"BSC038 - Kristy's Mystery Admirer - Martin, Ann M" - читать интересную книгу автора (Martin Ann M)

"If I keep my voice down, you won't be able to hear me," replied Stacey.
That was true, but I had noticed that Cokie Mason and her snobby little crowd — Grace Blume and two other girls, Lisa and Bebe — were sitting at the next table. They were being awfully quiet.
"You guys," I whispered, and my friends leaned forward to hear me.
"Is this going to be girl talk?" Logan whispered back.
"Sort of," I replied.
"See ya." Logan stood up abruptly and left. He hates when our conversations become too "girlish."
"I brought the letters with me. Look." I spread the notes out on the table. I had even saved the envelopes because I liked the stickers on them.
Mary Anne, Dawn, Claud, and Stacey bunched around the letters.
" 1 love you, I love you, I love you/ " Mary Anne read. She sighed. "That is so, so romantic."
"Distant," added Claudia.
"But you guys don't really think they're from — "I stopped. We had an audience. The boys at one table were watching us with great curiosity, and at the next table, Cokie Mason was peering rudely at us. Then she turned to Grace and snickered.
I put the letters away in a hurry.
"Don't pay any attention to Cokie and those guys," said Stacey.
"Yeah. They're probably jealous. I bet none of them ever got a love note from a secret admirer," said Mary Anne.
"I wonder why the letters are all typed," Stacey was saying.
"SHH!" (I hissed it.) "I already told you. It's so the mystery admirer can disguise his handwriting."
"Then they must be from Bart Taylor. Who else would need to disguise his writing?"
"Sam/' I said.
Cokie and her friends got up then and left the cafeteria. They didn't even bother to clear off the table they'd been sitting at.
"What pigs," I said.
As you can tell, we do not like Cokie and her group very much. And we have good reason not to.
"Remember Halloween?" spoke up Mary Anne, just as I was about to say the same thing. I guess that's a sign of being best friends.
"Boy, do I ever," said Claudia.
"What? What happened on Halloween?" asked Stacey. (She'd been back in New York then.)
"Mary Anne started getting these weird, threatening notes. Someone even sent her a bad-luck charm. And then, we really did have bad luck. We thought we were . . . well, I'm not sure what we thought," said Claudia fal-teringly, "but anyway, it turned out that Cokie and her friends were behind everything. They wanted to make us look like jerks, because
they liked Logan and wanted him to hang around with them — not with jerks."
"So what happened?" asked Stacey.
"We made them look like jerks. And we did it in the middle of the graveyard at midnight on Halloween."
"Don't ask what possessed us." Dawn giggled. "Get it? Possessed us?"
We laughed.
"I really don't know where we found the courage to do that, but we did," I said. "Mal and Jessi were with us. The BSC sticks together."
The five of us were silent for a few moments, thinking, I guess, about Cokie and Logan and Halloween. Then the bell rang. Lunch was over. We cleaned up our table before we left the cafeteria.
That afternoon I baby-sat for David Michael and Emily. As usual, Mom and Watson were at work, Charlie and Sam were at after-school sports, and Nannie had bowling practice. Nannie is in a senior citizens league. They play, really well. Nannie even has a trophy in her bedroom.
Nannie is a character and I love her. We all do. Emily Michelle is especially attached to her. Infect, she cried as she and David Michael
and I stood at the front door and watched Nannie drive off in the Pink Clinker. (That's Nannie's old car, and it really is pink. Nannie had it painted pink on purpose because she likes the color.)
"Come on, Emily," I said as I closed the door. "Nannie will be back soon. She has to practice her bowling."
"Yeah, you want her to be a champ, don't you?" asked David Michael.
"Cookie," Emily replied pathetically.
"Boy, she sure learns fast, doesn't she?" I said to my brother. "Okay, one cookie, Emily. Just one."
"Can I have one, too?" asked David Michael. He made a sad face. "I miss Nannie. A cookie will make me feel better."
I punched him playfully on the arm and he grinned.
The three of us were just finishing our snack when the doorbell rang. "I'll get it," I said. "David Michael, keep an eye on Emily, okay?"
My brother nodded.
I ran to the front door, opened it, and saw nobody. But a note was lying next to the mat. My heart began to pound. Another letter from my mystery admirer! I grabbed it up and read it before I'd even closed the door. When I'd finished, my heart was still pounding, because
this note was . . . weird. It said, "I love you, I love you, I love you, but beware. Love is fickle. So are friends. Watch out for your mystery admirer."
Of course I called Shannon immediately, praying that for once she'd be home after school and able to come over. She was and she did. While David Michael and Emily played and watched TV, Shannon and I discussed the note. We examined every angle. We read it and reread it.
"I hate to admit it, but maybe I was wrong," said Shannon shakily. "This couldn't be from Bart. This note is sort of ... twisted."
"What if it is from Bart?" I asked. "Maybe he's crazy."
"He's not crazy! I go to school with him. I ought to know. Maybe somebody else sent it."
"No. It looks just like the others."