Ann Martin: Claudia And The Phantom Phone Calls

"Yeah. In case there's a burglar listening in on the phone, the person who gets the phone call should answer in code to let the baby-sitter know her message was understood and that the friend knows where she's sitting and everything," added Stacey.

"How about this for the answer?" suggested Mary Anne. "The person would say, 'No, the blue one.' It's simple, and it's still in code."

"That's good," said Kristy, but I could see her shiver at the very thought of a burglar listening in on her conversation.

"I think we should also have a way to let someone know whether we're in really big trouble," said Stacey, "like if a burglar is in the house and we've actually seen him — or whether we just think there's trouble."

"Yeah," I replied. "That's important."

"Okay," said Kristy, "how about this: After

the person who gets the call for help goes, 'No, the blue one/ the baby-sitter goes, 'Now I'm in for it/ if there's big trouble, or, 'That's okay/ if she's not sure there's trouble?"

"All right," we agreed.

"I sure hope I can keep all this straight," I said.

"Let's practice," Kristy suggested. "Claudia, let's say you're baby-sitting for David Michael at my house and you hear a noise at the window. What would you do?"

"I'd call Stacey," I said.

"Let's hear your conversation. Remember, you don't know where the burglar is, if there is a burglar, so you have to use the code."

"Okay. . . . Okay, I'd pick up the phone and call Stace— "

"Ring! Ring! Ring!" said Kristy, imitating the phone.

Stacey placed an imaginary receiver at her ear. "Hello?"

"Hi, Stace. It's Claud. Did you see my ribbon?"

"No. Have you found my red ribbon?" interrupted Kristy.

"No, I haven't," I said.

"Claud! Come on. Do it right."

"I'm trying. . . . Okay. Ring, ring, ring."

"Hello?" said Stacey.

"Hi, it's Claudia. How are you?"

"Not 'How are you'!" cried Kristy. "Get to the point. You're not making a social call. You're scared to death!"

I sighed. "Hi, Stacey. It's me, Claudia. Have you . . . have you found my red ribbon?"

Silence. Then Stacey burst out laughing. "I forget what I'm supposed to say!"

Kristy looked ready to kill us. "Claud, call Mary Anne instead."

"Okay, Ring, ring."

"Hello?"

"Hi, Mary Anne. It's Claudia. Have you found my red ribbon?"

"No, I haven't."

"No, the blue one!" shouted Kristy. "Mary Anne, you made up this part of the code. You ought to know it."

"I know. I just — I don't know. Start over, Claud."

We practiced a while longer, until we had the code pretty well memorized. Even so, Kristy told us that when we each had a copy of the code words, we should read them over once a day to make sure we didn't forget them. She is so bossy sometimes.

Later, as the girls were getting ready to leave my room, Mary Anne suddenly clapped her

hand over her mouth. "Oh, no!" she exclaimed.

"What is it?" I asked.

"I just thought of something. What if my father hears about the Phantom Caller? I bet he won't let me baby-sit anymore."

"But we decided we don't have to worry about the Phantom Caller," I pointed out.

"I know, but if Dad finds out about our code words, forget it. It'll give him something to worry about. I don't think he's thought of robbers and stuff."

"Maybe we should keep all this a secret from all our parents," said Kristy. "You know how parents are. Mary Anne's right. They're big worry-warts. Let's just go on as if we never thought of any of these things today. Agreed?"

"Agreed!"

The emergency meeting of the Baby-sitters Club was over. But our adventure was just beginning.

Chapter 4.

There he is! There he is! I told myself excitedly. A Trevor-sighting was always a big event.

I was dodging through the halls of Stoney-brook Middle School trying to remain a safe distance behind Trevor Sandbourne without losing sight of him. It was eight o'clock. The first bell would ring in exactly two minutes.

Trevor came to a sudden stop outside the door to the office of The Literary Voice. I stopped, too, and someone ran into me from behind. Crash! We fell against some lockers. I turned around. I was face-to-face with Alan Gray.

"Watch where you're going!" I said. I straightened my bow tie with the little scottie dogs on it, and patted my hair to see if any damage had been done. My hair is long and I can do lots of things with it. That day I had fixed it in five slim braids, and looped each one up on my head, holding them in place

with beaded barrettes that had sparkly streamers attached to them.

"Me! What about you?" said Alan as he straightened his books. Then he stalked off, saying in a soft, singsong voice, "Claud and Trevor sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G."

Oh, he makes me so mad! And how did he know about my crush on Trevor, anyway? Someone must have let the cat out of the bag, and I had a good idea who that someone was.

The bell rang then and I had to run all the way to my homeroom. I sat through the roll call and the morning announcements thinking of Trevor. I had this daydream about us:

Our grade is being taken on a field trip to visit the colonial Bradford Mansion in Wuth-erby. We're split into groups and Trevor and I are in the same group. After we tour the house, we go out back to the gardens and start wandering through the giant maze made of yew hedges. Trevor and I reach a dead end together and are just about to turn around when we realize it's snowing, even though it's June.

"Hey, whaf s that?" says Trevor. He points to a little wooden door hidden in the bushes.

"I don't know," I reply. "Let's see. Maybe we can get out of the snow for a while."

We open the door and find ourselves in another world. The snow is gone, and so are the maze, the Bradford Mansion, and the other kids. We're no longer in Wutherby. For all I know, we're not even on Earth. Maybe we're in the fourth dimension. It doesn't matter. Wherever we are, we're alone together. . . .

"Claudia?"

I shook myself awake. Darn. I have never been able to finish that daydream. If my teachers would just leave me alone, I could find out what happens.

"Yes?" I was in math class. It was the third time that morning that I'd started the dream.

"May I have your homework, please?" Our teacher, Mr. Peters, was peering at me with great concern. Most of my teachers look at me that way.

"Oh. Sure." I got my homework paper out of my notebook and placed it on the pile. I knew it was all correct because Janine had been my helper for my weekend homework, and she was a real stickler for the math problems, as you can probably imagine.

"Claudia, Claudia," she was always saying, with as much concern as my teachers. "You're confusing whole numbers with even numbers. A whole number can be even or odd, just as long as it's a negative or positive integer."

Well, that certainly cleared things up. Why can't Janine talk to me like a normal person? When we were little, she used to be normal. We would play together and have fun. She even seemed to have some sort of an imagination, although that's hard to believe now.

Math class ended and I headed slowly for English. I've been dreading English for the last couple of weeks because of this book we're reading. It's called The Pond and I'll be honest with you, I just don't get it. It's not that I don't understand the words; I know all the vocabulary. It's just that I'm not getting much out of it except that this kid goes squirrel-hunting a lot. I'm sure there's more to the story than that — some kind of message — but I don't know what it is. Furthermore, I don't care. Maybe if I didn't try to read it so fast. . . .

School is absolutely a complicated mess. Give me Nancy Drew any day.

In English we had to read aloud from The Pond. The teacher told me to read with more feeling. Then she handed back these vocabulary quizzes we'd taken the week before. I got a seventy. That was not going to please anybody in my family. It didn't please me. I know that you spell October O-C-T-O-B-E-R, but I'd written O-C-O-R-E-R. Pay attention, Claudia.