by James Howe
“So you poison your classmates and set it up for Harley to take the blame. Very clever. You had me convinced. It looks like everyone else is convinced now, too.”
Milo began to wipe his hands on his pants. “Don’t be idiotic, Barth. You seem to forget that I was the first one poisoned, that in fact I have been poisoned three times. Would I poison myself?”
“As I said, Milo, you’re very clever. You conducted a little experiment on yourself. You wanted to learn just how sick your little mixture would make someone. Someone human, that is; you’d already found out what it could do to a mouse. While you were at it, you established yourself as a victim. And who would suspect the victim of being the culprit?”
“Really, this is ridiculous.”
“I have to admire you,” Sebastian said. Milo smiled in spite of himself. “Not that I like what you did, but you certainly were good at it. You put some of the stuff in your own food, not once, but twice; then, when you were circulating your petition, you sneaked a little into the food of the two people who took the time to sign.” Sebastian removed the Paragon from his pocket and pointed to the signatures below his. “Probably,” he said, “the clipboard you were carrying covered their plates while they were signing. Justin Greer and Lindsay Carmichael helped you out, and you thanked them … with a little poison. Once you saw the effect on them, you were ready to move on to the big time.”
“And how did I do that?” Milo asked, continuing to wipe his hands on his pants.
“You watched outside the kitchen until the coast was clear, then sneaked in and switched plastic containers. Easy enough to do with the kind of container found in almost any store. And luck was on your side. Because of the way deliveries were made yesterday, Miss Swille and the others were in and out of the kitchen a lot.”
“And how did I have the luxury to stand around and wait for just the right opportunity? Did school go into suspended animation all of a sudden? I have gym class before lunch, Barth.”
“Ordinarily, you have gym class, Milo. Yesterday, there were no gym classes, remember? Mr. Turman was absent. You had a free period. You slipped when you told me you’d been coming from gym and saw Jason and Brad in the cafeteria. It’s true, they were there. But you saw them because you’d been standing outside watching them for some time.
“The only thing I’m still not sure of is how you knew about Miss Swille’s secret herbs and spices in the first place. But I figure anybody who tries to impress teachers as much as you do has probably been a runner to the cafeteria lots of times. Once you’d thought up your little scheme, you just looked around for the best way to make it happen.”
“All of this is interesting speculation,” said Milo. “But you can’t prove a thing by it.”
“That’s true,” Sebastian replied. “It will take a confession to settle things once and for all. Harley has confessed because he feels it’s expected of him and he has nothing to lose. Of course, the truth is that he has everything to lose—a chance for a new beginning for himself and his family, for starters. And Miss Swille, by implication, will have her reputation hurt. She’ll lose her big twenty-fifth anniversary party, for sure. I stand to lose something, too.”
Milo snorted.
“Don’t laugh,” said Sebastian. “I went on the air and told lies. I didn’t know I was doing it, but that’s no excuse. I didn’t have all the evidence. I was too eager to get a scoop, too worried about saving my show. When the truth comes out—and it will come out, Milo, one way or another—I could lose a lot.”
“If the truth comes out,” Milo said slowly, “or what you call the truth, I stand to lose too. They might make me resign as editor of the school paper. That may not seem like much to you, Barth, but it means a lot to me.”
“I know it does. Each of us stands to lose something that means a lot, Milo. The difference is that you’re guilty and we’re not. And you’re the only one who can make it come out right.”
“And if I don’t? Presuming my guilt, that is.”
“If you don’t, then I’ll have to do whatever I can to clear my own name and the names of everyone I wrongly accused on my show. By the way, I still have the container.”
Milo’s hands stopped moving. He sat very still and listened.
“I have a lot of apologizing to do,” Sebastian continued. “To Harley and Miss Swille, to Mr. Hogan and my father. And to my listeners, Milo. I owe them all an apology. And I owe them the truth.”
“The truth,” said Milo, “hurts sometimes.”
“Agreed,” Sebastian said. “But it can make things better too. Not like poison. Poison just makes you sick, and it leaves a bitter taste.” He started toward the door, then turned back. “Eat your poison, Milo,” he said. And he quietly left the room.
Milo didn’t move for a long time. He just sat and watched the mice spin their wheels round and round. And then, without even realizing it was happening at first, he began to cry.
“Fritzie,” he said. “I’m sorry.”
What is the secret of the
ghost in the cemetery?
An exciting preview of
Sebastian Barth’s
spine-tingling first case
What Eric Knew
by
JAMES HOWE
1
THE FIRST THING Sebastian Barth heard when he woke that summer morning was mail being pushed through the slot in the front door and landing with a soft thud inside. From the sound, it was a two-magazine day, he decided. He yawned and rolled over in bed. The clock read ten past nine. Sebastian smiled at the luxury of sleeping so late.
Stretching, he reached for his robe and headed downstairs. The house was still. His father had probably left for the radio station at least an hour before. And his mother would be at the farmers’ market buying fresh vegetables for her restaurant. As for Gram, he couldn’t guess where she was this morning. Sebastian’s grandmother had so many “worthy causes,” as she called them, that “there weren’t enough hours in the day.”
When he entered the kitchen, his two cats. Boo and Chopped Liver, attacked his ankles and purred loudly.
“Give me a break, you guys,” he said. “You’ve been fed already.”
Chopped Liver flashed him a we-won’t-tell-anybody-if-you-feed-us-again sort of look, but Sebastian just shook his head and poured himself a bowl of cereal.
A newspaper lay open on the kitchen table. He noticed a story about some rare books being stolen from a library in New Haven, read about half of it, and turned to the comics.
The phone rang.
“Hey, it’s you.”
Sebastian recognized the voice of his best friend, David, who lived across the street. “Were you expecting a wrong number?” he asked.
“I didn’t think you’d be back from your route yet. You coming over?”
“I didn’t have to do my route today. And sure I’m coming over. How was the game?”
“Good. What do you want to do today?”
“I don’t know. What do you want to do?”
“I don’t know. You want to do some biking?”
“Maybe. But right now I want to rescue my cereal from terminal sogginess. I’ll be over in a half hour.”
“Okay,” David said. And then, as Sebastian was about to hang up, he added, “It’s been kind of quiet around here since Eric moved, hasn’t it?”
“Yeah,” Sebastian said. “Eric did have a way of keeping things lively. At least he did before … you know.”
“Yeah. Well, see you later.”
“See you later.”
After he hung up the phone, Sebastian remembered the mail. He’d been right. There were two magazines. There was also something for him. The thin envelope showed no return address, just a Boston postmark. And inside was the strangest letter he had ever received.
2
SEBASTIAN showed the letter to David. It read, “S.I.S.”
“That’s it?”
Sebastian nodded.
“Who’s it from?
Wait, don’t tell me—Eric, of course.”
The two boys were walking down Chestnut Street, toward the house where Eric used to live.
“But what’s it mean?” David asked, when Sebastian remained silent. “Hey, look. Someone’s moved in.”
“I know. I met them yesterday when you were at the game. There’s a kid our age.”
David regarded Eric’s old house with new interest. “What’s he like?” he asked.
“You’ll see.”
A slim woman with short, gray hair stood on the front porch of the house calling, “Buster! Buster!”
“Buster!” David snorted. “What kind of name is that? Gee, Sebastian, that’s not the kid, is it? Buster?”
“Don’t worry,” said Sebastian, as a child ran past them and into the yard, “you won’t become the laughingstock of Pembroke because you’ve got a friend named Buster. That’s the kid’s little brother. That’s the kid.”
Sebastian pointed toward the garage next to the house. Someone in shorts and a halter top was hosing down a garbage pail.
“A girl?” David said incredulously. The new kid waved and ran toward them. “You didn’t tell me … oh, great. Just what we need, a girl.” He made a fist and said, “Curse you, Eric Mather.”
“Hi,” said the girl, as her sneakers brought her to a squeaky halt. She had a thicket of red hair and a face busy with freckles. When she smiled at Sebastian, her braces sparkled.
“Hi,” said Sebastian. “This is my friend, David Lepinsky.”
David mumbled something.
“And this is Corrie….”
“Wingate,” said Corrie. “Hi, David. What are you guys up to?”
“Well, actually,” said Sebastian, “we’ve got a mystery on our hands. Or sort of a mystery, anyway.” Sebastian gave Corrie Eric’s letter.
“What are you doing?” David hissed.
“Relax. She’s okay.”
“What’s it mean?” Corrie asked, handing the letter back to Sebastian.
“I’m not sure, but I have a hunch.”
“Sebastian always has a hunch,” David said.
“I think it has something to do with the way Eric was acting before he left.”
“Eric? Oh yeah, the kid who used to live here.” Corrie picked at a mosquito bite on her leg. “How was he acting?”
“Weird,” said Sebastian.
David nodded. “Definitely weird,” he said.
Sebastian went on, “Eric was always … well, adventurous, I guess you could say. He liked …”
“Getting into trouble,” David said.
“Something like that. He liked having a good time, goofing around, nosing into other people’s business. You know?”
“I think so. But what’s weird about that?”
“Nothing. It’s just that he changed a few weeks before he moved. All of a sudden, he got kind of quiet and kept to himself. When we asked him what was going on, he didn’t want to talk about it. Said he couldn’t talk about it. And then, about three days before he moved, he fell down a flight of stairs and broke his leg.”
“Wow,” said Corrie, as her picking drew blood. “How come?”
“How come what?” asked David.
“How come he fell down the stairs?”
“We don’t know,” Sebastian said. “He wouldn’t tell us. But he hinted that he’d been pushed.”
“Wow,” Corrie said again.
“And now this,” said Sebastian, holding up Eric’s letter. “S.I.S.”
“Are they somebody’s initials?”
“Seems like it,” Sebastian said.
“But we don’t know anybody with those initials,” said David.
“Well, I can think of one person.” Sebastian paused and then said, “Susan Iris Siddons.”
David looked at him as if he’d gone nuts.
“And you think maybe it was Susan Siddons who pushed Eric down the stairs?” asked Corrie.
“I have a hunch that’s what Eric’s trying to tell us,” Sebastian said. “There’s just one little problem.”
“Definitely,” said David.
“What?” Corrie asked.
Sebastian looked past Corrie’s house to the cemetery in its shadow. “Susan Siddons died in 1902,” he said.
OTHER BOOKS
BY JAMES HOWE
PICTURE BOOKS
There’s a Monster Under My Bed
There’s a Dragon in My Sleeping Bag
PINKY AND REX BOOKS
Pinky and Rex
Pinky and Rex Go to Camp
Pinky and Rex and the Spelling Bee
Pinky and Rex and the Mean Old Witch
Pinky and Rex and the New Baby
Pinky and Rex and the Double Dad Weekend
Pinky and Rex and the Bully
Pinky and Rex and the New Neighbors
Pinky and Rex and the School Play
Pinky and Rex and the Perfect Pumpkin
BUNNICULA BOOKS
Bunnicula
Howliday Inn
The Celery Stalks at Midnight
Nighty-Nightmare
Return to Howliday Inn
SEBASTIAN BARTH MYSTERIES
What Eric Knew
Stage Fright
Eat Your Poison, Dear
Dew Drop Dead
MIDDLE GRADE FICTION
Morgan’s Zoo
A Night Without Stars
The Teddy Bear’s Scrapbook
DON’T MISS ANY OF THE ADVENTURES OF
HAROLD, CHESTER, AND HOWIE, AND
THEIR VAMPIRE RABBIT FRIEND,
BUNNICULA!
BUNNICULA
0-689-30700-4
ATHENEUM
0-689-86775-1
ATHENEUM
(25th Anniversary edition)
0-689-80659-0
ALADDIN PAPERBACKS
HOWLIDAY INN
0-689-30846-9
ATHENEUM
0-689-84619-3
ALADDIN PAPERBACKS
THE CELERY STALKS AT MIDNIGHT
0-689-30987-2
ATHENEUM
0-689-85260-6
ALADDIN PAPERBACKS
RETURN TO HOWLIDAY INN
0-689-31661-5
ATHENEUM
0-689-86618-6
ALADDIN PAPERBACKS
NIGHTY-NIGHTMARE
0-689-31207-5
ATHENEUM
0-689-81724-X
ALADDIN PAPERBACKS
BUNNICULA STRIKES AGAIN!
0-689-81463-1
ATHENEUM
0-689-81462-3
ALADDIN PAPERBACKS
SIMON & SCHUSTER CHILDREN’S PUBLISHING
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