“Very peculiar,” said Orville.
“And there was that scary noise,” Benny added. He imitated the sound.
“The screech owl,” said Orville. “They call out at night around here.”
“We saw one last night,” Henry said. “But other times, I think a person was making the noise to scare us.”
Grandfather frowned. “I don’t understand. The Andersons are buying the camp. Why would someone try to scare us?”
“I think I have that figured out,” said Jessie. She spoke to Orville. “The caretaker left before we got here. He didn’t meet the Andersons, either. But he knew a family with four children was making an offer on the camp. The person who wanted to scare off the buyer didn’t know which family it was.”
“So they tried to scare us, too?” asked Benny. “Just to be on the safe side?”
Orville put down his soup spoon. “None of this makes sense. My cousins and I wish to sell. We don’t want to frighten anyone off!”
“We thought maybe one of the sellers was trying to block the sale for some reason,” said Henry.
Orville shook his head. “It isn’t anyone in my family. I have no idea who might be blocking the sale of Broken Moon Pond.”
Jessie was busy thinking. The clues had always pointed to different people — the clerk in the store who pretended not to speak English, the waitress at the café who gave them bad service, André Plessis.… Now the pieces clicked into place.
“I know who is behind all this,” she announced.
Everyone turned toward her.
“Who?” asked Grandfather.
“Well, I thought about the strange things that have happened, like the man in the store who spoke English, but not to us,” she began. “It seemed like everybody was a suspect. But why would the village shopkeeper try to keep the Andersons from buying Broken Moon Pond?”
Violet grabbed Jessie’s arm in her excitement. “It isn’t any one person, is it?”
“No, it’s all of them!” Jessie said triumphantly.
“Wow!” said Henry, impressed. “How did you come up with this?”
Jessie grinned. “I made a good guess!”
At that moment, someone knocked at the door. Grandfather got up to answer it.
André Plessis stood in the doorway. He saw Orville inside and exclaimed, “It is you! My old friend! You have come back!”
“Please come in,” said Grandfather. “And join us.”
“Thank you,” André said. “But I have eaten.” He sat down at the table.
“André and I grew up together,” Orville said to the Aldens. “I taught him how to imitate the call of the screech owl.”
“That was you!” Henry accused. “You were outside our cabin making that sound!”
André ducked his head.
“And you pulled the boat at night,” added Benny. “I bet you made the boat disappear, too.”
“Yes,” André admitted. “I did those things. I am not proud of it.”
“But why?” asked Orville. “Why would you bother the Aldens with tricks?”
“I thought they were buying the camp,” André replied. “We heard in town a family with four children wanted to buy Broken Moon Pond. This camp has always been in your family. It should not be sold.”
“So you tried to discourage the buyers,” said Orville. “Only you ‘scared’ the wrong family!”
“I thought the villagers were protecting ‘tree house man,’” Jessie said to Orville. “When they saw you outside the sugar hut, they were startled. They acted like they had seen a ghost.”
“It has been many years since I was here last,” said Orville. “The people of Nibelle are proud of my work as a naturalist.”
“They probably feel Broken Moon Pond is rightfully yours,” Grandfather agreed.
“Who else was in on this scheme?” Orville asked André.
“Claude, at the general store,” André answered. “He pretended not to speak English when the children were in his shop. Also Berthilde at the café. She gave the Aldens bad service and then told them the camp was haunted.”
“You should be ashamed!” Orville said. “I will straighten this out with the Anderson family. But I can’t walk on this ankle yet. Could they come here?”
The Anderson children fetched their parents. Orville and André explained the situation and apologized on behalf of Nibelle.
“If the villagers are this loyal, they must be great people,” said Mr. Anderson. “We still want to buy the camp.”
“Wonderful,” said Orville. “I ask only one thing — that I be allowed to visit my tree house whenever I can.”
“We wouldn’t even have known about the tree house if the Alden children hadn’t found it,” said Mrs. Anderson.
“My grandchildren have a way of finding things,” said Grandfather affectionately. “Especially mysteries!”
The sun shone brightly the next morning, melting the snow. It would be a great day for the sugar festival.
Orville had stayed with the Aldens the night before. His ankle was better and he rode with them to Nibelle.
The narrow streets were jammed with booths and people. Balloons bobbled from every lamppost.
“I’m entering the log-sawing contest!” Henry said.
“I’ll enter the pancake-flipping contest,” said Grandfather. “They are using snow shovels to flip the pancakes! That ought to be a challenge!”
Benny found his own contest.
A tower of pancakes was displayed on a table, next to a huge jug of syrup. Benny wanted to win that syrup for Mrs. McGregor.
“What do I do?” he asked the lady tending the booth.
“Tell me how many pancakes are in the stack,” she replied. “Just give me your best guess.”
Benny looked hard at the stack. Then he guessed right!
“That really was your best guess!” Henry said to Benny as he helped him lift the prize jug.
“What’s your secret?” Jessie asked.
Benny shrugged. “I guess best when I’m hungry!”
The Aldens laughed.
GERTRUDE CHANDLER WARNER discovered when she was teaching that many readers who like an exciting story could find no books that were both easy and fun to read. She decided to try to meet this need, and her first book, The Boxcar Children, quickly proved she had succeeded.
Miss Warner drew on her own experiences to write the mystery. As a child she spent hours watching trains go by on the tracks opposite her family home. She often dreamed about what it would be like to set up housekeeping in a caboose or freight car — the situation the Alden children find themselves in.
When Miss Warner received requests for more adventures involving Henry, Jessie, Violet, and Benny Alden, she began additional stories. In each, she chose a special setting and introduced unusual or eccentric characters who liked the unpredictable.
While the mystery element is central to each of Miss Warner’s books, she never thought of them as strictly juvenile mysteries. She liked to stress the Aldens’ independence and resourcefulness and their solid New England devotion to using up and making do. The Aldens go about most of their adventures with as little adult supervision as possible — something else that delights young readers.
Miss Warner lived in Putnam, Connecticut, until her death in 1979. During her lifetime, she received hundreds of letters from girls and boys telling her how much they liked her books.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2001 by Albert Whitman & Company
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THE BOXCAR CHILDREN SPECIALS
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Gertrude Chandler Warner, The Mystery of the Screech Owl
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