Abby and the Secret Society Read online

  “Whoa!” Kristy gasped. Her guess had been right. The stain was writing: mirror writing. She read out loud, “Nineteen fifty-four DF.” What did that mean? 1954 (DF). “David Follman!” Kristy cried. “He wrote this! That must be it.”

  Suddenly, she heard footsteps moving away from the doorway of the dining room. Someone had been watching her. She flipped the carpet back over the stain and ran out of the room, just in time to see Cary Retlin disappearing down the hall. Had he seen Kristy’s discovery? She had no way of knowing. But she did know, for sure, that she’d found an important clue.

  Claudia’s entry described an afternoon she had spent working with Ms. Cureton, going over old blueprints to check for any structural problems that might make renovations difficult or dangerous. They looked over plans for the main building, the golf clubhouse, even the garden shed. Ms. Cureton took notes and gave Claudia a short lesson on how to read blueprints. “This is a door,” she said, pointing to a mark on the plan. “And this is a window. I’d like to tear down this part of the wall,” she pointed to another spot, “and enlarge the window, so the dining room would have a view of the gardens. But if you’ll notice, there’s a weight-bearing beam there, and we can’t take that out, or the wall will collapse.”

  Claudia was impressed. “How do you learn to be an architect?”

  “You spend a long time in school,” answered Ms. Cureton, smiling.

  “Hmmm,” said Claudia. “Maybe I’ll just stick with being an architect’s helper, for now.” She pulled out another set of blueprints. They were stamped “Revision, 1957” in the lower left corner. “This one looks more like a landscaping plan,” she said. “It shows all the gardens.” She traced the lines on the plan. “What’s this?” she asked, looking at a strange, geometric design. “Is that the maze?”

  “Let me see!” Ms. Cureton said. “I was told that all the blueprints for the maze had been lost in a fire. This is quite a find.”

  They pored over it together. “What’s that square shape in the middle of the maze?” Claudia asked.

  “You know, I have no idea,” answered Ms. Cureton. “I was just wondering the same thing. It’s some sort of structure, obviously, but there’s no indication of its purpose. How odd.”

  Claudia thought it was odd, too. That’s why she wrote it up in the mystery notebook.

  The day after Claudia found plans for the maze, I was helping Nikki tidy up the lounge when she had an unexpected visitor. A man and his wife — prospective members — had just left the lounge, and I thought Nikki and I were alone. Then I heard a cough. I turned to see our visitor. He was an older man, stooped and gray, who carried a cane with a silver duck’s head on top. “Can I help you?” I asked, but he didn’t answer me. He just made a louder harrumphing sound.

  The noise made Nikki turn around, and her jaw dropped when she saw the old man. “Armstrong!” she exclaimed.

  “Mister Armstrong,” he corrected her. “What’s going on here?” He looked around with obvious distaste.

  “We’re redecorating,” said Nikki simply.

  Armstrong harrumphed again. “What would your father say?” he asked.

  Nikki didn’t answer.

  “I remember when belonging to this club meant something,” said Armstrong. “They didn’t let just anyone in, you know.”

  Nikki nodded, frowning. I had a feeling I knew what she was thinking.

  “Haven’t been inside the old place in over twenty years,” mused Armstrong. “You don’t mind if I look around, do you?”

  “As a matter of fact, I do,” said Nikki, folding her arms. “I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to be here at all.”

  Armstrong gave a tremendous harrumph. “You’re heading straight for failure and bankruptcy, young lady, if that’s how you treat potential members.”

  “You will never be a member here,” said Nikki, her voice rising.

  “Um, Nikki?” I asked, stepping forward. “Do you know where the brass polish is?”

  Nikki looked at me blankly for a second. Then she smiled gratefully. “I’ll help you find it, Abby,” she replied, “as soon as we show Mr. Armstrong out.”

  “No need for that!” he said. By then he was red in the face. “I’m as good as gone.” He stomped off, pounding the duck-headed cane into the floor at every step.

  I looked questioningly at Nikki after he left, but she didn’t seem to want to talk about what had happened, so we went back to cleaning. Still, I couldn’t put Armstrong’s visit out of my mind.

  Jessi and Mal weighed in with their own mystery notebook comments, about Mr. Kawaja. They had spent an afternoon watching the children of some prospective members who were touring the club. While they played outside with the kids, they kept an eye on Mr. Kawaja. They couldn’t “pin” anything on him, but he was making them very, very suspicious, because of the way he guarded the maze and became agitated any time another person strayed near it. Mal was sure he was hiding something, and Jessi said he looked as if he had a guilty secret. But neither of them could figure out exactly what Mr. Kawaja might be up to, or how it might relate to the trail of clues we were following.

  The mystery notebook was becoming crammed with notes and clues. But we couldn’t put any of them together, and we weren’t one step closer to solving the mystery of Dark Woods.

  “I think we’ll concentrate on indoor jobs today,” Nikki announced on Monday. The reason for her plan was obvious. It was drizzly, gray, and cold outside. A bunch of us were gathered in the lounge, waiting to hear what we’d be doing that day. Alan Gray and Cary Retlin were there, and so was Cokie. The BSC contingent consisted of me, Stacey, and Jessi. Stephen was on hand that afternoon, too. He sat on the couch next to Nikki, looking bored.

  “A couple of you,” Nikki continued, “can help Mr. Kawaja in the greenhouse, where he’ll be starting seeds for some of the flowers we’ll be planting this spring. Darcy needs a helper —” she broke off to smile at Cokie, who was waving her hand frantically, “— and I think she’s found one. Also, I’ll need a few people to be ‘floaters,’ helping Ms. Cureton and me throughout the afternoon.”

  Alan and Cary ended up with Mr. Kawaja, Cokie (naturally) paired off with Darcy, and the rest of us volunteered to float. The rest of us, that is, except Stacey. She was too busy staring at the wall near the doorway to the lounge. I figured she was spacing out, so I volunteered her. “What are you looking at?” I whispered, as the meeting ended and people began heading off to work.

  “Wait a second, and I’ll show you,” she whispered back. We lingered in the lounge to give everyone else a chance to leave. Then, as soon as the room was empty except for us, she walked to the doorway and pointed to a crack between the sill and the wall. Sticking out of it, in a fairly obvious way, was a folded-up piece of paper. “I can’t believe I never noticed this before,” said Stacey. “I’ve been in this room plenty of times.”

  “The lights are on now, though,” I pointed out. “Maybe they were never on before. Usually there’s enough light from the windows, but it’s pretty dark out there today.”

  “Maybe,” she said. “Anyway, I’m dying to see what this is. Shall I?” She nodded toward the paper.

  “Be my guest,” I said, making a bow.

  Using the edge of a barrette she took out of her hair, she pulled out the paper and unfolded it carefully. I leaned over her shoulder, curious to see what the paper would reveal.

  “What does it say?” I asked. The words on the paper were written in what looked like fountain pen ink, and while the paper was worn, the penmanship was so neat that it was easy to read the message.

  “ ‘The secret society exists. I have found it. The proof is near. The risk is great,’ ” we read together. Then we came to the last couple of words, and we slowed down. “ ‘Think — penguins’?”

  “Penguins?” I repeated. “What could that possibly mean?”

  “I don’t know,” Stacey said, “but this looks like another clue from David Follman. It’s even
signed with his initials.” Sure enough, at the bottom of the note were the initials “DF,” in parentheses, just the way they were written on the dining room flooring.

  “Oh, it’s definitely a clue,” I said. “But penguins? How are we supposed to think penguins?”

  “Let’s show Jessi the note,” suggested Stacey. “With all three of us working together, maybe we can figure it out.”

  We headed off to find Jessi, and discovered her in the dining room, hanging out with Stephen while Nikki made some phone calls. Jessi and Stephen were talking about the neighborhood kids’ club. “Mal said the plans are really coming along,” Jessi said. “But I’m sure they could still use more help. Laying out the miniature golf course is a pretty big job.” I knew she had talked to Mal about how hard it seemed to be for Stephen to make friends. Now she was doing her best to help him along. But Stephen didn’t seem ready to be helped.

  “Maybe,” he said doubtfully. He didn’t look at Jessi.

  “Listen,” I said, thinking quickly. “We have a fun game to play today. How about if we try to find penguins — or anything like a penguin — on the club grounds?” I thought Stephen might be able to help us out, since he probably knew the club pretty well by now, but I wasn’t sure if we should involve him in our mystery.

  “Penguins?” asked Jessi, looking confused.

  Stephen looked interested. “Okay, I guess,” he said to me. “It sounds like fun. But I don’t know where any penguins are.”

  While Stephen was talking to me, Stacey slipped David Follman’s note to Jessi, who read it, raised her eyebrows, and then nodded.

  “Well,” I said, “maybe we just have to think of things that remind us of penguins. Like — like men in tuxedos! Maybe those pictures in the hallway mean something. Let’s go see.” I stood up to leave, and just then Nikki came into the dining room. “I need one of you in the kitchen,” she said. “The counters in there need a good scrubbing.”

  “I’ll do it,” Jessi volunteered.

  “Check in the freezer,” I hissed as she followed Nikki out of the room. “You know — ice? Penguins?” I knew it sounded ridiculous, but we had to follow every lead.

  And that’s exactly what we did, the rest of the afternoon. In between doing jobs for Nikki, the three of us, with Stephen’s help, searched high and low, over almost every inch of that club, for anything even remotely resembling a penguin.

  While I vacuumed the hallway, I checked those old photos, and while some of the men in tuxes did look penguin-ish, no other clues came up there.

  Jessi finished scrubbing the counters, then poked around in the freezers (including the huge, walk-in one) in the kitchen. They were empty. Not a penguin to be found.

  Stacey braved the outdoors (Nikki had sent her to the garden shed with a message for Mr. Kawaja) and checked around the fountain, which had statues of swans in it. “You know, swans, penguins. They’re all birds, right?” she explained. But the swans weren’t giving up any secrets, if they had any to give.

  Near the end of the afternoon, Stephen thought of checking through some old nature magazines he’d seen in the lounge. It turned out that he was the only one of us who actually did find penguins, in an article called “Formal Friends of the Frigid Floes.” The article was illustrated with pictures of mama penguins, papa penguins, and baby penguins — thousands of penguins, looking like crowds of strangely formal little clowns. But there was no sign of any further clues left by David Follman. Stephen was excited by his find. It wasn’t what we were looking for, but I congratulated him anyway and told him he’d won our game. Happy, he ran off to tell Nikki.

  “I give up,” said Jessi, after we’d each paged carefully through the magazine. She plopped herself down in an easy chair and sighed. “This is going nowhere.”

  I sat on the couch opposite her. Stacey, in a rocker, pulled the note out of her pocket and stared at it one more time, as if she could force it to make sense.

  Alan Gray poked his head into the room. “Hey, guys,” he said. A little smile was playing around the corners of his mouth.

  I think we were too discouraged even to wonder about what might be amusing him. “Hi, Alan,” Stacey said tiredly.

  Alan’s grin grew wider. “Have a nice penguin search today?” he asked.

  The three of us sat up straight and stared at him. “You!” Jessi cried.

  “Did you write that note?” I asked.

  Alan shook his head, still grinning. “Nope,” he said.

  “But how —” Jessi began.

  “Hold on a second,” Stacey said suddenly. She still had the note in her hand, and now she held it up to the light and stared at it again. “Okay, Alan,” she said. “You may not have written this note. But David Follman definitely didn’t either. This note was written recently.”

  “How do you know?” I asked. I leaned over to take another look at the paper.

  She held it up again and pointed to something on the bottom of the paper. It was a watermark — the nearly invisible mark that manufacturers make on paper. And the watermark on this paper included the “recycle” symbol, which hasn’t been around all that long. “You’re right!” I said. “So who did write it?”

  Jessi, Stacey, and I thought for about three seconds. Then we looked at each other and nodded. It could be only one person. “Cary Retlin!” cried Stacey.

  “Yes?” asked Cary, poking his head into the room. “You called?” He was smiling a devilish smile.

  “Did you write this?” I asked, pointing to the note.

  “Yup,” he said, rocking back on his heels and smiling proudly.

  “I bet you wrote those notes to Mary Anne and Logan, too, didn’t you?” I asked, suddenly seeing a pattern.

  Cary nodded and kept on smiling.

  “But why?” asked Jessi.

  “Complications make life more interesting,” Cary said with a shrug. Then he tilted his head. “So, how did you figure out that the note wasn’t really from DF?” he asked.

  Stacey showed him the watermark. I could tell she wasn’t happy to have been fooled, even for an afternoon.

  “Good detective work,” said Cary.

  “Thanks,” said Stacey, glaring at him. “And thanks for sending us on a wild goose — I mean, wild penguin chase.”

  That did it. We couldn’t help cracking up. We were still mad at Cary, but now that it was over, we had to admit that the day had been kind of fun.

  Stacey had read Mal’s entry in the club notebook, so she wasn’t surprised that afternoon when she arrived at the Stanton-Chas’ and found Stephen lying on the couch, sulking. His face was turned away from the window, as if to ignore the blue sky outside. It was one of those cool but pretty February days when you can begin to imagine spring arriving soon.

  “He’s in a bad mood,” Nikki told Stacey as she left. In a lower voice, she added that Stephen was lonely, and missing his dad, who was still in Korea. “Please try to convince him to play outside with some other kids,” she said. “I hate to see him lie around inside, all alone.”

  Stacey sat down on the couch near Stephen’s head. “Are you feeling okay?” she asked him.

  “Mpph,” muttered Stephen. “Grrph.”

  “What’s that?” asked Stacey playfully. “Did you say you needed to be tickled?” She gave him a little tickle, under the arms. An “experimental tickle,” as she told me later, just to see if he felt like being cheered up.

  Stephen squirmed, and Stacey thought she heard a tiny giggle. “Did you say something?” she asked, tickling under his chin.

  Stephen rolled over and giggled louder. “That tickles!” he squealed.

  “Good!” said Stacey, tickling his feet. “It’s supposed to.” Before long, Stephen was laughing out loud and tickling her in return. “Hey, how about if we go outside and play for a while?” she asked. She figured she wouldn’t mention other kids yet. She’d wait and see how he felt about this first step.

  “Play what?” asked Stephen warily.

 
“How about — how about Wiffle Ball?” Stacey suggested. She’d spotted a yellow plastic bat and a white ball in the entryway when she’d arrived.

  “Will you pitch to me?” asked Stephen.

  “Sure,” said Stacey. “Let’s go!” She held out a hand and helped him off the couch. They grabbed the bat and ball and headed out into the yard. Stephen decided where home plate should be, and stood there, swinging the bat, while Stacey pitched to him. She threw about twenty pitches. Stephen swung at every one, and connected on a lot of them, enough to keep Stacey running after the ball.

  Finally, just as Stacey was winding up for another pitch, Stephen threw down the bat. “I’m bored,” he said.

  “Want to take a walk?” asked Stacey. She didn’t mention a destination, even though she had one in mind.

  “Sure,” replied Stephen with a shrug.

  A few minutes later, Stephen and Stacey stood on the sidewalk in front of the Pikes’ house. They could see through the hedge that the side yard was full of kids: Nicky and the triplets, Vanessa, Matt and Haley, Charlotte and Becca, Jake, Carolyn and Marilyn.

  The yard had been transformed. A big banner hung across the Pikes’ old swing set, announcing (in every color of the rainbow) the grand opening of the “Slate Street Kids Club.”

  Jordan, Adam, and Byron were tossing around a Nerf basketball, aiming at a homemade hoop they’d set up on one side of the garage. As they played, Jordan gave a running commentary, sportscaster-style. Stacey and Stephen could hear him loud and clear from where they stood. The funny thing about his narration was that everyone in the game had the same last name, so it sounded as though one incredible player was all over the court: “Pike pivots, takes the layup — but Pike blocks the basket. Pike passes to Pike, who dribbles to the three-point line, sets up, and — oooh, Pike steals the ball!”

  Nicky and Matt were in the driveway nearby, playing handball against the garage door. Carolyn and Marilyn played badminton (with ancient rackets and an old tennis ball instead of a birdie) on a court set up behind the swing set. There was no net, just a piece of string that ran from the swing set to a tree. And Jake, Charlotte, Vanessa, Margo, Haley, and Becca were in the middle of a round of miniature golf.