Book 2-Alex Bishop in Follow That Mystery

Alex Bishop in Follow That Mystery

                                                                                     Chapter 18

                                                                             Miss Rigby's house

     Sophomore year in high school is like unto the middle child in a family with three children;  sometimes overlooked because that child is not the baby or the oldest.  But that boy or girl learns they are special in their own way.  So it is with the Sophomores.  They are not freshman with the excitement that comes with going to a new school for the first time, or the seniors, who are poised to take their first steps into the big wide world of adulthood.

     But it is a special year, as most teens have their milestone sixteenth birthday before or during their Sophomore year.  So it was for Alex Bishop, having his sixteenth birthday on the 31st day of August before his tenth year of school.  Alex recognized the significance of it especially in his mother's point of view, and consented to allow her to decorate and place sixteen candles on his cake. (Alex didn't approve of decorations on a cake or anywhere else.)

     Lyn's 13th birthday was three months away.  She was in her final year of grade school and very much looking forward to middle school the following year; Alex's almamater: North Side.  The usual guests attended Alex's birthday party.  Mr. Wells, Mrs. Books, Scarlet and Mr. Bern, (Alex's seventh grade math teacher) who was happily dating Scarlet.

     Lee and Glenna were among the guest of course along with Fletch and his girlfriend Julie Moody who had cut her long red hair short over the summer.  And there were still traces of a sun burn on her pale skin.  Dawn and Chet were there, as well as Alex's friend Anna Roberts and Fletch's brothers, Matt and Sam and their friend Nick Crosby.

     After checking with Alex, his mother told Lyn she could invite a few of her friends to the party.  Amy McCormic came, along with her cousin Michael who lived with Amy and her family next door.   Michael was just as blond headed as his cousin Amy was dark haired.  They arrived before the party started to help out where they could.

     Then, in came Kent Carnes, who looked like he could've been related to Fletch, with his red hair and freckles.  And the last to show was Lyn's friend Nikki Cooper from across the street.  "I know I said I'd be here a half hour ago Lyn.  But I couldn't get my hair to behave," she said with a disgusted look while fluffing up her blond locks.

     The highlight of the day, was Lyn captivating Alex's guests by regaling them with tall tales about the "Haunted House" on Jackson Avenue.   Her friends interjected their comments too regarding the strange goings on taking place in the old house.  An old woman had lived in the now very run down two story home for thirty years.

     It was considered by the locals as an eyesore in an otherwise nice neighborhood.  The elderly woman, when she was alive, was rarely seen outside the house except to collect her mail, or newspapers.  People in town said they often observed her peeking through the curtains watching passersby.

     Some people felt sorry for her having to live in a house that looked like it should have been condemned long ago.  They felt sympathy for her that she had no one to maintain it, thus it had degraded into it's present condition, of peeling paint and loose boards on the house walls and the porch floor.

     A few well meaning neighbors had stopped by through the years to make introductions and bring food dishes.  But had received no response when they knocked on her door, or rang the bell.  The old woman's story was indeed a sad one.  After living alone for all of her life in a run down house with no one to care for her, she died one night in the middle of January about ten years before.

     Two weeks before her death her newspapers had piled up on her doorstep and handfuls of mail had been crammed into the mail box, until one day when the piles of newspapers and mail was noticed by a pastor, who lived across the street next door to his church. If he hadn't been out of town for a couple of weeks the mess on the porch surely would have been noticed earlier.

     There were many people standing on the sidewalk when the Ambulance carried Miss Flora Rigby away.  The Coroner deemed she had died of natural causes.  "It was a sad end to a sad life." Pastor Carl Winter said from his pulpit the Sunday after.  Locals thought the house would now be torn down given the shape it was in.  But much to Miss Rigby's neighbor's annoyance, it was not.

     And now, the old house held a particular fascination to Lyn and her friends.  Actually, more of an obsession in Lyn's case.  Jackson Avenue was just a few blocks away from the Bishop home.  So it was in Lyn and her friend's neighborhood.  Lyn told the listening audience that day, that she and her friends had seen a light burning in an upstairs window at least once a week for a long period of time .

     "The house was boarded up by police after Miss Rigby died, so how come there's a light on in the window?"  Lyn asked the group of guests.  No one answered her, believing this was just the imagination of a creative child.  But they had to admit Lyn could really tell a good story.  But then very unexpectedly Lyn's father Max came to her defense.

     "Lyn told me about the light in the window of Miss Rigby's old house.  So one night I took a walk with Lyn and her friends passed the place.   And sure enough there was a light burning in an upstairs window.  So I called the police and informed them of what I had seen."  "What did they do Dad?"  Alex asked him.

     "They went into the house and checked it out.  They looked upstairs and down and found nothing out of place.  For reasons only known to Miss Rigby, she had willed all the contents of the house to the Methodist Church across the street.  So there was no furnishings inside to steal. Finding nothing out of the ordinary the police left."  Max ended with a shrug.

     "When I called the police back to ask what they had found and they related to me what I have just told all of you, I ask them what they thought about the light shinning in the window that I'd seen."  "And what did they say?"  Lee asked.  "They said it was probably a glitch in the wiring," Max said simply.  "So I guess Miss Rigby's light will just have to remain an unsolved mystery," he said with another shrug.

     Lyn had not interrupted her father as he spoke.  She had just listened like everyone else, and so had her friends.  Lyn didn't want to seem too interested or her father might have gotten suspicious that she was up to something.  Well, she was about to be and was enlisting her friends as well.

     The solution about the glitch in the electrical system might have satisfied the police and her father but it didn't satisfy Lyn in the least.  She just knew something sinister was going on in the old Rigby house and she and her friends were going to find out just exactly what the mystery was.

                                                                           End of Chapter 18

                                                             Happy New Year Dear Readers!