Mallory on Strike

  The minute I got in the house, I grabbed an apple from the fruit bowl on the kitchen counter and headed straight up to my room. I dumped my books onto my bed and gathered some materials with which to make my schedule — two pieces of lined paper, some tape, a ruler, and colored pens. Turning the two pieces of paper sideways, I taped them together and drew lines across them to make a graph. Then I listed each day leading to Young Authors Day down one side. Across the top I wrote the hours of the day after school. Here’s what the first four days looked like:

  As I was busy working on the schedule, Vanessa came into the room and looked over my shoulder.

  “What’s that for?” she asked.

  “For me. So I can be a disciplined, creative writer.” I used Mr. D’s exact words. “It’s my schedule until Young Authors Day. What do you think?”

  “It looks intense,” Vanessa said. “When do you have time for fun?”

  I looked back at my graph and realized I hadn’t drawn in any time for talking on the phone with Jessi, or going to the mall, or even stopping for a Coke. “I don’t think I have time for fun,” I decided. “This is too important.”

  Vanessa pointed to the first day on the schedule. “According to this, you’re supposed to be doing your homework right now.”

  I looked at my watch. “You’re right. Thanks, Vanessa. Tell the rest of the family not to bother me while I’m working, will you?”

  “I think you can tell them yourself.”

  Vanessa pointed to Claire, who was standing in the doorway. She was holding her finger, which was wrapped in a dinosaur Band-Aid. Behind her stood the triplets with devilish grins on their faces.

  “They say all the dinosaurs died,” Claire said in a tiny voice. “That’s not true, is it?”

  A talk with Claire always means trying to find answers to endless questions. It takes a lot of time and patience — two things I was short of at that moment. But her chin was quivering and her eyes were so full of tears that I couldn’t tell her to go away.

  “Come here and sit on my lap,” I said, patting my knee, “and I’ll tell you about the dinosaurs that lived in the past, and the ones that live in our minds now.”

  Claire smiled triumphantly at her brothers and then marched over to my side.

  “Oh, Mal,” my mother called from down the hall. A moment later her head appeared in the doorway. “I’m glad I caught you. Would you mind making the dessert for dinner tonight, honey? I have a thousand calls to make for the library board meeting, and I’ll never get to it in time.” She brushed a strand of hair off her forehead and smiled at me gratefully. “I’d really appreciate it if you did.”

  Right then I felt the way Claire had looked when she came to my door. All quivery inside. It was clear that I wasn’t going to get to my homework before dinner, and I would have to do it during the time slot I had reserved to work on my story. It just wasn’t fair. I felt like screaming, “No! I can’t! And I won’t! Get someone else!”

  But I didn’t.

  “Sure, Mom. What do you want me to make?”

  “Chocolate chip cookies!” Claire squealed, wrapping her arms around my neck.

  “All right,” I murmured forlornly. “Chocolate chip cookies.”

  Peace and quiet. At last!

  It was Friday afternoon. I had spent most of the week trying to stick to my writing schedule and not being able to do it. After I said good-bye to Jessi, I went straight home and shut myself in my room.

  Nobody — not Vanessa, not Mom and Dad, not even Claire — interrupted me while I worked on my story. Can you believe it? And, boy, did I work! I focused all of my attention on writing, and everything around me seemed to disappear. All the sounds in the house and all my worries about school and family just melted away.

  I was on a roll. Five pages straight! I hope this doesn’t sound conceited, but they were good pages, too. My story was really starting to come together, and just as I was thinking that I could probably write another five pages, I glanced at the clock. It was 5:30 on the dot.

  “Yikes!” I leaped out of my chair. “The BSC. I forgot all about it!”

  As I told you, we meet every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at exactly 5:30. And if anyone is late (as I was about to be), Kristy gets miffed.

  As I was putting away my notebook, a funny feeling came over me. My story was very important to me, and if I could just keep working on it, I might be able to finish it in the next couple of days. I really resented having to drop everything to go to the BSC meeting. But I had made a commitment (as my mother always says) to the BSC. And if I didn’t go, I would be letting my friends down. But what about my story?

  I looked at the clock again. Five thirty-one. The meeting had already started. Right now Kristy and the others were probably wondering what had happened to me. In a minute, Jessi would probably call to see if I was okay and then I’d have to stop writing anyway. I raced down the stairs, grabbed my bike, and pedaled as fast as I could to Claud’s house.

  “You’re ten minutes late!” Kristy declared as I walked into the room. She didn’t even ask why. Instead she made a big deal of looking at Claud’s digital clock and shaking her head in disgust.

  I had intended to apologize to the club, but Kristy made me angry. So I just kept my mouth shut and slumped down on the floor beside Jessi. She was leaning against Claud’s bed with her knees pulled up under her chin.

  Jessi gave me one of her “What’s going on?” looks, but I still didn’t say anything. I was angry at myself for being late, and angry at the BSC for taking me away from my writing. I needed time to sort things out.

  Luckily for me, the phone rang and broke the silence in the room. Dawn got to it first.

  “Baby-sitters Club. Oh, hello, Mrs. Arnold.” We listened as Dawn jotted down the details of the job and then said, “I’ll call you right back.” She hung up the phone and announced, “Mrs. Arnold needs a sitter for the twins tomorrow morning.”

  Kristy adjusted her visor and asked, “Who’s available?”

  Mary Anne tapped her pencil against her chin in thought. “Let’s see. Dawn already has that job with the Rodowskys.”

  Kristy looked at me and said pointedly, “We assigned her the job at the start of the meeting.” She didn’t add, “Which you missed,” but I know that’s what she meant.

  “And Jessi and Stacey are already committed,” Mary Anne continued. “How about Mal?” She smiled at me sympathetically. “You get along really well with the twins.”

  I didn’t even have to hesitate. Saturday morning was out. I had scheduled the whole morning to work on my story.

  “Sorry,” I said. “I can’t.”

  Jessi cocked her head in surprise. Usually I would have explained why, but I was still feeling crabby about the way Kristy had treated me.

  “Okay,” Mary Anne said, after a sideways glance at Kristy. “Then how about you, Claud?”

  Claudia was trying to open a bag of M&M’s with her teeth, without much success. “That’d be fine,” she mumbled.

  The phone rang two more times, and Mary Anne and Dawn accepted jobs for Saturday night with the Sobaks and the Addisons. I didn’t feel bad about that since, as a junior member, I can’t really baby-sit at night anyway. Then Mrs. Perkins called, and Jessi took a job on Sunday afternoon.

  It wasn’t a very fun meeting. Basically, we sat quietly between calls, watching Claud try to open the M&M’s. At any other meeting, everybody would have cracked jokes about her being such a junk food addict, but not today. I knew it was my fault, but I couldn’t seem to get out of my rotten mood.

  Claud finally found a nail file in one of her drawers and gouged a hole in the side of the bag of candies. “Voilà!” she cried. “Treats. Something to cheer us up.”

  She passed the bag around the room, and everyone except Dawn and Stacey took some. I guess we needed cheering up.

  The phone rang again and this time Stacey answered it. “It’s the Perkinses. They need a sitter for Monday afternoon.”
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  Mary Anne scanned the list again. “Well, Mal is the only one who hasn’t taken a job today,” she said. “I think she should have it.”

  I shook my head once more. “Sorry. I can’t.”

  Kristy threw her hands up in exasperation. “What’s going on, Mal? You’ve just turned down two perfectly good jobs. Don’t you want to baby-sit?”

  Everyone in the room was staring at me, and I knew it was now or never. I would have to tell them everything.

  “Of course I do,” I blurted out. “But I just can’t take any jobs right now. I don’t have time. I’ve got my homework and all my chores at home, plus my family is starting to drive me crazy.”

  It was really weird. Once I finally let loose, the words just poured out.

  “I never seem to get any privacy at home, and the deadline for Young Authors Day is less than two weeks away. I’ve just got to finish my story. My schedule doesn’t even allow me to take a phone call, let alone a baby-sitting job.”

  “What schedule?” Kristy asked.

  “The one I made up on Tuesday.”

  At first I had thumbtacked the schedule to my bulletin board, but then I discovered I needed to carry it with me all the time so I would know what I was supposed to do next. It was in my back pocket.

  “Here,” I said, unfolding it and handing it to Kristy. “I’ve got something planned for every minute that I’m awake.”

  Kristy scanned it and then looked up at me. “Where’s your time for baby-sitting?”

  I pointed to the days and squares that I had marked. “It’s all there. See? I scheduled the jobs I’m signed up for.”

  “What about new jobs?”

  Uh-oh. “I guess I didn’t think about new jobs.” I refolded the schedule and stuffed it back into the pocket of my jeans.

  Once again Kristy exchanged serious looks with Mary Anne and the others. “You know, Mal, it’s really important that we all be available to take jobs,” she said. “If no one’s free, then people will stop calling.”

  “I know that,” I mumbled. “But my story …”

  I didn’t finish my sentence. I think my friends knew how important the story was to me. But the BSC was also important, and they wanted to make sure I didn’t forget it.

  There was another one of those awful silences where no one, especially me, knew where to look. Then finally the numbers on the clock clicked over and Claud, who had managed to devour nearly an entire bag of M&M’s, said, “Six o’clock!”

  Kristy nodded her head. “Then this meeting of the Baby-sitters Club is officially adjourned.”

  “Monday is dues day, everybody,” Stacey reminded us, as we gathered up our purses and notebooks. “Don’t forget to bring your money next time.”

  Jessi and I walked down the hall. We didn’t talk. I could tell she was waiting for me to tell her what was wrong, but I didn’t know where to start.

  I felt awful. I wasn’t being a good club member. I had broken one of the first rules of the BSC by being late. Instead of apologizing, I’d been resentful that I’d had to go to the meeting. A little voice inside my head wondered if maybe I should take a leave of absence. Just for awhile, until Young Authors Day was over. But I was too afraid to bring it up. Kristy had not reacted well to my being late, and she’d been upset when I turned down the two jobs. I was afraid she might suggest I quit the club altogether.

  I decided to keep my mouth shut and not mention the thought to anyone. Not even to Jessi.

  “Watch me ride the pony!” five-year-old Suzi Barrett cried, as she galloped past me into the Barretts’ living room.

  Her brother, Buddy, who is eight, followed close on her heels, shouting, “I’m the sheriff. And I’m going to arrest you for speeding!” Buddy was wearing his cowboy hat, a T-shirt, and jeans.

  Mrs. Barrett had scheduled this sitting job two weeks earlier. Otherwise I would have been at home, working on my story. Instead, I was spending the afternoon with the Impossible Three.

  Dawn had given the Barrett kids that nickname when she first started sitting for them because they were so out of control. But the problem turned out to be Mrs. Barrett, who had gone through kind of a tough divorce. She was so busy trying to find a job and straighten out her own life that she didn’t have much time or energy for her children.

  Actually, the Barrett kids are really nice, but when the three of them get excited and want to play, disastrous things can happen.

  I was sitting on the bottom step of the stairs in their foyer, trying to put shoes on two-year-old Marnie. She was wiggling all over and calling, “Play!” every time her brother and sister ran by us. I had just managed to tie Marnie’s left shoe when I heard a loud crash from the kitchen.

  “Uh-oh,” I heard Suzi say.

  “You’re going to get it!” Buddy yelled.

  I raced for the kitchen. Suzi met me in the doorway, her round tummy sticking out from under her T-shirt. Her eyes looked huge. “Buddy knocked over that bag of white stuff.”

  “Did not!” Buddy shouted. “It was Suzi!”

  “Did too!” Suzi shot back. “You hit the bag when you ran by.”

  “What bag … ?” My voice trailed off as I stepped into the kitchen. The floor was covered in a fine white powder. “Flour,” I said with a groan. “It’s everywhere.”

  Suzi grabbed my leg and cried, “I didn’t do it.”

  I tried to hide my irritation by saying, “It doesn’t matter who did it, Suzi. Why don’t we just clean it up?”

  Marnie toddled into the room then and clapped her hands together in glee. “Snow!”

  Before I could stop her, she ran onto the flour, slid, and fell flat on her back. The fall took her by surprise, so for a second she didn’t cry. Then she opened her mouth and a loud wail filled the room.

  “Buddy!” I cried. “Get a broom and a dustpan, will you? Suzi, help your brother, please, while I take care of Marnie.”

  I skated my way through the slippery flour, picked up Marnie, then inched over to the nearest chair and sat down.

  “That was pretty scary, wasn’t it?” I whispered. She nodded her head, then rubbed her hand across her eyes, leaving behind a white streak.

  “I’m a good helper!” Suzi exclaimed, as she entered the kitchen with Buddy. “Watch me clean up.”

  She and her brother were struggling with a large red plastic bucket. I realized, too late, that it was full of water. I tried to stand up, but Marnie, who was still on my lap, had grabbed the phone cord and I fell back on the chair.

  “Don’t put that water on the floor!” I cried feebly.

  “Don’t worry,” Buddy reassured me. “We know what we’re doing.” Then he emptied the entire bucket onto the linoleum. “This is how Mom scrubs the floor.”

  I gasped in dismay as the water spread like a miniature tidal wave across the spilled flour. Buddy began pushing the mop back and forth furiously, and within seconds the mop head was choked with clumps of thick, white paste.

  A loud bark came from the back door and Suzi yelled, “Pow wants to come in!” She opened the door and the Barretts’ droopy old basset hound charged into the kitchen. He promptly skidded into the mess and covered himself in goo. Then he lumbered to his feet and shook his floppy ears from side to side, spraying bits of flour paste everywhere.

  I managed to untangle myself from the phone cord. Then I set Marnie firmly on the chair, stood up, and cried, “Buddy! Suzi! Stop that right now!”

  I didn’t mean to speak so loudly, but I had to stop them that instant. And I did. Buddy let go of the mop and it clattered to the floor. Suzi, who had been dancing around, trying to avoid getting her feet in the water, was so startled, she sat down in a big glob of sticky flour. Marnie stopped crying in midsob.

  Buddy looked at me in confusion. “What’d I do wrong?”

  I took a deep breath. “Buddy, you didn’t do anything wrong. Neither did you, Suzi. You were both being very good helpers, but you can’t clean up flour with water and a mop.”

 
Suzi just stared at me with a worried frown on her forehead.

  “What I mean is,” I explained, “maybe this is a job for me to do. You two have helped enough.”

  “We have?” Suzi’s round face spread into a big smile. “Good.”

  “Can I go outside and ride my bicycle?” Buddy asked.

  “Okay,” I said, helping Suzi to her feet. “But be careful of cars, stay close by, and take Pow with you.”

  “All right!” Buddy was out the back door in a flash. I was relieved to have to deal with only two children and the gigantic mess.

  Suzi agreed to take her clothes off in the laundry room, then go upstairs and change. Luckily Marnie hadn’t gotten too much flour on her, so I was able to brush her off. I sat her in her high chair, put some Cheerios and some raisins on the tray, and then started working on the kitchen floor.

  Twenty minutes later, the paste was gone but the floor still had a sort of filmy look to it. I ran a wet mop over it and hoped for the best. Then Suzi suggested we take Marnie to the family room to play with her dolls.

  “Good idea,” I said, lifting Marnie out of the high chair and following Suzi to the stairs. But before we could take two steps, a high-pitched cry split the air.

  “Mallory! Help me!”

  It was Buddy. I had almost forgotten about him. I handed Marnie to Suzi and said, “Wait right here.” Then I raced outside.

  Buddy’s bike was lying on the sidewalk in front of the house. He was hobbling barefoot across the lawn toward the front door.

  “Buddy,” I cried, rushing to his side. “What on earth happened to you?”

  He was so upset, he could barely talk. “I was c-c-coming down the hill,” he said, hiccupping. “Real fast. And my foot got caught in the spokes.”

  Buddy held his right foot out to me and I nearly fainted. It was covered with blood. I couldn’t tell how badly it had been cut but, without going into gory details, it looked absolutely terrible.

  I scooped Buddy up in my arms and hurried back into the kitchen. My heart was pounding in my chest, and I kept saying over and over to myself, “Don’t panic. Don’t panic.”