Stacey And The Mystery Of Stoneybrook Read Online Free PDF Page A

changed into her pajamas. Slowly she brushed her teeth. I could see that she was stalling. She was probably nervous about sleeping in a strange bed. .
    I tucked her in and gave her Goobaw to hold. And then, even though Charlotte is a great reader/I read to her from Charlotte's Web. She loves that book, and I love to read to her. "I'm proud to have the same name as that spider," she always says.
    After three chapters, just as my throat was beginning to hurt from so much reading aloud, I could see that Charlotte's eyelids were drooping. A few moments later, I stopped reading, and sure enough, she'd fallen asleep.
    I tiptoed out of the room, leaving the door open a crack so I'd hear her if she woke up. For a moment I thought about skipping my math homework. I was exhausted! I never would have guessed that having Charlotte visit would take so much energy. It would probably get easier as the week went on, I thought. I hoped. I sat down at my desk and blitzed through the math problems as fast as I could.
    By the time I finally got into bed I was too tired even to finish a chapter of the book I was reading, Summer of My German Soldier. I turned off my light and fell asleep right away. When I woke up the next morning, sunlight was streaming through the window. Birds were singing outside. Mom was puttering around in the kitchen downstairs. And Charlotte was sleeping, all cuddled up next to me in my bed, still clutching Goobaw.
    Chapter 5.
    Charlotte and I got home from school at around the same time on Friday. Mom rushed out for a job interview just as I walked in the door. "Hi, girls! See you at dinnertime," she said as she ran out the door. She looked pretty professional, all dressed up in a suit.
    I made a snack for the two of us (Triscuits with mustard spread on them and a piece of cheddar cheese on top — yum!), but Charlotte only picked at the food.
    "I don't feel so good, Stacey. My throat's all itchy and I feel dizzy," she said.
    I felt her forehead, but she didn't seem hot. I thought she was probably just still having a hard time adjusting. After all, she'd made it through a full day of school — how sick could she be? Anyway, she'd survived the first twenty-four hours without her parents, and I knew it could only get easier as time went on. But I figured she could still use some distrac tion, and I wasn't about to play any more games of War for awhile.
    "Let's walk down the street and take a look at that old house they're tearing down," I said. Charlotte agreed to the plan, but first we deaned up from our snack and changed out of our school clothes. (This all took some time, since Charlotte was still sticking to me like glue.) Finally we set off down the street. I still wasn't all that interested in the old house, but it was something different to do.
    It was only about four o'clock when we got to the house, but the workmen had already left for the day. The big old place stood there silently, looking a little forlorn with its porch railings ripped off and its front door gone. There were straggly bushes on both sides of the house and overgrown gardens in front of it. Vines climbed up the porch and twined themselves around the second-story windows. The grass in the yard was almost up to Charlotte's knees. The place seemed oddly quiet all of a sudden.
    "Without that front door, the house looks like a person with a tooth missing," said Charlotte. "Let's go inside and look around!"
    "No way," I said. "They've started tearing out all the fixtures inside. There could be holes in the floor, or the ceiling might start to come
    down. We could really get hurt."
    My mom had told me that the Stoneybrook Historical Society had asked the developer to save certain parts of the house, since he was being allowed to tear it down. There was supposedly a huge marble fireplace that was in perfect shape, and the society wanted to preserve it. I wondered if they'd taken that out yet. Also, there were supposed to be some neat old lighting fixtures,