Black and Blue Magic by Zilpha Keatley Snyder

to tell because her real face was all cluttered over with make-up. Her hair was a stiff yellow color, like a doll in a store window, and her red and white dress looked as if it wasn’t quite big enough to fit her.
    But the happiness about having a new boarder didn’t last very long; at least not for Harry. Right away, he found out one awful thing: she called people Sweetie. Everybody—even boys. When Harry got to the top of the stairs with her luggage, she gave him a dime and said, “There you go, Sweetie. Thanks a million.”
    That was bad enough, but something worse started happening that night at dinner. It began almost the very moment Mom introduced Miss Clyde to the rest of the boarders. Right away Miss Clyde popped herself down next to Mr. Brighton, and even before the very first meal was over she was calling him “Sweetie” and “Hal” and flopping her long sticky-looking eyelashes up and down.
    Harry was really disgusted. He saw what she was doing right away. It was just like when Miss Dutton started in on the beauty shop man, only about a million times worse. It was all so obvious you couldn’t help noticing, but Mom didn’t seem to. At least, she didn’t fight back at all, like flopping her eyelashes, too, and giggling, or any of the other things women do when they want somebody’s attention. Harry did the best he could by trying to start a conversation with Mr. Brighton about the Giants’ shut-out game against the Dodgers. But Mr. Brighton didn’t seem to be in the mood for baseball. It was a terrible meal.
    By that evening Harry had decided that there wasn’t anything he could do about Clarissa Clyde, at least not right then; but it was that very night that he thought of something he could do about Mr. Mazzeeck. Or, at least, something that might help him find out what the guy was up to. The thing that occurred to him was that there was a way to look in the window of Mr. Mazzeeck’s room.
    The old carriage house on the Furdell place was right next to the edge of Marco’s property. It was a huge old barn-like place with all sorts of curly wood-trimmings. It had a slanted roof and above that a little flat one, like a platform, with a railing around it. There were stairs that led up to the flat roof on the outside of the building. Mr. Furdell said that his grandfather used to be a ship’s captain, and he had had it built that way so he could watch the ships on the bay.
    Anyway, there was a swell view from up there, and if you looked towards the west you could look right into the second-story windows of the two old houses.
    Harry waited until it was good and dark before he slipped through the gate to the Furdell’s yard and up the stairs to the roof of the carriage house. Just as he had hoped, the blind was up in Mr. Mazzeeck’s room and the light was on. Harry could clearly see the picture of a vase of roses and an apple on the opposite side of the room, but for a long time he didn’t see anything of Mr. Mazzeeck. If he was in the room he certainly wasn’t moving around much.
    It seemed like more than an hour that Harry knelt behind the railing and peered into Mr. Mazzeeck’s room. At least it was long enough for him to get awfully cold and damp and stiff. Then, just as he made up his mind to give up, he saw Mr. Mazzeeck walk across the room.
    Harry sat back down with a thump. A few seconds later, Mr. Mazzeeck came back across the room looking at something in his hands. He crossed the room to the window and glanced out. Harry caught just a glimpse of the thing in his hands—something golden and shiny—before Mr. Mazzeeck pulled down the blind.
    But at that point Mr. Mazzeeck made a mistake. He didn’t seem to realize that even though the shade was down, the window could still be dangerous. It didn’t seem to occur to him that if he really didn’t want to be seen, he shouldn’t stand so near a thin window-shade with a light on behind him.
    Immediately there appeared on the window-shade a