Ann Martin - Stacey And The Haunted Masquerade

"Nobody's cleaned in here for a while," joked Kristy.

Abby sneezed three times in a row. "This dust!" she said. She reached into her backpack, pulled out a surgical mask, and put it on. "I should have dode," she said in a stuffed-up voice.

"How do we start?" I asked. "It would take months to look through every box."

"We don't have to," said Logan. "They're pretty well labeled. All we have to do is find the one from that year."

Logan turned out to be right. It wasn't hard to find the box we needed, and, fortunately, the records inside were neatly alphabetized. I had written down the names of the three girls listed in the yearbook, and it didn't take long to pull out their records. I passed out the files, and everybody started to page through them.

Then I riffled quickly through the box and grabbed one more file, just out of curiosity.

"I have Julia Berkman's file," Kristy reported, "and it says here that she transferred in the following March, to a school for the performing arts."

"Lucky!" Jessi murmured.

"She's not the one we're looking for," said Claudia. "Keep checking."

"Here's Susan Hsia's file," Mary Anne said. "It seems as if her family moved, and I'm trying to figure out when. Oh, here it is. They moved to Sioux Falls — is that in Iowa? — in December."

"It’s id South Dakota," said Abby, still sniffing. "But I dod't think we deed to go out there to track dowd Susad. She's dot our girl, if she left school in Decebber."

Mal was looking through the third file. As I waited, I opened the file I'd grabbed. It was Michael Rothman's. I scanned it quickly and discovered that he was on the football team, and that he had been an average student. There was nothing else very interesting, except for one mention, by a counselor, about "Michael's extreme fear of heights." Hmmm.

"Hold on, hold on!" shouted Mal suddenly, interrupting my thoughts. "This is it! I'm positive!"

We clustered around to look over her shoulder. "It’s Elizabeth Connor," breathed Claudia.

"All it says is that she left school in early November," Mal said. "No further explanation."

"That’s our girl," I said. 'It has to be her."

"And check it out!" exclaimed Jessi. "Where it gives her address? That’s the Johanssens' house, on Kimball Street."

"Wow!" said Mary Anne. "That’s a coincidence. And I have a sitting job there tonight."

'Too bad Elizabeth doesn't still live there," I said. "I'd love to interview her."

Suddenly, Mary Anne and I looked at each other, and I could tell we'd both had the same great idea.

Chapter 12.

Just a few hours after the adventure in the SMS basement, I stood on the Johanssens' front porch, waiting for Mary Anne to answer the door. With me were Matt and Haley Brad-dock. I was sitting for them that night, and they'd been enthusiastic when, after I'd given them an early dinner, I'd suggested a visit to Charlotte's house. (The parents of all three kids had already okayed the idea.) At nine, Haley is a year older than Charlotte, while Matt is a year younger, but the kids are friends. That’s why the plan Mary Anne and I had devised seemed so perfect. We were hoping that if the kids kept each other busy, the two of us would have some time to explore the Johanssens' house, in search of any traces of Elizabeth Connor that still might exist.

It was hard to imagine finding anything new in the Johanssens' house, which is almost as familiar to me as my own. I've spent a lot of time there, since Charlotte is one of my favorite kids to sit for. Actually, she's more than that. She's like a younger sister to me. As only children, we have a special kind of bond.

Also, besides sitting for Charlotte, I've done some sitting for her family's house. Not too long ago, I spent two weeks house-sitting there while the family took a trip to France. I cared for their dog Carrot and kept an eye on

the house. I thought it was going to be an easy job, but it turned out to be, well, challenging. The problem was, somebody else was spending time in the Johanssens' house during those two weeks — and I had had to find out who it was. Believe me, it wasn't an easy mystery to solve, but fortunately, everything turned out all right.

Anyway, as I was saying, the Johanssens' house is very familiar to me. Everything from the dried-flower wreath on the front door to the blue-tiled floor in the neat kitchen seems welcoming and homelike.

I didn't stand on the porch for long. Mary Anne, Charlotte, and Carrot answered the door together, and they were excited. Mary Anne was happy to see me, Charlotte was thrilled to have Matt and Haley for company on a school night, and Carrot was just generally keyed up. He's a schnauzer: a gray dog, with bushy eyebrows, a stubby tail, and a muscular body. I always think Carrot moves as if he has springs inside, and that night was no exception.

"Okay, Carrot, okay," I said, trying to calm him down. "Good dog." (I'm not a huge pet lover, but I am fond of Carrot.) "Hi, Mary Anne. Hi, Charlotte. How are you two?"

"We're fine," said Charlotte, giving me a quick hug. Then she turned to greet Haley and

Matt. "Hey, you guys," she said. "What do you want to do tonight?"

Haley signed to Matt, translating. Matt is deaf, and communicates with American Sign Language. Everyone in the BSC has learned to sign at least a little bit, though Jessi's the only one of us who is really any good. For the most part, we rely on Haley when we need to communicate anything complicated to Matt.

Matt didn't even wait for Haley to finish. He must have figured out what Charlotte had said without needing any translation. He signed back rapidly, and Haley nodded enthusiastically. She turned to Charlotte. "Want to play Ghostbusters?" she asked.

"Definitely!" said Charlotte. "After school today I worked on my collection unit. It’s cool. I also made a ghost detector. We can ghostbust the whole house. Want to come upstairs? I'll show you my stuff."

Two seconds later, the kids had thundered up the stairs, and Mary Anne and I were alone in the living room. "That was easy," I said. "I was a little worried about how we were going to keep them occupied while we searched the house."

"We should have known," said Mary Anne, laughing. "Ghostbuster fever strikes again!"

"It's perfect for us, too," I said. "The kids

will want to check out the whole house, and we can just follow them from room to room, doing our own detective work. Only we won't be looking for ghosts — unless Elizabeth Connor happens to be one." I thought for a second. "You know, as a matter of fact, we don't know if she's still alive or not. She really might be a ghost."

"Stop it," said Mary Anne, grinning as she covered her ears. "I don't even want to think about that possibility."

"I guess if she is a ghost," I mused, "the kids will take care of her. She'll end up in one of those collection units."

"Which would be right where she belongs," said Mary Anne.

"Where who belongs?" asked Haley, who had just come back downstairs, along with Charlotte and Matt.

"Oh, nobody," I said quickly. "Are you guys all set for ghostbusting?"

"Can't you tell?" asked Charlotte. She stood in front of us and twirled around so we could see the equipment that festooned her body. She wore a flashlight in a holster attached to a belt and a homemade contraption (it looked a lot like the one Arnold had made) in a backpack-style sling. She had on what must have been her mother's gardening gloves, which came up to her elbows, and her head

was protected by a bike helmet.

Matt and Haley were also suited up. Matt was wearing a colander on his head, while Haley wore a metal pot. Matt had on a pair of leather work gloves, and Haley wore two oven mitts. (The kids had obviously made a trip to the kitchen.) Both of them carried complicated-looking devices made from shoe-boxes.