Sleepover Stakeout (9780545443111) Read online

  Darcy passed me a note in English.

  Partners in Crime meeting. After school. You, me, Fiona. The Java Lamp. We need to come up with our next steps for Maya’s case.

  I smiled, pleased that she’d gotten over whatever was bothering her the other day and had invited Fiona along. I scribbled back: I’m in. Then I pretended to yawn, stretching my arms up into the air so I could drop the note onto Darcy’s desk behind me.

  The prospect of getting one of those giant face-size cookies from the Java Lamp made me feel a little bit better after my “I may need glasses” revelation. What was also making me feel better was knowing that I had an excuse to talk to Zane sometime today. But about what?

  I was reminded of a conversation I’d had with Maya when Darcy and I were working on our first case. Maya had been nervous to talk to me, as usual, but then she’d blurted out that Zane had a secret.

  She never told me what it was, which really stank. But at the same time, it made me like Maya more because she could obviously be trusted with secrets. After Hunter started teasing Maya on the way home from school, Zane had walked with her to protect her. And they’d become friends. I’d wondered if the big secret was that they were becoming boyfriend and girlfriend, but it didn’t seem like that was it.

  After the last bell, I hung around my locker, wondering if Zane might stop by. I didn’t want to be standing there doing nothing and looking desperate. So I reached into my book bag front pocket, where I’d stashed the piece of paper I’d found on the ground behind Hunter’s house Saturday night.

  I squinted, trying to make sense of what I was seeing. It looked like some sort of swirly design. Was it three connected butterflies? No, the thing on the right looked like a butterfly, or a sideways heart, but the rest of it … I shrugged and stuffed it back into my backpack. It was just someone’s elaborate doodle. Not a clue.

  I wondered if Zane was waiting for me at his locker, so I closed mine and walked down the opposite hallway to find him. I didn’t know which locker number was his but knew it was in this block. I stopped, looked around, and sighed. He wasn’t there. I stood still for a moment, trying to decide whether I should give up and leave. Then a big hand grabbed my upper arm and spun me around.

  “Hey, Norah,” Slade said in a mocking tone. “I hear the Old Witch is after you.”

  Great. Hunter had told his best friend about Saturday night. Just what I needed. More taunting from Slade.

  He did his best evil witch cackle, throwing his head back and laughing. His fingers were still wrapped around my arm. I tried to pull away, but his grip only tightened.

  Darcy came up beside me and growled, “Take your hand off my best friend or I will punch you into next week.”

  Wow. A time-traveling beatdown. Darcy’s threats were creative.

  Slade let go, but his dark eyes never left mine. “Watch out.” He pointed at us as he stepped backward. “One of you girls is next. The witch is hungry.”

  “Ignore him,” Darcy said, leading me away. “Someone’s waiting for you at your locker.”

  Apparently, Zane had been waiting for me while I was waiting for him. We must have passed in the hallway, but since I was apparently half blind, I hadn’t noticed. Now, though, as I rounded the corner, I saw him leaning against my locker. And, I swear, when he saw me, his eyes lit up.

  My heart did a little flutter thing, but I told myself to be brave.

  “So,” I said when I reached the locker, “what’s your secret?”

  Zane’s eyes widened. His mouth dropped open and he didn’t say anything at first. Then, “Secret? What do you mean?”

  “Saturday night … you said you had to tell me something.”

  “Oh, right.” His expression returned to normal, relieved even. “It’s not a secret, though. Just something you guys need to know.”

  You guys. Meaning me, Darcy, maybe Maya. He wasn’t spilling whatever secret he had right now. Though, from the look on his face, he definitely had one.

  “What do we need to know?” Darcy asked.

  “When we were walking home from school last Friday,” Zane began, “Maya told me you guys had opened a case to help her figure out that weird voice she’d heard. She told me you were coming over for a sleepover Saturday night and she was soooo excited. She was actually talking loud for once. Maybe … too loud.”

  Darcy scratched at her dark mop of hair. “Go on….”

  “Hunter was walking behind us,” Zane said. “I can’t be sure if he heard or not, but —”

  “There’s a chance he knew we were having the sleepover,” I said, filling in the rest. “And he might have done the voice thing, to freak us out.”

  “So he didn’t come outside because he heard us walking through his yard,” Darcy chimed in. “He knew about everything ahead of time. He’d set it up.”

  “Maybe,” I said, not wanting to get ahead of ourselves. “There’s also a chance he didn’t hear your conversation, right?”

  Zane nodded. “I can’t be sure either way. I just thought you should know.”

  “Thanks.” I smiled.

  Darcy’s phone buzzed and she checked it. “Fiona just texted. She’s at the café already and has three cookies with our names on them.”

  As much as I wanted to stay and chat with Zane longer, you can’t keep Darcy from waiting cookies. So I was whisked away with barely enough time to wave good-bye.

  “I don’t know if this is possible, but it tastes even better this time,” Darcy said through a mouthful of cookie.

  The Java Lamp was busy. Conversation and laughter filled the air while music played lightly from the speakers in the ceiling.

  I nibbled at my cookie. Darcy was right — it was fantastic. I took small bites to make it last longer. Even though, compared to other cookies, this one was Jupiter-size. (That’s the largest planet in our solar system. Just so you know.)

  “Thank you, Abigail Mattimore,” Darcy said, and we all laughed. If Abigail hadn’t gone all psycho over where Trey went on Fridays, we wouldn’t have been on the case that led us here.

  We all held our cookies up and toasted. “To Abigail!”

  We filled Fiona in on everything that had happened on Saturday night, including Slade’s threat about the Old Witch, and Zane’s warning about Hunter.

  “So now we’re thinking it might all be some sort of prank,” Darcy finished up.

  “Did anyone talk to Maya today?” Fiona asked.

  “I didn’t,” I said, feeling a little bit guilty about it. But, in my defense, I had a lot on my mind. A bad grade on my science quiz, the possibility of wearing glasses the rest of my life, and Zane, for starters. Still, I should have stopped and said hi to Maya at some point, even if we didn’t have anything new on the case.

  Darcy chugged from her glass, leaving a chocolate milk mustache above her lip. “I didn’t either. But, to be honest, I barely notice the girl. She’s so small and quiet.”

  I frowned, imagining what it must be like moving to town in the seventh grade when all the other kids know one another. Add Maya’s natural shyness on top of it …

  “We should try harder to talk to her during the day,” I said. “She’s only lived here a few weeks and has no friends.”

  Darcy said, “But she’s a client.”

  “So?” I crossed my arms. “Fiona was a client and now she’s our friend. Aren’t you glad we talked to her?”

  “She did buy me this cookie,” Darcy said with a smirk. Fiona jokingly stuck her tongue out at her.

  “Moving on,” I said. “Let’s make a list of suspects.”

  Darcy whipped her case notebook out of her backpack. It was just a regular notebook with a black cover, but we used it only for Partners in Crime business.

  “Let’s start with the obvious,” I said. “Hunter Fisk.”

  “Evidence?” Darcy said, pencil poised to fill in the column.

  I listed off, “He lives right next door to Maya. He may have heard that we were coming over. And he jus
t happened to come outside to scare us when we were investigating. Plus, he has a history of teasing Maya.”

  Darcy finished writing and moved on to the next column. “Motive?”

  I thought for a moment. “Does being a jerk in general count?”

  Darcy nodded. “I’ll write ‘bully behavior.’”

  Fiona had been twirling a strand of hair around her finger while we talked. Now she stopped and said, “Wait a second. Hunter heard about the sleepover the day before.”

  “Yeah, so,” Darcy said.

  “But Maya first heard the voice long before that,” Fiona said.

  Duh! I’d always underestimated Fiona’s smarts. “That’s true,” I said to Darcy. “She heard it on two Saturdays before Hunter knew about our sleepover. So maybe Hunter came out to scare us the night of the sleepover, but he has nothing to do with the voice.”

  Darcy frowned at this complication. “Next suspect.”

  “What about the Old Witch?” Fiona asked.

  “That’s just a story,” I said. “She doesn’t abduct kids or any of that stuff.”

  “Yeah, but the voice still could’ve been her, right?” Fiona said.

  Good point. I nodded and Darcy spoke as she wrote. “Evidence: lives across the street, is creepy. Motive: to eat children.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Oh, please.”

  Darcy snickered. “It’s in pencil. I can always change it.”

  “Okay, next suspect,” I said, wanting to move this thing along.

  Darcy tapped the pencil on the table. “Zane Munro.”

  I gasped. “What?”

  Darcy shrugged. “We have as much evidence on him as we do the others. He lives a couple houses down from Maya. And he was outside the night of the sleepover.”

  I stammered, “But — but he would never! What motive could he possibly have?”

  Darcy held her hands up. “I have ‘to eat children’ down as one motive here. Obviously, it’s too early in the case for motives. We can’t exclude any suspects from the list just because you have a huge crush on them.”

  My face turned a fiery red. If I were a volcano, hot steaming magma would have been shooting out of my head.

  “Girls, girls,” Fiona said. “Let’s focus on facts here. Right now, any neighbors of Maya’s are suspects.”

  “And really,” I said, “suspect is too harsh a word. The person didn’t do anything wrong.”

  “Creeping Maya out is wrong,” Darcy said.

  “But we still don’t know for sure that someone’s trying to scare Maya,” I protested. “Isn’t it more likely that something is really going on outside on Saturday nights, and whoever is involved has no idea that Maya can hear them on the baby monitor?”

  Fiona leaned back in her chair. “How could a baby monitor just pick up a conversation from outside the house? I think we need to know more about how those baby monitor thingies work.”

  Darcy reached into her backpack and whipped out a bunch of papers she had printed out from various websites. “Done!”

  I looked through the stack. There was a lot of tech jargon and articles about frequency interference. Darcy had really done her research. Unfortunately, she’d have to translate.

  The song playing through the café speakers ended and I waited for a few seconds until the next song started. We didn’t need to whisper when the music covered our conversation.

  “What does all this mean?” I asked.

  Darcy folded her hands on top of the table. “Imagine that the baby monitor is like a tiny radio station. And the little plastic antenna is the radio station’s transmitter. Anyone within range of the radio station can pick up whatever music is playing, as long as they have a radio.”

  Following along, I said, “So anyone who has the same baby monitor can hear whatever is said?”

  “It doesn’t even have to be the same one. Or even a baby monitor. It just has to use the same frequency and be within the range.”

  “What do you mean, frequency?” Fiona asked.

  “It’s like a bandwidth … or a channel. So as long as someone is transmitting on that channel, whether it’s from another baby monitor, a CB radio, a walkie-talkie, or whatever, if they’re in range, then you can possibly hear it on your monitor.”

  I flipped to the next page in Darcy’s stack and saw an article about problems with baby monitors in close quarters. “What’s this all about?”

  Darcy looked at the article. “Oh, it’s about the challenges people face when there are several families living in the same apartment building. If they have the most common types of baby monitors, they can hear all sorts of stuff from each other’s apartments. So they have to be sure to buy a more expensive monitor or one that doesn’t work on the same frequency as their neighbors.”

  “What kind does Maya’s family have?” Fiona said.

  Darcy grinned. “Interesting that you ask.” She pulled the bottom paper from the stack. “Theirs is the Baby Sounds 2000. The most inexpensive model, at only sixteen dollars. And therefore one of the most common.”

  “So maybe all we have to do is figure out if any of her neighbors have the same one,” I said.

  “How do we do that?” Fiona said.

  “We can start by seeing if anyone even has a baby,” Darcy said. “Maya probably wouldn’t know, though, since she just moved in.”

  Hmm. That was true. And she was shy enough talking to her peers. Talking to strangers must be even worse. “We could find a way to ask around,” I suggested. “But first we need to know what the range is, right?” I aimed my question at Darcy since she was the pro at tech stuff.

  Darcy drummed her black-painted fingernails on the tabletop and smiled. “Leave that to me.”

  I slid into my seat in social studies a few minutes before the bell. The required reading pages for that night were written on the board, so I pulled out my notebook to copy them down. I reminded myself to double-and triple-check afterward that I’d written the right numbers.

  Darcy sat next to me and peered at my notebook. “What are you doing, testing your signature?” She added in a dreamy, singsong voice, “Ms. Munro. Mrs. Norah Munro. Mrs. Norah Burridge-Munro.”

  I resisted the urge to cover her mouth with my hand. “I’m copying the assignment off the board, Darcy,” I hissed. “You should be doing the same thing.”

  Darcy chuckled. But then she stopped. “Why are you making that face? You’re not really mad, are you? You know I’m just kidding around.”

  Totally confused, I said, “What face?”

  “That squinty-eyed look you were just giving the board. Like you wanted to kill it.”

  I groaned. In all the case drama, I hadn’t had a chance to tell my BFF about my news. “I’m squinting because I can’t read the board very well. I might … need glasses.”

  “Oh,” Darcy said slowly, making a giant O with her mouth. “When did you find out? Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”

  I felt a pang of guilt. It was true; Darcy and I usually told each other everything immediately. “Just yesterday,” I explained. “I’m going to the eye place tonight.” After reading the note from Mr. Mahoney, Mom and Dad had spared no time in getting me a quick appointment at an eyeglass place at the mall. They also conveniently make your glasses in one hour as you wait, so tomorrow I could be showing up at school with four eyes.

  Darcy shook her head. “And I’m getting my stupid braces on this afternoon!”

  I patted her hand. “That stinks. I’m sorry,” I said sadly.

  “But hey,” Darcy said, brightening, “I did some Internet research last night on the range of Maya’s baby monitor. I have computer lab next. If I finish the class work early, I’m going to use the rest of the time to figure out the area of Maya’s neighborhood we have to work with.”

  “Cool,” I said. I had no doubt she’d finish her computer work early.

  Mrs. Feldman, our social studies teacher, strolled in and started talking about a new project we had to work on: a paper on
World War II. She said, “You can work on this project individually or in teams of two.”

  Darcy looked over at me and whispered, “Partners?”

  “Always,” I said back with a smile.

  After the last bell, Fiona came up to my locker and said, “Close your eyes and say ‘oh’ real slow.”

  Um, ooookay. Though I was suspicious, I let my eyes close and said, “Ohhhhhh,” until I felt a gooey grossness on my lips. My eyes snapped open and caught Fiona with a little pink wand in her hand. It was a lip gloss sneak attack.

  “What are you doing?” I snapped.

  Fiona shook her head and capped the gloss. “It was wrong.”

  “Yeah, no kidding. You can’t just walk up to some unsuspecting person and makeup them.”

  She rolled her eyes and put one hand on the hip of her belted red sweaterdress. “I’m not saying I did anything wrong. I’m saying my idea was wrong. I thought the thing your look was missing was a little shimmering lip color. But that’s not it.”

  I almost growled at her. “Fiona. Just give up already. I look how I look.”

  She tilted her head to the side. “When astrologers find some new thing in the sky and they don’t know what it is, do they give up?”

  “It’s astronomers, actually, but no, they don’t.”

  “Then I’m not giving up either. I will find the right stylistic choice for you. If it’s the last thing I do!” She raised her fist in the air dramatically.

  Darcy chose that moment to walk up to my locker. She raised her eyebrows. “I don’t know if I should ask what’s going on or run like the wind.”

  “Run,” I said, laughing. “Run while you can.”

  She waved a piece of paper in the air. “But then I wouldn’t be able to show you guys where our suspects live….”

  I snatched the paper out of her hand. “You did it? You figured out the range? You’re a genius!”

  Darcy gave a little bow.

  Fiona peeked over my shoulder. “What are we looking at here?”

  I squinted at the paper. Now that I realized I was doing it so much, it seemed like I was squinting all the time. I brought it closer to my face, and the photo got clearer. It was a satellite picture, an aerial view. “This is Maya’s neighborhood,” I said.