Disappearing Staircase Mystery (5 page)

The girls answered together. “‘Measure twice, cut once.’”

Soo Lee and Benny looked confused.

As Violet measured the wallpaper a second time, she explained what Uncle Joe meant. “If you measure something twice before cutting it, then you probably won’t make a mistake and have to cut more than once. It could be wallpaper or a piece of wood or—”

“A piece of cake!” Benny said.

The children helped one another measure, cut, and paste a wallpaper strip.

“Ready, Henry?” Jessie called out.

“Ready!” Henry answered.

The other children carefully carried the wet wallpaper strip over to Henry. He lined it up, matching the leaf pattern exactly right. Then he smoothed the paper in place. There wasn’t a bubble or a wrinkle on it. “Good job, everybody.”

The children stepped back from the nice smooth wall to admire their work. That’s when they heard someone walking around overhead.

“There are those footsteps again.” Jessie scooted in the direction of the steps. But she couldn’t see anyone. “It can’t be Nan. She’s downstairs.”

“Maybe it’s another mouse,” Benny joked when Jessie came back puzzled.

“A mouse that plays music?” Soo Lee asked.

A faint, tinkling sound seemed to be coming from somewhere not too far away. The Aldens checked in all the third-floor rooms, but didn’t get any closer to the music.

“It’s The Teddy Bears’ Picnic’!” Violet said. “Listen.”

“Maybe the sound is somehow coming from the second floor where Nan is,” Henry whispered. “I’ll go check.”

He tiptoed down one flight of stairs but didn’t hear a thing. One room was locked. Raising his hand, Henry knocked on the door.

“Who’s there?” Nan yelled out, but she didn’t open the door.

“It’s Henry. Can I come in?”

“No, I’m painting in here,” Nan snapped. “All the woodwork is wet with paint. Go finish your wallpapering.”

Henry started to say something but stopped himself. “Okay.”

When he got back to the other children, he explained what had happened. “You know what? I didn’t smell a bit of paint coming from that room. I wonder why Nan locked herself in there.”

Violet looked at Henry with her big blue eyes. “Did you hear my music box?”

Henry shook his head. “I’m not sure where that sound came from. I didn’t hear it from where Nan was, anyway. But she may have heard my footsteps and closed the music box.”

“What are we going to do now?” Violet asked.

“I guess we’ll clean up, then go downstairs to see if there are other jobs for us,” Jessie answered.

“Can I climb up on there?” Benny asked when he saw Henry about to fold the stepladder. “I want to be tall.”

Henry smiled. “Sure. We need to be careful around ladders. So lean against the wall with your right hand. I’ll hold you and the ladder steady.”

“Now I’m taller than you!” Benny said when he stood on top of the stepladder. He looked up at the ceiling and noticed something. “Know what? There’s a little knob on the ceiling that sticks out.”

Henry held his arms out for Benny. “Here, jump down. I want to get a closer look. Jessie, hold the stepladder steady for me, okay?”

Jessie held the ladder firmly as Henry stood on top.

“Good eyes, Benny,” Henry said when he saw something on the ceiling, too. “From down there you can’t really see that knob. I wonder if it’s part of a folding staircase like Aunt Jane had at her ranch house. I can’t quite reach it.”

Jessie squinted up. “Oh, I see what you’re talking about. The knob blends into the carvings on the ceiling.”

The knob was just a couple of inches out of Henry’s reach. “Know what?” he said. “I’m going to stand on the floor instead. If I put Soo Lee on my shoulders, she can pull the panel open a couples of inches. Then I can pull it down the rest of the way.”

Soo Lee always loved sitting on Henry’s shoulders. She was even more excited now to help her cousins open the secret door. She looked down at the other children after Henry put her on his shoulders. “Now I’m tall, too!”

“Okay, Soo Lee, just tug that knob a teeny bit,” Jessie said, looking up.

A moment later, the children were startled when a figure appeared in the hallway.

“May I ask what you children are doing?” Louella Gardiner demanded in a sharp voice. “Why is that child sitting on your shoulders?”

Henry reached up for Soo Lee and helped her down.

Soo Lee came to the rescue. “We were listening to see if there was a mouse on the roof.”

“A mouse? On the roof?” Louella said. “This is exactly why I told Mabel Hart that children should not be volunteers. Now I’d like you all to go work outside with my husband. There’s still a lot of yard work to be done. You’ll do less damage out there than inside.”

“But we finished wallpapering,” Henry began, “like Nan told us to.”

Now Louella looked even more annoyed. “That one! A more scatterbrained leader I’ve never seen than Nan Lodge—always with her nose in a book or scribbling down jobs to do instead of doing them. Why, I told her the wallpapering job was nearly complete yesterday. And it certainly wasn’t a job for children. Now go find Mr. Gardiner outside.”

After the children went downstairs, something kept bothering Jessie. “Did any of you see or hear Louella come up the stairs? Didn’t it seem as if she just appeared out of nowhere on the third floor?”

“I know,” Henry agreed. “I just hope she doesn’t look up and notice that secret panel in the ceiling.”

“Unless she already knows about it,” Jessie added.

Late that night in the middle of the night, the little playhouse where the Aldens were camped out shook in the wind.

Jessie reached over and tapped Henry’s shoulder. “Henry are you awake?”

“I’m glad you’re up, Jessie,” Henry whispered back. “I hope all this wind and rain doesn’t wake up the others. And that the roof on the playhouse doesn’t leak, either.”

Just as Henry sat up, he and Jessie heard a huge boom outside.

All at once, the younger children woke up, too.

“What was that big crash?” Soo Lee asked. She snuggled close to Jessie’s sleeping bag.

“There, there, Soo Lee,” Jessie said. “It’s a storm. Henry is going to check on what that noise was.”

Henry grabbed his flashlight and stepped outside. As soon as he opened the playhouse door, the rain and wind slapped against him. He beamed his flashlight across the property. A huge tree branch had crashed to the ground just a few feet from the playhouse. Then he saw another beam of light cross with his. “Who’s out there?” he yelled, but the wind carried his words away.

The flashlight grew closer. Brian was holding it. “Gather up the other kids to bring them to the main house,” Brian told Henry. “We’re asking all the volunteers camping on the property to move indoors. Bring your sleeping bags and whatever else you need—especially flashlights. We’ve lost all electricity and heat in the house.”

With that, Brian disappeared into the rain and darkness.

Henry stepped back inside the playhouse. He left his flashlight on. “Okay, everybody. Brian just told us that everyone who’s camping out has to go to the main house during the storm. Get your flashlights and jackets. Jessie and I will help you roll up your sleeping bags.”

A few minutes later, the wind and rain died down a bit. “Okay,” Jessie said. “There’s a break in the storm. Let’s make a run for it to the main house. Ready, everybody?”

“Ready!” Benny said. He was excited to be up in the middle of the night, even if things were crashing around them. “It’s okay, Soo Lee. You can hold Jessie’s hand. And I’ll hold Henry’s hand.”

Jessie grabbed the camp light and led everyone out.

“Wow, what a huge tree branch!” Henry said when the children stepped over it. “We were lucky it wasn’t any bigger. It sure left a big empty spot up there. Hey, look!” he said, pointing up. “Did you notice that skylight before—there, up on the roof near the nursery wing? See?”

Jessie looked up, even though all she wanted to do was get inside where it was warm and dry. “I don’t remember seeing any room with a skylight in that part of the house before. I guess the tree branch that fell hid it from view. There’s a light moving around in there, too—like somebody’s flashlight. Let’s go inside.”

When the Aldens finally stepped into the Bugbee House, it was pretty dark and buzzing with people. Several volunteers beamed their flashlights at the children when they came inside.

“Hey, Aldens!” one of the volunteers said after he recognized the children. “That was a pretty scary noise!”

“We weren’t scared,” Benny answered. “Well, maybe just a little bit.”

Mabel arrived just then and came over to the Aldens.

“You are very brave children,” she said. “Nan told me there was quite a crash when that tree limb came down. She called me immediately. I told her to round up everyone who was camping on the property. I’m glad she got you in here so quickly.”

The Aldens were puzzled.

“Brian was the one who came over and told us to come into the main house,” Jessie told Mabel. “Not Nan.”

Mabel looked puzzled and a little annoyed. “Oh, dear. I must say, Nan and I are always crossing messages. Well, never mind. The most important thing is that you children are out of harm’s way.” Mabel put one arm around Soo Lee and the other around Benny. “The second most important thing is that this house is out of harm’s way, too. At least I think so. I expect Brian and the Gardiners are checking the house to make sure we didn’t lose any windows or roof shingles.”

“Or skylights,” Jessie whispered to Henry.

“The heat just went off,” Mabel continued. “But since warm air rises, it will stay toastier for a while on the upper floor. So why don’t you go find an empty room upstairs to sleep in? The third floor has a working bathroom, so try there first. Would you mind that?”

“Not a bit,” Jessie said.

“Good,” Mabel said. “Now I wonder where my leaders have gone off to. I must say, I’m not quite as alert in the middle of the night. If you see the Gardiners or Nan or Brian around, tell them to find me.”

“Sure thing,” Jessie told Mabel. “See you in the morning.”

“This
is
the morning,” Benny said. “But the dark part.”

The children carried their sleeping bags all the way to the third floor.

“It’s a lucky thing Mabel sent us up here,” Henry said in a whisper. “She said we can find a room. While we’re up here, maybe we can figure out where that skylight room is.”

“And who was in it,” Jessie said. “Don’t forget that.”

But when the children checked the doors on the third floor, they discovered all of them locked except for the bathroom.

“Let’s try the second floor.” Henry walked back down a flight of stairs. “There’s one room unlocked down here,” he called up to the other children. “Come on down.”

The unlocked room was small and snug—just big enough for the children’s sleeping bags. In no time, they arranged their bags on the floor.

The sleeping bags were ready for sleeping, but the Aldens weren’t.

“I’m not tired,” Benny announced. His blue eyes were as wide as if it were the middle of the day, not the middle of the night.

“We should try to get some sleep,” Jessie said. “We need our rest so we can work hard tomorrow.” Jessie turned off the camp light.

“Hey, someone’s in the hallway,” Benny whispered a few minutes later.

The door opened, and a light shone in. The children couldn’t see who was there. They pretended to be asleep.

“Did you see who that was, Henry?” Benny asked.

“No,” Henry said, “but the footsteps are going away. Whoever it was is gone.”

The Aldens always enjoyed whispering to one another before falling asleep—especially in strange new places.

“I wish we could go see where those secret stairs in the ceiling go to,” Benny said in the dark.

Jessie wriggled in her sleeping bag. “I was just thinking the same thing. I suppose we could take a peek now that everyone else is asleep downstairs. Maybe those stairs lead to the room that has the skylight.”

One by one the Aldens slipped out of their sleeping bags and into the hallway.

Soo Lee was in her bare feet. “This floor is wet,” she said when she came out of the room.