Ann Martin - Mary Anne And The Secret In The Attic

There was something about her eyes — they were large and dark, and very expressive. Even though she looked serious in the picture, you could see a little spark of good humor in her eyes. I held the picture up next to Charlotte's face to see if there was any resemblance. At first, I didn't see any. The woman in the picture had blonde hair, and Charlotte's is brown. They both have dark eyes, but Charlotte's didn't look too much like her great-grandmother's. Then I saw it. The dimple. "Charlotte!" I said. "You have a dimple in the exact same place as your great-grandmother had one!"

Charlotte grabbed the picture. "Let's see!" she said. "You're right. Hers isn't showing a lot, because she isn't smiling. That's just how mine is. But you can tell it’s there. Neat!"

I could see that Charlotte suddenly felt connected to the person in the picture, and I was happy for her. But I have to admit that I also felt a twinge of jealousy. Charlotte had that picture, plus a whole box of other pictures, scrapbooks, letters, and other things — all about her family. I don't think my father and I have any of that stuff. At least, I've never seen it. I think he got rid of it after my mother died, because looking at those things was just too painful for him. (Lucky thing he kept his high school yearbooks, at least. Otherwise I

might not have a new stepsister now!)

I was starting to feel kind of sorry for myself, but I snapped out of it when Charlotte's dog, Carrot, ran into the room. Carrot is a little schnauzer, and he loves to be in the middle of things.

"Carrot, no!" said Charlotte, as he started to nose through the box on her lap. "Out of kitchen!"

I laughed. It always sounds so funny to hear the Johanssens tell their dog to get "out of kitchen" — especially when you're in the living room, or the garage, or even outside. It's an all-purpose command that just means "get out of here." Dr. Johanssen, Charlotte's mom, started to say it when she wanted the dog out of the kitchen while she made dinner. But now they all say it, anytime and anywhere, because it's the only command that Carrot ever really pays attention to. (Well, he does know how to "say his prayers," by putting his paws in your lap and laying his head on them.)

Carrot scampered off — heading toward the kitchen, which made me giggle — and Charlotte and I went back to looking through her box. She pulled out a scrapbook full of yellowed newspaper clippings and leafed through it for a minute. "This would be great for the fifth-graders," she said. "They're doing this project of making a pretend 'one-hundred-

year-old newspaper.' It's going to have all the news from Stoneybrook, but from a hundred years ago. They're going to print it up and everything!" She put the book aside and picked up a bundle of letters. "I'll have to spend some time reading these," she said. "They're from my great-grandmother to her mother, who still lived in Denmark. And look! The return address is Stoneybrook. They were already living here by then."

I reached into the box and pulled out an old photo album. "Who are these people?" I asked, pointing to a picture on the first page. It was a big group photo with a bride and groom in the middle of it. The men wore carnations in their buttonholes, and the women wore their hair in fancy buns. Nobody was exactly smiling — I guess people didn't say "cheese" in those days — but they looked happy, anyway.

"Let's see," said Charlotte. She took the picture out of its slot in the book and looked at the back. "Oh, those are some cousins of my great-grandmother's," she said. "The Ottes. They were German."

Charlotte had obviously learned a lot about her family already. I could see that she didn't really need my help with her project, but it was fun to work with her anyway. We went through the whole box, checking to see what

she would have to work with as she put together her family tree.

"This is the most fun project of all," said Charlotte, as she sifted through the box. "I'd rather do this than work on a skit, or do the Stoneybrook history project, or anything. it’s much more exciting to find out about your own family."

I nodded. "Hey, look!" I said, pulling a small, leatherbound book from the box. "This looks like a diary."

Charlotte glanced up, excited. "Really?" she asked. "Let’s see." She opened the little book carefully and looked at the first page. "This is awesome!" she said. "If s my great-grandmother's diary, and it starts with her voyage from Europe." She paged through it for a few minutes. "Wow," she said, in a hushed voice. "Here's an entry about her seeing the Statue of Liberty for the first time, as the ship sailed into New York Harbor."

What a find! Charlotte was going to have one of the best projects in her class, I was sure of it. While she was looking at the diary, I had continued to go through the contents of the box. It was nearly empty by now, but I felt around in the corners and came up with a delicate locket. It was gold, with flowers engraved on it. The initials B.M.H. were etched in fancy script on the back side. There were

tiny diamond chips in a half circle near the bottom. At the top was a link that could attach the locket to a chain. I showed it to Charlotte.

"Oh, it's so pretty," she said. "Do you think it has a picture inside?" She looked it over, trying to figure out how to unfasten it. "I can't get it open," she said, handing it to me. "Can you try?"

I checked the locket over until I found a little slit in the side where I could fit my thumbnail. Carefully, I pried the locket open. I recognized the girl in the picture right away. "If s your great-grandmother again," I told Charlotte. "But she's younger here." In fact, she was just a little girl. She wore a high-necked white dress and high, buttoned boots, and white ribbons in her curly blonde hair. And she looked very much like Charlotte.

I gave the locket to Charlotte, and she held it and gazed at the picture. "We could be twins," she breathed. "Except for our hair. Only she was alive a hundred years ago. Isn't that incredible?"

A chill ran down my spine. I felt as if history were coming to life.

"I'm going to ask my mom if we can find a chain to put this locket on," said Charlotte. "Maybe I can wear it for special occasions." Her eyes lit up. "Maybe I can even wear it to the picnic!"

"What picnic?" I asked.

"Our school is having a special old-fashioned picnic the day before Heritage Day," said Charlotte. "There'll be historical games, and food like they ate in olden times, and if you want to, you can dress up in antique clothes! It's for kids and their parents. My dad can't go, but my mom promised to take me."

"Sounds great," I said. I tried to sound enthusiastic, but once again I was feeling those twinges of jealousy. I'd never gone on a picnic with my mother. I'd never done anything with her. I'd never had the chance to ask her about her parents, or their parents, or any of that stuff. I had no idea how my mom's family had ended up in Stoneybrook — and I'd probably never be able to find out, since my dad wouldn't talk about her.

Charlotte kept on talking, telling me more about the picnic and about the other Heritage Day activities. But I wasn't really paying attention. I was thinking about my own particular family history, and about how little of it I knew. I was suddenly realizing that, in a very basic way, I had no idea who I was.

Chapter 4.

"See you soon, Charlotte," I said as I left her house later that evening. I'd made supper for her (string beans and fish sticks) and gotten her into her pajamas by the time her parents came home. We'd spent most of the evening working on her Heritage Day project, and my head was spinning with the names of all of her relatives. The family tree was partly complete, and Charlotte was about to start on the "personal history" part of her project. She was going to try to figure out exactly when and why her great-grandmother had come to Stoneybrook.