Ann Martin - Stacey's Broken Heart

"Buddy?" Claudia cried, fighting her panic.

Buddy shrugged/ "I haven't seen her."

"Me neither," said Lindsey.

Claudia looked at the open door. Could Marnie have run out while no one was watching? She dashed into the yard. "Marnie! Marnie!"

"Not here?" asked Abby, coming out of the barn behind .her. Claudia shook her head. Abby bounded past her to Burnt Hill Road and

looked in both directions. "Ma-a-a-a-rniiieee!"

As Claudia wondered what to do next, Mary Anne returned carrying another stack of newspapers. "What's wrong?"

"We can't find — " Claudia began, but Abby cut her off, grabbing Mary Anne's arm.

"Come back to the house with me, come on!" she said frantically. "We have to call nine-one-one. Marnie is missing."

Mary Anne paled. "Marnie is — " Abby didn't let her finish. She tugged at Mary Anne's arm, causing her to drop the pile of papers at Claudia's feet.

Claudia watched them run toward the house. Her heart banged like a jackhammer. What had happened? Had Marnie been kidnapped? The thought made her dizzy with fright.

"Any luck?" Jessi called from the barn doorway.

Just as Claudia turned toward her, the sound of terrible screaming came from the barn. Claudia ran back inside.

"It's alive!" Claire shrieked, pointing at the dragon. "It moved. I saw it!"

Then Margo screamed and grabbed her sister in a tight, frightened hug.

"It did move!" Becca shouted, pointing. "I saw it, too!"

With that, Lindsey, Buddy, Taylor, and Suzi

exploded into peals of hysterical laughter. "You fell for it!" Buddy howled.

Lindsey held her side as she laughed. "I don't believe you! How dumb can you be?"

Taylor and Suzi were laughing so hard they had to hold each other up.

The dragon moved again and a noise came from inside. On a hunch, Claudia gingerly lifted the dragon. Marnie was beneath it.

She pouted and looked dose to tears. "Poor Marnie,” said Claudia, picking her up. She was upset with Buddy and Lindsey. They should have known better. But she could also understand how a kid might think this was funny.

Suddenly, Claudia gasped. Abby was calling 911.

Claudia handed Marnie to Jessi. "I'll be right back," she called, running for the door. She darted across the yard to Mary Anne's kitchen door.

"I'm not sure what she was wearing," Abby was saying into the phone. "Yes, she's two."

"We found her!" Claudia said, panting.

Abby took the phone away from her ear. "You what?"

"She's all right." Claudia gasped, falling into a chair.

"Oh, thank goodness," Mary Anne said.

Abby turned back to the phone. "We found

her. I'm very sorry. She's all right. . . . No, really. We don't need assistance. . . . I'm sure. . . . Okay. Thanks."

Claudia told them what had happened. Abby leaned heavily against the kitchen counter. "Oh, man. That was dose. Really close."

"Maybe we were trying to do too much," Mary Anne suggested. "You know, it's a big project to do with so many kids, especially little kids."

Claudia told me she agreed with Mary Anne. Kristy probably would have insisted that they have more sitters for that many kids. Or that each sitter had to stay with a particular group, or something else which would have kept them from getting disorganized and losing sight of a kid.

"Boy, was that scary," Abby said.

"I told you things don't always run that smoothly," Claudia reminded her.

"This was just one of those things," Abby objected. "It could have happened to anyone."

But Claudia wondered about that. Somehow, she couldn't picture it happening to Kristy.

Chapter 6.

On Friday, my opportunity to spy on Robert came. I called his house in the morning and his mother told me he'd gone to the movies at Washington Mall.

All kinds of suspicion bells started ringing for me. The day before on our bike ride he hadn't mentioned it. Normally he would have said something like, "I'll be going to the movies with some guys tomorrow. See you in the afternoon." But he hadn't. He'd just kissed me lightly and said, "See you later."

Immediately, I called Claudia. "Operation Robert is on," I announced.

"Stacey, this is so dumb," she complained. "Do we really have to?"

"You promised," I reminded her.

"Oh, all right."

We took the half-hour bus ride to the mall and entered the main lobby. "Will you take off those sunglasses, please," Claudia said to

me as the lobby fountain sprayed pink water into the air behind us. "Do you really think you're going to fool Robert? He's seen you in sunglasses before. It's not as if he wouldn't recognize you."

I took off the glasses. "All right. But if we're going to spy on Robert, we have to do it right." I pulled a list from the pocket of my flowered sundress. "Here's where we should look for him. I say we start at Critters. Robert likes the iguanas. He thinks they're cool but his mother won't let him have one."

Claudia read the list over my shoulder. "I think we should check out Cinema World first,” she said. "That way we can see if any movie Robert would like is playing, check out the time, and then make sure we're there when people are going in."

"Brilliant!" I said, heading toward the escalator. We took it to the fourth floor and then went to Cinema World. Two movies Robert had mentioned wanting to see were listed on the marquee outside the theater. "I don't know which one he'd choose," I admitted, peering up at the signs.

"We'll come back for the first one, and if he's not there, we'll come back fifteen minutes later for the next one," said Claudia sensibly.

We checked BookCenter and Critters and then came back for the twelve-thirty showing

of Hang Tough, a movie in which a lot of things blow up. Robert loves movies like that, but we never see them together because they're not my kind of movie. We lingered outside the theater, watching people buy tickets. Suddenly, I spotted Robert walking toward the theater with a Power Records bag in his hand. I grabbed Claudia and ducked into the store next to the theater.

Robert stood in front of the theater, looking around as if he were waiting for someone to arrive. I nearly held my breath as I craned my neck out of the doorway, waiting to see who would show up. If it was a girl, what would I do? I had no idea.

Claudia was at my shoulder, also trying to see without being seen. She let out a low laugh.

"What?" I whispered, turning to her.

"Look who's coming to meet Robert," she said, smiling.

"Pete," I said, feeling everything inside me relax. It was Pete Black. He goes to SMS with us. I sort of dated him for awhile, but now we're just friends.

"He looks good with his hair long," Claudia observed. Over the summer Pete had grown his brown hair. It was now down over .the collar of his denim shirt.

I leaned in the doorway and smiled. "Of

course," I said. "I never want to see shoot 'em up, blow 'em up kinds of movies with him, so he's going with a guy friend. That makes

sense."

"But does Robert usually hang out with Pete?" Claudia asked.

"They know each other pretty well," I said. "He doesn't hang out with Marty Bukowski, either, but supposedly he played basketball with him the other day. That's what he says, anyway. Maybe his story is partly true. Maybe he played basketball with Marty and went to the mall? Maybe Robert is trying to expand his horizons by hanging out with Marty or something." As soon as I used the term expand his horizons I started worrying all over again. What if he wanted to expand his girlfriend horizons, too?