Kristy and the Mother's Day Surprise

  “Okay!” I called as another round of “Heigh-Ho” came to an end. “Who wants to make a Mother’s Day card?”

  “Me!” cried all twenty-one kids.

  “Great,” I replied. “Everyone will get a turn, but half of you will read stories with Mallory and Jessi and me first. Then we’ll switch.”

  Well, that was not the way to present things, because all the kids wanted to go first, but at last we got the problem sorted out. Live and learn.

  Mal and I read Where the Wild Things Are and One Morning in Maine and The Cat in the Hat to the younger children, while Jessi read If I Ran the Circus and a chapter from a Paddington book to the older kids.

  Then it was time for the children to trade places. The ones who had just made cards brought them over to Mal and Jessi and me. They were very proud of them.

  “Look,” said Claire. “Look at my card.”

  I looked. It said, “HAPY MOTH’S DAY LOVE CLAIRE.”

  Shea held his out shyly. On the front was written, “Dear Mom, you are … ” and inside was written:

  Jackie’s was covered with smudges and drops of glue, with splotches and mistakes. It read: “Daer Mom, I love you. Love, Your sun, Jackie Rodowsky.”

  “Beautiful, Jackie,” I told him, and he beamed.

  The stories began again. The card-making began again. And before we knew it, Myriah Perkins was calling, “Hey, there’s Daddy!”

  And there he was. He was followed by Mr. Pike and Mr. Prezzioso. The kids started to gather their things. The littlest ones ran to their fathers and threw their arms around them.

  Our day was over. The Mother’s Day surprise was over. I felt sort of sad. But glad, too, because it had gone so well. I listened to the kids chattering away: “Daddy! I went on a ride. Let’s tell Mommy!” said Jenny. And, “I have to tell Mommy about the balloon man,” said Jamie. And, “We found the neatest water fountains,” exclaimed Nicky. And, “Daddy, I threw up on the merry-go-round,” said you-know-who.

  “Oh,” replied Mr. Pike, “Mommy will love to hear that.”

  “Well?” I said.

  “Well what?” replied Claudia.

  The children were gone. Except for Andrew, Karen, and David Michael. They and I were at the Kishis’ waiting for Charlie to pick us up and take us home. The rest of the sitters were still at Claud’s, too. We had cleaned up every last crayon and shred of paper, but we just couldn’t bear to part. So while my little sister and brothers sat under a tree and looked at the library books, the members of the Baby-sitters Club lolled around on the Kishis’ porch.

  “Well what?” said Claudia again.

  “Well, what did everyone decide about Mother’s Day presents?” I asked, not daring even to glance at Mary Anne. “Was the Mother’s Day surprise good enough?”

  “I’ll say,” said Mal. “It turned out better than I’d hoped. I bet it was the best Mother’s Day present Mom ever got. Especially when Dad pitched in.”

  “Ditto,” said Jessi.

  “Ditto,” I said. “Mom got to spend the day alone with Watson, since Sam and Charlie went to school to help at a car wash to raise money for the football team.”

  “And our homemade presents are finished,” announced Dawn.

  “Well, they are, except for mine,” said Stacey. “But Claudia’s helping me, so I’ll be done tonight.”

  “What did you make?” I asked.

  Claudia, Stacey, and Dawn exchanged grins.

  “Personalized pins,” replied Claud. “My idea,” she added proudly.

  “They’re more like brooches, though,” said Stace.

  “What do you mean, personalized pins?” asked Jessi.

  “See,” said Claud, “we went to the miniatures store and bought things that are meaningful to our mothers…. Well, I had to get Stacey’s things for her since she wasn’t here.”

  “Yeah,” agreed Stacey, “and she did a good job. Like, my mom can sew, and she likes to travel and read, and she likes dogs even though we don’t have one. So Claudia bought a tiny airplane, book, thimble, pair of scissors, and dog.”

  “And then,” Dawn continued, “we mixed up the little charms with glass beads and colored flowers, and we glued everything to a metal piece with a pin attached —”

  “You can get those things at the crafts store,” added Claudia.

  “—and, ta-dah! A brooch. Each one different. Just for our mothers.”

  “Great idea!” I exclaimed.

  “I, um, made a decision. I mean about Mother’s Day,” said Mary Anne.

  Six heads swiveled toward her.

  “I’m giving my father a Mother’s Day present. He’s been a good father and a good mother to me, or at least he’s tried to be, and I want to let him know it.”

  “Mary Anne! That’s great!” I cried. “We never thought of giving your dad a Mother’s Day present.”

  The others were smiling, so Mary Anne began to smile, too. “You don’t think it’s corny?” she asked.

  “No way!” exclaimed Mallory.

  “What did you get him?” asked Jessi.

  “A book. It’s not very original, but it’s hard to know what to get men. And I have to give him stuff on his birthday and Christmas and of course Father’s Day, too. So I can’t always be original. Anyway, I know he wants this book.”

  Beep, beep!

  Charlie had pulled into the Kishis’ driveway. Sam was next to him in the front seat. The car was sparkling clean. I figured they’d taken it through the car wash. Mom and Watson would be happy. The money had gone to a good cause, and the station wagon was clean.

  “Come on, you guys!” I called to Andrew, David Michael, and Karen.

  I said good-bye to my friends. Then my sister and brothers and I squished into the backseat, and Charlie drove home.

  The six of us entered our house (okay, our mansion), bursting with news and stories. But we stopped in our tracks when we reached the living room. No kidding. We came to a dead halt.

  There were Mom and Watson standing next to each other, very formally, their arms linked. They looked nervous, happy, and surprised all at the same time.

  Karen and my brothers and I glanced from our parents to each other, then back to our parents. Not one of us said a word.

  After a few moments, Watson cleared his throat. Then Mom cleared her throat. Mom was the one who finally spoke.

  “Watson and I have some wonderful news,” she said. “We just heard it this afternoon. Let’s sit down.”

  So we did. I sat on the floor, leaning against a couch. Andrew sat in my lap. Karen sat beside me, her head resting on my shoulder. My brothers lined up on the couch behind us. We knew this was good news — but not like we’d just bought another VCR or something. This sounded like life-changing news.

  (I was pretty sure Mom was finally pregnant.)

  “Hey, Mom, are you pregnant?” asked Sam for the four-thousandth time.

  “No,” she replied, “but we’ve adopted a child.”

  Adopted a child! Well, that was a different story!

  “You’ve what?” cried Charlie.

  “We’ve adopted a little girl,” said Watson. “She’s two years old, she’s Vietnamese, and her name will be Emily Michelle Thomas Brewer.”

  “We’ll pick her up at the airport tomorrow,” added Mom. “And then she’ll be ours.”

  “We wanted to tell you about this before,” said Watson. “It’s been in the works for so long. But we didn’t want to say a word until we knew something for sure. Things kept falling through. This is definite, though.”

  Andrew stirred in my lap, and I knew he didn’t really understand what was happening.

  “So,” said my mother nervously, “what does everybody think?”

  What did we think? What did I think?

  “I think … ” I said, “I think this is totally fantastic!”

  Suddenly I was so excited I could barely contain myself. A baby (sort of). But it wasn’t Mom’s and Watson’s. Furthermore, I was getting a
nother sister! I’d always thought there weren’t enough girls in my family. Before Mom married Watson, it was me against three brothers. After the wedding, it was Karen and me against four brothers. Emily Michelle Thomas Brewer would almost even things up.

  But it was more than that, of course. Even more than the stuff about Mom and Watson. I love kids. And we were adopting a two-year-old girl. She would be somebody to dress and play with. She would be somebody to teach things to. Things like, a family is just a group of people who love each other, whether they’re brothers and sisters and parents, or stepbrothers and stepsisters and stepparents. Or adopted kids.

  Sam and Charlie were as excited as I was.

  “This,” said Sam, “is really cool.” He grinned.

  “I can’t wait to teach her how to play baseball,” added Charlie.

  “Hey, that’ll be my job!” I cried.

  David Michael seemed less certain. “Do two-year-olds wear diapers?” he wanted to know.

  “Some of them do,” answered Mom.

  “Well, I’m not touching those Huggies things. Dirty or clean. But I guess a little sister will be okay. I mean, I’ve already got one,” he said, poking Karen’s back with his toe. “And she hasn’t killed me yet.”

  Karen turned around and stuck her tongue out at David Michael.

  “Karen?” said Watson. “What about you?”

  “What about me?” Karen knew what her father meant, but she was being difficult. After a pause she sighed and said, “I thought I was your little girl.”

  Watson looked thoughtful. “You’re one of them. Kristy’s my little girl, too.”

  I didn’t complain about being called a little girl. I knew that Watson was trying to make a point.

  “Think of it, Karen,” I said. “She’s only two. Practically a baby. You can help her with things. You’ll be her big sister. You can show her how to play with toys, you can teach her to color, and you can dress her up. It’ll be fun!”

  Karen smiled, despite herself. “Yeah … ” she said slowly.

  “Andrew?” said Watson. “What do you think?”

  “Whose baby is she?” asked Andrew. “Why is she coming to our house? Did her mommy and daddy give her away?”

  Oops. I guess we had some explaining to do.

  Watson took care of the explaining while Mom and the rest of us did other things.

  Boy, was there a lot to do. “We have to get a room ready for Emily,” said Mom. And suddenly I remembered my mother talking about our spare bedrooms.

  “A room!” I said. “What about clothes? What about toys?”

  “I think we have plenty of toys here for now,” said Mom. “We can buy some things for a younger child later.”

  “Well, we don’t have any clothes for two-year-olds,” I pointed out.

  “She’ll have a few things of her own, honey,” Mom said patiently. “I’ll buy her more on Monday. I think the room is the most important project to tackle now. She needs a place of her own from the beginning.”

  “Wait a sec,” I said. “You’ll buy her clothes on Monday? On Monday you’ll be at work. So will Watson. The rest of us will be in school. What are we going to do with Emily all day?”

  Mom was bustling upstairs and I followed her. “Watson and I are taking some time off from our jobs to be with Emily,” she said. “We’re going to find a nanny while we’re at it.”

  A nanny? Like Mary Poppins? Boy, were things changing. I wondered if a nanny would make my bed for me.

  We started in on Emily’s room, all eight of us. We chose a room that was near Mom and Watson’s. Some furniture was in it already, but it looked like an old lady’s room. We got toys and a crib out of the attic, and put some pictures on the wall. The room began to improve. A rocking chair helped. So did a white bookshelf and an old Mother Goose lamp.

  “Not bad,” I said. I still couldn’t believe that the next day I would have a new sister.

  Andrew looked up at me. We were alone in the room while everyone else was in the basement, searching for a particular dresser. I was supposed to be arranging some of David Michael’s old picture books on the shelf.

  “It is so bad,” wailed Andrew, and he began to cry. His cry wasn’t one of those Kristy-I-skinned-my-knees-and-want-Band-Aids-the-size-of-dinosaur cries. It was a Kristy-I’m-very-confused-and-a-little-afraid cry.

  I knelt down and drew him to me. “Whatever happens, you know,” I told him, “you’re still going to be our Andrew.”

  * * *

  That night, I called every single member of the Baby-sitters Club to tell them the news. I was so excited, I didn’t know how I was going to wait until the next day for Emily to arrive. But making five phone calls helped pass the time. I would say to each of my friends, “I’m going to have a new sister!”

  And whomever I was talking to would say, “Oh, your mom’s going to have a baby! That’s great!”

  And then I would tell my news. Each time I did, the person on the other end would have to shriek and scream for a few seconds. Then she would ask lots of questions. I was glad for that, because by the time I got into bed, I was exhausted and knew I would be able to sleep.

  I slept okay that night, but I was up at six o’clock the next morning. I don’t know the last time I voluntarily got up at that hour on a weekend. But who can sleep on the day her adopted sister is arriving? Not I.

  I tiptoed downstairs and found that I wasn’t the first one awake. Mom and Watson were sitting at the kitchen table, sipping coffee. A high chair had been placed at one end of the table.

  “Morning, Watson,” I said. Then, “Hi, Mom. Happy Mother’s Day!” I kissed her cheek.

  “Thanks, honey.”

  “I wish I had a present for you, but you got your gift yesterday.”

  “Oh, I know,” replied Mom enthusiastically. “And it was great.”

  “Funny,” I said. “We called yesterday’s outing the Mother’s Day surprise. But I think Emily is the real Mother’s Day surprise. At least she is to me.”

  “In a way she is to us, too,” spoke up Watson, as I slid into my chair with a glass of orange juice. “We’ve been trying to adopt for quite awhile. It takes time. We feel lucky to have Emily at last.”

  “Mom? Watson?” I asked. “How come you adopted? You could have had a kid of your own, couldn’t you?”

  “Yes,” said my mother, “we could have. But I’ve already given birth to four children.”

  “And I’ve got two,” added Watson.

  “So we decided not to create a seventh. We decided to find a child who’s already here but who needs a home. And when we went looking, we finally found Emily.”

  I nodded. “I like that … Boy, is it weird to see all this baby stuff.” The high chair was at the table, a stroller was parked by the back door, and a car seat was waiting to be taken into the garage.

  Mom and Watson smiled, looking like proud new parents.

  * * *

  They left for the airport around noon.

  When Sam, Charlie, and I told them we weren’t going to leave the house — we wanted to be here for the very first glimpse of Emily — us kids were left in charge of each other.

  As soon as Watson’s car left the garage, I looked at my sister and brothers. “What are we going to do now?” I asked them.

  We made about a thousand suggestions — and turned them down. At last I said, “I know what we’re going to do. Well, I know what I’m going to do.”

  “What?” asked Sam and Charlie.

  “Invite the Baby-sitters Club over.” That would be great. Even Stacey could come. She wasn’t leaving for New York until much later in the afternoon.

  “Oh, no, no. Please, no!” moaned Sam.

  “All those girls?” added David Michael.

  I made a face at him. “You know all those girls. You spent yesterday with them.”

  “I didn’t,” said Sam. “I don’t want them here.”

  “I thought you liked girls so much.”

  ?
??I like the girls in my class. If you invite your friends over, it’s going to be like a slumber party here.”

  “Oh, it is not,” I replied, reaching for the phone.

  “Besides, what’s wrong with girls?” asked Karen.

  * * *

  My friends showed up within an hour. Each time the doorbell rang, Sam and David Michael pretended to faint. But I have to admit that Sam was pretty impressed when Stacey immediately suggested a good project for the afternoon.

  “We should welcome Emily,” she said. “We should bake her a cake or something.”

  “Make a sign,” added Sam, brightening.

  “How about cookies instead of a cake?” said Mal. “She’s only two. She might like cookies better.”

  “Okay,” I agreed.

  “From scratch, or those slice-and-bake things?” asked Charlie.

  “Scratch,” I replied immediately. “That’ll take longer, and we want to fill up the whole afternoon. If we need any ingredients, you can run to the store.”

  “Oh, thanks,” said Charlie, but I could tell he didn’t really mind, as long as he was here when Emily came home.

  “How come I don’t get cookies?” asked Andrew, clinging to my legs. “Did anyone bake cookies for me when I was born?”

  “I don’t know,” I replied honestly. What I did know was that Andrew didn’t really want answers to his questions. He wanted a hug. So I gave him one.

  It turned out that we had all the ingredients for chocolate chip cookies. We also had paper, scissors, string, and crayons for making a WELCOME EMILY sign. We divided up the jobs. Stacey, Claudia, Mary Anne, Jessi, Sam, and David Michael covered the dining room table with newspaper and went to work on the sign. The rest of us began making a triple batch of cookies. Except for Andrew. He wandered back and forth between the projects, occasionally whining. He couldn’t seem to settle down.