Mallory and the Ghost Cat

  Contents

  Title Page

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Acknowledgment

  About the Author

  Also Available

  Copyright

  “That’s mozzarella,” I said, rolling my “r” so as to sound totally Italian, “not mootsaroolie!”

  Claire giggled. “Mootsaroolie, meetsa-beenie, mouse-aroni,” she sang, dancing around the kitchen.

  I couldn’t help laughing. Mouse-aroni sounded like a fast food for cats. Claire can be so silly sometimes. I guess all five-year-olds have their silly moments, but my little sister really takes the cake. I admit that there are times when I find her silliness irritating, but that night I was in a great mood, so I just went along with it.

  “Okay, Miss Mouse-aroni,” I said. “Bring that cheese over here and let me start grating it.” We were making English muffin pizzas for dinner as a surprise for my mom. She’d phoned to say she’d be coming home late that night, because of a PTA meeting that was running overtime. I knew she’d be thrilled to find dinner on the table when she got in.

  I was also steaming some artichokes, my favorite vegetable. They are so much fun to eat. You pull off one leaf at a time, dip it in melted butter or salad dressing, and scrape off the edible part with your teeth. I know, it sounds weird, but once you’ve tried them, you’ll love them, too. We don’t have artichokes too often — they’re kind of expensive — but once in a while Mom will buy them for a treat.

  “Okay, Claire,” I said, “it’s time to get out the English muffins. Can you bring them over here?” Claire loves to “help” in the kitchen, and even though her way of helping sometimes makes everything twice as complicated, I like to let her cook with me whenever I can. She gets such a kick out of it.

  By the time Claire found the English muffins and danced them over to me, I’d finished grating the cheese. The tomato sauce (from a jar — I didn’t have time to make it from scratch) was simmering. It was time to start the assembly line. English muffin pizzas are easy to make. All you do is open up each muffin and arrange the halves on a cookie sheet. Then you put a little tomato sauce on each one. Then you put some grated mozzarella (or meetsabeenie, if you prefer) on each one. Then you shake a little oregano on the tops, and into the broiler they go! Easy. And yummy.

  But making them for my family is a bit of a challenge. Why? Because there are ten — yes, ten — people in my family. Claire is not my only little sister. I have two others. And I also have four younger brothers. So when I make English muffin pizzas for the whole family, I have to make four cookie sheets’ worth. And sometimes even that’s not enough. English muffin pizzas are one of the few foods that everybody in the family agrees upon. All the Pikes love them.

  That’s us, the Pikes. I just realized that I haven’t introduced myself. Here I am giving out recipes, and you don’t even know my name. I’m Mallory Pike, I’m eleven years old, and I’m in the sixth grade at Stoneybrook Middle School in Stoneybrook, Connecticut. There. Now you know it all. Well, not all. There’s a lot more I could tell you about myself, but it’ll have to wait. First I want to finish telling about our dinner that Friday night.

  Just as I was putting the last tray of pizzas into the oven, my little brother Nicky burst into the kitchen. He was filthy. His T-shirt was so muddy I could barely make out Dick Tracy, and his jeans were not only muddy but torn as well. “What have you been doing?” I asked, sounding just like my mother. I’ve been taking care of my brothers and sisters for so long that sometimes I feel like a mother.

  Nicky looked about as guilty as an eight-year-old boy can. “Nothing,” he said, shrugging. “Just playing mudball.”

  “Mudball?” I asked. “That’s a new one on me. Who thought up that idea?”

  “I did,” said Jordan, coming up behind me. “Or at least, I had the basic idea. Adam and Byron figured out a lot of the details.” He sounded proud of himself. He looked disgusting. He was even muddier than Nicky. By the way, Jordan, Adam, and Byron are all ten. They’re triplets!

  “What smells so good?” Jordan continued, pretending not to notice my frown.

  “English muffin pizzas,” I said.

  “Yea!” he shouted.

  “But they’re only for people.” I went on. “Not for pigs.”

  Jordan rolled his eyes. “All right, all right,” he said. “I’ll go clean up. Come on, Nicky.” He grabbed Nicky’s arm.

  “Hold on!” I said. “You better get those clothes off before you go upstairs. Mom’ll be mad if you guys track mud all over the house.” My mom’s not a fanatic about housecleaning — nobody with eight kids can afford to be — but I knew she’d be tired when she got home. And she wouldn’t appreciate her home looking like a dirt-bike track.

  Jordan and Nicky headed for the laundry room, and I directed Adam and Byron that way, too, when they came in. A few minutes later I heard a singsongy voice yell out, “I see London, I see France, I see Nicky-and-Byron-and-Adam-and-Jordan’s underpants!” This was followed by a major storm of giggles.

  “Margo!” I called. “Leave your brothers alone.” I walked into the living room just as the boys were trooping up the stairs, dressed, surely enough, only in their underclothes.

  “Yeah,” said Adam. “Leave us alone. And anyway, boys don’t wear underpants. We wear underwear.”

  “Underwear, bunderwear,” said Margo. “Whatever it is, you look silly.”

  “Margo,” I said, with a warning tone in my voice. “That’s enough. Come help me set the table, okay?” Margo’s seven, and I guess all seven-year-olds are pretty fascinated by underwear-sightings. But she’s easily distracted too, and, like Claire, she enjoys “helping.”

  Just as she and I turned to head for the kitchen, I saw Vanessa float down the stairs, passing her brothers on the way. She didn’t seem to notice the way they were dressed. In fact, she didn’t seem to notice that she’d passed them. Vanessa wants to be a poet, and sometimes she gets very caught up in her own little world. She’s dreamy, absentminded, and often totally unaware of whatever might be going on in the real world. At first we thought it was a phase, but she’s been this way for a long time now, ever since she was Margo’s age. Since she’s nine now, I guess it’s not a phase. It’s just the way she is.

  “Vanessa!” I called, snapping my fingers. “Wake up!” She looked at me, blinking. “How about helping Margo set the table?” I asked.

  “Plates and napkins, forks and knives,” she said, in her “poetic” voice, “these are the settings for our lives.”

  Whoa. Sometimes Vanessa can really be out to lunch. She goes for entire days speaking in rhyme, and a lot of what she says makes about as much sense as that little couplet did. I shook my head and rolled my eyes at her, but she followed Margo and me into the kitchen and started to get out the napkins, so I decided not to say anything. The best way to deal with Vanessa is just to let her be Vanessa, I’ve decided.

  While Vanessa and Margo set the table, Claire and I finished up in the kitchen. And by the time the boys had gotten cleaned up, both of my parents were home. It was time to eat.

  “Oh, Mallory,” said my mom, when she saw the pizzas, the artichokes, and also the salad I’d thrown together at the last moment. “You’re a lifesaver. This looks terrific!”

  “Is she a Wint-O-Green Life Saver or a T
ropical Fruit?” asked Nicky, giggling.

  “She’s a Tropical Nut!” said Jordan.

  “A Bobical Hut!!” said Claire, a little hysterically.

  “Okay, okay,” said Dad. “That’s enough. Your sister was kind enough to make dinner for you, so how about if we thank her instead of making fun of her?”

  All seven of my brothers and sisters turned to me. “Thank you, Mallory,” they said in perfect unison, and totally without sincerity.

  “Now let’s eat!” added Byron, racing for his seat at the table. The others ran after him, jostling each other as they pushed past me.

  Honestly. Sometimes my brothers and sisters all seem so — so immature. I mean, I know they’re just kids, and I can’t expect too much. But I’m kind of tired of being a kid. I’m ready to be more grown-up. And it’s hard around this crew. Not to mention my parents, who don’t seem to want me ever to grow up. Oh, they love to give me responsibilities, like taking care of the others and cooking dinner. But otherwise, forget it.

  The problem is, I’ve got this curly red hair (everybody else in my family has brown hair), and glasses, and braces. Most of the time I look like some geeky kid. The braces aren’t that bad — they’re the plastic kind — but they just make me feel ugly sometimes. So do my glasses. If I could get a cool haircut, and contacts, and have my braces taken off … I can almost see how I could look halfway decent. My dad keeps saying I’m going to be a “knockout” someday. But for now, he and my mom say I have to wait. Just like I have to wait until I can wear certain kinds of clothes (like miniskirts and leggings) and makeup (a little blusher is all I’m asking) and until I can stay out later on baby-sitting jobs. (I could use the extra money.)

  I admit there are some times when I still like being a kid. I like the way my mom takes care of me when I’m sick. I love being read to. And once in a while I even like to play make believe. My best friend Jessi Ramsey and I sometimes pretend we’re horses. (This a deep, dark secret.)

  I have some friends who are a little older — they’re in eighth grade — and they tell me that everybody feels this way at eleven. Kind of caught between childhood and the next phase. Teenagerhood? What would you call it? Anyway, it’s a confusing time for me. Mostly I can’t wait to grow up, but there are times when I feel more like Peter Pan, like I never want to grow up.

  That night I was not feeling Peter Pan-ish. I was feeling like I’d had quite enough of my loud obnoxious siblings. I couldn’t wait until dinner was over and I could go upstairs to read the book I’d checked out of the library that day. I’d been looking forward to it the whole time I’d been cooking dinner. It’s called A Wrinkle in Time, and the plot is kind of hard to explain. I love the main character already, and I think it’s going to be a really, really good book.

  But just as the English muffin pizzas ran out, my dad ruined my plans by announcing that he and Mom had decided to have a family meeting when dinner was over. He looked serious. I looked over at Mom. She looked serious, too. Oh, ugh. I hate it when they look that way. It makes me nervous. Sometimes family meetings turn out to be about really horrible things. Like the time my dad got fired from his job. I didn’t have too much time to worry what this meeting would be about, though. The boys cleared the table in record time. They must have been as eager as I was to just get the bad news over with, whatever it was.

  We gathered in the living room. A tense feeling was in the air, and the room was very, very quiet. Then Dad cleared his throat.

  “Do you all remember the stories I’ve told you about my uncle Joe?” he asked, looking around at us.

  “Uncle Joe,” said Nicky. “Is he the one who gave you the puppy?”

  “That’s right,” said Dad. “He brought me Spanky for my eighth birthday.”

  “And he used to take you fishing, right?” asked Jordan.

  “Right,” said Dad. “Uncle Joe was the greatest. The first thing he’d do, every time he saw me, was —”

  “Pull a nickel out of your ear!” yelled Margo. “I remember now.”

  “Well, he didn’t really find the nickel in my ear,” said Dad. “It was a magic trick. But for years I believed that nickels grew in my ears and only Uncle Joe knew how to get them out.” Dad was quiet for a moment, smiling at his memories.

  “Anyway,” said Mom, giving him a look.

  “Oh, right,” said Dad. “Anyway, Uncle Joe is pretty old now. He’s been living in nursing homes for a few years. And recently, he was transferred to Stoneybrook Manor.”

  “Are we going to go visit him?” asked Claire hopefully. “Maybe he’ll find quarters in my ears!”

  “Well, actually,” said Dad. “It’s even better than that. He’s going to visit us. A few months ago I wrote to him, suggesting that maybe he’d like a little vacation from the nursing-home routine once he arrived in Stoneybrook. And he wrote back to say that sounded fine. So he’s going to come and stay with us for a month or so.”

  “Oh, boy!” said Nicky. “Neat!”

  “But where will he sleep?” asked Margo. “Maybe me and Claire should let him have our room. We could move in with Mal and Vanessa.” She sounded excited at the prospect, but the idea made me groan. Sharing a room with one sister is bad enough. I wasn’t crazy about the idea of having two more move in. I was excited about Uncle Joe coming, but I was hoping Mom could come up with better sleeping arrangements.

  “I think we’ll just set him up in the den,” said Mom. I heaved a secret sigh of relief. “He’ll be comfortable there, and that way none of you will have to be shuffled around.”

  “Yea!” said Adam. “This’ll be great! He can teach us magic tricks, and tell us stories about when Dad was a kid —”

  Dad held up his hand. “Hold on, there,” he said. “We’re going to have to take it slow with Uncle Joe. He may not be quite the same as I remember him. The people at the nursing home told me he sometimes gets a little depressed, a little cranky. At his age, I guess he’s entitled, but let’s not overwhelm him right away, okay?”

  Adam nodded. He looked a little less excited.

  I had heard the conversation, but I wasn’t paying the strictest attention to it. As soon as Dad had spilled the news, I’d started to worry about something. With Uncle Joe here, would my parents need me to baby-sit? I love to baby-sit and I do it a lot. In fact, I’m in a baby-sitters club, which I’ll tell you more about later. But sitting for my family is my favorite. And what if Uncle Joe’s visit turned out to be permanent? Jessi’s Aunt Cecelia came to stay, and before she knew it, Jessi didn’t get to sit nearly as much for her little brother and sister.

  I decided that the best way to deal with my worries would be just to ask, so I did. “Dad?” I said. “When Uncle Joe is here, will you — will you guys still need me to baby-sit?”

  He smiled at me, and so did Mom. “Of course, honey,” he said. “We’ll always need you.”

  What a relief. As soon as the family meeting was over, I headed for the phone. My book could wait. I needed to tell my best friend the latest Pike family news.

  “So when’s he coming?” asked Jessi, as we walked up the stairs. It was Monday afternoon, and we were headed for a meeting of that club I told you about, the Baby-sitters Club.

  “Dad said on Sunday,” I answered. “We have a lot to do before then, to get ready for him. But I’m excited. Maybe you can meet him someday soon.”

  “Great,” said Jessi. “I’d love to. Anybody who knows how to find nickels in people’s ears sounds okay to me!”

  By that time we’d taken our usual places and we were waiting for the meeting to start. Everybody else had already arrived. Who’s “everybody else”? Well, the members of the club are: Kristy Thomas, Claudia Kishi, Stacey McGill, Mary Anne Spier, and Dawn Schafer. And me and Jessi, of course. Kristy, Claud, Stacey, Mary Anne, and Dawn are those friends I mentioned earlier, the ones who are in eighth grade. They’re thirteen. Jessi’s eleven, like me.

  Dawn, Mary Anne, and Claudia were sprawled on the bed. Stacey was si
tting backwards on the desk chair. Jessi and I were sitting cross-legged on the floor. And Kristy was sitting in her place of honor, the director’s chair. She had tucked a pencil over her ear, and she was watching the clock. As soon as the numbers clicked to five-thirty, she sat up straight and said, “Order!”

  Kristy’s the president of the club. Why? Well, mainly because the club was her idea. She thought of it back when she was in seventh grade. She and her friends baby-sat a lot, and she figured they might as well get organized. If they met a few times a week in the same place, parents would know when and where to call for sitters. At first there were only four members in the club; now there are seven of us — nine if you count our associate members, who don’t come to meetings. The club’s worked perfectly, right from the start. Parents love the convenience of it, and we love the steady business that comes our way.

  Kristy’s what they call a “born leader,” I think. She has a lot of good ideas, and she knows how to put them into practice. She runs the club like a business — like a very efficient, successful business, that is. She figured out when we should meet (Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays from five-thirty to six), how to advertise (with professional-looking fliers that we hand out whenever we need more business), and how to keep a record of our jobs (we have to write up every job we go on in the club notebook). Plus a whole lot more.

  It’s kind of surprising that Kristy’s such an organized person. Her home life is what you might call chaotic. She has two older brothers, Charlie and Sam; plus a little brother named David Michael; plus a two-and-a-half-year-old sister named Emily Michelle (she’s Vietnamese — Kristy’s family adopted her not long ago); plus a stepbrother and stepsister (their names are Karen and Andrew, and they only stay with Kristy’s family part of the time). Kristy’s grandmother, Nannie, lives with them, too. And of course there’s Kristy’s mom and her stepfather, Watson.

  Kristy was unlucky enough to have a father who ran out on her family, but she was lucky to get Watson for a stepfather. He’s a millionaire. Honest. Now her huge family lives in his mansion across town. At first, when her mom married Watson, Kristy didn’t want to leave her neighborhood (she lived near all her oldest friends). But now I have a feeling she kind of likes her new life. Not that she’s stuck up. Kristy’s the most “regular” person I know. It’s just that she’s come to love her stepfamily, so that mansion has become a real home.