Claudia's Book

  Three days later, I had another after-school conference with my parents and my teachers. I don’t remember anything about it, except that I didn’t look at anybody and I kept my hands tightly folded in my lap. I agreed with everything everybody said. I didn’t know what else to do.

  That night, after dinner — a long, quiet dinner — my parents asked me to come into the living room for a talk.

  Uh-oh, I thought. I decided I was about to get in Big Trouble. Maybe even be grounded for life.

  “Sit down, Claudia,” said my mother. She patted the sofa cushion next to her. My father waited until I sat down, then sat in the chair next to me.

  My mother took a deep breath. “I have to say I’m disappointed, Claudia. I had such high hopes for Stamford. And you seemed to get off to such a great start.”

  “But … ” I began.

  My father said, “Exactly. But … but although you initially did better academically, you were clearly unhappy, as you told us. Your reluctance to go to a new school and leave all your friends was understandable, but your mother and I thought that would pass, that you would adjust.”

  “I’m sorry,” I mumbled. And I was.

  “No, we’re sorry. We’re sorry this didn’t work out because I think it would have made our lives easier in the long run. You need the kind of specialized attention and academic grounding that Stamford offers. But we’re also sorry that we didn’t realize how difficult such a change would be for you.”

  I was surprised. I didn’t know what to say.

  My father leaned over. “Claudia, we’ve decided that this — experiment — with Stamford Alternative Academy is not working. It is not worth sacrificing you, your happiness, your whole life, for scholastic achievement.”

  I was surprised. I was stunned. Shocked. Delirious with sudden, unbearable happiness. “Y-you mean it?”

  “You will be going back to SES the day after tomorrow. We’ve made all the arrangements,” my mother said.

  “Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you!” I shouted. I flung myself at my mom and threw my arms around her neck.

  “Whoa,” she said. I loosened my hold and grabbed my father.

  He laughed and shook his head, loosening my arms. “Claudia, I’m glad to see you so happy. But this change doesn’t mean things will be the way they were. We’ve spoken to your teachers at Stoneybrook and they will be giving you a lot of extra attention — as well as keeping a close eye on you and your work. You will be working with tutors in subjects such as language arts on a regular basis. We’re exploring the use of the resource room and … ”

  “ … we’ll be working with you ourselves at home. Someone will be supervising your homework every night. Agreed?” finished my mom.

  “Agreed? Are you kidding! Of course I agree!” I jumped up and practically danced around the living room. Life suddenly wasn’t gray and boring and horrible anymore.

  I was going back to Stoneybrook. Wait until I told Kristy and Mary Anne. I wondered if there was still time for me to help with the costumes and the scenery in the play. I wondered if I still had some Oreos hidden behind my sock drawer in my room.

  I stopped dancing. “Could you excuse me?” I asked breathlessly. “I have to make a couple of phone calls!”

  The summer we were eleven — Kristy, Mary Anne, and I — Kristy’s older brothers Charlie and Sam were part of a super good baseball team. Their team made the play-offs, which were being held a couple of hours from Stoneybrook in this totally remote corner of Connecticut called Hammond Beach. Charlie and Sam were psyched about it, and so was Kristy. She’d been playing catch and softball and baseball with her brothers practically ever since she could walk.

  The play-offs were going to be held over a four-day weekend, from Thursday through Sunday, and Kristy was dying to go. At first her mom had said maybe they could go to Hammond Beach on the Saturday or the Sunday of the play-offs. Mary Anne and I had said we wanted to go, too, and Kristy had started making plans for the Big Day Trip to Hammond Beach. Then Mary Anne found out that she and her father were going to visit relatives that week. And then …

  “Guess what!” Kristy screamed in my ear. I almost dropped the phone.

  “I guess that you’re shouting,” I said, holding the phone at a safe distance.

  “Oh. Sorry. Guess what? We’re going to Hammond Beach for the whole weekend! All four days. We get to see Charlie and Sam’s team win the playoffs and we get to vacation at the beach.”

  “Cool,” I said.

  “It is. Super duper cool! And guess what else! I get to invite someone to come with me. You want to come?”

  “Yes!” I said. “I mean, I have to ask my parents, but yes, yes, yes, I want to go!”

  “Ask them the moment they get home and call me back,” Kristy ordered. “My mom can tell them all the stuff they need to know.”

  My mom and dad talked it over and agreed, and then my mom talked to Mrs. Thomas. I kept swooping through the kitchen, where Mom was on the phone making a list and saying, “Mmm. Okay. Yes, we’ll do that … ”

  Then she finally hung up and said, “Well.”

  “Well,” said my mom again, smiling. “You’re going to the beach next week, Claudia Kishi. We’ve got quite a bit of planning and packing to do.”

  I’d never been away with another family. (I didn’t count sleepovers at Kristy’s and Mary Anne’s.) I was excited and nervous. Would I be homesick? Would Charlie and Sam tease me? What if I was homesick and they found out about it and made fun of me for being a baby? And what should I pack?

  Mom had made a basic list with Mrs. Thomas: towels, a pillow, sunscreen, etc. I talked Mom into a new bathing suit and a cool pair of sunglasses. I also let all the air out of an old beach float and squeezed it into my suitcase. Plus a couple of Nancy Drew books, plus some snacks (just in case).

  My mom put in sunscreen, a beach hat, extra underwear, extra socks, a pair of long pants, and a windbreaker. I added shorts and about a million T-shirts, plus sandals.

  As you might guess, I could barely get my suitcase squeezed shut. But I managed. My mom also gave me money. “If we forgot to pack anything, you can buy it when you get there,” she told me. “It’s not as if you’re going to the end of the world.”

  That was a comforting thought and made me feel a little less nervous. But all the same I could hardly sleep the night before I left, and I ran to the Thomases’ with my suitcase practically at the crack of dawn the next day.

  I wasn’t the only one who was up, packed, and ready. Kristy met me at the door and I could see the line of suitcases and bags of baseball gear crammed into the front hall. “We already took Louie to the kennel where he’s staying,” she said. “Come on. Hurry.”

  “Uh-oh,” I said, dragging my bulging suitcase into the house. “How will we ever all fit in the car?”

  “We’re going to tie David Michael to the luggage rack on the roof of the station wagon,” said Kristy.

  “Nooo!” cried David Michael, who was five then. He’d come trotting into the hall behind Kristy. But he was grinning and I could tell it was a joke she’d made with him before.

  For a little while, chaos reigned as the Thomas family took luggage to the car, along with all the other things they needed for the trip. And I was almost beginning to believe that one of us would have to ride on the roof. But in the end, we squeezed into the car and took off for Hammond Beach.

  Kristy and I sat in the backseat of the station wagon, the one that folded down and faced backward out the rear window. Our feet were propped up on a mountain of stuff and other stuff was squeezed in on either side of us. Charlie sat in the front with Mrs. Thomas and Sam and David Michael sat in the back.

  “Hey, Kristy, Claudia!” Charlie shouted. “Quit making faces! You’re gonna cause the cars behind us to wreck.”

  “We’re not making faces,” I said indignantly.

  “You’re not? You mean your regular faces are causing all the cars to swerve?” teased Charlie.

&nbs
p; Kristy rolled her eyes. “Family resemblance, Charlie,” she called back. “How do you know it’s not your face?”

  Sam cracked up and so did Kristy. I couldn’t think of anything to say, but I had to grin. Kristy was tough.

  We played the alphabet game with license plates (going through the alphabet looking for the different letters on the tags of cars). Kristy and Charlie and Sam joked and teased each other during the entire trip.

  When we stopped for gas, Charlie pumped it and Mrs. Thomas consulted her map and Kristy and I got sodas while Sam took David Michael to the restroom. Somewhere, Sam got a piece of ice and slipped it down Kristy’s back, making her shriek. But Kristy went Sam one better. As he was leaning over to strap David Michael back into his seatbelt in the car, Kristy slipped ice down Sam’s pants.

  David Michael thought that was even funnier than when Kristy had shrieked about the ice down her back. Mrs. Thomas smiled as if she were used to that sort of thing happening all the time (I guess in the Thomases’ house it did) and I got back into the car next to Kristy, glad that I didn’t have any older brothers always teasing me. Janine might be a pain, but at least she was a quiet pain.

  It was a fun trip, though. And it seemed like no time at all before we reached a sign that said “Hammond Beach, 21 miles.” We turned off the highway down a two-lane road that wound in and out among woods and rocky fields. We passed roadside stands that sold fresh fruit and vegetables as well as beach souvenirs and funny hats. Mrs. Thomas stopped and bought a watermelon at one of the stands for dessert that night (Kristy and I rode the rest of the way with the watermelon under our feet). Then more and more houses began to appear and suddenly we went around a curve and saw a sign that said “Hammond Beach.”

  I’d been to the beach before. So I expected a big, busy beach town, full of tourists and cars and lots of shops and games such as putt-putt golf. But Hammond Beach wasn’t that big or busy. The street we drove in on was called Hammond Main, because it was the main street in town. I found out later that it ran straight to the beach parking lot at the end of town and stopped there. I saw some tourist shops along Main, but it looked pretty normal: grocery stores, an old-fashioned Woolworth’s, and a hardware store. As we drove into town, we passed a big, white columned hotel set in the middle of a green lawn. We went through town and turned down a side road and passed several motels along the beach road. They were mostly two stories high and made of cedar, although a couple were made of cement and painted bright tropical colors. A lot of them had tennis courts and most of them had swimming pools. One of them, a gleaming white motel, had a sign out front that advertised Jacuzzis in the rooms. Another, made up of separate units shaped like ski chalets, another offered a free movie channel.

  We kept driving. The road grew narrower and turned into rocky dirt. Then Mrs. Thomas said, “Here we are!” and pulled over to a small, low one-story building set right on the dirt road. The only thing between the doors of the rooms and the road was the parking lot.

  No tennis court. No swimming pool. For sure no Jacuzzis or free movie channels. It was painted a faded pink. The sign out front said “Sea Rose.” I guess that explained the color.

  Mrs. Thomas went inside and registered, and came out holding a handful of keys. “We’re down at the end,” she said. “It’ll be nice and private. We have two adjoining rooms, one for the girls and one for the boys. One room is a kitchenette, so we can cook. And both rooms have private baths.”

  No one else seemed to notice how rundown and plain the Sea Rose was. And I guess it didn’t really matter. Inside it was clean and comfortable. Kristy and I were going to share a double bed and Mrs. Thomas took the other bed. The kitchenette was on the oceanside, a tiny oven and refrigerator with a narrow divider between it and the sleeping area. Two stools stood on one side of the divider. The bathroom opened off the narrow kitchen walkway. The front window was small and partially blocked by a huge, ancient air-conditioner. The back wall had another window that looked out onto the ocean and next to it was a back door that opened onto a walkway that led to a path down to the beach.

  “Cool,” I said, the moment I opened the door.

  As you might have guessed, Kristy and I were out of our shorts and into our bathing suits in almost no time.

  Mrs. Thomas looked at her watch. “Charlie and Sam need to go for a practice in just a little while and we need to find the playing fields. Do you want to come with us or —”

  “The beach!” said Kristy.

  Mrs. Thomas smiled. “I thought so. Okay, but I’m going to leave you in charge of David Michael. We won’t be gone long. I’ll take Sam and Charlie, do some grocery shopping, and then come back. We can fix lunch then. Mrs. Acqui, who owns the Sea Rose, said to call her if we need anything. There’s a phone in the office and a soda machine and ice machine, too.”

  “Great,” said Kristy. She banged on the door to the boys’ room. “David Michael, get moving!” I heard her shout. “We’re going to the beach!”

  We didn’t even wait to wave good-bye to the Thomases. With Kristy in charge, we were on our way down the steps to the beach in no time flat.

  It wasn’t a big, sweeping ocean beach. It was narrow and rocky. Apparently, people didn’t just come to Hammond Beach to lie in the sun. Not too far out I could see two small boats with people fishing from them. A little way up the beach, a man and a boy were exploring an outcropping of rocks along the shore. But further along, where the bigger hotels began, was a short boardwalk, with umbrellas above hot-dog and soda stands.

  “This is great!” I said, turning my face up to the sun.

  “Don’t forget the sunscreen,” said Kristy. She was already slathering it on David Michael with one hand, holding him still with the other.

  “I’m not going to get sunburned!” David Michael whined.

  “That’s right, you’re not,” said Kristy, adding another layer of sunblock to his ears and neck.

  At last she let him go and we decided to take a walk down the beach. Of course, David Michael spotted the umbrellas and immediately wanted to buy a hot dog. Kristy wouldn’t let him, though.

  “Mom said we’d have lunch when she got back,” Kristy told him. “Eating a hot dog now would spoil your appetite. Besides, what if she buys hot dogs for us to cook for lunch?”

  Poking out his lower lip, David Michael said, “I’m hungry now!”

  “Maybe we could all split something,” I suggested. (I was secretly impressed by how grown-up and responsible Kristy seemed.)

  “Maybe,” said Kristy. We walked in the direction of the boardwalk and the town beach. We passed the hot-dog stand and another cart selling sodas and ice cream. Suddenly Kristy pointed. A sign said “QuiK MarKet” and an arrow pointed to a flight of stairs up from the boardwalk to the road.

  We climbed the stairs and crossed the road (we’d reached the paved section, but there was no traffic to be seen in either direction). In the QuiK MarKet Kristy surveyed the merchandise and steered David Michael toward the ice-cream section. I was surprised until she pointed to the Frozfruit pops, which are made out of fruit juice. “You can have any flavor you want,” she told David Michael.

  “Really?” David Michael was delighted, and considered for at least ten minutes before choosing a strawberry Frozfruit. I got a Ben & Jerry’s Peace Pop. Kristy got a soda.

  We walked back to the beach with our treats and sat on a rock at the water’s edge to finish them. It was a calm day and the waves weren’t very high. The clouds were big and white and puffy and it wasn’t too hot or too old. It was just right.

  “This is super,” I said.

  Kristy grinned. “Triple super,” she agreed.

  David Michael didn’t say anything. He was busy making sure his Frozfruit didn’t melt before he finished it.

  When we got back to the motel, Mrs. Thomas had just returned. We helped her unload groceries from the car, and then made lunch (and there were hot dogs for David Michael and Kristy and me). Soon Mrs. Thomas had to leave t
o pick up Charlie and Sam. Kristy convinced David Michael to take a nap in our room while she and I sat on chairs on the little strip of walk outside the back door and read magazines.

  After David Michael’s nap we got out my old float and some of the other floats that Kristy’s mom had brought and started blowing them up. I was glad when Sam and Charlie got back to help. The blowing made me dizzy.

  That night we cooked spaghetti in the tiny kitchen. It was a lot of fun and everybody pitched in, even David Michael, who was in charge of setting the table and adding the spices. Mrs. Thomas made a big batch so it would last several days. Afterward, we took the watermelon to the beach, spread out a blanket, sat on it, and ate watermelon until the sun went down.

  So far, I liked Hammond Beach. And I wasn’t homesick one bit.

  The next morning, Charlie and Sam were off to the first round of the play-offs. Even though I knew Kristy was dying to go with them, she offered to stay at the Sea Rose and take care of David Michael. “He’d get bored if he had to go to all of the play-offs,” she told her mom. “We’ll go on Saturday or Sunday for the whole day.”

  “Or maybe both days,” said her mother, looking relieved. “Are you sure you don’t mind?”

  “Nope,” said Kristy. She grinned at me. “I bet Claud doesn’t mind having to spend the day at the beach either. Do you, Claud?”

  I had to admit that the beach would have been my first choice.

  “If you swim,” said Mrs. Thomas, “go down to the town beach where there’s a lifeguard.”

  “Okay,” said Kristy. “We’re going to take our floats today.”

  “We’ll be back for a late lunch,” said Mrs. Thomas. “Sam and Charlie only have one game today.”

  “Great. Come on, Claud. Let’s hurry. I want to get a good place on the beach.”

  We wished Charlie and Sam good luck and then headed for the town beach.

  “Are there sharks?” asked David Michael, surveying the water suspiciously.