Abby's Lucky Thirteen

  Mary Anne was flipping open the pages of the record book to the day before the Bat Mitzvah. I noticed, with a mixture of appreciation and stage fright, that Mary Anne had already crossed off Saturday, the day of the Bat Mitzvah. No sitting jobs were going to be scheduled that day, so the BSC could turn out to see Anna and me become Bat Mitzvahs.

  “Write me in for Friday night,” volunteered Claudia.

  “Me, too,” Kristy piped up.

  “And me, too,” said Mary Anne. She looked up at me. “Will three sitters be enough?”

  “Yes,” I replied. “But what if all of you aren’t needed? That means you’ll have turned down other jobs, maybe.”

  “Don’t worry,” said Mary Anne, writing the names carefully.

  The phone rang and we returned to work. I snagged a Twinkie and leaned back against the desk. I was overworked and overextended. But at least I had one part of the Bat Mitzvah covered.

  Two weeks and panic time.

  You don’t have to be a mathematician to count up the days until your Bat Mitzvah and know they are not enough. I’d been going to class with Rabbi Dorman. I’d been listening to my Torah and Haftarah portions over and over again on my Walkman, hoping all those Hebrew words would sink in.

  And I’d been trying to keep up in school, especially in math class. I didn’t want to earn Ms. Frost’s wrath. In fact, I didn’t even want to earn her attention. So even though I wasn’t exactly listening in her class, I was doing a good imitation. Ms. Frost’s attitude toward me since my mom’s parent-teacher conference had been a little, well, frosty.

  When I say I’d been trying to keep up, this doesn’t mean I’d been totally booking it. I’d been doing the minimum to stay out of trouble. Frankly, math was low on my list of priorities.

  Neither math nor the Bat Mitzvah was on my mind when Ms. Frost cleared her throat to signal she was about to make an important announcement. I was thinking about Leave It to Beaver. This, in my opinion, is one of the weirdest shows in the world, stranger than anything on Star Trek. The Cleavers, in all their starch and polish, are a mystery to me, one I was pondering as Ms. Frost began to speak.

  Then I heard these horrible, horrible words: “… the test tomorrow. Don’t forget it will be twenty-five percent of your grade, so study hard! And good luck.”

  My head snapped up.

  Was Ms. Frost giving me the smug eyeball? I smiled as if I had everything under control.

  And the bell rang.

  Test? What test? Had these four evil letters, in this particular combination, been said aloud in class before? Recently?

  Numbly I gathered up my books and stuffed them in my pack. The test had to have been announced before this. No one else seemed shocked or surprised. No one else was complaining.

  Twenty-five percent of the grade. Did this ever happen on Planet Cleaver? What was I going to do?

  It didn’t take Albert Einstein to figure out that I had to pass that test if I wanted to pass the course, especially since I had flunked the last test.

  And if I flunked this test, how could I explain it to Mom?

  Crunch time. The only thing I could do was totally cram from that moment until test time tomorrow.

  But I’d been planning to work on preparing for my Bat Mitzvah. I needed to do that. I mean, I had already decided to skip soccer practice so I could do that, which shows you just how serious it was.

  Stay calm, I told myself. Cool. Collected. It couldn’t be that bad.

  That was my mature, adult self talking. The panicked little kid shouted back, “Are you joking? You’re doomed! Your life is over!”

  I realized that I was standing by my locker with my math book in my hand and that the hall was empty. I hadn’t even realized I’d reached my locker and opened the door.

  The warning bell rang. I slammed my locker door shut and ran, barely making it to the next class on time. I ducked down in a seat in the back, pulled out my math book, and began to cram for my math test like a little kid in a total panic.

  * * *

  I studied through lunch. I studied during gym. The horrible realization dawned on me as I studied that even by cramming, the chances were very good that I wasn’t going to make it. I’d fallen behind with the last test, and I’d never quite caught up. Numbers spun in my brain. They crashed against my skull. Theorems rose and sank. Sets and subsets ran wild.

  Doomed. I was doomed.

  At the end of the day, I found myself back at my locker, my forehead pressed against the smooth green metal. My fingers fumbled at the combination. I was already experiencing numbers burnout.

  I let the math book slide from my other hand. It landed on the floor with a satisfying thud. I looked down at it and hated it. How could Stacey be so good at math? How could she contemplate life as a banker or an accountant? Ugh.

  Thinking of Stacey, I remembered that we had a BSC meeting that afternoon. I’d have to call Kristy and cancel. Double-ugh.

  I gave the math book a less than gentle nudge with my toe, and listened to the sound of book against locker. I pulled my foot back again.

  A voice beside me spoke. “I hate math, don’t you?”

  I looked up to see someone who had a locker in the same row as mine, much farther down the hall. At least, that’s what I assumed. I mean, I’d seen him around there before. He was the kind of guy who looks familiar without really standing out: jeans, flannel shirt, brown hair, brown eyes.

  “Math,” I said, “is evil.”

  “I know what you mean.” He shifted his backpack from one shoulder to the other and looked around. Then he lowered his voice. “And that test is going to be a killer. Ms. Frost really wants to ice her students, if you know what I mean.”

  “Do I ever,” I said bitterly.

  The guy grinned. “But I’ve got a little ice of my own. A genuine, guaranteed study guide.”

  “Study guide?” My ears pricked up at that.

  “The mysteries of Ms. Frost’s math class revealed. Test results in the passing range. Guaranteed.”

  “You wouldn’t want, to, uh, lend it to me?” I asked. “Like let me make a copy?”

  He shook his head. He seemed amused by my question. “Nope. But I have an extra copy I’ll sell you.”

  My heart sank. I hadn’t been baby-sitting all that much because I’d been studying for my Bat Mitzvah. My funds were low. “How much?” I asked, feeling hopeless.

  “Three dollars,” he replied.

  My heart leaped back up. I had three dollars. Not much more than the price of photocopying the thing, unless it was some monster-sized wad of pages.

  “I’ll take it!” I said, and dug into my pocket and pulled out three bills, top speed.

  The guy pulled three pages, stapled together, out of his pack and handed it over. “This is a special study guide,” he cautioned. “Don’t go telling people you have it. And don’t give it away to anyone else, okay?”

  “Of course. Fine. No problem,” I practically babbled, running my eyes over the first page. Even in my math-deficient state, I could see that this study guide was just perfect. It had it all: questions, answers, explanations.

  “Thank you, thank you,” I gushed.

  “No prob,” said the guy again, and eased off down the hall. I picked up my math book, jammed it into my pack, then carefully put the study guide on top. I had a chance. I might pass after all.

  * * *

  It wasn’t until much later, nearly bedtime, that I wondered for a moment about the study guide. I mean, it was so excellent. I wasn’t even going to have to pull an all-nighter. I might even feel like getting up early in the morning and studying my Bat Mitzvah lessons, maybe working on my speech.

  Was it possible the guy was in my math class, and I’d never noticed him before? I didn’t think so. So, then, he had to be in one of Ms. Frost’s other eighth-grade math classes. I knew Mary Anne was in one.

  But how had he known I was a student of Ms. Frost’s? Because of the math book I’d dropped? But all
the kids in the eighth grade had the same math book.

  I looked down at the study guide. It was in math test format. I worked the problems and then checked the answers. With the correct answers available, I was able to figure out where I’d gone wrong when I didn’t get the right answer.

  Had that guy gone to the trouble of going through Ms. Frost’s old tests? Did he have an older brother or sister who had had her?

  I thought back to my school in Long Island. There had been a couple of teachers who taught the same thing the same way year after year. If you had an older sibling who’d had those teachers, you didn’t even have to take notes — that is, if your older brother or sister had taken notes.

  Was Ms. Frost like that? She didn’t seem to be. I wasn’t crazy about her, but she seemed to be a teacher who at least spent time trying to make her classes somewhat interesting.

  Oh well. I worked a little longer, then pushed the chair back from my desk and yawned. I was going to get some sleep after all, and I wasn’t going to have math nightmares. I wasn’t going to ace the test. But I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to flunk it, either.

  I remembered something my mother had once said: It’s not that women can’t be carpenters or mechanics or anything else. Anybody can. You just have to be given the right tools for the job.

  The right tools for the job. This study guide had definitely been the right tool.

  Feeling pleased and maybe even a little smug, I went to bed.

  It wasn’t a plot of course, but it seemed that way on Monday afternoon when Mary Anne, Mal, and Claud began their after-school sitting jobs, the Monday I was cramming for my math test. It all started so innocently.

  Mary Anne was looking forward to an afternoon with the Arnold twins, who live near her. Marilyn and Carolyn Arnold are both in second grade. They have brown hair, and wear silver rings on their right pinkies, and beaded ID bracelets on their left wrists. Apart from the ID bracelets, and different haircuts, the easiest way to tell them apart is to remember that they have an identical mirror image birthmark: Carolyn has a tiny mole under her left eye and Marilyn has a tiny mole under her right eye.

  Marilyn, who is also slightly more outgoing, is musically talented, just like my sister Anna. Even though Marilyn is only in second grade, she practices her piano for at least half an hour every day, and she has taken lessons since she was four. Carolyn, on the other hand, is tone deaf (unlike me; I can hear music, I just can’t carry a tune) and is always carrying around an official-looking notebook and a pen in order to write down her scientific observations of the world — sort of a Harriet the Spy of the natural sciences.

  Mrs. Arnold, departing in a jingle of bracelets and a kaleidoscope of accessories for an appointment, said, “Mr. Arnold may get home before me, but if not, I’ll be back in no more than two hours.”

  “Fine,” replied the unsuspecting Mary Anne. Then she asked the routine question. “Any special instructions?”

  She didn’t expect any. Since the Arnold family has been a BSC client for a long time, we all know where the emergency numbers are posted and so forth.

  Mrs. Arnold shook her head. She opened the door. “Well,” she said casually. “Just one thing.”

  Mary Anne, who was looking around for the twins and feeling a little surprised that they weren’t there to say hello, said, “Oh?”

  “No television.” Mrs. Arnold smiled as if this were nothing. “They’re a little annoyed, of course, since Jack and I pulled the plug on it this past weekend, but they’ll come around. I’ve told them, they have plenty of inner resources. They’re bright girls and capable of entertaining themselves. Don’t worry.”

  She waved and was gone.

  Slightly shaken by this news, Mary Anne walked toward the den calling, “Carolyn! Marilyn! It’s me! Mary Anne …”

  Two unsmiling faces turned toward her.

  Carolyn was stting on the sofa with her arms folded.

  Marilyn was sitting in the chair across from her with her arms folded.

  The television, a big silent black eye, was across from them.

  “Hey!” said Mary Anne, pretending she didn’t notice the sulks taking place.

  They glared at her.

  Then Marilyn unfolded her arms. She narrowed her eyes. “Now can we watch television?” she demanded.

  * * *

  Meanwhile the triplets were at the park playing baseball. Mal was grateful for that. She had her hands full with Vanessa, Nicky, Margo, and Claire.

  She had been startled but not terribly upset when her parents had announced on Friday night that this weekend marked the end of the television era at the Pike house.

  “We’re canceling cable,” her mother had said. “No television during the week. And the only television on the weekend is family style — something the whole family can watch together.”

  The triplets had gone into shock. Vanessa, Nicky, and Margo had protested vehemently. Only Claire, age five, hadn’t seemed to be hit by the full import of the news.

  Until that Monday afternoon when everyone got home to find that the cable had been canceled. And that the plug had been removed from the television.

  Mal watched in despair as Claire hurled herself to the floor in the classic temper tantrum pattern that the BSC had believed she was starting to outgrow.

  She wasn’t. She pounded her fists. She kicked her feet. Her face turned red. And she howled, “Nofe air! Nofe air!” over and over.

  “Hey, it’s a cool day outside. Why don’t we go out and play?” suggested Mal.

  Claire howled on.

  Vanessa said scornfully, “Play? No way.”

  Nicky stuck out his lower lip. “I want to go to the park with Adam and Byron and Jordan.”

  Margo said, “The Mr. Pinhead show is on. I want to waaaatch!”

  Mal knew it was going to be a long, long afternoon. She wondered if she could charge double time because of the unusual situation.

  * * *

  Andrea Prezzioso didn’t know she couldn’t watch television. She was a baby. Watching the mobile spin over her head was enough for her.

  Jenny knew. Finicky Jenny Prezzioso got some of her best finicky ideas from watching television. She was, Claudia suspected, a future patron of the home shopping channels.

  In fact, Claudia had been at the Prezziosos’ more than once and found Jenny hanging on to the descriptions of strangely shaped lockets and oddly named perfumes that were being sold on television infomercials.

  Jenny wasn’t watching television now. She was watching Claudia.

  Claudia repeated her statement. “Give me the remote, Jenny. And turn off the television. You know your parents have made a new rule.”

  “I don’t care,” declared Jenny.

  “I do,” countered Claudia. She held out her hand.

  Jenny and Claudia stared at each other. Claudia really wanted to blink, but she knew if she did, she was dead.

  Just when she thought Jenny was going to outlast her, Jenny drew her arm back and hurled the remote. Claudia ducked instinctively, but Jenny was just throwing it at the sofa cushion.

  “Fine!” she shouted. “I don’t care.”

  She stormed out of the room and Claudia heard Jenny’s bedroom door slam.

  The sound of the slam woke Andrea in her room. She began to cry.

  Claudia sighed. She felt as if she were in a bad horror movie, where all the kids’ minds had been taken over by television.

  “Coming, Andrea,” she called. She picked up the remote and put it up high on the bookshelf before she left the room.

  * * *

  “We could go visit Elvira,” suggested Mary Anne. Elvira is a baby goat that lives on the Stones’ farm, not too far away. A nature walk to visit Elvira and the farm (which also includes chickens, cows, a goose named Screaming Yellow Honker, and often cookies or a snack with Mrs. Stone) is usually a fail-proof suggestion.

  This time it failed.

  Marilyn rolled her eyes and sighed. “We’ve see
n the goat,” she said in an aggrieved tone.

  “Yeah,” said Carolyn.

  They rejected several other suggestions and Mary Anne finally did what every desperate baby-sitter has been known to do from time to time.

  She resorted to bribery.

  “Let’s go visit Mrs. Towne,” she said, referring to another neighbor who lives nearby. Mrs. Towne, a small, independent woman with soft, faintly wrinkled brown skin and short white hair, is also a favorite of the Arnold twins. Her gardens always have something interesting growing in them, and she is well-known for her needlework, particularly her quilting. Mary Anne has taken sewing lessons from Mrs. Towne and still likes to visit.

  “And when we get back, we can have a special treat,” Mary Anne hurried on, when she realized that visiting anyone was not going to interest the unhappy, television-deprived twins today.

  “Something really good to eat?” asked Marilyn.

  “Anything we want?” added Carolyn.

  “Something really, really special,” Mary Anne promised. She wasn’t exactly saying that the twins could have any treat they wanted, but they seemed satisfied with her promise.

  They set off to visit Mrs. Towne, not cheerfully, but at least without complaining.

  Now all Mary Anne had to do was think of a really, really special treat.

  As it turned out, Mrs. Towne was watching television and working on one of her patchwork quilts. But she turned off the set as she led Mary Anne and the twins onto the sunny, glassed-in porch where she’d been working.

  “That’s okay,” said the twins together, something they often did and never seemed to notice.

  “You can leave it on,” said Carolyn, her eyes suddenly glued to the small, now blank screen almost hidden by the jungle of plants growing on the porch.

  Good grief, thought Mary Anne. They’d barely gone a day without television and they were acting as if they were being tortured.

  “Heavens, no! It’s just television,” said Mrs. Towne, laughing. “You girls sit down and I’ll go and see if that chocolate cake I baked this morning is ready to be tested.”