“What kind of games?” I asked.
“Um, let’s see. Like timing the kids when they run to their beds and seeing who’s faster. Or asking them to draw pictures of the Toilet Monster. Then point out the silly or funny things in the pictures. Or make up stories about the monster. I bet that pretty soon he’ll just be part of the kids’ imagination.”
“Logan, that’s a great idea!” I exclaimed. “I’ll mention it at the next BSC meeting.”
When the waiter had cleared away our dinner dishes and brought Logan and me a huge ice-cream sundae to share, Logan grew very quiet.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
Logan fiddled around with his spoon. “Our dinner’s almost over and I haven’t said what I really wanted to say tonight.”
“You mean, ‘Thank you’?”
“ ‘Thank you’?”
“Mm-hmm. Yesterday you said you wanted to take me to dinner as a way of thanking me for giving you a hand with the project.”
“Oh. Right.”
“So you’re welcome.”
“But it isn’t that, Mary Anne. That’s not the real reason.”
“It isn’t?” I whispered, and my poor old heart began to pound again.
“No. I want to ask you something.”
“Okay.”
“Do you want to go out again sometime?”
“You mean on a real date?”
Logan relaxed a little. He smiled. “Yes, on a real date. I still care about you, Mary Anne. I care a lot.”
“Me, too. And I’ve really missed you.”
“Same here.”
We decided we’d try getting together on Friday night. But I knew we’d see a lot of each other before then. I was pretty sure Logan would begin eating lunch with my friends and me again. And he’d hang around my locker before and after school and between classes, too.
And we would talk on the phone at night, just like in the old days.
Since I knew all this, I wasn’t too surprised when our phone rang not long after I got home that night. I dashed into the kitchen, picked up the extension, and said, “Hi, Logan.”
“Hi.” (He didn’t need to ask how I had known he was the caller.) “So what are you doing tomorrow?”
“Dawn and Claud and I are going to the mall.” I doodled on a piece of scrap paper.
In another lifetime, Logan would have said, “Cancel your plans and come to the movies with me,” or something like that. But now he said, “Okay. Have fun. I’ll see you in school on Monday, but maybe we’ll talk before then.”
“Maybe?” I repeated. “Definitely.” Doodle, doodle.
“Great. I’ll call tomorrow.”
“Good night, Logan.” I hung up the phone and looked at my scrap paper. In tiny letters, I had written: MAS + LB 4-Ever.
* * *
Dear Reader,
In Mary Anne Misses Logan, Mary Anne and Logan have been apart for some time. And while Mary Anne does miss Logan, she’s had plenty of time for herself and her friends. That was the good thing about breaking up with Logan. When I was Mary Anne’s age, my friendships were very important to me — and they’re still very important to me. Here are some of the things my friends and I liked to do together: roller-skate, ice-skate, have sleepovers, go to the movies, put on plays, and, of course, baby-sit. Now, as an adult, my friends and I still enjoy some of these things, especially going to the movies. As a matter of fact, I still have the same best friend, Beth. We don’t see each other as often as we used to because we don’t live in the same town anymore. And instead of baby-sitting, we spend time with Beth’s daughters. Mary Anne learned something important while she was apart from Logan: Everyone needs time for their best friends.
Happy reading,
* * *
About the Author
ANN MATTHEWS MARTIN was born on August 12, 1955. She grew up in Princeton, New Jersey, with her parents and her younger sister, Jane.
There are currently over 176 million copies of The Baby-sitters Club in print. (If you stacked all of these books up, the pile would be 21,245 miles high.) In addition to The Baby-sitters Club, Ann is the author of two other series, Main Street and Family Tree. Her novels include Belle Teal, A Corner of the Universe (a Newbery Honor book), Here Today, A Dog’s Life, On Christmas Eve, Everything for a Dog, Ten Rules for Living with My Sister, and Ten Good and Bad Things About My Life (So Far). She is also the coauthor, with Laura Godwin, of the Doll People series.
Ann lives in upstate New York with her dog and her cats.
Copyright © 1991 by Ann M. Martin.
Cover art by Hodges Soileau
All rights reserved. Published by Scholastic Inc. SCHOLASTIC, THE BABY-SITTERS CLUB, and associated logos are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Scholastic Inc.
First edition, August 1991
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher. For information regarding permission, write to Scholastic Inc., Attention: Permissions Department, 557 Broadway, New York, NY 10012.
e-ISBN 978-0-545-69039-3
Ann M. Martin, Mary Anne Misses Logan
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