Ann Martin - Stacey And The Mystery At The Mall

"Really?" asked Claud, grinning.

"Yeah," said Shannon. "He's been writing me poems and everything."

"I miss Shea," Kristy said with a sigh. "I even miss Jackie."

Jackie Rodowsky is Shea's younger brother, and he's a great kid except for the fact that he's extremely accident-prone. Sitting for him is mostly a matter of damage control.

The phone began to ring then, and we spent some time setting up a few weekend jobs.

"So, what’s going on at the mall?" asked Shannon, when Kristy had hung up after arranging a job with Mrs. Hobart.

"What isn't going on at the mall?" replied Kristy. "It's been a madhouse. First of all, we're still working on setting up the day-care center. And we're all involved in our jobs. On top of that, we're trying to solve this mystery. You won't believe what happened to Stacey yesterday."

We gave Shannon the details, and her eyes grew rounder and rounder as she listened. "Wow!" she said, when we had finished. "So what happens next? Do you guys have a plan?"

"Not really," I said. "We just want to try to figure out what’s going on."

"I've been thinking about it," said Kristy, leaning back in the director's chair and adjusting her visor, "and the more I think about it, the more I wonder about Mr. Morton. He might be involved somehow. There's just something about him that makes me suspicious. I'm always seeing him on the videotapes, talking to those kids. Plus, he seemed so jumpy when I mentioned that I thought the kids belonged to him. He changed the subject fast and started to pace around the room, remember?"

Jessi nodded. "Also, he gave the okay for the day-care center awfully fast. He didn't take much time to think about it. That made me wonder about him. I mean, he didn't stop to look at a budget, or anything like that. And the rent for that storefront is a lot. I saw it on some of the paperwork. How can he afford to lose fifty percent of that every month?"

"I know," Mal admitted. "But I didn't want to question it. I was so happy he said yes. Besides, he seems like such a nice guy. And why would he be involved in stealing from the mall? After all, he is the manager. Shoplifting makes him look bad."

"Whoa!" I said. "Speaking of looking bad, I just remembered something. A while ago there was an article in the paper about the mall. Something about how it was in financial trouble, maybe even on the verge of going bankrupt. It never happened, so I forgot about

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it, but if something was wrong, maybe Mr. Morton was involved."

"I smell a rat, as Watson would say," said Kristy. "This is definitely something to check out."

"Okay," said Mary Anne. "Hew can we find out more about the mall's finances?"

"No problem," said Claud. "All we have to do is go to the library tomorrow and look up back issues of the newspaper. My mom can help us if we get stuck." (Mrs. Kishi is the director of the Stoneybrook Public Library, and she's guided us through this kind of research more than once.)

"Jessi and I won't be able to come," said Mal. "We're sitting for my brothers and sisters, remember?"

"Logan and I kind of have a date," said Mary Anne. "But we can cancel it. We were just planning to go on a picnic."

We convinced Mary Anne to keep her date, and Shannon, Kristy, Claud, and I agreed to meet at the library at noon the next day.

We whipped into action as soon as we arrived at the library. Claudia, who's an ace with the microfiche reader (she is a librarian's daughter, after all) had the machine all ready. Shannon pulled out a pad and pencil for taking notes, and Kristy and I read over

Claud's shoulder as she ran the machine.

"I guess we look up Washington Mall," said Claudia. She ran through a few pages until Kristy stopped her.

"There!" she said, pointing. She read off a date, and Shannon noted it down. "And there's another," said Kristy. "But these articles are really recent. They're probably about the kids who were arrested. We need to look further back."

Ten minutes later, we had a whole list of dates to check out. One by one, Claudia found the articles on the microfiche and we read through them. Sure enough, the recent ones were about the wave of shoplifting at the mall, and how the problem had been "solved" by the arrests of five teenagers. But when we looked at the articles from several months before, we "hit paydirt," as Kristy said.

First, there was a piece about how the previous mall manager, Ms. Richards, had retired. It mentioned that Mr. Morton had been promoted to the position. Before that, he had been some kind of assistant manager. Next, there were a whole bunch of stories about new and exciting happenings at the mall, such as a book drive that was held to benefit a homeless shelter in Stamford, and free Sunday concerts for kids. Mr. Morton seemed to be the driving force behind the "new, community-

minded spirit at the Washington Mall," according to one reporter.

The next artides we read weren't quite so upbeat. One raised the question of a "misappropriation of mall funds." And the next two discussed the possibility of the mall filing for bankruptcy. The second one even referred to the fact that Ted Morton was being investigated, though it wasn't dear why.

"Whoa," said Shannon, looking over the notes she had made. "This doesn't look so good. Your Mr. Morton sounds like he's into some bad business."

"I know I was the one who suspected him first, but now that I see these articles, I don't want to believe it," said Kristy. "I mean, he's such a nice guy. And he's done a lot of good for the mall — and for the community."

"True," said Claudia, as she turned off the microfiche machine and leaned back in her chair, "but there's obviously something funny going on."

"It still doesn't add up, though," said Shannon. "I mean, what about those kids you mentioned? Where do they fit in?"

We looked at each other and shrugged. Our research hadn't made anything dear — in fact, as we left the library that day, we only felt more confused.

The next day, Sunday, my friends and I headed over to the mall for the painting party. Charlie drove us in Watson's van. "You guys sure look different from the last time I saw you," he said as he dropped us off. It was true. That afternoon, we had been dressed in our best clothes. This time we were wearing stuff we'd found in the rag-bag. Claudia, for example, had wrapped a neon-pink bandana around her head, and she was wearing a humongous pair of overalls over an ancient striped T-shirt. "Didn't you know?" she asked Charlie with a grin. "This is the latest fashion. We're always on the cutting edge."

The painting party was a blast. April had supplied a tape player, and everybody had brought along their favorite cassettes. Mr. Williams surprised us with some cool old rock from the 60s, and Ms. Snyder's choke, classical music, was actually pretty nice to paint to. We divided up the room into sections and split up our group into teams, and then everybody got to work. I was in the toddler corner with Claudia and Ms. Snyder, while Kristy, Mary Anne, and April worked in the baby area. Logan, Jessi, Mal, and Mr. Williams were painting the older kids' section.

By noon, we were splattered with white paint, and the walls were nearly covered. We decided to eat lunch while we waited for the

first coat to dry. Claudia nudged me as we unwrapped our sandwiches, and when I followed her glance I saw Mr. Williams offering some crackers to Ms. Snyder, with a look on his face that could only mean one thing. "I think he has a crush on her," Gaud whispered to me. We giggled.

After lunch, I worked with Kristy and Mary Anne. We talked a lot (quietly) about Mr. Mor-ton and the mystery at the mall, but none of us had come up with any new ideas. "I wish I could slip into his office and go through his files," said Kristy. "I could probably get the key to it at the security office."