Mallory and the Mystery Diary Read online

  Buddy worked and worked. He erased a lot. Every now and then he would glance at one of the Archie comics, probably to see how to make “thought bubbles” and things like that.

  “Hey, Mal! This is fun!” said Buddy at one point.

  I smiled at him. “I’m glad you think so. I’m having fun, too.”

  “Are you sure you’re acting like a tutor?” asked Buddy.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’m having too much fun. Reading work isn’t supposed to be fun.”

  “But reading is. And reading and writing go hand in hand. Believe me.”

  Buddy shrugged. Then he returned to his comic. After a few more moments of laborious effort he announced, “I’m finished!”

  “Terrific. May I read it? You can read my comic.”

  “Okay,” said Buddy uncertainly. “Are we going to read aloud or to ourselves?”

  I thought for a moment. “We’ll read each other’s silently. Then we’ll read our own aloud. We know how our own should sound.”

  Buddy grinned. “Okay.”

  So I read Buddy’s comic. He had misspelled a lot of words, but he certainly had gotten the hang of the project. His comic was about three children (an older brother and his two younger sisters) with familiar-sounding names — Bubba, Sally, and Marie. The kids took an unexpected rocketship ride into outer space and then had to figure out how to get home again. The comic was full of things like this:

  “Hey, Buddy, this is great,” I said.

  “Really?”

  “Honest. I mean it. Let me hear you read it. I bet that will make it even better.”

  Buddy read his work with lots of expression and sound effects. When he was finished, he asked, “Can I show this to Mom?”

  “Right now?”

  “I’ll only take a minute.”

  “Do you want to show her a perfect comic?” I asked.

  “Yes,” said Buddy, sounding a little confused.

  “Well, then, I’ll be honest with you. You spelled some words wrong. Would you like to fix them first?”

  “Oh…. Yes.”

  “I’ll give you a minute of free time for every word you misspelled that you can find and fix by yourself.”

  “Wow!” Buddy set to work and found nine of the seventeen words. “Nine free minutes!” he exclaimed.

  “And I’ll give you an extra free one for working so hard.”

  “Gosh.” Buddy was looking at me adoringly. It was kind of the way I used to look at my fourth-grade teacher, Mr. Barnes. I had the world’s biggest crush on Mr. Barnes. At the time, I thought I was in love with him. Was that how Buddy felt about me? I wasn’t sure. If he did feel that way, maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad thing. I’ve never worked as hard for any teacher as I did for Mr. Barnes. I got straight A’s that year, something I’d never done before.

  Anyway, Buddy showed his comic to his mother, but returned quickly to his room. “Now what are we going to do?” he asked.

  “Now,” I replied, “we are each going to choose one story in any comic book here, read half of it, and then make up our own ending to the story.”

  “Oh, boy!”

  Buddy was in seventh heaven.

  And I felt like a hero and a genius. Especially when Buddy decided to use his ten free minutes to begin his reading homework. (I think he did that because I was there to help him.) Whatever the reason, I felt as if I had made a breakthrough that day. I walked home feeling good right down to my toes.

  “A séance! Are you kidding?” exclaimed Claudia.

  “A séance?!” (That was Kristy.)

  It was a Friday afternoon. Our BSC meeting was just about over. In the few minutes that were left, I had mentioned my idea to the other club members. As you can see, it was not going over too well. Although in all honesty, I have to admit that I thought most of my friends were afraid of holding a séance, and were covering up by acting appalled.

  “Yes,” I told them firmly. “A séance.”

  “Um, Mal?” spoke up Jessi. “What is a séance?”

  Before I could answer, Kristy said. “It’s when a person wearing a turban on her head goes into a trance and the voice of George Washington comes out of her mouth. Then she collapses on the table from the effort of it all.”

  “Kristy!” I exclaimed.

  “Huh?” said Jessi.

  “A séance,” I said, “is when a group of committed people get together in the hope of contacting a spirit. They sit around a table holding hands, and one person — the channeler — calls for the spirit. If the spirit is around, it begins speaking through the channeler. Then the others can ask the spirit questions.” I gave Kristy a look to let her know just what I thought of her explanation.

  “Oh,” said Jessi. “And you want us to try to contact Sophie so we can find out what happened with the portrait?”

  “Right. Or Jared would do, I guess. We’ll hold the séance at Stacey’s house.”

  Stacey groaned.

  “What if we can’t contact Sophie or Jared?” asked Jessi.

  I shrugged. “Then we’ll be no worse off than we are right now.”

  “There aren’t any such things as ghosts or spirits anyway,” said Kristy for about the ninetieth time.

  “You know what?” said Dawn, who had been sitting quietly on the bed. “A séance might be kind of interesting.” (Dawn loves ghost stories as much as Claudia loves Nancy Drew mysteries.)

  Mary Anne shivered. “Spooky, but interesting,” she added.

  “It could be funny,” said Stacey, glancing at Kristy. I could tell that the two of them were trying not to laugh.

  Mary Anne opened the club record book to the appointment pages. “We’re all free tomorrow afternoon,” she said. “Not one of us has a job, a class, or a lesson.”

  “Mary A-anne,” said Kristy, who is almost as good a whiner as David Michael.

  “Oh, come on. Maybe it’ll be fun,” said Stacey. “What harm can it do, anyway? We can have sort of a séance party. I’ll buy some chips and stuff, the seven of us can get together, and who knows? We just might talk to Sophie or Jared.”

  “Sta-cey,” said Kristy.

  “I think it sounds like a great idea,” said Claudia.

  “Me, too,” said Dawn, Mary Anne, Jessi, and I.

  Everyone looked at Kristy.

  “Oh, all right. I’ll come,” she said. “But only if I can be the channeler.”

  Kristy the channeler? This was my mystery and my idea. I wanted to be the channeler. But one problem with being eleven and having a lot of thirteen-year-old friends is that you have to give in to them pretty often, especially when someone like Kristy is putting her foot down.

  “Okay,” I said. “You can be the channeler.”

  We agreed to meet at Stacey’s at four o’clock the next afternoon.

  * * *

  By 3:45 on Saturday, everyone except Kristy had arrived at Stacey’s house. I guess my friends were a little more excited about the séance than they’d let on.

  “Where do you hold a séance?” asked Dawn.

  “We should hold ours in the attic,” replied Stacey promptly. “That’s where we found the trunk. And it seems like a good place for ghosts.”

  “A little too good,” said Mary Anne. “I’m not going up into your attic to try to contact dead people. I’ve got goose bumps just thinking about it.”

  “I don’t think that would work anyway,” I spoke up. “I’ve seen lots of séances on TV, and everyone is always sitting around a table holding hands. You don’t have a big table in your attic, do you, Stace?”

  “Nope,” she replied. “Not even room for one. If we really need to use a table, it’ll have to be the kitchen table or the dining room table. Probably the dining room table. It’s bigger. Seven people would be squished around the kitchen table.”

  We were just heading into the dining room when the doorbell rang.

  “That must be Kristy!” cried Stacey.

  The six of us dashed to the
McGills’ front door.

  When we opened it, we gasped.

  On the doorstep stood a gypsy.

  Well, it was Kristy, but she looked like a gypsy. She’d put on false eyelashes and bright red lipstick, and on her cheeks were big blotches of rouge. Her clothes were amazing. She was wearing a baggy peasant blouse; a long, flowing skirt with gaudy flowers printed on it; and tons of jewelry — beads around her neck and bangles up each arm. On her head was a turban.

  Kristy entered the front hall, her jewelry clanking as she walked.

  “Oh, my lord,” said Claud, her voice rising. “Where did you get all that stuff?”

  “The makeup is Nannie’s. The rest I found in our attic. Well, Karen did. She was looking for dress-up clothes, and boy, did she ever find them.”

  Stacey shook her head. Then she ushered the BSC members into her dining room. “Okay,” she said. “Let’s begin.”

  “Where’s the food?” asked Kristy.

  “Kristy!” I exclaimed. “The food is for afterward. A séance is serious. We can’t be eating potato chips and trying to contact Sophie at the same time.”

  “Okay, okay,” said Kristy. “And by the way, my name is Madame Kristin.”

  “Yes, Madame Kristin,” said Claudia, bowing.

  “All right, everybody. Gather around the table. We have to hold hands, close our eyes, and concentrate really hard,” I said.

  “On what?” asked Claudia.

  “On Sophie! What else? We have to think, Sophie, Sophie, join us in our world. And Kristy, I mean, Madame Kristin, you have to say that out loud — and do whatever else you do to contact spirits.”

  “What else is that?”

  “You’re the channeler. I thought you knew.”

  “You’re the séance expert. I thought you knew.”

  “I’m not a séance expert. I’ve just seen some séances on TV.”

  “Hey, hey, you guys,” said Mary Anne, who likes to avoid a fight if at all possible. “Kristy, why don’t you just improvise?”

  “Okay,” agreed Kristy, rattling her bracelets. “And it’s Madame Kristin.”

  The seven of us sat down at the dining room table. But right away, I jumped up again.

  “What’s wrong?” asked Jessi.

  “Atmosphere,” I replied. “We forgot atmosphere. We can’t hold a séance with sunshine pouring through the windows.”

  I got up and pulled the curtains across the dining room windows. Then I closed the doors to the dining room. We were in semidarkness.

  “Stacey? Do you have any candles around?” I asked.

  “Sure.” Stacey found three fat, short candles in holders. She set them in the middle of the table and lit them with a long fireplace match. Candlelight danced on the walls.

  “Ooh, spooky,” said Jessi.

  “Do we have enough atmosphere now?” asked Madame Kristin.

  “I think so,” I replied.

  Stacey and I returned to our seats.

  “Now, everybody hold hands,” I instructed. “Think about Sophie or Jared. Call them to our world — silently. Except for you, Madame Kristin. You speak out loud.”

  “I know, I know,” she said.

  I was sitting between Jessi and Mary Anne. Jessi’s hand was shaking. Mary Anne’s was clammy. I hoped they would calm down.

  Sophie, I said to myself, if you can hear my thoughts, come meet us in our world, in the world of the living. We need to talk to you.

  “Sophie,” Kristy was saying in an eerie voice, “come to me. Speak through me. You — you will not be harmed. We just want to ask you some ques —” Suddenly, Kristy’s voice changed. It rose and became all wavery. “I … am … heeeere,” she wailed. “I am Sophie and I am heeeere.”

  I gasped. Then I held my breath. I didn’t want to frighten Sophie away.

  “Speeeeak to meeee,” said Sophie.

  “Sophie,” I said, “this is Mallory Pike.”

  “I knoooow.”

  “You do?”

  “Yes. I know everythiiiing.”

  “Did — did you find the painting and clear your father’s name?”

  “Yeeees.”

  “Where was the painting?” asked Dawn.

  “It had never disappeared. It was hanging where it always huuuung. But Grandfather Hickmaaaan, God rest his sooooul, lost his glasses and just thought it had disappeeeeared.”

  “Really?” I asked.

  Madame Kristin burst out laughing. “Of course not, you goon,” she said in her regular Kristy voice. “I can’t get Sophie to speak through me. Are you crazy? Now let’s party. I’m starved!”

  So that was the end of our séance. I wasn’t too mad. I think I’d known all along that we wouldn’t really be able to contact Sophie. Besides, I was hungry, too!

  Stacey has said that when she left New York, she didn’t just leave her dad, her apartment, and one of her best friends behind. She also left behind two of her favorite baby-sitting charges — Henry and Grace Walker. So she was especially glad that Charlotte was still in Stoneybrook. And as soon as she returned, she became one of Charlotte’s most frequent sitters again. Everyone — Stacey, Charlotte, Dr. and Mr. Johanssen — were pleased with the turn of events.

  On that Tuesday, Stacey arrived at Charlotte’s house with her Kid-Kit. Charlotte has always been a big fan of the Kid-Kits, so Stacey usually brings hers when she sits at the Johanssens’.

  Charlotte answered the doorbell, excited as always to see Stacey.

  “Hi!” she said. “Come on in!”

  Charlotte used to be this shy, withdrawn little girl, but Stacey helped to pull her out of her shell. It wasn’t easy, but she did it. Then, when Jessi and her family moved to Stoneybrook, Jessi helped Charlotte and her younger sister, Becca, to become friends.

  Now Charlotte, who is an only child, is bouncy and happy and hardly minds at all when her mother, a doctor, goes off to work at the hospital.

  “Hi, Stacey!” Dr. Johanssen called as Stacey entered the house.

  “Hi!” Stacey replied. She and Dr. Johanssen get along really well.

  “How are you feeling these days?”

  “Great. I stick to my diet and give myself the shots and I haven’t been sick in ages.”

  “That’s wonderful,” Dr. Johanssen replied warmly. Then she said, “Well, I better get going. You know where the emergency numbers are. Mr. Johanssen will be home before six o’clock. So just go ahead and have fun. Oh, and if Becca wants to come over, that’s fine.”

  “Okay,” Stacey said. But as it turned out, Charlotte never even thought about Becca. And she didn’t open the Kid-Kit for quite some time.

  That was because as soon as Dr. Johanssen left, Stacey said, “Guess what. My friends and I are trying to solve a mystery.”

  “Really?” asked Charlotte, wide-eyed.

  Stacey could tell she loved the idea of a real mystery, like the ones she reads about in books. Charlotte is an extremely good reader. She reads anything from The Bobbsey Twins to books by Roald Dahl to books for older kids, like A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.

  “Yup,” Stacey said. “See, right after we moved in, Claudia and Mallory were helping me put some stuff in our attic, and while we were up there, we found an old trunk, and in the trunk, Mallory found a diary that was written in eighteen ninety-four by Sophie, a twelve-year-old girl. And she lived in my house then. Or at least, we think she did. Anyway, her mother died, and right away this portrait of her mother disappeared.”

  Stacey told Charlotte the whole story.

  “Wow,” said Charlotte when Stacey had finished. “And you really think Sophie’s grandfather was Old Hickory?”

  “We really do.”

  Stacey and Charlotte were sitting on the floor of the living room with the unopened Kid-Kit between them. This is one of their favorite places in which to spend time. The Johanssens never mind, as long as Stacey and Charlotte don’t make a mess.

  “You know what?” said Charlotte after thinking for a moment.

 
; “What?” asked Stacey.

  “I don’t believe there’s any mystery that can’t be solved.”

  “You don’t? How come?”

  “Because somebody always knows something. Somebody took the painting or somebody hid it, and maybe someone saw what happened. And if no one saw, then at least the thief knows what he did. And chances are, he’ll make a mistake sometime and his secret will be out.”

  “But Charlotte, this happened more than a century ago,” Stacey pointed out.

  “Yeah, but you never know. There is — or was — a culprit somewhere. And he probably slipped up, or someone saw him. I bet you can solve this mystery. It’s pretty hard to commit the perfect crime.”

  Stacey giggled. “Have you been watching Crime Court on TV again?”

  “Yes,” admitted Charlotte, beginning to laugh, too.

  “Well, I still don’t know,” said Stacey. “About solving the mystery, I mean. It’s a pretty old one.”

  “You guys just don’t know the whole story yet, that’s all,” Charlotte told her. “I’ll show you something. Wait right here, okay?”

  “Okay,” said Stacey.

  Charlotte ran upstairs, probably to her room, and returned with a dog-eared book.

  “This used to be my mom’s,” Char told Stacey. “It was her book when she was a little girl and then she gave it to me. It’s really too easy for me now, but I like it anyway. It’s called Katie and the Sad Noise, and it’s by Ruth Stiles Gannett. Can I read it to you?”

  “May I read it to you,” Stacey corrected her.

  “Okay, may I read it to you?”

  “Of course.” Stacey patted the floor next to her. “Sit here.”

  Charlotte shook her head. “I have to read to you from across the room. I don’t want you to see the pictures yet.”

  “Oh. All right,” replied Stacey, mystified.

  Charlotte settled herself in an armchair and held the book flat in her lap so that Stacey couldn’t even see the cover. Then she began to read. The story was about a little girl named Katie who had been hearing a sad noise in the night. During the day she would go out and look for the noise, but she couldn’t find anything. Her parents were worried about her. They thought she was imagining things. But soon other people started to hear the sad noise — even Katie’s mother. So the whole town went on a search, and finally they found a mother dog with four puppies in the woods, and the mother dog’s foot was caught in a trap. The sad noise was the dog crying to be released from the trap. The story had a happy ending because the dog and her puppies were rescued.