Claudia and Mean Janine

  After Dad came to take Mimi to the hospital that day, I went to the Newtons’ house. Mrs. Newton was in a panic. Jamie had a cold and Lucy was cutting a tooth. Both of them were crying.

  The dining room was a shambles. Mrs. Newton had set out every plate, dish, and piece of silverware she planned to use at the party the next afternoon. And by each dish and bowl was the food that was going to go on it or in it. There were packages of decorations, stacks of plates for the guests, and boxes of cocktail napkins and matches that said Lucille Jane Newton and the date of the christening on them in silver letters. And there were little notes on yellow paper stuck everywhere. They said things like: Remember carrot sticks in fridge, Don’t forget to salt, and one I didn’t understand at all that was stuck to an empty jar and read, Auntie Nora’s swizzle sticks.

  Mrs. Newton looked as much a wreck as the dining room. She was wringing her hands and surveying the room warily, as if it were going to crumble away at any moment.

  “Oh, Lord, what if it rains?” she exclaimed. “We’ll have to hold this thing inside.”

  “Well, the Baby-sitters Club will be there to help you,” I reminded her. My friends and I had been invited to the christening and the party as “paid guests.” We were going to keep an eye on Jamie and Lucy, and help Mr. and Mrs. Newton pass food, fill trays, make ice cubes, and do other party stuff.

  “Claudia, how would you like to decorate the yard tomorrow?” Mrs. Newton asked me. “That is, if it doesn’t rain. You’re so good at things like that.”

  “I’d love to,” I told her. “When should I come?”

  “Let’s see. The service will be at two. Why don’t you come over around noon? You could help get the children dressed afterward.” Mrs. Newton glanced at the sniffling, tearstained Jamie and Lucy. “Oh, I hope they’re better by then,” she added.

  “By head hurts,” wailed Jamie.

  “Wahhh …” added Lucy pitifully.

  Mrs. Newton looked pained, but she turned the children over to me and got to work. While she bustled around with her party things, I rubbed teething medicine on Lucy’s gums, handed tissues to Jamie, and tried to keep both of them happy and quiet by reading them picture books. Jamie’s current favorite story was The Saggy Baggy Elephant, and we read that one six times.

  When it was time for me to leave, Jamie smiled and said he felt a lot better. Only he didn’t sound any better. What he had said was, “Thacks, Claudy. By head does’t hurt iddy-bore. I feel buch better.”

  “Keep your fingers crossed,” Mrs. Newton said as I started down the front steps.

  “Oh, I will,” I told her. “All of them. My toes, too.”

  Of course, I didn’t really keep all my fingers and toes crossed. But as I was getting dressed for the christening the next morning, I crossed two of my fingers briefly, and hoped for good weather and healthy kids.

  I chose a new outfit, one I liked a lot. It was a big, loose white shirt with black splotches all over it, and white pants that came to just below my knees. My shoes (and I might point out that I’d had a fight with Mom over permission to buy them) were dainty gold sandals that laced partway up my legs. Then I put on my pink flamingo earrings and a pink bracelet that said CLAUDIA in heart-shaped beads. Finally, I braided my hair into four long braids, tied a ribbon around the top of each, and fastened the ends with butterfly clips.

  I was all ready. I wasn’t wearing a very churchy outfit, but after all, it was Saturday and we weren’t going to an actual church service—just to a ceremony in a church.

  A little while later I found myself in the Newtons’ backyard, surrounded by balloons, lanterns, and miles of crepe paper. I hung everything as artfully as I could. Then I asked Mr. Newton if there happened to be a couple of strings of Christmas lights handy. Surprisingly, there were. I arranged the strings on some bushes by the back porch and plugged them in. The twinkling gold lights made the yard look festive.

  I called the Newtons outside.

  “It’s lovely!” exclaimed Mrs. Newton.

  “You did a fine job, Claudia,” added Mr. Newton.

  “Is this all for Lucy?” asked Jamie, who had miraculously recovered from his head cold.

  “Well, it’s all for Lucy’s party,” his father told him.

  “I thought so,” said Jamie. He disappeared indoors.

  “Oh, dear,” said Mrs. Newton, “I think we’ve got a problem. The children are well, but Jamie’s suffering from jealousy.”

  “I’ll start getting him dressed,” I said. “It’s almost one o’clock. Kristy and the others will be here in half an hour.”

  I found Jamie in his room, sitting sulkily on his bed.

  “Time to get dressed,” I said cheerfully.

  “For the party?” asked Jamie.

  “Yup.”

  “Nope.”

  “What do you mean, nope?”

  “I’m not getting dressed.”

  “Yes, you are. Look.” I held out the new clothes Mrs. Newton had bought him—a very preppy little outfit: khaki slacks, a white button-down shirt, a navy blazer, and Top-Siders. “See how grown-up you’ll be? Just like Daddy.”

  Jamie hesitated. “All right,” he said grumpily after a few moments.

  He let me help him with the buttons and laces. When we were finished, I gasped. Jamie didn’t look like the little Jamie Newton I knew. He looked like a real boy. Shocked, I led him to the kitchen where Mr. and Mrs. Newton were doing last-minute food things. They must have been more used to him than I was, because all they said was how nice he looked and how well his blazer fit.

  “Shall I dress Lucy now?” I asked.

  “I’ll do it, thanks,” replied Mrs. Newton, “but come give me a hand. I can’t wait for you to see her dress.”

  When Lucy was dressed she didn’t look any older or younger than usual, but she did look like an angel. Her christening outfit was a long white gown with lots of lace and ribbons, tiny pearl buttons on the back, and a matching cap. We finished dressing her just as Kristy, Mary Anne, Stacey, and Dawn showed up.

  There was plenty of oohing and aahing, and I think every one of them said at least once, “Isn’t she cute?”

  Lucy smiled at us from under her cap, and Jamie glared at us darkly.

  Trouble was brewing.

  The christening ceremony at the church went by quickly. The guests and we baby-sitters sat in the first few rows of pews, while the Newtons stood at the front of the church with the minister and the man and woman who were going to be Lucy’s godparents.

  Lucy let out a little cry when the minister touched her forehead with the water, and Jamie kept leaning over to examine his new shoes, but otherwise things went well. Unless you count the very end of the ceremony, when the Newtons were walking down the aisle toward the back of the church, and Jamie turned around and called over his shoulder to the minister, “Hey, God bless you!”

  Everyone laughed, but it didn’t matter, because the christening was over and it was time to go to the Newtons’ for the party. The members of the Baby-sitters Club got ready to switch from being guests to being helpers.

  Mr. Newton drove us from the church to the party. Mrs. Newton put us to work right away. Kristy and Stacey were to pass out hors d’oeuvres, Mary Anne and Dawn were to help set up the food table, and I was to watch Jamie.

  Lucy apparently wasn’t going to need much watching. She was the center of attention, passed adoringly from one pair of arms to the next.

  Jamie was torn between watching all that, and not watching it. When he wasn’t watching, he tried to perform daredevil tricks on his jungle gym.

  “Hey, Gram! Look at me!”

  But usually Gram (or Gramps or Auntie Nora or whomever he was calling) was too enthralled with Lucy to pay much attention to him.

  “Roarrrr!” shouted Jamie, standing at the top of his slide and beating his chest. “I’m King Corn!”

  The only attention that stunt attracted was from his mother. “Honey, not so loud, please.”

&nbs
p; “Anyway,” I whispered to him as I helped him off the slide, “it’s King Kong, not King Corn.”

  “Oh.”

  When the food had been eaten and the guests were happily stuffed, Kristy and the others helped clear the table. Then they began to pile it up with the gifts the guests had brought.

  “Presents!” yelped Jamie eagerly. “Maybe they’re for me!”

  “I … I don’t think so,” I told him.

  “Why not, Claudy? Who’re they for?”

  “Well, I think they’re for Lucy. For her christening.”

  “All of them?”

  “Probably.”

  “Are you sure?”

  Jamie just couldn’t believe that the entire stack of presents before him was for Lucy. And, in fact, he was right; not all of them were for Lucy. There were a few small things for him: some Matchbox cars and a tiny teddy. But the majority of the heap was dresses and stuffed animals and toys for Lucy.

  Jamie made his unhappiness plain. “Leave me alone,” he told me crossly.

  I knew how he felt, so I did leave him alone. The party was sort of coming to an end anyway. I joined my friends, who were looking at the pictures Mr. Newton was taking.

  I’m not sure what made me look up to see who was holding Lucy at the moment, but I did—and I couldn’t see anyone holding her. So I scanned the yard and saw that she’d been placed in her bouncy walker chair. She was sitting by one end of the food table, next to a half-empty pitcher of fruit punch that had been left out. As I watched, Jamie spotted both Lucy and the punch. He darted toward her, lifted the pitcher, and—

  I ran across the yard as fast as I could, knowing I’d never reach them in time. I could just picture Lucy’s beautiful gown all stained with red punch.

  “Jamie!” I shouted. “No!”

  But before the words had actually left my mouth, Jamie was putting the pitcher back on the table. And by the time I got to him, he was tickling Lucy’s bare feet.

  “Jamie,” I gasped, “I thought you were going to pour that punch on your sister.”

  Jamie looked at me guiltily. “I was,” he said, “but I changed my mind.”

  “How come?” I asked.

  Jamie shrugged, then frowned. “‘Cause I love her,” he said at last. “She is my sister.”

  Hmm, I thought, remembering when I’d raised my hand to hit Janine, but had stopped just in time.

  The party ended a little while later. Jamie’s words didn’t come back to me until I was on my way home. Then I began to think about Janine. Janine was my sister and I was hers. I supposed we loved each other, although we’d never actually said so. I hadn’t thought much about it. Mostly what I thought about was how much attention Janine got from everybody. Janine was such a brilliant student. Janine was going to be a physicist. Don’t interrupt Janine, she has to study. Janine this, Janine that.

  It was kind of the way Jamie probably felt about Lucy. Lucy was so pretty. Lucy did such adorable things. Be quiet, Lucy’s asleep. Lucy this, Lucy that.

  And yet—I knew that Lucy wasn’t more special to anyone than Jamie was. Did that mean that I was as special as Janine? And underneath, did I really love Janine the way Jamie said he loved Lucy? And, if I loved Janine, did she love the rest of us back—but just didn’t know how to show it?

  I wasn’t sure at all.

  I struggled through our front door after the party that afternoon. My arms were loaded with things. Mrs. Newton had sent my friends and me home with leftover party stuff. I had a stack of Lucy napkins, a container of pastries, some cookies, some peanuts, and half a bag of M&M’s.

  “Hello!” I called.

  “My Claudia?” came a tentative voice from the back porch.

  “Hi, Mimi!” I ran to her, and showed her the things from the party. “They had special napkins and matchbooks made,” I told her. “Here. Do you want to try a pastry? They’re really good.”

  Mimi took one and began eating it neatly, using her left hand. “Hey,” I said suddenly, “where is everyone?” Mimi wasn’t supposed to be left alone.

  “Your parents had to … to leave,” Mimi replied carefully. “Janine is here.”

  “Where?” I asked.

  “Room.”

  “She’s in her room? Is she working?”

  “Think so.”

  “Are you all right down here for a while?”

  “Yes. Surely.”

  I ran upstairs, pounded on Janine’s door, then let myself in without waiting for her to answer.

  “Claudia!” she said, frowning. “Is something the matter?” She was in front of her computer, as usual. I was surprised her face hadn’t turned green from the glow yet.

  “Mimi is downstairs all by herself. She’s not supposed to be alone.”

  “I’ve been right here,” said Janine uncomfortably.

  “You’re supposed to be with her,” I pointed out. “Can’t you do anything for this family? Is it too much to ask that you spend an hour with our grandmother?”

  Janine dropped her hands into her lap. “I just couldn’t,” she mumbled. “Mimi asked me to sit with her, but I didn’t know what to do. You’re the one who’s been spending so much time with her.”

  “You were great with her in the hospital,” I said. “You could talk to her even when she couldn’t talk back.”

  Janine shrugged. “Well, anyway, no one wants me as part of this family.”

  “What?”

  “You’re always pushing me into my world and out of yours.”

  As usual, I didn’t understand what she was talking about.

  Janine gave another exasperated shrug and turned back to her computer. “Go away,” she said, not bothering to look at me. “Mimi prefers you to me anyway.”

  “Janine, wait,” I said. “I want to talk to you. Can’t you turn that thing off for a minute? Whenever it’s on, you look at it, not me. Besides, I think your face is turning green.”

  Janine gave me a hint of a smile. “All right,” she said. “Just let me save this.” She pressed a few keys, waited a moment, then touched something or other that made the screen go blank.

  I sat down on Janine’s bed, and she swiveled around in her chair to face me. “What do you mean,” I asked, “about pushing you into your world?”

  “I mean,” replied Janine, “that all I ever hear is, ‘Janine, go study,’ or, ‘Janine, don’t neglect your schoolwork.’ Nobody ever asks me to accompany them somewhere or to help them—and then, more often than not, you accuse me of foisting extra work onto your shoulders.”

  “But you do!” I exclaimed. “You sit around in your room with your books while I have to cook, go to the hospital, work with Mimi….”

  “Recall, if you will,” said Janine, “what happened when Mom and Dad made the decision to rearrange our schedules—”

  “Our lives,” I interrupted.

  “—in order to work with Mimi.”

  “I got stuck with the mornings and had to drop out of the play group, while you got off scot-free,” I said.

  “No,” Janine went on. “Let me refresh your memory. I started to speak and you rushed into the conversation, volunteering your mornings. Mom then thought that was such a wonderful arrangement that I had to pretend I wouldn’t have been able to help Mimi in the first place. And what about the day Mary Anne was asked to attend to Mimi? No one told me that was to happen. If someone had mentioned it, I could have arranged to miss a class. But no one thought to inform me. It’s as if I don’t exist.”

  “Well—”

  “How about those times you blamed me for not helping you with dinner? Did I realize that task had fallen to you? No.”

  “But—”

  “I am many things, Claudia, but I am not psychic. I do not have ESP.”

  “But, Janine,” I said. “You’re everyone’s favorite. You’re so smart—”

  “I’m everyone’s favorite!” she cried. “No, you are. You’re popular and pretty—”

  She stopped. We smiled at each o
ther.

  “Look,” I said, “maybe we haven’t been good about including you in things, but this business is not all our fault. It’s—it’s a two-way street,” I said, quoting my father. “Maybe we wouldn’t have been so quick to put your studies first if you hadn’t always made us feel that your work was so important to you.”

  “It is important to me,” said Janine. “But not more important than my family.”

  “You know what?” I said slowly. “I think you ought to talk to Mom and Dad. I think you should tell them this. Mimi, too. I bet they don’t have any idea how you feel.”

  Janine turned her head away. “I don’t know….”

  “And if you can’t talk to them,” I said, “then show them.”

  “How?”

  “Start spending some time outside of your room. Do you really have to study nonstop?”

  “No.”

  “Then spend some time with us. The next time Mimi wants company drill her on her flash cards. Or help her learn to use the special equipment the therapist gave her to teach her to do things one-handed. Or just talk to her.

  “Or some evening when it’s about six o’clock,” I went on, “go down to the kitchen and see if someone needs help with dinner. It’s like … I don’t know. Maybe if you change, Mom and Dad and Mimi and I will change, too.”

  Janine nodded her head. “I see,” she said. “Yes. That’s very sensible….”

  “But don’t change too much,” I added. “Mom and Dad’ll die if they don’t get a physicist out of this family.”

  Janine laughed.

  I stood up.

  “I’ll tell you something,” said Janine. “For a little sister, you’re pretty smart.”

  “Moi?” I said, grinning.

  “Toi,” Janine replied with a smile. It was the closest she’d come to making a real joke in a long time.

  Janine stood up, too. “I wonder …” she started to say.

  “What?” I asked.

  “I wonder if it’s too late in the day for special tea with Mimi. Let’s see. Mom and Dad will be out for a while…. No, I don’t believe it’s too late.”

  “Not if you start right now,” I said encouragingly.

  Janine straightened up her desk. Then I followed her out of her room, but I let her go downstairs alone while I went to my own room. A half hour later I crept down to the kitchen. There were Mimi and Janine, sitting across the table from each other. They were drinking tea from Mimi’s cups, and were involved in a conversation about being left-handed versus being right-handed. Truthfully, the conversation sounded a little dull. But Mimi’s eyes were sparkling, so I knew she was very, very happy.