together. I felt a rush of pride as we reached the top of the stairs and put the couch down for a rest. “We did it!” I said.

  “And you likely ruined your backs, too,” I heard someone say behind me. I turned to see Hank and Esther. Good old Hank, always the optimist.

  “Good morning, Hank, Esther,” said Sharon, wiping her forehead with a bandanna she pulled out of her back pocket. “Nice to see you. What brings you over?”

  “We just wanted to tell you how sorry we were to hear about the flooding,” said Esther, “and we thought we’d drop off this coffee cake for you and the work crews.” She held out a foil-wrapped package.

  “Well, thanks! I know that will be appreciated,” said Sharon.

  “How bad is the damage?” asked Hank. “Will the insurance cover anything?”

  “You can look around and see for yourself,” said Sharon. “And yes, fortunately, my parents have excellent insurance.”

  Hank almost looked disappointed.

  He and Esther headed downstairs while we finished moving the couch onto the screened porch. “If we’re lucky, it’ll dry out,” said Sharon. “If not, well, it’s an old couch.”

  Just then, Jim and Dooley came up the stairs, followed by Hank and Esther. “Heard a rumor about coffee cake,” said Jim.

  “It’s true,” said Sharon. “I was just about to invite everyone to share it.” She began cutting up the cake. Jim cleared his throat.

  “I’m afraid I have some not-so-good news,” he said. “Some of the pipes going out to the main are beyond saving. We’re going to have to replace them, which means we’ll have to do some digging in the front and side yards, and probably even some of the back.”

  Something odd happened when he said that. I was standing next to Hank, and I felt h
im give a start. I glanced at him and saw him give Esther a significant look. What was that all about? Maybe he was just congratulating himself on the fact that all his most pessimistic predictions were coming true. I looked at Claud to see if she’d noticed, but she was too busy eyeing the coffee cake.

  The rest of that morning was uneventful, except for one strange moment when I came into the now nearly empty spare bedroom, looking for a mop and bucket I’d misplaced. Someone was bent over the file cabinet, which, now that it was emptied, we’d left in the room. When he straightened up, I saw that it was Jim, and that he had a little notebook in his hand. What was he doing? There were no pipes in the bedroom and no plumbing. Why was he snooping around in the file cabinet? It was empty, but he didn’t know that yet. Of course, I didn’t ask any of those questions out loud. I was too shy.

  When he saw me, he mumbled something and fled the room. I liked Jim Prentice, and I thought he was doing a great job. But from that moment on, I never quite felt I could trust him.

  “I just don’t trust him,” said Kristy, frowning. She was leaning back in Claudia’s director’s chair, chewing thoughtfully on the pencil she’d pulled from over her ear. “I’m telling you, something weird is going on over there.”

  It was Wednesday afternoon, and my friends and I were gathered in Claudia’s room for a BSC meeting. Kristy was breaking her own rule about sticking to club business during meeting times, which meant that we were all free to talk about the mystery at Granny and Pop-Pop’s.

  Mystery? That’s right. Kristy and I had spent the day working at the house and by the time we had left we were just about positive that we had a mystery on our hands. Kristy hit the nail on the head. Something weird was definitely going on at 747 Bertrand Drive. (That’s Granny and Pop-Pop’s address, in case you’re wondering.)

  I had another mystery on my mind, as well: the mystery of the music box. I was waiting for the right moment to tell my friends about that one. And this wasn’t it. For now, everybody was too interested in what Kristy was telling them.

  “And it’s not just Jim, either. Wait’ll you hear what Mary Anne has to tell you about Eddie. And Jake,” she went on.

  “Don’t forget Hank and Esther,” I put in.

  “I was just about to mention them,” said Kristy. “Hank and Esther — and that old man. Who was he, and what was he doing there?”

  I knew exactly what Kristy was talking about, but none of the others had a clue.

  “Old man?” asked Claudia, who was sitting on her bed with her back against the wall and her feet on Stacey’s lap. She was busy munching on a handful of Doritos. “What old man? I didn’t see any old man when I was there.”

  “And who in the world are Hank and Esther?” asked Stacey, who sat between me and Claudia on the bed, dipping a brush into a tiny pink bottle. She was painting Claudia’s toenails. She frowned as she concentrated on the little toe of Claudia’s right foot. “I haven’t heard of them. Are they part of Jim’s crew?”

  I had to laugh, imagining Hank and Esther under the kitchen sink, working on the plumbing. Hank would be grousing about something, and Esther would be her cheerful self as she banged away with a huge monkey wrench.

  “What did Eddie do?” asked Abby. She crossed her arms and frowned, as if she were Eddie’s only defender. “Eddie’s the greatest. He couldn’t have done anything wrong. I just know he couldn’t have.”

  “You have to cross Jake off your suspect list, too,” added Jessi, who was sitting cross-legged on the floor. “I’ve met him, and he’s just a regular nice guy. I’m sure he’s not involved.”

  “Involved in what?” asked Mal from her spot next to Jessi. “Everybody has to slow down here. I’m totally confused. Can we back up for a second? What are all these people being accused of, anyway?”

  Kristy looked blank for a second. “Accused?” she asked. “Nobody accused them of anything. We just wonder what they’re up to, that’s all.”

  “And remind me, why is it that we think they’re up to something?” asked Abby.

  “Because of the way they’re all snooping around,” I burst out. “That’s what this is all about.” I couldn’t blame my friends for being confused. Kristy and I hadn’t explained things very well. “See, the first thing that happened was that I ran into Jim in the spare bedroom.” I paused, letting that sink in.

  “So?” asked Claudia.

  “So why was he in there?” I asked. “There aren’t any pipes or anything in that room. And I think he was snooping in the file cabinet.”

  “That’s odd,” said Abby.

  “See? That’s what we’re saying,” said Kristy. “It’s odd, that’s all. And it was also odd when I caught Eddie out in the toolshed. I mean, there probably haven’t been any tools in that shed for about a gazillion years. It’s an old, broken-down thing. But I saw him go in there, so I followed him. He said he was looking for a shovel.” Kristy raised her eyebrows. “Now, wouldn’t you think that a guy with his own construction crew and his own big truck would bring his own shovel?”

  “Maybe he forgot it,” said Abby stoutly. She didn’t want to hear a word against Eddie. “Or maybe his was the wrong size or something.”

  Kristy raised her eyebrows again. “I’m just saying that he was acting like a man with a secret,” she said. “He jumped when I first came into the shed, and he had this guilty, furtive look about him.”

  “Furtive?” Abby repeated. “Come on.”

  Just then the phone rang. It was Mrs. DeWitt, confirming a date she’d made for Friday afternoon. She needed two sitters as usual. Stacey and Claudia agreed to go.

  Kristy handled the call. As soon as she hung up, she returned to the subject of the mystery. “All right, forget about Eddie for a minute. What about Jim? Wait until you hear what he said to Dooley.”

  There was more confusion until Kristy and I explained who Dooley was. Claudia chipped in her two cents. She’d met Dooley, too.

  “I was just coming into the kitchen when I heard them talking,” Kristy said. “Jim was holding that little notebook again, and this is what I heard him say.” She paused for a big effect. “He said, ‘I know it’s around here somewhere. It has to be, unless the old man was lying.’ ” Kristy crossed her arms and, looking satisfied, sat back in her chair.

  “And this proves — what?” asked Claudia with a grin.

  “I’m not saying it proves anything,” said Kristy. “It’s just part of the puzzle.”

  “Along with the weird way Hank was acting,” I said. “Hank is an old friend of my grandmother’s,” I explained hurriedly before anyone could ask. “And Esther is his wife. But it’s Hank who’s acting suspicious. He came over again today, and he seems very, very interested in the backyard. He keeps asking Jim all kinds of questions about exactly where he’s going to be digging when he replaces those pipes. And today I caught him just gazing out the window, looking into the backyard with this very thoughtful expression on his face.”

  “Okay,” said Mal, who had grabbed a notebook and was scribbling away, taking notes. She held up a hand and read back what she’d written. “ ‘Jim in bedroom. Eddie in toolshed. Jim says something about how “it” has to be around there somewhere. And Hank can’t stay out of the backyard.’ Is that it?”

  “Not quite,” I said. “But I’m glad you started putting this down in the mystery notebook. It definitely qualifies.” The mystery notebook is another of Kristy’s great ideas. The BSC members have always loved helping to solve mysteries, but for a long time we had no organized way of keeping track of suspects, clues, and theories. We’d write things down on napkins, math tests, whatever was at hand. Our record keeping was terrible. Then Kristy came up with the idea for one central notebook where we could write down everything. Ta-da! The mystery notebook was born.

  “There is one more thing. The old man.”

  “Oh, right,” said Kristy. “I almost forgot about him.”

  “Explain, please?” asked Stacey.

  “There w
as this elderly man hanging around all day today,” Kristy said. “I kept seeing him lurking near the backyard. He seemed very, very interested in the construction work going on. I even saw him pacing off the distance between the fence and that old apple tree. I can’t figure out what he’s after.”

  “Maybe he’s just one of those bored retirees,” suggested Abby. “You know, the ones who don’t know what to do with themselves once they stop working. My grandfather was like that at first. My grandmother used to kick him out of the house because he’d just wander around complaining about how bored he was. So he’d take these long walks in the neighborhood —”

  “Right,” interrupted Kristy. I thought she was being a little rude, but Abby didn’t seem to mind. “But I think there’s more to the story with this guy. I tried to approach him a couple of times to say hi and find out if there was something he wanted to ask, but every time I would move toward him, he’d disappear in a flash.”

  “Hmmm,” said Mal. “That does sound kind of suspicious.”

  Suspicious was the word of the day. Was it only a coincidence that so many people were acting so suspiciously? What was going on at 747 Bertrand Drive?

  We talked about it for a while, but none of us had any brilliant insights. Instead, we all agreed to keep an eye on the doings at Granny and Pop-Pop’s house and to continue to write down any possible clues or suspects in the mystery notebook. Even though we hadn’t come any closer to solving the mystery, our discussion had accomplished one good thing: Everybody was up-to-date on what was happening.

  Just before our meeting ended, as our talk about the mystery wound down, I decided it was time to bring up the other mystery in my life: the mystery of the music box. Quietly, while the others were busy talking, I slipped it out of my backpack.

  Claudia was the first to notice it. “Wow, look at that! Is it yours, Mary Anne?”

  I shook my head. “Just temporarily,” I said.

  “It’s really beautiful,” said Stacey. “Whose is it?”