“I wonder why Mrs. Hoyt hasn’t called,” said Kristy, after awhile. “She told me last week that she thought she was going to need a regular sitter for Georgie.”
“Didn’t you hear?” said Mary Anne. “The Hoyts moved away. To Arizona, I think. Or maybe it was New Mexico. Tasha wasn’t in gym class today, and somebody told me that she and her family were already gone. I think they left today.”
Everybody turned to look at me, since they knew how I felt about Terry.
“Did you know they were leaving?” Kristy asked.
I shrugged. “Terry said they might,” I answered.
“Why did they go?” asked Dawn.
“I don’t know,” I said, thinking that I wasn’t exactly lying. I didn’t know what Mr. Hoyt’s next assignment was, after all. “Maybe Mrs. Hoyt was offered a job there or something.” For all I knew, that might be true.
“What about you and Terry?” asked Claudia.
I shrugged again. “I guess it just wasn’t meant to be. It was one of those short but sweet romances.”
I heard Mal and Jessi sigh. They must have thought that sounded romantic. Well, I guess it was. Terry had swept into my life and then left suddenly. It was like something out of a book.
When our meeting broke up, I took my painting and headed home to hang it on the wall. I called Claudia to tell her how great it looked. I also told her a little about my good-bye scene with Terry (not the secret stuff, of course), and how he had kissed me.
“He sure was cute,” said Claudia.
“He was really nice, too,” I said. “I mean, his looks may have attracted me to him in the first place, but it was his personality that made him great.”
“Not to mention his kissing technique,” said Claud. I could tell, even over the phone, that she was grinning.
We hung up soon afterward, and I tried to do some homework. But it was hard to concentrate. I kept thinking about Terry, and how hard his life must be. But his life was exciting, too, and he got to meet interesting people everywhere he went. I knew he’d be okay, and I also knew he was probably right about our meeting again. I had the same feeling.
I was so deeply involved with my daydreaming that I almost jumped out of my seat when the phone rang. I ran into Mom’s room to answer it. It was Sam Thomas, of all people.
“Sam!” I said. “How are you?”
“I’m okay. I heard about your work on that counterfeiting case. Pretty awesome.”
“Thanks.” I hesitated. Sam sounded as if he wanted to talk about something else. “What’s new with you?” I asked.
“Nothing. I mean, well —” He hesitated. “Stace, I really miss you,” he blurted out.
“You do? What about what’s-her-name? I mean, Kathy?”
“She’s okay,” said Sam. “But we’re not serious or anything. I don’t know, Stacey. I like dating other people, but I still like you a lot, too.”
“Oh, Sam,” I said. “I like you, too. I know exactly what you mean.”
“So what do we do?” he asked.
“I don’t know. I guess we just keep going on this way. I mean, we can still date each other once in awhile, but we can feel free to see other people, too.” I didn’t know if there was anybody I wanted to “see,” now that Terry was gone, but I knew I wanted to feel that I could if I wanted to.
“Cool,” said Sam. “How about going out this Friday?”
“Sounds great,” I said. And that was that.
After I’d hung up, I lay on my bed for a while and tried to figure everything out. It had been a crazy couple of weeks. I had (unknowingly) passed a counterfeit bill. I had helped to solve a mystery. I had worked things out (maybe!) with Sam. I had met a wonderful new boy, and then I had said good-bye to him. And, last but definitely not least, I had learned a secret that I would have to keep forever. It was David Hawthorne’s secret — and now it was my secret, too.
The author gratefully acknowledges
Ellen Miles
for her help in
preparing this manuscript.
About the Author
ANN MATTHEWS MARTIN was born on August 12, 1955. She grew up in Princeton, New Jersey, with her parents and her younger sister, Jane.
There are currently over 176 million copies of The Baby-sitters Club in print. (If you stacked all of these books up, the pile would be 21,245 miles high.) In addition to The Baby-sitters Club, Ann is the author of two other series, Main Street and Family Tree. Her novels include Belle Teal, A Corner of the Universe (a Newbery Honor book), Here Today, A Dog’s Life, On Christmas Eve, Everything for a Dog, Ten Rules for Living with My Sister, and Ten Good and Bad Things About My Life (So Far). She is also the coauthor, with Laura Godwin, of the Doll People series.
Ann lives in upstate New York with her dog and her cats.
Copyright © 1993 by Ann M. Martin.
Cover art by Hodges Soileau
All rights reserved. Published by Scholastic Inc. SCHOLASTIC, THE BABY-SITTERS CLUB, and associated logos are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Scholastic Inc.
First edition, August 1993
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher. For information regarding permission, write to Scholastic Inc., Attention: Permissions Department, 557 Broadway, New York, NY 10012.
e-ISBN 978-0-545-76905-1
Ann M. Martin, Stacey and the Mystery Money
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