Mystery #13: Mary Anne and the Library Mystery
With Logan in a volleyball tournament and her stepbestie Dawn in California, Mary Anne is bored to literal tears (she sits around crying at Roman Holiday in the afternoon). So she jumps at the chance to volunteer at the library’s Readathon. The local kids sign up sponsors who pay them for each book they read, and the money goes to the Stoneybrook Public Library (which is good because there are book banners demonstrating outside, which is ew). Some kids (like Sean Addison and Nicky Pike) are a bit reluctant to dive into all that reading, but a lot of other kids are excited.
Things get off to a good start, but then small fires start breaking out at the library. (Both times, Mary Anne is there volunteering — is she an arsonist???) The first one is in a bathroom sink, and the next one is in a trash can outside the children’s room, started with lighter fluid. Someone’s ~escalating~. Both times a book was burned, first Deenie by Queen Judy Blume and then A Light in the Attic by Shel Silverstein. The third fire starts with Tom Sawyer. The gang starts lining up their suspects: Miss Ellway, a cranky-sue librarian whose family owns the land the library is on; Nicky Pike, who Mary Anne caught with a pack of matches (even though he claims they aren’t his); the book-banning demonstrators outside (since all the burned books are on the list of books they want banned).
“If we don’t solve this case soon, Mary Anne is going to have a nervous breakdown.” - Kristy, page 119
When a fire breaks out in a classroom at SMS, though, they realize that Nicky Pike couldn’t have done it (and he was barely a suspect anyway) and the Ellways would have no incentive to burn the high school. It’s unlikely the school fire is related, but it’s a weird coincidence.
Stacey figures out that all the fires were started on Wednesdays, and Mary Anne realizes that all the burned books were not just on the book banners’ shit list, but also on the fifth-grade reading list for the Readathon. The BSC also learns that the first fire was started in the boys’ bathroom. They figure out where in the library they think the firebug will hit next (and which book will be burned), and decide to stake it out that Wednesday to catch the arsonist in the act.
And they do! Turns out it’s Sean Addison; he hates reading, doesn’t want to be in the Readathon, and resents his parents for shuttling him and his sister around to a million different activities so they can have time to themselves. He’s caught red-handed and marched to Mrs. Kishi’s office, where he confesses and has a slight breakdown. Everyone feels bad for Sean, but I want to warn them to keep an eye out for bed-wetting and animal cruelty; you know, the triad of potential future murderers. Just sayin’.
