Jessi's Secret Language

  Becca was pulling up Squirt’s shade and opening the curtains.

  “Hey, Becca. Come here,” Kristy said. “Show Squirt your face.”

  Becca obliged and Squirt stopped crying. “Ga-ga?” he asked.

  “I think that means he wants milk,” said Becca.

  Kristy dressed Squirt, and she and Becca and the baby went downstairs and all had some milk.

  As they were sitting around the table (well, Squirt wasn’t at the table; he was in his high chair, gumming up some crackers), Becca looked at Kristy and said, “You’re really nice.”

  “Thanks!” replied Kristy, flattered.

  “And I mean really nice. Not fake nice. Nice like you mean it.”

  “Of course I mean it.”

  “Some people don’t.”

  “Who doesn’t?” Kristy wanted to know.

  “A lot of people in Stoneybrook. When we first moved here, either no one would play with me or people just pretended to like me.”

  Ah, thought Kristy. She knew what was coming. I’ve talked with the girls in the Baby-sitters Club about being black and trying to fit in in Stoneybrook. It hasn’t been easy.

  “Some people,” Becca went on, “were just plain mean. Other people pretended to be nice, but they really weren’t…. I don’t know why they bothered pretending.”

  “You know what?” said Kristy. “Everyone has trouble fitting in sometimes.”

  “Everyone?”

  “Everyone. You know Matt? The boy your sister is sitting for now?”

  “The deaf one?” asked Becca.

  “Yeah. Well, at first the kids in his new neighborhood didn’t like him because he’s deaf. And last summer I moved to a new neighborhood where no one liked me.”

  “Didn’t like you?” Becca repeated, mystified. “But there’s nothing wrong with you. I mean, you’re not deaf or anything. And you’re white.”

  “But I’m not rich. My mother married this millionaire and he moved Mom and my brothers and me into his mansion on the other side of town. The kids all knew where I’d come from, and they made fun of me…. Of course, I didn’t help things by calling them snobs. But what I’m saying is that everyone is the odd one out sometimes. You’re the only one in jeans at a fancy party, or the only Japanese kid in school, or the only diabetic in your class. See?”

  “Yeah. Being called names still hurts, though.”

  “Oh, tell me about it. But doesn’t it help to know that you’re not the only one who doesn’t fit in sometimes?”

  “A scootch. It helps a scootch.”

  “I guess a scootch is better than nothing,” said Kristy, and she and Becca grinned at each other.

  “Kristy, can I invite Charlotte over?” asked Becca.

  “Charlotte Johanssen? Sure.”

  “Oh, goody,” said Becca, and she made a dash for the phone.

  Charlotte is a kid the club sits for a lot. She’s exactly Becca’s age, but she’s a year ahead of her in school since she’s really smart and skipped third grade last year. Charlotte’s favorite sitter used to be Stacey McGill, and she was crushed when Stacey moved away. In fact, it even used to be hard for her to come play with Becca, knowing she was in Stacey’s old house. Luckily, she got over that, because Becca needs friends desperately. Charlotte was the first kid who didn’t automatically avoid her or tease her just because she’s black. She didn’t seem to notice or care.

  Becca and Charlotte were slowly getting to be good friends when something happened that totally cemented their relationship — the Little Miss Stoneybrook pageant, which was a sort of beauty show for little girls. Becca refused to be in it because she has terrible stage fright, and ordinarily Charlotte (who’s on the shy side) wouldn’t even have considered something like that. But she let herself get talked into being a contestant — and then blew it once the pageant started. She actually ran off the stage in tears and asked to be taken home.

  Well, that did it. Becca sympathized completely. The two of them have been like Siamese twins ever since.

  Kristy said that Chadotte reached our house less than five minutes after Becca called her.

  “Hi, Kristy!” Charlotte said. (She isn’t shy around the members of the Baby-sitters Club anymore.)

  “Hi, Char. I’m glad you came over. What are you guys going to do?”

  Becca and Charlotte looked at each other and raised their eyebrows.

  “We’re going to pretend we’re ballerinas,” said Becca. “Just like Jessi.”

  “Yeah,” said Charlotte. “We’re going to be the famous dancing team, the Polanski Sisters.”

  “We’re going to dance in Jessi’s practice area in the basement,” Becca added.

  “Is that okay with Jessi?” asked Kristy. “Are you sure you’re allowed to do that?”

  “Positive. She lets us all the time.” (It’s true. I do.) “Anyway, we have to rehearse for the big performance.”

  “What big performance?”

  “The opening of Copernicus,” replied Becca.

  “Coppélia?” asked Kristy.

  “Yeah, that.”

  “Okay. Just be careful with Jessi’s things. Squirt and I will be playing upstairs.”

  “Okay!” Becca and Charlotte ran down to the basement.

  Kristy looked at Squirt, who was an enormous mess. He had a milk mustache, and soggy cracker was everywhere — all over his face, in his hair, on his hands, covering the tray of his high chair.

  It took Kristy quite awhile to clean him up, and after she’d finished, she realized his diaper was wet again.

  How do parents do it? Kristy wondered. How do they run a house, take care of their kids, and go to work, too? It seemed impossible. She decided not to worry about it. At least not for several more years. Maybe by the time she was a parent there would be automatic diaper-changers or something.

  When Squirt was clean and dry, she carried him down to the family room. She was going to show him some of his board books, but she decided to see what the girls were up to instead. She didn’t hear a sound from the basement, which worried her.

  Kristy stood with Squirt at the top of the steps. She could hear murmurings from the girls, but nothing more. She tiptoed downstairs. What were they doing?

  “Becca? Char?” She found them sitting on one of Jessi’s exercise mats. “What happened to the Polanski Sisters?” she asked.

  Becca smiled. But she didn’t answer the question. Instead she said, “We know a secret!” She didn’t say it in a way that made Kristy cross. She said it as a point of interest, something she was excited about.

  “Ooh, what?” asked Kristy.

  “Can’t tell.” (Now that was annoying.)

  “Can’t tell yet,” added Charlotte.

  “You mean I’ll find out?”

  “Yup.”

  “When?”

  “Can’t tell.” Becca and Charlotte grinned at each other. “But it’s a good secret,” said my sister.

  Kristy remembered the mysterious phone call I’d gotten from Mrs. Braddock. Something was going on. She knew that for sure. But what?

  Kristy Thomas does not like to be left out of things.

  Opening night!

  Oh, my lord!

  I can’t believe it!

  The opening night of anything (if you’re in the cast, that is) is the most exciting and also the most scary part of a production. It’s even scarier than auditioning. Opening night is when you know whether your work has paid off. It’s when you know whether you’ve worked hard enough. And it’s the first time you perform your new role in front of a whole theater full of faces.

  So I was nervous about the opening night of Coppélia.

  But I wasn’t too nervous. There have been other opening nights in my life, and there will be more. I hope.

  This opening night would be special, though. It would be different from any other. This was because, thanks to the Braddocks, Mme Noelle, and Ms. Frank, Matt and his class would be in the audience. That was part of the secret Be
cca had told Charlotte.

  I’d kept the secret for as long as I could. I didn’t hit the members of the Baby-sitters Club (even Mallory) with the news until two days before opening night. (Kristy canceled our regular Friday meeting on the afternoon of that first performance so that everyone could have time to get ready for the big trip to Stamford.)

  The girls were really excited when I gave them the news.

  “You did that for Matt?” asked Mary Anne with an awed smile.

  “You arranged all that?” added Kristy.

  I nodded.

  Everyone looked impressed.

  I felt great.

  And now it was opening night. As I had promised, I’d given my ten free tickets to Mama, Daddy, Becca, Grandma and Grandpa (they’d traveled all the way from New Jersey just to see the show), and Kristy, Dawn, Mary Anne, Claudia, and Mal.

  Guess who was going to baby-sit for Squirt? Logan Bruno, Mary Anne’s boyfriend, one of the associate club members.

  One other important person was also in the audience — Mr. Braddock, Matt’s father. Where were Mrs. Braddock and Haley? That’s the rest of the secret, and you’ll find out about it soon enough.

  The performance was to start at eight o’clock. Now it was ten minutes to eight. My stomach was jumping around as if I’d swallowed grass-hoppers. When the curtain rises on this ballet, Coppélia herself is already onstage. Dr. Coppelius has seated her on the balcony of his workshop. I, Swanilda, am the first to actually enter the stage.

  But tonight — and only tonight — I would be onstage before the curtain rose.

  Now it was five minutes to eight. My hair was fixed, my costume was on, my makeup was finished, I had shaken myself out and warmed myself up.

  Five more minutes crawled by.

  “Ready?” A hand touched my shoulder.

  I jumped a mile.

  “I am sorry,” said Mme Noelle, “but it is time to begin. The house is packed. Oh, and your friends, the deaf children, they are sitting in the fourth row — center. Excellent seats.”

  “Oh, thank you so much, Madame,” I said. “That’s wonderful.”

  “Are you ready?”

  “Yes. Yes, I am.”

  “All right then. Go ahead.”

  The audience had been noisy. They were chattering and rustling their programs and opening packages of candy. Suddenly they fell silent. I knew the lights had dimmed, the audience lights anyway. But the stage was still lit, and the curtain was down.

  “Jessi?” asked another voice. It was Mrs. Braddock. She and Haley had appeared beside me, both very dressed up — and both very nervous.

  “Okay,” I said. I squeezed Haley’s hand. “Let’s go.”

  I was the first to walk onto the stage in the theater. I was followed by Haley and Mrs. Braddock. When we reached center stage, standing in front of the curtain, we stopped and looked out at the sea of faces.

  “Good evening,” I said, and Mrs. Braddock signed, “Good evening.”

  “Tonight’s performance,” I continued, “is a special one. In the audience are eight students from the school for the deaf here in Stamford.” (Mrs. Braddock was still signing away — my translator.) “This,” I said, “is Carolyn Braddock, the mother of one of the students, and Haley, his sister. So that the students can get as much as possible out of the performance, Haley is going to narrate the story before each act and her mother will translate the narration into sign language. This is not usually part of a performance of Coppélia, but we hope you enjoy it anyway. Thank you.”

  I walked offstage then, to prepare for my real entrance, and behind me I could hear Haley speaking in a small, scared voice. “Louder!” I whispered, as soon as I was out of sight of the audience.

  Haley spoke up. Her mother signed away. The audience liked them. I could tell.

  The next thing I knew, the curtain was rising and the ballet was beginning for real. You might think that I was aware of the fact that my friends and family and Matt and his classmates were in the audience, watching me. But I wasn’t. When I’m onstage; I am the dance. I’m the steps and turns and leaps. I’m Swanilda telling my story. Nothing less. For me, that’s the only way to handle a performance.

  Backstage, between acts, I paced around nervously.

  “You are doing fine,” Mme Noelle said to me several times. “A fine job.”

  Katie Beth, hearing Madame’s praise, even added, “You really are. You’re a perfect Swanilda.”

  I smiled and thanked her.

  There was no way Swanilda could have been black, so I wasn’t perfect, but I knew I was dancing very well. And I knew the show was going well. After all, we had rehearsed and rehearsed and rehearsed. It was paying off.

  “You know something?” Katie Beth spoke up.

  “What?”

  “Adele’s here tonight. She’s in the audience. I told my parents about the special show, so we asked her to come home for the weekend.”

  “Hey, that’s great!” I cried. “It really is. So the signing is for her, too.”

  “I think she wants to see you after the show. She really likes you. I mean because of the signing and tonight’s performance and everything.”

  “I’d like to see her, too. Maybe she could meet Matt.”

  “Guess what. I’m learning how to sign,” said Katie Beth. “There’s a class at the school Matt goes to. I found out about it all by myself. Mom and Dad aren’t taking it, but I started anyway. Adele is my only sister. She’s not around much, but when she is, it’d be kind of nice for us to be able to talk like regular sisters do.”

  “That’s great,” I said again. “If you ever need any help, let me know. Better yet, maybe I should join the class. I might learn even faster.”

  “It meets on Mondays,” said Katie Beth.

  “Oh. That’s a problem. I always baby-sit on Mondays. Well, anyway, I’m glad you’re taking it.”

  Act II had ended and from the other side of the curtain I heard Haley say, now in a much more confident voice, “Act Three is the last act of the ballet. You will see the dancers in the village square again. Franz and Swanilda aren’t mad at each other anymore, so they decide to get married, and they go to the Burgomaster for their dowries.” (I had no idea how Mrs. Braddock was signing all this stuff, but I didn’t bother to worry about it.) “But just then, Dr. Coppelius runs angrily into the square. He accuses Franz and Swanilda of wrecking Coppélia, which was his life’s work. Since they did destroy the doll, Swanilda gives her dowry money to Dr. Coppelius. He is pleased by that, and after he leaves, Franz and Swanilda get married. And I guess they live happily ever after.”

  I smiled. Haley had added that last line herself.

  Haley and Mrs. Braddock left the stage and the curtain rose. I became Swanilda again.

  It’s hard to describe how I feel when I’m onstage. But I think a bomb could have dropped and caved in the theater, and I’d still have been Swanilda, dancing.

  I couldn’t believe it when the final curtain came down. It felt as if no time had passed since I’d stood onstage with Haley and Mrs. Braddock. Yet I’d told Swanilda’s story.

  The audience was clapping loudly.

  The cast assembled backstage. We held hands in a long line. When the curtain rose we stepped forward and bowed.

  The audience clapped more loudly.

  Christopher Gerber (who was playing Franz) and I let go of the people on either side of us and stepped forward to take our own bows. As we straightened up, I saw a figure climbing the steps to the stage.

  It was Matt. His arms were full of roses. He walked timidly across the stage and handed them to me. Then he signed, “Thank you from all of us.”

  The audience had grown silent. I translated for them. Then, cradling the roses in one arm, I signed to Matt, “You’re welcome. This is the best night of my life.”

  Matt signed, “Mine, too,” and when I translated that, the audience laughed gently. Well, some people laughed. I heard a few sniffles, though, and saw a woman in
the front row dig through her purse for Kleenex.

  Matt turned to leave and Christopher and I stepped back into the line. That was when another figure, this one with flowing blonde hair, climbed the steps to the stage. The girl was also carrying flowers, a smaller bouquet, and was walking even more timidly than Matt had been.

  It was Adele.

  She stopped in front of Katie Beth and handed the flowers to her. Katie looked at her sister for a moment and both of them began to cry.

  Oh, no, I thought.

  But they recovered quickly. And Katie Beth said the last words I’d have expected her to say: “This is my sister, Adele. She’s deaf, too.”

  I handed my flowers to Christopher in a rush, stepped over to Katie Beth, and translated what she’d just said into sign language. This was partly so Matt and his friends would know what was going on, but mostly so that Adele would know.

  It was cause for more tears.

  So I looked out at the audience and said, signing, “Any more flowers?”

  Everyone began to laugh and the curtain came down. Applause rang in my ears. The show had been a success.

  The cast drifted offstage to change and to remove their makeup. We were elated — the show had gone very well — but we were also exhausted. I stayed behind with Katie Beth and Adele.

  “I’m really glad you came,” I signed to Adele. “I didn’t know you were going to.”

  Katie Beth smiled at her sister.

  “Surprise!” signed Adele. “I wanted to see you dance.”

  “She wanted to see us dance,” I translated for Katie Beth, just in case she hadn’t understood. I wasn’t sure how much signing she’d learned.

  “You never asked me to come to a show before,” Adele went on, looking sad suddenly. “I thought you didn’t want your friends to know me. You never even tried signing — until you met Jessi.”

  I translated for Katie Beth, who melted. The sisters began to cry again. Before I left them alone, I said to Katie, “Tell her about the class you’re taking. You know she’ll be happy.” And, I thought, then the two of them can cry some more.

  For about five minutes, I had peace in the dressing room. I had just changed out of my costume and into my jeans and a sweater when — BOOM. Everyone piled backstage. And I mean everyone.