Ann Martin - Claudia And The Phantom Phone Calls

Stacey, on the other hand, dresses pretty much the way I do. She's tall and slender and her mother lets her get her blonde hair permed. She looks older than twelve.

"We could try that new cookie pi— " Mary Anne began, than glanced at Stacey and stopped, remembering the diet problem.

"We could rent a movie for your VCR," I said to Stacey.

"Yeah!" said Kristy.

"Yeah!" said Mary Anne.

"The VCR's broken," said Stace.

"Oh."

I picked up a bright yellow maple leaf and twirled the stem between my thumb and forefinger. "I'll tell you guys a secret," I said. "Well, Stacey knows about this, but no one else does."

"How come you already told Stacey?" asked Kristy accusingly.

"I just did, that's all. Okay?"

I saw Kristy and Mary Anne glance at each other and knew what they were thinking — that Stacey and I left them out of things. Well, maybe we did sometimes.

"Do you want to know the secret or not?"

"Yes," said Kristy grudgingly.

"Okay. Well, here it is ..." I said slowly, trying to drag out the suspense. "I'm in love!"

"Ohh!" said Mary Anne softly.

"You are?" cried Kristy at the same time.

"Who with?" asked Mary Anne.

I sighed deeply. "Trevor Sandbourne." I closed my eyes and leaned against the maple tree.

"Trevor Sandbourne?" repeated Kristy.

Mary Anne squinted at me through her reading glasses and pushed one braid behind her shoulder. "Who's he?"

"Only the most gorgeous boy in school."

"I don't think I've heard of him. Is he in our grade?"

"Yup. He's a poet," I said. I tried to describe him.

"Oh!" exclaimed Kristy, right in the middle of my description. "I know who you mean. He's really quiet. He's in my math class. He sits in the row behind me — right next to Alan Gray."

"Oh, you poor thing," I said. "Alan Gray. Ick."

"Yeah," added Mary Anne, sounding pretty disgusted. I mean, pretty disgusted for Mary Anne, which for most people isn't very disgusted at all. See, Mary Anne lives alone with her father who is really, really strict and ov-erprotective. Because of him, Mary Anne is shy and "held-in," if you know what I mean. Mr. Spier thinks that because Mary Anne's mother is dead, he has to go overboard with this careful upbringing, making Mary Anne super-polite and kind of old-fashioned.

"Who's Alan Gray?" asked Stacey, reminding us that she was a newcomer to Stoney-brook.

"Alan Gray," said Kristy witheringly, "is the most disgusting boy in this whole solar system. He's been awful since kindergarten. Probably

since birth. And I can tell you it's no picnic having Alan sit right in back of me. Yesterday he told Mr. Peters that I was late for class because I had to go to the doctor for a flea bath."

"That's awful!" exclaimed Stacey.

"I know. He really hates me. He doesn't bother anyone else half as much as he bothers me."

"Well, you are the only girl who ever fought him back, you know," I pointed out.

"Yeah," said Kristy with a grin.

A slow smile spread across Mary Anne's face as she remembered what we were talking about. Even Mary Anne had thought it was funny.

"What?" demanded Stacey, looking frustrated.

"Fifth grade," I began. "That year Kristy, Mary Anne, Alan, and I were all in the same class. Kristy really got Alan. He'd been tormenting us — all the girls, really — for the entire year, and by June we had had it. So one day, Kristy comes to school and all morning she brags about this fantastic lunch her mother has packed: a chocolate cupcake, Fritos, fruit salad, a ham and cheese sandwich, two Her-shey's Kisses — really great stuff. Kristy says it's a reward for something or other. And she

says the lunch is so great she's got to protect it by keeping it'in her desk instead of in the coat room. So, of course, Alan steals the bag out of her desk during the morning. Then at noontime in the cafeteria, he makes this big production out of opening it. He's sitting at the boys' table and they're all crowded around, and us girls are looking on from the next table. Alan is the center of attention, which is just what he wants."

"And just what I wanted," added Kristy.

"Right. So Alan carefully takes all the packages and containers out of the bag and spreads them in front of him. Then he begins to open them. In one he finds dead spiders, in another he finds a mud pie."

"David Michael had made it for me," said Kristy. (David Michael is Kristy's little brother. He was four then.)

"She'd even wrapped up a sandwich with fake flies stuck on it."

Stacey began to giggle.

"It was great," said Mary Anne. "Everyone was laughing. And Kristy had packed a real lunch for herself which she'd kept in the coat room. All afternoon, the kids kept telling her how terrific her trick had been."

"The only bad thing," said Kristy, "is that ever since, Alan has thought he has to bother

me constantly in order to keep up his reputation. He's like the plague."

"Thank goodness Trevor isn't like that," I said.

"If he was, you wouldn't have fallen in love with him," Stacey pointed out. She brushed her curly blonde hair out of her eyes.

"That's true. Poets are sensitive and thoughtful."

We fell silent.

Mary Anne flipped idly through The Stoney-brook News. "Taylor's is going to have a sale," she announced.

"Mmm." (I had closed my eyes and was trying to conjure up a picture of Trevor in my mind.)

"There was a fire at the mall this week."

"Mmm."

"Everyone's supposed to get flu shots by November."

"Mmm."

"Aughhh!"

Kristy, Stacey, and I jerked to attention.

"What is it? What is it?" I cried.

Mary Anne had turned pale.

With one shaking hand, she pointed at the paper. With the other hand, she held the paper away from her, as if it might bite.

"Is something on the paper?" I shrieked. I

jumped away. I absolutely hate spiders.

"No, in the paper," Mary Anne managed to say.

Kristy grabbed it from her and she and Stacey kneeled on the ground and leaned over the pages Mary Anne had it opened to.

" 'Angry Pig Goes Hog Wild'?" asked Kristy, reading one of the larger headlines.

"No!" cried Mary Anne.

" 'Depressed Trucker Drives Self Crazy"?" asked Stacey.

"No!"

"What is it, Mary Anne? Just tell us," I shouted. "You're driving MS crazy."

Mary Anne had calmed down a little. She took the paper back and read: " 'Phantom Caller on Rampage in Mercer.' " She cleared her throat and glanced at us. Then she began to read again. " 'The thief, whom police have nicknamed the Phantom Caller, struck again in Mercer on Tuesday night. Following the pattern of his previous burglaries, he began making phone calls, this time to the home of Thornton and Sophia Granville of 236 Witmer Court, shortly after four P.M. He never spoke, simply hanging up the phone when someone answered. The Granvilles left their home at seven-thirty to attend a meeting of the school board. When they returned at ten-fifteen, they

found all of Mrs. GranviUe's jewelry missing. Nothing else had been taken, despite the fact that a considerable amount of silver, as well as Thornton Granvflle's famous and very valuable coin collection, were in the house.

" 'This is the sixth home the Phantom Caller has robbed in the past two weeks, and the second home in Mercer. The first four robberies occurred in New Hope.' " Mary Anne stopped reading.

"So what is so scary about that?" asked Stacey. "You should hear what goes on in New York City every day."

"But don't you see?" asked Mary Anne. "He's getting closer and closer to Stoney-brook — to us. First New Hope, then Mercer. Stoneybrook is the nearest town to Mercer."

"Well, it's still twenty miles away," I said. "Does he always steal jewelry?"

"Yes," replied Mary Anne. "Just jewelry. It says in the next paragraph that he really knows what he's looking for. Now here's the scary part: He makes those phone calls to find out whether anyone's home. But sometimes if the people don't go out he robs them anyway, and they don't know it until they realize the jewelry's missing. He's in the house while they are. He's never hurt anyone, but what do you think he'd do if he met someone face-to-face