Ann Martin - Kristy's Mystery Admirer

"I brought the letters with me. Look." I spread the notes out on the table. I had even saved the envelopes because I liked the stickers on them.

Mary Anne, Dawn, Claud, and Stacey bunched around the letters.

" 1 love you, I love you, I love you/ " Mary Anne read. She sighed. "That is so, so romantic."

"Distant," added Claudia.

"But you guys don't really think they're from — "I stopped. We had an audience. The boys at one table were watching us with great curiosity, and at the next table, Cokie Mason was peering rudely at us. Then she turned to Grace and snickered.

I put the letters away in a hurry.

"Don't pay any attention to Cokie and those guys," said Stacey.

"Yeah. They're probably jealous. I bet none of them ever got a love note from a secret admirer," said Mary Anne.

"I wonder why the letters are all typed," Stacey was saying.

"SHH!" (I hissed it.) "I already told you. It's so the mystery admirer can disguise his handwriting."

"Then they must be from Bart Taylor. Who else would need to disguise his writing?"

"Sam/' I said.

Cokie and her friends got up then and left the cafeteria. They didn't even bother to clear off the table they'd been sitting at.

"What pigs," I said.

As you can tell, we do not like Cokie and her group very much. And we have good reason not to.

"Remember Halloween?" spoke up Mary Anne, just as I was about to say the same thing. I guess that's a sign of being best friends.

"Boy, do I ever," said Claudia.

"What? What happened on Halloween?" asked Stacey. (She'd been back in New York then.)

"Mary Anne started getting these weird, threatening notes. Someone even sent her a bad-luck charm. And then, we really did have bad luck. We thought we were . . . well, I'm not sure what we thought," said Claudia fal-teringly, "but anyway, it turned out that Cokie and her friends were behind everything. They wanted to make us look like jerks, because

they liked Logan and wanted him to hang around with them — not with jerks."

"So what happened?" asked Stacey.

"We made them look like jerks. And we did it in the middle of the graveyard at midnight on Halloween."

"Don't ask what possessed us." Dawn giggled. "Get it? Possessed us?"

We laughed.

"I really don't know where we found the courage to do that, but we did," I said. "Mal and Jessi were with us. The BSC sticks together."

The five of us were silent for a few moments, thinking, I guess, about Cokie and Logan and Halloween. Then the bell rang. Lunch was over. We cleaned up our table before we left the cafeteria.

That afternoon I baby-sat for David Michael and Emily. As usual, Mom and Watson were at work, Charlie and Sam were at after-school sports, and Nannie had bowling practice. Nannie is in a senior citizens league. They play, really well. Nannie even has a trophy in her bedroom.

Nannie is a character and I love her. We all do. Emily Michelle is especially attached to her. Infect, she cried as she and David Michael

and I stood at the front door and watched Nannie drive off in the Pink Clinker. (That's Nannie's old car, and it really is pink. Nannie had it painted pink on purpose because she likes the color.)

"Come on, Emily," I said as I closed the door. "Nannie will be back soon. She has to practice her bowling."

"Yeah, you want her to be a champ, don't you?" asked David Michael.

"Cookie," Emily replied pathetically.

"Boy, she sure learns fast, doesn't she?" I said to my brother. "Okay, one cookie, Emily. Just one."

"Can I have one, too?" asked David Michael. He made a sad face. "I miss Nannie. A cookie will make me feel better."

I punched him playfully on the arm and he grinned.

The three of us were just finishing our snack when the doorbell rang. "I'll get it," I said. "David Michael, keep an eye on Emily, okay?"

My brother nodded.

I ran to the front door, opened it, and saw nobody. But a note was lying next to the mat. My heart began to pound. Another letter from my mystery admirer! I grabbed it up and read it before I'd even closed the door. When I'd finished, my heart was still pounding, because

this note was . . . weird. It said, "I love you, I love you, I love you, but beware. Love is fickle. So are friends. Watch out for your mystery admirer."

Of course I called Shannon immediately, praying that for once she'd be home after school and able to come over. She was and she did. While David Michael and Emily played and watched TV, Shannon and I discussed the note. We examined every angle. We read it and reread it.

"I hate to admit it, but maybe I was wrong," said Shannon shakily. "This couldn't be from Bart. This note is sort of ... twisted."

"What if it is from Bart?" I asked. "Maybe he's crazy."

"He's not crazy! I go to school with him. I ought to know. Maybe somebody else sent it."

"No. It looks just like the others."

"How come you're so willing to believe Bart is your mystery admirer all of a sudden?" asked Shannon.

"I'm not. I mean, I don't know. But if he is, then I've invited a psycho to the Halloween Hop."

Chapter 7.

Mallory and Jessi did have a fun afternoon. It started right after lunch, as Jessi was arriving at Mal's house, and Mr. and Mrs. Pike were leaving.

Claire was running around with a clown mask on her face, calling everyone a silly-billy-goo-goo, when Margo said, "Maybe I'll be a clown for Halloween this year."

"Oh, that is so ordinary," retorted Vanessa, who is nine and plans to be a poet one day.

"Well, what are you going to be?" asked Margo. (Margo is seven.)

"A poet," replied Vanessa in a superior voice.

"What does a poet look like?" wondered Nicky. (He's eight.) But he didn't wonder for long. "I better think of a costume," he added.

"We all better," said Byron, one of the ten-year-old triplets.

"I'm going to be a giraffe," said Claire.

"In your dreams," replied Jordan (another triplet). "How would you be a giraffe? How would you see? You would have to stretch your neck out about ten feet to get your head under a giraffe mask."

Mal and Jessi laughed. They were sitting with the kids in the Pikes' rec room. The day was dreary and no one felt like going outside.

"I will wear the giraffe neck on my head/' said Claire haughtily. "I'll make little eyeholes in the neck so I can see out."

"You have to admit that's clever," said Adam, the third triplet.

The Pike kids looked impressed.

"I'm going to be a hobo this year," spoke up Nicky.

"Lame," said Jordan. "I'm going to be a mummy."

"I suppose no one's ever been a mummy before," said Mal, eyeing her brother.

Jordan made a face. Then he brightened. "I know. I'll be a headless mummy. Now that's original!"

"I wonder what I can do to look like a poet," mused Vanessa.

"Dress up like a pen?" suggested Margo.

"No, I want to look like a poet. I mean, a poetess." She paused. "Mallory? Do poetesses wear berets on their heads and look raggedy?"

"Nope. Those are starving artists," replied Mal.

The triplets began to rifle through the Pikes' box of dress-up clothes and props. They pulled out hats and masks and a doctor's bag. Then Adam found a spool of thread. A simple spool of thread.

"What's that doing in there?" asked Jessi.

"I don't know," Adam answered, "but I just got a great idea."

"What?" asked the others.

"You guys, we should make a haunted house in our basement. We'll set it up on Hallo ween — that's a Saturday — and during the day, kids can come through it. We'll have ghosts and moving things and lots of scary stuff. We can use the thread for cobwebs. We'll charge ten cents or maybe twenty-five cents apiece. Everyone will get their money's worth!"

"That," replied Jordan, "really is a great idea."