Ann Martin - Stacey And The Haunted Masquerade

The kids looked at each other, bewildered.

"And what about your collection units?" she asked.

The kids looked even more confused. Abby grinned. "Don't have any?" she asked. "No problem. Who got new shoes for school this fall?"

Byron, Nicky, Margo, and Claire raised their hands.

"Still have the boxes?" Abby asked.

They nodded.

"Run and find them," she said. "We'll have our equipment ready in a second."

Sure enough, it didn't take long to transform the shoeboxes with markers and stickers, and attach straps made of string, using plenty of

tape. As soon as they were finished, Abby helped two kids on each team put the boxes on, backpack style. "Cool!" she said. "Now we're all set. Let’s see which team can catch more ghosts. Ready? Go!" She dashed up the stairs, leading her team.

Mal told us later that the rest of the afternoon flew by. The Pike house practically shook with crashes and bangs and shouts, but no permanent damage was done, and the kids had a terrific time.

Mal led her team through the downstairs and into the basement, helping them corner and capture various "ghosts" as they came across them.

"Here's a laundry ghost!" called Claire, opening the dryer door. "Catch him, quick!"

Vanessa scooped the "ghost" into her collection unit.

"There's some ectoplasm dripping down this wall!" yelled Margo.

"Take a sample," Mal told her. "We'll analyze it later, in the lab."

Meanwhile, upstairs, things were a little wilder. Mal heard the shrieks and screams, but she didn't learn the details until later, when Nicky and the triplets filled her in.

First, Abby led the boys on a search of the upstairs bedrooms. They entered each room

like a police SWAT team, pushing the door open with their weapons at the ready.

"Remember, never cross the streams!" Abby shouted as they fired at a "ghost" in their parents' room. "That could really mess things up."

The team collected closet ghosts, bathroom ghosts, under-the-bed ghosts, and sock-drawer ghosts until Abby declared the upstairs "free of ghostly presences." Then they headed for the attic stairs.

Abby stopped at the bottom of the stairs. "Give me the ghost detector," she told Byron.

He unslung the shoebox from his shoulder and handed it over.

Abby "took a reading" and pretended to inspect the dials. "Just as I suspected," she said. "The readings are extremely high. Better let me go up first, on my own. I'll call you as soon as I'm sure it’s safe." She held up the flashlight she'd been carrying. "Don't worry about me," she said bravely. "I have my weapon charged." She fished a surgical mask out of her pocket (she wears one whenever she might run into dust) and put it on, which made her look even more official. Then she headed up the stairs.

The boys waited for a few seconds. No sound came from above. They waited a few

seconds more, expecting Abby to call them any minute. They heard a loud thump, and then there was nothing but silence.

"Abby?" Adam finally called in a quavery voice.

"Are you okay?" Jordan added.

"We'd better go up after her," said Byron uncertainly.

"Do you think something — you know — caught her?" Nicky asked.

"I'm going to check," said Adam, trying to sound firm. "You guys coming?"

"Of course," Jordan replied.

"Sure," said Byron, adjusting his weapon.

"Yup," said Nicky.

"Okay, let’s go!" Adam cried. He led the charge up the stairs, with the others dose behind him.

As the four of them entered the dark attic, Abby sprang out from behind a post, holding the flashlight beneath her chin to give herself a ghoulish appearance. (She'd taken off her mask just for a second.) "Bwah-hah-hah-hah!" she shrieked.

"Aaaaaaaaah!" yelled the boys.

Jordan was the first to catch himself. "It’s a ghost!" he hollered. "Watch out! I'm a ghost-buster!" He lifted his weapon and "fired," and the other boys joined in.

Abby turned off the flashlight and slumped to the floor with the moan of a dying ghost, and then she sneezed, and they all cracked up. Ghostbusting had never been so much fun.

Chapter 5.

"Mischief Knights?"

"What are the Mischief Knights?"

"Who are the Mischief Knights, and what are they going to do next?"

Those were the questions everybody was asking on Monday. That day will definitely go down in SMS history: the day the Mischief Knights first struck. I know I'll never forget it, and I have a feeling that SMS students will be talking about mat day, and about the Mischief Knights, for years to come.

For me, it started when I was at my locker before homeroom on Monday. It was taking me a long time to wake up that morning. You know how that is? On some days you jump out of bed and plunge right into your routine, but on others you just feel as if you're in a fog for half the day. Well, that morning the fog was as thick and heavy as pea soup. I wasn't

thrilled about being at school. All I wanted to do was run back home, jump into bed, and snuggle under the covers.

Instead, I was rummaging around in my locker, trying to find the books I would need for that morning's classes. And then, through the fog, I began to realize that something wasn't right. The books I needed weren't there.

"What’s going on?" I heard someone ask. Which was exactly what I had been about to say.

I closed my locker door partway and looked around to see who had spoken. It was Sabrina Bouvier, whose locker is about five lockers over from mine. Sabrina is nice enough, but she looks as if she's thirteen going on thirty. (She trowels on the makeup and dresses like an actress on a soap opera.) At that moment, she peered at me. Her perfectly tweezed brows were mushed together as she frowned. "This isn't my stuff," she said, holding up two textbooks, and a green spiral notebook.

I recognized the notebook immediately. It was my social studies notebook, the one I had been doodling on in homeroom the week before. "That’s mine!" I cried, blushing a little when I saw all the hearts I'd drawn. "What’s it doing in your locker?"

Sabrina looked bewildered. "I have no idea," she said.

I reached into my locker and pulled out a pile of books. "Are these by any chance yours?" I asked her. Somehow, I just knew they were.

She took two steps toward me. "This is so weird," she said. "How did my stuff find its way into your locker?"

Just then, a folded scrap of white paper fell out of one of her books and drifted to the floor. "What’s that?" I asked. I picked it up and unfolded it. This is what I saw:

I showed it to Sabrina. "What’s this all about?" I asked.

She shrugged. "How should I know?" Just then, the first bell rang. "Quick, give me my sniff," she said. I handed it over, and she gave me my books. Then she took off, heading toward the girls' bathroom, probably so she could check her "face" before homeroom.

That was my introduction to the Mischief Knights. But I wasn't the only one meeting them that day. Their handiwork showed up

all over SMS, and by lunchtime there wasn't anybody in the school who hadn't heard of them.

"Rick Chow told me they left a message on the blackboard in the music room," Claudia said as she bit into a Ring-Ding she'd pulled out of her backpack.

"What did it say?" asked Mary Anne. She was picking at the grayish slice of Salisbury steak that sat in the middle of her plate.

"It said 'Don't buy the Salisbury steak/ " Kristy joked, poking at the meat on her own plate. "Man, this stuff is disgusting. It reminds me of something Boo-Boo dragged in from the garden." (Boo-Boo is 10181/8 stepfather's geriatric cat.)

"Kristy!" Mary Anne said.

"Sorry," Kristy apologized with a grin. She dug into her mashed potatoes. "So what did the message really say?" she asked Claudia.

"Something about how the Mischief Knights couldn't be stopped."