Baby-Sitters' Winter Vacation

  Mary Anne shrugged. Her head had been in the clouds all week.

  “Kids,” I said. “I hate to disappoint you, but we have time for just one number. I was thinking you could put on a skit. Everyone could be in it.”

  “What kind of skit?” asked Pinky dubiously.

  “Well …” I paused. The kids would probably think a fairy tale would be too babyish. But maybe — “How would you like to put on a skit about your school in Maine and your teachers? You know, you could be the teachers. You could be mean and order people around and complain about the way children behave in the cafeteria.”

  The kids’ eyes lit up. A chance to get back at their teachers!

  “Yeah!” cried fifteen voices.

  The sixteenth voice said, “No way.” That was Pinky. “We’ll get in trouble. Miss Weber and Mr. Dougherty will see us!”

  “Oh, they’ll think it’s funny,” I said. “They’ll understand.”

  “Will not.”

  “Will too. So that’s settled. We’ll parody Conway Cove Elementary.”

  The kids cheered, except for Pinky, who narrowed her eyes at me. I narrowed mine back. Pinky was just going to have to accept that black or not, I was in charge.

  “She is so prejudiced,” I said to Mal later.

  But for once, Mal didn’t agree with me. “I really don’t think that’s the problem this time,” she told me.

  But I knew better.

  “Rise and shine!” called Kristy cheerfully from her bed. “Time to get up.”

  I sat up and hit my head on the bottom of Pinky’s bunk.

  “Hey!” she cried.

  Claudia crawled sleepily out of her top bunk, stepping on Stacey’s hand on the way down.

  “Ow!” exclaimed Stacey.

  Oh. So it was going to be one of those mornings.

  My friends and I got dressed silently, except for occasional strained, polite conversation. Mary Anne and I were barely speaking, I was mad at Kristy, and Kristy and Claudia seemed pretty testy, too. Only Mal and Jessi were acting normal. Even Stacey seemed a little funny — all day dreamy. Spacey Stacey.

  Mary Anne and I headed for the bathroom (after the boys had finished dressing), and reached the door at the same time.

  “After you,” I said coldly.

  “Oh, no. After you.” Mary Anne held the door open for me.

  “Thank you very much.”

  “YOU’RE WELCOME!”

  “Would you guys tone it down?” hissed Claudia, who was behind us. “You’re making the kids nervous. What’s with you, anyway?”

  “Nothing,” said Mary Anne and I at the same time.

  Claudia raised her eyebrows. “Really?”

  “Oh, all right. You forced me to say it. She’s a sappy jerk,” I said, pointing to Mary Anne.

  “I am? What about you?”

  “SHHH!” Claud closed the door to the bathroom, calling over her shoulder, “We’ll be out in a minute. The bathroom’s off limits.” Then she looked at us. “Well?”

  “Well, nothing,” I said.

  “Yeah,” agreed Mary Anne.

  “Look, you two are best friends. Best friends do not call each other ‘sappy jerks.’” She paused.

  Neither Mary Anne nor I said anything.

  Claud sighed. “Okay. I guess the fight isn’t any of my business. But would you please try to act civil in front of the kids? They’ve been through a lot this week and they really look up to us.”

  “You’re right,” I agreed. “Okay.”

  “Yeah,” said Mary Anne.

  So breakfast that morning went something like this:

  Me: Mary Anne, could I please have the butter?

  Mary Anne: Certainly. And enjoy it.

  Me: Thank you ever so much.

  Mary Anne: You are ever so welcome.

  Kristy looked at us as if our heads were on backwards. Nevertheless, she was all business that morning. Shortly before breakfast ended, she stood up to make her usual morning announcement:

  “The snowball fight will be held this afternoon from two until three. Remember, you can build forts and shelters, lay in supplies of ammunition — which means snowballs only, no slushballs — and the object of the fight is for one team to capture the other team’s red or blue tennis ball that the team captains will have at the beginning of the fight, and which, by the way, must be hidden in the snow or a fort, not on a person.

  “Please use the morning for ski practice or another practice snowball fight if you intend to participate in the remaining events.”

  Kristy sat down, looking flushed, and Jessi immediately stood up.

  “One more thing,” she said. “We’ll be rehearsing for Talent Night from ten to twelve in the grand ballroom this morning. Anyone in the show must be at rehearsal.”

  I felt like a real dud. I wasn’t going to be in Jessi’s show and I just couldn’t bring myself to practice for the snowball fight or the ski competitions. Not after what had happened the day before. And that wasn’t like me. I am not a quitter. I like to think I have a tough skin. After all, I survived my parents’ messy marriage followed by their messy divorce, our move from California to Connecticut, my brother’s move back to California, and the Trip-Man — that jerk of a boyfriend Mom went out with before she began seeing Mary Anne’s father seriously.

  When breakfast was over, I hurried out of the dining hall, leaving the BSC members and the Conway Cove kids behind. I just didn’t feel like being with any of them. They all knew something was wrong and if they’d asked what it was, I was now so upset that I probably would have burst into tears and made a big scene.

  Once I’d escaped from the dining room, though, I wasn’t quite sure what to do with myself. I was about to head into the library to look for a book of ghost stories (my favorite way to escape) when someone tapped my arm and said, “Hey, Dawn.”

  I turned around. It was Dori Wallingford, a girl I sometimes hang around with. “Hi,” I said, trying not to look depressed.

  “Hi,” she replied. “Emily and I and a couple of other kids decided to play Monopoly all morning.” (Dori is very cool, but as unathletic as Mary Anne. She doesn’t take part in the Winter War.) “Want to play? It’s so yucky outside — freezing cold and really windy. We’re going to play at that table by the fireplace.”

  “Well … sure,” I replied, thinking that it would be pretty hard to humiliate myself playing Monopoly. The only thing I could fall off of was my chair, and that was unlikely.

  True. But I soon found that there were other ways in which to humiliate myself — like landing in jail on practically every turn and then taking forever to get out. And consistently landing on the two properties on which Dori had built hotels. It wasn’t long before I was entirely out of money.

  “Gosh, I’ve never seen anyone lose so fast,” said Dori.

  I know she didn’t intend to be mean, but her words caused something to be unleashed from deep inside me. I had this feeling that I was going to cry, so since I was bankrupt anyway, I excused myself and made a run for the first-floor bathroom. I hoped fervently that it would be empty.

  It wasn’t. Pinky was there. And she was crying. She was just sitting on the windowsill, her face in her hands, weeping as if her heart would break. When I saw her, I forgot all about needing to cry myself.

  “Pinky!” I exclaimed. “What’s wrong? Did something happen? Are you sick? Did you hurt your foot again?” (I was amazed at how much I sounded like my mother.)

  “No,” replied Pinky, sniffling. She wouldn’t look at me, but she didn’t seem angry, just sad.

  “Are you lonely?” I asked.

  Pinky shrugged.

  “You can go out and play or skate or ski, you know. The doctor said it would be okay today.”

  “I know.”

  “Don’t you want to?”

  Pinky shrugged again.

  I had an idea about what was wrong. Since I didn’t want to embarrass Pinky, I said, “I’ll tell you something. I feel a little like
crying, too. And you know why?”

  Pinky finally looked at me. “Why?”

  “Because I’m homesick.”

  “Really? You are? I guess I am, too.”

  “Oh.” I nodded.

  “I’ve never been away from home before,” said Pinky in a rush. “But I’ve always been — what’s the word? You know — I’m not afraid of anything. I go skateboarding fast, and I help my dad with his fishing business. I can steer the boat and I bring in lobster traps, too. And I’m in Little League in Conway Cove. I can do anything. But as soon as I got here, away from home, I felt like a baby. And now everyone has seen me act like a baby and I have to face my friends in school on Monday.”

  Wow. Well, that certainly explained a few things. Pinky was trying to cover up her fears by being overly bold. Only she came off as bossy and bratty, as nasty and uncooperative. I’d seen the other kids ignore her or leave her out. And I knew she’d been giving Jessi a hard time. Funny what being away from home can do to you.

  And then I thought — maybe that’s my problem, too. Oh, I’d been away from home plenty of times before. (And where was home, anyway? California? Connecticut? Both places?) But I wasn’t used to being away with my entire school — with all the kids I’d have to see day in and day out for the rest of the year. When I came to Leicester Lodge in seventh grade, I’d just moved here and hardly anyone knew me, so I didn’t care what the other kids thought of me. And when I went to Camp Mohawk, I knew I wouldn’t see most of those kids again, except maybe for two weeks the following summer. But now if I made a fool of myself at the lodge, I’d have to live with it for the rest of the year.

  Suddenly I leaned over and gave Pinky a hug. “Thank you,” I said.

  “For what?” Pinky actually smiled.

  “For teaching me a lesson.” It was something I was going to have to think about and deal with later — I wasn’t as independent or as much of an individual as I’d thought. I would talk to Mom about it when I got home.

  “Come on, Pinky,” I said. “Let’s go. I bet Curtis will make us some of his special hot chocolate.”

  I was so surprised at lunchtime today. The last I’d seen of Dawn was at breakfast, when we’d had stupid, mean exchanges about butter and needing napkins and stuff. But when we met outside the dining hall at twelve-thirty, Dawn put her hand on my arm and said, “Mary Anne, let’s talk, okay? Please?”

  I almost said something really rude, but Dawn looked so earnest that I just replied, “Okay.”

  “We can go to our dorm,” Dawn went on. “I don’t think anyone will be up there.”

  She was right.

  Dawn sat on her bunk and patted the blanket beside her, so I sat next to her. “Mary Anne,” she began, “I want to say that I’m really sorry about the way I’ve been acting. I think I know what got into me. And I know what got into you, too — Logan. You miss him, and I should have been more understanding. But what you didn’t know was how I was feeling.”

  “How you were feeling?” I asked.

  Dawn nodded. Then she told me about her conversation with Pinky.

  “Oh, Dawn,” I said, and I could feel my eyes filling with tears. Why do I have to cry over every little thing? “I should have been more sympathetic. I’m really sorry. All I could think about was Logan and me.”

  “Well, that’s okay,” Dawn replied, and her eyes filled with tears.

  “No, it isn’t.” My tears spilled over.

  “Yes, it is.” Dawn’s spilled over, too.

  We were laughing and crying at the same time. Then I held my arms open and we hugged.

  “Uh-oh,” I said after a moment. “Lunch has started. We better get ourselves downstairs.”

  “Oh, we can be a few minutes late. There’s something I have to do first.”

  “What?” I asked.

  “This.” Dawn ripped her blankets and sheets off of the bunk under Pinky’s and moved them under mine again. “There. Everything’s back to normal. Now we can go to lunch.”

  So we did.

  I was so glad that Dawn and I weren’t fighting anymore.

  * * *

  But soon lunch was over, the snowball fight had started (Dawn found the courage to join it, which made me very proud of her), and I found myself in the common room, alone with my book for Logan. I longed to talk to one of my friends, but Mal, Kristy, Dawn, and Claudia were in the fight; Jessi was in the grand ballroom with Ms. Halliday, preparing for the show; and I didn’t know where Stacey was. She’d been pretty scarce ever since Tuesday morning.

  So I opened a notebook and started a letter to Logan, in Aruba:

  I paused. Maybe I was going a little overboard. I didn’t want Logan to think I wanted to marry him or something. So I turned to a blank page and started another letter:

  Well, that was pretty dumb. That was the kind of card you would send when you’d gone to some dinky tourist trap and were writing to someone you barely knew, like an eighty-five-year-old great-aunt who has blue hair and stuffs Kleenex up her sleeves.

  I looked over my letters to Logan. I knew I wasn’t even going to send them, so I just sat and thought. When I was finally able to drag my mind away from Logan, I mentally went over the skit that the Conway Cove kids were going to put on. I decided it would have to be changed. It was too … I don’t know … juvenile. And it was kind of clichéd. It had been done a thousand times before. The kids should do something really original.

  I put my pen in my mouth. Then I took it out and began scribbling ideas for a new sketch. It was all about a girl who was breaking up with her boyfriend. Kara, who was sophisticated for her age, and also one of the older girls, would be perfect for the female lead. She was sort of a feminist anyway, so she’d be apt to get riled up when she thought her boyfriend treated her unfairly. And Ian, who had strict ideas about what boys and girls can and can’t do, would be great for Kara’s chauvinist boyfriend.

  I wrote and wrote and wrote. When I thought the play was pretty polished, I ran into the grand ballroom with it.

  “Jessi!” I called.

  Jessi was gathering props with Ms. Halliday, but she ran over to me.

  “Hi!” she said. “What’s up?”

  “I’ve rewritten the sketch for the little kids. I think it’ll be much more appealing to the audience. What do you think?”

  Jessi took the script from me and read it in silence. She pursed her lips. Then she put her hand over her mouth. I could see her dimples, though, which meant she was smiling. But when she removed her hand, she looked like our regular old Jessi.

  “Um, Mary Anne,” she began, “this skit is — is good. Honest, it is. But I’m not sure it’s right for the kids. Besides, they love the idea of making fun of their teachers, and anyway, they’ve already learned the first skit. They don’t have time to learn a new one. The talent show will be just a few hours from now.”

  “You’re right. I didn’t think of that,” I replied, feeling a little foolish. “Sorry I interrupted you.”

  “Hey, no problem. I’m glad you’re so interested in the show.”

  “Is there anything I can do to help you?” I asked.

  Jessi looked thoughtful. “I guess not right now,” she answered after a moment. “But I’ll need you at rehearsal.”

  “Okay,” I replied.

  I wandered back out to the common room and sat down with my notebook. I looked over the information I’d gathered on the lodge and Hooksett Crossing. I actually had a fair amount. I’d be able to write the essay without any trouble as soon as I got home.

  So I began yet another letter to Logan. I had gotten as far as, “Dear Logan, light of my life,” when a man behind the check-in desk said loudly, “Is there a Mary Anne Spier here? A Mary Anne Spier?”

  I stood up, startled. “I’m Mary Anne Spier,” I told him.

  “Oh, good. I tried your dorm and there was no answer, so I thought I’d page you. I’m glad you’re here. I’ve got a long-distance phone call for you.”

  A long-di
stance call? For me? I was amazed. As far as I knew, no other kid from SMS had gotten a call here except for nerdy Alvin Hopper. His mother had phoned to make sure he was taking his allergy pills. No one could believe it. I hated to be placed in the same league as wheezy Alvin.

  But then something occurred to me. A long-distance call could only be from one person — my father. And he wouldn’t phone unless there was an emergency. Right away, I was sure something was wrong. My mind began racing:

  Dad had had a heart attack and was in the hospital.

  Dad had been in a car accident.

  Our house had burned down.

  Tigger had been hit by a car.

  I wished Dawn were there to hold my hand while I took the call, but I knew I would have to be brave and handle the situation myself.

  I took the phone gingerly from the desk clerk and faced into a corner so no one would see me when I started to cry.

  “Hello, Dad?” I said.

  “Mary Anne?” ventured the voice on the other end of the line. “This is Logan.”

  “LOGAN?!” I screeched. Then I remembered where I was and lowered my voice. “Logan! Where are you? I can’t believe it’s you!”

  “Well, it is. And I’m down here in Aruba. How are you? I’ve been thinking about you day and night.”

  “Oh, me, too. I mean, I’ve been thinking about you. How’s Aruba?”

  “Fine, but I miss you.”

  “You do?”

  “Of course. Don’t you miss me?”

  “Oh, yes. I can’t tell you how much. So what are you doing? What’s the weather like? Have you met any nice gi — any nice people?”

  “A few. There’s this family from Piscataway, New Jersey, in the room next to ours. They have a girl —”

  “A girl?” I gasped.

  “— exactly Hunter’s age.”

  I sighed with relief. Hunter is Logan’s little brother.

  “What’s going on at the lodge?” Logan continued. “I’m having fun here, but I kind of wish I were with you guys in Vermont.”

  “Oh, Logan, you won’t believe what’s happened this week.” I told him about the two bus accidents and the children from Maine. I told him about my fight with Dawn, about Claudia and Kristy’s ski war, and about the talent show. “Plus,” I went on, “we’re supposed to get a huge storm here tonight. We might even get snowed in.”