“I have an important mystery to solve. May I have a moment of your time, ma’am?”
Mel hopped off the railing. She stood at attention. “Yes, sir?”
“Ma’am, how long have you been coming to Fire Island?”
“Since I was a baby, sir.”
“How about your parents?”
“Around twenty years, sir.”
“Are they home?”
“Mrs. Braderman is.”
Hardy narrowed his eyes. “You call your mother Mrs. Braderman?”
“No, but you should.”
Hardy detected a smile on Mel’s lips. He ignored it. A good detective sticks to his business. “May I talk to her, ma’am?” he asked.
Mel ushered Hardy inside the beach house.
“Just a few questions, ma — I mean, Mrs. Braderman,” he said. Hardy described the unnamed house next door to Sandpiper. “Do you know it?”
Mrs. Braderman nodded. “Yes, but not well.”
“Do you know how long it’s been empty?”
“Years. This is my twentieth summer in Davis Park, and the house hasn’t been lived in, as far as I know.”
“Why?”
Mrs. Braderman pursed her lips. “Isn’t that funny? I’m not sure why.”
Most people, thought Hardy, would have considered this particular interview a waste of time. Not Hardy. He’d noted Mrs. Braderman’s confusion when he’d asked why the house was empty. That was an important reaction. It must mean something. Hardy would think it over later. For now, he wrote in his notebook: Mrs. Braderman thinks it’s strange that the weird house has been empty but not torn down or anything.
“Thank you, ma’am,” said Hardy. He tipped his detective hat. Then he returned to the front deck. “Are Mr. and Mrs. Reeder home?” he asked Mel.
“Lacey’s parents? I don’t think so. They’re probably at the fair. Or maybe the store. Or maybe walking on the beach.”
Hardy decided to look for them later. He ambled back toward Sandpiper House, thinking that possibly Candy wasn’t entirely crazy after all. He didn’t know why she was being haunted by ghosts, but an empty beach house was sort of odd.
Hardy’s sleuthing was interrupted when he caught sight of Hannah coming toward him along the walk. She hadn’t noticed him yet, but she was smiling anyway. Just smiling to herself.
His sister glanced up then. “Hey, Hardy!” she yelled. “Come to the bay with me! A seaplane is about to land.”
Hardy turned around. He followed Hannah to the bay.
* * *
Early the next morning, Hardy returned to his job. He had very little time in which to solve Candy’s mystery and earn his twelve dollars. And he wanted the twelve dollars badly since Woody had earned over sixty at the fair the day before. Hardy was envious.
Hardy peeked into his notebook. The instruction “Talk to the parents of Mel and Lacey” was checked off (even though he had spoken only to Mrs. Braderman). Under that was written “Talk to the fishermen.” That would be the perfect way to start Day Two of his sleuthing, Hardy decided.
Hardy dressed quietly and slipped out of his slumbering house. He ran down the beach to the spot where the three men were fishing, as they’d been doing almost every morning of the summer. One of them, the one who fished sitting down, saw Hardy before the other two did.
“Uh-oh. Here comes trouble,” he muttered.
No wonder. The three men knew Faustine and Dinnie quite well by then, and they recognized the rest of the Rossos.
Hardy heard the comment. But it didn’t stop him. “Good morning, sir,” he began. “Detective Rosso here. I’d like to ask you a few questions.”
The fisherman glanced at his friends. “Aye, aye,” he said. “Go to it.”
“Sir, how old are you?” asked Hardy.
“None of your —” the man began to say angrily. Then he paused. “I don’t see why you’d want to know, but I’m sixty-seven.”
Ooh, a real old-timer, thought Hardy. “Perfect,” he said. “Sir, are you familiar with the abandoned house next to ours? Next to Sandpiper?”
“House of the Cursed?”
Hardy blinked his eyes. “Is that what it’s called?”
“Uh, yeah, sure,” said the fisherman.
“What he means,” added one of his friends (he was growing a stubbly white beard), “is that the house has been empty for so long, we’d almost forgotten its name.”
“Right,” agreed the third fisherman. “It’s been empty for more than twenty-five years. Ever since the — the —”
“Ever since the tragedy,” supplied the third fisherman.
“What tragedy?” whispered Hardy, and then he remembered to add, “Sir?”
“You don’t know about it?” said the bearded man.
“It was before my time, sir,” replied Hardy.
“Tell him the story, Ron,” said the first fisherman, who was still seated in his beach chair. “And don’t leave anything out.”
Ron stroked his beard. “Well,” he said. He looked at Hardy. “You got a minute, son?” (Hardy nodded.) “All right. It was twenty-five, no twenty-seven years ago. The day was bright and sunny but cool. Just like today.” (Hardy shivered.) “Living in House of the Cursed was the Handiforth family — a young couple and their baby boy, Greer. Greer was about a year old.” (Not much older than Keegan, thought Hardy.) “Course, way back then, it wasn’t called House of the Cursed,” Ron went on. “It was called Blue Skies House. Anyway, the Handiforths were a happy family. Mr. and Mrs. H. were very much in love, and they adored Greer. They felt lucky to be able to spend every summer on the island in the house they had built themselves.
“One day in early June, the Handiforths decided to go out in their boat, so they packed some food and set sail. But very quickly the blue sky was filled with dark, angry clouds. A squall had blown in, and the Handiforths’ sailboat capsized. Mrs. Handiforth and Greer disappeared. Their bodies were never found, but it’s pretty certain that they drowned. Mr. Handiforth was rescued though. He was taken to a hospital to recover, and then he returned to Blue Skies House. But there he slowly went mad. He said he couldn’t live without his wife and son. And sure enough, by the end of the summer, he was dead. Some say he died of a broken heart. That was when the house became known as House of the Cursed. No one has lived in it since Mr. Handiforth died.”
Ron stopped speaking.
Hardy simply stared at him. After a moment, he murmured, “Oh my gosh.” Then he ran all the way back to Sandpiper House.
* * *
“Do you swear this is true?” whispered Candy. She and Hardy were holed up in her bedroom. Hardy had just told her the incredible tale of the Handiforths.
“I told you the story exactly the way Ron told it to me,” Hardy replied.
“Then that explains everything!” cried Candy. “There are spirits and strange phenomena. The house is haunted by the spirit of Mr. Handiforth. And maybe by the spirits of his wife and baby. Mr. Handiforth is mourning for his dead family. Remember those dreams I had? The drowning one must have been about Mrs. Handiforth and Greer. And the graveyard one must have been about their funeral…. Oh! And Keegan! When he disappeared yesterday, I bet the ghost of Mr. Handiforth was trying to get his baby boy back! He wants Greer really badly, but he doesn’t know where he is. So he took Keegan instead. And — and the shells and the water and everything? You know, the stuff that would appear at night? I bet Mr. Handiforth wanted me to experience the squall. The rain and the storm … everything stirred up on the ocean floor. He wanted me to be scared just like — Yikes!” Candy shrieked. Then she lowered her voice. “I sense a presence in this room.”
“It’s me, stupid.”
Hardy jumped a mile. Standing in the doorway was Hannah. Hardy noticed the funny smile on her lips. The smile grew until Hannah burst out laughing.
“You guys,” she said, gasping. “You guys fell for everything!”
Hardy narrowed his eyes. “What?” he said.
“There’s no ghost. I did everything, Candy. I’ve been tricking you all summer! I moaned outside your window, I sprayed the sill with water, I left the things in your room, I pushed Keegan’s stroller down a little hill yesterday. And I —”
“Hannah Rosso!” boomed Mr. Rosso’s voice.
“Uh-oh,” muttered Hannah.
“Is this true? Have you been tormenting your sister all summer?”
“Yes. I mean, no. I wasn’t tormenting her. I was just playing jokes. I needed something to do. Everybody was busy without me.”
Embarrassed as he was, Hardy had to hand it to Hannah. She had pulled off an incredible prank. It was the longest-lasting prank in Rosso history.
Candy looked mortified. “You mean you made those fishermen go along with your joke? They were making fun of me, too?”
“Oh, the fishermen don’t have anything to do with this,” Hannah answered. “They tell that story to lots of kids. They told it to me way back at the beginning of the summer. That’s how I got the idea to trick you.”
“You are in major trouble, young lady,” Mr. Rosso said to Hannah.
* * *
And she was. Hannah was grounded for two weeks — starting on Fire Island. She wasn’t permitted to leave Sandpiper House. When the Rossos would return to New Jersey, Hannah would be confined to her room, except to go to school.
“That was some joke, wasn’t it?” Hardy said to Bainbridge the night of Hannah’s confession. (Bainbridge nodded.) “But I feel kind of sorry for Candy. I don’t think she’ll ever speak to Hannah again. At least we know she’s not crazy.”
“I feel bad for her, too,” replied Bainbridge, “but I also feel bad for Hannah. I guess we do kind of leave her out of things.”
“Because she’s always playing tricks!” exploded Hardy.
“She plays tricks because we leave her out!”
“She plays tricks because she’s a jerk,” said Candy’s voice. She joined her brothers on the deck. “Hannah thinks she’s so cool. She thinks she pulled off this big — this big scam. But she’s not so clever. She couldn’t make a curtain move in the window of House of the Cursed. She couldn’t give me those bad dreams. I really was haunted by ghosts this summer.”
Bainbridge rolled his eyes.
Hardy exclaimed, “Hey! You owe me twelve bucks. I solved your case.”
“You did not,” said Candy. “Hannah confessed.”
“But I found out the ghost story for you.”
“I’ll pay you six dollars,” Candy replied. “That’s my final offer.”
“I’ll take it,” said Hardy. He held out his hand. “Pay up.”
Candy handed over the money to her brother, the detective, and Hardy stuffed it in his pocket. He was six dollars richer. Not bad.
Much later, Hardy lay in his bed, listening to the rush of the ocean waves. Sandpiper House was silent. In two days, the Rossos would leave the island and return to New Jersey. Hardy congratulated himself on having solved another mystery.
But something nagged at Hardy’s practical mind. The ghost … the haunting. Candy had said that unexplainable things happen. And she seemed to be right. He had a little more respect for Candy now. But he hated to admit that he couldn’t explain everything.
Keegan was bumping along. It seemed he was often bumping along. He bumped along in his stroller. (The boardwalks on Fire Island were especially bumpy.) Sometimes he bumped along on his father’s shoulders. Or he bumped along in his mother’s arms, or in his carseat. This bumping was different, though. It was bumping and rolling.
Keegan was riding on the Kiki. The crowded ferry chugged across the bay from Davis Park to Patchogue on the mainland. It carried Keegan, his parents, his brothers and sisters, Zsa-Zsa, the Rossos’ summer belongings, and a lot of other people with their summer belongings.
From his seat in his sister’s arms, Keegan gazed wide-eyed around the ferry. Already, Sandpiper House was just a dim memory. And Keegan had no memory whatsoever of the farmhouse in New Jersey, although he would recognize it as soon as his family reached it that afternoon.
“Summer’s over. It’s all over,” Dinnie was saying to Faustine. “No more summer.”
“Yeah, back to school,” grumbled Woody.
“Back to homework,” added Hannah.
“You won’t have any excuse for not doing yours, at least for the next two weeks,” Candy said smugly to Hannah.
Hannah stuck out her tongue, which made Keegan laugh. So Hannah stuck out her tongue even farther, flared her nostrils, and rolled down her eyeballs so that only the whites of her eyes showed.
“Hannah!” hissed Abbie. Keegan swiveled around to look at his oldest sister. He was sitting in her lap, and he could tell something was wrong. Abbie’s arms had stiffened. “Look normal!” Abbie ordered in a gruff whisper. “People are staring as it is.”
“Well, no wonder,” replied Hannah loudly. “They’ve probably never seen eleven orphans coming home from summer camp before.” Hannah pretended to pout. “What a shame. Our wonderful, wonderful summer at the beach is over. Now we have to go back to the orphanage. Gosh. I sure hope someone adopts me soon. I want a home…. ‘The sun’ll come out tomorrow!’” she sang. “‘Bet your bottom dollar that —’ Oof!”
Bainbridge had elbowed Hannah. “Shut up,” he said. “People are staring. And anyway, how would you feel if you really were an orphan?”
“I would hope zat my French relatives would find me,” Dinnie replied wickedly. She turned to Faustine. “Va voo salay le chat de la ploo?”
“Non, non, non. Je voudrais seulment le Chevrolet coupay.”
“Mrow!” cried Zsa-Zsa.
“You’re all terrible.” Abbie hung her head. Then she whispered loudly to Mrs. Rosso, “Mom, I can’t take it any longer. I’m moving over there.” Abbie pointed to a space on a bench near the back of the ferry. “I’ll take Keegan with me.”
“All right,” answered her mother, who was sitting with Jan — who was seasick and about to throw up into a garbage bag. (All the more reason, thought Abbie, to leave the immediate vicinity.)
The bumping increased as Abbie stood up and joggled Keegan against her shoulder. Then she managed to cross the ferry. She sat down by a window. “Look. Look out there, Keegan. See the waves? Hey, there’s a seagull!”
Keegan didn’t look out the window, though. He was busy watching his sister’s face. Watching her mouth move and listening to the sounds that tumbled out of it. He had caught a familiar word. Keegan.
“Well,” said Abbie, holding tightly to her baby brother, “we’re on our way home. It’s almost autumn again. What a summer we had. We made new friends. I made friends with Justin Hart, of all people. Bainbridge found a girl friend. And just possibly he learned not to be such a flirt with the ‘chicks.’ Keegan, don’t ever refer to girls as ‘chicks,’ okay? Let’s see. Candy starred in a ghost story. At least, I think she did. I’m not quite sure what happened to her. Let’s just hope that if she really was haunted by a ghost or a poltergeist, it won’t come home with her. Woody managed to earn a lot of money. Maybe there’s hope for him after all. Maybe he’ll be an entrepreneur someday.”
Abbie kissed the top of Keegan’s head. “I know you don’t understand what I’m saying, but you look as if you’re listening. And you aren’t barfing or meowing or speaking fake French, which is good.
“Hardy solved some mysteries,” Abbie continued. “He usually does. Faustine made a pest of herself with the fishermen, but she also made her point about cruelty to animals. Dinnie made her movie debut. I can’t wait to see that film. When you’re older, Keegan, I’ll rent the movie, and I’ll wait for our beach scene, and then I’ll point you out and say, ‘Keegan, that’s you! That’s Fire Island. Can you believe you were ever that little?’ I’ll have to say that. Grown-ups always say that to kids.
“Hannah … well, I keep thinking Hannah’s going to learn a lesson from her practical jokes. You know, like, don’t play any. People just get mad at you. But sh
e keeps playing them. Maybe when she’s done being grounded, I’ll spend more time with her. Maybe that will help.
“Ira got sick, but he recovered. And Jan got beautiful. Remember her beauty treatment, Keegan? And what about you? What did you do this summer? You crawled around a lot. You pulled Zsa-Zsa’s tail. You went for walks in your stroller. Not too different from being at home, I guess.”
Abbie’s voice was a pleasant hum in Keegan’s ears. He allowed his eyes to close, the boat rocking beneath him, his sister’s arms encircling him safely. He drifted off to sleep.
Keegan awoke when Abbie announced, “Here we are!” and stood up.
There was lots of bustle and movement as everyone else stood up too and began crowding toward the Kiki’s doors.
“Who’s got Zsa-Zsa?” called Mrs. Rosso.
“Mommy, I still don’t feel good,” said Jan.
“Moi, je suis tres, tres beau,” said Dinnie.
“My sunburn hurts,” said Ira.
“Roll around in butter,” Woody suggested.
“Oh, are we here?” Mr. Rosso tore his eyes away from a carpentry magazine and glanced around dazedly.
“We’re here, Dad,” Abbie replied. “Come on. Let’s go.”
Abbie counted heads. Mom, Dad, Bainbridge, Candy, Woody, Hardy, Faustine, Dinnie, Hannah, Ira, Jan, Keegan, Zsa-Zsa, and herself. No one had gotten lost.
Still cradling Keegan, Abbie stepped onto the ferry dock. She pointed across the bay. “Look, Keegan,” she said. Far, far away was Fire Island, a hazy gray streak at the horizon.
About the Author
Ann M. Martin in the acclaimed and bestselling author of a number of novels and series, including Belle Teal, A Corner of the Universe (a Newbery Honor book), A Dog’s Life, Here Today, P.S. Longer Letter Later (written with Paula Danziger), the Doll People series (written with Laura Godwin), the Main Street series, and the generation-defining series The Baby-sitters Club. She lives in New York.
ALSO BY ANN M. MARTIN: