Sleepover Stakeout (9780545443111) Page 8

  I felt a pang of intrigue mixed with fear. I thought about the words Maya had told us she’d first heard on the monitor: someone saying “Get him” and then a scream. And then what we’d heard … someone begging for help … someone scared. And this symbol, design, logo, had been on the ground by her house. Now Hunter had gotten the same note with a message saying he was next.

  Something added up but didn’t.

  “Do you think the voices on the baby monitor have to do with this note?” I asked, holding up Hunter’s note for Darcy.

  “Maybe,” Darcy said slowly.

  Hunter gave us a look that was part smug and part hopeful. “So you’ll take on my case now, right?”

  I exchanged a look with Darcy and answered Hunter, “Yeah. Something’s going on and —”

  “And you might be in danger,” Darcy finished for me.

  I knew Darcy and I were thinking the same thing. We hadn’t picked up some innocent conversation from someone else’s baby monitor. And now it didn’t even look as if this was staged to scare Maya. We’d stumbled upon something real. And dangerous. Something was going on out there, in the dark, in the woods.

  This changed everything.

  The only good thing about discovering that the voice in the woods might be something dangerous was that Darcy and I weren’t fighting anymore. Not that we were fighting before. But you know. The sleepover became the top priority.

  Mom pulled into the Doshis’ driveway Saturday night just as Darcy’s mom and Fiona’s dad were pulling out. We’d all arrived at basically the same time.

  Mom looked at the pile of stuff on my lap. “You have everything?”

  A mixture of emotions ran through me: excitement, anticipation, and even a little bit of fear. I hefted my overnight bag up over one shoulder and held the sleeping bag with my arms. “Yep! See you in the morning.” I pushed the car door with my foot.

  Mom called out, “Remember, if for any reason you want to come home, just give us a call.”

  “I would, but I don’t have a cell phone,” I said with a glint in my eye.

  Mom chuckled. “I’m sure the Doshis have a house phone. Nice try, though.”

  I was convinced that one of these tries, someday, was going to work.

  Maya swung open the front door as I approached the house. She waved me in. “Come on. Everyone’s in the kitchen!”

  I dropped my bags on the floor and slipped out of my sneakers, then followed Maya into the kitchen. Fiona, Darcy, and Anya were seated around the table. Rishi was in one of those baby bouncy seats, kicking and cooing. Mrs. Doshi was searching through every drawer in the room.

  Maya whispered, “She can’t find her keys.”

  I knew that dance well. My father did it all the time. Finally, Mrs. Doshi lifted a newspaper from the counter, said, “There they are!” and did a little victory shimmy.

  Then she turned to us. “Okay, girls, I’m heading to the restaurant. Let’s see…. Anya.” She pointed at her oldest daughter. “Rishi has already had his dinner. Just play with him for about an hour and then put him to bed.”

  Anya smiled sweetly. “Of course.” She seemed a lot nicer tonight.

  “Maya,” Mrs. Doshi continued, “what would you and your friends like for dinner?”

  “I already told you, Mom. We ordered a pizza.”

  Mrs. Doshi made a face. “Are you sure you wouldn’t rather have something from the restaurant? I can pack you up a nice meal and bring it back here —”

  “And then head back to the restaurant? That’s too much work for you.” Maya pointed at the window. “Look, Mom, it’s dark already. This is the restaurant’s busiest night. Dad needs you. Don’t worry about us.”

  I nodded and smiled. I appreciated that Mrs. Doshi was trying to be a good host, but I’d really rather have the pizza. And the house to ourselves so we could kick this stakeout into high gear.

  “All right. Have fun, girls!” Mrs. Doshi gave Maya and Anya light kisses on the tops of their heads, waved at us, and left.

  But as soon as the front door shut, everything changed.

  Anya slammed her hands on the table so loudly I jumped in my seat.

  “This has to stop,” she hissed.

  Maya slouched down in her chair. “What are you talking about?”

  Anya stood so she towered over us. She glared at Maya. “This is two Saturdays in a row I had to stay in and babysit Rishi because of you.”

  Maya said weakly, “I babysat him both Friday nights so you could go out. It’s only fair. I do Fridays, you do Saturdays. It’s the same thing.”

  I wanted to high-five Maya for standing up for herself. Though her tone could’ve used a little more strength, it was a good start.

  “It’s not the same thing,” Anya retorted. “I have parties to go to, friends to go out with. You’re just pretending to have friends.”

  I felt a flare of anger, and I knew Darcy and Fiona did, too. Darcy stood up and crossed her arms over her chest. I was sure she was going to lash out at Anya in a way that could possibly get us in trouble, so I grabbed her arm.

  “We’re not imaginary,” I told Anya, my tone cool.

  Anya’s eyes cut to me. “But I’m sure you didn’t come over here for Maya’s sparkling personality. Did she pay you or something? Offer to do your homework?”

  I felt heat on my neck, working its way up my cheeks as I got angrier. Even though we were only here for a case, that didn’t mean we weren’t becoming friends with Maya along the way.

  Fiona piped up, “We are her friends. Maya has plenty of friends. You’d know how nice she was if you bothered to chat with her instead of ordering her around.”

  I wanted to hug Fiona.

  Anya snorted. “Yeah, right. Maya had no friends in our old town and she’ll have none in this one, either.” And with that she stood, the chair scraping loudly against the floor. She picked Rishi up out of his bouncy seat and brought him upstairs, stomping all the way.

  Maya stared at the floor in silence. I didn’t know if she was depressed, embarrassed, or both.

  “Wow, you guys weren’t kidding about Anya being nasty,” Fiona said, shaking her head. She looked at Maya with pity in her eyes, and I knew she was thinking of her own little sister as she said, “You’re her sister. How could she treat you that way?”

  “Anya’s a bully,” Darcy said. “And even bullies have brothers and sisters.”

  I thought about Slade in the mall with his older brothers. He’d learned how to bully by being bullied himself. But Maya was proof that it didn’t have to end up that way. Anya treated her cruelly, but Maya was still one of the nicest girls around. I vowed to make sure Maya always knew she had friends. In school, at home, whenever she needed us.

  “Don’t let Anya get you down, Maya,” I said. “You have us.”

  Maya looked up with sad eyes. “You guys might have been right all along.”

  “About what?” Darcy asked.

  “That Anya might be the one doing this. When she said she was going out with her friends that night, it might have been her and her friends outside somewhere making creepy voices into another monitor, knowing I’d be listening, just to scare me.” She let out a long sigh. “We bicker and stuff. She’s not the world’s best sister. But I never thought she’d do something as mean as that.”

  “It might not be her,” I said, adding silently, It might be something dangerous.

  “Why?” Maya asked, glancing from me to Darcy to Fiona. “Did you guys get any new leads?”

  Darcy filled her — and Fiona — in on the note Hunter got with the TDB design, which matched the paper I’d found on the night of our first sleepover.

  “Does TDB mean anything to you?” I asked Maya, showing her the two matching notes.

  Maya scrunched up her nose. “No. I’ve never heard of it.”

  Whatever or whoever TDB was, at that moment, I hoped it had nothing to do with Anya. Because I didn’t want to see the hurt on Maya’s face if Anya was the guilty
one.

  “Don’t worry,” Darcy said confidently. “We’ll get to the bottom of this tonight. We’re prepared this time. We won’t start to fall asleep or have the TV on too loud. We’re going to be fully awake, quiet, listening, and ready.”

  Right at that moment, a crunch of gravel came from outside. My head snapped up. Then another sound came, like a heavy footstep. We all stiffened. I put my finger to my lips, telling everyone to keep quiet.

  Another noise … a kind of shuffling.

  “Where is that coming from?” Fiona whispered.

  “It sounds like someone’s outside but in the front,” I said. Strange. I’d always assumed the person messing with us would be lurking around the back of the house, near the woods, not out in front, facing the street, where he or she could be seen.

  And it couldn’t have been Anya, because we would’ve seen her walk out the front door.

  Reading my thoughts, Darcy asked, “Is there any way Anya could’ve snuck out? Do you have a back door?”

  Maya nodded. “Maybe she could have tiptoed downstairs and gone out the back.”

  “Maybe it’s just an animal scurrying out there?” Fiona said hopefully.

  A heavy footfall came, from closer to the door, followed by an “oomph.”

  That was no animal. Squirrels don’t trip and say “oomph.”

  Darcy dashed to the front door and we all followed. My heart hammered in my chest as Darcy rose on her tiptoes and squinted through the peephole.

  “Do you see anything?” I asked.

  “Yeah, it’s a person. But I can’t see all of them. They’re looking down at something in their hand.” Darcy took a step back and reached for the handle. “Time for us to give someone a little surprise.”

  We all huddled together, touching shoulders, a giant wall of angry yet frightened twelve-year-olds ready to give whoever wanted to scare us a scare of their own. Darcy turned the knob and yanked the door inward as hard and quickly as she could.

  There was a person standing there. Not Anya.

  Not anyone we knew.

  The stranger screamed.

  Then we screamed.

  (Hey, when you yank open a door and some dude is standing there with his fist raised in the air, and he starts yelling … it’s just a reflex to yell back.)

  Then I took in his red jacket, matching hat, and the box he held in one hand while the other seemed frozen in the air, ready to knock on the door that was now wide open.

  “Girls!” I yelled. “It’s only the pizza guy!”

  They all stopped screaming, then the pizza guy stopped screaming. The fist he’d meant to use for knocking on the door now clutched his poor heart. Between ragged breaths, he said, “One … large … half plain, half … pepperoni?”

  “Yes, that’s us,” Darcy said apologetically. “Sorry about the aggressive door opening. We’re, uh, really hungry.”

  “Ten bucks,” he replied, obviously wanting no small talk. I didn’t blame him for wanting to get out of there, and away from the creepy four girls staring at him as quickly as possible.

  Mrs. Doshi had given Maya fifteen dollars. She held it out and said, “Keep the change.”

  He didn’t even say good-bye. And almost ran away, tripping again on one of the steps and letting out another “oomph.”

  We attacked the pizza like we hadn’t eaten in a week. No talking, just noshing, until all that was left in the box were crumbs and grease. Mystery solving makes girls hungry, I guess.

  I leaned back in the chair and patted my full belly.

  Darcy did the same. “That was fanny-tastic.”

  Fiona daintily dabbed at her mouth with a napkin.

  “So what do we do now?” Maya asked, looking eager.

  “Sit here and digest,” I moaned.

  Darcy sat up straight, her eyes sparkling. “How about I show you my new toy?”

  “Oh!” Fiona gave a little clap. “I forgot about that. Let’s see it.”

  Darcy wiped her hands with a napkin and went into the corner where we’d tossed our overnight bags. She unzipped hers and pulled out a bunch of items. “Flashlights,” she called out, holding them up. “And … these babies.”

  With a flourish, she lifted up a pair of heavy-looking binoculars that were like nothing I’d ever seen.

  Maya’s eyes widened. “Are those night-vision goggles?”

  Darcy beamed. “They sure are. No one can hide from us now. Even in the dark.”

  “Are they real?” Fiona asked.

  Darcy nodded proudly. “You bet.”

  I reached out and held the night goggles for a second. They were super heavy. I couldn’t help but smile. Darcy and her spy gear. “Where did you get them?” I asked.

  “Remember last month when my mom and I flew to California to visit my cousin? They were in the SkyMall!”

  “That catalog that’s in all the seats?” Fiona said.

  “Yeah! Turns out it’s full of surveillance stuff. It was like a dream come true.” She took the goggles back from me and held them in her arms like a baby. “I knew they’d come in handy someday. They’ll definitely get some use tonight!”

  Fiona went to her bag and started rummaging through it. “I brought equipment, too.”

  I scrunched up my forehead. What could Fiona have brought for a sleepover stakeout?

  She whipped out a pink cosmetics case and said with delight, “Makeover time!”

  Darcy’s jaw almost hit the floor. Then she spoke slowly, “We’re … on … a … spy … mission.”

  Fiona put a hand on her hip. “Hey, we have to do something to pass the time. And I can do makeup quietly.”

  Midnight came and we all were wearing lip gloss — even Darcy — and had our nails done. Fiona’s were pink, mine were blue, Maya’s were red. Miraculously, Darcy had agreed to have hers painted purple, though she wouldn’t move from her post even while they were being done. She’d had the goggles on all night and stared out the window, waiting to catch our villain in the act.

  But now we were all makeupped out and getting tired, though we needed to stay awake.

  Darcy let out an impatient groan. “This is around the time we heard the voice last week. When is it going to happen?”

  I felt the same way. I didn’t want this whole night to be a bust. My hand went to my mouth in an attempt to stifle a giant yawn.

  “How about a game of Would You Rather?” Fiona suggested.

  That could be fun. I went first. “Would you rather be able to read minds or have visions?”

  Maya said, “Read minds! That would rule.”

  “Now someone else ask a question,” I said.

  A snicker came from Darcy’s darkened corner of the room. “Would you rather eat dog poop or a live bee?”

  “Eww!” Fiona wrinkled her nose in distaste. “That’s too disgusting. New question.”

  Darcy laughed. “Okay. Would you rather be rich and ugly or poor and hot?”

  Fiona gasped. “Oh, that’s so hard! Maybe rich and ugly because I could always cover up my ugly with designer outfits.”

  Darcy and I rolled our eyes at each other in the darkness, and smiled. Then I searched my mind for a question with a little more depth. But before I could open my mouth, Fiona asked, “Would you rather have one best friend or a bunch of not-as-close friends?”

  Darcy quickly said, “One best friend.” She hesitated, looking straight at me, then said, “I feel like —”

  But she didn’t finish her sentence. The monitor had started to crackle.

  My chest tightened. We all scrambled over to the monitor and circled around it.

  A voice pushed through the crackling. “Come on … this … thing …” Static hissed for a long moment, then the voice came back again. “Please … help me …”

  The voice sent a trail of ice down my spine. Not just the words, but the tone. The person was panicked and scared. This wasn’t a prank. If it was, the person on the other end deserved an acting award.

  “I
think it’s a guy,” Darcy whispered.

  “Yeah, a boy,” Maya added.

  We all leaned in closer as if that would make the monitor reveal its secrets.

  “Please … is anyone out there?” Crackle. Hiss. “I’m hurt.”

  I bolted to my feet. “We have to go out there.”

  “Wait.” Darcy shot out a hand and held my arm. “What if it’s a trap? From TDB?”

  She had a good point. But I wasn’t going to sit inside here and do nothing while someone out there begged for help. I stared into her eyes. “We have to check it out.” And she nodded because she knew it was the right thing to do.

  Fiona and Maya were still huddled on the floor. “Us, too?” Fiona asked sheepishly.

  “Yes,” Darcy said. “The more people we have, the quicker we can find this person.”

  Fiona and Maya shared a look and then slowly stood. We each grabbed a flashlight from Darcy’s bag of tricks. Darcy had the goggles up on her forehead, ready to pull them down over her eyes when needed. We slipped into our sneakers as quickly as possible and ran outside.

  Utter darkness was creepy enough, but it was even spookier with four flashlights bouncing around the gloom, casting shadows over the trees at the edge of the woods. A shudder ran through my body.

  I told myself to be calm. I thought about Zane nearby in his house. I cast my eyes up at the thing that relaxed me most — the night sky — and gasped.

  Darcy was immediately at my side. “What is it? What did you see?”

  She was probably hoping for a giant clue, but it was much less dramatic than that. “I just …” I could barely find the words. “The stars have never looked so clear to me before.”

  It was like my whole life I’d been sky-gazing through a dirty telescope. Now someone had cleaned the lens.

  “Glasses aren’t so bad now, are they?” Darcy said. I didn’t have to see her to know she was smiling.

  “Yeah,” I agreed. This moment alone was worth getting glasses.

  “You guys,” Fiona said nervously, bringing me back to Earth.

  “What?” Maya whispered.

  “I’m kind of scared. I feel like we’re being watched.”