Читать книгу The Witch Lady Mystery - Carol Beach York - Страница 6

Carrie baked her angel cake and her chocolate-chip cookies. She tied on a big flowery apron and bustled around from cupboard to counter, measuring sugar, sifting flour, beating egg whites. Oliver got to eat a few cookies, but Carrie set aside the rest to take to the bake sale. Oliver tried to sneak a couple more from the plate, but Carrie caught him.

“Oliver, those are for school!” she shrieked.

Oliver thought she had the loudest voice of any girl he had ever heard.

Friday, at noontime, Oliver helped Carrie take the cake and cookies to school. Mrs. Woodfield had wrapped them carefully, and Oliver got all the way to school without dropping any cookies. Carrie, of course, had charge of the cake.

Halfway to school they met Oliver’s friend Freddy Miller, who struggled along with a large, old-fashioned combination clock-and-barometer.

“What’s that?” Carrie balanced her cake plate carefully and looked at Freddy with curiosity.

Freddy was a small, freckle-faced boy, not quite as tall as Oliver, and he was having a hard time with the carrying. But he was proud of his contribution to the auction.

“The winding thing’s broken on the clock, but the barometer still works.”

“That’s nice.” Carrie smiled politely. She didn’t think many people would want a clock that wouldn’t run, but she didn’t want to hurt Freddy’s feelings.

“What does the barometer do?” Oliver asked with a puzzled expression.

“It tells—well, like when there’s going to be a storm,” Freddy explained.

Oliver had never heard of anything like that. But sure enough, he could see the words printed around the face of the barometer: STORMY — RAIN — CHANGE — FAIR — DRY.

There was an arrow, pointing now to FAIR.

“It sure is heavy.” Freddy shifted the clumsy burden and trailed along behind Oliver with his cookies and Carrie with her cake. Carrie held the cake proudly, gripping the plate firmly with both hands, and when her girl friends came hovering around her in the school yard she said, “Don’t bump me!”

They went to the school gymnasium, where tables had been pushed together in a long line. Everybody was there with cakes and pies and cookies and doughnuts. Everything looked so good, Oliver wished he could sample something, but then they had to go up to their classrooms.

Oliver thought the afternoon would never end, he was so eager to get back downstairs to the gym. All the children were restless, but Miss Lee understood and she didn’t get cross. She was looking forward to the bake sale and auction, too. She had on a new dress and dangling gold earrings that swung back and forth when she turned her head.

And finally it was three o’clock.

It was time for the bake sale and auction.

Oliver took a chair on the stage at the end of the gym. Everybody who was going to auction a service got to sit on the stage. Oliver picked a chair right in the very front row, and his friend Freddy sat next to him.

At one side of the stage was a long table with the things some of the children and teachers had brought to be sold at the auction: Freddy’s clock, and vases, and books. There were also a baby’s high chair, a ship in a bottle, and a croquet set with only one mallet missing.

Some of the parents and neighborhood people began to gather around the edge of the stage. Others wandered along beside the display of cakes and pies and cookies and doughnuts. Oliver saw his mother there, and he hoped she would buy a big chocolate cake and bring it home for supper.

“Ladies and gentlemen—your attention, please.”

Mr. Kenmore, the science teacher, stood in the middle of the stage. He was a plump, ruddy man, and all the children liked his science lessons. He kept white mice and gerbils and had a cabinet full of rock specimens and seashells. And he had a stuffed owl under a glass dome. His room was very interesting.

“We are now going to start the auction,” he said, “so why don’t you all move up here a little closer.”

Mr. Kenmore waited, and gradually the people who had been standing beside the bakery goods came down the gym toward the stage. A large crowd collected. Oliver was glad to see that Dr. Adams did not seem to be there—Dr. Adams with his big house and yard and half a million trees.

Then Oliver saw the old witch lady standing at the side of the crowd, a pocketbook over one arm, a large black hat on her head. The old witch lady had come to the auction!

Oliver watched her curiously. Why had she come? he wondered. To cast a spell on someone? Anyway, he thought, she wouldn’t bid on anything. Everybody said she didn’t have any money.

Well, not everybody. Some people said she only seemed to be poor, but that she really had pots of money all over her house. Oliver wondered which story was true.

Freddy saw Mrs. Prichard at the same time, and he poked Oliver. “Hey, look who’s here.”

But Oliver didn’t have time to answer. The auction was beginning.

“Joanne Brown.” Mr. Kenmore called the first name, and a tall redheaded girl from the seventh grade got up from her chair and walked to the front of the stage to stand beside the science teacher.

“Joanne is going to auction two evenings of babysitting,” Mr. Kenmore announced, and this time Oliver poked Freddy and whispered, “Can’t girls think of anything else to do?”

“Two dollars,” a lady in the middle of the crowd called eagerly.

“Two dollars,” Mr. Kenmore repeated loudly. “Do I hear more? Do I hear three dollars? Three dollars?”

“Two and a half,” another lady called.

“Three dollars.” The first lady did not want to lose her baby-sitter.

One by one the children came to the front of the stage as their names were called. Freddy got five dollars for shoveling snow when winter came. Mr. Kenmore’s gavel rapped louder and faster on the little table; his face grew ruddier and ruddier. Oliver could hardly wait for his turn, and finally his name was called at last.

“Now here we have a boy who will keep your yard clear of leaves all fall,” Mr. Kenmore promised cheerfully. He put his hand on Oliver’s shoulder. “What am I bid, ladies and gentlemen?”

“Two dollars,” someone called out.

“Three dollars,” another called.

“Three dollars.” Mr. Kenmore beamed. “Do I hear four? Do I hear four?”

“Four dollars,” said a voice from the crowd.

“Four dollars. Do I hear five?” Mr. Kenmore asked. “Do I hear five?”

Mr. Kenmore waited. But no one offered five dollars.

“Four dollars once. Four dollars twice.” Mr. Kenmore banged his gavel on the table. “Sold for four dollars to the lady in the black hat.”

And from the sea of faces the old witch lady looked straight up at Oliver.