“What if we don’t have any messages today, either?” Mal asked. We were on our way to the Kishis’ for our Friday BSC meeting.
I checked the machine the second we walked into Claud’s room. No messages. I threw myself across the bed and moaned. “Mal, you know what this means, don’t you? It means that we’ve ruined the reputation of the club. First the answering machine wasn’t on for twenty-four whole hours, and then we had to turn down jobs.”
“Claud and the others are having a ball — no problems, no worries,” Mal said. “Meanwhile, we’ve destroyed the club.”
“When clients call today,” I said, “let’s apologize about the answering machine and be sure to tell them when the others will be back. And also tell them that if they’ve been disappointed by the club over the last week, it’s our fault.”
“That’s a great idea,” Mal said, “except for one thing.”
“What?”
“You may have noticed that the phone isn’t exactly ringing off the hook. No one is calling. They probably figure it’s hopeless. That there aren’t any sitters.”
“Then maybe we should call them and explain everything,” I suggested.
“Okay,” Mal agreed. “Who should we call first?”
“The clients we know the best,” I said. “I’ll start by calling the Braddocks.”
My stomach was doing cartwheels as I punched in the telephone number for the Braddocks. Mrs. Braddock answered. “Hi, Mrs. Braddock,” I said. “This is Jessi Ramsey.”
Mrs. Braddock asked me how I was. I said fine and asked her how she was.
“I’m just running out the door,” she said. “Everyone is packed in the van. We’re going on a two-week camping trip.”
“Have a wonderful time,” I told her.
“What was it you wanted, Jessi?”
“Oh, nothing, really,” I said. “Just letting you know that the Baby-sitters Club will be here for you when you come back. Call any time. You can always leave a message on the BSC machine. ‘Bye.”
I hung up the phone and told Mal, “The Braddocks haven’t called because they don’t need sitters. They’re going on vacation.” I handed her the phone. “I’ll make a note about their schedule in the record book while you make the next call.”
She punched in the Perkinses’ phone number, listened for a little while and hung up without speaking. “A machine answered,” she explained. “It said, ‘You’ve reached the Perkins residence. We’re on vacation until July thirtieth. Messages for Bill Murphy can be left with this machine.’ Since I didn’t have a message for Bill Murphy,” Mal continued, “I hung up.”
“So the Braddocks and Perkinses haven’t called for sitters because they’re going on vacation,” I said. “That’s a relief.” I was relieved enough to notice that I was hungry. “Let’s find something to eat before we make any more calls.”
We found a bag of Chuckle Rings under Claud’s bed. Mal ripped them open and we dug in. Two green and one red Chuckle later I called the Arnolds and learned that Marilyn and Carolyn had gone to visit their grandmother for a week.
“We’ll be calling for sitters as soon as they’re back,” Mrs. Arnold told me. “Hope you’re all having a wonderful vacation.”
Next Mal called the Addisons. When she hung up she told me, “Corrie and Sean are at sleepaway camp.”
“This is great,” I said. “People aren’t calling because they don’t need sitters, not because they don’t want the BSC anymore. It makes sense.”
“It does,” Mal said as she stuffed a circle of green Chuckle into her mouth. I couldn’t understand what she said next because of the way the candy stuck to her teeth.
“What did you say?” I asked.
She chewed and swallowed. “I said, ‘I’m still hungry.’ ”
We both thought that was hilarious. We searched Claud’s room for a snack that was a little more nourishing than candy, and we couldn’t stop giggling.
Finally, we found a bag of blue corn chips. While we ate, we talked about how much fun the Reese contingent must be having and how we wished we were hanging around in a seaside town without a care in the world.
“The only fun thing happening here,” I said, “is Celebrate America! Day, and we have to work then.”
“And work hard,” Mal added. “Do you realize that between us we’ll be taking care of fifteen kids?”
“Maybe we should join forces and do some kind of activity with all of them,” I suggested.
“But they’re different ages, Jessi. What kind of activity can we do with kids ranging in age from two to ten?” Mal asked.
“What do two-year-olds and ten-year-olds have in common?” I replied.
“Absolutely nothing.”
“Kristy wouldn’t let that hold her back,” I said. “And neither would the others. They love challenges.”
“You’re right.” I took the last red Chuckle out of the bag.
“Then let’s come up with something wonderful to do with all the kids,” she said.
I rolled the Chuckle Ring across the BSC notebook to Mal. “If someone invented the wheel,” I said, “then we can figure out what to do with fifteen kids.”
“Inventing the wheel might have been easier,” Mal commented as she rolled the Chuckle back to me. I didn’t know then that the idea we were looking for was in that round Chuckle.
“Kristy, having all you sitters here this week is working out even better than I’d hoped,” Lisa said. “You’re doing a terrific job.”
It was just after breakfast on Friday, and the adults were getting ready to leave for Boston. I wondered if I should tell Lisa about the Coopers. I decided against it. We needed more proof. It would be incredibly embarrassing if we accused the Coopers, only to find out we’d been wrong. Besides, what were we accusing them of? Telling us scary stories? Making noises in the wall? Saying someone was mute when she wasn’t? Being Scottish? We needed more evidence.
But first, I reminded myself, we had baby-sitting responsibilities. Dawn and I had cooked up an idea for persuading Jill to join the swim team. After the adults left for Boston we took her aside.
“Kristy and I have been talking about you, Jill,” Dawn began. “Now that it looks like you’ll be moving to Reese, we thought you might like to start a baby-sitting club of your own.”
Jill’s eyes widened with interest.
“We can explain how we run our club and answer all your questions about baby-sitting,” I added.
“I have a question already,” Jill said. “How did you learn how to baby-sit?” I held back a grin. Jill had asked the perfect question.
“By sitting for our own sisters and brothers,” Dawn answered. “You know — the way Kristy sits for Karen and Andrew.”
“Lionel is too big for me to baby-sit for,” Jill said. “And Jason wouldn’t let me.”
“What about Martha?” I asked.
“She’d say I was treating her like a baby.”
“You could baby-sit for Martha without telling her,” Dawn explained. “Sometimes I do that with my brother, Jeff. When we’re doing water sports, like sailing, I watch out for him. I’ve worked in a lot of baby-sitting practice that way.”
“Hey, I know! If you and Martha were both on the swim team,” I suggested, “you could watch Martha and have fun, too.”
“Dawn has fun with me,” Jill said happily. “And I’m younger than her.”
“That’s right,” Dawn replied. “Now you understand an important idea about baby-sitting. You can have fun with the kids you sit for, even when they’re your own brothers or sisters.”
Just then Martha came out to the veranda for our what-are-we-going-to-do-today meeting and asked, “Dawn, what are we going to do today?”
“Martha, how’d you like to join the swim team?” Jill asked.
“I’m not joining unless you do,” Martha muttered.
“But I’m going to,” Jill told her. “We’re both going to.”
Martha smiled widely. “Goody,??
? she said. “Goody, goody, and triple goody.”
After our meeting, Lionel and Jason headed for the ballfield, saying they’d catch up with us at dinnertime. Claudia was spending the morning working on our Founders’ Day float. Dawn was taking the Menders sisters to the pool. Mary Anne and I headed into town with Andrew and Karen.
Our first stop was the photocopy shop. Claud had asked us to make four copies of a picture from one of the old Randolph family albums. It was the photo of the man who had looked so mysteriously familiar to her. After we left the copy shop, Mary Anne took us to the historical society. The door was open, so we walked in.
“Hi, Mrs. Butterfield,” Mary Anne said to the woman at the front desk. While I distracted Karen and Andrew with a painting of a boat in a storm, I strained to hear Mary Anne’s conversation with Mrs. Butterfield.
“I dropped by to ask you a question about the woman you told me wanted to know about the Randolph estate,” Mary Anne was saying. “You said she had a heavy accent. Do you remember if it was a Scottish accent?”
“Yes, it could have been Scottish,” Mrs. Butterfield replied. “But why don’t you ask her yourself? She’s here now.” She pointed to the library. We looked in that direction. But no one was there. “She must have gone out the back way,” Mrs. Butterfield explained.
I ran through the library to the side window. Sure enough, Margaret Cooper was hurrying down the street. Mrs. Butterfield appeared beside me. “There she is,” she said. “It’s too bad she left without meeting you. She was so interested in knowing who else was making inquiries about the Randolph mansion.” Ah-ha! So Margaret knew about us now. I was afraid of what she would do next.
When we were outside again Mary Anne and I decided that we should go back to the estate right away. We needed to warn Claud that Margaret knew Mary Anne had been doing research on the Randolph estate. And that we knew she could speak! I promised Karen and Andrew that when we returned to the mansion they could watch a video. So far we’d been able to steer the kids out of the scary situation and I intended to keep it that way.
Later, while Mary Anne set the kids up with a video, I went out to the shed, where Claud was supposed to be working on the props for the float. She wasn’t there. I looked in the gardens for Georgio. He wasn’t there.
When I reported back to Mary Anne she said, “Maybe they’re upstairs.”
“Claud told me she might hunt for clothes in the attic this morning,” I said. “Come on.”
The door to the fourth-floor staircase was unlocked.
“What if Mr. Cooper is up there?” Mary Anne whispered.
A cold, clammy feeling washed over me. We crept silently up the stairs. The first thing I noticed on the fourth floor was that the attic door was closed. The second thing I noticed was that the door to Lydia’s room was open.
I signaled Mary Anne to stay where she was while I investigated. The closer I inched to that open door the more frightened I became. What would I see? What if whoever was in there saw me? The image of a white-haired woman answering to the name of Lydia flashed through my mind.
I held my breath and snuck a peek into the room. Two figures — male and female — were bending over a wicker basket.
I gasped.
And Claudia and Georgio screamed, which made me scream. But Mary Anne screamed the loudest of all.
When we had calmed down, Georgio locked the door to Lydia’s room and the four of us went to my room to talk. Mary Anne and I sat on my bed. Georgio and Claudia sat on the window seat. “Georgio knows everything and he’s totally innocent,” Claudia told us. “He’s been suspicious of the Coopers himself.”
“Something’s bothered me about those two from the beginning,” Georgio explained. “Even before you came here. When I realized they were trying to scare you guys, and they claimed not to have a key to the fourth floor, I got really suspicious.”
“What about the treasure in the attic?” Mary Anne said.
“I thought that somehow the Coopers had heard about what Mr. Randolph said when he was dying, and then took the caretakers’ job to try to find this so-called treasure for themselves. Now I know they want the whole place.”
“So you’ve been hanging around us because you were suspicious of the Coopers?” I asked.
“That’s the second reason,” Georgio said. He smiled at Claud. “The first reason I’ve been hanging around you is because of Claudia.”
Claud looked shyly at the floor before saying, “Anyway, Georgio has a key to the fourth-floor bedroom we’ve been calling Lydia’s room. So we went up there. We’d just figured out how the light has been going off and on when Kristy scared us.”
“Sorry about that,” I said. “Tell us about the light.”
“The lamp is hooked up to a timer,” Georgio explained. “The kind people use to make robbers think someone is at home.”
“In this case the robbers are using it,” I commented.
“They hid the timer in an old sewing basket,” Claud continued. “We left it there so they won’t know that we’re onto them.”
“They might already know,” Mary Anne said softly. “At least, Margaret might.” She told Claud and Georgio about Mrs. Cooper and the historical society.
“By the way,” Claud told us, “before the Coopers left this morning, Elton reminded me that it’s their day off. He said he and Mrs. Cooper wouldn’t be back until this evening.”
“Good,” I said. “That gives us plenty of time to hunt for more evidence.”
“Let’s check out their rooms,” Claud suggested.
“Isn’t that invasion of privacy?” I wondered out loud.
“Look at all the creepy things they’ve been doing to us,” Claud reminded me.
I thought about the kids. I was convinced that the Coopers were a threat to their safety.
“How are we going to get in those rooms?” I asked.
“I have a master key that should fit the lock,” Georgio said. “While you’re up there I’ll weed the back garden. That way I can warn you if I see them coming back here.”
“How will you warn us?” I asked.
“Their bedroom window faces the back garden,” Georgio said. “So look out every couple of minutes. I’ll take off my hat if I see them.”
We heard footsteps then, and stopped talking about the Coopers. Then we heard children’s voices singing the theme song from The Little Mermaid. Karen and Martha bounced into the room. Martha, her hair still wet from swimming, announced, “I’m on the swim team. So’s Jill.”
We all congratulated Martha and promised to go to the girls’ first swim meet on Monday.
After lunch, Mary Anne said she’d watch the girls and Andrew while the rest of us explored the Coopers’ rooms. “You coming, Claud?” I asked.
“I have to do something else,” Claud answered in a vague, distracted voice. I thought maybe she’d drift off and spend the afternoon mooning over Georgio. But Georgio wasn’t the man she had on her mind. “Did you two photocopy that picture?” she asked.
When I gave her the copies, she said she’d be in the dining room if we needed her.
Dawn and I took the back stairs to the Coopers’ private quarters. As I turned Georgio’s key in the lock I told Dawn, “I hate sneaking around like this.”
“I love it,” Dawn confessed. “And they deserve it!”
The door opened into a sitting room. It had no windows. “Let’s start in the bedroom,” I suggested.
Dawn began her search with the clothes closet while I peered out the bedroom window. I looked down at the garden and saw Georgio, in a straw hat, weeding with a hoe.
“There isn’t much in here,” Dawn said. “It’s as if they haven’t even unpacked.” Then in a trembling voice she added, “Kristy, look.” I turned away from the window and saw that Dawn was holding up a floor-length white satin gown. “It was in the back of the closet,” she explained. “It must be the dress that’s missing from the armoire in the attic.”
“And I bet y
ou anything that’s the dress that the ghost of Mary Randolph wears on the widow’s walk,” I added.
“I saw a desk in the other room,” Dawn said. “I’m going to search it.” While I kept an eye on Georgio and his hat I noticed that the sky was darkening. It looked as though a big storm were headed our way.
“Kristy,” Dawn called, “come here.” I ran into the sitting room. Dawn was huddled over the desk. “You have to see this,” she whispered. She pointed to a page in a notebook:
Fire?! These are evil people, I thought. They’ll hurt even children to get what they want.
“I guess they’re waiting until we leave to get serious,” Dawn said. “And that’s only half the list. Steps six through ten aren’t here.”
“Well, this is all the evidence we need,” I told Dawn. “It proves that the Coopers are up to no good.”
“And that Georgio is innocent,” Dawn added. I had to agree with her.
Just then I thought I heard a car on the drive. I ran to the other room and looked out the window. Georgio’s hat was on the ground beside him. “Hurry,” I called to Dawn. “They’re back.”
We shoved the list in the drawer where Dawn had found it, locked the door to the rooms, and ran down the stairs. Margaret came into the kitchen from outside a split second after we entered from the back stairs. Had she seen us coming from her rooms? She smiled at me but her eyes were cold and calculating.
We later learned that while we were investigating the Coopers’ quarters, Claudia was coming up with another piece of evidence incriminating the Coopers. She had gone to the dining room to experiment with the photocopies we’d made for her. She wanted to figure out why the man in the photo seemed familiar to her. She’d thought that the man reminded her of a woman she knew. To check that idea Claud drew wavy shoulder-length hair on the photocopy. Then she added eyeshadow and lipstick. The resulting image didn’t remind her of anyone she knew. Looking at the hair she’d drawn on this female version of Mr. Randolph’s ancestor gave Claudia another idea.
She began with a fresh photocopy. This time she added a beard and mustache. It still wasn’t what she was looking for, but she felt that she was coming closer. She pulled out another copy. This time she added a more delicate mustache and a smaller beard. When she finished, Elton Cooper was looking at her from the doctored photocopy.