Free A Sister's Secret by Wanda E. Brunstetter

clomping around upstairs, she glanced into the hallway again.
    “Let’s try to remain calm and wait and see what he discovers upstairs,” Mom said as she wet a dishrag at the kitchen sink and began to wash off the table.
    For the next few minutes, Grace and her mother and sisters bustled around the kitchen, picking things up and cleaning off the table. They were nearly finished when Dad showed up again, squinting his dark eyes and scratching the side of his head.
    “What’s wrong, Roman?” Mom asked, stepping up to him. “Was everything all right upstairs?”
    “There’s nobody there, and nothing was disturbed in any of the rooms except for Grace’s.”
    “How odd.” Mom’s forehead wrinkled. “If they messed up one room, you’d think they would have done the same to the others.”
    “Maybe Heidi or Fritz sensed something was amiss and started barking, scaring anyone off before they could do more damage,” Martha suggested.
    “That could be,” Dad agreed as he reached up to rub the bridge of his nose. “Or maybe it was done randomly, with no rhyme or reason as to which rooms got messed.”
    Grace stood for several seconds, trying to piece everything together. With a little gasp, she dashed from the room.
***
    “Would you like me to run down to the phone shed and call the sheriff’s office?” Martha asked her father.
    “I’ll go with her,” Ruth put in.
    Firmly, he shook his head. “We won’t involve the sheriff, and I wouldn’t press charges even if he was notified and found the person who made this mess.”
    “I know that, but—”
    “I’m sure it was just some pranksters—probably the same ones who turned over those outhouses near Kidron last week.”
    “So we just allow them to get away with this?” Martha motioned to the remaining items on the table. “I think they need to be stopped, or else they might do the same thing to other folks.”
    Mom touched Dad’s arm. “Our daughter has a point. Maybe we should let the sheriff know about this.”
    “We’ll do what others in our community have done whenever the rowdy English kids have played their pranks. We’ll look the other way, turn the other cheek, forgive, and forget.” Dad sighed. “Now let’s get on with the business of living and forget this ever happened.”
    Martha made a sweeping gesture with her hand. “How can we forget it happened when our kitchen is such a mess and Grace is upstairs trying to deal with whatever they did to her room?” She moaned. “This isn’t right. It’s not right at all.”
    “We can forget it happened by making the choice to put it out of our minds. That’s how we’ll deal with it.” Dad folded his arms in a stubborn pose.
    “Do you think Grace is going to forget that a stranger came into her room while we were at church?” Martha nodded toward the door leading to the upstairs.
    Before Dad had a chance to answer, Ruth spoke up. “I’m going to see how she’s doing. No doubt, she’ll need some help cleaning up the mess.”
***
    Grace entered her room and skidded to a stop in front of the bed. Articles of clothing were strewn everywhere—white kapps, choring aprons, a pair of black sneakers, and some dresses that had been torn into shreds.
    Her heart thudded. Her hands sweat. Her knees nearly buckled. With a sense of dread, she made her way over to the cedar chest at the foot of the bed and flipped open the lid, dipping both hands deep inside and feeling around to see if anything was missing. When Grace’s fingers touched the scrapbook she’d kept hidden away, and then she discovered that her faceless doll was still there, she breathed a sigh of relief.
    “Are you all right? Has anything been stolen?”
    Grace slammed the lid shut and spun around. “Ruth! I didn’t hear you come in.”
    “I came up to see if there was anything I could do to help.” Ruth stepped forward and pointed to the mess on Grace’s bed. “Oh, sister, I’m so sorry. I can’t understand why anyone