Section 1
Jennifer Collins looked with the vehicle window in the ancient Wimberly mansion and mumbled, “Everyone knows Mrs. Wimberly’s home is haunted. It’s creepy with this ugly, round tower and individuals home windows within the door that appear to be like looking eyes.”

“You can be assured,Inch her mother stated, “there aren’t any ghosts in Mrs. Wimberly’s house.”

“Let’s say you are wrong?”

“If I am wrong, I’ll get you for your favorite spot for pizza tomorrow. Just stop letting your imagination try to escape along with you, Jennifer. You are going to possess a terrific time in the party.”

“No I will not,” Jennifer blurted out. “The only real reason Mrs. Wimberly asked me for this party on her grandchildren happens because she loves, Mother. I hardly know Arlene and Mark as well as their buddies because they are all in sixth grade.”

“You are in fifth,” Mother stated. “Twelve months should not make much difference.”

“Well, it will. Anyhow, I’d rather stay at home making up more word puzzles for Andy. For any first-grader Andy’s doing efficient at locating the word inside a group that does not fit. I gave him some hard ones like rose, daisy, garden, and tulip, and that he understood it had been garden and grocery, loaves of bread, florist, and building. Is not that terrific, Mother?”

“Honey, I understand you are shy,” Mother stated, “however when you familiarize yourself with these kids, you will have fun.” She kissed Jennifer’s oral cavity. “I’ll collect you at 11:00.”

Having a sigh Jennifer rose from the vehicle and trudged in the porch steps. A sizable, tawny yellow cat made an appearance in the shadows and examined Jennifer with golden eyes.

“Hi, cat,” Jennifer stated. The kitty purred and applied against Jennifer’s legs as she rang the doorbell.

Arlene &#151 tall and thin with frizzed blond hair &#151 clarified the doorway. “I suppose you are Jennifer,” she stated. “Well, are available in.Inch

Section 2
Jennifer walked in to the entry hall and welcomed Mrs. Wimberly, a plump, smiling lady with white-colored hair that curled round her face.

“I am so glad you can come, Jennifer,” Mrs. Wimberly stated. She brought Jennifer right into a large room full of heavy, overstuffed furniture. A minimum of twelve kids stopped speaking to stare as Mrs. Wimberly introduced her. Only a few them stated hi before they returned to posing for that instant photos Arlene was taking, laughing because the results arrived to view.

Which word does not fit? Jennifer thought. Friendly, happy. enjoyable, Arlene? Too easy. She perched uncomfortably around the nearest chair, and also the big yellow cat leaped into her lap. Arlene stated, “If you do not want that ugly old factor troubling you, just push them back.Inch

“She’s not ugly! She’s beautiful!” Jennifer clarified, stroking the kitty lightly.

Mrs. Wimberly stated, “We have were built with a lengthy-standing mystery within this house due to a cat. A long time ago the kitty who belonged to my grandmother Alice made served by her gem necklace. Nobody has ever found in which the cat hid it.”

“Are you certain the kitty required the pearls?” Jennifer requested. “Cats seldom hide things.”

Mrs. Wimberly described. “The trainer told us a few days before Grandmother Alice’s dying, she laid her pearls close to the fringe of her open desk. When her cat extended out a paw to research them, they folded from the desk and twisted round the cat’s neck. The kitty was afraid and dashed in the room.

“Fortunately, the maid caught the kitty, saved the pearls, and came back these to my grandmother. Alice used these to a celebration the night time before she died, however that was the final anybody saw from the pearls.”

“I do not think they ought to have blamed the kitty,Inch Jennifer stated.

“There is nobody else who might have taken them,” Mrs. Wimberly stated. “In the end, the kitty have been frightened through the pearls. It might have desired to eliminate them.” She selected up a silver-presented photograph from an finish table and stated, “Here is a picture of Grandmother Alice and her cat.”

As Jennifer arrived at for that photograph, the kitty all of a sudden leaped from her lap and ran in the room.

“Your grandmother’s cat appears like your cat,” Jennifer stated. “Have you ever had your cat lengthy?”

Mrs. Wimberly nodded her head. “After I moved in to the house ten years ago the kitty was living here. Grandmother and Mother always appeared to possess a cat around.” Thunder folded within the distance, and wind moaned round the corners of the home. “I am afraid we are set for bad weather,Inch she stated.

“I understand!Inch Arlene jumped to her ft. “Let us search for that pearls! We’ll get it done in teams!”

Section 3
Everybody started selecting sides. Nobody even looked in Jennifer’s direction, so she made the decision to flee, making her way lower a narrow hallway to some small library. They would not miss her. They’d barely observed her. She’d look for a book to see and.

A woman with tawny yellow hair walked from the shadows. “I have been awaiting you,Inch she stated. “They have selected sides for that treasure search. Since we are this is not on their teams, we will interact?Inch

It had been an excessive amount of for you to that she’d remain alone. Unwillingly, Jennifer stated okay.

“Perfect,” the lady clarified. She smiled, and Jennifer was fascinated to determine that her eyes gleamed as golden as her hair. “I’m Sabrina,” she stated. “Seriously. Others have previously gone to the room in which the pearls disappeared.”

Because they rose the wide staircase using its heavily created posts and banisters, Sabrina stated, “I am glad you did not blame the kitty. The kitty had nothing related to the disappearance.”

“You appear to understand a great deal concerning the story,” Jennifer stated.

“I have heard it again and again,Inch Sabrina clarified, annoyance sneaking into her voice.

Section 4
Grandmother Alice’s room was bedlam. Mark looked underneath the bed mattress while certainly one of his buddies crawled in the garage. Two boys were able to pull the heavy dresser from the wall, and Arlene grew to become twisted within the drapes.

“This room was looked completely at that time the pearls disappeared,” Mrs. Wimberly yelled within the noise. “Why not try the places the cat may have taken them? A cubbyhole in the kitchen area, possibly, or perhaps a dark corner from the basement?”

A flash of lightning all of a sudden shot with the room, along with a loud clap of thunder rattled the home.

“The basement!” Arlene squealed. “Let us get flashlights and check the basement!”

“We’ll make it happen first!” Mark yelled.

Jennifer pulled Sabrina taken care of because the kids crowded with the entrance, then switched to follow along with Mrs. Wimberly, but Sabrina tugged Jennifer toward a stylish writing desk, its book shelves on the top paid by glass doorways. “I wish to demonstrate where Alice stored her jewellery.”

Sabrina opened up the lid from the desk, and Jennifer often see numerous little drawers and knobs over the back.

“I have learned about antique desks such as these,Inch Jennifer stated. “Aren’t there said to be secret compartments inside them?Inch

“Alice’s boy found the only real secret compartment,” Sabrina informed her. “But there is nothing inside it.Inch

“Is the fact that where she stored the pearls?”

“Nobody understood. Alice was very secretive. She never told anybody where she hid her jewellery &#151 not really her relatives.” She pointed at a few of the drawers. “A bracelet was discovered inside this drawer, a silver pin set with garnets for the reason that one, along with a gold locket inside.Inch

“But nothing within the secret compartment?”

“Nothing.” Sabrina sounded desperate. “You do not know exactly what a problem it was for that cat!”

<>Jennifer’s attention was caught through the books behind the glass doorways. “Look. Alice should have loved poetry. Listed here are volumes by Dickinson, Wordsworth, Emerson, Longfellow, and Tennyson.” Jennifer skipped on the fat volume entitled A Brief History from the Revolutionary War and continued to admire a magazine of sonnets by Shakespeare and poetry by William Blake and Robert Burns.

Lightning cracked and sizzled, thunder roared, and also the lights in the home went.

Jennifer grabbed Sabrina in terror, but Sabrina stated, “Don’t be concerned. I haven’t got any problem seeing at nighttime.Inch She required Jennifer’s hands and brought her from the room and toward the steps.

Section 5
Mrs. Wimberly, who had been holding a silver candelabra, known as as much as them: “Jennifer, bam !! Are you currently okay?Inch

“I am fine,” Jennifer stated and hurried lower the steps. “I was just analyzing your grandmother’s desk.” As she stated the language, Jennifer felt peculiar. Was there something she must have observed? A concept tickled the rear of her mind, but she could not capture it.

“Others have been in the living room,” Mrs. Wimberly stated and handed Jennifer a flash light. “I understand you’ve got to be hungry. We have got cacao and pork salad, egg salad, and tuna salad sandwiches.”

Holding the string of words in her own mind, Jennifer instantly told herself “Cacao” may be the word that does not fit. All of a sudden she recognized what she’d stated and just what she’d seen. She stopped and whispered, “Sabrina! Include me! I believe I understand where we may discover the pearls!”

She raced support the steps into Alice’s bed room, Sabrina on her behalf heels. Aiming the flash light in the books, she opened up the glass doorways and brought out A Brief History from the Revolutionary War. “It does not match the poetry books!” she stated, her fingers shaking readily. “It is the one factor that does not fit!”

Jennifer opened up it. The middle of the web pages have been created out to create a hiding place, and nestled within the cavity would be a gleaming strand of pearls.

“You found them!” Sabrina yelled. “In the end these many years of everybody blaming the kitty, the truth will ultimately emerge!Inch Sabrina grabbed Jennifer’s arm and rushed lower the steps.

As everybody crowded around to determine, Jennifer gave the pearls to Mrs. Wimberly.

The lights returned on so all of a sudden that everybody blinked.

“Have a picture from the pearls!” Mark yelled at Arlene.

“Take certainly one of Jennifer using the pearls,” Mrs. Wimberly stated.

As Arlene selected up her camera, Jennifer put her right arm around Sabrina’s shoulders, with her left hands she organized outdoors book to exhibit the pearls inside.

Arlene required the image, waved it in mid-air before the image started to exhibit, then bent over and done with laughter.

“What had you been doing, Jennifer?” she shrieked. “You appear so weird together with your right arm stuck out in mid-air!Inch

Section 6
Jennifer elbowed her way with the group to check out the photograph. She was the only person inside it. Bewildered, she stated, “But my arm was around your friend Sabrina.”

Arlene whooped all of the louder. “Sabrina’s not my pal! Sabrina may be the cat!”

Jennifer looked as much as see Sabrina waiting in the entrance, her eyes gleaming, a smug, catlike smile on her behalf face. She started to contract, her hair going back into yellow fur, her hands into paws.

“Look!” Jennifer whispered, and pointed at Sabrina.

All of them looked in the place where Jennifer was pointing, but someone requested, “Take a look at what?”

“They cannot help you now. Plus they could not whenever you altered right into a girl, could they?” Jennifer requested Sabrina.

Having a shake of her whiskers along with a satisfied twitch of her tail, Sabrina disappeared.

“See who?” Arlene required. “Who have been you speaking to?”

“A ghost cat,” Jennifer stated, making her voice low and frightening. “A ghost cat who required the type of an individual to be able to help solve a mysterious.Inch She could not help enjoying the feel of open-mouthed astonishment around the faces that encircled her. Description of how the were having to pay focus on her.

“What exactly are you speaking about?” among the women requested.

“About something I saw that you simply did not,” Jennifer stated. “If you do not get frightened, I’ll let you know a very true ghost story.”

I’ll let you know tonight and Mother tomorrow, Jennifer thought. Because of Sabrina, she’ll almost taste that pizza.

“A Purr-Fect Mystery” by Joan Lowery Nixon. Printed in SCHOLASTIC STORYWORKS, October 1995. &#169 1995 by Scholastic Corporation. Utilized by permission.