Mary Anne's Bad-Luck Mystery Page 7

  “Say that I’m having a late-night Halloween slumber party, and that … that Charlie will be picking each of you up around ten-thirty and driving you to my house. Then he’ll take us to the graveyard instead. Afterward, we really will spend the night at my house. We’ll have a slumber party there, to celebrate, after we’ve been to the graveyard.”

  “Celebrate what?” I asked.

  “Not being dead,” replied Claudia.

  “Well, this sounds like a reasonable plan,” said Dawn. “Except for one thing. What are we going to do between ten-thirty and midnight?”

  Kristy frowned. “Oh, we’ll ask Charlie to take us to Seven-Eleven for a snack or something. I’ll tell my mom that’s part of our party.”

  Darn. Why does Kristy always have to have such good ideas?

  “And,” Kristy went on, “Charlie will wait for us while we’re in the graveyard. It can’t hurt to have a getaway car … just in case. Later, he can drive us to my house. And believe me, Charlie can be trusted. He’ll help us, and he’ll keep the secret. Now do you guys think you can stick to this plan?”

  I don’t know why, but every last one of us nodded yes. It would have been so easy to say no and not go through with it. But now we were committed.

  “Great. Then it’s settled,” said Kristy. “Charlie and I will pick you up starting around ten-thirty. Be sure to mention the party before then or your parents will never believe you. Then we’ll go try to have some fun, and at five of twelve, Charlie will drop us off at the cemetery and wait in the car while we go to Old Hickory’s.”

  “Lucky stiff,” muttered Claudia.

  Kristy’s last words before she adjourned the emergency meeting of the Baby-sitters Club were, “Tell no one about tonight.”

  Saturday - Halloween

  There are some things you just never get tired of. Trick-or-treating is one of them. So when Mom and Watson asked me if I’d take Karen, Andrew, and David Michael around the neighborhood, of course I said yes. I hadn’t gone trick-or-treating since I was eleven, and I kind of missed it.

  Anyway, I’d forgotten that trick-or-treating can be a nerve-wracking experience for little kids. It’s fun but … it’s dark outside, people intend to scare you, and your mind is all cluttered up with thoughts of bats and cobwebs and goblins and who knows what else. So it shouldn’t have come as any surprise that my little brother, stepbrother, and stepsister were pretty spooked….

  Our emergency club meeting ended in the middle of Halloween afternoon. Kristy had agreed to take David Michael, Karen, and Andrew trick-or-treating at five o’clock. She knew they couldn’t possibly stay out longer than an hour or two, so she’d have plenty of time to get ready for her spur-of-the-moment slumber party before she and Charlie had to leave to pick us up.

  What Kristy didn’t mention in her notebook entry was that she was pretty spooked herself. Her mind was as cluttered as the kids’ — only hers was cluttered with thoughts of midnight, full moons, haunted gravestones, cemeteries, and a town meanie nicknamed Old Hickory. While Karen and Andrew worried about rounding a corner and coming face-to-face with a gigantic Raggedy Anne doll or Snoopy dog, Kristy worried about mysterious spells, my weird bad-luck charm, and who (or what) could possibly have summoned us to the Stoneybrook Cemetery at midnight.

  She put her thoughts aside, though, as she helped her charges with their costumes.

  “Andrew, are you sure you don’t want to wear the mask?” she asked her stepbrother for the third time.

  “No! No masks. I don’t like them,” Andrew said impatiently.

  “But, Andrew, it makes your costume.”

  “I don’t care.”

  Andrew was going trick-or-treating as Marvin, this cartoon moose he likes. Without his mask, he just looked like a kid in a brown animal suit. He didn’t even have antlers. But Kristy could not convince him to put the mask on.

  Karen was dressed as — what else? — a witch.

  “Hey, Karen,” said David Michael with a wicked grin, “aren’t you going to put your mask on?”

  “It is on,” Karen said witheringly from behind her warty, grayish, pointy-nosed mask.

  “Oh, I couldn’t tell,” said David Michael. He doubled over laughing. “Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha.”

  “Come on, you guys,” said Kristy.

  “Come on? Where are we going?” asked David Michael innocently.

  “Nowhere,” said Kristy meaningfully, “if you don’t settle down.”

  David Michael closed his mouth. He put his helmet on. He was dressed as a warrior from some Saturday morning adventure show.

  “Ready?” Kristy asked the three trick-or-treaters.

  Karen began jumping up and down with excitement. “Ready, ready, ready!”

  “Buckets?” said Kristy.

  Karen, Andrew, and David Michael held out their jack-o’-lantern candy buckets.

  “And I’ve got the flashlight,” Kristy went on. “Andrew, are you sure you don’t want to wear your mask? You’d look a lot more like Marvin with it.”

  “Very sure,” said Andrew, as the four of them started down the stairs to the first floor.

  “Should I bring it with me anyway?”

  “Nope.” Andrew shook his head.

  “Okay,” said Kristy. Then she yelled toward the kitchen, “Mom! Watson! We’re leaving now!”

  She and the kids walked out the front door.

  “Aughhh!” screamed Karen.

  She had run into a ghost.

  “Excuse me,” the ghost apologized.

  “That’s okay,” Kristy told him. “Don’t worry about it. Karen, are you going to scream at every trick-or-treater you see?”

  “No,” replied Karen, sounding wounded. “Only the ones that surprise me. That ghost surprised me.”

  Kristy and her brothers and sister made it all the way to the end of the driveway before Andrew tripped over David Michael’s home-made sword and fell to the ground.

  “Aughhh!” he shrieked.

  “Andrew, you’re okay,” said Kristy. She helped him to his feet, brushing him off.

  “No, I’m not,” wailed Andrew.” An invisible goblin tripped me.”

  “My sword tripped you,” David Michael told him. “And you bent it.”

  “Oh. Sorry,” Andrew replied. He stopped crying.

  The kids walked across the street to the home of our associate club member Shannon Kilbourne. Darkness had fallen, and Kristy’s little flashlight and the dim streetlight didn’t shine away many of the shadows.

  “This is so, so creepy,” whispered Karen. She rang the Kilbournes’ doorbell. She and her brothers held their buckets out and waited.

  The door opened with a creak. A ghoulish face appeared.

  “Aughhh!” screamed all three kids. Even Kristy (who’d been thinking about Old Hickory) was startled.

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” said Mrs. Kilbourne’s gentle voice. “I really didn’t mean to frighten you.” She lifted her mask.

  Andrew glanced over his shoulder at Kristy as if to say, “See what trouble masks can cause?” Then he turned around again.

  Mrs. Kilbourne dropped a Mars bar into each bucket.

  “Thank you,” said the witch, the warrior, and Marvin.

  The kids walked from house to house on the Kilbournes’ side of the street. At every door, someone would drop something in their buckets. It was a sugar-fest that would have made Claudia proud — Hershey bars, Snickers, Butterfingers, M&Ms, Raisinettes, you name it.

  At one house, a horrible-looking monster was handing out nickels. Andrew was too afraid to take one.

  At another house, a princess was handing out peanuts.

  “Bor-ring,” sang David Michael as they walked away.

  They crossed the street. An hour later, their buckets were almost full, and they were standing in front of their own house again.

  “There’s just one house we’ve missed,” said David Michael.

  “Ours?” Karen replied. “You know what Daddy said. We don’t
get candy at our own house.”

  “Not our house — Morbidda Destiny’s.”

  “The witch’s?” cried Karen. “No way. I’m not going to her house on Halloween.”

  “Yeah, no way,” said Andrew.

  “Hey, we’ve been over there before,” David Michael pointed out. “For lemonade. Remember? And nobody died. Anyway, I’m not going to miss a single house on this street. If you’re too afraid, then go on home.”

  Karen and Andrew looked pleadingly at Kristy.

  “It’s up to you guys,” she told them. “If you want to go home, then run next door. I’ll be along as soon as David Michael is finished at Mrs. Porter’s.”

  “’Fraidy-cats,” David Michael whispered.

  “Okay, we’re coming,” said Karen.

  She and Andrew each gripped one of Kristy’s hands. David Michael walked boldly in front of them. He marched up the front steps and rang Mrs. Porter’s bell.

  Silence.

  “Her house is kind of dark,” Kristy said quietly. “Maybe she isn’t at home.”

  But just then, the door opened a crack.

  Kristy gasped. She couldn’t see anybody. But a low, eerie voice said, “Hold your buckets out.”

  Ever so slowly, David Michael, Karen, and Andrew edged their buckets toward the front door. Karen and Andrew never let go of Kristy’s hands.

  Plop, plop, plop. Something heavy was dropped into each bucket.

  “Happy Halloween. Heh-heh-heh,” cackled the voice. Then the door closed again.

  Kristy shone her flashlight into the buckets as they hurried down Mrs. Porter’s steps. “What’d you get?” she asked.

  “Apples!” cried the kids in dismay.

  “Double bor-ring!” added David Michael.

  Well, what do you know? thought Kristy. The witch hands out health food. She smiled to herself. Then her happy thoughts faded. She looked at her watch. Six-fifteen.

  Six hours from then we would all be in the cemetery at Old Hickory’s grave.

  Kristy wasn’t sure whether we’d be dead or alive.

  I’m not very good at hiding my feelings, or at covering up when something is wrong. This can be quite embarrassing. For instance, I blush a lot when I’m with Logan. And in school, if a teacher criticizes me or my work, I just might start to cry — in front of everybody.

  So imagine how difficult it was for me on Halloween evening, trying to pretend that everything was fine — that there was no bad-luck spell and no bad-luck charm, and that in a few hours I wouldn’t be hanging around a graveyard like a fool, with five other fools, all of whom could have been in their nice, cozy beds instead of waiting for the angry ghost of Old Hickory to appear.

  It was next to impossible.

  I was as nervous as Tigger. Every little sound made me jump. Any movement that I caught out of the corner of my eye made me gasp. At dinner, I would have to tell Dad about Kristy’s party — but I was sure there wouldn’t really be a party that night. I was sure because I knew that my friends and I wouldn’t leave the graveyard. Not alive, anyway.

  I almost called Logan six different times. I wanted to tell him what was going on, but Kristy’s last words at the emergency meeting had been, “Tell no one about tonight.” She had spoken as our president, and us club members always obey our president, at least where really important matters are concerned.

  Even so, I knew what we were planning was risky, with or without Charlie and his getaway car. I’ve read enough Stephen King books to know that you don’t go fooling around with the supernatural. And it was just a couple of weeks ago that Dawn had rented this movie called Night of the Living Dead, and we’d scared ourselves silly watching it on the Schafers’ VCR. I certainly didn’t want to meet any of those living dead in the Stoneybrook Cemetery. Not Old Hickory. Not anyone else.

  Then there were all these awful horror movies that had been on TV the past week, and in honor of the actual Halloween, I’d seen Halloween and Halloween II.

  I wouldn’t have been a bit surprised if, when the six of us ventured into the graveyard and were looking around for Old Hickory’s tombstone, a clammy hand had reached out from the beyond and —

  “Eeeeeiiii!” I screamed, sending Tigger flying. I was sitting in our living room, and a hand really had touched me on the shoulder.

  “Mary Anne!” exclaimed my father. “What’s gotten into you?”

  “Oh … Oh, it’s you, Dad.”

  Dad looked like he wanted to say, “Who did you expect?” Instead he said, “Dinnertime.” Then he added, “It’s just sandwiches. We’ll be up and down during the meal, because of the trick-or-treaters.”

  I nodded. The reason I was sitting in the living room in the first place was I was on trick-or-treat detail, answering the doorbell and dropping Almond Joy bars into waiting buckets and bags. It was only six-thirty, and already we’d given away twenty-seven candy bars.

  I followed Dad into the kitchen, trying to figure out how to tell him about Kristy’s party. At last, I just blurted it out. As soon as we were sitting down, our sandwiches before us, I said in a rush, “Dad, Kristy’s having a slumber party tonight for the Baby-sitters Club. It’s a late one so that we can, um, all help with the trick-or-treaters first. It was a last-minute idea, which is why I’m telling you now. Oh, by the way, you won’t even have to drive me there. Charlie’s coming over here to pick us all up. Around ten-thirty. Isn’t that nice?”

  “Splendid,” Dad replied.

  “Can I go?”

  “May I go?” Dad corrected me.

  “May I?”

  “Of course.”

  “Oh. Thank you!”

  The doorbell rang and I jumped a mile.

  After that had happened four more times, Dad finally said, “Mary Anne, please. Tell me what’s wrong. Is it Halloween jitters?”

  “Um … yeah. Yeah, it is.” That was a good excuse.

  “Aren’t you a little old for that? You know there aren’t any ghoulies or ghosties, long-leggedy beasties, or things that go bump in the night, don’t you?”

  Well, I really wasn’t too sure. So I didn’t answer my father. Instead, I pulled the bad-luck charm out from under my sweater. I had made a decision. If my friends and I were done in by Old Hickory … or whatever … at the graveyard that night, I wanted Dad to have some idea of what had happened. I hadn’t told Dad anything about my bad-luck mystery, but I wanted him to know, at least, that I had the charm.

  “Dad?” I said. “Do you believe in bad luck?”

  “Well, I —”

  “Because a couple of weeks ago I was at that junk store downtown and I saw this necklace and thought it was really pretty. So I bought it. It only cost, um, a dollar-fifty,” I lied. “Anyway, I’ve been wearing it ever since. But then this girl at school told me it’s a bad-luck charm. So I’m really nervous. I’ve been wearing a bad-luck charm for days and days now.”

  “Why are you still wearing it?” Dad wanted to know.

  Good question.

  “I don’t know. I guess now I’m afraid to take it off,” I said lamely.

  “Well, let me see it.”

  I stood up and walked around the table to Dad. He hadn’t really taken a close look at the charm before then. I’d been wearing it under my clothes a lot. The Halloween costume was an exception. If I’d worn it under my leotard, it would have made a lump.

  I leaned over, and the charm swung toward Dad.

  He fingered it for a moment. Then a smile spread slowly across his face. “Well, I’ll be,” he said, looking rather fond. (Of the charm?)

  “What?” I asked curiously.

  “My grandmother used to have one of these. This isn’t a bad-luck charm, Mary Anne. You know what’s inside the glass? It’s a mustard seed, which is a symbol of faith.”

  “Really? I — I guess my friend didn’t know what she was talking about.”

  Dad and I cleaned up the kitchen then and continued to hand out Almond Joy bars. While Dad listened to a jazz station on th
e radio, I did some thinking. Boy, did I do some thinking. First I thought of Cokie at the dance, and how she was just as big an idiot as the rest of us for believing that my mustard seed was a bad-luck charm. Then I realized that, since none of my friends ever speaks to Cokie, we hadn’t told her it was a bad-luck charm. For that matter, we hadn’t told anyone except Logan, who keeps secrets better than the Pentagon does. So why did Cokie call my necklace a bad-luck charm? How would she know … unless she had something to do with it? Suddenly, answers to the mystery began to fall into place as easily as the pieces to a jigsaw puzzle when only five empty spaces are left.

  I remembered Grace’s enormous crush on Logan, and that Cokie and Grace are best friends. All of a sudden, I was sure I knew who was behind the mystery of the charm, and maybe even why, although I still didn’t know why my friends and I had been summoned to the graveyard.

  “Dad, may I make a phone call?” I said. “I won’t be long.”

  My father dried his hands on a dish towel. “Sure,” he replied. “I’ll answer the doorbell.”

  In the interest of privacy, I used the phone upstairs.

  I dialed a familiar number. Karen Brewer answered the phone. “Hi, Karen,” I said. “It’s Mary Anne. Is Kristy there? This is important.”

  Kristy was on the phone in a flash. “Don’t tell me you can’t come tonight,” she said.

  “Oh, I can come all right. Now it’s more important than ever that we get to the graveyard. Listen to what I found out: I showed the charm to my father, and it isn’t a bad-luck charm at all.”

  “You mean it’s a good-luck charm?” Kristy said incredulously.

  “No. It isn’t even a charm. And it doesn’t have anything to do with luck.” I told her what it was. “But you know what?” I went on. “Last night at the dance, Cokie saw the necklace and she called it a bad-luck charm. Now if it isn’t really some symbol of bad luck that everyone knows about, and if we never told anybody that we thought it was a bad-luck charm, then why did Cokie call it one?”

  “Unless …” said Kristy, catching on quickly.

  “Right,” I replied.

  Kristy and I talked much longer than I had intended. That was because Kristy was in the middle of bad-mouthing Cokie and Grace, when suddenly she cried, “Oh! Oh! I’m not sure exactly what’s going to go on in the graveyard tonight, but I do have an idea. We’ve got to talk to the others and tell them what you found out. More important, we have to get to Old Hickory’s long before midnight. Charlie can take us there right after he’s picked everyone up. Listen, we’ll need some things. Bring a mask with you. And a flashlight. Oh, and some string and a couple of white sheets and …”