“No way are we calling the police!” I said. “I would be totally embarrassed to parade into the police station carrying a hairbrush with a few red hairs in it. They’d think we were nuts, especially since the house shows no signs of being broken into.”
“I think Stacey’s right,” said Mary Anne softly. “We’re better off just working together on this.” She gave the word “together” special emphasis, and underscored her meaning with a significant Look at Kristy. Mary Anne can’t stand it when she feels as if people aren’t getting along.
“So, back to Mary Anne’s question, what do we do?” asked Mal. She looked down at the list. “I mean, it seems pretty obvious by now that something is going on over at the Johanssens’. I’d bet a month’s baby-sitting earnings that you’re not the only one who’s been in that house, Stacey.”
I gulped. Of course, that was exactly what I had been suspecting all along, but it was one thing to suspect, and another thing to hear it said straight out like that. “I don’t know if anybody would take that bet, Mal,” I said. “I sure wouldn’t.” I gave a little shudder. “This whole thing is really creeping me out.”
“Well, there’s one step we definitely have to take,” said Claudia firmly. “The key thing is to make sure that Stacey isn’t alone at the house anymore. One of us should always go with her when she checks on Carrot.” She paused to rub my shoulder reassuringly.
“You don’t have to do that,” I began to protest. I didn’t want any special treatment. Somehow, I still felt as if I should be able to handle the situation on my own.
“Don’t be silly,” Kristy said. “Claudia’s right. After all, the Johanssens are due back on Sunday, right? That’s only a few days away.”
Mary Anne checked the record book. “It shouldn’t be hard to schedule things so one of us goes with you each time, Stacey.” She made some notes in pencil, frowning slightly as she worked out a schedule.
While we waited for Mary Anne to finish, we went on discussing the mystery.
“If you ever do see signs of somebody breaking in, that’s when we should call the cops,” said Kristy thoughtfully. “But I guess you guys are right. For now, I don’t know what they could do that we couldn’t.”
“No,” mused Claudia. “The only thing they might do, if they had the manpower, that is, would be to stake out the house.” She had a familiar look in her eyes: the “Nancy Drew” look, I call it. It’s as if her mind becomes this computer, flipping through the Girl Detective Database, pulling out all the mystery-solving possibilities. Claud may not be great in school, but she never forgets the plot of a Nancy Drew book.
“We can do that!” said Mal excitedly. “You know how you can see the Johanssens’ house from Jessi’s house? Maybe we could have a sleepover there this weekend. We could watch the house all night! I’ll ask Jessi to check with her parents.”
“Great idea,” said Krisy. “I’ll bring some —”
“I’ve got it!” Mary Anne said suddenly, interrupting Kristy. Then she looked up and blushed. “Sorry,” she said to Kristy, who looked annoyed. “It’s just that I have this schedule all worked out. It was a little complicated, but I think it’ll work just fine.” She passed the record book around. “If you guys can check to see when you’re supposed to go to the Johanssens’ with Stacey, I’ll let the others know about their shifts.”
“Good job, Mary Anne,” said Kristy, looking over the schedule. Obviously, she’d forgiven Mary Anne for interrupting her. “I see I’m down for Friday afternoon. Weren’t we thinking of going downtown that day to shop for presents for the party? Maybe we can meet —”
“Oh, my lord!” I burst out, interrupting Kristy again. She looked even more annoyed this time. “Sorry, Kristy,” I said. “It’s just that something’s been nagging at me ever since Claudia mentioned the word ‘key.’ ”
“Well? What is it?” Kristy asked, raising an eyebrow.
“You know how we keep thinking that if somebody had broken into the house we’d see signs of it?” I asked. “Well, what if they had a key?”
“What do you mean?” asked Claudia. “How would anybody get hold of a key?”
“There’s one hidden in the Johanssens’ yard,” I said. Suddenly everybody was silent for a few seconds.
Then they started talking at once. “Where is it?” asked Kristy.
“Have you checked it lately?” asked Mary Anne.
“Who else knows about the key?” asked Mal.
“Whoa, whoa!” I said, holding up my hands. “Slow down. First of all, you have to swear you’ll never tell anybody else if I tell you where the Johanssens keep the key.”
“Of course,” said Kristy. “Anyway, after all this, they may want to find a new place.”
“Well,” I said, “it’s under this rock by the back door. I don’t know of anybody else who knows where it is, Mal. And no, Mary Anne, I haven’t checked it lately.”
“Well, what are we waiting for?” asked Kristy. “Let’s go over there right now and check it out.”
We all looked at each other. “Why not?” I asked. “Let’s go.”
About ten minutes later, we were standing around the back door of the Johanssens’. I had Carrot on his leash — I’d told him he was a lucky dog, getting a bonus walk that day — and I was about to turn over the rock.
“Wait,” said Kristy. “Let’s make sure nobody’s walking by. We don’t want anybody to guess that this is the hiding place.”
Claudia went around the corner and took a good look up and down the street. “The coast is clear,” she hissed on her way back into the little circle we’d made around the rock.
I handed Carrot’s leash to Mal. Then I reached down and picked up the rock. Everybody gasped.
There was nothing under it. Nothing.
“Oh, my lord!” said Claudia. “It’s gone!”
We were all speechless. But horrible images were running through my head. Images of red-haired men unlocking the Johanssens’ door and slipping inside. Breaking into a house is easy, if you have a key. And there’d be no signs that you had broken in. No signs — except for things like water glasses in the sink. I sat down on the back stairs and put my head in my hands. Carrot sat down next to me and nudged me with his nose, as if he knew I was upset.
“Hold on, hold on,” said Kristy. “Let’s not panic here. There may be a perfectly good explanation for why that key is missing.”
“Such as?” asked Mal, looking confused.
“Such as maybe that key is the one the Johanssens’ gave Stacey,” Kristy said calmly.
“Oh!” I said, instantly relieved. Kristy had to be right. “That makes so much sense. That must be it.”
“Still, I’d feel better if we stuck to that schedule I made,” said Mary Anne. She looked a little shaken.
“Definitely,” said Kristy. “Stacey, I’ll walk over here with you after school tomorrow, okay?”
“And I’ll come over here with you in the morning,” added Claud. She bent down to give Carrot a pat. “You’re going to have lots of company, Carrot,” she said. Carrot’s ears perked up. He looked around at us and wagged his tail.
* * *
Carrot was happy about the company, and I have to admit that I was, too. On Friday morning I stopped by Claud’s house on my way to the Johanssens’, and it was great to have her with me as I went through my morning routine there. Nothing seemed out of place, and nothing frightening happened, but I was still glad that I wasn’t alone.
In the afternoon, Kristy walked to the Johanssens’ with me after school. On the way there, she talked about nothing but the weather reports. She was growing more and more nervous about whether there’d be snow in time for our sleigh ride, which was only a week and a day away. “On one channel they said there’s a cold front coming, and on another channel they’re predicting sleet,” Kristy complained. “I listen to every single weather report and read everything I can about it in the papers, but I still can’t tell if we’re going to have snow.”
She frowned and kicked at a rock. “It doesn’t look good, though.”
“Let’s just keep our fingers crossed,” I said. “There’s not much more we can do about it, is there?”
Once again, everything was normal at the Johanssens’ that afternoon — so I was feeling much better when my friends and I headed downtown for our shopping expedition. We found terrific presents for our Christmas party, and then I cleaned out my wallet buying a vase to replace the one Carrot had broken.
After our shopping trip, we walked over to Claud’s for our BSC meeting. The phone rang so much that afternoon that we didn’t have a spare second to discuss the mystery, and I was just as glad. I was tired of thinking about it.
I didn’t realize until I was home that night that I’d left the vase at Claudia’s. But it didn’t seem to matter. After all, I just had to take it over to the Johanssens’ before they got home, and I still had all day on Saturday to do that.
That Friday afternoon, while Kristy, Mary Anne, Claudia, and I were shopping downtown, Jessi and Mal were sitting for Mal’s brothers and sisters. The two of them were pretty proud of themselves. The night before, they’d spent an hour on the phone talking about what they could do with the kids, and they’d come up with a great idea.
It’s not easy to find an activity that will keep all seven of the younger Pike kids happy. After all, there’s a wide spread in their ages, and they have different interests and abilities. But Mal and Jessi had hit on the perfect plan — or at least that’s what they thought.
They had decided to have the kids make potato-print wrapping paper for the holiday party. You know, you take potatoes, slice them in half, and carve a design into the cut end. Then you dip the potato-printer you’ve made into poster paint and stamp it all over the paper you’re decorating.
“This is great,” Mal had said enthusiastically, when she and Jessi first came up with the idea. “It’s an art project, which my brothers and sisters always love, and it’s easy, which is good for us. The older kids can help the younger ones. And everybody will feel like they’ve contributed to the holiday party. It’ll be messy,” continued Mal. “But we’ll spread newspaper all over the place, and when it’s time to clean up we’ll just roll it up and throw it away.”
And that’s exactly what Jessi and Mal were doing the next afternoon. They had set out some snacks, for when the kids got home, and then they’d turned to covering the kitchen table — and the floor and the counters — with layers and layers of newspaper.
Claire, who attends the morning kindergarten session, was the only one home so far. (Jessi and Mal had raced home from school in order to set things up before the other kids arrived.) Now Claire followed Mal around, pestering her with questions.
“What are we going to do?” she asked. “What’s that paint for? Why can’t I open the jars?”
“We’ll explain everything when everybody else is here,” Mal said patiently. She didn’t want to describe the potato-print process more than once.
“But Mal-silly-billy-goo-goo, why is there paper everywhere?” Claire asked. Being five, she loves two things best: being silly and asking questions.
Mal decided to head her off before she got really silly. “The papers are to keep us from making a mess,” she explained. “Claire, would you like a job?”
“Yay! A job!” said Claire, jumping up and down. “What do I do?”
“You can pick out seven really good potatoes,” said Mal, showing her a basket full of potatoes that sat in the middle of the kitchen table. “Make sure you choose the best ones, okay?”
Claire looked serious, the way little kids always look when you give them a job. She nodded, rolled up her sleeves, and started to pick carefully through the potatoes. Jessi and Mal exchanged a glance and tried not to giggle.
A few minutes later, just as Mal and Jessi finished their preparations, Vanessa and Margo came bursting into the kitchen. “Hi! Hi! Hi!” Margo yelled. She’s always full of energy when she comes home from school. She hugged Claire, who was still sorting potatoes. “Claire-y!” Margo said. She and Claire consider themselves best friends, and they miss each other on school days.
“School is fun but I’m glad it’s done,” proclaimed Vanessa, who wants to be a poet and often speaks in rhyme. “The weekend’s here — let’s give a cheer!”
Mal and Jessi humored her with a big “Hurray!” just as the triplets — Adam, Byron, and Jordan — and Nicky showed up.
“Hurray for what?” asked Nicky.
“For the weekend,” Jessi explained.
“Oh,” said Nicky. “Well, hurray! I love weekends.”
“That’s not all you love,” said Adam, with a snicker.
“Cut it out!” cried Nicky, who had suddenly turned beet red.
“Nicky and Marilyn, sitting in a tree,” Jordan chanted, under his breath.
“K-I-S —” began Byron, but Nicky whirled around and gave him a fierce look.
“Leave me alone,” he said. “I hate girls.”
“Aw, Nicky, even me?” Jessi asked, trying to lighten the mood. The triplets are always picking on Nicky, and it drives him crazy. All he wants is to be accepted as “one of the guys,” but instead he just gets teased.
“I like you,” Nicky said gruffly, turning to Jessi. “But you’re the only girl I like.” He scowled at his sisters.
“Okay, guys,” said Mal, hoping to change the subject. “Who wants a snack before we start on our project?”
“What project?” asked Adam. “We’re doing a project?”
“That’s right,” said Jessi. She glanced questioningly at Mal, who nodded. It was time to tell the kids what they’d be doing. “We’re going to make potato-print wrapping paper for the presents we’ll pass out at the holiday party.”
“Yeah!” yelled Claire.
“Baby stuff,” muttered Jordan.
“We thought you boys could help cut the designs,” said Jessi, looking at the triplets. “The younger kids can’t do that, you know.”
“No problem!” said Byron, swaggering a little.
Snacktime was a little hectic, as meals usually are at the Pike household. The kids have very different tastes in food, so the kitchen is kind of a madhouse when everybody is looking for something to eat at the same time. Most of the kids were happy with the things Jessi and Mal had put out: peanut butter, crackers, bananas, and raisin bread. But Byron insisted on having salami on his peanut butter sandwich, and Claire wanted all the raisins picked out of her bread before she would even touch it.
Eventually, everybody had eaten and Jessi and Mal decided it was time to begin. “Okay,” said Mal. “Take a seat at the table and help yourself to a potato.”
“I picked them out!” interrupted Claire. “They’re the best ones.”
“Thank you, Claire,” said Mal. “Now, you can each design two potato prints, because the first thing we’ll do is cut our potatoes in half. After that, you can figure out what design you want, and one of the older kids will help you carve it. Then you can pick your colors and start printing.”
Jessi was opening the paint jars and pouring paint into foil pie plates. “We have a lovely red here,” she said, pretending she was one of those glamorous ladies on the TV game shows. “And a positively delicious green. Not to mention a divine purple and an elegant yellow.” She displayed the pie plates as she spoke, and everybody cracked up. Then they set to work.
At first, Jessi and Mal exchanged congratulatory glances. Everyone was involved in the project, just as they’d hoped. There was some squabbling, but generally speaking things were going smoothly. Jessi did notice, she told us later, that Nicky and Adam, in particular, seemed very distracted. And Mal overheard Byron asking Vanessa, in a whisper, whether she’d gotten “the things.”
Mal was helping Claire cut out a half-moon shape on one of her potato halves when the phone rang.
“I’ll get it!” yelled Nicky, jumping up from the table. He ran past the phone in the kitchen and answered the one on
the hall table instead. Jessi and Mal couldn’t hear a word of his conversation.
Five minutes later, the same scene was repeated, only it was Vanessa who jumped up to grab the phone. And a few minutes after that, Adam got up to make a phone call.
“What’s going on here?” asked Mal.
“Nothing,” said Nicky, looking innocent. Just then, the doorbell rang, and he ran to answer the door.
Jessi and Mal heard some whispering and giggling in the front hall, and then footsteps pounding down the basement stairs. Nicky reappeared a few minutes later, still trying to look as if nothing were happening. “Did somebody just come to the door?” Jessi asked him.
“Um, yes,” he answered, unable to lie when questioned directly. “Just Buddy. And Matt.”
“You invited two friends over without asking?” asked Mal.
“Not really,” said Nicky. “I mean, I didn’t exactly invite them. But can I go downstairs and play with them, as long as they’re here? We have a — sort of a project we’re working on.”
“We’re going, too,” said Adam, as he and Byron and Jordan popped out of their seats.
“Well, I guess it’s okay,” said Mal. “But next time let us know beforehand if you want to have people over.”
Jessi and Mal thought that was the end of it, but the “project” seemed to go on for the rest of the afternoon. The phone and doorbell kept ringing, and the Pike kids took turns disappearing into the basement. The triplets, who are old enough to be responsible, assured Mal and Jessi that they were being careful, and that the project was nothing dangerous, but they insisted that they couldn’t — and wouldn’t — tell what it was.
“Just what we need,” Mal said to Jessi at one point when they were by themselves in the kitchen. “Another mystery.”
“Right,” said Jessi, pressing her potato onto the wrapping paper to create a red snowman print. “At least this one doesn’t involve escaped prisoners.”
She and Mal finished up the wrapping paper project on their own, sitting at the table with the paints surrounding them. They printed snowmen, wreaths, menorahs, and stars with their potatoes, trying hard to ignore the giggles wafting up from the basement. They figured they’d find out soon enough what the kids were up to, since keeping a secret is never easy in a family with eight kids!