Ann Martin - Claudia And The Phantom Phone Calls

I grinned at her. "Now you see how Stacey and I feel. That's why we sit at the lunch table with the boys. They like us. At least, they don't hate us. And it's pretty nice to be asked to a dance, isn't it?"

Kristy nodded, looking confused. "I don't quite understand all this," she said slowly. "I mean, how am I going to explain it to Mary

Anne? And, oh, gosh, can you imagine what my brothers will do when they see me getting ready to go to a dance?"

"Well, you can't back out now. Look, two nights from now, it will all be over. I think Mary Anne will understand. And Stacey and I will help you get ready before the dance. So don't worry."

We had reached our houses. "Thanks, Clau-dia," said Kristy. "I'll see you tomorrow."

" 'Bye." I sounded a lot more cheerful than I felt. As I crossed the street, all I could think was that Emily and Dorianne were going to the Halloween Hop, Stacey was probably going to the Halloween Hop (even though it would be with Pete Black, not Sam Thomas), Mary Anne didn't care about the Halloween Hop, and now Kristy was going to the Halloween Hop. And I wasn't. The boy I wished I could go to the Halloween Hop with didn't know anything about me, except that I had once dropped a plate of Jell-O in his lap.

I opened the front door to my house, let myself in, called hello to Mimi and my parents, and went to my room. I closed the door and lay down on my bed. Planning on being depressed for a while, I pulled a piece of saltwater taffy out of the stash in my pencil jar.

I was chewing away thoughtfully when someone knocked on my door. I didn't really want to talk to anyone, except maybe Mimi.

"Who is it?" I yelled.

"Janine."

Groan, groan. I wanted to talk to Janine less than I wanted to talk to a snake. "I can't talk now!"

"I think we'd better. This is urgent."

"Oh, all right. Come in." (Mimi would have been proud of me.)

Janine slipped into my room, closed the door quietly behind her, and perched at the foot of my bed. "What were the police doing at the Newtons'?" she asked me.

I popped another piece of taffy in my mouth before I had finished the first one. "Tap dancing," I managed to say.

"Claudia. ..."

"How'd you know they were there?"

"Mrs. Gordon was giving me a lift home from the university and I saw the squad car driving away. I didn't think it could be too serious. There were no flashing lights. But I didn't tell Mom and Dad."

"You didn't?" I asked, feeling somewhat amazed. It's not that Janine is a tattletale, just that it's unlike her to be imaginative enough

to think I might be in some kind of trouble that I wanted to cover up.

"No." Janine shook her head.

"Well, thanks," I said. "I mean, it's okay if they know. I'm going to tell them about it in a little while. But thank you for waiting to talk to me first."

Janine smiled and spread her hands, as if to say, No problem — which of course she wouldn't have said, not being one to use slang if she could help it.

"What did happen?" she asked. "Will you tell me first?"

"Sure," I said enthusiastically, sitting up. "Would you like a piece of taffy?" Remembering what Mimi had told me, I planned on making the most out of that sisterly, but unusual, moment.

"All right," said Janine.

I handed her a peppermint piece, and began telling her about Alan. "So then," I said, "I snuck — "

"Sneaked."

" — Whatever — into the living room, and someone was at the window!"

"What did you do?" she asked, her dark eyes shining.

"I called the police."

"You didn't scream?"

"Nope. Just went to the telephone." I told her the rest of the story.

"Gosh, you certainly were brave," Janine said appreciatively.

"I guess so," I replied. "I didn't feel brave at the time, though. I just knew that Kristy and I had to protect the children."

"I'm really proud of you."

"You are?"

"Yes. I'm proud you're my sister."

"Wow, I — Thanks. . . . Janine?"

"What?"

"How come you don't come to my room and talk to me like this more often?"

"Because you usually tell me to shut up or go away or mind my own business."

"Well, that's because you usually start talking like some big show-off professor. When we were little, we used to have fun. You talked like a kid."

Janine frowned. "Am I talking like a professor now?"

"No. But . . . but you're always telling me all this stuff I don't want to know, like how the fear process works. Who cares?"

"I do. Those things are interesting to me."

"Not to me."

"What is interesting to you?" asked Janine.

"Oh, mysteries and scary stories and babysitting and painting."

Janine nodded. "What happened tonight was exciting."

"Yeah!"

"I'm glad you let me come in and talk."

"Me, too," I said.

"Maybe we could do this more often?" Janine sounded a bit timid.

"Sure. I have a lot of other candy hidden around my room."

Janine smiled. "I'll tell you a secret. I do, too."

"You do?"

"Mm-hmm. It's my vice."

I wasn't sure what a vice was, but I wasn't about to ask. "I didn't know that."

"There are a lot of things you don't know about me."

"Same here."

"Well, let's go tell Mom and Dad what happened."

"Okay."

So we did. Mom and Dad and Mimi were pretty proud, too. After that, Janine gave me one final review for the math test the next day. She didn't seem to bug me as much as usual.

Everything was fine until I got into bed.

Then I thought of two things that made me feel sort of chilly all over. The first was that Trevor hadn't asked me to the dance.

The second was much worse. If Alan had been making the scary calls to Kristy over the past couple of weeks, then who had been making the calls to me? I'd gotten them several different times when I'd been baby-sitting, and the Phantom was still at large. . . . Was it possible, just possible, that he was after me?

No, I decided a few seconds later. It wasn't very likely at all. The Phantom went after jewelry, not people. And especially not people who didn't have any jewelry. How would Nancy Drew think if this were a mystery and she were the sleuth? I wondered. She would analyze the clues. She would review all her information.

Well, I thought, Kristy had received mysterious phone calls. I had received mysterious phone calls. Kristy's caller turned out to be Alan, a boy who secretly liked her. Maybe my caller was a boy, too! After all, Alan had looked in our record book. Maybe he had shown it to someone else.

Who could have a crush on me? Rick Chow? Maybe. Howie? I needed more clues.

I rolled over on my side and fell asleep.

The awful mystery was cleared up the next afternoon on what turned out to be a red-letter day. First, I took the math test. I worked very carefully and was the last kid to turn my test in. I wasn't sure how well I'd done, but I knew I had tried my best, which is not something I can say often.

But, boy, was I surprised when Mr. Peters found me at my locker at the end of the school day and said, "Congratulations, Claudia!"

"On what?" I asked warily.

"I started grading the test papers at lunch today. Yours was on top. I thought you'd like to know that you got an eighty-six."

"Really? An eighty-six? What is that, a B?"

"A 'B' or a B-plus, depending on how the rest of the class does. I can tell you've been working hard. It's really showing. Keep it up."

"I will, oh, I will! Thank you!"

As if that weren't enough excitement, I was baby-sitting for Nina and Eleanor Marshall a couple of hours later when the phone rang. I picked it up nervously.

No one was there.

"Darn," I said, as I replaced the receiver.

"What?" asked Nina.

"Oh, just a — a wrong number." Was it my secret caller? I actually began to hope the phone would ring again!