Mary Anne and Too Many Boys

  I picked up my towel and headed for the shower, my face flaming. Stacey caught up with me in the hall, and I was glad to see she had ruined her nails by jumping up so fast.

  “Look, Mary Anne,” she said in a wheedling tone, “I didn’t mean to upset you. It’s just that Toby and I had such a fantastic time last night that I thought you wouldn’t mind if I went out with him again.”

  “You thought I wouldn’t mind?” I said coolly. My heart was pounding in my chest, but I stood my ground.

  “You can take off two nights next week,” she said. You’d think she was doing me a big favor. “That would be fair, wouldn’t it?”

  “No, Stacey. It would not be fair. I’m going out tonight, and if you’ll excuse me, I need to get ready.” I brushed by her and headed for the shower without another word.

  * * *

  “This is very nice,” I said later that evening. Alex and I were sitting in a back booth at the restaurant, looking over the menu. The menu was enormous — about the size of a cookie sheet — and I had no idea what to order. The truth is, I felt a little nervous sitting across from Alex. Going to the boardwalk was one thing, but being all dressed up in a restaurant made everything seem different somehow. Like we were on a real date. The more I tried to figure it out, the more confused I got. This was what I wanted, wasn’t it? A “real” date with Alex? But what about Logan?

  Alex interrupted my thoughts. “Earth to Mary Anne,” he said playfully. The waitress was standing over us, order pad in hand. Ready or not, I had to order something!

  “Um, I guess I’ll have the crab cakes,” I said, not really caring. “With fries and iced tea.”

  The minute the waitress left, we just stared at each other. In dead silence. What in the world were we going to talk about?

  “Wow, we got here at a good time,” I said at last.

  Alex looked blank. “A good time?”

  “It’s not crowded now. You know, it’s not too early and it’s not too late.” I stammered a little, feeling nervous.

  Even Alex couldn’t think of anything to say to that dumb remark, and he gazed at a point somewhere over my head. I was very tempted to turn around, but I knew that there was nothing behind me except a giant flounder that was mounted on the wall.

  Another long pause. “They sure have a lot of fish on the menu,” I said, thinking of the flounder. I could have bitten my tongue the minute the words were out. Of course they had a lot of fish on the menu. What did I expect at a seafood restaurant — pizza?

  Alex nodded politely, but I knew he must think I was incredibly boring. Why couldn’t I think of anything interesting to talk about like other girls could? I made a mental note to ask Stacey what she talked about on dates, and then I remembered that she was probably still mad at me. She was baby-sitting the Pike kids with Mallory, instead of having dinner with a date in a restaurant — and for just a moment, I envied them!

  I think we would have gone on this way forever, except that something really funny happened, and we both cracked up. When the waitress served Alex his lobster, she put a bib on him! It was just like the kind babies wear, except it was adult-sized and had a giant lobster printed on it. Alex didn’t look surprised (I guess he had ordered lobster before and knew what to expect), but I was so amazed I burst out laughing! I didn’t even try to keep a straight face, and when Alex saw me laughing, he started laughing, and everything was okay. After the bib incident, we had a million things to say to each other, and we talked nonstop for the rest of the meal.

  Later, we hit the boardwalk, where Alex played a ringtoss game, trying to win a stuffed animal for me. After about twenty minutes (and a dozen quarters) he finally did win, and I picked out a big purple hippopotamus as my prize.

  “You’re sure you don’t want a panda?” he said, eyeing the hippo. “Or maybe one of the chimpanzees?”

  “Nope.” I clutched my prize. “A purple hippo is just the thing.”

  I don’t know what to tell you about the rest of the evening, except that it was wonderful. We spent another hour or so wandering up and down the midway and finally took a ride on the Ferris wheel. Alex grumbled because I had the purple hippo wedged on the seat between us, but I knew he was just kidding.

  It was a beautiful starry night, and we pointed out the constellations to each other as we walked back to the Pikes’. (He picked out the Seven Sisters, but I found the Little Dipper.) Neither one of us wanted the evening to end, and Alex made a joke as I headed up the porch steps.

  “Oh, Mary Anne,” he said seriously. “Can I ask you a favor?”

  I turned around, surprised. “Sure, what is it?”

  He grinned. “The next time we go out, would you mind leaving your friend at home?”

  I hugged the hippo tightly to my chest and waved good night. When I got upstairs to my bedroom, I sat on the window seat and stared out at the ocean for a long time. The next time we go out … This was what I wanted, wasn’t it? Alex was so funny and sweet — of course I wanted to see him again! Then why did I feel so guilty? Because you said you would always be true to Logan, a little voice nagged me.

  I heard Stacey moving around downstairs in the kitchen, and I quickly slipped into my nightgown and got into bed. I didn’t feel like talking to anyone. It had been a wonderful, exciting, confusing evening, and there was so much to think about….

  “You’re sure you want to go into town today?” It was nine-thirty in the morning, and Stacey and I had just finished cleaning up the breakfast dishes.

  “Of course we’re sure!” Vanessa said impatiently. “We love Sea City, don’t we, Margo?”

  Margo nodded, eager to escape a boring game of Candy Land with Claire.

  “So can we? Can we please?” Vanessa chanted, practically jumping up and down in excitement.

  “Go ahead,” Stacey said, seeing my hesitation. “I’ll take the boys to the beach as soon as they get changed.”

  “I’ll go with you,” added Mal. “My tan’s not nearly good enough yet.”

  “Yippee!” Vanessa hooted, throwing her sun visor in the air.

  Looking back, I’m surprised I didn’t catch on to the real reason that Vanessa was so eager to go into town. (If you’ve already guessed that it was because of a certain boy named Chris, you’re right.)

  It was almost eleven by the time the four of us — Claire, Margo, Vanessa, and myself — stepped onto the boardwalk. It was a cool day, and Sea City was crowded with tourists.

  “Can we look at souvenirs?” Margo asked. “I brought my money with me.”

  We made our first stop at a little shop that sold hundreds of souvenirs made of seashells. There were jewelry boxes decorated with pearly pink shells that looked like fans, and mirrors ringed with tiny white shells no bigger than a dime. There was a music box shaped like a clam shell, and dozens of shell key rings. Everything seemed a little expensive for Margo, so I tried to persuade her to buy a plain conch shell.

  “But it doesn’t say Sea City on it,” she said.

  “But it’s pretty, and every time you look at it, you’ll think of the ocean,” I pointed out.

  Margo looked unconvinced, and Vanessa was getting impatient with her. “Don’t make such a big deal out of it, Margo. Do you want to buy a seashell or not?”

  “But that’s just a plain old shell. I can find one of those on the beach.”

  “But you haven’t found one yet,” Vanessa said reasonably. “How about this?” She picked up a beautiful white sand dollar and handed it to Margo. Someone had drilled a hole in the top and tied a strand of ribbon through it.

  “Ooh, that’s pretty,” Margo said. “What is it?”

  “It’s a Christmas tree ornament,” I told her. “You can hang it on the tree every year, and when it’s snowing in Stoneybrook, you can dream about Sea City.”

  “I love it!” Margo cried. She had exactly enough money to pay for it, and Vanessa took her to the cashier while I wandered around the store for a few more minutes. I saw a black T-shirt that
I knew Dawn would love. “Sea City” was scrawled across it in bright pink letters that looked like they were written in lipstick. It was exactly right for Dawn — but not for me — and I finally bought two coffee mugs, one for my father and one for Sharon. They looked handmade and said SEA CITY in very small letters at the bottom. I even found a toy for Tigger.

  Our next stop was Trampoline Land, which is one of Margo’s favorite spots in town. She immediately pulled Claire onto a giant trampoline with her, while Vanessa and I watched from the sidelines. I always feel a little dizzy when I watch people jump up and down on a trampoline, and I can’t understand why Margo likes it so much. What is even stranger is that Margo gets motion sickness just from riding in a car, but trampolines don’t seem to bother her.

  Except this time.

  Margo had been jumping like a human pogo stick for almost twenty minutes when I noticed that she looked a little pale. “She looks kind of … white, doesn’t she?” I said to no one in particular.

  Vanessa gasped. “White — she looks green!” She grabbed my arm. “Mary Anne, we have to do something fast. She’s going to be sick!”

  “Oh, no,” I moaned. I looked at Margo’s head bobbing up and down and I realized that Vanessa was right. Margo’s eyes were glassy, and her skin was suddenly flushed. She was definitely sick, and in a moment or two, everyone would know about it. “But what can we do? Why doesn’t she stop?”

  Vanessa shook her head. “She can’t stop. She’s probably trying to work her way over to the edge right now, but all those other kids are in the way. You can’t just walk off a trampoline, you know.”

  Vanessa was absolutely right. When you’re on a trampoline, you bounce up and down, even if you don’t want to. Sometimes parents go on the trampoline to get their kids, and they bob up and down just like everybody else.

  “I’m going in after her,” I said, coming to a decision. I felt pretty silly bouncing like a kangaroo toward Margo, but after all, I was the baby-sitter. I knew I had to get to her. “Hang on, Margo,” I said when I finally caught up with her. I grabbed her arm to guide her off the trampoline, and she stood on the sidelines for a few moments, swaying back and forth. Claire stood next to us.

  “As soon as she feels better, we’ll leave,” I said to Vanessa and Claire.

  “Good,” Vanessa spoke up. “I want to go to Ice-Cream Palace.”

  I was shocked. “Vanessa, give Margo a few minutes to recover. She nearly got sick.”

  Vanessa rolled her eyes. “Ice cream settles your stomach,” she said. No one believed her, and we headed for Fred’s Putt-Putt Course to watch the miniature golf.

  “Now can we go to Ice-Cream Palace?” Vanessa asked half an hour later. I’ve never known Vanessa to be so incredibly whiny.

  “I guess so,” I said. “Margo seems to be feeling better, and —” I never got a chance to finish the sentence because Vanessa raced ahead of me. What was the big deal about going to Ice-Cream Palace? (I should have known!)

  “There he is,” Vanessa said happily when we caught up with her at the Palace. She was speaking very quietly so only I could hear her. She nodded toward the counter and I saw that Chris was on duty. “I’ve left him three poems,” she said proudly.

  “You did what?”

  “I managed to come here three times since last Friday,” she whispered. “And I left him a note on the counter each time.”

  “I didn’t think you were really going to do that.” I felt awful and wished I had spent more time trying to talk Vanessa out of it.

  “I told you I was,” she said flatly. “That’s the only way for him to know how I feel about him.” She smiled. “And pretty soon, I’ll know how he feels about me.”

  Chris caught sight of us then, and to my surprise, he started a conversation with Vanessa. Could he really be interested in her? I wondered. He seemed very curious about where we lived, and how long we were staying in Sea City. In between all the questions, he managed to make four hot fudge sundaes for us, and this time, there weren’t any accidents. I noticed that his boss was keeping an eye on him, so I think he was being extra careful.

  Vanessa dawdled over her sundae forever, probably hoping to hear more from Chris, but finally it was time to leave. We were almost out the door when Chris came dashing over, wiping his hands on his apron.

  “Hey, Vanessa?” He kept his voice so low, I had to strain to hear him.

  “Yes?”

  “Do me a favor, will you?”

  “Sure!”

  “Tell Mallory I’ll be able to go out with her Saturday night.”

  Vanessa was speechless, and so was I. He was going out with Mallory on Saturday night? How in the world had this happened?

  He didn’t even know Mallory. And Mallory probably didn’t like him, so why did he think — Then it hit me. The poems! Somehow Chris had misunderstood the poems. He must have thought they were from Mallory. I struggled to remember the one that I read. Something about “an accident brought us together.” Of course! He remembered bumping heads with Mallory, so naturally he thought of her when he read that line. What a mess!

  In a crazy way, it made sense. After all, Chris is twelve, and Mal is eleven. Vanessa is only nine, and at that age there is a big difference. Chris probably thinks of Vanessa as a baby — but of Mal as a cute girl.

  I waited until we were on the boardwalk before whispering to Vanessa, “What are you going to do?”

  Vanessa shook her head, her eyes very bright. “I don’t know,” she said sadly. “How could I have been so stupid?”

  Claire interrupted us then, and we didn’t get a chance to continue the conversation. Things were really busy at the Pikes’ when we got back, and when I finally had a free moment, Mrs. Pike said Vanessa was taking a nap.

  A nap at four-thirty in the afternoon? I tiptoed upstairs and stood for a minute outside her closed door. There was no sound coming from inside, and after a moment I went back downstairs. I was very worried about Vanessa.

  It was one of those days when you are sure that nothing interesting will ever happen, and then, pow! Something zaps you right out of the blue. Jessi Ramsey was sitting for Becca and Squirt while her mother was at a job interview and her father was at work. She was happy when Charlotte Johanssen came to the door and asked if she could play with Becca. Charlotte is an only child and a favorite with the BSC members, especially Stacey. She’s one of those good-natured kids, smart with a serious, adult side to her. She and Becca get along very well together, and both have good imaginations.

  “Want to play Chutes and Ladders?” Becca asked. “Or Spill and Spell?”

  “I don’t really feel like a board game, do you?” Charlotte said, curling up on the window seat. “Let’s act out something.”

  “Okay!” Becca said eagerly. Becca loves to pretend and can imitate any animal you can name. For instance, when she’s a cat, she meows and rubs her head against your leg until you reach down and pet her. “Let’s play Candy Store,” she suggested.

  Candy Store is a game that can go on forever because Becca and Charlotte each take turns being the store owner and the customer — and they both like candy.

  “What kind of licorice twists do you have?” Jessi heard Becca ask. Charlotte was kneeling behind the coffee table, pretending it was a candy counter.

  “We have some new cherry-flavored twists,” Charlotte said, pointing to a blank spot on the coffee table. “They’re absolutely delicious. And of course we have our regular black licorice ropes. Would you like to try one? We give free samples.”

  “I can’t make up my mind,” Becca said, rubbing her chin. “I came in here because I wanted something really different.”

  “Something really different? Well, you’ve come to the right place.” Charlotte reached down under the coffee table and pretended to lift out a tray of goodies. “These just came in today.”

  “What are they?”

  “Licorice root-beer barrels! See, they’re shaped like little barrels but they taste like l
icorice.”

  “Wow, that is different.”

  Charlotte looked pleased. “We’re the only store in Stoneybrook that carries them….”

  Jessi let snatches of the girls’ conversation drift in and out of her head while she kept an eye on Squirt and read a horse story. Squirt is a pretty steady walker and the Ramseys’ house is completely baby-proofed, so she didn’t worry when he wandered out to the kitchen and didn’t come back for a few minutes.

  She kept one of his favorite children’s programs on TV, in case he decided to come back to the den and settle down with her. She liked to watch the show herself, because it had very good actors and some interesting skits. She idly watched as two little boys became friends, and then went back to her reading when they talked about the letter S.

  Soon a jingle caught her attention, and she looked up to watch a matching game. The neighborhood kids were asked to figure out which things were alike and which things were different. It was fun, and there was a lot of giggling as the kids decided that an eggbeater didn’t belong with a dog and a cat and a pig.

  “Why not?” asked the host.

  “Because it’s different,” the kids shouted.

  “And what should go with the dog and cat and pig?”

  “The goat!”

  “Why?”

  “Because those things are the same. They’re all animals.”

  “You’re absolutely right!”

  Jessi heard someone clapping enthusiastically behind her and turned to see that Squirt was sitting on the floor. “Hey, Squirt, did you like that?”

  Squirt didn’t answer. He wandered back to the kitchen then, and Jessi returned to her book. Twenty minutes later, disaster struck. Becca and Charlotte came flying into the den.

  “Jessi!” Becca cried. “Frodo’s missing!”

  Jessi jumped to her feet. “Frodo? That’s impossible. I fed him this morning and he was curled up in his cage.”

  “Not anymore,” Charlotte piped up.

  Jessi ran out to the kitchen and saw the empty cage. “Oh, no!” she wailed. She had been watching Frodo for the Pikes, and she’d been very careful with him. She knew a lot about hamsters because of Misty, and she knew that you have to keep them in their cages unless you’re changing their litter or playing with them. You can’t just let them run around the house, or they’re bound to get lost.