Kristy + Bart = ?

  “Yeah, but if you feel like you’re being forced to bat, you’re not going to do well. Or enjoy it. Right?”

  “Yup,” I said. “You have to want it. That’s rule number one.”

  “Do you want it?” Mary Anne asked.

  “Want what?”

  “Want Bart to be your boyfriend?”

  “I don’t know! That’s what I’m trying to say!”

  “Because if you’re not ready, you’re not ready, Kristy. Ten, thirteen, fifteen, thirty — it doesn’t matter what age. Nobody should do anything that doesn’t feel right. Ever.”

  I was about to talk, but the words caught in my throat.

  All the tangles and knots in my head were loosening up. Unraveling.

  Mary Anne was right. The funny thing was, she wasn’t telling me anything I didn’t already know.

  But somehow, I needed to hear it from someone else.

  “Kristy? You really should talk to Bart,” Mary Anne said softly.

  “I know,” I replied. “I will. Thanks, Mary Anne. You’ve been a big help.”

  Even as I hung up, I was thinking of the words I was going to say to Bart.

  It was going to be the hardest conversation of my life.

  No comment.

  Claudia can think whatever she wants. She’s entitled.

  Even when she’s wrong.

  I suppose I should explain. Claudia sat for Jenny Prezzioso on Sunday, the day after my long talk with Mary Anne.

  Sitting for the Prezziosos can be a trying experience. Don’t misunderstand me. I don’t mean to put them down. I love all our clients. I treat them equally and never play favorites.

  Well, I try as hard as I can. But let’s face it, some families make it a little bit harder than others.

  Claudia wore a bowling shirt with the name Ralph sewn over the front pocket, and matching loose rayon pants, gathered at the waist with a leather strip. She’d pinned her hair with a barrette in the shape of two bowling pins.

  Mrs. Prezzioso greeted her with a weird expression at the front door. “Are you in a league?” she asked.

  At first Claudia didn’t know what she was talking about. “A what? Oh, my clothes? No, it’s just, you know, a look.”

  “I love it,” Mrs. P. said with a tone of voice she might have used if Claud were wearing a cheese jumpsuit. “How … retro.”

  She smiled, adjusting the pleats on her brand-new wool skirt.

  I have never seen Jenny’s parents look casual. You’d think they lived in a TV commercial. (Actually, Jenny’s baby sister, Andrea, has been in commercials. She’s a professional model.)

  Mr. and Mrs. Prezzioso talked with Claudia awhile. They all cooed over Andrea, who was in a playpen by the living room piano.

  Then, as Mr. and Mrs. P. left, they called good-bye to Jenny.

  “ ’Bye …” answered a tiny, glum voice from the other side of the living room.

  Claud looked around. She noticed one of the sofa cushions was out of place. Two feet were poking out the side.

  “Hiding?” Claudia asked.

  “Did you bring a Kid-Kit?” was Jenny’s greeting.

  “Well, no,” Claudia said. “I thought you and some of the other kids might want to set some records.”

  The sofa cushion fell to the floor. Jenny sat up, arms folded. “Go home and get it!”

  Claudia laughed. “You don’t sound too happy.”

  “I hate setting records. It’s boring!”

  “Okay. We can think of other things to do.”

  But Jenny wasn’t finished. “We’re too little for records. All the big kids set records!”

  “Jenny, who’s ‘we’?” Claudia asked.

  “Me and Jamie. And Claire. But she’s five.”

  Claudia had read Stacey’s notebook entry from Tuesday. She remembered that Jenny and Jamie had been frustrated with the older kids. And I had told her that Andrew had been in a funk since Saturday. (He had taken his long-jump defeat hard, and afterward Linny broke his spaghetti-sucking record.)

  “It’s not fair, is it?” Claudia said. “All those big kids hogging the records.”

  “Yeah!”

  Claudia sat silently for a moment. Jenny can be moody and cranky, and the last thing Claudia wanted to do was spend the afternoon taking orders from a four-year-old.

  “Why don’t we set some records of our own?” she finally asked.

  “I said no!”

  “Without any big kids,” Claudia pressed on. “A special day just for four-year-olds records. We’ll see if Jamie wants to do it, too.”

  Jenny thought about it for a moment. “Four and five,” she said. “So Claire can come, too.”

  “Great. We’ll ask her parents if she can come over.”

  Claudia bundled Andrea up and put her in a stroller. Then she helped Jenny into a warm coat.

  The moment they stepped outside, Jenny was twitchy with excitement. “If I sit on your shoulders, I can throw a potato ten miles!”

  “Let’s stick to things the big kids wouldn’t try to challenge.”

  Jenny giggled. “Silly, they wouldn’t sit on your shoulders!”

  Well, Claud was in luck. Mr. and Mrs. Pike were happy to let Claire out. Ditto with the Newtons and Jamie.

  On the way back to Jenny’s house, the kids all started singing at the top of their lungs. First the Barney song, about twenty times. Then “Rubber Ducky.” Then “Captain Vegetable.”

  On Jenny’s front lawn, they acted out silly versions of Mary Poppins songs, such as “I Love to Burp,” instead of “I Love to Laugh.”

  Claudia sat on the stoop, laughing. Beside her in the stroller, Andrea stared, fascinated.

  They were so cute, Claudia thought. Free and happy, doing stuff the older kids would just roll their eyes at.

  Blink. The lightbulb in Claudia’s head popped on.

  “Who’s ready for a speed-singing event?” she called out.

  “Meeeeeee!”

  “Okay, when I count to three, everybody sing the Barney song as fast as you can.” Claudia pulled back her coat sleeve and looked at her watch. “One … two … three!”

  “Iloveyouyoulovemerabblefrabbafamawama,” a babble of voices rang out. Then screams of “I finished first!” and “No, I did!” and “You cheated!”

  Oops.

  “Rule change!” Claudia called out. “We better do this one at a time.”

  (I could have told her that from the start.)

  She timed them separately. Jenny won. Then she timed three more speed-singing songs, until each kid won.

  Afterward Claudia had to change Andrea’s diaper, so everyone went inside. Claire and Jenny began playing catch with one of Andrea’s plastic diapers.

  That was when Claire had her brainstorm. “A diaper toss!” she squealed. “Longest throw wins!”

  “Yaaaaaay!”

  Funny. All Claudia could think about was Dawn Schafer. Dawn is incredibly environmentally conscious. She always hated the idea of disposable diapers. Wasting them for a game? She’d have a fit.

  Quietly, as if Dawn were listening, Claud said, “Okay, but we’ll use only one.”

  The diaper toss was a big success. You had to throw it just right, or it would open and fan out.

  Next was the Cookie Monster stuffed doll catch.

  And the Thomas the Tank Engine train race on parallel Brio tracks (an indoor event).

  And the longest K’nex contraption that didn’t fall apart of its own weight.

  Claudia recorded every event. She knew none of the big kids would go near these records.

  Boy, was Claud proud of herself. She called me that night to suggest that Andrew might want to participate in the same sort of thing.

  Which I had intended anyway.

  But I was still grateful.

  “READY?” I asked through my bullhorn.

  Next to me, Stacey leaped about a foot off the picnic bench. “Can’t you warn me, Kristy?”

  “Yaaaaay!” shouted Linny, Bi
ll, Vanessa, and David Michael, as they lined up at one end of Mary Anne’s backyard.

  It was Tuesday afternoon, and we were having our first rehearsal for the Record Wreckers show. All the kids had shown up, wild with excitement.

  The show was going to happen that Saturday. Why so soon? Because the kids were dying of anticipation, for one thing. Also because it was the only day Mary Anne’s yard was free.

  Which meant we had four days to send invitations, rehearse the show, and write the book.

  Stacey had been busily collating all our looseleaf sheets (except for Bart’s, which he still had). Her job was to figure out a format for the book, and Mary Anne was to type it and print it on her parents’ computer.

  I waited until Stacey’s hands were over her ears. Then I shouted into the bullhorn: “GET SET … SPIN!”

  Vanessa began twirling across the yard. The rest of the kids cheered as loudly as they could. Except Linny. He was staring skeptically.

  “That shouldn’t count!” Linny said as she crossed the finish line. “I could do much better than that!”

  Vanessa smirked at him. “Linny, Linny, don’t be a ninny!”

  “Hey, unsportsmanlike conduct!” Linny shot back. “She should be disqualified, the little nerd!”

  Mary Anne, the great peacemaker, ran over to break up the fight. The other kids were gathering around us, shouting all at once:

  “Potato throw next!”

  “No, the skateboard toilet paper event!”

  “Longest burp!”

  “Backward jump!”

  I gave Stacey a Look. I think we were both wondering why on Earth we’d ever agreed to do this.

  Okay, maybe I was exaggerating. It wasn’t as chaotic as it seemed. We had written out a rough order of events, which Stacey calmly began reading aloud. And the yard was beginning to look fantastic. Mallory and Claudia had made these cool signs, each showing a word in bold, comic-book-style neon letters. OUTRAGEOUS and DEATH-DEFYING were already hung, and Claudia was putting up STUPENDIST and HARE-RAISING.

  I could see Mallory whispering something gently into Claudia’s ear. Claudia looked crushed. (But hey, that’s what rehearsals are for, right?) Claud began to take down those last two signs.

  Now Vanessa was approaching me with this anxious expression on her face. “Kristy, what happens if you don’t match the world’s record? Do you have to keep repeating the event until you do?”

  “It’s just a demonstration,” I patiently explained.

  “But what if you do break it? The book will already be finished!”

  “We’ll do another printing,” I said. “It’s a living book.”

  Vanessa scampered back to the other kids. “Yyyyyyes!”

  “Living book?” muttered Stacey.

  “Yeah, I just made that up,” I replied. “Sounds good, huh?”

  She let out a guffaw and went back to work. (Like I said, I get no respect.)

  Jessi came bounding out the door. She’d been inside, at the Spiers’ kitchen table, writing invitations to the show. “How do you spell Ohdner?” she asked.

  Mary Anne called out the answer.

  “Don’t you have the BSC record book in there?” I asked.

  “Yup.” Jessi shrugged. “It just didn’t look right.”

  “I can spell Prezzioso!” Jenny chimed in. “P-R-E —”

  All at once, all the kids began spelling their names aloud.

  And another event was born — speed-spelling!

  At this rate, we were on track for a record of our own: World’s Longest World’s Record Show.

  * * *

  The truth? I didn’t want the rehearsal to end. Because afterward I had a much tougher project.

  I had vowed to call Bart that night.

  No, I had not done it yet. Yes, three days had passed since I’d talked to Mary Anne about it.

  “Zounds!” you may be saying. Or maybe “Gadzooks!” Kristy Thomas, too chicken to call Bart Taylor?

  Cluck, cluck, cluck, cluck.

  What can I say? I tried to call Bart four times on Sunday. But each time, I hung up before the call went through. I could feel myself clam up. I was afraid I’d open my mouth and say “Abbadabbadabba.”

  So Sunday night I called Mary Anne again, and she suggested writing everything down in advance. Which, of course, took the rest of the evening.

  I was all set to call him Monday, until I read what I’d written. I decided to revise it.

  Now, on Tuesday, it was time. No more beating around the bush. Like it or not, Bart was a part of my life. He was surely going to be at the show. And he had asked me to the April Fools’ Day Dance the next week. I had to let him know where I stood.

  I took out my speech and set it by the phone. Then I gritted my teeth and called.

  “Hello?”

  Bart’s voice. My teeth felt glued together. Which was probably the only reason my heart didn’t jump right out of my mouth.

  “Who’s this?” Bart said.

  I picked up my speech and read aloud:

  “ ‘Hi, Bart, how’s it going?’ ”

  “Kristy? Hi!” The hi was more a squeak than a word. He cleared his throat and tried again. “I mean, hi. Listen, I’m sorry. I don’t know what I said to upset you, but I didn’t mean to —”

  “ ‘I realize I hung up on you and that was rude,’ ” I read.

  “That’s okay. I’m just not sure I —”

  “ ‘So I would like to clarify my position in terms of my feelings and in regard to the breakage of the house rule which you already know about. First of all, I have and will like you in the sense of being a friend, but I felt that the pressure which I was feeling from you was changing the way that I conceived of our friendship but maybe not in the direction that it was meant to happen in my own mind, and not in the sense of measuring up to what you expected in terms of me being a girlfriend or not.’ ”

  There. I had said it.

  Bart didn’t respond for awhile. I let my words hang for a moment, let him weigh it all out, catch the full impact.

  “Kristy,” he finally said, “could you run that by me again?”

  “Ba-art!” I cried.

  “Well, it sounded as if you were reading from a textbook or something. I’m not sure what you said.”

  So much for writing my feelings out. I let the paper fall to the floor. “What I meant was, I had some time to think about what happened. I’m not mad at you anymore, Bart. I know you didn’t mean to cause trouble. I mean, you want me to be your girlfriend, and that’s not so bad. You’re a great guy and all, and I’m glad you like me so much. And I like you, too, really. Just not the same way.”

  “Well, how do you like me?” Bart asked.

  “Look, I’m not ready to be what you want me to be, that’s all,” I pushed on. “I know it sounds weird, because we’ve been going out and kissing and stuff, but I always thought of us as just buds. Pals. That’s why it didn’t even occur to me that I was doing something wrong that night.”

  “So you want to —”

  “It’s just that different people mature at different rates,” I quickly continued. “Sort of like learning to walk. Some do it at nine months, some at fifteen. You just can’t push certain things. I was feeling pushed by you. First I was angry at you, and then I was angry at myself for not seeing what was happening between us. Now I do see. Anyway, Bart Man, everything’s cool. I’m not saying I don’t want to see you or I hate you. I just want things to stay on the friend level, that’s all. Okay? Oh, and Bart?”

  “Uh-huh?”

  “I have a lot of stuff to do for the show this week. At school tomorrow, can you give Shannon the Record Wreckers sheets you have, so she can bring them to the BSC meeting?”

  “Uh, sure. But —”

  “Thanks, Bart Man. I’m glad we had the chance to talk. See you at the show.”

  Click.

  The moment I hung up, I felt as if a sack of cement had been lifted from my shoulders.

&nbs
p; Finally, things with Bart could return to normal.

  “Is everybody ready?” Mary Anne asked.

  She had gathered us in her kitchen for brunch. It was Saturday morning, and the show was to begin at noon, which was only two hours away.

  The week had been crazy. We’d had another rehearsal on Thursday, but during it, so many kids broke existing records that all the participants wanted to set new records.

  I enjoyed the bustle, though. I was in such a great mood now that Bart and I had worked things out.

  Bart, by the way, had handed his record sheets to Shannon at Stoneybrook Day School. Shannon had given them to Mary Anne, who had carefully collated them with the others. All week long she had slaved away at the final version of the Record Wreckers book, using all kinds of fancy computer software.

  Up until Saturday, though, none of the rest of us had seen it.

  We watched as Mary Anne set a cardboard box on the table and opened it.

  Inside was a humongous book. On the cover, gold-stenciled letters spelled out Record Wreckers: The BSC Book of Kids’ Wild, Wacko, Off-the-Wall Records. “Ta-da!” Mary Anne sang.

  “Who-o-o-oa!” Stacey gasped.

  “It’s so cool!” gushed Claudia.

  “Unbelievable!” added Jessi.

  Shannon, Logan, Mallory, and Abby all put in their oohs and aahs.

  “What do you think, Kristy?” Mary Anne asked.

  “Nice,” I said.

  Mary Anne looked concerned. “Is something wrong?”

  I shrugged. “I just thought it was supposed to be the Thomas book of records.”

  “Aauuugh!” Abby groaned.

  Claudia beaned me with a chocolate croissant.

  I have to admit, it really was gorgeous. Basically it was a fancy photo album, with removable cardboard three-hole pages, each hole bound with a little bendable brass thingy. Each page was covered with a plastic protector that a paper sheet could be slipped into.

  The sheets themselves listed the records in all kinds of bold fonts, with crazy little computer pictures around the edges — a locomotive for the Brio train race, a singing face for the speed-singing event, stuff like that.

  “I love it!” I said with a grin. “Really. Now let’s get to work!”