Read Mystery at Skeleton Point for Free Online

“What’s the matter, Jessie?” Violet asked. “Are we at the end?”
    Jessie pointed to a rock up ahead. “Come see this rock face. Doesn’t it look like a skull, especially with the way there’s some old paint where the eyes and mouth are?”
    Henry examined the rock. He found a rusted metal door blocking a wide crack in the rock. The door didn’t budge. “This is getting weirder and weirder. It’s some kind of cave that somebody put a door on. By the looks of it, it’s been here a long time. Let’s see where this trail goes. I have a feeling it joins up with that other shortcut we took off the main path.”
    When Violet and Benny stopped for a drink from their water bottles, Jessie pulled Henry aside. “I didn’t want to scare Violet and Benny, but I saw something moving up ahead. It could have been a deer, I suppose. Whatever it was, it ran off in the direction we’re going.”
    “Uh-oh,” Henry said. “Here comes Benny. I wonder if he saw it, too.”
    “There’s a big skull up there — a real one! See?” Benny pointed to a horse skull stuck in the notch of a tree right by the footpath.
    “Somebody’s playing a trick,” Jessie said so the younger children wouldn’t get too scared. “Let’s leave it there so no one knows we saw it.”

    Benny liked this idea. “Nobody can scare us away right, Jessie?”
    “Right.”
    Benny and Violet finished drinking their water. They stayed close to Henry and Jessie. Soon the trail crossed the main path between the beach and the house.
    “Let’s pick it up on the other side,” Henry suggested. “Hilda and William won’t expect us from that direction.”
    “This leads to the garden where the Clover Dodge statue is,” Violet said.
    But Violet was mistaken. “The statue is gone!” she said when she came to the rock where it had been anchored. “Should we go tell Hilda and William?”
    Jessie and Henry exchanged glances.
    “Let’s see if they tell us first,” Jessie suggested. “Maybe they had a good reason to take it. And if they didn’t, I don’t want them to know right away that we know it’s missing. I’d also like to find out who made these fresh footprints.”
    The children looked down at the ground where the statue had been.
    “Whoever was here had on work boots or hiking boots with thick treads on the soles.” Henry checked his watch. “We’ve been gone a long time. Hilda and William will be looking for us. Let’s look for them first.”
    The children hiked through the surrounding woods so they could watch the house without being seen. No one seemed to be around until they approached the empty reflecting pool.
    Jessie put her finger to her lips. “Shhh. Stop here. Don’t breathe.”
    They watched Hilda Stone go from statue to statue with a sketch pad and a measuring tape. At every statue, she stopped, measured parts of the statues, then marked something down. When she was done, she returned to the house.
    The children backtracked to the steps. They’d gone partway up when Benny stopped suddenly.
    There was a fall-sized seated skeleton in front of them on the steps. “The Walking Skeleton!” Benny said.
    Henry chuckled. “No, I guess you’d have to call it the Sitting Skeleton. It’s just sitting there as if it stopped to take a rest.”
    “I’m not afraid of Halloween tricks even when it’s not Halloween.” Benny scurried past the skeleton.
    Henry looked very serious. “Now I know someone is trying to scare us away from Skeleton Point again,” he said.
    “You’re probably right, Henry,” said Jessie. “But who could it be?”
    “William Mason and Hilda Stone,” said Benny, almost immediately. “They’re mean to us, and they don’t want us around.”
    “You’re right, Benny. Remember that man in town said William Mason wanted to buy Skeleton Point for himself? Maybe he’s mad at Charlotte for buying it first.”
    Jessie looked thoughtful. “What about Greeny?” she asked. “We know he doesn’t want us