Midnight Mystery (2 page)

The room was filled with chimes, cuckoos, and bells.

In the middle of the racket, Ruff and Tumble began to howl. Their tails moved back and forth in rhythm with the clocks.

The Aldens were still laughing when the birds, mice, and rabbits suddenly disappeared into their clocks. All the chirping and chiming in the house came to a stop.

“I don’t think we’ll be able to sleep through
that
tomorrow night,” Jessie declared. “Not unless we get earplugs.”

As the children climbed into their beds, Ruff and Tumble began to growl.

“What’s the matter, you two?” Jessie asked softly. “Isabel let Midnight out of the house already.”

“Listen,” Henry said. “Do you hear that?”

The children froze in place.

Jessie shushed the dogs. “Tapping. Where’s it coming from?”

With their tails straight up, Ruff and Tumble pulled away from Jessie. They stood at the door, whining.

“Something must be wrong,” said Violet.

“Let’s investigate,” Benny said firmly. He led the way down the moonlit staircase.

When the Aldens reached the first floor, the tapping had stopped. The dim entryway was still. The face of the grandfather clock glowed in the moonlight.

In the dark shadows at the foot of the stairs stood Midnight, her back arched in fright. At the sight of Ruff and Tumble, she ran out the open front door.

“Look.” Henry pointed to the door. “That door shouldn’t be open. The wind must have blown it open and banged it against the wall.”

“I guess that’s what made the tapping noise,” Jessie said.

Ruff and Tumble tried to squeeze themselves past Henry to get outside.

“Don’t let them out,” Jessie said. “If they see the raccoon again, they’ll wake up everybody.” Jessie stuck her head out the door. The wind had picked up. Suddenly she gasped. There was a person in the garden!
Oh, it’s only the scarecrow,
she decided. She pulled the door shut.

The Aldens walked back upstairs.

Except for the softly ticking clocks, the house was quiet. The sleepy children were quiet, too, except for the
thump, thump, thump
of their own heartbeats.

The next morning, the Aldens awoke to the steady ticking of the clocks.

Benny’s stomach rumbled. He opened one eye, then the other. Pushing his brown bangs from his forehead, he sat up. He was hungry.

Seeing Benny awake, Ruff and Tumble trotted over. They rested their quivering noses on the edge of his custom-size bed.

Benny stroked the dogs’ long, silky ears. “You guys must be hungry, too.”

Henry sat up in bed. “And I must be hungry three,” he joked.

Soon all of them — boys, girls, and dogs — were up and about. Isabel had said they could help set up some of the inventions that had arrived already. The children could hardly wait to see what the other inventors had designed.

Under Jessie’s supervision, teeth were brushed, hair was combed, sneakers were tied, and sleeping bags were rolled neatly on each bed. Benny put on his flashlight hat. Then the dogs and children followed their noses downstairs and over to Isabel’s cottage. They could hear silverware clinking and food sizzling. The dogs ran ahead as fast as they could, which wasn’t awfully fast on their short legs. Midnight, who was eating her breakfast, had plenty of time to scurry away.

When his grandchildren bounded into Isabel’s cheery kitchen, Grandfather set down his coffee cup. “Morning, sleepyheads,” he said, getting up to hug them. “I knew all these good breakfast smells would wake you up.”

“Help yourselves to pancakes,” Isabel said. “They’re warming on the stove along with the sausages. Everything else is on the table. Now, tell me, did you sleep through all the clocks chiming at midnight?”

Benny speared a sausage. “No way! I stayed up
past
midnight! The clocks made lots of noise right in our room. And guess what. We heard some mystery tapping.”

“Tapping?” Isabel asked, puzzled. “Are you certain it wasn’t the wind?”

Jessie sat down next to Isabel. “I think it
was
the wind. The scarecrow was spinning in the garden, anyway.”

During breakfast Isabel explained what needed to be done that morning. “Many of the inventors are already in town. Some have already dropped off their inventions in the old garage. Others mailed their inventions — you can help unpack them. My assistant, Martha, is registering the inventions now. After she finishes, you can help move some of the pieces into the main house. I’ll meet you in the garage after breakfast and — ”

Ruff and Tumble suddenly stopped eating. They skittered across the kitchen floor and rushed to another part of the house, barking all the way.

“Goodness, what’s that all about?” Isabel asked. She quickly rose from the table to see.

Although they hated to leave their delicious pancakes, the Aldens followed.

“Mr. Percy!” Isabel yelled over the barking.

The dogs had cornered a short, round, balding man in the far side of the living room. A small wooden toolbox lay open next to him on the fireplace mantel.

“Please call these animals away!” the man cried.

Isabel and Henry took Ruff and Tumble by their collars. They led them to a small room and closed the door. The dogs whined and barked to be let out.

“You can come out in a while,” Isabel told them. “Quiet, now!”

The dogs whined sadly. Isabel and Henry returned to the living room.

By this time Grandfather had introduced himself and the children to Mr. Percy. Mr. Percy didn’t seem a bit interested in knowing who they were. He closed the door of a glass clock on the mantelpiece that had all its gears and springs showing. “Well, I certainly didn’t need to be attacked by a pack of wild dogs, Ms. Putter,” he complained. “If you want me to fix and clean your grandmother’s clocks and artworks, you mustn’t let those beasts loose on me.”

The Aldens tried to keep from giggling. Ruff and Tumble loved to bark and whine, but they would hardly attack anyone.

Isabel tried to cover her smile with her hand. “I’m sorry they burst in here, Mr. Percy. As I’ve suggested before, please let me know when you’re coming and where you’re going to be working. Then Ruff and Tumble and I can welcome you properly.”

Mr. Percy locked his toolbox. “I arrive when I arrive. I never know the time. Perhaps on another occasion I’ll be able to finish cleaning the mantel clock without being attacked. I’ll be on my way now. I noticed your grandmother’s scarecrow sounded rusty last night. I’ll go work on that. Just keep those dogs away from me.”

After Mr. Percy had left, Isabel let out Ruff and Tumble. They yipped and yapped with joy. They were free to go back to breakfast.

The Aldens did the same.

Isabel sighed. “So now you’ve met Mr. Percy,” she said. “I’m sure you’ll meet him again. He’s in and out of the house quite often, sometimes at strange hours.”

“Mr. Percy had a lot of interesting tools in his toolbox,” Violet said. “What does he do with them?”

Isabel poured hot chocolate into Benny’s pink cup. “Mr. Percy is a wonder with Grandma Alice’s clocks and artworks. He can fix or clean any mechanical object so it is in tip-top condition. But he shows up whenever and wherever he wants, without a thought to whether it’s convenient or not. One night, he arrived at midnight so he could hear one of the clocks sound. It didn’t occur to him to come at noon instead. You should’ve heard Ruff and Tumble then. They did sound like a pack of wild dogs at that hour.”

Benny reached under the table and patted the dogs’ noses.

“So,” said Isabel, changing the subject, “I thought today I could show you around the grounds and explain what needs to be done in the next few days before the convention starts. It sure is great to have you all here to help.” She smiled at each of them. “While you help set up, your grandfather and I will be picking up the inventions of Grandma Alice’s that collectors are lending us to display at the invention convention.”

Grandfather put down his napkin. “Well, I guess by the time we get back Mr. Percy will have every movable object of your grandmother’s spinning and chiming.”

Isabel brought her dishes to the sink. “I’m going to go out to the garage to see what my other assistants are up to. You children can join me when you’re finished. Just leave the dishes.”

Of course, the Aldens never left dirty dishes. After Grandfather and Isabel left, they washed, dried, and put away the breakfast dishes lickety-split just the way they did at home. Then everyone, dogs included, marched out to the garage to join Isabel.

“Wow! Look at all this stuff,” Henry said as he entered the huge garage. It was filled with all kinds of gadgets. “I don’t know whether to be excited or worried. I thought we came up with super inventions, but look at these.” He picked up a pair of stretchy sunglasses that could fit any size head. Then he read the description of the waker-upper alarm clock. “There’s a tape recorder inside. You can record whatever you want to wake up to, and the alarm clock plays it back.”

“We could have Watch bark into the tape to wake us up,” Benny said.

Jessie laughed. “He does that already without a special alarm clock.”

Benny strolled off to check the other tables. “I hope nobody else thought up my flashlight hat.” He patted his head to make sure his invention was still in place.

That’s when Benny noticed a person reflected in the little mirror on his hat. When he moved to the side, so did the person. When Benny stopped, the person stopped. Benny turned around quickly. When he did, the man bumped right into him.

“Look where you’re going,” the man said.

Benny wanted to say something about the man bumping into
him.
Then he saw the look on Jessie’s face. Benny swallowed his words. Sometimes having manners wasn’t much fun.

As soon as the man left, Jessie put her arm around Benny. “Good for you. I saw him bump into you, as if he were following you on purpose. But it’s crowded in here, so maybe that’s why he was right behind you. He might be someone Ms. Putter knows.”

Then Benny had a happy thought. “What if he makes hats? Maybe he wants to make lots of hats like mine. I’ll be a millionaire and everything!” He was sure the world was just waiting for his flashlight hat.

“You never know,” Henry said, pushing down the brim of Benny’s hat. “I’d like one of those, too. Then maybe I’d have a chance of winning when we play checkers in the dark.”

“There’s Ms. Putter,” Benny said. “Let’s go talk to her.”

Violet grabbed Benny’s arm. “Let’s wait,” she whispered. “She’s talking to that older woman who just came up to her. They don’t seem to be having a very pleasant conversation.”

Violet was right. Isabel looked unhappy with whatever the woman was telling her. Finally the woman stepped away.

“I guess we can talk to her now,” Violet said. “I wonder why she looks so upset.”

Isabel’s face was still red when she looked up and saw the Aldens. She could barely manage a smile. “Oh, there you are, children. Sorry I’m in such a tizzy.”

“Is everything okay?” Henry asked.

Isabel nodded and lowered her voice. “I just had a bit of a disagreement with Martha, the woman over there. It’s a shame, too. We used to be such good friends when we were children.”

“You were?” Violet asked.

Isabel nodded. “Martha’s grandfather and my grandmother were close friends, too. Her grandfather even rented this house when Grandma Alice lived in Europe for a few years. I’m almost sorry I invited Martha to assist at the invention convention. I thought she’d enjoy working around the house where she once lived. But she keeps forgetting it still belongs to my family. She often just barges in.”

“I know we’d be upset if somebody used our boxcar without asking us,” Benny said.

Isabel sighed. “I’ve found Martha in private areas of the property several times. I had to ask her for the key back.”

The man who had bumped into Benny overheard this. “Good morning, Ms. Putter. If you have the house key, I’ll take it to the hardware store to get it copied. Sorry I misplaced the one you gave me. I’ll need another one so I can come and go while you’re gone.”