Okay. That really is it. Now you know how our club began and how it runs, so let’s get back to business.
After I had said “Order!” for about the third time, everyone settled down. “Any business?” I asked.
“Dues day!” announced Dawn. She bounced off the bed, blonde hair flying. The treasury envelope was in her hands, and she opened it.
“Oh,” groaned the rest of us. We earn a lot of money baby-sitting, but we don’t like to part with it for dues, even though we know we have to.
“Aw, come on,” said Dawn. “It isn’t that bad. Besides, think of me. I have to listen to this moaning and complaining every Monday afternoon.” Dawn collected the money, then handed some of it to me. “That’s for Charlie,” she said. “We have to pay him today.”
I nodded. “Thanks, Dawn.”
My friends settled down. Claudia leaned against one of her pillows and began braiding her hair. Mary Anne unwrapped a piece of gum. Dawn flipped through the pages of the notebook. On the floor, Mallory doodled in one of Claudia’s sketchbooks, and Jessi absentmindedly lifted the cover of a shoe box labeled PASTILS AND CHARCAOLS (Claudia isn’t a great speller), and exclaimed, “Hey, there’s M and M’s in here!”
“Oh, yeah,” replied Claud. “I forgot about those. Hand them around, Jessi, okay?”
“Sure!” said Jessi. She took out the bag of candy, replaced the lid on the box, opened the bag, and sent it around Claud’s bedroom.
Everyone took a handful of M & M’s except for Dawn, who mostly eats health food — she won’t even eat meat — and can’t stand junk food, especially candy. Claudia remembered this and handed Dawn a package of whole-wheat crackers. Dawn looked really grateful.
This is just one of the things I love about my club family. We really care about each other. We look out for each other and do nice things for each other. Of course, we fight, too — we’ve had some whoppers — but that’s part of being a family.
“Well, any more club business?” I asked.
Nobody answered.
“Okay, then. We’ll just wait for the phone to ring.” I picked up the record book and began looking at the appointment calendar. “Gosh,” I said, “I cannot believe it’s already April. Where did the school year go? It feels like it was just September.”
“I know,” agreed Mary Anne. “Two more months and school will be over.” She looked pretty pleased.
“Yeah,” said Dawn happily. “Summer. Hot weather. I’ll get to visit Dad and Jeff in California again.”
“Whoa!” I cried. I was still looking at our calendar. “Guess what. I just realized that Mother’s Day is coming up — soon. It’s in less than three weeks.”
“Oh, brother. Gift time,” murmured Mallory. “I never know what to get Mom. None of us does. She always ends up with a bunch of stuff she doesn’t want and doesn’t know what to do with. Like every year, Margo” (Margo is Mal’s seven-year-old sister) “makes her a handprint in clay and paints it green. What’s Mom going to do with all those green hand sculptures? And the triplets” (ten-year-old boys) “always go to the dime store and get her really ugly plastic earrings or a horrible necklace or something.”
“Once,” said Jessi, “my sister gave our mother a bag of chocolate kisses and then ate them herself.”
We began to laugh.
“This year,” Claud began, “I am going to give my mother the perfect present.”
“What?” I asked.
Claud shrugged. “I don’t know yet.”
“I never have to think of Mother’s Day presents,” said Mary Anne softly.
The talking and laughing stopped. How is it that I forget about Mary Anne’s problem year after year? I never remember until somebody, usually the art teacher, is saying something like, “All right, let’s begin our Mother’s Day cards,” or “I know your mothers will just love these glass mosaics.” Then I watch Mary Anne sink lower and lower in her seat. Why don’t the teachers say, “If you want to make a Mother’s Day gift, come over here. The rest of you may read.” Or something like that. It would be a lot easier on the kids who don’t need to make Mother’s Day stuff.
Dawn looked at Mary Anne and awkwardly patted her shoulder.
Claud said, “Sorry, Mary Anne.”
We feel bad for her but we don’t quite know what to say. Sorry your mother died? Sorry the greeting card people invented Mother’s Day and you have to feel bad once a year? Sorry we have moms and you don’t?
I was relieved when the telephone rang. (We all were.) It gave us something to do. I answered the phone, and Mary Anne took over the record book.
“Hi, Mrs. Newton,” I said. “Friday afternoon? … Yeah, it is short notice, I guess, but I’ll check. I’ll get right back to you.” I hung up. “Check Friday after school,” I told Mary Anne. “This Friday.”
Mary Anne checked. “Claudia’s free,” she said. “She’s the only one.”
I glanced at Claud and she nodded.
So I called Mrs. Newton back. “Claudia will be there,” I told her. We said good-bye and hung up. The Newtons are some of our oldest clients. They have two kids — Jamie, who’s four, and Lucy, who’s just a baby. We all love sitting at the Newtons’, but Claudia especially loves it. I knew she was happy with her job.
The phone rang several more times after that. All job calls. Then, toward the end of the meeting, we began talking about Mother’s Day again. We couldn’t help it. We knew Mary Anne felt sad, but the rest of us really needed to think about what to give our moms.
“Flowers?” suggested Jessi.
We shook our heads.
“Chocolate-covered cherries?” suggested Claudia.
We shook our heads.
“Oh, well. It’s six o’clock,” I announced. “Meeting’s over. Don’t worry — we have plenty of time to think of presents. See you guys in school tomorrow.”
When I left Claudia’s house, Charlie was waiting for me in the Kishis’ driveway. He has been really good about remembering to drive me to and from the meetings of the Baby-sitters Club. We are paying him, but still … I keep thinking he might get tied up with an after-school activity and forget me sometime.
Moving across town was so inconvenient. I’m not near any of my closest friends, and I’m not near my school. Now I have to get rides all the time and take the bus to school. The other kids in my new neighborhood go to private schools. But I wanted to stick with my regular school (so did my brothers), so we’re the only ones who go to public. We really stand out.
Charlie pulled into the drive, and Watson’s huge house (well, our huge house) spread before us. I am amazed every time I see it. We parked, and my brother and I went inside.
We were greeted by Sam. “Boy, Kristy. I don’t know how you do it,” was the first thing he said.
“Do what?”
“Baby-sit so much without going looney tunes.”
I grinned. Sam had been watching David Michael, Andrew, and Karen, since Mom and Watson were still at work. “Baby-sitting is easy,” I replied. “It’s a piece of cake. What happened?”
“What do you mean ‘What happened?’ Nothing happened. They’re just kids. I’m worn out. I couldn’t give another cannonball ride if my life depended on it.”
“That’s Charlie’s fault for inventing cannonballs,” I told Sam.
At that moment, Andrew came barreling into the front hall, crying, “Sam! Sam! I need a cannonball ride!”
Without pausing, Sam picked Andrew up, Andrew curled himself into a ball, and Sam charged off toward the kitchen, shouting, “Ba-boom-ba-boom-ba-boom-ba-boom.”
“I thought he couldn’t give another cannonball ride,” said Charlie.
“Andrew is hard to resist,” I told him.
* * *
Dinner that night was noisy. It was one of the few times when everyone was home. Andrew and Karen usually aren’t with us, and when they are, they’re almost always here on a weekend — when Charlie’s out on a date or Sam is at a game at school, or something.
But that night was different. We ate in the dining room. Watson sat at one end of the table, Mom at the other. David Michael, Karen, and I sat along one side of the table; Charlie, Sam, and Andrew sat across from us.
When everyone had been served, Mom said, “Isn’t this nice?” She had been a little emotional lately.
“It’s terrific,” agreed Watson, who sounded too enthusiastic.
Mom and Watson get all worked up whenever we’re together as a family, and I know why. I like my family and everything. I like us a lot. But sometimes I think we feel more like pieces of a family instead of a whole family. We’re a shirt whose seams haven’t all been stitched up. I mean, Mom and Watson got married, but I would only go to Mom if I needed to borrow money. And Andrew usually heads for Watson if he’s hurt himself or doesn’t feel well. We’re Mom’s kids and they’re Watson’s kids. Two teams on the same playing field.
Don’t get me wrong. It isn’t bad. Really. Our family just needs to grow together — so Mom and Watson make a huge deal out of things like all of us sitting down at the dinner table.
Our dinners are usually not very quiet. That night, David Michael started things off by singing softly, “They built the ship Titanic to sail the ocean blue. A sadder ship the waters never knew. She was on her maiden trip when an iceboard hit the ship —”
“Cut it out!” cried Karen suddenly. “I hate that song. All the people die. Besides, it’s ‘iceberg,’ not ‘iceboard.’”
“I know that,” said David Michael. But he didn’t. He had said ‘iceboard’ every time he had sung that song.
He stopped singing. He made a rhythm band out of his plate, glass, fork, and spoon.
Andrew joined him.
Chink-a-chink. Chinkety-chink, chink.
Mom beamed. Why did she look so happy? Usually dinnertime rhythm bands gave her a headache.
“Hey, Karen. Your epidermis is showing,” said Sam from across the table.
“What? What?” Karen, flustered, began checking her clothes. Finally, she said haughtily, “Sam. I am not wearing a dress. How can my epipotomus be showing?”
We couldn’t help it. Watson, Mom, Charlie, Sam, David Michael, and I began to laugh. Not rudely, just gently. Well, all right. David Michael laughed rudely — loudly, anyway.
“What?” Karen demanded.
“It’s ‘epidermis,’ not ‘epipotomus,’” said David Michael, glad to be able to correct her, “and it means ‘skin.’”
Karen looked questioningly at Sam.
“He’s right,” said Sam. “It does mean ‘skin.’”
“My skin is showing?” said Karen. “Oh, my skin is showing! That’s funny! I’m going to say that to everyone in my class tomorrow.”
“Now let’s have a little eating,” said Watson.
For a few moments, we ate. I was working on a mouthful of lima beans when I heard David Michael murmur, “Beans, beans, they’re good for your heart. The more you eat, the more —”
I kicked him under the table. Not hard. Just enough to make him stop. Mom and Watson hate that song.
But soon my brother was singing, “Beans, beans, the magical fruit. The more you eat —”
I kicked him again. “Cut it out.”
“It’s a different song.”
“Not different enough.”
David Michael grew silent.
At her end of the table, Mom put down her fork and looked lovingly at Watson. “We’re so lucky,” she said.
Watson smiled.
I glanced at Sam and Charlie. Mom had been acting weird lately.
“We’ve got six beautiful children —”
“I am not beautiful,” said David Michael. “I’m a boy.”
“We live in a lovely town,” continued Mom, “we like our jobs, we have a gorgeous house … with plenty of rooms. Do you realize that we have three spare bedrooms?”
My mother was looking at us kids.
I glanced at Sam and Charlie again. They shrugged.
“It is a nice house, Mom,” I agreed.
Mom nodded. “Plenty of extra space.”
Suddenly Sam said, “Hey, Mom, you’re not pregnant, are you?”
(My mother could have been pregnant. She’s only in her late thirties. She had Charlie right after she graduated from college.)
“No,” Mom replied. “I’m not…. But how would you kids feel about another brother or sister?”
Oh. So she was trying to become pregnant.
“Another brother or sister?” David Michael repeated dubiously.
“A baby?” squeaked Andrew and Karen.
“Great!” said Sam and Charlie.
“Terrific!” I added honestly. I love babies. Imagine having one right in my house, twenty-four hours a day.
But the little kids just couldn’t be enthusiastic.
“Why do you want a baby?” asked Karen bluntly.
“Oh, we didn’t say we want a baby —” Watson began.
But before he could finish, Andrew spoke up. “A baby,” he said, “would be the youngest person in the family. But that’s me. I’m the youngest. I don’t want a baby.”
“Babies smell,” added Karen.
“They cry,” said David Michael. “And burp and spit up and get baby food in their hair. And you have to change their diapers.”
“Kids, kids,” exclaimed Watson, holding his hands up. “Elizabeth just asked about another brother or sister, that’s all.”
Silence.
At last David Michael said, “Well, brothers and sisters start out as babies, don’t they?”
And Andrew said, “I think we’ve got enough kids around here.”
“Yeah,” agreed Karen and David Michael.
But I couldn’t help saying, “Another kid would be great. Really.”
Sam and Charlie nodded.
No one seemed to know what to say then, but it didn’t matter because Boo-Boo came into the dining room carrying a mole he’d caught, and we all jumped out of our chairs. The poor mole was still alive, so we had to get it away from Boo-Boo and then put it back outside where it belonged.
That was the end of dinner.
* * *
Later that night, I lay in bed, thinking. Sometimes I get in bed early just so I can do that. First I thought about Boo-Boo and the mole. Charlie and I had caught Boo-Boo and held him. And David Michael had gotten Boo-Boo to open his mouth, which had caused the mole to drop out and land in the oven mitts Mom was wearing. Then Mom, Karen, Andrew, and David Michael had taken the mole into the backyard and let it loose in some shrubbery. It had scampered off.
I thought of Mom wanting to have another baby. Even though she’s kind of old for that, it made sense. I mean, she’s married to Watson now, so I guessed that she and Watson wanted a baby of their own. Boy. Mom would have five kids and two stepkids then.
She would need an extra special Mother’s Day present. What on earth could I give her? I slid over in bed so I could see the moon out my window.
The moon was pretty, but it was no help.
Jewelry? Nah. Mom likes to choose her own. Stockings? Boring. Candy or flowers? Let Watson do that. Something for her desk at the office? Maybe. Clothes? If I could afford anything.
I had a feeling I was missing the point, though. I wanted to say thank you to Mom for being such a wonderful mother. (She really is.) So I needed to give her something special, something that would tell her, “You’re the best mom. Thanks.” But what would say that?
I thought and thought. And then it came to me. It was another one of my ideas. Carrying it off might take some work, but my friends and I could do it.
I couldn’t wait until the next meeting of the Baby-sitters Club.
I don’t know whether to describe myself as a patient person or not. I mean, when I’m baby-sitting, I can sit for fifteen minutes, waiting for a four-year-old who wants to tie his own shoelaces. But when I have a big idea, I want to get on with it right away. And I had a huge idea.
On Wednesday, I begged Charl
ie to leave early for the club meeting. I reached Claudia’s at 5:15.
None of my friends was there, not even Claudia.
“She is baby-sitting,” Mimi told me. “At Marshalls’. Back at … at five, no at thirty-five. No, um … back for meeting.”
Mimi is Claudia’s grandmother, and we all love her. She had a stroke last summer and it affected her speech. Also, she is getting a little slower, and … I don’t know. She just seems older. I wish people didn’t have to change.
But they do.
“Go on upstairs?” Mimi said to me, as if it were a question.
“Is that okay?” I replied.
Mimi nodded, so I kissed her cheek and ran to Claud’s room. I found the notebook and record book and set them on the bed. Then I put on my visor. I stuck a pencil over my ear and sat in the director’s chair. I was ready for the meeting. The only thing I needed was all the rest of the club members.
Claudia arrived first. The others trickled in after her. By 5:29, the six of us had gathered. I was so excited that I rushed through our opening business and then exclaimed, “I’ve got an idea!”
“This sounds like a big one,” said Dawn.
“It’s pretty big,” I agreed.
“Bigger than the Kid-Kits?” Mary Anne wanted to know.
“Much.”
“Bigger than the club?” asked Mallory, awed.
“Not quite. This is it: I was trying to come up with a Mother’s Day present for my mom,” I began. (I couldn’t look at Mary Anne while I talked about Mother’s Day. I just couldn’t.) “And I was thinking that her present should be really special. That it should have something to do with saying thank you and with being a mom. And I thought, what would a mom like more than anything else? Then the answer came to me — not to be a mom for awhile. You know, to have a break. And then I thought, maybe we could give this present to a lot of the moms whose kids we sit for.”