Claudia and the Lighthouse Ghost Page 5

  “Sorry,” Ben replied with a shrug. “I think that last part is just a legend, anyway. Maybe only some of it is true.”

  Matt was now signing something furiously to Haley. He looked grim and concerned.

  “Uh, Ben?” Haley asked. “Matt wants to know if it’s expensive to fly to Australia.”

  Abby gave Jessi a Look. She had a feeling it was not going to be an easy night for anybody.

  “Hello, Baby-sitters Cl — I mean, hello!”

  Duh. Wake up, Claudia.

  My phone has two lives, BSC and non-BSC. When it’s just my phone, which is most of the time, I pick it up like a normal person and say hello.

  Sometimes I goof. Like when it’s 5:10 on a Wednesday and all I can think about is that strange afternoon at the lighthouse and my older sister’s clothes are all over my bed and she’s laughing hysterically downstairs with a cute guy who’s living in my house but has never even had the chance to lay eyes on me because I’m constantly cleaning up my older sister’s stuff.

  “Hi, Claudia, is Janine there?” a male voice asked. “This is Jerry.”

  “This isn’t Janine’s number!” I blurted out.

  “I know, but she told me I could reach her here for a few weeks.”

  “Great. Maybe my whole family can use this line, and we’ll cancel the other one.”

  “Sorry, but —”

  I covered the receiver and screamed, “Janine! It’s your BOYFRIEND on MY phone!”

  The laughter stopped. Janine thumped up the stairs and into my room. “Tell him I’m not here,” she whispered.

  “Oh, right,” I whispered back. “I’ll just say I was calling to the other Janine!”

  “Good point.” Janine was pacing the few available square inches of the room. “Um, say you called me but I was just running out the door.”

  I took my hand off the receiver. “Sorry, I called her but she ran away. Out the door, I mean.”

  Janine was cringing.

  “But — who were you talking to?” Jerry asked.

  “Uh … Laura. She’s one of our guests.” I raised my voice. “Okay, ‘bye, Laura, thanks for sharing that with me!”

  “Sharing what?” Laura shouted from inside Janine’s room.

  “Listen, Claudia,” Jerry said. “Tell Janine I just wanted to ask her about the orbital calculations we had to figure out in astro, okay?”

  “Sure, Jerry, I have to go. ‘Bye.”

  “ ’Bye.”

  I hung up. “Are you happy now?” I asked Janine.

  “What did he want?” Janine said.

  “Something about calculus orbicles.”

  “Big help.”

  “Why don’t you just break up with him?” I asked. “You seem much more interested in Steve.”

  Janine giggled. “Steve and I are just friends. So far. He’s very sweet, you know. Only in school three days and he’s practically the most popular guy. He’s introduced me to people who never even used to look at me.”

  My older sister’s first exposure to coolness. How did I feel about this?

  Pained. Tortured. Especially after my ordeal with Laura at SMS.

  “Don’t tell anyone,” Janine said, lowering her voice to a whisper, “but he really is going to have that Christmas party in the lighthouse. Just a few select friends, including me.”

  “He can’t be serious! Janine, no one should go near that place!”

  “It’s just an old building —”

  “Look, I told you about that guy who lives next door. Mr. Hatt says he’s disturbed. I say, total psycho. Second, that place makes my skin crawl. Something happened there that no one is telling us about. I just know it. Look, you were seven or eight when the Hatts left Stoneybrook. Don’t you remember anything weird about it? Or any strange things that happened at the lighthouse?”

  “Something happened one winter while we were on vacation,” she said. “But Mom and Dad didn’t know what, exactly. At least that’s what they said. And people have always said the lighthouse is haunted, but that’s silly.”

  “It’s not silly!” I shot back. “I heard this voice there, a young voice —”

  “Claudiaaaaa, don’t be ridiculous.” Janine glanced at her watch. “Oops, be back in four minutes. I have to finish helping Steve with his homework.”

  “Whoa, how about putting your stuff away first?” I said, picking up one of her blouses. “I’m having a meeting in a few minutes.”

  Janine gave me a blank look. “What meeting?”

  “Uh, hello? It’s Wednesday!”

  “Well, I can’t give up the room. I need to set up some spreadsheets on my computer.”

  “Janine, we agreed —”

  “Okay, okay, have your meeting. Just keep it down.”

  “We can’t have it if you’re in the room!”

  “Fine. Your choice.” Janine darted out the door.

  I was still holding the blouse. I eyed the X-Acto knife on my art table.

  It was very, very tempting.

  Instead, I heaped all of Janine’s stuff, unfolded, in her dresser drawers. Then I reached between my mattress and box spring for a bag of mini-Milky Ways I’d hidden.

  It was open. And half empty.

  This was the last straw.

  It was an act of war.

  Before I could scream bloody murder, Kristy and Abby bounded into the room.

  “Hi, Claudia the Cramped!” Abby greeted me.

  “Here,” I said, tossing them the half-finished bag. “We’re meeting in the living room today.”

  “What?” Kristy said. “How —”

  “All because of my sister, the genius who ate my bedroom.”

  Thank goodness for call forwarding. I had just signed up for it. I picked up the receiver, tapped out the numbers for my family’s line, and hung up again.

  On the way downstairs, I explained what had happened. Janine and Steve were in the den, so we kept our voices down. The three of us sprawled out in the living room, gabbing away. We intercepted Stacey, Jessi, Mallory, and Mary Anne as they walked in.

  Kristy called the meeting to order at five-thirty. By that time, Janine had disappeared upstairs to monopolize our headquarters.

  At 5:32, Dad walked in the door with Mr. Hatt. “Well, well,” he said with a chuckle. “Looks like our meeting place has been taken over by baby-sitters.”

  “Meeting place?” I asked.

  “Sorry, Claudia,” Dad said. “Mr. Hatt and I are meeting with the title insurance agent here. I didn’t know you needed the room.”

  “That’s okay,” I said, “we’ll use the den.”

  We ran in there, only to find Steve and Caryn playing a video game.

  “Where do we go now?” Mary Anne whispered.

  “Follow me,” I said.

  Mom was clattering around in the kitchen, preparing some kind of fish. “Mind if we meet here?” I asked. “Dad’s in the living room, Janine’s in my bedroom, Caryn and Steve are in the den.”

  Mom shrugged. “Sure, if you don’t mind the smell.”

  (If you saw a photo of our faces, you’d know how we felt about that.)

  As we crowded bravely around the table, Kristy said, “Any new business?”

  “Hello, everybodyyyy!” Mrs. Hatt sang, walking in with two bags of groceries.

  Clunk. She set them down on the counter. “I’ll be right back with the other bags!”

  “As I was saying —” Kristy began.

  Caryn rushed into the kitchen. “Yum! Did she buy any string cheese?”

  Steve shuffled in after her and pulled a box of crackers out of one of the bags. “Cool,” he said, tearing it open.

  Laura raced downstairs and barged in. “You pigs! Can’t you help put stuff away?”

  Riiiiiinnnng! went the kitchen phone, over by the refrigerator.

  “I’ll get it!” I shouted.

  But Mom was closer, so she picked up. “Hello? … Who? The Baby-sitters Club?”

  “I put my phone on call f
orwarding!” I explained, winding my way around the three munching Hatts.

  “One more load!” Mrs. Hatt announced, bustling in with more groceries. “Including ice cream!”

  “Yesss!” Laura cried out.

  This was hopeless. “I’ll take the cordless phone, Mom! Come on, guys, it’s too crowded in here!”

  I dashed into the den, where I grabbed the cordless phone off the wall. Then I looked around for a quiet place to take the call. Only one room was available.

  We all ducked into the bathroom.

  “Hello, Claudia speaking,” I said into the cordless phone.

  My voice was echoing off the tiles. Abby was cracking up. She pantomimed flushing the toilet, which I did not find funny.

  “Hello, it’s Mrs. Arnold,” said the voice on the phone. “I need a sitter for next Sunday, three to five-ish?”

  “Okay,” I said. “I’ll call you right back.”

  I hung up. I was now sitting on the closed-up toilet. Balancing the record book on her knees, Mary Anne was perched on the edge of the bathtub. Kristy was actually in it. Stacey and Abby were leaning against the sink, and Jessi and Mal were on the floor.

  “It’s the BSC,” Abby said. “Bathroom-sitters Club!”

  Suddenly the door swung open and Steve barged in.

  He stopped short. His face instantly turned red. “Uh … sorry.”

  Zip. Out he went.

  Abby exploded with laughter.

  That was all it took. Forget it. We were gone. Cackling. If more floor had been available, we’d have been rolling on it.

  We eventually caught our breath and returned Mrs. Arnold’s call. (Abby took the job.)

  Afterward Kristy said, “Let me try again. Any new business?”

  “Well, maybe,” Mallory said. “This is about the lighthouse.”

  The room fell silent.

  “Claudia, I was spooked out by all that stuff you told us at Monday’s meeting,” Mallory went on. “So when my dad took us to the store last night, I asked him to drive by the lighthouse. As we passed, I thought I saw somebody at the door, trying to get in.”

  “What did you do?” I asked.

  “I told Dad, and he stopped. But by the time we got out, the person was gone.”

  “Did you call the police?” Stacey asked.

  Mallory shook her head. “No one believed me. Except Claire. She was scared out of her wits. The triplets thought the whole thing was hilarious —”

  “EEEEEEAAAAGGHH!”

  I nearly jumped off the toilet. The scream was Janine’s.

  We raced out of the bathroom. I could hear footsteps thumping all over the house.

  Janine was standing in the front doorway. The door was open. Mom, Dad, and all the Hatts were gathered around her.

  The day’s mail was in a heap at her feet, along with an open cardboard box. Janine was holding a small, baseball-style cap in her hands.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  “I — I got an e-mail message that a disk would be arriving for me today, Express Mail,” she explained. “So I went to check the mail, and this box was on the welcome mat. It was open, and this was in it.”

  She held out the hat. It was tattered and charred, as if someone had set it afire. Pinned to it was a piece of paper.

  My heart skipped about when I saw what was on the paper — letters cut from various magazines and pasted together to form a message:

  “Oh my lord,” Stacey murmured.

  Mr. Hatt took the hat and examined it. “Well, uh, someone’s idea of a little joke. Sorry, Janine, I …”

  His voice trailed off. He was looking at the mail on the floor. On one envelope was the name Hatt, written in big scrawly letters above our address.

  Mr. Hatt knelt and picked it up. I glanced at the postmark: Stamford. All letters from Stoneybrook are marked that way.

  As Mr. Hatt opened the envelope, a few ripped pieces of a photograph fell out.

  Laura scooped them up. “It’s the lighthouse!” she said.

  But Mr. Hatt was looking at a sheet of paper he’d found in the envelope — with another cut-out message:

  “What does that mean?” I asked.

  Mr. Hatt swallowed. “I’m not sure.”

  “Is this from Mr. Langley?” Caryn asked.

  “Possibly,” Mr. Hatt replied. “He and I had a … misunderstanding years ago. And, well, he’s not exactly a stable man.”

  Mrs. Hatt took both notes and looked them over. “I don’t know, Alex,” she said. “I never thought he’d be the type to do this.”

  “Creep,” Steve muttered, ducking back toward the den.

  “I hope he got it out of his system,” Laura commented.

  “Well,” said my dad, “shall we clear the mail away? The insurance agent should be arriving any minute.”

  Done. Over. No one wanted to talk more about it. Everyone seemed sort of disgusted and baffled but determined to go on with the evening.

  Me? I was completely freaked out.

  Okay, let me make one thing clear. Kristy was absolutely wrong about Steve. Cute, yes. Love of my life, no.

  Just needed to get that off my chest.

  As you can see, Kristy loves to write in the the BSC mystery notebook. We all do. We go right to it whenever strange stuff starts happening in Stoneybrook. What do we write? Clues, thoughts, theories — whatever we think might help solve the mystery.

  And the sooner this one was solved, the better.

  Okay, back to the mail incident.

  I could barely speak. Janine was in shock. She told the BSC members to use the bedroom while she went out for a walk.

  The moment we shut the door to my room, we all started talking at once.

  “How can anyone be so slimy?” Abby asked.

  “Maybe it’s a prank,” Mallory suggested.

  Stacey exhaled. “Maybe it isn’t.”

  “What do you think this … person will do?” Jessi asked.

  “What did the Hatts do?” Abby said. “I mean, it must have been something big, to make someone so angry.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Kristy shot back. “Anyone who has a problem with the Hatts should talk to them, face-to-face.”

  “Kristy’s right,” Stacey agreed. “We can’t let Claudia’s guests be threatened like this. It’s just not right.”

  Mary Anne was sniffling. “What about C-C-Claudia? What if … you know?”

  What if I was hurt? That’s what she wanted to ask. I’d say it was a good question.

  “We have to find out exactly what happened back when the Hatts left Stoneybrook,” Kristy declared, pacing the room. “Claud’s parents don’t seem to want to talk about it. Or maybe they’re too embarrassed to discuss it in front of the Hatts. But a lot of our parents were here at the time. I’ll ask Watson and my mom what they know. Mallory, you try your parents. Mary Anne, ask your dad to explain what he told you in the car all those years ago. I’ll expect a group report by tomorrow.”

  “Yes, captain!” Stacey said.

  “Claudia!” called my mom from downstairs. “Undo your call forwarding. You have a baby-sitting call!”

  The rest of the meeting was wall-to-wall calls. I did manage to find the BSC mystery notebook, and we started writing what little we knew in it.

  At six o’clock, Kristy said good-bye and raced outside with Abby. As usual, Charlie Thomas was waiting in the Junk Bucket. (That’s the name of his car, and it fits.)

  As Kristy slid into the backseat she exclaimed, “Charlie, you were here!”

  “Aren’t I always?” he asked, starting up the car. “You pay me, don’t forget.”

  “No, she means in Stoneybrook, nine years ago,” Abby said. “Do you know what happened at the lighthouse?”

  Charlie thought for a moment as he pulled away from the curb. “Well, I was only eight. I remember an accident or something. They had to close the place down.”

  “What kind of accident?” Kristy pressed on. “A murder? An attack?”


  “It’s coming to me now,” Charlie said. “It was a stormy night, and some girl — she was thirteen, I think — decided to sneak into the lighthouse with some friends. It was pitch-black, so they used matches to light their way. Everything was fine until they climbed to the top floor …”

  Kristy and Abby were sitting forward, straining at their seat belts. “And?” Abby asked.

  “A gust of wind blew out their match flames,” Charlie continued. “And they were taken to the spirit world by the ghost of Christmas Past!”

  “Dork,” Kristy muttered, slumping into her seat.

  “Charlie, this is important,” Abby said. “This strange family is staying with the Kishis. The parents own the lighthouse —”

  “Their name is Hatt,” Kristy cut in. “And when Janine Kishi went to bring in the mail today, she found —”

  “Steve Hatt!” Charlie exclaimed.

  “You know him?” Kristy asked.

  “Are you kidding? Party animal type. Real popular with the girls.” Charlie laughed. “Sam’s friends want to kill him.”

  “Why?” Abby asked.

  “They were going to have this Christmas party, but they were too shy to ask the girls. So Steve goes ahead and says he’s having a party of his own. Imagine, a new kid, and all the girls want to go to his party.”

  Kristy and Abby exchanged a Look. Suddenly Mr. Langley wasn’t the only person angry at the Hatts …

  If I spelled anything wrong, ignore it. You know what I meant.

  It started as I was leaving school on Thursday with Laura. Her new best friend, Tonya Wright, was with us.

  Tonya is in the cheerleader crowd. She’s also kind of a sourpuss. As you might have guessed, Laura was very excited to be friends with her. Too excited.

  “I had soooooo many friends in Arizona,” Laura was saying. “I was, like, Miss Popularity.”

  “Yeah?” Tonya said. “My cousin lives in Arizona. I wish I lived there. The weather’s much nicer. The people are more laid-back, too. Stoneybrook stinks.”

  “I know!” Laura agreed. “I hate it here. I’d give anything to move back!”

  “Give it a chance,” I said. “The people are laid-back here, too.”

  “Oh, right, look who’s talking. Your parents won’t even let you eat candy!” With a sly smile, Laura turned to Tonya. “Claudia has to hide junk food in her underwear drawer!”