New Horizons (9 page)

Mr. Ryland drove Mandie, Celia, and Mary Lou back to the college, and they immediately went to the office. Things seemed to drag there as it took quite some time to fill out papers, change their status to day students, have their room freed for someone else, and quickly pack trunks.

Mr. Ryland returned with a hired hack, which he had employed to carry the baggage. After everything was loaded up, the girls climbed back into the carriage, and Mr. Ryland drove them back to the boardinghouse, where Mrs. Thomason helped them get settled in.

As they hung up the last of their clothes in the wardrobe, Mrs. Thomason told them about the schedule for meals. “Supper is usually at six, but since I only have you ladies plus two others right now, we can be flexible. But when the house is filled up, we will get on a strict routine.”

“Why don't y'all come home with me and eat supper with us tonight?” Mary Lou asked.

“Your mother has already fed us one meal today. We can't impose on her hospitality,” Mandie said.

“Hospitality? You are doing us a favor when you visit with us,” Mary Lou informed her. “Now, let's go back to my house.”

Mandie and Celia looked at each other and smiled. Then
Mandie said, “Well, all right, but we can't make this a habit.”

“Then I will not wait on supper tonight for you ladies,” Mrs. Thomason told them. “But before you leave, let's go down to my office so I can give you some keys. I keep the doors locked day and night, so you should never go anywhere without your key.”

On the main floor, Mrs. Thomason showed them into a small office where another lady, younger and prettier, was busy at a desk. Mrs. Thomason introduced the girls to her. “This is Miss Flora. She handles the business part of the house. And Miss Flora, this is Miss Amanda Shaw and Miss Celia Hamilton. They need keys.”

“I'm sure you girls will like it here.” Miss Flora seemed cheerful as she took two keys out of the desk drawer.

“Thank you,” Mandie and Celia replied.

“Now, the same key fits both the front and back doors,” Miss Flora explained to the girls.

“Of course, we hope you never have to use the back door,” Mrs. Thomason said as she led the way back to the front hallway. “We leave a lamp burning all night in here, and there is also one in the hallway at the top of each floor's stairway.” She walked over to a table and pointed to the book lying open on it. “This is a sign-in book. Signing in and out is the only strict rule we have. For security reasons, we must know when you go and come, and both your mothers asked that we be sure to enforce that rule.”

“I agree with you, Mrs. Thomason,” Mandie said, picking up the pen to sign her name and the time on the next line in the book. Celia quickly added hers, also.

“Now, you girls have a nice time at the Dunnigans' tonight,” Mrs. Thomason told them as they went out the front door.

“We won't be very late tonight. I'm just plain tired out,” Mandie told Mrs. Thomason.

But time flew at the Dunnigans'. After a hearty supper, the three girls played the piano while discussing the effects Mandie and Celia's moving out of the dormitory would have on the snobbish girls at the college. But it wasn't long until the conversation got around to the rumor that the boardinghouse was haunted.

“Those are all silly tales the boys have made up just to frighten the girls,” Mary Lou assured Mandie and Celia. “Up until Mrs. Thomason got in there, the house stood empty, so it was inviting to tale-toters.”

“But now people can't get into the house anymore, since Mrs. Thomason has people living there,” Mandie said.

“Anyhow, I do hope it's not really haunted,” Celia said with a little sigh. “Because if it is, Mandie will have us all involved in solving the mystery.”

“Do you suppose Mrs. Thomason will be able to keep renting the house for a while?” Mandie asked.

“She told my mother she had signed a five-year lease on it, so she will be there at least that long,” Mary Lou explained. “And that's longer than y'all will need to rent a room from her, since you'll be graduated and gone.”

“Thank goodness!” Mandie exclaimed. “My mother mentioned in her letter to me that we might consider changing
colleges, and I didn't want to have to do that.”

“No, I don't want you to do that!” Mary Lou quickly said, her face suddenly full of worry.

“I'll see what my mother has to say when I go home for Thanksgiving,” Mandie said.

Mandie and Celia decided they should return to the boardinghouse by eight o'clock in order to have plenty of time to get ready for bed. It was not yet dark outside, but Mr. Dunnigan and Mary Lou walked with them to the boardinghouse.

“I'm sorry I didn't get to help you young ladies move, but it happened so suddenly that I didn't even know,” Mr. Dunnigan said as they walked along the sidewalk.

“Thank you anyhow, sir,” Mandie replied, “but we decided the quicker we could get out of that dormitory, the better.”

“I hope you all will enjoy living with Mrs. Thomason. She's a fine lady,” Mr. Dunnigan said.

When they arrived at the boardinghouse, Mr. Dunnigan and Mary Lou waited until Mandie and Celia had unlocked the front door, gone inside, and locked it again before they left.

They hurried up to their room and found someone had turned down their beds for the night and laid out soap and towels in their private bathroom.

“I think I could just collapse right into bed without undressing, I'm so tired,” Mandie said with a loud groan as she quickly began undressing.

“So could I,” Celia agreed.

Crawling into bed, it wasn't long before the two girls were fast asleep.

Mandie was dreaming but suddenly woke up. What had awakened her? Without moving, she gazed about the nearly pitch-black room. Her heart was pounding as she tried to calm her breathing.

Then she noticed that Celia seemed to be awake, also.

“Celia,” she said softly but with alarm in her voice.

“Yes,” Celia replied in an unsteady voice. “Did you hear that?”

“No. What?” Mandie asked, still not moving.

Then there was a loud scratching sound coming from across the darkness in the room. Celia immediately jumped out of her bed and into bed with Mandie.

“Mandie! What is that?” she whispered as she pulled the cover up around her.

Mandie tried to calm herself. She took a deep breath and said, “I heard it, but I don't know what it is.”

Then the noise was repeated. Both girls dived under the covers.

After a few moments Mandie ventured out of the cover to look around again. She couldn't see anything, but she remembered a lamp sitting on a table near the bed. She fumbled in the darkness to find the switch and turn it on. The room was illuminated and there was nothing or no one in sight. She fell back onto her pillow as Celia finally ventured out of the covers to look around.

The two girls held their breath, waiting to see if the noise was repeated. After a few minutes of sitting in total silence,
Mandie said, “Whatever it was, it's gone.”

The adjoining bathroom door was open, and Mandie got the nerve to get up and go look inside the bathroom. She crept slowly to the door and held her breath as she peered around the open door. There was no one inside. She released a big sigh as she jumped back into bed.

“Nothing there,” she declared.

“I know I heard something, Mandie. I didn't imagine it. Whatever it was woke me up,” Celia said.

“Let's pull the shades down and leave the light on for the rest of the night,” Mandie said, throwing back the counterpane. She looked at the clock on the mantelpiece. It was twenty minutes after two.

“All right, but can I sleep with you, Mandie?” Celia asked, slowly getting out of bed to help pull down the shades.

“Of course,” Mandie said. “I think it would have been better to have one big bed anyhow in a strange place like this.”

They jumped back into Mandie's bed and pulled the covers up to their chins. Celia was soon asleep, but Mandie stayed awake for a long time, wondering what the noise had been and if it would happen again. Her eyelids grew heavy and she finally drifted off to sleep.

A long time later Celia woke with a start, looked at Mandie, who was still asleep, and then saw that it was eight o'clock and daylight was creeping in around the edges of the shades.

“Mandie,” Celia said, reaching to shake her. “We need to get up for breakfast.”

Mandie instantly sat up, rubbing her eyes. “Yes, it must be time for breakfast. I smell the coffee.” She threw back the covers and sat up on the side of the bed and yawned.

Celia sat up on her side of the bed, rubbed her eyes, and said, “Whatever that was last night, it certainly ruined my night.”

Mandie slipped out of bed and quickly raised the shades. The sunlight was already bright. She looked out the windows and couldn't see anyone down in the street. Everything seemed to be quiet.

Going back to flop down on the bed, she yawned and asked, “Do you suppose that was the ghost making that noise?”

“I thought we had decided there was no such thing as a ghost,” Celia replied, looking directly at Mandie.

Just then there was a knock at the door, causing both of them to jump. The knock was repeated a few seconds later, and then a voice outside said, “Breakfast is ready.”

Mandie hurried across the room and opened the door to a tall girl in a uniform. The girl smiled and said, “I know y'all are new and don't have a schedule yet, but breakfast is waiting.”

“Oh, thank you, we'll be down as soon as we get dressed,” Mandie replied.

The girl went on down the hall, and Mandie closed the door.

Mandie and Celia quickly dressed and followed the smell of coffee downstairs to the dining room.

There was a glassed-in room at the back of the house, with windows on three sides, filled with chairs and tables. On the far
wall was an enormous amount of food on a long table. No one else was in the room.

The girls paused at the door and Mandie said, “What do you think we're supposed to do? Go in there and eat with no one else around? Or wait to be served?”

Her question was answered as the girl who had awakened them came in through the door at the other side of the room and said, “Help yourselves, and I will bring the coffee to the table for you.” She moved toward the display of cups and saucers.

Mandie and Celia took plates from the stack and filled them with scrambled eggs, bacon, and biscuits. They sat down near a window where they could look outside, and soon the girl brought their coffee.

“My name is Sadie. I work in the kitchen and the dining room and do the wake-up calls,” the girl said.

“You seem to have an awful lot of food over there,” Mandie remarked. “I thought there was only us plus two other boarders.”

“Last night people started arriving in groups. I was up most of the night answering the door,” Sadie explained. She walked across the room to greet two older women who were coming in.

Mandie looked at Celia and asked, “Do you suppose the noise we heard could have been the sound of some of those people arriving last night?”

Celia thought about that for a moment as she held her fork. “But what could they have been doing to make that odd noise?”

Mandie paused and set her cup down. “I don't know, but if we think about it long enough we might find the answer.”

“Are we going to tell Mary Lou about it?” Celia asked.

“Of course,” Mandie replied, sipping from her coffee cup. “Maybe she will have some ideas about what it could have been.”

They hurriedly finished breakfast, then went back to their room to freshen up before going to Mary Lou's.

As she brushed her hair, Celia asked, “Mandie, do you think that noise could have been a ghost, just like those boys were talking about?”

Mandie looked at her as she retied her sash and said, “Oh, Celia, it was just talk before. You know there is no such thing as a ghost.”

“Well, whatever it was, it was spooky,” Celia declared.

“Don't you think we ought to write a note to our mothers and tell them we have moved?” Mandie asked, going to look in a drawer for her envelopes and paper.

“You are right,” Celia agreed, getting her paper out. “We were supposed to let them know when we started moving, so they will be surprised to find out that it's already happened!”

They both wrote quick notes saying they had moved and they would write more later.

Mandie suddenly remembered the letter from Adrian. She must write him and at least give him her new address so he wouldn't keep writing to her house for her mother to notice.

Then Mandie thought of something else.

“Celia, writing letters reminds me. Sooner or later I will have to write and tell Grandmother that I have moved,” she said. “And she is not going to like that one bit.”

“You're right,” Celia agreed.

But since Mandie's mother had arranged for Mandie to move out of the dormitory, her grandmother couldn't fuss too much. After all, Elizabeth Shaw was her mother, and Mrs. Taft was only her grandmother.

All the same, she dreaded the time when Mrs. Taft would learn about this move. It promised to be a very upsetting scene.

chapter 7

After spending the day with the Dunnigans, Mandie and Celia returned to their room and prepared their clothes for church with the Dunnigans the next day. While Celia was in the bathroom, Mandie quickly wrote a note to Adrian, put it in an envelope, and sealed it. She would give it to Miss Flora to mail for her. Now he would not have to write to her home where her mother would notice the letters. Somehow or other she wanted to keep this correspondence all private.

The members of the Dunnigans' church welcomed the girls, and Mandie and Celia decided they would continue to attend there rather than the church near the college.