Who Stole Halloween?

by Martha Freeman

  “There’s one more job,” Yasmeen told Sophie. “And it’s important. You have to tell everybody how badly Alex treats Luau.”

  “But everybody knows about Luau and me,” I said. “Who would believe I treat him bad?”

  “Badly,” Yasmeen said. “And we’ve been over this. There’s only one person who has to believe it, and that’s the catnapper. We just start the rumor and wait. I know who I’m calling—Billy Jensen.”

  I didn’t say anything to my parents about the plan. I wasn’t sure it was going to happen, for one thing. Telling them could wait. But there was someone I needed to consult right away. At bedtime he was sitting on my pillow with his favorite possession, the white ball of catnip.

  “Was Yasmeen right today, Luau?” I asked him. “Were you volunteering when you jumped into her lap? You know it could be dangerous. You could end up catnapped yourself.”

  Luau slithered beneath my sheet and blanket, purring. It took me a minute to understand, but when I did, I had to laugh.

  “Luau Kitty,” I said, “goes undercover.”

  Chapter Twenty-two

  I could have told you about seventy-five reasons this plan of Yasmeen’s was bad. But there was one I never thought of—its effect on me. Billy Jensen was totally true to his reputation as the biggest blabbermouth in first grade, if not the entire school. He wasted no time spreading the rumor about how I mistreat Luau.

  And Yasmeen hadn’t left it at plain old “mistreat” either. She provided details. Supposedly, I buy Luau dog food instead of cat food because it’s cheaper, and I make him sleep in the garage no matter how freezing it gets.

  The next day, Thursday, it seemed like half the school wasn’t talking to me. I even caught Mrs. Timmons glaring at me once, at the same time she brushed a few white cat hairs off her shoulder. One girl, a second-grader, hissed and clawed the air when she passed me in the hall.

  “I’m really sorry, but it won’t be for long,” Yasmeen told me at lunch. We were the only ones at the table because no one else wanted to sit with me. “And for now, you should be glad it’s going so well.”

  “I hope Sophie works fast,” I said.

  “I talked to Sophie this morning after recess,” Yasmeen said. “She pitched one of her famous fits, and her mom went straight to the pet store for a cat collar. Sophie says those fits never fail. She thinks she can do the work today after school. The monitor should be ready by Halloween—tomorrow.”

  I swallowed the last bite of my peanut butter sandwich and gulped some milk. “I think we should go over the plan again,” I said. “I’m not sure I’ve got it totally straight.”

  Yasmeen nodded. “The catnapper usually strikes around midnight. So tomorrow after trick-or-treating, you’ll put Luau’s new collar on him and let him out.”

  “Right,” I said.

  “You’ve got the cat bed ready, right?”

  “I can put it on the front step. For the catnapper it’ll be like an invitation,” I said.

  “Good,” Yasmeen said. “But just in case there’s a problem, you’ll have the baby monitor, the receiver half.”

  “But that’s only for emergencies,” I said.

  “If everything goes the way I think it will,” Yasmeen said, “we won’t even have to use it.”

  “So Luau’s safely in his bed . . . ,” I said, “and then comes the hard part.”

  Yasmeen nodded. “You have to stay awake until 3 A.M., watching out the window—making sure Luau’s okay. Then, assuming he is, I take over. You’ll know it’s okay to go to sleep when I blink the lights in my bedroom. That means I’m on duty.”

  “And if Luau’s not still safe—if I see somebody in the yard . . .?”

  “Shine a light!” Yasmeen said, just the way she would in church.

  I laughed. “And what do you think will happen then,” I asked, “when I shine a light?”

  “I think whoever it is will drop Luau and run, but by then we will have seen him.”

  “Or her,” I said.

  Yasmeen nodded. “And anyway, if he or she doesn’t drop Luau, we’ve got the transmitter in the collar. What we hear will tell us where Luau is, and we’ll rescue him.”

  When I got home from school, my dad was in the kitchen making dinner. Usually a gourmet dinner by Dad means using stuff out of two cardboard boxes instead of one, but now he was looking at an actual cookbook.

  “Check it out.” Dad pointed a wooden spoon at a pan on the stove. “Plus—look at this: Fresh vegetables.”

  I looked over his shoulder and saw two onions and some broccoli. Yuck.

  “I’m making stir-fry,” Dad said. “I borrowed the cookbook from Marjie Lee.” He measured a spoonful of soy sauce into a bowl and frowned. “Doesn’t seem like very much.”

  I looked at the recipe. “It says one quarter cup, Dad.”

  Dad said, “I knew that.”

  “So I guess the pills aren’t helping your eyes any,” I said.

  “In fact, I think my vision’s better,” Dad said. “But this print is so darned small, isn’t it? Which reminds me, Alex—sometime before dinner, would you run over to Mr. Blanco’s store and pick up the rest of my pills?”

  I said sure, thinking I hadn’t had a chance to ask Mr. Blanco what he knew about the ghost story. Dad rinsed the broccoli and began cutting it up.

  “How come you borrowed a cookbook?” I asked him.

  “I noticed it on the shelf when I went over to see the baby. Marjie said go ahead and take it. I’ve been thinking I should get more serious about cooking—especially vegetables. They’re good for eyesight, too, you know.”

  I got a handful of cookies out of the cupboard and sat down to eat them at the kitchen table. If Dad was going to get serious about vegetables, I’d better fortify myself. “What’s the baby like?” I asked him.

  “Scrunched-up face on one end, diaper on the other,” Dad said. “It’s a while before they get cute.”

  “What did they name her?”

  Dad smiled. “Marjie Lee can’t decide, which is so like her. For now, they’re calling her Boopsie.”

  “That’s awful!” I said. “Doesn’t Mr. Lee have an idea what to name her?”

  “Who knows?” Dad said. “The man is practically a ghost—nobody ever sees him. You just hear tell he’s been around.”

  My ears pricked up. Mr. Lee was like a ghost? Maybe he really was the catnapper!

  But I didn’t want to say that. Mr. Lee was a neighbor, and my reasons for suspecting him were lame. Reason one: He was in a business that had to do with animals, and cats are missing, and cats are animals. Reason two: He is never around, which makes him seem mysterious, and the thief is also mysterious.

  There was something more as well, though. I didn’t know what to call it. Instinct maybe? My instinct told me not to trust Mr. Lee.

  I tried to be subtle. “You didn’t notice anything unusual at the Lees’ house when you were there, did you, Dad? Like new pets maybe?”

  “Isn’t a new baby enough?” Dad said.

  I tried again. “So, uh, what do you know about Mr. Lee? I mean, what kind of a guy is he? What about his business?”

  Dad looked over his shoulder at me. “Why this sudden neighborly interest, Alex?”

  I swallowed the last bite of cookie. “I don’t know,” I lied. “Just curiosity is all.”

  Dad squinted at the recipe again. Then he measured a spoonful of oil and poured it into the pan. “Well, Alex,” he said. “You know what they say. ’Twas curiosity that killed the cat.”

  Chapter Twenty-three

  The day had started out sunny, but by now a silver sheet of clouds had drifted in, and the air felt cold. To keep warm, I ran partway to Mr. Blanco’s store at the Harvey house. Walking up the path, I noticed most of the pumpkins were gone from the front yard. Inside, the lights were bright. The store seemed to be open, but there was no one around.

  “Hello? Mr. Blanco?” I called.

  “Hello!” came a voice. “Who’s t
here?”

  I still didn’t see anyone, and I couldn’t figure out where the voice was coming from. Knowing this was the Harvey house—the famous haunted Harvey house—I felt a little weird conversing with a voice that didn’t have a body.

  “It’s me, Alex Parakeet! Is that you, Mr. Blanco?”

  “I think so,” the voice said, “but I’m so covered with dust and cobwebs I can’t be sure. Hang on. I’ll be up in a minute.”

  Oh, that’s right. Mom had mentioned that there was a cellar. That’s where the neighbors found the starving cats that time. Sure enough, a moment later Mr. Blanco emerged from a doorway in a back corner. With one hand he was carrying a big black book—about twice the size of a photo album—and some old yellow newspapers. With the other hand he was wiping cobwebs from his face. I hoped no spiders had hitched a ride in his hair.

  “Did you come for the rest of the pills?” he asked. “I’ve got a new batch up by the register. And maybe you’d like some ointment for that bruise on your forehead? It looks painful.”

  “It doesn’t hurt anymore,” I said, “but thanks.”

  “How are the pills working out for your dad?” Mr. Blanco asked.

  I followed him to the front of the store. He dropped the book and the newspapers onto the counter. They landed with a bump and a poof of dust.

  “Dad thinks they’re helping,” I said, “but I’m not sure.”

  “They’re made in small batches,” Mr. Blanco said, “which is why your dad had to wait for these.” He pulled the yellow bottle of pills from underneath the counter. “Anything else I can get you?”

  I looked around and noticed the white balls I had seen last time, the ones that looked like the catnip sachet we found under the car. Shoot! I had meant to ask about them then, but when the ghost howled and turned out the lights, I totally forgot.

  “Are these catnip?” I asked.

  Mr. Blanco nodded. “One of my most popular sellers. Cat owners are crazy people—have you noticed? Oh—sorry, Alex. Present company excepted.”

  “I guess you wouldn’t remember any particular person who bought one of these catnip things?”

  “Do you have somebody in mind?” Mr. Blanco asked.

  I wanted to say, yeah—I have in mind your basic catnapper. Do you have any catnapper customers? But instead, I explained that Yasmeen and I had found one on Groundhog Drive by St. Bernard’s.

  “You wanted to return it to the rightful owner, is that it?” Mr. Blanco said. “Well, in that neighborhood, I’d say it was probably Kyle Richmond. Talk about your crazy cat-owners.” Mr. Blanco shook his head.

  “Kyle?” I felt crushed. If the catnip was Kyle’s, it wasn’t a clue at all.

  “Come to think of it,” Mr. Blanco said, “he’s another kid that’s seen the ghost, same as you and Yasmeen. He was in Sunday afternoon to buy catnip and started asking questions about the ghost story.”

  “Mr. Stone told Yasmeen and me his dad’s version of the story,” I said. “I even went over to the cemetery to see the grave markers. I was hoping you might know more.”

  “That’s one reason I’ve been digging around this house,” Mr. Blanco said, “to find out what really happened. Living across from the cemetery, Kyle’s interested in ghosts, too. Anyway, we were talking when the usual ruckus kicked up. He was outta here before the lights blinked. Poor kid—he hasn’t been back.”

  I said that was too bad, then I asked about the stuff Mr. Blanco had brought up from the cellar. “Does this have to do with the ghost story?”

  He pushed the book and the newspapers toward me. “They’re from around the time the murders took place,” he said. “And yesterday I found something strange, too. We’re still remodeling, you know, and I punched through a wall in the room I think must have been the parlor.”

  “That’s where Mr. Stone told us the bodies were found,” I said, “Marianne Harvey’s first, and then, on Halloween night, her husband’s.”

  Mr. Blanco nodded. “Well, punching through that wall, darned if I didn’t find an old fireplace. And it must’ve been covered over in a hurry, too, because there were still traces of burned junk there.”

  “Junk?” I said. “Like somebody burned trash in the fireplace?”

  Mr. Blanco shrugged. “I wouldn’t have thought so—not in an upscale house like this. Let me show you.” He pulled a plastic bag out of a drawer, then laid it on the counter beside the papers and the book. The bag’s contents were black and dusty, but after a minute I realized they were burned fragments of cloth—someone’s clothes maybe.

  “Can I open the bag?” I said.

  “Not in here, if you don’t mind,” Mr. Blanco said. “It makes a heck of a mess. You probably think I’m crazy saving it at all, huh?”

  “No, I don’t,” I said. “Ever since Yasmeen dragged me into that mystery last Christmas, I understand how detecting takes over your brain.”

  Mr. Blanco agreed. “The more I find, the more I wonder. For example, I grant it’s a good story, but does it really seem likely that a house cat could kill a human being?”

  Mr. Blanco kept talking, but I didn’t hear what he said. Was I imagining it? Or did I feel a gust of cold air?

  “And then there’s this stuff here,” Mr. Blanco was saying. “Who would have been burning clothes in the fireplace, and why?”

  I tried to ignore the goose bumps prickling my arms. “But how do you know the burned clothes have anything to do with the murders?” I asked. “Haven’t a lot of people lived in this house?”

  “Quite a few,” he said. “But the clothes almost have to come from around the same time. I have some old photos of the house, and that fireplace has been walled up since before the turn of the twentieth century.”

  I was going to ask him what other stuff he had found, but an unearthly howl interrupted me—like a giant-size cat with its tail pinched under a rocking chair. I looked at Mr. Blanco expecting to see fear in his face, but he only sighed and shook his head. “Here we go again.”

  Chapter Twenty-four

  The howl, the lightning, the crack of thunder, and finally the lights blacking out. The ghost had paid another visit to the Harvey House Health Boutique, but it wasn’t so scary this time, I guess because I kind of knew what to expect. It seems like a lot of what’s scary in the world is the possibility of the unexpected. Anyway, now I thought the ghostly activity was more like a signal than a treat.

  But a signal for what?

  After Mr. Blanco turned the lights back on, he gave me one of the catnip balls for Luau “because you’re a good customer,” and he let me borrow the dusty newspapers and the big black book. “I won’t have time to look at them tonight, anyway,” he said. “You being an experienced detective and all, maybe you’ll figure out what really happened.”

  Fat chance, I thought. I can’t even solve the case of a cat stolen last week—how could I expect to figure out anything new about murders from the nineteenth century?

  At home, Dad thanked me for the pills and Luau thanked me for the catnip. Then I went over to Yasmeen’s to report the latest and ask for her help.

  “What’s that dusty old junk?” Yasmeen wanted to know when I dropped the book and the newspapers on the coffee table in her family room.

  I told her Mr. Blanco had found them. “Now he wants me to look through them and help figure out the truth about the ghost,” I explained, “but I need your superior brainpower.”

  Yasmeen loves to be told how superior her brainpower is, so she said sure—even though she doesn’t believe in ghosts.

  Then I told her the bad news about the catnip we found, that it was probably Kyle’s.

  Yasmeen sighed and shook her head. “So our one and only clue isn’t?”

  Brains are peculiar things. I guess because we were talking about clues, mine suddenly filled up with that dream from a few days ago, the one where all the clues turned into fish and swam away—all except one slip of paper.

  “Yasmeen,” I said, “what did you d
o with the other clues?”

  “Aren’t you listening?” she asked. “We don’t have any other clues.”

  “I mean the other stuff we found when we found the catnip,” I said.

  “Oh—the beer can and junk,” she said. “In my room. I didn’t think we should throw anything out till we were done with our detecting.”

  “Let’s take another look,” I said. “We can check out Mr. Blanco’s stuff later. The ghost has been around for more than one hundred years—he isn’t going anywhere.”

  Upstairs, Yasmeen retrieved the bag from a shelf. “Besides the can, there’s a gum wrapper and some kind of receipt.”

  “That was it.” I took the bag from her. “A grocery receipt.”

  We looked at each other.

  “A grocery receipt!” Yasmeen conked her head with her fist. “We must be the stupidest smart kids yet!”

  The receipt was from the Smartt Mart on Northernmost Parkway. Unfortunately, it didn’t have a credit card number or a name. But there was a list of what had been purchased and the date, October 22, the same day Halloween disappeared.

  “What kind of recipe uses ten boxes of salt and twenty pounds of flour?” I asked Yasmeen.

  “I don’t know.” Yasmeen made a face. “But I wouldn’t want to eat it.”

  “Besides that, there’re five packages of food coloring—”

  “Assorted colors,” Yasmeen cut in. She was looking over my shoulder.

  “And ten twenty-pound bags of cat food.”

  Yasmeen moaned. “We’ve had this for four days, and we never even looked at it.”

  “Yup, we’re idiots, all right,” I said. “We were totally focused on catnip, and this was right in front of our faces.”

  Looking at the receipt, Yasmeen asked, “Is that a good brand of cat food?”

  “The kind the vet likes.” I nodded.

  “So it looks like we’re right about that, at least,” Yasmeen said. “The catnapper likes cats; he probably sees himself as a cat rescue squad.”