Dawn and Whitney, Friends Forever

Wrong.

  To Mary Anne’s horror, it wasn’t just Mrs. Barrett who came through the door. It was Mrs. Barrett and Franklin and all four DeWitt children.

  “No!” gasped Mary Anne, rising to her feet. In her usual Mrs. Barrett way, she’d changed plans on the spur of the moment.

  “We can all cook dinner together!” Mrs. Barrett announced cheerfully.

  “Ha,” said Buddy.

  Mary Anne managed to head them off for a moment by persuading the DeWitt kids to sit down for a snack (Buddy and Suzi unceremoniously got up and went back to the den). But she wasn’t able to catch Mrs. Barrett’s eye and warn her, so Mary Ann flew through the house, snatching down signs and deactivating “traps.”

  But she wasn’t fast enough. Suddenly she heard a shriek from the den. She raced in to see Lindsey sitting on one of the towel-covered chairs, a cloud of white powder floating in the air around her and powder all over her face and hair.

  Buddy and Suzi burst out laughing. Then Taylor, who’d come in behind Mary Anne, saw the signs on the chairs. “What does that mean?” Taylor asked, pointing.

  “That DeWitts aren’t welcome in our house. Or our family. We don’t need you. So there!” said Buddy.

  “Buddy!” said Mary Anne.

  Another cry sounded in the hall and Madeleine came in crying “Euw, euw, euwwww” and holding out her hands. Lindsey looked at Madeleine’s hands and said, “Gross. She’s got slimy stuff all over her hands.”

  “The sign said that bathroom was for Barretts only. That’ll teach you to use our stuff without permission!” declared Suzi.

  “Fine!” said Lindsey. “We don’t want anything to do with your stupid stuff or your stupid family, anyway. You can go, go, go fry your head in peanut butter.”

  The DeWitts marched out, leaving Buddy and Suzi looking angry but triumphant.

  * * *

  Miraculously, Mrs. Barrett and Franklin didn’t seem to have yet noticed anything amiss. They were in the kitchen beginning preparations for dinner. Mary Anne helped, and, every chance she got, dashed out to move another sign or take apart another booby trap. But by the time she got ready to go, she hadn’t succeeded in finding them all.

  She left Franklin and Mrs. Barrett in the kitchen, talking and laughing as they chopped vegetables for beef stew, while the Barretts sat in the den with the DeWitts, playing a silent, deadly game of Monopoly in the living room.

  “Mine, mine, mine!” she heard Taylor say as she walked out the door.

  “You know, I don’t think Buddy and Suzi are too happy with the idea of sharing their family with the DeWitts,” Mary Anne said to Mrs. Barrett as she left.

  “That’s all right, dear,” said Mrs. Barrett. “They like the DeWitts.”

  Mary Anne sighed. She’d tried. There was nothing she could do.

  But she sensed a disastrous evening ahead for the Barretts and the DeWitts.

  “Here,” I said. I passed Whitney the sunblock and leaned back with a sigh. Another perfect California day, and Whitney and I were celebrating by spending the whole afternoon outdoors in the shade of a tree.

  Of course, it’s hard to get sunburned sitting under a tree, but I knew how easily Whitney burned and I wasn’t taking any chances. Whitney reminded me a little of the time Kristy’s little sister Karen had decided to become instantly grown-up by copying everything she saw Kristy and the other members of the BSC do. If Whitney saw me putting on sunblock, she put it on, too, without a question.

  I pushed my sunglasses up on my nose and sighed a sigh of perfect contentment.

  Whitney pushed her glasses up, then frowned. “Are you unhappy, Dawn?”

  Realizing that Whitney was talking about my sigh, I smiled and said quickly, “No way. That was a sigh of happiness.”

  Whitney smiled then, too. “Good,” she said.

  We sat silently for a little while, soaking up the soft warmth of the air and the outdoors-in-the-neighborhood noises all around us: someone washing a car (not as energy efficient as a car wash, but just this once I’d overlook it), birds, the distant sound of a dog barking, the rhythmic snap-snap-snap of hand shears from someone trimming a hedge (the old-fashioned way, without electricity).

  Then Whitney said, “I’m hungry.”

  “Mmm,” I said. “Not now, Whitney.”

  “I want another ice-cream sandwich.”

  “You had one right after your mother left this afternoon. Why don’t you wait until your parents get home and have another one after dinner?” I asked. What I didn’t want to say was that Whitney simply couldn’t have another ice-cream sandwich. The last thing Mrs. Cater had said to me before she left earlier was, “We’re going out to dinner this evening, so don’t let Whitney eat anything after three o’clock. I don’t want her to spoil her appetite.”

  In a normal baby-sitting situation, I could have said, “I’m sorry, you can’t have another ice-cream sandwich, Whitney. Your parents said so, and I’m responsible for seeing to it that you do what they say. That’s the rule.”

  “I don’t want to wait until after dinner,” Whitney answered. Then she added coaxingly, “Aren’t you hungry, too, Dawn?”

  I laughed and shook my head. “I don’t have your sweet tooth, Whitney.”

  That distracted Whitney for a minute. “What’s a sweet tooth?”

  “Oh. It’s, well, it’s just a way of saying that you like to eat sweet things a lot.”

  “I do,” agreed Whitney, nodding again. She reached up and tapped her finger against one of her front teeth and laughed loudly.

  Then she jumped to her feet and headed for the back door.

  “Whitney? Whitney!” I called. I jumped to my feet and headed after her.

  She was opening the freezer door when I caught up with her.

  “Whitney, no. You can’t have another ice-cream sandwich.” I put my hand on the freezer door and closed it firmly.

  Just as firmly, Whitney kept her fingers wrapped around the door handle. “I want another ice-cream sandwich,” she said stubbornly.

  “Just wait a little while, okay?” I said.

  Whitney sighed.

  Taking that as acceptance of my words, I took my hand off the door.

  Quickly Whitney yanked the door open and grabbed the box of ice-cream sandwiches.

  Even more quickly, I grabbed the box from Whitney’s hands. “No!” I said, more sharply than I had intended. I shoved the box back in the freezer, closed the door, and turned to face an infuriated Whitney.

  “I can too have another sandwich. I can have as many as I want. You’re not the boss of me!” cried Whitney.

  “Whitney, I am your baby-sitter and I —” I stopped in horror, clapping my hand over my mouth.

  But it was too late.

  Whitney’s eyes widened. Her expression grew stricken. “You’re my baby-sitter?” she repeated incredulously.

  “Uh, well, it’s not exactly that,” I began lamely. What could I say? I could lie, try to pretend it was a big joke.

  But I knew that Whitney would know. She’d know I was lying and that would hurt her feelings even more.

  “Dawn?” asked Whitney.

  “I —” I looked into Whitney’s eyes. I knew she knew.

  “Yes, I’m your baby-sitter. Your parents hired me to stay with you in the afternoons until your camp starts. They didn’t want you to be alone.”

  The stricken look left Whitney’s face, to be replaced by one of humiliation. And anger. And betrayal.

  “Oh, Whitney. It’s not what you think. I mean, I …”

  “I thought you were my friend!” Whitney yelled. “I thought you were my friend!”

  The last word ended on a long, drawn out wail as Whitney turned and stomped out of the room.

  “Whitney, wait! I am your friend. Whitney?”

  The sound of a door slamming and being locked was my only answer.

  Whitney spent the rest of the afternoon in her room and nothing I said or did could get her to come out or even to answer me
.

  After her mother returned, I talked to Mrs. Cater for a little while. She wasn’t too upset. She just shook her head and said, “Maybe it wasn’t the best way to go about it after all. But it’s not your fault, Dawn. Just give her time.” I went to say good-bye to Whitney through the door. It opened then, and for a moment I hoped Whitney had forgiven me.

  I was wrong. Her face wooden, her eyes accusing, Whitney said, “Give me back the necklace.”

  “The Best Friends necklace? Whitney, you don’t mean that, do you?”

  Wrong question.

  “I do!” Whitney yelled, her eyes filling with tears. “I mean it forever.”

  And when I’d given her back the necklace, she slammed the door again and locked me out once more.

  I thought of Whitney all that night. I felt terrible: terrible about the lie, terrible about how badly I had handled the whole thing.

  I tried to imagine how Whitney must feel. As an imaginary feeling, it was pretty awful. For Whitney it must have been a hundred times worse.

  The next morning, I called Mrs. Cater as early as I could.

  “How is Whitney?” I asked.

  “She stayed in her room all night,” Mrs. Cater told me. Her voice sounded sad and tired. “I’m so sorry that this happened.”

  “If only I’d been more careful,” I said.

  “No. No, we should have told Whitney right from the start. But she works so hard at being ‘grown-up’ and self-reliant and we wanted to give her support in that. We were afraid saying you were her baby-sitter would undermine that positive self-image.” Mrs. Cater paused, then went on in a tone of forced cheerfulness, “Still, Whitney is always so sweet and goodnatured. She’ll get over it. I’m sure of that.”

  “Should I come this afternoon?”

  “Yes. Yes, you need to be here. And maybe that will help,” Mrs. Cater told me.

  So as usual, I went to the Caters’ that afternoon.

  “Whitney’s in her room,” said Mrs. Cater, who met me at the door.

  “Is she …”

  Mrs. Cater nodded. “But the door is open. That’s a good sign, I think.”

  I certainly hoped so. As soon as Mrs. Cater had gone, I went to Whitney’s room.

  Whitney was sitting on the floor, looking at a magazine.

  “Hi, Whitney!” I said.

  No answer.

  “Is that a good magazine? I don’t think I’ve seen that one yet.”

  I might as well have been talking to myself.

  Although I kept trying, Whitney didn’t speak to me the entire afternoon.

  Or the next.

  Then on the third afternoon, she looked up from the puzzle she was doing and said, “I’m not a baby. I don’t need a baby-sitter.”

  Taking this as an opening, I said, “You’re not a baby. That’s true. Baby-sitter isn’t the word I should have used.”

  Whitney turned her back to me.

  She didn’t speak to me again until I saw her go by with a basketful of laundry.

  “What’s happening?” I said.

  Whitney kept going, headed for the laundry room. I followed her. I watched as she sorted out the clothes and began to put them into the washing machine.

  “Want some help?” I asked.

  “I’m not a baby,” said Whitney. “I can do it myself.”

  After that, no matter what happened, Whitney seemed determined to prove that she didn’t need any help at all with anything, determined to prove that she was grown-up and didn’t need me at all.

  After a dozen attempts to join Whitney in whatever she was doing or to coax her into joining me, and being told, “I’m not a baby. I don’t need a baby-sitter,” I gave up.

  At least on that approach.

  I had hurt Whitney and there was nothing I could do to change that. All I could do now was wait and hope she could work things out for herself.

  And then maybe she would forgive me.

  “Take me out to the old ball game,” my father sang, loudly and off-key.

  I winced.

  Jeff said, “Daaaad.”

  Dad stopped singing and pulled his jacket on. “Kayla’s job with the public relations firm is not only challenging, but it has special perks. The tickets she got for us this evening are prime seats.”

  Those words brought out the more tolerant side of Jeff. “Cool,” he said.

  I didn’t say anything. I like baseball, don’t get me wrong. But I wasn’t sure I liked the idea of spending a whole evening at a California Angels game all the way over in Anaheim.

  “What’s Kayla like?” I asked as I followed Dad and Jeff to the car.

  “She’s in public relations,” my father told me. Again.

  “And she likes baseball?” I said.

  “Looks that way,” my father agreed. He concentrated on backing out of the driveway, then said casually, over his shoulder, “By the way, Kayla’s daughter will be joining us. Kayla loved the idea of a family date and wanted Alana to come, too.”

  Alana. That was an unusual name. I’d only met one other person with that name, a classmate who was sort of a pain. No, wrong, who was a big pain.

  But it probably wasn’t the same Alana, I told myself. Couldn’t be. It was one thing to believe in ghosts, another to believe in wild coincidences.

  Maybe Alana wasn’t such an unusual name after all. Maybe it was one of those popular names for an upcoming generation, the way Jennifer had been. Maybe I just hadn’t heard about the new name-your-kid-Alana trend. I fervently hoped so.

  Wrong. Alana was the Alana. Alana the Pain-a from my school.

  I could tell she was just as thrilled to see me.

  Kayla slid into the car next to our father and turned to smile at us. She had a nice smile. She and Alana sort of looked alike, too.

  But if Alana had a smile like her mother’s, we weren’t going to find out about it that night.

  Alana opened the car door, looked in, and said in a completely flat voice, “It is you.”

  Any thought I’d had of welcoming her died right there. I folded my arms and turned to stare out the window.

  It was so totally weird. It wasn’t as if Alana and I were total enemies. We weren’t. We didn’t even know each other that well.

  But we hung out in completely different crowds. Alana’s crowd could have been labeled “Brain Trust,” or “Rocket Scientists of the Future.” She and her friends made straight A’s, were always winning merit awards and honorable mentions and doing extra work for extra credit. They sat together at the same table in the caf and talked more quietly and seriously than everybody else. But if you listened to their conversations, they didn’t sound like conversations at all. The words were big and the concepts were complicated, but it seemed more as if they were showing off how much they knew than enjoying knowing it.

  Not like me and my friends: study hard, work hard (and be great baby-sitters), play hard, and don’t forget to surf. That could have been our motto. Needless to say, we made more noise at our lunch table.

  And I didn’t have to be a future rocket scientist to know that Alana and her crowd looked down on us for being the way we were.

  I wasn’t happy with this set-up. I didn’t think Alana was, either.

  But I did try, at least a little. After a few minutes, I cleared my throat and said, in Alana’s general direction, “So, do you like baseball?”

  “It’s a silly game,” said Alana.

  I frowned. She was calling my father and Jeff — and her mother — silly. And me, too, for that matter, even if I wasn’t as big a baseball fan as my brother and father.

  Still, I decided to try to be polite. “I can see how people might not like baseball,” I said. “What sports do you like?”

  Alana looked over at me and raised one eyebrow. Her expression was disdainful. “Sports don’t interest me,” she said.

  “Oh,” I said.

  I could take a hint.

  I leaned forward and said to Kayla, “Do you like sports?” br />
  Kayla smiled at me and nodded. “You’re not going to believe this, but I used to be on my fencing team in college.”

  “There’s a sport for you, Dawn,” said Alana sarcastically.

  Her mother ignored her and went on, “These days, I make do with tennis.”

  “Fencing?” I said, impressed. “Was it hard?”

  “Wow. What an incisive question,” muttered Alana.

  I bared my teeth in what wasn’t a smile and turned to Alana. “What did you say, Alana?”

  Everyone was quiet. Then Alana said. “Nothing.” She turned to look out the window.

  Dad cleared his throat. “Here we are,” he said.

  At the stadium, Dad and Kayla had plenty to say about where to park the car. I could see, a little, where Alana got her manner of speaking. Kayla had the same sort of sarcastic way of saying things. It bothered me, but I figured that my Dad knew where she was coming from and could handle it. For that matter, I knew where Alana was coming from — the Brain Trust snobs — and I could handle that. I just hated to waste a whole evening on it.

  At last Dad and Kayla compromised on a parking spot, and we were on our way into the game.

  If you’ve ever been to a baseball game, you know that the roar of the crowd and the smell of hot dogs are two big, big factors. The roar of the crowd I can take, but not the hot dogs. So when Dad rounded up dogs with mustard and kraut for Alana, Kayla, Jeff, and himself (although I knew he and Jeff weren’t big dog fans), I was prepared. I opened my backpack and brought out an avocado spread and sprout sandwich, a whole wheat blueberry muffin, and an orange.

  “What is that green stuff?” Alana’s voice cut into my satisfied contemplation of my healthy baseball game food.

  “Avocado spread,” I said. “Do you want to try some?”

  “You’ve got to be kidding,” said Alana. “I can’t believe anyone would be so weird as to bring health food to a baseball game.”

  Then she took a big bite of hot dog.

  I couldn’t help it. I made a disgusting gagging sound.

  Alana got a pained look on her face and swallowed quickly. Then she turned her back on me.

  “You girls doing all right?” my father asked.

  “Sure, Jack,” said Alana.