Ann Martin - Stacey And The Mystery Of Stoneybrook

"When they land at the airport, what will they do with all those suitcases? Will some-

body meet them? Are they going straight to the hospital to see Grandpa?"

I could see that Charlotte needed some distraction. I turned on the TV. Luckily, The Cosby Show, one of Charlotte's favorites, was on. That kept her occupied for half an hour, but as soon as it was over, the questions started up again.

"They must be at the hospital by now. Do you think Grandpa is happy to see them? Grandpa must be scared about his operation. How do they close him up again when it's all over?"

Brother. After I'd explained how stitches work and why a zipper wouldn't be practical, I suggested another game of Clue. But halfway through the game I could see that Charlotte was getting restless. How could I distract her before she came up with another round of questions?

"Have you ever played War, Charlotte?" I asked as I dug into my desk drawer for a deck' of cards. She had never played that game, so I taught her how. "See, you split the deck in half, and then we each turn over a card at the same time. Whoever has the higher card wins. And when we both turn over the same card, we have a War, like this: one, two, three,

WAR! The winner of that gets all those cards. And whoever gets all the cards in the deck first, wins."

Charlotte loved playing War. Personally, I've always thought it was about the most boring card game on the face of the earth, but that night I played twelve games in a row, very happily. Anything to keep Charlotte's mind off her traveling parents, her sick grandpa, and her own homesickness.

After the twelfth game (which Charlotte won), I suggested that it was time for bed. I had some homework to do once she was asleep, and it was getting late. Slowly, she changed into her pajamas. Slowly she brushed her teeth. I could see that she was stalling. She was probably nervous about sleeping in a strange bed. .

I tucked her in and gave her Goobaw to hold. And then, even though Charlotte is a great reader/I read to her from Charlotte's Web. She loves that book, and I love to read to her. "I'm proud to have the same name as that spider," she always says.

After three chapters, just as my throat was beginning to hurt from so much reading aloud, I could see that Charlotte's eyelids were drooping. A few moments later, I stopped reading, and sure enough, she'd fallen asleep.

I tiptoed out of the room, leaving the door open a crack so I'd hear her if she woke up. For a moment I thought about skipping my math homework. I was exhausted! I never would have guessed that having Charlotte visit would take so much energy. It would probably get easier as the week went on, I thought. I hoped. I sat down at my desk and blitzed through the math problems as fast as I could.

By the time I finally got into bed I was too tired even to finish a chapter of the book I was reading, Summer of My German Soldier. I turned off my light and fell asleep right away. When I woke up the next morning, sunlight was streaming through the window. Birds were singing outside. Mom was puttering around in the kitchen downstairs. And Charlotte was sleeping, all cuddled up next to me in my bed, still clutching Goobaw.

Chapter 5.

Charlotte and I got home from school at around the same time on Friday. Mom rushed out for a job interview just as I walked in the door. "Hi, girls! See you at dinnertime," she said as she ran out the door. She looked pretty professional, all dressed up in a suit.

I made a snack for the two of us (Triscuits with mustard spread on them and a piece of cheddar cheese on top — yum!), but Charlotte only picked at the food.

"I don't feel so good, Stacey. My throat's all itchy and I feel dizzy," she said.

I felt her forehead, but she didn't seem hot. I thought she was probably just still having a hard time adjusting. After all, she'd made it through a full day of school — how sick could she be? Anyway, she'd survived the first twenty-four hours without her parents, and I knew it could only get easier as time went on. But I figured she could still use some distraction, and I wasn't about to play any more games of War for awhile.

"Let's walk down the street and take a look at that old house they're tearing down," I said. Charlotte agreed to the plan, but first we deaned up from our snack and changed out of our school clothes. (This all took some time, since Charlotte was still sticking to me like glue.) Finally we set off down the street. I still wasn't all that interested in the old house, but it was something different to do.

It was only about four o'clock when we got to the house, but the workmen had already left for the day. The big old place stood there silently, looking a little forlorn with its porch railings ripped off and its front door gone. There were straggly bushes on both sides of the house and overgrown gardens in front of it. Vines climbed up the porch and twined themselves around the second-story windows. The grass in the yard was almost up to Charlotte's knees. The place seemed oddly quiet all of a sudden.

"Without that front door, the house looks like a person with a tooth missing," said Charlotte. "Let's go inside and look around!"

"No way," I said. "They've started tearing out all the fixtures inside. There could be holes in the floor, or the ceiling might start to come

down. We could really get hurt."

My mom had told me that the Stoneybrook Historical Society had asked the developer to save certain parts of the house, since he was being allowed to tear it down. There was supposedly a huge marble fireplace that was in perfect shape, and the society wanted to preserve it. I wondered if they'd taken that out yet. Also, there were supposed to be some neat old lighting fixtures, from way back when Stoneybrook first got electricity. It was going to take awhile to get all that stuff out of the house. Once they'd removed it all, they could just knock down whatever was left.

Charlotte and I walked around the outside of the house, fighting our way through the weeds and brambles. I had to admit that it was a pretty neat old place, even if I didn't think it rated right up there with Gary Rock-man as hot news. It was built on a huge scale. There was a long porch that wrapped around the front of it, and a smaller one at the back door. One of the upstairs rooms had big windowed doors that opened out onto a little balcony.

It also had several little towers sticking up here and there. Imagine having your bedroom in one of those round turrets — you could pretend you were Rapunzel or something. Charlotte liked that idea.' "Or what if there was a secret trapdoor, so you could be up there and nobody would ever know," she said. One of the things I love about her is her imagination. She is so creative.

As I was checking out the towers, trying to decide which one I would choose for my room, I saw something that made the hair stand up on the back of my neck. There was a face in the window of one of the towers, and it was looking right back at me! I gasped and turned to Charlotte to see if she'd seen it, but she was examining the gingerbread trim on the porch roof. I looked back quickly, but the face had disappeared from the window. Maybe it hadn't really been there in the first place. I was probably just imagining things.

I walked on ahead to catch up with Charlotte. When I found her, her face was dead white. "Did you hear that noise, Stacey?" she asked.

"What noise? I don't hear — " Just then, I did hear it. Something was clanking rhythmically. It sounded like chains being dragged across the floors.