Claudia and the Phantom Phone Calls (5 page)

“Wasn't
bothering
me?” cried Morbidda Destiny. “Do you know what he was
doing
on my porch, girlie?”

Kristy shook her head.

“He was eating a field mouse, that's what. And do you know what's left on my porch now?”

Kristy shook her head again, shuddering.

“A bit of fur, a bit of tail, and—”

“I'm so sorry, Mor—Mrs. Porter,” Kristy interrupted. “I'd like to come over and clean it up, but I'm baby-sitting here and I can't leave the—”

“Never you mind. I've taken care of it.” Morbidda Destiny reached into her robes, pulled out a small paper bag, and thrust it at Kristy. “These are the remains. You get rid of them.”

She turned and flapped into the night.

Now, I'll prove to you just how smart Kristy is. Kristy said that right then, when Mrs. Porter shoved that bag into her hands, she was really scared. And she was really disgusted by what was in the bag. But you know what her first thought was? It was that if Mrs. Porter were a true witch, she would have kept the bag for herself because she could have used the mouse fur and mouse tail
in her spells. So even though Kristy was shaking all over, she was relieved, too.

She checked on Boo-Boo and found him curled up in a laundry basket in front of the washing machine. He wasn't asleep—he was just resting and staring—which was a little creepy, but he seemed fine.

When Watson got home, Kristy told him about Boo-Boo and the field mouse and the paper bag. Watson said he would speak to Mrs. Porter the next morning. Then Kristy told him about Karen and the freckle-spell.

“I can't tell whether she believes in the spell or whether it's all a big game, but I thought you should know,” she said.

“Thank you, Kristy. I appreciate your concern. It seems that she's been talking about witches at school, too.”

“Well, I better call Mom,” said Kristy.

She had to wait fifteen minutes for her mother to pick her up, and even though Watson was there with her, Kristy said that the whole time she kept waiting for the phone to ring again.

Saturday, October 25th

Last night, I sat for Charlotte Johanssen. She's a nice little kid, an only child, and absolutely no problem. In fact, she's kind of timid and shy, which bothers me sometimes. It makes me feel like I have to be brave and protective when I'm around her. And sometimes I don't feel brave at all. Like last night. I was already worried about the phantom phone calls. I mean, after the experiences Kristy and Claudia have had, who wouldn't be? So when the storm came, I nearly fell apart. Luckily, though, I'm a good baby-sitter, and when you're a good baby-sitter,
baby-sitting comes first. So somehow, I managed to keep my head.

Hmphh. If that's what Stacey calls keeping her head, I wouldn't want to see her lose it.

Stacey left for the Johanssens' after an early supper. She was going to be sitting until ten, the latest she's allowed out. If you cut through Stacey's backyard and turn right, the Johanssens' house is just two doors down—a three-minute walk. If you use the streets and go around the long way, it takes about ten minutes. Stacey used the shortcut, even though the night seemed darker than usual and she had to carry a flashlight.

Mr. Johanssen met her at the front door. (His wife is hardly ever around. She's a doctor and spends a lot of time at Stoneybrook General Hospital.) “Hi, Stacey,” he greeted her. “I'm glad you could come. I'll be meeting Dr. Johanssen at the theater. The number is there by the phone. We're going to see an early movie and then have a bite to eat at Renwick's. That number is posted, too. I know you need to be home by ten.

“Charlotte has finished her dinner and ought to be in bed by nine-thirty, okay?”

Stacey nodded.

“I guess you know everything else.”

Stacey nodded again and smiled as Charlotte came into the kitchen. “Charlotte and I will have lots of fun, won't we?”

“Yes,” replied Charlotte uncertainly. “Daddy, do you have to go?”

Mr. Johanssen put his arm around Charlotte. “Mommy and I have been looking forward to this movie. It's a treat for us. But you'll have a treat when you wake up tomorrow.”

“What?” asked Charlotte excitedly.

“Mommy will be here, and she's not working this weekend.”

“Goody!”

Now, all the time Stacey and Charlotte and Mr. Johanssen were talking, Stacey had been noticing something. If the evening had seemed dark on her way over to the Johanssens', it was positively black just ten minutes later. And it was only six-thirty. It seemed rather windy, too. The branches of the trees, already half bare, were being tossed back and forth. Stacey thought she heard thunder in the distance, but she tried not to worry about it. We'd had a lot of late-season storms, and most of them didn't last long.

Mr. Johanssen left a few moments later, taking an umbrella with him. Stacey and Charlotte
stood at the front window and watched his car back slowly down the driveway and turn onto the street. Just as the headlights disappeared from view, the rain started. It came pouring down, as if someone had overturned a huge pail of water in the sky.

“Close all the windows!” cried Charlotte.

“Turn on the lights!” cried Stacey, already spooked.

Stacey and Charlotte ran through the house, closing windows (there weren't many open) and turning on lights.

“What do you want to do now?” asked Stacey when they were finished.

“Watch TV,” replied Charlotte.

Crash!
A huge clap of thunder sounded, and Charlotte raced to Stacey's side. “I
hate
thunder,” she confessed.

“You, too?” asked Stacey. “You know what I used to do during a thunderstorm?”

“What?”

“Hide in the linen closet. It was the smallest closet in our apartment in New York City. I'd run in, slide under the bottom shelf, and close the door after me, pulling it from the bottom. Sometimes I'd take my doll with me.”

Charlotte giggled. “Once,” she said, “I hid
under my bed during a storm. The storm lasted so long I fell asleep, and Mommy and Daddy didn't know where I was. They almost called the police!”

Crash! Ba-room!
More thunder. Lightning flashed and zigzagged through the sky.

“Quick, let's put on the TV,” said Stacey.

She and Charlotte ran into the family room. Charlotte flicked on the TV, and Stacey found the remote control. They started switching from channel to channel. They found an interview, a cooking show, and two news programs.

“Boring,” said Stacey. “Let's put on MTV. At least we could hear some good music.”

“What's MTV?” asked Charlotte.

“Music television. Why can't I find the channel?”

“Mommy and Daddy block things I'm not old enough to watch,” said Charlotte.

“Rats,” said Stacey. She went back to the remote control.

Flick, flick, flick. “Boring, boring, boring,” said Stacey.

“Double rats,” said Charlotte.

“Hey,” said Stacey. “Here's something.” She had tuned into Channel 47. A large ghostly hand was walking around in a cemetery all by itself.
At the top of the screen were the words
SPOOK THEATRE
and under them
WATCH AT YOUR OWN RISK.

“Ooh, spooky!” said Charlotte. She edged closer to Stacey on the couch.

“Shall we try it?” asked Stacey. “It's better than anything else that's on.”

“Okay,” agreed Charlotte.

Stacey and Charlotte watched a commercial that showed a can of cleanser dancing around a bathroom. Then
SPOOK THEATRE
appeared on the screen again, and finally the movie began. It started with a nighttime shot of a huge, gloomy mansion sitting alone on a rise of land. Lightning flashed and thunder rumbled.

“Kind of like our weather,” Charlotte remarked as a clap of real thunder sounded, followed by a streak of lightning. The lamps flickered.

Charlotte moved as close to Stacey as she could get without sitting in her lap. Stacey put her arm around her. They looked at each other and giggled.

“I have goose bumps!” exclaimed Charlotte.

On the television, the scene changed to a bedroom inside the mansion. It was lit only by two candles. A young woman with long, dark hair glided into the room. She was wearing a white dressing gown and carrying another candle.

She walked across the room to a set of French doors that opened onto a balcony and began to close them, the wind from the storm making her gown billow softly around her. Just when she had almost pulled the doors closed, she gasped and let out a small cry.

“What?” whispered Charlotte.

On the lawn below the woman, Stacey and Charlotte could make out a dark figure.

“Lenora,” wailed the figure, “I've come back. Back from beyond the grave.”

Lenora moaned and dropped her candle. Thunder crashed. Then thunder from the real storm outside crashed even more loudly. For a moment, the room Stacey and Charlotte were in seemed to glow brightly. A second later, it was plunged into darkness.

The girls screamed. Charlotte clutched Stacey. Everything had gone off—the lights, the TV, all the electricity. It was so quiet they could hear their own hearts pounding. But worse than the silence was the utter blackness.

“Power failure,” whispered Stacey.

“I want my mommy,” murmured Charlotte. “Or my daddy.”

Stacey tried to pull herself together. “There's really nothing to be afraid of,” she told Charlotte.
“So the electricity went off. So what? The Pilgrims lived their whole lives without electricity. You should be in New York when there's a power failure. The entire city practically stops running. We lived on the seventeenth floor of an apartment building, and when the power went out, so did the elevators. Imagine having to walk up seventeen flights of stairs just to get home.”

“Yuck,” said Charlotte.

“I'll say. Now,” Stacey went on, feeling a bit better, “what we have to do is get some candles.”

“Like Lenora's?” asked Charlotte.

“Well, yes. Where do your parents keep them?”

“I don't know. I'm not allowed to light matches.”

“Don't you have any idea?”

“Maybe in the chest of drawers in the dining room.”

“Good. All right, now we'll just find my flashlight, and we can use it to light our way into the dining room.”

Stacey stood up, holding tightly to Charlotte's hand. They began edging toward the front hall, where Stacey had left her jacket and the flashlight.

Shuffle, shuffle, shuffle,
crash
!

“Ow!” yelled Stacey.

“What?”

“My toe. I walked right into something.” Stacey felt around. “A table, I think. Okay, let's keep going.”

Shuffle, shuffle, shuffle.

“Stacey?”

“What, Charlotte?”

Shuffle, shuffle, shuffle.

“I hear something.”

“What?”

“I don't know.”

Shuffle, shuffle, shuffle.

“There it is again. Stop moving.”

Stacey and Charlotte paused, holding their breath and listening.

And then Stacey heard it—a creak.

“Where's it coming from?” she asked.

“Sounds like the basement,” whispered Charlotte.

“Well, let's make sure the door to the basement is closed. Where
is
the door to the basement?”

“Right here.” Charlotte moved past Stacey, running her hand along the wall. “Yup, it's closed.”

“Okay. Good. Be quiet for a sec.”

The girls stopped and listened again.

Creak. Creak, squish, creak, squish, creak, squish.

In the dark, Charlotte's hand found Stacey's. She held on tight.

Creak, squish, creak, squish.

“Something's coming up the stairs!” cried Charlotte softly.

“Shhh,” was all Stacey said, but she told me later that what she was thinking was, Ohmigosh! It's the Phantom. He turned off the electricity to distract us, and now he's sneaking into the Johanssens' house through the basement!

Creak, squish.
The sound was closer. It had almost reached the top of the stairs.

Stacey was just about to tell Charlotte to start heading for the back door when the creaking stopped. It was followed by a
woof!

Stacey jumped about a foot, but Charlotte exclaimed, “Carrot! Oh, it's just Carrot! He must have come in through the basement again. There's a broken window down there.”

“Who's Carrot?”

“Our schnauzer. He must be sopping. I'll try to find a towel so we can dry him off.”

And at that moment, the lights came back on. Stacey and Charlotte looked at each other and began to giggle. Then they did dry off the poor,
rain-drenched Carrot, and they even watched some more of
Spook Theatre.

Outside the storm died down, and the rest of the evening was peaceful. The phone didn't ring once while Stacey was at the Johanssens'.