Super Mystery #1: Baby-sitters' Haunted House
Yesssssss, I’ve been yearning for a super mystery and here we are! And this one has the potential to be MY JAM because it’s set in Maine, where I live. Of course, it takes place in Reese, Maine, which is a fictional town, but I’m still on board. Reese is an old whaling town on the ocean, a small town whose population doubles or triples in the summer (classic Maine). Friends of Karen and Andrew’s mom and stepdad are spending the summer there and have invited Lisa, Seth, Karen, and Andrew to spend ten days with them. Claudia, Kristy, Mary Anne, and Dawn are going to accompany the group and baby-sit in exchange for a “paid vacation.”
The gang is staying in the gigantic and historic Randolph Mansion, which the Menders family has inherited. Almost immediately, the BSC is like, “it’s friggin’ haunted.” The first night they see flickering light under the doors of their bedrooms and hear ghostly moaning as they try to fall asleep. Mary Anne notices a lighthouse out the window that matches a lighthouse painted on the headboard of her bed. And there’s even a black cat named Spooky who “came with the house,” not to mention the caretakers (Mr. and Mrs. Cooper — Mrs. doesn’t talk) and the gardener Georgio, who seems a little dark and gives them some ominous warnings about the fourth floor and the attic.
That makes it pretty creepy when the BSC notices a light go on and off — twice — in the fourth floor window while they’re out on a walk. The caretakers tell them no one’s been up there in years due to some bad/weird stuff happening, but they won’t elaborate. Later, the BSC catches fourteen-year-old Lionel Menders being the moaning “ghost” in the hallway, but while he’s still with him they hear some footsteps and thumping from upstairs. In the middle of the night, they hear a bloodcurdling scream.
At the library, Claudia does some research and finds out that Mary Randolph had been blown off the widow’s walk to her death in 1879, twenty years after her husband Reginald’s boat had been lost at sea. Good candidate for the fourth-floor ghost!
Meanwhile, Georgio the gardener is in college and def has a crush on Claud, who he thinks is sixteen. (Still too young for you, bro!) Claudia thinks he’s cute, but she also gets the willies because she finds out he sometimes sleeps in the gardener’s shed, he has a candle with wax the same color the girls found on the floor near their bedrooms, and he’s been around the mansion his whole life — so he’s also a good candidate for the fourth-floor “ghost.” Question is, why would he be trying to make the house seem haunted?
The Coopers finally clue the BSC in on the other good ghost candidate — Mary and Reginald’s granddaughter Lydia, whose parents basically imprisoned her on the fourth floor to keep her away from George, the gardener’s son, with whom she was in love. Lydia withered away into an old lady in a short number of years before her love returned to her. Tragic. One night, Kristy and Mary Anne keep watch outside while Dawn and Claudia stake out the fourth-floor hallway. Dawn and Claudia see no one in the hallway, yet the light in Lydia’s locked bedroom turns on and off a couple of times. From outside, Kristy and Mary Anne see a ghostly figure dressed in white on the widow’s walk, but it quickly disappears. Errbody terrified.
Mary Anne, desperate to prove there’s no ghost(s), goes to the historical society for more information. She is clued into the fact that Mary Randolph actually died in her sleep and was not “flung to her death” from the widow’s walk and the Lydia story is probably not true either, just local lore. (Phew!) She also finds blueprints of the Randolph mansion and notices that there’s a dumbwaiter that goes from the kitchen up to the old children’s playroom, which is the bedroom where Dawn’s staying. And she also learns from the woman at the historical society that a woman with a think accent had also been in recently to look for info about the Randolph mansion. ~Curious!~ Then, at night, after returning from a play in town with both Lionel and Georgio, everyone sees the white figure on the widow’s walk again. Georgio seems surprised but Claud is creeped out by him and isn’t sure she buys it. She thinks he’s trying to scare them away from the attic so he can pillage it for the late Mr. Randolph’s “treasure.”
When the gals are finally alone in the mansion, they decide to explore the dumbwaiter. Just as Dawn crawls in to find a tape recorder, the Coopers return and the girls have to shut Dawn in the small, dark, cramped space. (To be honest, I felt a little joy in this moment.) While Dawn is in there, she hears Mrs. Cooper — who is supposedly mute — speak to Mr. Cooper. Hmmm, does she have an accent, by any chance? Yes, yes she does, and it’s Scottish. Oh, and what else? Turns out the Menderses only inherit the mansion if they decide to live there full-time… otherwise, the mansion goes to Mr. Menders’ cousin Charles, who Mr. Menders hasn’t seen in decades because his cousin moved to… Scotland. The Scooby-Doo of it all is really starting to come together. The Coopers are Mr. Menders’ cousin and his wife, and they’re trying to scare the Menderses away so they can inherit the mansion. Raggy! Rikes!
Georgio, now presumed innocent, helps Claudia get into Lydia’s bedroom on the fourth floor and they find that there’s a lamp set up to a timer — which explains how the light has been going on and off. Dawn and Mary Anne sneak into the Coopers’ room and find a long white dress — same as the one the “ghostly figure” was wearing on the widow’s walk. They also find a list of ways the Coopers plan to sabotage the mansion to scare the Menderses away. (Sloppy, sloppy, leaving your evil plans lying around. Tsk tsk.) On top of all of this, the adults are in Boston for the day, so the BSC is home alone with the kids and Mr. and Mrs. Cooper… and a thunderstorm rolls in. And the power goes out.
Luckily, no one gets murdered, and all the parents make it back the next day. The BSC waits for the Coopers to leave the house and then sits the Menderses down to explain everything and lay out all the evidence. They’re like, “well, shit,” and gear up to confront the imposter/saboteurs. But when they get to the Coopers’ room, they find that the creepy couple has packed up and left, leaving behind only the ghostly white dress and a note that says, “The house — and its ghosts — are yours.” They later find out the couple left on a late flight from Boston to Scotland and will hopefully never be heard from again.
Finally, the BSC can spend a few days breathing and enjoying their “vacation.” Georgio wants Claudia to come to his University of Maine homecoming weekend and when she gets home she writes to him to be like, “bro, I’m 13” but she still wants to be friends. I’m sure Georgio’s psyched about that. Meanwhile, Jessi and Mal almost sunk the BSC while running it alone in Stoneybrook for two weeks, but managed not to. Phew. That means I have more books to read. PAGING STACEY!
Want more BSC?
Browse all recaps by chronological order of publication or by category/series
