Mary Anne and the Haunted Bookstore
Page 12
The three of us wrote several reviews, then arranged the books on the table.
“Where are Tom and Gillian?” Kristy asked. “I’d like to tell them good-bye.”
“They came downstairs a little while ago. Maybe they’re having a snack,” said Ms. Spark, “or they might be in the office with their dad.”
As we walked down the hall, I heard Tom and Gillian talking, but not in their dad’s office. They were in Benson Dalton Gable’s office. The desk that Alex and Mr. Gable had tried to remove earlier in the week was still there too.
“I thought I heard Gillian,” Kristy said.
Tom was sitting in a chair on the far side of the desk, writing something. “She’s under there.” He pointed under the desk.
Kristy and I crawled under the desk, but we couldn’t see Gillian. Then I heard her giggle.
“Where are you?” I asked.
A panel slid open, and Gillian and Pluto appeared.
“It’s a secret compartment!” said Kristy.
“Let me see,” said Mal.
“A big one,” I said.
“It’s not big enough for Tom,” said Gillian, “but it’s a perfect secret place for me and Pluto.”
“Can we see inside?” I asked. Mal, Kristy, and I crawled out from under the desk. Gillian followed Pluto, who took his time, stretching and sniffing.
“Do you have a flashlight?” I asked Tom.
“In the kitchen,” he answered. “Just a minute and I’ll be back with it.”
“How long have you known about this?” I asked Gillian.
“Not long. I was playing hide-and-seek with Tom a couple of days ago, and I crawled under the desk. I scooted a little, and the panel scooted with me. Tom didn’t find me until Pluto meowed,” she said proudly.
When Tom brought the flashlight back, I shined it all around the compartment. The only things inside were cobwebs. I don’t know what we’d expected to find, but it was a little disappointing to find nothing. The drawers weren’t as deep as the space between the two sides of the desk; that’s what formed the empty space.
I turned around and knocked on the other side. It sounded hollow too. “Have you checked to see if there’s a compartment here?” I asked Gillian.
“Even I don’t fit in it,” she said.
“So there is a compartment?” asked Kristy.
“Sure, but there’s stuff in it.”
I slowly slid the panel open. There was a series of dust-covered shelves, and pushed into the back corner of one of the shelves was a small wooden box with a slanted top. I pulled it out and set it on top of Benson Dalton Gable’s big desk.
“You’d better go find your dad and bring him here,” I said to Tom and Gillian.
“It’s a lap desk,” I explained to Logan, showing him what we’d found in the secret compartment of Benson Dalton Gable’s desk. “It belonged to Gable, and he left some of his papers inside it.”
We were at the grand opening of Poe and Co., along with almost everybody in Stoneybrook. We’d been helping out by giving “Poe” tours all afternoon and this was the first chance I’d had to show the desk to Logan.
Logan moved on a little farther. Displayed in a glass case were the letters from Edgar Allan Poe to Benson Dalton Gable that we’d found inside the lap desk. Alex hadn’t moved away from the case for a single minute during the afternoon. He was answering questions from customers about Gable. There had been so many, Mr. Cates asked him to stay. And Alex loved it.
“Hi, Dupin,” he said, smiling.
“Did the letters in the desk answer all your questions?” I asked him. I hadn’t had a chance to talk to Alex since we’d found the papers on Saturday. I knew that Mr. Cates had called Mr. Gable immediately.
“Not all of them,” said Alex. “Edgar Allan Poe only visited here once, and Gable was very ill at the time. In his letters, Poe promises to visit again, but evidently Gable died before that happened.”
Alex was much nicer now that he wasn’t trying to prove a point.
“Looking at his words written in his hand gives me chills,” said Professor Kingsolver, joining us. She’d been the one to authenticate the handwriting as Edgar Allan Poe’s.
“Were you a little disappointed to find out that there was no quarrel between the two men? No competition or jealousy?” asked Logan.
“I wasn’t disappointed at that, but I do wish that Poe had seen fit to leave one small, undiscovered manuscript for us to find,” said Professor Kingsolver, smiling. “The letters will do, however.”
“We still don’t know where the body is buried,” Alex said.
He spoke the truth. There was no clue in the letters and papers to lead anyone to Benson Dalton Gable’s grave. It was mysterious indeed.
“But the journal gives us enough material to finally publish Gable’s papers,” said Alex.
“And they have graciously asked me to help them edit the papers,” said Ms. Kingsolver. “It’s truly an honor.”
Alex rolled his eyes.
“Hi, Mary Anne. Hi, Mary Anne’s boyfriend,” Gillian greeted Logan and me, giggling again.
“Hi, Gillian.” Logan pulled one of her braids, setting off another storm of giggles.
“Your dad’s bookstore is doing great,” I said.
“And guess what?” Tom joined us.
“What?” I asked.
“Mom might come for a visit, now that we’re settled.” He grinned a huge grin.
“She called us and said she missed us a lot,” said Gillian, looking a little more serious.
“We want you and Kristy and all the baby-sitters to come to a party when she visits,” said Tom. “Dad said we could have a party.”
Just then I heard it — fluh-dub, fluh-dub. Professor Kingsolver turned pale. I guess we should have warned her.
“Time for the final door prize of the day.” Ms. Spark’s voice came over the loudspeaker that had been installed for the grand opening. “This one is a deluxe volume of The Complete Edgar Allan Poe.”
“I have to go draw the name,” Gillian said, running to join Ms. Spark.
“She’s going to stay and work at the bookstore,” said Tom.
“Who?” I asked.
“Cillia.”
Tom didn’t look ecstatic about the idea, but he didn’t look upset either. I guess that was an improvement.
“Mary Anne Spier is the winner!” Ms. Spark announced.
Logan gave me a little push forward.
I didn’t even remember entering the drawing for a door prize. I walked to the front of the store, trying not to think about all the people watching me. My face was flaming.
Ms. Spark handed me a hardcover copy of the book, then gave me a hug. When she let go, Mr. Cates hugged me.
“Thanks,” I said.
“You’re welcome,” said Mr. Cates. “Thank you for all you’ve done to make the store a success. And I think it will be a success.”
“The cash register is smoking, our sales are so hot,” said Ms. Spark. She put her arms around Mr. Cates and they hugged.
I thought I might cry, I was so happy for everyone.
The crowd thinned until I was the only one left besides the Cateses. Dad was late for some reason.
“You’ll be here to baby-sit on Tuesday, right?” asked Gillian, holding my hand as I watched out the window for my dad.
“I will,” I promised.
“Come on, kids, let’s go upstairs,” said Mr. Cates. “I need to put my feet up.”
“I do too,” said Gillian.
“Is it okay if I take this book with me?” Tom asked, holding up a copy of View from the Cherry Tree by Willo Davis Roberts.
“Of course,” said Mr. Cates.
“See you, Mary Anne,” said Tom.
“Good night,” I answered. I heard a car stop out front. “My dad’s here,” I added. “See you next week. And thanks for the book.” I still thought that last drawing might have been rigged. I did not remember signing up for it.
&nbs
p; I heard the lock click behind me as I ran to the car. The lights inside went out as Dad turned the car around. As we pulled into the street I looked back over my shoulder.
Fluh-dub, fluh-dub, fluh-dub. The sound of my own heart beating filled my ears again. I’d swear I had seen the tall, white form of a man, shimmering in the darkness over Benson Dalton Gable’s lap desk.
Author’s Note
Although Edgar Allan Poe was a real person, Benson Dalton Gable and his dealings with Poe are fictional.
If you would like to read more about Poe, check your local library for his stories and accounts of his interesting life.
The author gratefully acknowledges
Vicki Berger Erwin
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 © 1998 by Ann M. Martin
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
First edition, April 1998
e-ISBN 978-0-545-87444-1