Jessi Ramsey, Pet-Sitter

  “Probably,” I agreed, “but it’s going to be very important that we stay neutral. No taking sides at all.”

  Mary Anne just loves sitting for the Perkinses. Remember them? They’re the owners of Chewy; they’re the family who moved into Kristy’s house after the Thomases left it for Watson’s mansion. The three Perkins girls are Myriah, who’s five and a half, Gabbie Ann, who’s two and a half, and Laura, the baby. Laura is so little that we usually don’t take care of her, just Myriah and Gabbie. Right now, Laura pretty much goes wherever her mother goes.

  Myriah and Gabbie are fun and us sitters like them a lot. The girls enjoy adventures and trying new things, which was why Mary Anne thought they’d like the trip to the Mancusis’. And they did like it. The awful-disgusting-gross-shivery-blechh thing had nothing to do with the girls. In fact, Mary Anne was the one who caused it. Myriah helped to solve it.

  I better back up a little here. Okay, at about four o’clock on Tuesday afternoon I returned to the Mancusis’ after walking the dogs, and found the phone ringing.

  “Hello, Mancusi residence,” I said breathlessly as I picked up the phone.

  “Hi, Jessi, it’s Mary Anne.”

  Mary Anne was calling to find out if she could bring Myriah and Gabbie over. I told her yes, of course, and about twenty minutes later they showed up.

  “Oh, boy! Aminals!” cried Gabbie. Her blonde hair was fixed in two ponytails that bobbed up and down as she made a dash for the Mancusis’ kitchen.

  “All kinds!” added Myriah. Myriah’s hair was pulled back into one long ponytail that reached halfway down her back. She followed her sister.

  The girls began exploring the house. The cats and dogs weren’t too interesting to them since they’ve got one of each at their house — Chewy, and their cat, R.C. But the other animals fascinated them.

  I showed them Barney. I showed them Lucy and Ricky. I explained everything I could think of to them. We moved on.

  “These are —”

  “Easter bunnies!” supplied Gabbie, as we looked in at Fluffer-Nut, Robert, Toto, and Cindy.

  “You can hold them,” I said. “The rabbits like to have a chance to get out of their hutch.”

  So Myriah held Toto, and Gabbie held Fluffer-Nut. For a few minutes, the girls had a giggle-fest. I looked around for Mary Anne. When I didn’t see her, I was relieved instead of worried. I didn’t want to talk about Kristy or our club problems with her.

  Soon the girls grew tired of the rabbits, so we put them back.

  “Now these,” I told Gabbie and Myriah, “are hamsters. Since they’re sleeping, we won’t disturb them. But see how fat that hamster’s face is?” I pointed to one on top of the pile of hamsters. It was not the fat hamster. He was still off by himself in that corner of the cage. He seemed to have made a sort of nest. No, I pointed to one of the other hamsters.

  “He looks like he has the mumps!” said Myriah.

  “He does, doesn’t he? But his fat cheeks are really —”

  “AUGHHH!”

  The scream came from the direction of the sun porch.

  “Mary Anne?” I called.

  “AUGHHH!” was her reply.

  I put the lid back on the hamster cage, took Myriah and Gabbie by their hands, and ran with them to the sun porch.

  A truly horrible sight met our eyes. We saw Barney’s cage and the lid to Barney’s cage — but no Barney.

  “Mary Anne, what on earth happened?” I cried.

  “Barney’s loose!” was her response. “The snake is loose!”

  Mary Anne and I got the same idea at the same time. We jumped up on one of the big porch chairs, the way people do when they’ve just seen a mouse.

  Myriah and Gabbie looked at us as if we were crazy.

  “What are you doing?” exclaimed Myriah. “Barney’s just a little snake. He can’t hurt you. Besides, he could probably slither right up onto that chair. You can’t escape him that way.”

  “Oh, EW!” shrieked Mary Anne.

  “How did Barney get loose?” I asked her.

  “Well, I’m not sure, but I think he just crawled out of his cage, or slithered out or whatever sn-snakes do. I — I mean, he did it after I forgot to put the lid back on his cage. I took it off so I could get a closer look at him, and then I heard someone saying, “Where’s the beef? Where’s the beef?” so I left to see who it was. And then I found the birds, and then I remembered Barney, and when I came back to replace the lid on his cage, he was gone. I am so sorry, Jessi.”

  “Oh …” I cried.

  “Shouldn’t we find Barney?” asked Myriah sensibly. “Before he gets too far away?”

  “I guess so.” I couldn’t believe I was going to have to search for a snake. I couldn’t think of anything stupider than searching for something you didn’t want to find — or anything grosser than searching for a flicking tongue and a long, scaly body.

  But it had to be done, and done fast.

  “Let’s split up,” I suggested. “Barney probably couldn’t have gotten upstairs, so we don’t need to search there. Mary Anne, you and Gabbie look in the back rooms on this floor. Myriah and I will look in the front rooms.”

  “Okay,” agreed Mary Anne, and we set off.

  The search was a nightmare. Well, it was for Mary Anne and me. For Myriah and Gabbie it was like playing hide-and-seek with an animal. The odd thing was, I was so afraid of Barney that I was less worried about not finding him and having to tell the Mancusis he was lost than I was that we would find him. I went looking gingerly under chairs and tables and couches, always terrified that I’d come face to face with Barney and his flicking tongue.

  But after twenty minutes of searching, there was no sign of Barney. And we’d been through every room on the first floor.

  “Uh-oh,” I said, as the four of us met in the hallway. “Now what? How am I going to tell the Mancusis that Barney is missing?”

  “Long distance. It’s the next best thing to being there!” called Frank from his cage.

  We began to laugh, but then I said, “This is serious. We have to find Barney.”

  “Yeah,” said Mary Anne. “Boy, am I sorry, Jessi. If — if you have to tell the Mancusis that …you know …I’ll help you.”

  “Hey!” said Myriah suddenly. “I just thought of something. We’re learning about animals in school, and Barney is a snake and snakes are reptiles and reptiles are cold-blooded. If I had cold blood, I’d want to warm up.”

  “Could Barney have gotten outside?” I said nervously. “Maybe he wanted sunshine. We might never find him outdoors, though.”

  “Well, let’s look,” said Mary Anne.

  So we did. And we hadn’t looked for long when Mary Anne let out another shriek.

  “Where is he?” I cried, since I knew that was what her scream had meant.

  “Here,” she yelled. “On the back porch.”

  I ran around to the porch and there was Barney, napping peacefully in a patch of sunshine.

  “You were right,” I whispered to Myriah. “Thank you.” Then I added, “How are we going to get him back in his cage, Mary Anne?”

  Mary Anne looked thoughtful. “I have an idea,” she said. “Do the Mancusis have a spare aquarium somewhere?”

  I wasn’t sure. We checked around and found one in the garage. It was empty but clean.

  “Okay,” said Mary Anne, “what we’re going to do is put this aquarium over Barney. I’ll — I’ll do it, since I was the one who let him loose.”

  I didn’t argue. The four of us returned to the porch, and Mary Anne crept up behind Barney, holding the overturned aquarium. She paused several feet from him. “I hope he doesn’t wake up,” she said.

  Boy, I hoped he didn’t, either.

  Mary Anne tiptoed a few steps closer, then a few more steps closer. When she was about a foot away from him, she lowered the aquarium. Barney woke up — but not until the aquarium was in place.

  “Now,” said Mary Anne, “we slide a piece of really stiff
cardboard under Barney. Then we carry him inside and dump him in his own cage. This is my spider-catching method. See, I don’t like spiders, and I also don’t like to squish them, so when I find one in the house, I trap it under a cup or a glass and take it outside.”

  Well, Mary Anne’s suggestion was a good one. I found a piece of cardboard in a stack of newspapers the Mancusis were going to throw away. Mary Anne carefully slid it under Barney, the two of us carried him inside, Myriah opened his cage for us — and we dumped him in. I think Barney was relieved to be at home again.

  Believe me, I was relieved to have him home. But if I’d known what was going to happen at our club meeting the next day, I would have thought that a snake on the loose was nothing at all.

  The Wednesday club meeting started off like most others, except that I actually arrived early! It was one of the first times ever. My work at the Mancusis’ had gone quickly that day, and the dogs had behaved themselves, so I had reached Claudia’s fifteen minutes before the meeting was to begin. I had even beaten Kristy. “Hi, Claud!” I said when I entered her room.

  “Hi, Jessi.”

  Claudia sounded sort of glum, but I didn’t ask her about it. Her gloominess probably had something to do with the Kristy problem, and I wanted to stay out of that. So all I said was, “Neat shirt.”

  Claudia was wearing another of her great outfits. This one consisted of an oversized, short-sleeved cotton shirt with gigantic leaves printed all over it, green leggings — the same green as the leaves on her shirt — bright yellow push-down socks, her purple high-tops, and in her hair a headband with a gigantic purple bow attached to one side.

  Claud is so, so cool …especially compared to me. I was also wearing an oversized shirt — a white sweat shirt with ballet shoes on the front — but with it I was just wearing jeans and regular socks and regular sneakers. And honestly, I would have to do something about my hair soon. It looks okay when it’s pulled back, I guess, but I want it to look special.

  I sat down on the floor. Since no one else had arrived, I guess I could have sat on the bed, but Mallory and I just don’t feel comfortable doing that. We’re the youngest and we belong on the floor. Period.

  I was about to ask Claud if she’d printed the leaves on her shirt herself, when Dawn burst into the room.

  “Hi, you guys!” she said cheerfully. She tossed her long hair over one shoulder.

  “Hi,” replied Claudia. “You’re in a good mood.”

  “I’m thinking positive,” Dawn informed us. “Maybe it’ll help the meeting along…. I mean, I know it will help the meeting. This meeting,” she went on, “is going to be wonderful. There aren’t going to be any prob …”

  Dawn’s voice trailed off as Kristy strode into club headquarters. Without so much as a word, she crossed the room to Claudia’s bulletin board, pulled out a few thumbtacks, and posted a piece of paper right over a bunch of photographs of Claudia and Stacey.

  Kristy turned to us and smiled. “There!” she announced proudly, as if she had just achieved world peace.

  “There what?” said Claudia darkly.

  “There’s the checklist. I made it last night. It took forev —”

  “And you put it up over my pictures?!” exclaimed Claudia. “Not on your life. Those are pictures of Stacey and me before she moved away.” Claudia marched to the bulletin board and took the checklist down. She gave it back to Kristy. “Find another place for this, Ms. Bossy.”

  “Sheesh, I’m sorry, Claud,” said Kristy. “I didn’t know those pictures were so important to you.”

  “Well, they are.”

  Personally, I thought Claud was overreacting a little. I guess Kristy thought so, too. The next thing I knew, she was tacking the checklist up over the photos again.

  Claudia yanked it off.

  Kristy put it back up.

  Claudia yanked it off again. This time, the checklist ripped. From one side hung a wrinkled strip.

  Mallory and Mary Anne arrived just in time to hear Kristy let out a shriek and Claudia yell, “Leave this thing off! I don’t want it on my bulletin board. I don’t care how long it took you to make it!”

  “Girls?” The gentle voice of Mimi, Claudia’s grandmother, floated up the stairs. “Everything is okay?” (Mimi had a stroke last summer and it affected her speech. Sometimes her words get mixed up or come out funny.)

  “YES!” Claudia shouted back, and I knew she didn’t mean to sound cross. She lowered her voice. “Everything’s fine, Mimi. Sorry about the yelling.”

  “That okay. No problem.”

  Claudia and Kristy were standing nose-to-nose by Claud’s desk. They were both holding onto the checklist, and I could tell that neither planned to give it up. Not easily, anyway.

  The rest of us were just gaping at them — Mallory and Mary Anne from the doorway, Dawn from the bed, and I from the floor.

  “You,” said Claudia to Kristy in a low voice, “are not the boss of this club.”

  Kristy looked surprised. Even I felt a little surprised. I don’t think Kristy had meant to be bossy. She was just overexcited about her checklist.

  But Kristy retorted, “I am the president of this club.”

  “Then,” said Claudia, “it’s time for new elections.”

  “New elections?” Kristy and Mallory and I squeaked.

  “Yes,” said a voice from the doorway. “New elections.” It was Mary Anne.

  Claudia and Kristy were so taken aback that they both let go of the checklist. It fell to the floor, forgotten.

  Everyone turned to look at Mary Anne.

  And then Mallory spoke up. Even though she’s only a junior officer of the club, she’s known for having a cool head in tough situations. So she took charge. “Everybody sit down,” she said quietly. “In your regular seats. We have some things to straighten out. And we better calm down in case the phone rings.”

  As if Mal were psychic, the phone did ring then. We managed to schedule a job for the Barrett kids. By the time that was done, we had settled into our places. Kristy, in the director’s chair, had even put her visor on.

  “Okay,” she began, “a motion has been made for …for …”

  “New elections,” supplied Claudia.

  “All right. I’ll consider the idea,” said Kristy.

  “No way,” said Dawn, who, since the checklist war, had barely said a word. “You can’t just consider the idea. Elections are our right. I demand new elections.”

  “Me too,” said Mary Anne.

  “Me too,” said Claudia.

  Mallory and I exchanged a worried glance. We were certain to be asked our opinion soon. And we were still trying to remain neutral.

  Sure enough, Kristy looked down at Mal and me. I cringed. I knew she wanted us on her side. If we were, then the club would be divided three against three.

  “Mallory, Jessi, what do you two think about the elections?” Kristy asked.

  It would have been awfully nice to side with Kristy. Siding with the president is always nice. But I just couldn’t. I didn’t want to get involved in a club fight. I knew Mal didn’t, either.

  Since Mal wasn’t speaking, I finally said, “What do we think about the elections?”

  “Yes,” said Kristy sharply.

  “I …Well, I …” I shrugged. Then I looked helplessly at Mal.

  “I — That’s how …um …” was all Mallory managed to say.

  “Do you want them?” Mary Anne asked us. “Not that your positions would change, but you’d be voting.”

  Mallory and I did some more stammering. I think both of us felt that elections were a good idea, but neither of us wanted to admit it. Furthermore, a new worry was already creeping into my worry-laden mind. How would Mal and I vote in an election? If we voted to keep Kristy president, all the other club members would hate us. If we voted Kristy out, Kristy would hate us, and whether she was the president or the secretary, the club was still hers because she had dreamed it up and started it.

  “
Jessi? Mallory?” said Kristy again. We didn’t even bother to answer, and suddenly Kristy threw down the pencil she’d been holding and exclaimed, “Okay, okay, okay. We’ll have an election.” I guess she could tell that no one was on her side. Jessi and I might not have been on the other side, but we weren’t on hers, either.

  “Good,” said Claudia. “Well, we’re ready.”

  “Not now!” cried Kristy as the phone rang.

  We scheduled three jobs, and then Kristy went on, “I don’t want to waste one of our regular meetings on elections. Besides, people call all the time during meetings.”

  “They call plenty of other times, too,” Claud couldn’t resist saying.

  “Whatever,” said Kristy. “Anyway, I’m calling a special meeting for the elections. Saturday afternoon at four o’clock. This meeting is adjourned.”

  “Whew,” I said to Mallory when we were safely outside. “I don’t like the sound of this.”

  “Me neither,” agreed Mallory. “Not at all.”

  On Thursday, I had help at the Mancusis’. Mallory came over so we could discuss the election problem, and Becca came over so she could play with the animals. The night before, she’d been so excited about the trip to the Mancusis’ that she practically couldn’t sleep. Nevertheless, she was a big help that afternoon, and so was Mallory. Becca and I reached the Mancusis’ about fifteen minutes before Mal did. I wanted to walk the dogs before I began feeding the animals, so we would have to wait for Mal to arrive. I used the time to introduce Becca to the animals.

  “Come on,” I said to her. “Come see the birds. You’ll love them.”

  “Just a sec,” replied Becca. She was lying on the floor, playing with Ling-Ling and Crosby, who were enjoying every second of her attention.

  When Becca finally got to her feet, I led her back to Frank. I was just about to say, “This is Frank. Listen to what he can do,” when Frank said, “The quicker picker-upper! The quicker picker-upper!”

  Becca began to giggle. “That’s great! How’d he learn to do that?”