Kristy and the Baby Parade

  “That picture reminds me,” I said, after we’d finished discussing club business — and after we’d answered a few job calls. “What kind of costume do you think I could make Emily for the baby parade?”

  “I thought you were supposed to be thinking about Andrea’s costume,” said Mary Anne. I’d told my friends about how Mrs. P. had asked me to help her.

  “Oh, I know,” I answered. “I just can’t decide what to do about the baby parade. I’m not even sure if my mom will let me enter Emily, but I’m dying to. On the other hand, if I don’t help Mrs. P. with Andrea, she might not even want me to finish out the next three weeks of baby-sitting that she hired me for.”

  “She wouldn’t fire you just for that!” said Stacey.

  “I sure hope not,” I answered.

  “You know,” said Claudia. “Lucy Newton ought to be entered in the parade. She is the cutest thing in the universe.”

  “She is cute,” said Jessi. “So’s Squirt, for that matter. I bet he could win a prize.”

  “What about Laura and Gabbie Perkins?” asked Mary Anne. “They’d love to be in the parade, I bet.”

  “So would Eleanor Marshall,” added Dawn. “I sat for her the other day, and she is a total doll. She is so, so cute.”

  I felt it coming. An idea. One of the best ideas I’d had yet. “I know,” I said suddenly. “How about if we get a whole bunch of babies together and enter them as a group in the Float Division?” I was excited. “I could help you guys with that, and also get Andrea ready for the Stroller Division. That way, we can all enter whatever babies we want! It’ll be fun making the float, won’t it?” I had gotten so carried away that I was already assuming we’d do it.

  “You know,” said Stacey, “I think that’s a great idea!”

  Everybody else agreed with her, so we spent the rest of the meeting calling all the parents we could think of to ask their permission for our plan. Of course, Mrs. P. was the first parent I called, and she was thrilled that I’d be helping her with Andrea’s costume. This was going to be the best baby parade Stoneybrook had ever seen!

  “So are you guys all ready to hear my great idea for our float?” I asked. I couldn’t wait to tell them my plan. I knew they’d love it. It was Saturday morning, and we were all lounging around in the living room at Dawn and Mary Anne’s house. We’d decided to have our baby parade planning meeting there, where we could spread out and talk all morning with no interruptions. (Mary Anne’s dad was working in the yard, and Dawn’s mom had gone off to do some errands.)

  I looked around the room at my friends. Nobody had begged me to tell them my idea, but then again, none of them had said I shouldn’t. “Okay, here’s what we’ll do. The theme will be — get this — Take Me Out to the Ball Game!” I scanned their faces to see their reactions to my idea, but I couldn’t tell what they thought. “We’ll dress the babies in little baseball uniforms and decorate the float like a baseball diamond. It’ll be so, so cute!” I went on.

  “You’ve got to be kidding,” said Dawn in a flat voice. “That has to be the worst idea I’ve ever heard. Babies playing baseball?”

  I was crushed. But I didn’t have time to defend my idea because Dawn kept on talking.

  “I think we should do something really different, something nobody else in Stoneybrook would ever think about. Like Surfin’ USA!” She smiled at all of us. “We’ll dress the babies in really cool-looking outfits, put them on surfboards, and decorate the float to look like the ocean.”

  I rolled my eyes. Why were surfing babies any better than babies playing baseball? I heard Mary Anne giggle. Dawn glared at her.

  “I’m sorry,” Mary Anne said. “It’s just that the idea of baby surfers seems kind of silly to me. I thought we’d do something that was more related to kids, like maybe acting out a nursery rhyme.”

  “Oh?” asked Dawn. I could tell she was a little hurt that Mary Anne had made fun of her idea. Well, now she knew how it felt. “What nursery rhyme did you have in mind, Mary Anne?”

  “Three Little Kittens,” answered Mary Anne proudly. “We’d dress up the babies like kittens, and I could knit little mittens for them … And of course, Tigger could be on the float, too.”

  “I get it,” said Stacey. “You came up with that idea just so you could work out a way for your kitten to be on the float. That’s ridiculous! This is a baby parade, not a pet show.”

  Mary Anne hung her head and sniffled. She cries so easily.

  “I’m sorry, Mary Anne,” said Stacey. “But don’t you think that idea is a little childish? I think the judges would be more impressed with something a little more sophisticated.”

  Mary Anne wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “Okay, let’s hear it,” she said.

  “What?” asked Stacey.

  “Your idea for our float,” answered Mary Anne. “Obviously you think you have a great one. Let’s hear it.”

  “Well,” said Stacey. She closed her eyes for a moment and then started talking very fast, as if she were nervous that someone would interrupt her. “I was thinking that we could do a float called ‘New York, New York.’ It could be a model of the skyline. You know, the Empire State Building and all that? And we could dress up the babies in tuxedos and evening gowns.”

  I held back a giggle. “Very glamorous,” I said, trying to look serious.

  Claudia didn’t bother to hold back her giggles. She burst out laughing. “Stacey, I don’t believe it. You’ve gone off your rocker. Babies in tuxedos? We’d be the biggest joke in the parade.”

  Stacey crossed her arms and sat silently, frowning at the floor.

  I looked around the room.

  “How about you, Mal?” I asked. Apparently, we’d all come with ideas, so I figured I might as well let everybody have a chance to speak.

  “Oh, well I —” she broke off in mid-sentence, looking as if she’d like to disappear.

  “What, Mal?” asked Jessi. “Come on, you can tell us.”

  “IwasthinkingofdoingMistyofChincoteague,” she said in one breath.

  “WHAT?” we all said at once.

  “Misty,” she said. “My favorite book. I thought we could act it out.”

  “What,” said Jessi. “Dress the babies like wild ponies?” She raised her eyebrows. I heard a few giggles exploding around the room.

  “I don’t know,” said Mallory, sounding miserable. “I hadn’t really thought it out, I guess.”

  The giggles got louder, and soon we were all laughing so hard we could barely breathe. Every time the laughing began to die down, someone would say, “Ponies!” or “Surfers!” and it would start all over again. My stomach hurt, and tears were rolling down my face.

  Finally, we managed to get ourselves under control. “Claudia,” I said, once I had found my voice. “What about you? We never heard your idea.”

  She blushed. “I know,” she said. “And now you’re never going to. It was just as dumb as all the others.”

  “Come on!” said Stacey. “You’ve got to tell. We all made fools of ourselves. Why should you be the only one who didn’t?”

  We pestered her until she broke down. “Oh, all right,” she said. “It was an idea about babies from outer space — you know, like something you’d see in those supermarket newspapers: ‘Woman gives birth to baby from Mars.’ ”

  We were too stunned even to laugh. That had to be the worst idea of all!

  “I know, I know,” said Claud. “That’s why I didn’t want to tell you guys. But listen, I think Mary Anne is on to something. I think acting out a nursery rhyme is a great idea, even if that kitten one isn’t the best choice.”

  I looked around the room. Everybody was nodding. “You know,” I said. “I think Claud’s right. So what nursery rhyme could we do?”

  “We need one with lots of characters,” said Dawn. “I mean, we’ve already got five babies, right?”

  “Let’s see,” I said, checking the list we’d made. “Squirt and Emily, Lucy Newton, Eleanor Marshall
, and Laura Perkins. That’s five. I guess Gabbie didn’t want to be in the parade.”

  “Okay, let’s think,” said Stacey. The room was quiet for a few minutes.

  “All I can think of are rhymes with two characters!” said Mallory. “Like Jack and Jill, or Peter Peter Pumpkin Eater.”

  “I know,” said Dawn. “This isn’t as easy as you’d think.”

  Then somebody called out the idea that we ended up agreeing on. I can’t even remember who it was, and neither can anyone else. I don’t think anybody wants to take responsibility for it, even though we all thought it was a great idea. At the time.

  The Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe. That was our idea. It sounded like a lot of fun.

  “We’ll need more than five babies for that one,” said Mary Anne.

  “But we don’t know too many other kids under three,” I answered. “Where can we get more babies?” Then I thought of the infant-care course we’d taken. We’d met a lot of babies there! At least some of those new parents would have to be interested in entering their kids in the baby parade.

  “Great idea,” said Mary Anne, when I’d blurted out what I’d been thinking. “And I even have some of their phone numbers in the record book. We can call them right away.”

  Good old Mary Anne. What an efficient club secretary. We made some phone calls then and there, and before we knew it we had four more babies lined up.

  “You will be on the float with them, won’t you?” asked Mrs. Salem, when I called to see if Ricky and Rose could be involved.

  “Of course,” I answered. And I said the same thing to the last mother we called, who asked the same question. But, of course, we hadn’t really figured out how we were going to dress — or how we were going to handle nine babies, for that matter.

  “Nine babies is definitely more than enough,” said Stacey. “I don’t see how we could handle any more than that. And as for what we should wear — one of us can dress up like the Old Woman, and the others can dress like her older children. That way, we’ll all fit into the theme.”

  We agreed, although we didn’t stop to decide which of us would be the Old Woman. We’d made enough decisions for the day.

  “We can build the float in my backyard, so we can be near all my art supplies,” said Claudia. “I hope you realize that it’s not going to be easy to build a giant float, though.”

  “Oh, we’ll figure it out,” I said. “I’ll ask Charlie if he can help us. I was thinking that he could pull the float behind the Junk Bucket.” (That’s Charlie’s old car.) I knew he’d be glad to help. He’s usually pretty good about things like that.

  “So we’re all set, right?” asked Stacey. “I have to meet my mom now so we can go to the mall.”

  “All set,” I said.

  That showed how much I knew.

  On Monday afternoon when I went to the Prezziosos’ to sit, Jenny flung the door open before I’d even rung the bell. She must have been waiting for me. “Guess what!” she said. “Mommy figured out what Andrea’s costume should be.”

  “That’s great.” I said. “I can’t wait to hear about it.” I thought she’d tell me about the costume, but instead she heaved a big sigh.

  “I wish I could be in the parade,” she said, “and wear a pretty costume and everything.”

  “I know,” I said. “But you’re a big girl, and the parade’s just for babies.”

  She nodded. “Sometimes I wish I wasn’t such a big girl,” she said wistfully. “Sometimes I wish I was still a baby.”

  I felt bad for her. She must have been feeling kind of left out. “But remember,” I said. “Big girls get to do all kinds of things that babies can’t do, like helping to bake cookies, and —”

  Just then, Mrs. Prezzioso burst into the front hall. “Oh!” she said. “You’re here, Kristy. I didn’t hear the doorbell.”

  “I know,” I said. “Jenny —”

  But she cut me off. “Did you hear about Andrea’s costume?” she asked. “I think it’s going to be absolutely precious.” She seemed really excited.

  “I heard that you chose a theme,” I answered, “but Jenny hasn’t told me what it is.”

  “Oh, I know you’re going to love it, Kristy,” she said, smiling happily. “I’ve decided to dress her as Queen Andrea!”

  Queen Andrea?

  I gulped. “That — that sounds wonderful!” I said, trying to seem enthusiastic. It seemed like a pretty weird idea to me, if you want to know the truth.

  “And she’s going to have a crown, and a long, long dress!” added Jenny.

  “That’s right,” said Mrs. P. “Let me show you what I’ve found so far.” She threw open the door to the hall closet. “Here’s her crown,” she said, showing me a gold crown (made of plastic) with fake jewels all over it. “And she’s going to wear this big wig, like they wore in the old days.” She showed me something that looked like my neighbor’s cat.

  I didn’t know what to say.

  “Oh! I’ll be late if I don’t get going,” said Mrs. P. suddenly, looking at her watch. “Andrea’s asleep, but she should be ready to wake up soon.”

  I trailed her out the door. She had planned Andrea’s costume without my help. I wondered if she still wanted me to work on it. “Is there anything else I should do about getting Andrea ready for the parade?” I asked. I was hoping that she’d changed her mind and didn’t need my help after all.

  “Oh, that’s right!” she said. “I almost forgot. I want you to figure out how to make her stroller look like a coach.”

  A coach. Oh, sure.

  “You can use any materials you find in my sewing room,” she said. “I’m going to be pushing her in the parade,” she added. “And I want her to look fabulous so she’ll make a good impression on the judges. I would really, really like her to win first prize in her division. Wouldn’t that be fantastic?”

  “Fantastic,” I echoed. I waved at Mrs. P. as she jumped into her car. Wow! She was getting carried away with this parade stuff. And she sure sounded as if she wanted Andrea to win a prize. I suddenly felt like I was under a lot of pressure.

  What if Andrea didn’t win? Would Mrs. P. decide that I was a terrible sitter because I hadn’t been able to make the stroller into a perfect coach? Would she fire me? What would that do to the reputation of the club?

  Just then, I heard Andrea’s cries from upstairs. She was ready to get up. “C’mon, Jenny,” I said, trying to put my worries aside. “Let’s go get Queen Andrea.”

  It turned out that Her Royal Highness had a wet diaper, so the first order of business was to get her into a dry one. Then Jenny decided she was hungry, so we trooped downstairs for a snack. Just as I was cleaning up from that, Andrea started to wail, and I realized that she must have been hungry, too.

  I got her a bottle and we sat on the couch while she drank. Jenny jumped around the room, waving her arms and tunelessly singing the theme from Sesame Street. “Watch me!” she said, and she bent down to do a somersault.

  It was a pretty crooked one, but she stood up proudly afterward and looked my way. “Very good, Jenny!” I said.

  “Look what else I can do,” she said, as she took off into a cartwheel. Bam! She careened into the couch.

  “Oh, Jenny,” I said. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine,” she said brightly. “Don’t you think I’m a good cartwheeler? I could do gymtastics in the parade!”

  “That’s gymnastics,” I said. “And yes, you’re a good cartwheeler. But cartwheels are for outdoors, not for the living room. And as for the parade, remember what I told you? It’s just for babies.”

  Jenny pouted for a minute or two but brightened when she saw that her baby sister had finished her bottle. “Let’s put Andrea’s costume on her,” she said. “Wait till you see how it looks.”

  She led me to the closet, and we got out the parts of the costume that Mrs. P. had stored there. Besides the crown and the wig, Jenny pulled out a long cloak with fake fur trim, and a big lacy ruff for
Andrea to wear around her neck.

  We sat Andrea on the living room floor and dressed her up. Boy, did she look funny! The wig slipped down over one eye, and the crown sat crookedly on top. The cloak was so long that she’d have tripped over it — if she knew how to walk. And the ruff? Well, her chin — and half her face — kind of disappeared into it, so that you couldn’t see how cute she was anymore.

  Jenny giggled. “She looks silly,” she said.

  I agreed, but I thought it might be better if I didn’t say so out loud. “I think she looks very nice,” I said (lying through my teeth).

  Andrea smiled at me, and then, all of a sudden, she gave a little burp.

  “Oh, no!” I said. Andrea had spit up all over the ruff. It was my fault, too. I’d forgotten to burp her after her bottle. I hurried Andrea out of the Queen outfit and cleaned the ruff as well as I could.

  Then I decided that I’d better start thinking about how to make that stroller into a coach. “Come on, Jenny,” I said. “You can help me figure this out.” I took Andrea into the sewing room and set her on the floor in her infant seat. That way, I could keep an eye on her while I worked. I gave her some plastic rings and rattles to keep her busy. Then I looked around the room to see what kind of materials Mrs. P. had left for me.

  “Somewhere, over the rainbow —” sang Jenny in a piercing voice. She stood in the middle of the room, with her hands clasped in front of her, just like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz.

  “Jenny,” I said. She was not only loud, she was totally off-key.

  “We’re off to see the Wizard,” she sang, even louder.

  “JENNY!” I said.

  She stopped short. “What?” she asked. “I’m just showing you what a good singer I am. Maybe I could sing in the parade.”

  “Jenny, you can’t do gymnastics in the parade, and you can’t sing in the parade. You can watch the parade, but you can’t be in it. You’re too old!”

  Jenny bit her lower lip and stared at the floor. I gave her a quick hug and said, “Let’s see what we can do to decorate Andrea’s stroller, okay?”