Claudia and the Phantom Phone Calls Read Free

sitting up primly with her legs tucked under her. She wanted to look nice in case Sam should come along or poke his head out the door or something. Mary Anne had the latest edition of
The Stoneybrook News
spread open in front of her, but she wasn’t reading it. We were very,
very
bored.
    â€œWe could go up in the attic and look through that trunk of antique toys that Mom got from Grandma’s,” Kristy suggested.
    Stacey and I rolled our eyes. Even though Kristy and Mary Anne are in seventh grade, just like Stacey and I are, they can be very childish. They’re not interested in boys or clothes yet, and sometimes they do the weirdest things. Mary Anne still dresses up her stuffed animals. And they even
look
younger than we do. Kristy has long brown hair, which she doesn’t do much with yet, and big brown eyes, which will look great with makeup in a couple of years. She’s small for her age. She looks more like a ten-year-old. Mary Anne also has brown eyes and brown hair. Her father makes her wear her hair in braids. I wonder how long that will go on. And both of them wear kind of little-girl clothes—kilts and plain blouses and stuff like that.
    Stacey, on the other hand, dresses pretty much the way I do. She’s tall and slender and she gets her blonde hair professionally cut. She looks older than twelve.
    â€œWe could try that new cookie pl—” Mary Anne began, then glanced at Stacey and stopped, remembering the diet problem.
    â€œWe could rent a movie,” I said to Stacey.
    â€œYeah!” said Kristy.
    â€œYeah!” said Mary Anne.
    â€œThe player’s broken,” said Stacey.
    â€œOh.”
    I picked up a bright yellow maple leaf and twirled the stem between my thumb and forefinger. “I’ll tell you guys a secret,” I said. “Well, Stacey knows about this, but no one else does.”
    â€œHow come you already told Stacey?” asked Kristy accusingly.
    â€œI just did, that’s all. Okay?”
    I saw Kristy and Mary Anne glance at each other and knew what they were thinking—that Stacey and I left them out of things. Well, maybe we did sometimes.
    â€œDo you want to know the secret or not?”
    â€œYes,” said Kristy grudgingly.
    â€œOkay. Well, here it is …” I said slowly, trying to drag out the suspense. “I’m in love!”
    â€œOhh!” said Mary Anne softly.
    â€œYou
are?”
cried Kristy at the same time.
    â€œWho with?” asked Mary Anne.
    I sighed deeply. “Trevor Sandbourne.” I closed my eyes and leaned against the maple tree.
    â€œTrevor Sandbourne?” repeated Kristy.
    Mary Anne squinted at me through her reading glasses and pushed one braid behind her shoulder. “Who’s he?”
    â€œOnly the most gorgeous boy in school.”
    â€œI don’t think I’ve heard of him. Is he in our grade?”
    â€œYup. He’s a poet,” I said. I tried to describe him.
    â€œOh!” exclaimed Kristy, right in the middle of my description. “I know who you mean. He’s really quiet. He’s in my math class. He sits in the row behind me—right next to Alan Gray.”
    â€œOh, you poor thing,” I said. “Alan Gray. Ick.”
    â€œYeah,” added Mary Anne, sounding pretty disgusted. I mean, pretty disgusted for Mary Anne, which for most people isn’t very disgusted at all. See, Mary Anne lives alone with her father, who is really, really strict and overprotective. Because of him, Mary Anne is shy and “held in,” if you know what I mean. Mr. Spier thinks that because Mary Anne’s mother is dead, he has to go overboard with this careful upbringing, making Mary Anne super-polite and kind of old-fashioned.
    â€œWho’s Alan Gray?” asked Stacey, reminding us that she was a newcomer to Stoneybrook.
    â€œAlan Gray,” said Kristy witheringly, “is the most disgusting boy in this whole solar system.