The Forbidden Room

Exploring the home Jan and Bernie are moving into creates curiosity and typical brother-sister conflicts over one of the five upstairs bedrooms. The landlady, Mrs. Schrink has instructed Jan's and Bernie's parents, the Evers, to never enter that room. Jan, 10, takes the orders seriously while Bernie, 13, teases and suggests all sorts of scary scenes. His attempt to frighten his sister fails, or at least seems to when Jan refuses to admit he is getting the best of her. But when rumors begin about a suicide and the house being haunted, she shares everything with Bernie. This excites his curious mind. One weak moment at the coaxing of friends and her cousin, Jan opens the way to weeks of more than curiosity. Friends and cousins stay away and Jan and Bernie discover facts about their home that that leads them into dangerous situations. Jan continues to hear noises in the attic that sounds like someone stomping around. She can no longer keep all the strange happenings to herself and knocks on Bernie's door one night to let him know what she's been hearing. Bernie now believes not only Jan, but rumors about the house being haunted. He agrees to keep her secret and they set out like detectives to solve why the room is kept closed. Although it isn't locked,an attempt to open it is somehow interrupted from inside the room.
One of the few remaining country schools with grades one through eight will close for the Thanksgiving holiday. Work on the farm and in the home continues as Bernie and Jan look for clues and eventually find a way into the forbidden room. The frightening afternoon that kept Jan's and Bernie's friends and cousins away from visiting, faded as everyone returned . Everything went smoothly as far as noises, but Jan found other disturbing facts during their stay. She was careful not to tell her friends or cousin. After everyone left, she tells Bernie about what she saw and he added them to their list of clues. The music coming from the forbidden room adds to the spookiness and they start to check the time when they hear it play.
Winter sets in and family arrive for the Thanksgiving celebration. During table conversations, Jan's uncle nearly blurts out what happened the afternoon the girls tried to open the forbidden room. Her cousin Eileen is quick cover it up as a joke they had played on their friends. Families go home and the Evers relax after an enjoyable day. Everyone goes to bed and when their parents are asleep, Jan and Bernie go outside into the cold night air to watch for someone to climb through the basement window. They see a weird character jump through the window. This brings them to another discovery that shows them a way into the forbidden room. They face a figure in the passage to the room and it holds them there for a short time. It lets them leave, but not without frightening threats. The secret of the room that has been forbidden entry for many years is now forcing Mrs. Schrink to reveal her family's past. The Evers agree to let her take care of the problem without involving the law. She releases them from their contract and they find a new farm. Evening closes in, the car is loaded with their final belongings and the Evers are on their was to a new location. Jan and Bernie look out the back window of the car and up to the window of the forbidden room. It's clear to them, the problem hasn't been solved.