Aloha, Baby-Sitters!

The woman closed the phone and stormed over to the court area. “Guys,” she said, “we have a delay. One of the actors can’t do the job. Another one has an audition and can’t make it until tomorrow. The commercial won’t look right without full teams. I’m going to have to call the client and ask …”

  I was beginning to see stars.

  I was just as good a player as any of the actors. Okay, not as old or as tall, but who says volleyball team members have to look alike?

  I slipped closer to the net. I turned slightly to my right (that’s my good side). I did not want to be obnoxious. Just subtle. Let them discover me.

  “So we’ll wrap it until tomorrow morning,” the woman said.

  “I can play!” I blurted out.

  Ugh. Subtle as a steamroller.

  The woman hardly looked at me. “Uh-huh —”

  “Seriously,” I said. “I’m on my school team. I’ve also been on TV.”

  (All right, SMS doesn’t have a volleyball team — but the last part was true, sort of.)

  Now everyone was paying attention. “How old are you?” the woman asked.

  “Eighteen,” I lied.

  “Are you union?”

  Huh?

  “Uh — well — no, not yet, but —” I spluttered.

  “Good. This is a nonunion commercial, for Day-Nite suntan lotion —”

  “My favorite!” I exclaimed. (I had never heard of it.)

  “Let’s see you play a little.”

  I lined up with my fellow actors. Mr. Dimples tossed me the ball and I served.

  We volleyed. I bumped. I set. I positioned myself wisely. I even spiked one.

  “Okay, fine,” the woman said. “You’re perfect. Can you make it tomorrow morning at seven-thirty?”

  “Oh, yeah, to me it’s, like, something like, I don’t know, twelve-thirty or so? So yeah, I’ll be wide awake,” I blathered.

  “Okay, come over here and let me take down your name and phone number.”

  “Hey, congrats!” Mr. Dimples called out.

  “Thanks!” I shouted.

  Perfect. She’d said I was perfect!

  I was floating. I could not feel my feet touch the ground. I, Abby Stevenson, was going to be in a major TV commercial.

  I figured Mr. Kingbridge would need to okay this. But I wasn’t worried a bit. He’d understand. He’s human.

  Besides, I could always sneak away.

  This was a big break. Winona Ryder started in commercials. Meryl Streep. Katharine Hepburn. (Actually, I’m just guessing about them, but I know lots of actors did.)

  Okay, maybe it wasn’t a big break. But it was a first step. And you have to take a step before you run up the mountaintop.

  I could already picture my name inside a star on Hollywood Boulevard.

  “Ohhhhh, this is beautiful,” Jessi said.

  Jessi raised her camera to the open window. Our van’s engine groaned as we swerved up a mountain road. Outside, the city of Honolulu was swinging into view in the distance.

  Inside, my stomach was threatening to hurl my breakfast into the woods.

  Jessi, Logan, and I had joined a group called “Off the Beaten Track,” led by Mr. Wong, an SMS art teacher. Altogether, ten of us were heading to the top of Mount Tantalus, Honolulu’s highest point.

  Click! Jessi photographed the city in the distance.

  Click! Jessi photographed the beautiful homes along the road.

  Click! Jessi photographed me, looking like the ghost of the Hawaiian Barf Beast.

  “Jessi, have a heart,” I pleaded.

  “Sorry,” Jessi said.

  “Are you all right?” Mr. Wong asked. “Would you like me to tell the van driver to stop?”

  “I — I think so,” I murmured.

  “Uh-oh, grab the bucket,” remarked Austin Bentley, an eighth-grade boy I had never hated until that moment.

  I felt so embarrassed. I used to have carsickness as a little girl. I thought I’d recovered for life. Boy, was I wrong.

  I felt the van slowing down. Mr. Wong was leaning toward me with a warm, sympathetic smile. “We’re almost there,” he said. “We’ll pull into the parking lot in a minute. Dawn, you can get out first.”

  As the van came to a stop, I wobbled toward the front on shaky legs. Mr. Wong helped me step down to the parking lot.

  I was hit by a blast of cold air (well, cold for Hawaii). Fortunately, we’d been warned to wear our windbreakers. I zipped mine up tight.

  Overhead, palm trees bent in the wind. Tourists in T-shirts and shorts shivered as they walked past us toward a lookout point.

  I leaned against a tree.

  “Take a picture, take a picture!” Austin called out.

  “Knock it off, Austin,” Jessi said.

  You know what? The air of Mount Tantalus was curing me. Totally. I felt so good, I clutched my stomach in pretend pain, blew my cheeks out, and ran after Austin.

  I have never seen a boy look so scared or run so fast.

  The view from the lookout point? Stunning.

  In L.A., I sometimes ride with my dad up to the Santa Monica Mountains. We always stop at the top and look out over Los Angeles — or what we can see of it. Usually it’s covered in a thick, greenish-brown haze of smog.

  Here in Hawaii, though, the air was so fresh and cool, it was like drinking water from a stream. Below us, Honolulu and Diamond Head were crystal clear. If I looked hard enough, I was sure I could see Claudia and Mary Anne in Pearl Harbor, Abby and Stacey in Waikiki.

  Jessi, of course, was snapping away.

  “How many rolls of film have you taken?” asked Logan.

  “Nine,” Jessi replied.

  Next she took a small cassette recorder out of her pocket and held it up to her mouth. “Hi, Mal. Hear the wind? We’re on top of Mount Tantalus, which is about two thousand feet above sea level …”

  Jessi was just finishing up her monologue when Mr. Wong called us back to the van.

  I dreaded going inside again. (Austin didn’t sit anywhere near me.) But as we wound our way down the other side of the mountain, I didn’t feel a twinge of sickness.

  For one thing, the road down was a little smoother. For another, the countryside was taking my breath away. Especially when we drove through the gates of a place called Paradise Park. It was as if the ground had exploded with trees and fiery, vibrant flowers. A light rain was falling, which seemed to make it all sparkle.

  “This is Manoa Valley,” Mr. Wong told us. “It’s called the last urban rain forest.”

  “How do you spell Manoa?” Jessi asked, scribbling away in her notebook.

  “Jessi, just look!” I finally said.

  As the van pulled to another stop, Logan held up a guidebook and called out excitedly, “This place was founded by a guy named James Wong!”

  Mr. Wong beamed. “Well, um, I try to keep this a secret, you see, modest fellow that I am …”

  We gave Mr. Wong grief about his “private garden” all day.

  For lunch we ate in the Treetop Restaurant, which is actually built in … a treetop! (Jessi, of course, took pictures from below and above.)

  “So,” Jessi said as she sat down at the table again, “are you glad you came on the trip?”

  I smiled. I hadn’t planned on this trip to Hawaii. In June I’d traveled from my home in California to spend the summer in Stoneybrook. When the idea for the Hawaii trip came up, I thought, no way. Pay for another fare, fly back across the country, turn around and go back to Connecticut, and then to California again, in one summer? It seemed ridiculous. All along I’d felt a little guilty about saying yes.

  Now, looking over the rain forest, sipping tea and eating sandwiches, my doubts had flown away.

  “Yeah,” I said. “I can’t imagine being anywhere else.”

  In that pleasant atmosphere, Austin Bentley almost choked on a baconburger. (Serves him right, the carnivore.) He coughed a few times, then pointed to a spot behind me.

  I turned around. The sun
was peeking through the branches of the palms. Birds dived and floated, their red, blue, and orange plumage flashing in the light.

  And through it all was a long, arching rainbow.

  “Wow …” Jessi murmured.

  I will never forget that sight. I felt as if we had been transported to the beginning of time.

  Well, except for the click-click-clicking of a camera in the seat beside me.

  “I’m going to waaake up in the city that never sweeeeeps …” sang Tia Farrell.

  “I think that’s ‘sleeps,’” I said. “The city that never sleeps.”

  Tia laughed. “No, silly! Everyone knows a city can’t sleep. It’s sweeps, because of all the garbage on the streets.”

  “Beeeeeeah!” bleated Oliver Twist.

  “Tiaaaa,” Karen called out. “Pay attention.”

  Oliver Twist, by the way, is a lamb. Tia is a girl. A girl who was raised on a big farm in Nebraska and is supposed to know how to bottle-feed a lamb.

  What was she doing instead? Putting a styrofoam Statue of Liberty hat on Ollie’s head and serenading him with “New York, New York.”

  Why was she doing this? Well, think about it. If you lived in a big city, where would you want to go for the summer? The country, right? Well, I guess it’s the other way around for a farm girl.

  Tia was not too interested in being at Farm Camp during her vacation from the farm. She wanted bright lights and action. So, over the weekend, Watson had taken her and Karen to New York City.

  And Tia still hadn’t recovered.

  The problem was, Farm Camp was a lot of work. The Stones’ farm is not exactly a huge ponderosa, but it has a couple of horses and cows, some pigs and chickens, two geese, a goat named Elvira, and Oliver Twist.

  As you can imagine, caring for those animals takes a lot of time and effort. And that was the point of Farm Camp. Help Mrs. Stone, learn about the farm, and have fun. Plus the county fair was approaching, and we were preparing a few projects for it — a piece of needlework, some homegrown vegetables for the produce contest, a recipe for a bake-off.

  And Oliver Twist.

  He was going to be Karen’s entry in the livestock contest. So feeding and pampering him was extremely important.

  “This bag upon shoes …” Tia sang, finally inserting the bottle into Ollie’s mouth, “are longing to stay …”

  It’s vagabond shoes. And longing to stray. But I didn’t say anything. Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted a group of kids trashing the vegetable garden.

  “Linny, stop!” Mallory was shouting. “What are you doing?”

  Linny Papadakis stalked away, smashing a few fallen tomatoes beneath his feet. “She’s being a baby!” he shouted.

  Linny’s little sister, Hannie, was crying. “My yellow squash is bigger than his,” she said.

  “Is not!” Linny retorted.

  “He tried to pick it, so his would grow bigger!” Hannie protested.

  “Hannie’s is bigger, Hannie’s is bigger,” Patsy Kuhn taunted.

  “Look, beans!” Laurel Kuhn squealed, cutting across the eggplant patch.

  I ran toward the garden, shouting, “Guys, be careful!”

  “We are all growing these together,” Mallory patiently explained to Linny.

  “But I called the yellow squash plants first,” Linny insisted.

  “Beeeeeah!” said Ollie.

  I turned around, and Tia and Karen were nowhere to be seen. Poor Ollie was wandering around in his pen, looking thirsty and abandoned.

  “Karen! Tia!” I called out.

  No answer.

  I picked up Ollie’s bottle and fed him some more, while Mallory calmed the garden wars. It was a hot day, and Ollie sucked down the rest of the bottle in no time.

  “Still thirsty, huh?” I asked.

  “Beeeah,” Ollie replied.

  “Okay, stay right there.” I ran inside to the kitchen.

  As I filled the bottle with milk, I could hear “Jingle Bells” coming from the living room.

  I took a detour in that direction. Karen and Tia were in front of the TV, watching intently.

  “What are you guys doing?” I asked.

  “There’s Macy’s!” Tia blurted out. “I was there!”

  It took me a minute to realize what they were watching. “Miracle on Thirty-Fourth Street?” I asked. “In July?”

  “It’s a New York movie,” Karen informed me. “Tia wants to see all the New York movies ever made. We already saw Home Alone 2 at our house.”

  I picked up the remote and flicked the set off. “Sorry, camp’s not —”

  “Oh, boo!” Karen said. “That’s not fair.”

  “Kristy? Can you help me out here?” Mallory’s voice called from outside.

  “We’ll ask Mrs. Stone if we can borrow the tape,” I said. “Now out out out!”

  * * *

  Well, needless to say, Mal and I were not exactly full of energy at our BSC meeting that night.

  BSD meeting would have been more like it. Baby-sitters Duo.

  “Uh, I call this meeting to order,” I said at five-thirty.

  Mallory was lying face-up on Claudia’s bed. “It already is, isn’t it?”

  “Well, I guess, but I have to say it.”

  “Kristy, this feels so weird.”

  “I know.”

  We both giggled. And then we both fell silent. You know what I wanted more than anything else? I wanted Claudia to be there, so she could burrow somewhere and pull out some junk food. With her gone, Mal and I just couldn’t bring ourselves to do it. It didn’t seem right.

  “Kristy,” Mallory finally said, sitting up. “Do you think it’s wrong to ignore a kid’s tantrum?”

  “Claire’s going through a phase, huh?”

  “Not Claire. Just answer me. Your honest opinion.”

  “Well, it depends on the age of the kid, whether she’s in danger, what the parents say —”

  “But what about in a public place, like a playground?” Mal continued. “Is it bad to let the kid scream and yell?”

  “You know kids. They do that in public places because they know they’ll get attention. It embarrasses parents. Which is kind of dumb. I mean, why be embarrassed? All the other parents have seen tantrums before. They won’t be scandalized by a kid being ignored.”

  “I’m not so sure about that.”

  “Mallory, who are we talking about?”

  “Jenny Prezzioso. Yesterday her mom told me to ignore her tantrums and let them boil over.”

  “Really? It’s about time.”

  “So when I took the kids to the park and Jenny threw a fit in the sandbox, I did just that,” Mal said. “But some woman started yelling at me.”

  “Who?”

  Mallory shrugged. “I’d never seen her before in my life.”

  “She had no right telling you what to do!”

  “I was so ashamed, Kristy. She told me I was neglecting Jenny.”

  “Mallory, you were being a good sitter,” I insisted. “First of all, you were just doing what you were told. Second of all, you knew it was the right thing to do. That old busybody should have minded her own business.”

  “I wish you’d been there. You should have seen the look she gave me —”

  Rrrrring!

  I picked up the receiver. “Hello, Baby-sitters Club.”

  “Yes, hello, my name is Margaret Wellfleet. I called yesterday and the answering machine directed me to call today between five-thirty and six. I’d like to speak to the person in charge of your organization.”

  “That’s me,” I said.

  “Your name?”

  Uh-oh. I did not like the sound of this voice. “Kristin Thomas,” I replied.

  “Well, Miss Thomas, I suggest that if you intend to advertise your organization on shirts, you be sure that those shirts are worn by competent child care personnel.”

  I gave Mallory a Look. Silently I mouthed, It’s her!

  Mallory swallowed hard. The colo
r drained from her face.

  “Well, thank you,” I said politely into the phone, “but all of our sitters are trained and experienced —”

  “Then perhaps you ought to reexamine your training procedures, because the young woman I saw yesterday had no clue how to care for a young child. She sat on a bench, doing absolutely nothing, while the little girl entrusted to her was screaming and suffering.”

  “I know exactly who you mean, ma’am,” I replied. “She’s a good, experienced sitter, and she was only following the instructions of the girl’s mother. You see, all children are so different. With some of them, you have to —”

  “To what? Ignore them? If the mother had told her to put the child in a cardboard box for three hours, would she have done that, too, Miss Thompson?”

  “Thomas. No, of course not, but in this case —”

  “Caregivers have minds of their own, too, dear. Children should not be allowed to cry like that. It is humiliating and psychologically harmful. Please don’t try to excuse this. This is a case of laziness and neglect. I suggest you remove this young lady from your roster. And if, by some chance, your entire organization believes in this … method, well, you won’t be in business long, I can guarantee that!”

  “Okay, Ms. Wellfleet, thank you for calling.”

  Click.

  I stared at the receiver. “She hung up on me.”

  “Well, you stuck up for me,” Mallory said. “Thanks, that was nice.”

  “I was so polite. I didn’t even yell at her. I didn’t have a chance to lose my temper and tell her what a nosy creep she was. She hung up on me.”

  “What’s she going to do, Kristy?” Mallory asked.

  “I don’t know,” I said with a shrug. “Fly away on a broomstick, if we’re lucky.”

  I lowered my face into my hands. This was all we needed. A new enemy in Stoneybrook.

  “Swifty Thomas?” Dawn asked.

  “Yes,” I replied. “That’s who Kristy will be. Swifty Thomas, hot young agent to the stars. When Steve calls, I tell him to call the BSC number between five-thirty and six and ask for Swifty.”

  Dawn, Jessi, Mary Anne, and I were eating our breakfasts. It was seven A.M., a half hour before I was to report to the beach for the commercial. I’d been up since five, preparing. I was full of antihistamines and totally deallergized. My hair looked bouncy and clean. And, to my surprise, not one of my friends was laughing at my scheme. (I think they were still half asleep.)