Mary Anne Saves the Day

  “A hundred and four!”

  “Yes. I couldn’t believe it, either. So I called her doctor, but I only got his answering service. Then I started calling neighbors, trying to find someone who could drive us to the doctor or the hospital, but no one was home —”

  “Including me,” added Dad.

  “Including you. And including Dawn’s mother. But Dawn came over, and she suggested dialing nine-one-one, so I did, and I explained everything to the man who answered, and he sent an ambulance over.

  “You know,” I went on, “now that I think about this afternoon, I’m surprised at everything I remembered to do. I remembered to call the gym in Chatham that the Prezziosos were driving to, so they could be paged to come home; I remembered all the instructions the man told me over the phone; and I remembered to lock the Prezziosos’ front door as we left with the ambulance attendants.”

  Dad smiled at me. “Mrs. Prezzioso said she was proud of you.”

  “So did her husband,” I added.

  “And so am I,” said Dad.

  “You are?”

  “Very.”

  “Thanks,” I said.

  Dad sighed.

  “What is it?”

  “You’re growing up,” he said, as if it was some sort of revelation to him. “Right before my eyes.”

  “Well, I am twelve.”

  “I know. But twelve means different things for different people. It’s like clothes. You can put a certain shirt on one person and he looks fabulous. Then you put the shirt on someone else and that person looks awful. It’s the same way with age. It depends on how you wear it or carry it.”

  “You mean some twelve-year-olds are ready to date, and other twelve-year-olds still need babysitters?”

  “Exactly.”

  “But isn’t that a double standard?” I asked.

  “No, just the opposite. An example of a double standard would be that just because a boy or girl had turned fourteen he or she would automatically be encouraged to date, no matter how mature he or she was — but absolutely no thirteen-year-old would be encouraged to do so.”

  “Oh … Am I …” I hardly dared to ask the question. “Am I more mature than you realized?”

  “Yes. Yes, I think you are, Mary Anne.”

  “Am I …” (Oh, please, please, please let him say yes.) “… old enough to stay out a little later when I baby-sit?”

  For a moment, Dad didn’t answer. At last he said, “Well, ten o’clock seems a bit late for school nights. How about nine-thirty on school nights and ten o’clock on Friday and Saturday nights?”

  “Oh, Dad, that’s perfect! Thank you!” I started to get up, wanting to hug him, but we’re not huggers. I sat down again. Then I had a great idea. “Dad, I want to show you something,” I said. “I’ll be right back.” I ran upstairs to my room, pulled the rubber bands off the ends of my braids, shook my hair out, and brushed it carefully. It fell over my shoulders, ripply from having been braided when it was still damp that morning. Then I ran down to the kitchen and stood in front of my father. “How do I look?” I asked.

  I watched Dad’s face go from serious to soft. “Lovely,” he finally managed to say.

  “Do you think I could wear it this way? I mean just sometimes, not every day.”

  Dad nodded.

  “And maybe,” I went on, hoping I wasn’t pressing my luck, “I could take Humpty Dumpty off my wall and put up a nice picture of Paris or New York instead?” I could ask him about Alice in Wonderland some other time.

  Dad nodded. Then he held his arms out. I crossed the room to him and he folded me into his arms.

  “Thank you, Dad,” I said.

  Before I went to bed that night, I wrote two letters, one to Kristy and one to Dawn. Both were apologies.

  Monday, February 9

  The members of the Baby-sitters Club have been enemies for almost a month now. I can’t believe it. Claudia, Kristy, and Mary Anne — I hope you all read what I’m writing, because I think our fight is dumb, and you should know that. I thought you guys were my friends, but I guess not. I’m writing this because tomorrow the four of us have to help out at Jamie Newton’s birthday party, and I think it’s going to be a disaster. I hope you read this before then because I think you should be prepared for the worst. P.S. If anybody wants to make up, I’m ready.

  As it turned out, Stacey was both right and wrong. Jamie’s party was almost a disaster, but something really good came out of it. I’m getting ahead of myself, though. Let me go back to Monday, the morning of the day Stacey wrote in our club notebook.

  When I got to school, the first thing I did was find Dawn. I gave her the letter and stood next to her in the hall while she read it. I had been very honest in the letter, explaining that several times I had used her to make Kristy mad, but that I really liked her, and thought she was one of my best friends, Kristy or no Kristy. Then I apologized.

  Dawn read the letter slowly. Then she read it again. Then she hugged me. I knew our fight was over.

  A moment later, I realized that Dawn was staring at me. “What?” I asked.

  “Mary Anne, your hair … Where are your braids?”

  I grinned. “Do you like it?”

  “I love it! You look so pretty with your hair down!” Dawn made me turn around so she could see me from the back, too.

  “Thanks. I plan to wear it this way often.” I opened my locker, put my lunch away, pulled out some books, and slammed the locker shut again. “Now,” I went on, “since I was able to make up with you, I ought to be able to make up with Kristy, too.” I held up the other note I’d written. “This is for Kristy. I have to go find her.”

  I looked everywhere, but I couldn’t find her. At last, just before the bell rang, I slipped the note into her locker. Several times that day I glimpsed her in the halls, and I knew she saw me, too, but she didn’t say anything, and didn’t act any differently than she had over the past few weeks.

  Had she gotten the note? Maybe I’d stuck it in the wrong locker. Or maybe it had slid into a notebook and she hadn’t seen it.

  Or maybe she was just still mad.

  Jamie’s birthday party began at 3:30 that afternoon. I went to it with mixed feelings — excitement and dread. It could be a lot of fun. Or, as Stacey had pointed out, it could be a disaster. But the members of the Baby-sitters Club had promised Mrs. Newton we’d help out, so I knew we’d all be there.

  I rang the Newtons’ bell at 3:15, armed with a present for Jamie. I had arrived early so I could give Mrs. Newton a hand.

  “Hi-hi!” Jamie greeted me excitedly. “I’m four today! Four years old! That’s this many.” He held up four fingers.

  “Hi, Mary Anne,” Mrs. Newton called from the kitchen when Jamie let me in. “I’m glad you’re here early. I can really use you.” She put me to work filling goody baskets for the table and making punch. By the time I finished, most of Jamie’s guests had arrived.

  The living room sounded like a school playground. Jamie’s friends, all dressed up in their party clothes, were running around, screaming and shrieking, and wanting him to open his presents. Mrs. Newton pulled Kristy, Claudia, Stacey, and me aside.

  “Try to get them to sit down. We’ll do presents first, because nobody can wait. It should go pretty fast.”

  The members of the Baby-sitters Club nodded. But we carefully avoided one another’s eyes.

  Mrs. Newton clapped her hands. “Time for the presents!” she called.

  Kristy rounded up four children and led them to the couch. “Sit over here,” she told them.

  Stacey rounded up four other children and led them to the floor in front of the fireplace.

  Claudia guided several little girls to the floor by the piano.

  Uh-oh, I thought. “Get everybody in one spot!” I directed.

  Claudia, Stacey, and Kristy gave me the evil eye.

  “Around the couch is fine,” said Mrs. Newton.

  Kristy gloated.

  After Jamie had
opened his presents, Mrs. Newton announced that it was time for Pin the Tail on the Donkey. “Will three of you give me a hand, and somebody else go check on the baby?” Mrs. Newton asked us.

  The four of us made a mad dash for the stairs.

  “I’ll check on Lucy,” said Kristy.

  “No, I will,” said Stacey.

  “No, you won’t. I will,” I said.

  “None of you will because I’m going!” Claudia exclaimed.

  The four of us shoved one another around, trying to be the first to run up the stairs.

  “Girls!” cried Mrs. Newton.

  We turned around guiltily. She was frowning at us.

  “Stacey, would you please check on her?” said Mrs. Newton. “I need the rest of you over here.”

  It was Stacey’s turn to gloat. “Ha-ha,” she said under her breath, and started up the staircase.

  “Brat,” muttered Kristy as we turned around.

  Mrs. Newton gave me the job of blindfolding the kids; Kristy, the job of guiding them if they strayed too far from the donkey; and Claudia, the job of watching the kids who were waiting their turn. Mrs. Newton disappeared into the kitchen.

  She hadn’t been gone long when, just as I was tying the blindfold on Claire Pike, I felt something crunch down on my foot.

  “Ow!” I cried.

  “Oh, I’m so sorry!” I heard a voice say. “Was that your foot I stepped on?”

  I straightened up and looked into Kristy’s eyes. I narrowed my own eyes at her. “Yes, it was, Kristin Amanda Thomas,” I said coldly. “Do you have a problem?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “I could tell.”

  “My problem is that your foot is in my way.”

  I stuck my tongue out at her.

  The game continued with no more “incidents.” In fact, everything went smoothly until it was time for cake and ice cream. Mrs. Newton had fixed up the table in the dining room. Streamers crisscrossed the ceiling and a huge bunch of balloons was tied in the middle. The table was decorated in a teddy bear theme: teddy bear paper plates and paper cups, a tablecloth with teddy bears all over it, and even tiny teddies for party favors.

  The children “oohed” and “aahed” as they came into the room, and Mrs. Newton helped them find seats. “I want you girls to sit down, too,” she told the members of the Baby-sitters Club. “Place yourselves strategically around the table so you can pass things and give the kids a hand if they need help.”

  After a little scuffle with Claudia, I sat down next to Jamie at one end. Kristy was sitting on one side, two places away from me. Stacey was across from her, and Claudia was sitting across from me, at the opposite end of the table.

  “Mary Anne, how would you like to pour the punch you made?” asked Mrs. Newton when we were settled. “Then I’ll bring the cake in.”

  “Sure,” I replied. She handed me the heavy pitcher full of red juice and I walked around the table with it, carefully filling each cup halfway. When I reached Kristy I filled her cup to the top — and kept on going.

  “Hey, watch what you’re doing!” she exclaimed.

  I watched.

  “It’s — that stuff’s getting in my lap!” She jumped up.

  “Oh, so sorry. My mistake,” I said.

  “You bet it’s your mistake! What’s the big idea?”

  “What’s the big idea? What’s the big idea? That’s what you get when you step on my foot and don’t answer my note.”

  “What note?”

  “You know what note.”

  “I do not.” Kristy sat down and began mopping up her lap with a paper napkin.

  At that moment, Claudia appeared with another napkin. She wiped up some of the punch by Kristy’s plate, then walked around the table and flung the wet napkin in Stacey’s face.

  “Hey!” Stacey was on her feet in a flash. She ran after Claudia and smushed the napkin in her face.

  The dining room was in an uproar. “Mommy!” called Jamie. He looked as if he was about to cry.

  Mrs. Newton chose that very second to walk into the dining room with Jamie’s birthday cake, five candles (four plus one to grow on) flickering cheerfully.

  She came to a standstill before she reached the table. “Girls, what is going on?” She looked around. The room had grown silent. The members of the Baby-sitters Club were gathered around Kristy, whose lap was stained with the red punch. I was holding the pitcher over the mess on the table, and Stacey was smushing the wet napkin in Claudia’s face. A lone tear ran down Jamie’s cheek.

  Nobody knew what to say.

  After a moment, I took the napkin away from Stacey and put it and a dry one over the spilled punch. “Just a little accident,” I said to Mrs. Newton. “I’m sorry. We’re all sorry.” I looked meaningfully at the other girls. “Kristy, why don’t you go in the kitchen and get cleaned up.” Kristy walked dazedly out of the dining room. “Come on,” I said to Claudia and Stacey. “We’re just going to help Kristy,” I told Mrs. Newton. “We’ll be right back.”

  In the kitchen, the other girls stared at me.

  “I don’t care what any of you says or what any of you thinks,” I told them boldly. “I am calling a meeting of the Baby-sitters Club for right after the party. Be there,” I added. Then I returned to the dining room to pass out the birthday cake.

  There was no more funny stuff during Jamie’s party. The members of the Baby-sitters Club felt so guilty about almost ruining it that we bent over backward being nice to Jamie and helpful to Mrs. Newton. Then, the end of the party was so hectic, trying to sort out all the prizes and goody baskets and find everybody’s coats, hats, mittens, and boots, that by the time the guests were gone, Mrs. Newton had forgotten about the trouble in the dining room and the argument over Lucy. At any rate, we hoped she had, since we didn’t want her to think we were immature or irresponsible.

  When Kristy, Claudia, Stacey, and I left the Newtons’, we stood around uncomfortably in their front yard.

  “Where should we have the meeting?” I asked. “Claudia? Your room as usual?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t care.”

  “Fine. We’ll go to the Kishis’,” I said firmly.

  Kristy raised her eyebrows slightly, but she didn’t say anything.

  Mimi greeted us as we trooped through Claudia’s front door. “Girls!” she exclaimed. “It is lovely to see you again.”

  I knew she meant, It’s lovely to see you together again.

  “Hi, Mimi,” I said, and gave her a hug. “Guess what — I’ve finished the scarf for my dad except for the fringe.”

  “That is wonderful, Mary Anne,” Mimi replied warmly. “I’ll be glad to help you with it.”

  “We’re just going to have a quick club meeting,” Claudia told her grandmother. “We’ll be done soon.”

  “All right, my Claudia. That is fine.”

  We climbed the stairs, ran by Janine’s room, and took seats in Claudia’s room. Everyone looked at me.

  I swallowed hard, feeling nervous. Then I remembered how I had taken charge when Jenny had gotten sick. I reminded myself that I’d made a new friend and had worked out some problems with my father.

  I drew in a deep breath. “We’ve been mad at each other for weeks now,” I said. “And it’s time we stopped. We almost wrecked Jamie’s party today. I felt horrible. I know you guys did, too.”

  They nodded, looking somewhat ashamed.

  “So,” I went on, “we either make up or break up. Break up the club, that is. Because we can’t run it when we’re mad at each other. And I don’t know about you guys, but I don’t want to break up the club. I had to work pretty hard just to be in it at first.”

  It was Stacey who spoke next. “I don’t want the club to break up, either,” she said softly. “You guys are my only friends here in Stoneybrook.”

  “Kristy?” I asked.

  “I want to make up, I guess,” she said. “But somebody owes me an apology. We all owe each other apologies.”

 
“Who owes you one?” asked Claudia.

  Kristy paused. “I can’t remember!” she exclaimed finally. “I don’t remember exactly who I’m mad at or why!”

  I started to giggle. “Neither do I,” I said.

  We all begin to laugh. Claudia laughed so hard she rolled off her bed.

  “Just to make it official, though,” I said, “why don’t we apologize to each other. Right now. Ready? One, two, three —”

  “I’m sorry!” the four of us shouted, still laughing.

  Then I added, “I’m sorry I used to be such a coward and I would never stick my neck out or make decisions or take charge. And I’m sorry about Mimi, Claudia.”

  Kristy and Stacey exchanged puzzled looks, then shrugged their shoulders.

  “That’s okay. I’m the one who should be sorry about that,” replied Claudia. “And I’m sorry I’m careless and forgetful. I’m trying to change.”

  Stacey cleared her throat. “I’m sorry I’m conceited about having lived in New York. I like Stoneybrook ten times better, and you guys are much nicer than most of my old so-called friends.”

  “Well,” said Kristy, “believe me, this isn’t easy to say, but I’m sorry I’m so bossy. I mean, I am the club president, but I don’t need to take charge all the time. And with Mary Anne around, it looks like I won’t be able to anymore. What’s happened to you, Mary Anne? You’ve changed since our fight.”

  I blushed. “A million things have happened,” I said. “It’s hard to explain.”

  “You’re wearing your hair differently,” Stacey pointed out. “You look very pretty.”

  “Thank you.”

  “So your dad finally gave in?” said Kristy, looking awed. “Amazing.”

  “Not without a fight,” I added, “but we have an understanding now. By the way, I can stay out until ten o’clock on Fridays and Saturdays, and until nine-thirty on weeknights.”

  Kristy’s mouth dropped open. “Gosh …”

  Everyone began talking at once. While Claudia showed Stacey some new eye shadow she’d bought, Kristy leaned over and said, “Mary Anne, there’s something I don’t understand. What was that note you were talking about at the party?”