A locked trunk and a secret diary all add up to...a mystery for the Baby-sitters!

"You will never guess what I was doing all night," I said to Vanessa.

"What?" (She never guesses.)

"Reading Sophie's diary. And you will never guess what I found out."

"What?"

I sighted. Then I told Vanessa about Jared and Sophie and the missing painting. We were both in bed and the lights were out (after all, we were supposed to be asleep), and I have to admit I felt pretty spooked.

Vanessa must have felt that way, too. "do you think the spirits of Jared and Sophie are roaming around Stacey's house right now?" she whispered.

"I don't know." I sat up in bed and looked out the window. It faced the backyard, but I couldn't see anything.

"When you think of it," I said, settling back into bed after a few moments, "an awful lot of people have moved in and out of that house. There must be a reason for that."

"Yeah..." said Vanessa softly.

"Plus, Stacey told me that her mother didn't have much money to spend on a house. It's big and old...and it was cheap. Why would such a nice big old house be so cheap?"

"Don't know."

"I wonder if Sophie ever cleared her father's name. I mean, if he really was innocent. If she did, then we don't have to worry about ghosts over at Stacey's. But if she didn't, well, I certainly wouldn't want to live in a haunted house. And maybe all those people who lived there before Stacey moved in felt the same way. But they didn't tell the real estate agent why they were moving out because they were too embarrassed. Or something like that. You know? ...Vanessa? Vanessa?"

Silence. Vanessa was sound asleep.

I turned over and tried to fall asleep myself, but I was trembling with excitement. A haunted house. A century-old mystery to solve. It was all too much!

Mallory and the Mystery Diary
Published by Scholastic Inc. 1996
ISBN: 0590425005