Ann Martin - Claudia And the Clue in the Photograph

And finally, we sat down with the dub record book and figured out a schedule for the shoot. Not everybody in the BSC would be available that day. Logan was going away for the weekend with his family, and Stacey was going to New York to visit her dad. (She'd be coming back late Sunday afternoon, though, so we planned to meet her at the train station and take pictures of her arrival.) Kristy had a softball game with her team, the Krushers, first thing in the1 morning. Since many of the kids who wanted to be part of the project are also Krushers, we decided to meet on the ball-field on Sunday morning. We would take some pictures of the game, and then split up into smaller groups to cover the rest of Stoneybrook.

I woke up early on Sunday morning and, with my fingers crossed, jumped right out of

bed to pull up my shades. As soon as I saw the blue sky outside, I grinned. It was a perfect day, just what we'd been hoping for. I dressed quickly, in jeans and my Hard Rock Cafe T-shirt (no high fashion today; I was planning to work hard) and started to load my camera bag. I'd be shooting in black and white, since I wanted to be able to develop my pictures myself, and I had stocked up on film. I stuck two rolls into the outside pocket of my bag and loaded a third into the Minolta. Our Day in the Life of Stoneybrook was about to begin, and I was ready.

I was itching to start taking pictures, so I left my room with the camera around my neck. Just as I was heading for the stairs, I heard the bathroom door open. I whirled around, raised my camera, and started snapping away.

"Claudia!" cried Janine. "What do you think you're doing?" At least, that’s what it sounded like. Her words were kind of garbled.

I lowered the camera and took a better look at her. She was wearing this ratty old pink robe that she refuses to give up, and there was a yellow towel wrapped turban-style around her head. Her voice had sounded funny because she was in the midst of brushing her teeth and her mouth was full of foamy white toothpaste.

"Oops," I said, trying to hide a grin. "Hey,

it’s all just part of our project, Janine!" I said. "Don't you want to be included? I see the caption saying something like 'Janine Kishi prepares for her day, looking forward to — ' hey, what are you doing today?" I asked.

"Going on a picnic with Jerry," she said. "And if you assume I'm going to reveal our destination, you're most definitely mistaken." She shook her toothbrush at me and stomped back into the bathroom.

Jerry is Janine's boyfriend. For a second I thought about trying to follow them and take candid shots without their seeing me, but then I remembered the very full schedule we'd made up for the day. There was no way I could fit anything else in. I shrugged and headed downstairs, where I quickly snapped pictures of my dad making waffles and my mom reading the Sunday paper. As soon as I'd finished my breakfast, I grabbed my camera bag and headed over to the ballfield.

The Krushers were playing Bart’s Bashers that day. Bart Taylor, the guy who manages the Bashers, is Kristy’s boyfriend — although she'd kill me if she heard me say that. She insists she's "not into that boyfriend-girlfriend stuff." The game was almost over when I arrived, and the scene at the field was totally chaotic. Buddy Barrett was on first base, and Suzi

was up at bat. Jamie Newton, who's four, was waiting for his turn to hit. He was holding a blue plastic camera (the kind made for kids) and trying to focus on Kristy and Bart, who were talking over on the sidelines. Charlotte Johanssen, who's nine, was leading cheers, along with Haley Braddock (also nine) and Vanessa Pike. Becca, Jessi's sister, had talked them into making a mini-pyramid for a picture she wanted to take, but the pyramid kept collapsing because the girls were giggling too hard.

I found Jessi, Mal, Shannon, and Mary Anne sitting together behind the backstop. "Have you guys started taking pictures yet?" I asked.

"Absolutely," said Jessi, grinning. "I caught Aunt Cecelia in her fuzzy slippers, Shannon took some pictures of her sister playing dress-up, and Mary Anne has already taken a roll and a half of Tigger playing with a catnip mouse." Tigger is Mary Anne's kitten.

"You should have seen Nicky this morning," Mal said, laughing. "He was trying to take a picture of Pow. First he tied this huge red bow around Pew's neck. Then he got set to snap a picture. He'd tell Pow to sit, and then he'd walk away a few steps in order to focus. But as soon as Nicky was ready to take the picture, Pow would get up, walk toward him, and stick his big old snuffly nose right

up against the camera. It was hilarious!”

Suddenly, we heard cheering on the field, and we all turned to see what had happened. An ecstatic Matt Braddock was circling the bases, while his sister Haley signed frantically to him. "What’s she telling him?" I asked Jessi. Matt is profoundly deaf, and he and Haley (and most of his friends) communicate with American Sign Language. Jessi has learned ASL better than anyone else in the BSC.

"She's saying 'It’s a home run! We win!' " said Jessi. "But from the look on Matt’s face, I have a feeling he already knows that."

"Now he'll really have something to tell everybody about at that picnic today," I said. Matt and Haley's parents were hosting a picnic for hearing-impaired children and their families that afternoon. The kids were mostly from Matt’s school, which is in Stamford. Shannon and Kristy were going along, and they'd take pictures of the event for our project.

As soon as the Krushers and Bashers had finished their post-game rituals (lining up to give high fives to the other team, and then chanting "two-four-six-eight! Who do we appreciate?"), Kristy, Shannon, Mary Anne, Mal, Jessi, and I held a quick meeting.

"Do you all have your cameras?" Kristy asked, after we had congratulated her on the game.

We nodded and held them up.

"Film?" asked Kristy. When we nodded, she grinned. "Then let’s go for it!" she said. She and Shannon headed off with Matt and Haley, while Jessi and Mal rounded up Nicky, Vanessa, and Jamie Newton. The Jessi-and-Mal team was planning to head for the barber shop in town, where the triplets had haircut appointments.

"I can't wait to call them cactusheads," I heard Nicky saying as they set off.

Mary Anne and I called Buddy, Suzi, Charlotte, and Becca together and made sure they all knew how to use the cameras they were holding. Then we set off for downtown. At first, the kids just kept snapping pictures of each other as we walked. Suzi told Buddy to say "sneeze," and then she snapped his picture while Becca held up two fingers behind his head. "Rabbit ears!" Charlotte giggled. Then Charlotte flapped both her hands behind Becca's head while Buddy snapped the picture. "Moose ears!" Suzi shrieked. Soon they were all giggling so hard they could hardly hold up their cameras.

"Hey, you guys," said Mary Anne, when we arrived downtown. "Why don't you look around? There's lots of interesting stuff to take pictures of."

Mary Anne was right. As soon as we started to check out what was going on around us, we saw amazing things. First, Suzi spotted a wedding party having their pictures taken in a little park. Then, Buddy caught sight of a really cool red sports car parked in front of the hardware store. Charlotte took a picture of the window of Polly's Fine Candy, where there was a display of fancy boxed chocolates. And Becca took some arty shots of the Rosebud Cafe's neon sign. Mary Anne was photographing everything, including the mannequins in the window of the Merry-Go-Round. (She took so many pictures that she ran out of film and had to borrow some of mine.) And me? I was taking picture after picture of the facades of downtown Stoneybrook.

A facade, in case you don't know, is the front of a building. (It’s pronounced fa-sahd, by the way. Don't ask me why.) Some are plain, but some are really, really fancy. The fancy ones have stone carvings of vines or flowers or even people. There might be building names etched over the doorway, or numbers carved into the sides. Looking through my camera's viewfinder, I was amazed. I had never noticed all those details before, even though I've been in downtown Stoneybrook about three million times. As Mr. Geist says,