Starring the Baby-Sitters Club!

  “I don’t know where I’m supposed to be,” he whispered. “I’m just a little kid, but I have a big part. I mean — not to brag …”

  “That’s okay, Jackie,” I said. “You’re Michael Darling. You should be proud. Now let’s find out where you belong.”

  I took Jackie by the hand. After he was settled with the proper group, I returned to Matt and Haley who were sitting on the floor near Ms. Halliday. Haley was signing quickly as Matt tried to watch both her and the teacher. I settled down next to them.

  “… your scripts,” Ms. Halliday was saying. “Today I want you Indians to study your parts in the production. Read the stage directions. Older kids help the younger kids. You need to understand your role in the play.”

  Hannie Papadakis raised her hand. “Our role?” she repeated, frowning. “We’re Indians. Aren’t we?”

  “Yes, of course,” said Ms. Halliday. “What I meant was —”

  “Ms. Halliday?” called Adam Pike. “When do we get our costumes?”

  I stood up. “Ms. Halliday, I’ll talk to Hannie for you,” I said.

  “Thank you,” she replied, looking relieved.

  I took Hannie aside and explained to her that Ms. Halliday was referring to the purpose and the actions of the Indians when they’re onstage. As Hannie was rejoining her group, I heard an “oops.”

  The “oops” didn’t sound very loud or even very urgent, but I could tell who it had come from, and I knew enough to be worried. I glanced around. “Jackie? Where are you?” I called softly.

  “Over here,” came the equally soft reply. “I mean, up here.”

  “Oh, lord,” I muttered.

  Above my head, clinging fiercely to a bunch of ropes, was Jackie Rodowsky, the walking disaster.

  “What are you doing?” I hissed.

  “Well, I got bored. I climbed up here to investigate and now I can’t get down. But I have to get down because Mr. Cheney is talking to my group again. I don’t want to miss anything.”

  “Jackie, these are not climbing ropes, like in gym,” I told him. “They hold up scenery and stuff. If one of those ropes comes down, something else might crash down with it.”

  “Probably me,” said Jackie ruefully.

  I sighed. “You shouldn’t be up there, you know that,” I said. “But the important thing now is to get you down safely.”

  “Before Mr. Cheney sees,” added Jackie.

  “Right.” I considered asking Logan or Kristy or someone for help, but everyone looked awfully busy. So I hauled a pile of tumbling mats underneath Jackie and told him to drop onto them.

  “Okay,” he said. Then, “Anchors away!”

  Jackie landed safely on the mats. I helped him scramble to his feet. When we turned around we were facing Mr. Cheney.

  “Uh-oh,” muttered Jackie. He took a step sideways, tripped over his untied shoelace, stumbled backward against the mats, and slid to the floor. Before I could say a word, though, he had leaped to his feet again and was exclaiming, “It’s okay! I’m not hurt!”

  Jackie returned to the group of kids he was working with, leaving me facing Mr. Cheney. “Sorry about that,” I said. “He’s a little accident-prone. But he’s a great kid. Honest. And he’ll work hard. He wanted to be in the play more than anything.”

  “You know Jackie?” Mr. Cheney asked.

  I nodded. “Yup. Really well. I baby-sit —”

  “Mary Anne! I lost my shoe!” cried Karen Brewer, approaching me tearfully. “And I told Kristy, but she’s too busy being Peter Pan.”

  “When did you take it off?” I asked her.

  “I don’t know. A little while ago. I felt something in it, so I sat down over there by those boxes,” she wailed, pointing.

  “Over there where that sneaker is?” I said.

  “Oh, yeah!” Karen smiled through her tears and ran for her shoe.

  I turned back to Mr. Cheney again, but was immediately interrupted by Haley. “Me and Matt need help!” she said desperately.

  “Coming!” I replied. “Mr. Cheney —”

  “You go ahead,” he said. “We’re both busy now. But Mary Anne, I’d like to talk to you after the rehearsal, if that’s okay.”

  “Sure. I’m baby-sitting, but Matt and Haley can wait a few minutes.”

  Under ordinary circumstances, I might have worried. Why did Mr. Cheney want to talk to me? Was he mad at me for getting Jackie down by myself instead of asking for help? But I was far too busy to worry. During the rest of the rehearsal, kids kept coming to me with problems — ranging from lost scripts to loose teeth. Plus, I was a little distracted by Logan. He and the other pirates kept fooling around. Instead of studying their scripts, they held sword fights using rulers. And they teased each other about their names. (Well, Noodler is a pretty silly name.)

  Anyway, when the rehearsal ended, Mr. Cheney found me and said, “Mary Anne, you were an enormous help today. I don’t know what we would have done without you. I was wondering — how would you like to come to every rehearsal and be our ‘backstage baby-sitter’?”

  I brightened. “I’d love to! Um, as long as I never have to set foot on the stage.”

  “It’s a deal. Oh, one other thing. I think Jackie may need a little extra help — and supervision. Would you agree to be his personal coach?”

  Of course I would. And I did.

  Which was how I wound up involved with Peter Pan after all. Looking back, somehow it seemed inevitable.

  As you know, Mr. Cheney had named me the apprentice costume designer. He had named an eighth-grader, Savannah Minton, the costume designer. Savannah and I were both working under Miss Stanworth, one of the home-ec teachers. (Miss Stanworth is young and glamorous. I’ve seen some of the stuff she’s made — like all her own clothes — and it’s really professional. I can’t wait until Miss Stanworth is my home-ec teacher.)

  At the end of the first rehearsal, Savannah (who doesn’t go by a nickname, because the only one anybody can ever think of is Vanna, and she absolutely refuses) told me that at the second rehearsal our work as designers would begin. That was when I had that vision of creating wild, brilliant costumes in some forgotten backstage room. On Thursday, during lunch, I even decided to go exploring and find the room, but the band was rehearsing on the stage, and I didn’t want to be discovered poking around. So I had to wait until Friday afternoon for my first assignment.

  This was my first assignment. To measure the cast members. With a measuring tape. Even the boys.

  I was supposed to go around measuring boys? How, I wondered, was it going to be possible to measure boys without actually touching them?

  You have to understand. There’s nothing wrong with boys. I even like this one particular boy. His name is Ben Hobart. He’s in sixth grade, he comes from Australia, and he was the apprentice lighting director on the play. Ben and I have gone to the movies a few times, and to a couple of dances, and sometimes we study together. Therefore, obviously, I have touched Ben a few times. Like when we were dancing and we held hands.

  But measuring boys around their waists was a different story. First of all, some boys are jerks. I just knew that Alan Gray, the Pest of All the World, would give me a hard time. Plus, some of the cast members are in high school. How would Sam Thomas feel with Mallory Pike stretching a measuring tape around his waist?

  “We have to measure all the cast members?” I repeated after Savannah had given me my assignment.

  “Yes,” she replied. “We want the costumes to fit.”

  “I know. Right. Sure we do…. Hey, I have an idea. How about if I measure all the girls and you measure all the boys?”

  Savannah frowned slightly. “Why?”

  “I don’t know. I just thought … never mind.”

  “Look,” said Savannah. “Measuring everyone is going to take awhile. My plan is to start with the people who have the biggest roles in the play or who have the most elaborate costumes. Like Kristy, because she’s Peter Pan, and Pete, because he needs the Nana
costume and the crocodile costume. Then we’ll work our way down to the little kids who are playing Indians and the Lost Boys.”

  “Okay,” I said in a small voice.

  “So today I want to get measurements on all the kids with larger roles or fancier costumes. That’s Liza the maid; John, Michael, and Wendy Darling; Mr. and Mrs. Darling; Pete Black for Nana and the crocodile; Tiger Lily; Peter Pan; Tinker Bell; Captain Hook; and Smee. If we can get to the other pirates, fine. If not, we’ll measure them at the next rehearsal. Okay, Mal, I’ve divided this list in two. Here’s your half. And here’s a measuring tape. We need chest, waist, hips, hem lengths, and in some cases, other measurements. Those are described on the list. All right? Go to it.”

  Savannah hurried off. She left me standing backstage, holding the measuring tape. It dangled from my fingers. Kids were milling around me, but I barely noticed them. I didn’t even hear them. I looked at the list Savannah had given me. This is what it said:

  Beneath the names were descriptions of the costumes, their lengths, and so forth. (We needed to know whether the hem fell at the knees or the ankles, that sort of thing.) Some costumes were simple, such as Michael’s nightshirt. Others were complicated, such as Captain Hook’s pirate outfit.

  I wondered who to start with. Maybe someone easy, like Dawn, or even Karen Brewer. Then I realized I didn’t know the kid who was going to play Captain Hook. Lucas Danver. Who was he?

  “Kristy?” I called. I could see her reading from the script with Dawn. Since Kristy was Peter Pan, she ought to know who Hook was.

  “Yeah?” replied Kristy. (Clearly, I had interrupted her.)

  “Who’s Lucas Danver?” I asked. “You know, the guy who plays Captain Hook?”

  “I’m not sure. He goes to the high school. I think he knows Charlie.”

  Dawn had looked up from her copy of the script, too.

  “Lucas Danver?” she repeated. “Kristy, he is only the most gorgeous guy at the high school. You do too know him. Remember at auditions? He was the one the girls cheered for after he finished reading Hook’s part.”

  “Oh, yeah,” said Kristy distractedly.

  Kristy returned to the script, but I wanted to die. I had to measure the most gorgeous guy in the high school? This was getting worse and worse. I could not deal with the thought. I decided to ignore the problem for awhile. “Dawn?” I said. “I have to measure you.” I held up the tape. “It’s my job.”

  “Okay. Kristy, I’ll be back in a minute.”

  Dawn and I moved away from the action and I got to work. Nearby, Mary Anne, the backstage baby-sitter, was reading from the script with Jackie. She was holding Margo in her lap. Margo looked as if she’d been crying.

  I abandoned Dawn.

  “Margo?” I said. “What’s the matter?”

  “Hey!” cried Dawn. “Come back. Hurry up. I’m supposed to be reading with Kristy.”

  “Wait a sec. Margo’s upset.”

  “It’s okay, Mal,” spoke up Mary Anne. “Margo bumped her knee, but she’s fine now. She won’t even have a bruise.”

  “Mary Anne, read with me!” commanded Jackie.

  “Margo, are you really all right?” I asked.

  Margo nodded, so I let Mary Anne go back to work with Jackie, and I finished measuring Dawn. When I had written down the information I needed, I placed a check by the name Dawn Schafer. I looked at the next name on the list. Jackie Rodowsky. I didn’t think I should interrupt Jackie and Mary Anne again, so I moved on to Karen. Where was she? I glanced around backstage. I saw Ms. Halliday working with the Indians, Haley patiently translating for her brother. I saw Logan and the other pirates inventing a “pirate dance.” (I don’t know what they were supposed to be doing, but it wasn’t that.) I saw Jessi trying to teach the Lost Boys (four of whom were girls) to execute a kick-step. And then I saw Adam, Jordan, and Byron, the triplets. I don’t know what they were supposed to be doing, either, but they were hiding inside an immense cardboard box. It was large enough to have contained a washing machine. They had poked holes through the sides, and now they were blowing spitballs through the holes with pea-shooters.

  I stuffed the tape measure in my pocket. I strode across the stage, pushing between Tiger Lily and one of the Indians, and I lifted the box right off the floor. Three pea-shooters went flying.

  “Hey!” exclaimed Jordan indignantly.

  “Hey, yourselves. You guys are supposed to be working with Ms. Halliday.”

  “We are not. She’s working with the younger kids now.”

  “Well, you are not supposed to be shooting spitballs around the stage.”

  “Mallory, I will take care of this,” said a quiet voice behind me.

  It was Mary Anne. She did not sound (or look) pleased.

  “Okay, okay,” I replied.

  “Hey, Mallory!” Savannah was walking briskly toward me. “How are you doing? Are you ready for another list?”

  “Not quite.”

  “Okay. Who haven’t you gotten to yet?”

  “Well … Jackie, Karen, Lucas, Alan, and Cokie.”

  “Mallory!”

  “I’m sorry.”

  Savannah did not sound (or look) very pleased herself. “Oh, here,” she said. She tore my list in half, leaving me with the top. “I’ll measure Lucas, Alan, and Cokie. Can you manage Jackie and Karen?”

  I nodded. Relief flooded through me. I knew Savannah was upset with me, but at least (for now) I would only have to measure little kids.

  Unfortunately, Savannah wasn’t the only one upset with me. Mary Anne was no happier. “Mallory,” she said, “I am the backstage baby-sitter. Please remember that.”

  By Saturday, we had held two rehearsals. Neither one was quite what I thought of when I imagined a rehearsal. The characters were not on the stage reading their lines from the beginning of the play to the end. No, the rehearsals were much more basic. They were Ms. Halliday explaining to the kids the function of the Indians who, except for Tiger Lily, did not have speaking parts, although they had musical numbers. They were Mallory running around with her measuring tape. They were Karen trying to figure out how to portray a nonspeaking fairy who’s usually seen simply as a shimmering light. They were Kristy and me reading our lines together, not yet even trying to memorize them, simply beginning to see what kind of energy we could create together.

  However, at the end of Friday’s rehearsal, Mr. Cheney did say we should begin to memorize our lines, that we would only be able to rely on our scripts for so long. On Saturday, Mary Anne offered to help me with that job. I guess she figured she was already more involved with the play than she had intended, so one more task wouldn’t hurt.

  “I’ll read Peter’s lines to you in your first scene,” she offered, “and you see if you can come up with Wendy’s.”

  That was exactly what we did. We sat side by side on my bed. The script was between us, so I could refer to it, but mostly I closed my eyes and tried to remember my lines.

  “You know,” I said after awhile. “Peter Pan has some nerve.”

  “What?” said Mary Anne.

  “He’s so selfish. The only reason he wants Wendy to come back to Neverland with him is so she can be a mother to him and the Lost Boys. He just wants someone who will cook and clean and sew for him.”

  “Wendy knows that. Peter Pan is very upfront with her.”

  “But he wants a maid!” I protested.

  “Wendy doesn’t have to agree to go. Anyway, Peter promised her and her brothers an adventure, didn’t he?”

  “Oh, that’s just like a man,” I replied. “They always say stuff like that. Those things are bribes. Sure, Peter promises Wendy an adventure. But he winds up with a maid, which is what he wanted in the first place. What a baby. First he loses his shadow. Then he can’t even sew it on for himself, and how hard could that be? In the play, Wendy sews it back on in, like, ten seconds. Sheesh.”

  “Dawn, I think you’re making too much of this. Anyway, so what if the play is sex
ist? It’s been around since 1904 and everyone loves it and the story is a lot of fun.”

  “But what does the story say to little kids?” I countered. “It says boys should expect girls to do all the housework, and that isn’t right. Look at your own father. He cooks and cleans. I’ve never seen him sew, but he makes up for it with the cleaning.” (Mary Anne’s father is like Felix Unger in The Odd Couple.)

  “That’s true. But … for heaven’s sake, Dawn. Get a grip. This is a story with fairies and pirates and a magic land where people can fly and they never have to grow up. Why don’t you just go with it? Anyway, what can you do about it? Drop out of the play?”

  “No. I’m not going to drop out. But I’ll think of something to do.”

  By the time Mary Anne and I went to the next play rehearsal, I had decided exactly what to do. And it did not involve dropping out of the play. (I wouldn’t give Cokie the satisfaction.)

  This was the first rehearsal at which the characters stood on the stage and said their lines with each other. Not that we had costumes or even any scenery. And we didn’t run through the entire play. We didn’t even rehearse the scenes in order. We just waited for Mr. Cheney to call out, “Okay, now let me see the Darling children in Act One.” (He loved referring to Wendy, Michael, and John that way.) Or, “And now I want to see Peter and Captain Hook,” or Hook and Smee, or Peter and Tiger Lily, or whatever.

  Halfway through the afternoon, Mr. Cheney called Kristy and me onto the stage. We stepped into the dim lights. We were wearing our school clothes and holding our scripts. Surprisingly, we had an audience. Scattered throughout the auditorium were teachers and kids who were interested in the progress of the play. I soon realized that we would have a small audience at every rehearsal.

  “Kristy,” began Mr. Cheney. “Read from the point in the scene —”

  He was interrupted by a thunk from behind the curtain.

  The Walking Disaster strikes again, I thought. But I was wrong. The thunk had been Alan Gray’s elbow hitting the floor. Backstage, the pirates had grown bored, and Noodler and Smee had started another swordfight. Logan had backed Alan into a corner and hissed, “Walk the gangplank, traitor!” and Alan had lost his balance.