The Mardi Gras Chase (True Girls Book 1) Read online

  Next to Melanie, Kate sounded as though she were about to hyperventilate, and Faye clutched Melanie’s arm tightly. Melanie herself cringed as the mysterious apparition slowly turned to face them.

  This is it, thought Melanie. We’re going to die. We’re going to die at the hands of a ghost on Mardi Gras day.

  Chapter 15

  The ghost turned to face them. To Melanie’s surprise, he had an enormous grin on his face.

  “Welcome!” he said. “I wasn’t sure if anyone would be coming this year.”

  The girls stared at him.

  “Are you dead?” asked Kate.

  The man laughed and stepped closer to the door. The girls instinctively shrank back.

  As he entered the light, though, they realized a couple of facts. First, he was not a ghost; he appeared to be an elderly man dressed in a warm sweater and corduroys. Second, he looked absolutely delighted to see them.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, continuing to chuckle. “I didn’t intend to frighten you, though I see now that’s exactly what I did. Still,” he winked, “the element of mystery is part of the fun, right?”

  Melanie closed her mouth which had fallen open. “I’m sorry – what?”

  “You clearly don’t realize it, but you’ve just found the headquarters of Mobile’s most secret society. We are the Underground Mystics.”

  He stepped to the side and held his arm out with a flourish.

  “Please come inside and take a look.”

  The girls exchanged uncertain glances before Melanie and Faye stepped carefully into the room. Kate resolutely stood outside. Though she didn’t say so in so many words, Melanie knew Kate wasn’t about to let all three of them get locked into a tomb by a crazy person. Which was fair, as far as Melanie was concerned.

  But Melanie couldn’t stay back. Her curiosity was too strong.

  As she stepped into the dark tomb, it took a moment for her eyes to adjust to the dim light. A camp lantern lit up the interior, but the darkness still contrasted sharply with the bright daylight outside.

  She was relieved to see that this was one tomb that held no dead bodies, in spite of the inscription on the door. Even her burning desire to solve the mystery probably wouldn’t hold up against meeting actual corpses.

  Instead, the tomb was a small, rectangular room with stone walls. On the wall to her left, a purple banner stretched across the stone.

  “Underground Mystics,” read Melanie.

  Underneath the banner were two long scrolls. The first was considerably yellowed with age; the second, only slightly less so. Each scroll listed line after line of small script. On the wall ahead of her hung a framed black and white picture of an elderly couple. The final wall displayed several newspaper clippings preserved in heavy frames. In one corner sat a small folding chair and a mystery novel that the old man appeared to have been reading to pass the time.

  Melanie turned to the man.

  “Who are you?”

  “Oh, I am sorry,” he said. “My manners have lapsed. My name is Mr. Simmington. And you are?”

  “You’re Mr. Simmington?” Melanie cried. “The float designer?”

  Mr. Simmington nodded modestly. “Yes, how gratifying to know you have heard of me. I have indeed designed many floats in my time. Though now I would have to say that I am Mr. Simmington, the retired float designer.”

  Kate, who had obviously been listening outside, stuck her head around the door. “You’re Mr. Simmington? I called you on the phone.” She walked inside the tomb. “You wouldn’t talk to me.”

  “Ah,” he said. “You were the ‘school project’ call?”

  Kate nodded.

  “I’m sorry,” said Mr. Simmington again. “That was rude of me, but you see, I try to keep a low profile. It makes my work for the Underground Mystics that much more satisfying. You’ll have to pardon me.”

  “The Underground Mystics,” repeated Melanie. “Who are they?”

  “We, my dear, are an exclusive group of individuals who have solved the initiation riddle. No one joins the Underground Mystics without first earning it. No easy sign-up and paying dues for us. No, every member of the Undergrounds, as we call ourselves, found their way here by their own wits and ingenuity.”

  He settled down into his chair.

  “Do you ladies mind if I sit? I’m not the young man I once was.”

  “Sure,” said Faye.

  “How do people find their way in?” asked Melanie.

  “Well, presumably the way you three did,” he said. “I assume you found your way here after decoding the message I placed in this year’s parades?”

  “Yes,” said Melanie, smiling for the first time since this strange episode had begun. “We first saw the letters in the Centaurs parade, and then followed the rest of the code from there.”

  “There you are then,” said Mr. Simmington. “You see, every year, the Undergrounds place a new secret message into Mardi Gras. Sometimes it’s a message hidden between the music of the marching bands. Other times we send out secret emissaries at the balls. One year we even sewed our coded invitation into the Merry Widows’ black veils.” He smiled reminiscently. “That was a fine one. And quite difficult to achieve without the Widows realizing what we were up to.

  “As this was my last year actively designing floats, I thought I’d have one last hurrah and hide the secret in the floats themselves.” He smiled brightly. “And I’m so glad that someone discovered my invitation.” He gestured around the room. “Please feel free to look around.”

  The girls slowly circled the small room. They examined the scroll up close and saw a list of names. The girls scanned the recent additions.

  “Hey,” said Kate, “isn’t that the mayor?”

  “Look,” said Faye. “Sasha Tipton’s on here!”

  “Oh, do you know Sasha? She’s a sweet girl and very clever. She helped me plan out the code this year. The code itself is fairly simple to come up with, but inserting it into the floats without too many people noticing can be tricky.”

  “All that time,” said Kate, “and we could have asked her for help.”

  “I’m glad we didn’t,” said Melanie, and Mr. Simmington nodded in approval.

  She circled to the picture on the wall. It showed an elderly couple in black and white leaning back against an old automobile. The photograph looked like it had been well cared for over the years.

  “Who are they?” she asked.

  “Ah,” said Mr. Simmington, “those are our founders, Julius and Emily Malthus. Perhaps you noticed their names on the door?”

  The girls nodded.

  “We thought they might be in here,” said Kate.

  Mr. Simmington laughed. “Well, I’d be lying if I said that wasn’t the general impression we like to give.” He examined the girls. “As you’ve come all this way, would you like to hear their story?”

  “Yes,” said Melanie, surprised at the eagerness in her own voice.

  Mr. Simmington leaned back and crossed one leg on top of the other.

  “Julius and Emily Malthus were a very wealthy couple. Big fixtures in the Mobile old money scene. But, being both quite intelligent, they got a little bored with the usual society events.

  “As the story goes, they were sitting together one evening after one such event, and Mrs. Malthus was complaining of the boring party from which they had just returned. She challenged her husband to gather together people who were a little more interesting. A little more clever. All around, a little more Emily Malthus’s style.

  “Well, being a sporting man, Mr. Malthus immediately took up the challenge.

  “He reasoned that finding a group of sharp thinking people meant that those people would somehow have to prove that they were, in fact, clever. So he came up with the idea of sending out an encrypted invitation that encouraged those who solved it to join together for mutual benefit and entertainment.

  “The particular method Mr. Julius selected was a series of coded messages through
the newspaper want ads. I doubt you young ladies read newspapers nowadays, but in the 1910s, they were the lifeblood of the community.” He gestured to the wall behind him. “These are his ads, here. By some stroke of prescience, his wife saved them, and we are able to preserve them as part of our group heritage.

  “So he sent out a coded invitation for any who wished to join him and his wife at his home at a certain day and hour. They were instructed to tell no one of where they were going.

  “In all, five guests showed up at that first meeting. One was a prominent local doctor. One a young housewife. Two were teachers at a local college. And one was a dockworker in the city’s port.

  “It was an unusual gathering, as you might expect, but it was also a delightful one. Mrs. Malthus was so pleased with her husband’s ingenuity, and with the results, that she suggested they find a way to continue the practice.

  “Thus, the idea of the Underground Mystics was born. They conceived the plan of somehow connecting the group with Mardi Gras, to stay true to Mobile’s culture, while still maintaining complete secrecy. And the very next Mardi Gras season, the next invitation was issued. Four more people joined as a result.

  “After a couple more years, Mr. Malthus had the idea to convert this tomb to the headquarters, so to speak. It was originally going to be for his and his bride’s use in the hereafter, but I rather fancy they liked the mysterious quality of putting group headquarters in a graveyard. Mr. Malthus had a flair for the dramatic. The tomb has never been a gathering place, obviously – it’s too small for that – but it is a place to preserve our heritage.

  “And so it has continued to this day.”

  “Wow,” said Faye. “That is amazing.”

  “Really cool,” said Kate.

  “So,” said Melanie, “the Undergrounds are really a secret society?”

  Mr. Simmington nodded. “Oh yes, the most secret in Mobile. At least,” he winked, “to my knowledge. You see, many other groups hide their membership. After all, that’s part of the appeal of Mardi Gras. As my late wife used to say, you’d be surprised what you can do when you’re wearing a mask.

  “But the Undergrounds are different. While the other groups hide their membership, we hide our existence. We exist for ourselves only. Even after 100 years, our organization continues to be the best kept secret in town.”

  “But if you’re such a secret, what do you guys do?” asked Kate. “Throw secret parties?”

  Mr. Simmington smiled. “By some standards, we don’t really do much at all. We don’t parade. We don’t show off at balls and at society events. And we don’t even all know each other. But, we’ve all got this one common bond – we faced an intriguing problem and, instead of ignoring it, of going on to other things, we decided to tackle it. To solve the puzzle, break the code, uncover the mystery. It’s a bond of initiative and of imagination.

  “And that, ladies, can be more fun than all the balls, parades, and feasting in the world. That is what the Underground Mystics are all about.”

  Melanie grinned. “And we found you.” She turned to Faye and Kate and saw her own pride mirrored in her friend’s faces.

  “Yes, you did,” said Mr. Simmington, “But, my dear girls, I don’t think you quite understand. You haven’t just found us. You’ve earned the right to join us, if you so wish.”

  Melanie stared at him in surprise.

  “Really?” asked Kate.

  “Us?” said Faye.

  “Of course.”

  Melanie caught her breath. The conversation of the last few minutes had proceeded so quickly that her head felt a little wonky. Did she want to join this group?

  “Yes,” she thought almost immediately. After all, wasn’t this exactly what she’d been looking for the last couple of weeks? She’d followed the steps, chasing the hope that maybe everyday could hide a little more mystery than what she saw daily. And here she’d found a gathering of people who’d all followed that same hope in their own lives.

  But even as she recognized her willingness to join, she felt a heavy weight settle in her stomach. She realized that she should first let Mr. Simmington know something – their ages. He might not realize just how young they actually were, and the Undergrounds might not want kids in their group.

  Reluctantly, she spoke. “Mr. Simmington, you should probably know that we’re only twelve years old.”

  “Thank you for informing me of that fact,” he said solemnly, “but I have only to reply: What of it? Ingenuity knows no age. In fact, you younger folks are probably better endowed with it than most of our older membership.”

  Melanie immediately felt lighter. She looked at her friends with a question on her face. Faye gave a small nod and smile, and Kate said, “Let’s do it.”

  “Mr. Simmington, thank you,” said Melanie. “We would love to join.”

  “Excellent,” he said, standing up slowly from the chair. “Then we have two points of order to accomplish. First, you will take an oath of secrecy. And second, you shall sign our scroll of membership.”

  He crossed to the small table inside the door and picked up the small leather-bound notebook. He opened it, and it cracked with age.

  “Very well, please all face me.” The three girls lined up side by side. “Now, repeat after me.

  “I hereby join the Underground Mystics.”

  The girls dutifully repeated his words as he continued the oath.

  “As keepers of the tradition, I will tell of our elite organization to no one. I will guard both the secret of our group and the spark of creativity and curiosity which led me here.”

  He closed the book and beamed at Melanie and her friends. “Welcome to the Undergrounds.”

  The girls grinned.

  “Now, you get to sign the scroll.” He pointed to the second of the long papers pinned to the wall and handed them a pen from the table.

  Kate took the pen first and signed her name with a flourish. Faye went next and carefully added her name underneath Kate’s. She passed the pen to Melanie.

  Melanie stepped up to the scroll.

  “Mr. Simmington, we actually have a fourth member of our group who helped solve the code. She couldn’t come with us today, but she earned the right as much as we did. May I add her?”

  “If she helped solve the mystery, then she has certainly earned her membership as well. Can she be entrusted with this secret, do you think?”

  “I do.”

  “Then, sign away,” he said. “Bring her by next year, and she can take the official oath as well.”

  Melanie grinned as she pictured Lacey in this room, taking the solemn oath in her slight lisp. It would be a sight to look forward to over the coming year.

  Melanie signed her own name first, using cursive to make it more official. All her work had been for this moment, and she felt the pride of it deep in her heart.

  “You know,” Mr. Simmington said to Kate and Faye, “I’d wager that you three are the youngest members in our organization’s history. It’s difficult to know for certain, of course, but I don’t doubt it.”

  Melanie smiled as she slowly wrote the name “Lacey Smythurst” on the scroll.

  “I’m willing to bet,” she murmured, “that our fourth member will take the youngest prize.”

  As Mr. Simmington didn’t see anyone else nosing around the cemetery looking for clues, he briefly left his post to walk the girls back to the main parade route.

  “Some years we get several people; some years none,” he said. “It varies.”

  The girls pushed their bikes at a leisurely pace to match Mr. Simmington’s speed. As they walked, he made them recount how they discovered and deciphered the code. He nodded approvingly when Melanie described the orderly step-by-step approach they had followed and laughed uproariously when Faye reluctantly shared the story of how they had snuck into the float barn. When he heard how Lacey had helped them find the correct order of the letters, he smiled and said he was pleased that Lacey would be in the Undergrounds as
well.

  When they reached the corner where they would part, he solemnly shook each of their hands.

  “Thank you, ladies. It’s been lovely meeting you, and I do hope you’ll call on me if you ever need anything.

  “And next year about this time,” he said, his eye twinkling, “keep a look out for any messages from the Underground. You may eventually be called upon to create a new round of clues.”

  The girls wished him goodbye and thanked him. Then they mounted their bikes and set off for home.

  Twenty minutes later, the girls coasted to a stop in front of Faye’s house. They lingered on their bikes, none of them wanting the magical afternoon to end just yet.

  “I wish we could tell people,” said Kate.

  “Me, too,” said Faye.

  “Do you know,” said Melanie, “I don’t really mind keeping it a secret.”

  “I knew you wouldn’t,” said Faye, smiling.

  “So now what?” asked Kate.

  “I don’t know,” said Melanie. “Go back to business as usual?” But deep inside, she couldn’t. She might still experience times of boredom and routine, but she didn’t feel she’d ever go completely back to where she had been a week ago.

  “Well, I know what I’m going to do,” said Kate. “I am going to take a long bubble bath and hog the bathroom for hours. Then I’m going to talk Mom into a girl’s movie tonight. Get a break from the boys and unwind.”

  “Ooh, good plan,” said Melanie.

  “And when we get back,” Kate continued, “I guess I’ll have a little talk with Matt.”

  Melanie froze, waiting for the rest of the thought.

  “He’s a good brother – most of the time,” continued Kate, “and you’re a good friend, and… well, why shouldn’t the two of you hang out, if you want to?”

  Melanie grinned. “You sure you don’t mind?”

  “Nah.”

  Melanie gave Kate a tight hug.

  “Thanks, Katie.”

  “Not funny.”

  The girls all giggled.

  “I’m so glad that’s taken care of,” said Faye, smiling. “You know, I was thinking I might volunteer at the Mardi Gras museum with Sasha.”