I could see why. I was interested too, and I wasn’t related to either one.
“I’m going to help the girls with the books,” said Ms. Spark.
“And I’ll grab a paintbrush,” said Mr. Cates.
We worked through the afternoon. Kristy and Mal, with Ms. Spark’s help, checked in boxes of books. Mal and I were glad that there was going to be a children’s section, including Nancy Drews for Claudia. There were also copies of one of my favorites, The Westing Game, and one of Mal’s favorites, From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. Of course, there were lots of others we hadn’t read yet and were itching to dig into.
“You girls sound as if you know what you’re talking about,” Ms. Spark said, listening in as Mal and I discussed some of the titles while we waited for Logan and Mr. Cates to finish cleaning the paintbrushes.
“I like to read,” said Mal.
“Me too.”
“You know, Mal and Mary Anne and the rest of us could write little descriptions of some of the books we like a lot and you could post them. It would be a way to give customers a recommendation,” said Kristy.
“What a great idea!” said Ms. Spark. “I’ll tell Larry about it. Would you really want to do this?”
“I’d love to,” said Mal. I nodded in agreement.
“Sure,” said Kristy.
“I need to pick up the kids at the pizza parlor. They’re going to think I forgot them,” said Mr. Cates, rushing into the main room. “I’d be glad to give you girls a ride home.”
“I need to pick up a prescription I called in to the pharmacy before it closes,” said Ms. Spark, “so I need to leave too. Who wants to ride with me?”
Logan had followed Mr. Cates and joined us by the front door. Kristy and Mal decided to go with Mr. Cates, leaving Logan and me to ride with Ms. Spark.
“Wait a minute,” said Ms. Spark. “We can’t all go. There’s one more delivery to come today. The computer monitor, to replace the one that wouldn’t turn on. It’s coming express. It’s supposed to be here by five.” She looked at her watch.
“I’ll stay until you come back,” I offered.
“You will?” asked Mr. Cates. “Cillia and I haven’t been out of here for more than five minutes all day. It would be a nice break for us. If the workmen hadn’t already left, I’m sure one of them would let the deliveryman in, but they seemed pretty anxious to be gone for some reason. I’ll drive you home as soon as we get back.”
“I’ll stay with Mary Anne,” said Logan.
I turned and smiled at him.
“Wait just a minute,” said Mr. Cates, feeling around in his pockets. “I need to check something.” He disappeared down the hallway.
“You’ll ride in the van, the white one with the raven on the door,” Ms. Spark said to Kristy and Mal. “Let’s go on out.”
“See you Monday,” I said.
“See you,” said Logan.
Mal and Kristy pulled their hoods over their heads and dashed to the van. Ms. Spark grabbed her purse and followed, opening her umbrella as soon as she was outside the door. She climbed into the black Toyota parked near the van.
“Be back soon,” called Mr. Cates, following them through the rain.
Logan started folding up the plastic sheets. I decided to go back to the receiving room, but before I even reached the hall there was a knock on the door.
“Delivery!” a voice called.
Logan unlocked the door and opened it. A man staggered inside carrying a bulky box.
“Back here,” I said, showing him the way to Mr. Cates’s office, where he’d told us to have the monitor left.
“Last delivery,” the man said. “I can go home and dry out a little now.”
“Good night,” I said, closing and locking the door behind him.
“That was quick,” I said to Logan. “They must have passed the delivery truck on their way down the street.”
“Well, I guess we’ll just wait for Mr. Cates to come back,” said Logan. He followed me into the receiving room.
“Look at this leather-bound edition of Edgar Allan Poe stories.” I handed the book to Logan. It was black with gold letters on the front cover and spine.
“It smells good,” Logan said, handing it back. “And it’s beautiful. It looks like a book people put on a shelf, but never read.”
He was probably right.
The rain sounded a little louder in this room, I thought as I picked up another Poe book, a volume of poetry. “Logan, do you hear anything?” I asked, the hairs on the back of my neck feeling prickly.
“Rain,” he said.
“No, not rain.” Fluh-dub, fluh-dub, fluh-dub. It wasn’t the drip, drip, drip of water. My mouth suddenly felt dry as I looked over my shoulder into the dark hallway. I squinted, but still saw nothing. The sound seemed to grow louder until I could feel as well as hear it.
“It’s a heart — the tell-tale heart,” I whispered, moving close to Logan. He put his arm around me. My own heart was pounding as if in echo.
“I hear it,” he said, “but it can’t be a heart, Mary Anne. It must be water from someplace.”
“Listen.” I put my finger over my lips. Gradually the beating sound grew softer and softer, then disappeared. It was replaced by the sound of dripping water.
“See, it’s gone now,” said Logan, squeezing my shoulders.
“But drips don’t suddenly stop,” I said. “Where do you think it was coming from?” I didn’t really want to leave the room we were in.
“The roof,” said Logan, “or maybe the basement.”
Basements were so dark and scary. What if —
“We’re back!” The front door opened and the Cateses entered. Ms. Spark followed. I was surprised to see her. I hadn’t expected her to come back that night. She certainly worked hard.
Logan and I joined them. “How was the movie?” I asked Tom and Gillian.
“Fine,” said Gillian. “Claudia’s nice.”
“Can I go to my room now?” Tom asked.
“Yes, and don’t come out until I say you can,” said Mr. Cates.
Ms. Spark stayed by the door. “I’ll stop by tomorrow,” she said.
“You don’t have to go yet,” said Mr. Cates. “I’m so sorry Tom was rude to you.”
“I think I should leave. Tom seems upset. Maybe you need some family time together.”
For a moment I thought Mr. Cates was going to kiss Ms. Spark, but he didn’t. Maybe she hadn’t come back to work after all.
“I’ll drive Mary Anne and Logan home,” she offered.
“Thanks,” Mr. Cates said. “Is that okay with you two?”
I wondered if I should mention the heartbeat. Now that we were in the brightly lit main room with people all around, I wasn’t sure I’d heard anything unusual. Still, if there was a drip, Mr. Cates should know.
“We heard something strange while you were gone,” I said.
“Old houses have lots of strange noises, don’t they, Gillian?” Mr. Cates said. He kept looking toward the stairs. “You go on up and pick out a game we can play together.”
“ ’Bye, Mary Anne. ’Bye, Mary Anne’s boyfriend,” Gillian said, running from the room, giggling.
“Claudia told her that’s who Logan is,” said Mr. Cates, also grinning.
“The noise,” I said. “It sounded like … you’re going to think I’m crazy, but it sounded like a beating heart.” I rushed the last part, then looked to Logan for support.
“It did sort of sound like that,” he said.
“It must have been water dripping. There’s a place in the basement where water keeps coming in. I’ll have some of the guys check it out on Monday,” Mr. Cates said. “But Mary Anne, I think a little of our obsession with Poe is starting to rub off on you. Did you know that he wrote a story —”
“— ‘The Tell-Tale Heart,’ ” I said, finishing his sentence.
“Exactly,” said Mr. Cates. “So you are a fan.”
“We’
re studying mysteries in English and I’m doing a project on Poe.”
“Good choice!”
As we drove away from Poe and Co., I looked back at the house. Dark clouds swirled around it and a flash of lightning split the sky directly above it, lighting the darkened windows for a second. The house seemed almost to throb when the thunder cracked, like a beating heart. I shivered, and not from the chill of the rain.
I mentioned to the rest of the BSC members (I wrote it in the notebook too) that I thought Tom and Gillian Cates might be playing tricks on Ms. Spark (although I had no proof), that the kids definitely didn’t want to live in Stoneybrook, and that they weren’t over the fact that their mother had left. Tom in particular seemed to want to keep people at a distance, and this rubbed off on Gillian. Claudia said she thought the rain was responsible for the terrible afternoon they’d had at the movies and later at Pizza Express. It was probably a combination of everything.
Stacey was sitting for Charlotte Johanssen that day. They joined Claudia and the Cates kids at the movie. Claud and Stacey thought Gillian and Charlotte might enjoy each other’s company.
Stacey and Charlotte were waiting in the lobby of the theater when Claudia, Tom, and Gillian arrived. Claudia hadn’t been able to talk much with Tom and Gillian on the way to the movie. Mr. Cates drove them, and anytime the kids didn’t answer Claud’s questions right away, he answered for them, just the way he had when I sat on Thursday. But Claudia knew they’d be on their own after he dropped them off, and they’d have to talk eventually.
“Claudia! Over here!” Stacey and Charlotte were standing at the entrance to the theater showing Star Wars, the movie they’d agreed to see.
“Stacey, Charlotte, meet Tom and Gillian Cates. Tom and Gillian’s dad is opening a mystery bookstore,” Claudia said.
“Hi,” Charlotte said, smiling and showing her dimples.
“Hi,” said Stacey.
Tom looked all around and didn’t respond.
“It’s nice to meet you,” Gillian said shyly.
“This is one of my favorite movies,” said Stacey. “Have either of you seen it? Charlotte and I watched it on her VCR once, but we’ve never seen it on the big screen together.”
“Of course we’ve seen it,” said Tom. “Who hasn’t seen Star Wars?”
“Snacks anybody?” Claudia asked.
“I think I’ll have a diet soda,” said Stacey. “You want anything, Charlotte?”
“Can I get popcorn?” Charlotte asked.
The group moved over to the line at the candy counter.
“I think I’ll have M&M’S,” said Claudia. “No, maybe I’ll have Sno-caps. That big Crunch bar looks good too.”
“Go ahead — buy them all!” Stacey teased.
“What would you like?” Claudia asked Tom and Gillian.
“Nothing,” said Tom.
Gillian looked at her brother, then at the candy in the display case. “Nothing, I guess,” she said softly.
“I’ll buy a big box of M&M’S, and if you decide you want some later, I’ll share,” said Claudia.
Gillian nodded.
“Let’s play video games before we go in and sit down,” said Tom.
“We don’t have time. Later, when we go for pizza, you can play there.”
Tom scowled and crossed his arms.
Claudia and Stacey paid for the snacks. Then Claudia pushed the door of the theater open and held it while everyone passed in front of her. She smiled down at Tom and Gillian as they walked by. As soon as she stepped inside the theater, Claudia was bombarded with kernels of popcorn.
“Stop it!” Claudia heard a loud whisper as she looked around to see where the little missiles had come from. Mrs. Pike was taking buckets of popcorn away from Jordan, Byron, and Adam. Vanessa and Margo were waving at Stacey and Claudia.
“Let’s sit behind the Pikes,” Claudia said to Stacey, thinking that the triplets might be good company for Tom. She didn’t want to sit in front of them and serve as a target for secret popcorn practice. (Mrs. Pike was bound to return their popcorn at some point.)
“Hi, girls,” Mallory’s mother greeted them. “I left the kids for one second to go to the bathroom and they decided to stage a guerrilla popcorn attack. And,” she turned to the triplets, “if it happens again, the popcorn is history permanently.”
“Sorry, Claudia,” Jordan said.
“You didn’t hit me that many times,” said Claudia. “Do you guys know Tom Cates?”
“Hi, Tom,” said Byron. “He’s in my class,” he added to Claudia.
“You all look alike,” said Gillian.
“We’re identical triplets,” said Adam.
“Does your mom know which one is which?” she asked.
“Usually,” said Mrs. Pike with a smile.
“This is Gillian Cates,” said Claudia.
“She’s in my class at school,” said Margo. “Hi, Gill.”
“It’s Gillian,” said Tom.
“This is Mrs. Pike, Vanessa, and Margo.” Claudia finished the introductions. “Where are Nicky and Claire?”
“At home with their dad,” said Mrs. Pike.
Jordan punched Adam, and Mrs. Pike made him change seats with her.
“I need to go to the bathroom,” said Tom.
“Gillian, please stay here with Stacey. Come on, Tom.” Claudia stood up.
“I’m not a baby. You don’t have to go with me,” he said.
“I’m not going into the bathroom with you. I’ll wait outside. I need a drink of water to wash the M&M’S down anyway.”
Tom sighed, then stood up and walked quickly down the aisle. The door to the men’s room was swinging shut before Claudia stepped into the lobby. She took a long drink of water, then leaned against the wall across from the bathroom.
The music signaling the coming attractions started. Claudia paced a few steps in one direction, then turned and retraced her path. She stared at the men’s room door. She opened the door to the theater and saw that the lights had gone down and the preview was starting.
A man walked out of the bathroom. Claudia thought maybe Tom had had to wait.
She stood there a little longer, until she heard the music for the main feature. Tom was taking a long time. Maybe he was sick. How could she check? No one with a theater uniform was in sight. Claudia braced herself and approached the door to the men’s room. She knocked. “Tom?” she called softly.
The door opened. “You looking for someone?”
Claudia felt her face grow hot. It was Alan Gray! Why couldn’t it have been anyone but him? Alan was also in the eighth grade at SMS and when he wasn’t playing jokes on people, he was planning tricks or talking about things that were embarrassing to others. By Monday afternoon everybody at SMS would know that she had knocked on the door of the men’s bathroom. “Would you check to see if there’s a boy in there? His name is Tom,” said Claudia, trying to stay calm.
“I was the only one in there,” said Alan.
“I know he’s in there. Please go check. It’s been so long I’m worried he might be sick.”
Alan went back inside, then yelled loudly enough for Claudia to hear, “Tom! There’s a Claudia Kishi waiting outside the door for you! She really likes you!”
There was no answer. Alan returned alone.
“Tom is someone I’m baby-sitting for,” Claudia said. “He’s not a boyfriend.”
“That’s okay, Claud. This will be between you and me.” Alan laughed as he walked away.
“Thanks,” Claudia called after him. Suddenly, she had an inspiration. She ran to the lobby and there was Tom, playing video games.
Claudia took him by the arm. “I said we’d play later. The movie’s started.” She steered him toward the theater.
“I’m not finished,” Tom said. “Besides, I’ve already seen the movie a million times.”
“Tom, we’re going into the movie now,” Claudia said firmly.
Again he sighed. Instead of going to the thea
ter, Tom opened the door to the bathroom. “I didn’t use the bathroom yet,” he whined.
Claudia waited, her arms crossed, until he came out. She followed him back into the auditorium and to his seat.
“What took you so long?” Stacey whispered.
“Tell you later,” said Claudia.
“Might as well tell me now. There’s so much talking, you can’t hear anyway,” said Stacey.
All around them, kids talked and laughed. Popcorn, ice, cups, and candy wrappers flew through the air. Tom leaned back in his seat, closed his eyes, and snored. Claudia knew he couldn’t have fallen asleep that fast. Gillian scooted a little closer to her and gave her a shy smile. Claudia smiled back.
By the end of the movie, Claudia had a headache from all the noise. She’d had to duck several times to avoid being hit with flying objects. The M&M’S hadn’t lasted nearly long enough, and she was ready for pizza.
As they were walking out of the theater, the Pikes close behind them, Tom said, loudly enough for everyone to hear, “It is so juvenile to come to the movies with your mom.”
Claudia placed a hand on Tom’s shoulder and speeded up the pace.
They walked around the corner and through the drizzle to Pizza Express. Tom led the way (with Claudia giving him directions), Gillian and Charlotte walked together, not saying much, and Claudia and Stacey brought up the rear. Lots of people had had the same idea. Claudia told me later that she felt as if she were part of a herd. People were in front of them, behind them, and even crowding past them.
Claudia paused inside the entrance, searching for a place to sit. Somehow the Pikes had reached Pizza Express first and commandeered a large table.
“Come on over here,” Margo shouted. “We have plenty of room.”
“Do we have to?” Tom asked.
“If we don’t, we’ll have to wait,” said Claudia,” and I don’t know about you, but I’m hungry.” They worked their way through the tables, followed by Stacey and Charlotte. Tom stood in the entryway for a moment, then followed too, his head down.
Mrs. Pike sat at one end of the table, with Byron and Jordan on either side of her. Vanessa sat next to Byron, Margo between Jordan and Adam. The boys were arguing about what kind of pizza to order. Mrs. Pike was massaging her temples.