“Five-ten,” Kristy corrected her. “We get into L.A. at nine-thirty.”
“In the morning?” Claudia asked.
“Nope, the night.”
Claudia fiddled with her watch. She looked lost.
Soon dinner was served. We all chose “chicken cordon bleu,” which was supposed to be chicken wrapped around ham, with a white sauce.
“Tastes like a tennis ball covered with paste,” was Kristy’s restaurant review.
“I like it,” Claud said with a shrug.
I almost gave her mine. But the flight attendant passed by and smiled at us, and I didn’t want to look as if I were insulting her.
Boy, was I grateful for those brownies.
“I can’t wait to see Dawn,” Claudia said while we were finishing up.
“Me, too,” I replied. “It feels like she’s been gone for years.”
“You think she’s changed?” Kristy asked.
Claudia laughed. “You’re worried she picked up bad habits from the We Love Kids Club.”
“Hmmph,” Kristy replied. “If she has, they won’t last long.”
“Well, no matter what, she’ll still be Dawn,” I reminded them.
But I had to admit, I was wondering, too. About a lot of things. How did Dawn feel about her dad’s marriage? Would Kristy, Claudia, and I be imposing on their busy house? Would things feel different between Dawn and me? Would she change her mind about coming back to Stoneybrook?
The in-flight movie ended our conversation. It was a comedy about a dog, which we’d all seen but watched again anyway.
During the closing credits, the captain’s voice interrupted the soundtrack to tell us we were descending.
Descending? Already?
Kristy, Claudia, and I plastered our faces to the window (well, sort of). For a long time we saw nothing. I began reading a magazine. Then, just as I was about to fall asleep, Kristy screamed, “Look!”
Below us, surrounded by dark hills, was a huge valley of lights. “On behalf of the flight staff, I want to welcome you to Southern California,” the captain announced.
“Yeee-hah!” Kristy shouted. “Hoo-ray for Hollywood!”
(I love her, but she can be embarrassing.)
We fastened our belts. Our landing was a little bumpy. Then we practically had to fight to get into the aisle.
You know what? We were thousands of miles from home, but it didn’t feel different at all. I mean, an airport looks like an airport, no matter where you are.
But as we passed through the door, where a grinning flight attendant was saying good-bye, a blast of air came through a narrow opening where the ramp connected to the plane.
Warm air.
That’s when it hit me. We were there. Kristy was hopping down the ramp. Claudia was grinning from ear to ear. Me? I was numb. My winter coat felt ridiculous. I felt as if I were in The Twilight Zone.
“Hiiiiii!”
There, at the end of the ramp, was Sunshine.
That is Dawn’s nickname. It’s also a great description of her face when she smiles.
And it also tells you how I felt inside at that moment.
We ran into each other’s arms so fast we almost fell over. I had missed her so much.
Over her shoulder I could see her dad chatting with Kristy, her dad’s fiancée chatting with Claudia, and Jeff looking mildly bored.
“I am so happy you’re here!” Dawn cried.
“Me, too,” was the only thing I could say before my face turned into Niagara Falls.
Stupid, huh?
Well, I had to write something. Dawn would kill me if I didn’t.
I tried to be nice. Everybody would get mad at me if I told the truth.
Here’s what I should have said: Journals are dumb. I could wait till Dad and Carol got married, no problem. And I hate having a house full of girls.
Seriously. I cannot believe how much girls talk. They did not stop from the minute they saw each other at the airport. But first they had to go cry like babies for an hour. You’d think somebody died or something. Everyone in the whole terminal was staring at them.
What did they say to me? “Hello,” and “You got tall,” and “Do you have any girlfriends yet?” (Gag me.) That was it. Nothing else.
Then they turned right back to each other and kept talking. Forget it. They didn’t stop in the car. They didn’t stop when we went to a late night diner for dessert. They didn’t even stop in Dawn’s bedroom. That was when it got worse! I could hear them right through the walls.
How was a guy supposed to sleep?
If Dawn didn’t have to go to school the next morning, they would have talked right through the whole day.
You know what? It was the first time in my life I couldn’t wait to go to school.
You know what else? On Christmas Day I’m supposed to fly to Connecticut with Dawn and stay there during Dad’s honeymoon. Which means I’ll have to listen to all that chattering on two coasts!
I try not to think about it too much.
Anyway, after school Dawn and her friends went to a We Kids Club meeting together. When I got home, my house was totally quiet. Well, almost. Mrs. Bruen, our housekeeper, was humming to the radio as she cleaned up.
“Hey, what’s up, Jeff?” she asked as I walked into the kitchen.
“Nothing.”
Mrs. Bruen is cool. She never gets mad, and she laughs at all my jokes. Sometimes she bosses me around, but I don’t mind it that much.
I saw the journal, lying on the kitchen table. A note beside it said, WRITE IN THIS IF YOU KNOW WHAT’S GOOD FOR YOU.
“Who wrote that?” I asked.
“I did,” Mrs. Bruen said. “I’m tired of your sister bugging you about it. Make her happy, will you, honey?”
She smiled. I grumbled.
And now you know the real reason I wrote in that dumb thing.
When I finished, Mrs. Bruen was dusting in the living room. “Like the rug?” she asked. “I had it cleaned.”
We have this fancy rug — Persian or Moroccan or something — and it had gotten dirty. But now it looked great. “Wow,” I said.
To tell you the truth, the whole house looked great. Mrs. Bruen had been working overtime all week.
Why? Because of the wedding. Dad wants the house to look good for guests. He’s having a party here afterward.
If you ask me, cleaning up was a ridiculous idea. First of all, it’s an outdoor party, complete with a tent. Second, parties always leave a mess, so why not clean up after? And third, when Carol moves in, the movers are going to drag in all her furniture and stuff, right? That’ll get everything even more dusty and dirty.
Sometimes I think kids are way smarter than adults.
I sat down on the couch. I looked around.
We have a wall unit, just across from the couch. I helped Dad put it in. It was so much fun. He kept moving the TV around in it while I sat on the couch, until it was in the perfect place.
Oh, well. Now that would have to be moved, to make room for Carol’s wall unit (which is HUMONGOUS). Maybe I’d always have to watch TV on a slant. Maybe the remote wouldn’t work at that angle.
Maybe I’d walk around with my head permanently tilted to one side.
Too bad we can’t keep the house the way it is. There’s just enough stuff in it. What do we need more furniture for?
You should see Carol’s furniture. It’s ugly. She has these things called lava lamps, which look like pig embryos swimming around in colored water tanks. Her couch has an old afghan on it, which covers up all the rips. And her posters are disgusting. All this dumb-looking art with museum names underneath. Most of it is like kindergarten painting.
Plus framed pictures of Mickey Mouse in the bathroom. Even I’m too old for that.
“Mrs. Bruen, where is it all going to go?” I asked.
She stopped whistling. “What?”
“Carol’s furniture.”
“Beats me. Why? You want it all in your room?”
“No way!”
Mrs. Bruen was dusting with a feather duster. As she went past me, she did this funny little dance, dusting behind her back, shaking the duster like a tambourine, using it as a microphone.
Sometimes Mrs. Bruen cracks me up.
I got up to go to my room. Halfway there, my stomach kind of clenched up.
Mrs. Bruen. What was going to happen to her?
Dad hired Mrs. Bruen because he’s a slob (even he admits it). He didn’t used to be so bad, but he got much worse after Mom left. Now Carol was moving in. Dad might be neater again. Carol’s a good cleaner-upper herself.
We wouldn’t need Mrs. Bruen anymore. Which means Dad would have to fire her.
Send her out into the street.
Ruin her whole life.
I would never see her again. And why? All because of Carol. Carol and her pukey furniture.
Why do men have to be married anyway? Dad and Mom used to fight all the time. Dad and Carol fight. It doesn’t make sense. I mean, if you want to fight, you can just do it with your friends. Then you can go home and chill and not have to kiss and make up.
I tried not to think of this stuff. I started reading My Teacher Is an Alien, which was scary and funny. That got my mind off everything. But each time I heard Mrs. Bruen, I felt sad again.
Soon I saw Carol’s red Miata pull up into the driveway. She and Dad got out, all smiley and laughing. A minute later I heard Mrs. Bruen greet them at the door. She sounded happy, too.
Little did she know she was going to be betrayed.
I heard the thumping of footsteps, then a knock at my door.
“Little pig, little pig, let me in!” Dad said.
Ugh. He has been doing that since I was a baby! Usually I try to rank on him. I say, “Use the chimney,” or “I gave at the trough,” or something else stupid.
This time I just said, “Yeah.”
Dad turned the knob and came in. “Hey, buddy, you all right?”
“Yeah.”
“Something happen at school today?”
I shrugged. “No.”
“Mrs. Bruen try to air out your sneakers again?”
“No.”
Now Carol peeked in behind him. “Hey, Jeffers,” she said.
Jeffers? That was new. I didn’t like it.
“Hi,” I said.
“Something’s bugging Jeff,” Dad told her. He sat down on the bed next to me. “You sure you don’t want to say what it is? Something about the wedding?”
I took a deep breath. I didn’t really feel like saying anything. I especially didn’t want to talk about Mrs. Bruen when she was close enough to hear.
But I could mention the furniture. Dad was being pretty nice. And maybe I was worrying for nothing. Maybe Carol was going to sell her stuff, or give it to a charity, or to the Museum of Modern Ugliness.
“Um, when are the movers coming?” I asked.
Carol rolled her eyes. “The evening of the wedding, if you can imagine that.”
“Where’s all your stuff going to go?” I asked.
She shrugged and looked at Dad. He shrugged, too.
“We haven’t thought much about it, to tell you the truth,” he said, looking toward his room. “I suppose the dresser will fit in our bedroom.”
“It had better,” Carol said.
“What about that wall unit?” Dad asked. “We don’t really need two.”
“True,” Carol agreed.
“And I’m sure the Salvation Army will make a pickup at your house on short notice —”
Carol frowned. “My house?”
“Well, yeah,” Dad replied. “You don’t want to keep that thing, do you? I mean, it’s not very well made. And you said you’ve had it since just after college.”
“So? It’s already a period piece, sweetheart. I came of age with that wall unit. It would be like losing a part of me.”
Dad chuckled. “I lose a part of me when I clip my toenails, but —”
“Jack, did I hear you right? Did you say what I thought you said?”
“I was kidding, Carol. But —”
“Besides, your unit is smaller than mine. Maybe you could put it in Jeff’s room.”
“Yeah!” I blurted out.
Dad gave me a Look. Then he sighed and turned to Carol. “Maybe we should talk about this somewhere else.”
They said good-bye. I closed my door.
But I could hear them arguing for the next fifteen minutes or so. While Mrs. Bruen cleaned up around them.
Oh, boy. I had really started something.
I was kidding.
Well, mostly kidding. The dudes in question were the We Kids Club. That’s what Dawn and a group of baby-sitting friends call themselves.
They have meetings, sort of. They take calls, sort of. And they arrange baby-sitting jobs, sort of. Which makes them a baby-sitters club.
Sort of.
I mean, I don’t want to sound rude. They are all great people. They were really nice to me the last time I was in Palo City, and we had fun together. But a club they are not. A club has rules, officers, a dues structure, and regular meetings. A club has organization.
Take the Baby-sitters Club. Everyone participates. Jobs are filled. We always have money for whatever we need. Parents trust us to be there when they call.
The We Kids (So-Called) Club? They meet whenever they feel like it, sometimes at one member’s house, sometimes another. No one has a title, and parents can call any member, any time. What happens? Jobs get double-booked and misplaced. And parents still have to call around from sitter to sitter. Which defeats the whole idea of a club in the first place!
Once, the WKC was featured in a local TV newscast. They got a lot of publicity from that — but they were completely overwhelmed. They could not take advantage of it. If that ever happened to the BSC, whoa! We’d be prepared.
Thus speaks Chairperson Thomas.
I know, I know. I sound seriously dweeby. All my BSC friends make fun of me for being this way. But if you think about it, it makes sense.
Still don’t believe me? Okay, let me tell you about the meeting I went to. It was the day after Claudia, Mary Anne, and I had arrived in California. We had been awake almost the whole night before, gabbing. Then we got up and had a Dawn-style breakfast — whole-wheat vegetable pancakes with sprouts. (Yes, I am serious, and no, it did not make me barf.) Claudia, Mary Anne, and I visited Dawn in school for awhile (the school allows that). Afterward, we hung out in the school courtyard with Dawn’s best California friend, Sunny Winslow.
Then we heard, “Kristy T.! M.A.! Claudi-o!”
It was Maggie, with brand-new nicknames for us. We all hugged and said hi.
“You look sensational!” Claudia said to Maggie.
She did, too. Her hair was in dreadlocks. Two of them were dyed red and green. She was wearing this crazy neon-patterned jumpsuit, under a tailored cotton jacket with padded shoulders. I’d never seen anything like it before.
The next thing I knew, Dawn was pulling me toward the front of the school, shouting, “Wait!”
We all ran to the line of school buses. Jill Henderson was starting to climb onto one of them. When she saw us, she jumped back down. “Hi!”
“Hi, Jill!” I exclaimed.
More hugs and kisses, “You look greats,” news, gossip, blah blah blah.
Then Sunny suggested a meeting of the We Kids Club.
“Well, Claudia and Mary Anne and I have to get home and help with the wedding,” Dawn explained.
“Just for a few minutes,” Sunny insisted. “Then you guys can leave.”
“Come on,” Maggie pleaded.
“Please please please,” Jill said.
Dawn looked at us and shrugged. “Okay.”
Boom. The We Kids Club was about to meet. Just like that. No planning, no nothing.
Kristy, be nice, I told myself. I was not going to roll my eyes. I was not going to lecture them. I was going to be mature. Accepting.
“Great,” was all I said.
Sunny shot me a Look. “Uh-oh,” she murmured. Then she cleared her throat and announced, “I hereby move for the official holding of a special meeting.”
“I second!” Dawn piped up.
Jill raised her hand. “I third!”
“You guys.” I couldn’t help laughing.
“You know, Kristy,” Sunny explained, “we have been holding regular meetings lately … more or less.”
“Uh-huh, that’s cool,” I replied. Coolly.
I was well-behaved on the walk to Sunny’s house, which is in Dawn’s neighborhood. When we got there, Dawn, Maggie, and Jill called home to tell their parents where they were.
We watched a video of the WKC’s TV appearance, then rewound and replayed it again and again. Each time we found something different to laugh about.
Then Sunny said, “Dawn, guess what? Mom got some packs of dried fruit and this fantastic yogurt trail mix.”
“Mmm,” Dawn yummed.
Ho hum, thought my belly. (The entire We Kids Club likes health food. I’m sorry, but nuts and dried fruits are not my idea of a snack. Give me Goobers, chocolate pudding, or Triscuits any day.)
“Want to get it, Dawn?” Sunny asked. “It’s all in the kitchen cupboards by the fridge.”
“Okay,” Dawn said.
“And, um, maybe something to drink? Oh. And there’s this great fifteen-grain bread —”
“Uh, Sunny, I only have two hands,” Dawn said.
Sunny gave a little, high-pitched laugh. “Right. Sorry.” She had this wide, plastic grin on her face as Dawn left.
I’d met Sunny before, but I didn’t remember her being so strange. Maybe eating all that health food did it to her.
As Dawn went downstairs, Sunny ran to the door and closed it. “Did I sound too obvious?” she whispered.
We looked at her with a group Duh.
“Guess what?” Sunny practically squealed. “I’ve planned a surprise going-away party for her on Sunday!”
“But she’s not leaving until next week,” I said.
“I know,” Sunny replied. “And she’ll be too crazy with last-minute stuff. Besides, you guys are leaving soon, right? And I want you to be there.”
“Cool!” Maggie said.
“Who’s coming?” Jill asked.