Claudia and the Genius of Elm Street

  “She is like a machine,” said Stacey. “I mean, you work hard on your art, Claudia, but you love it. It shows. Rosie always looks so … grim. Or else she has this forced smile. I don’t think she really likes what she’s doing.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “She’s not a very happy girl.”

  “Maybe her parents are pushing her,” Mary Anne suggested. “Maybe we should encourage her to loosen up, have more fun.”

  “Maybe we should take her to a fun kids’ place, like the zoo,” suggested Mal.

  “It would probably interfere with some lesson,” I said.

  Then Jessi spoke up. “I’d like to take that Thursday job with Rosie. She’s into dance, right? We have that in common. Maybe we’ll get along.”

  “That might work,” Mary Anne said.

  “Uh-oh,” Dawn exclaimed suddenly. She was looking at Kristy, who was obviously thinking hard. “Kristy’s working on an idea —”

  “Boy, do I have a great idea!” Kristy blurted out.

  Dawn giggled. “I thought so.”

  “What?” said Mal and Stacey and I at the same time.

  Kristy glanced at me. “You should have a show!”

  “Huh?” I said. “What does that have to do with Rosie?”

  “It doesn’t,” Kristy said. “But I was looking at your paintings, and it just popped into my head. You should have an art show, Claudia. I mean, why should your paintings sit up here where nobody can enjoy them?”

  “We’ll enjoy them,” I replied.

  “I know, but the public should see them, Claud,” Kristy insisted.

  “Yeah, but where? I can’t just walk into a gallery and ask someone to give me an exhibit!”

  “Make your own gallery,” Kristy said. “Your garage! We could have an opening and invite all our kids. They would love it, and the subject of junk food is perfect. It would show them that art can be fun.”

  I hadn’t thought of being so public with my paintings, but a show did sound like fun. And if I was going to be a famous artist someday, this would be good practice. “I guess we could,” I said. “I’d need some help cleaning the garage, though. It’s a pigsty.”

  “With seven of us, it’ll take no time,” Kristy said. Everyone nodded enthusiastically.

  “I could easily hang the paintings on the wall,” I said, “and the lighting’s not bad. I guess I’d have to figure out a date I could be finished; then that’ll be the opening.”

  “It’ll also give you something definite to shoot for,” Stacey said. “I bet you’ll work twice as fast.”

  “Yup,” I said. “Then we can send invitations to my neighbors and all our clients —”

  “And serve junk food as refreshments!” Kristy chimed in. “It’s perfect!”

  Well, I was pretty excited by then. We all were. Soon phone calls began interrupting us, but in between them we kept planning and talking.

  Everyone was in a great mood when Kristy adjourned the meeting at six o’clock. I was thrilled. My first show! But boy, did I have a lot of work to do. I pulled out my Milk Duds canvas for a quick touch-up before dinner.

  My brush was in hand when the phone rang. (One of the only bad things about my bedroom being BSC headquarters is that parents sometimes call during nonmeeting hours.)

  “Hello, Baby-sitters Club,” I said impatiently.

  “May I have Claudia, please?” It was Rosie’s voice.

  “Hi, Rosie, it’s me,” I said. “What’s up?”

  “You won’t need to come tomorrow,” she answered. “My agent just called to tell me I have a commercial booking in the city tomorrow. My mom’s going to take me in while my aunt takes care of Grandma.”

  “Congratulations, Rosie!” I said. “What’s the commercial for?”

  “The phone company,” she said. “I play a girl calling her grandfather in Norway or something.”

  “Great!” I said. “I can’t wait to see it.”

  “I’ll get a tape of it, I guess,” she said. “See you Thursday.”

  “Uh … no, Friday,” I said. “A different sitter is coming on Thursday — Jessi Ramsey. She’s a great dancer. You’ll love her.”

  “Oh,” Rosie said in a soft voice. “Well, ’bye.”

  “ ’Bye,” I said. “And good luck!”

  “You mean, ‘Break a leg.’ ”

  “What?”

  “You’re supposed to say, ‘Break a leg’ to actors. It’s good luck to wish bad luck and vice versa.”

  That was Rosie — even correcting a compliment. “Well, break two legs!” I said cheerfully.

  “Thanks,” said Rosie, “ ’Bye.”

  “ ’Bye.”

  I hung up the phone, feeling really excited for Rosie.

  And, to tell the truth, I was relieved that I’d miss two days with her that week.

  Jessi was being hard on herself. She really did do a good job. But Rosie was being … Rosie. Here’s what happened.

  Jessi got to the Wilders’ a little early. She waited for Rosie’s car pool, which turned out to be a station wagon driven by Mrs. Barrett.

  There were lots of “Hi, Jessi’s” and waves from everyone in the car, but only a grunt from Rosie. The same treatment Stacey and I had gotten.

  But Jessi knew enough to expect it. She wasn’t even fazed. “Aren’t you going to say hello?” she asked.

  Rosie walked past her and opened the front door. “I did.”

  “Oh, I guess I didn’t hear you,” Jessi said as they both walked inside. “Hey, how did your commercial go?”

  “How do you know about that?” asked Rosie.

  “Claudia told us. My friends and I were all excited. It must be so much fun to be on TV.”

  Rosie shrugged. “I guess. You know, five of my commercials have already been on the air.” She went into the kitchen and put her backpack on the floor. “I have them on tape.”

  “Yeah? Can we watch them?” Jessi was being very smart. She figured flattery was the way to get on Rosie’s good side.

  “Well, I have to do homework for forty-five minutes before my voice lesson,” Rosie said, looking at the clock. “But if we eat our snack really fast, we’ll have enough time.”

  Mrs. Wilder had left her usual note, explaining Rosie’s schedule and asking the girls to help themselves to peanut butter-and-jelly sandwiches.

  Jessi and Rosie made the sandwiches quickly and wolfed them down. Then they ran into the den. Jessi settled on the couch as Rosie put a videotape in the VCR.

  “The first one is the best,” she said, standing by the TV.

  It was the carpet cleaner commercial. “I’ve seen this!” Jessi said. “That was you?”

  “Sssh!” said Rosie. On the screen, the carpet gremlins were racing across the carpet, eating cartoon dirt with their cartoon teeth. “This was the hardest part. I was only pretending to see the creatures. They’re animated, and they were added later. That expression on my face was just acting. Watch …”

  Rosie rewound it and played it again — in slow motion! She made sure to tell Jessi every last detail of her acting “technique.”

  Jessi nodded politely and kept nodding through the rest of the commercials. When the tape was over, she said, “You were great!”

  “Thanks,” Rosie said. “I took a kids’ commercial class in New York City. It gave me great practice and exposure.”

  “Uh-huh.” Jessi wanted to talk about dancing. So she said, “Did you study ballet in New York, too?”

  “A little bit, with a guy who used to dance with American Ballet Theater.”

  Jessi was impressed. “Wow! Who —”

  “What grade are you in?” Rosie interrupted.

  “Sixth,” Jessi answered.

  “Are you good at vocabulary?”

  “Uh, well …” Vocabulary? What did that have to do with ballet class? Jessi was wondering. “Pretty good, I guess. Why?”

  “I have to do some practice puzzles for the Crossword Competition,” Rosie said, picking up her backpack. “
Come help me.”

  Jessi followed Rosie upstairs. She was frustrated that the conversation about dance had stopped. If Rosie liked dance so much, why didn’t she want to talk about it? Was she afraid Jessi might try to show her up?

  Rosie’s room was painted a light salmon color with white moldings. Next to her blond-wood desk was a floor-to-ceiling shelf stuffed with books. The wall was full of photos: Rosie with TV stars, Rosie on the set of a commercial, Rosie singing at a recital, Rosie in a local production of Fiddler on the Roof, Rosie playing the violin in an orchestra. You get the idea.

  Rosie pulled a large book out of her pack and set it on her desk. Its title was Crossword Fun — from Beginner to Advanced. She opened it to a puzzle that was half-filled with letters.

  “This is a hard one,” she said, sitting down. “Let’s see … Fifteen Down: ‘A three-toed sloth.’ Two letters. What’s that?”

  “Uh … I don’t know,” Jessi said. “How about one of the Across words that shares a square with it?”

  “Fifteen Across,” Rosie replied. “ ‘Ansel Blank, American photographer.’ Five letters.”

  Jessi shook her head. “Let’s try another.”

  “I thought you said you had a good vocabulary,” Rosie remarked. “How about Twenty-three Across. ‘Jurassic giant.’ Eleven letters beginning with A, P.”

  Huh?

  By then Jessi’s alarm signal was going off. She felt completely useless, but an emergency plan popped into her head. “You know Janine Kishi, right?” she said. “She’s much better at this than I am. I’ll call her.”

  “Wait —” Rosie started to protest. But Jessi ran to the downstairs phone and called our house.

  Janine answered right away. “Kishi residence.”

  “Hi, Janine, it’s Jessi Ramsey.”

  “Hi, Jessi. Claudia’s at the Johanssens’. Do you have their number?”

  “Yeah, but I wanted to talk to you. Um, Claudia told me you once helped Rosie Wilder with her homework …”

  “I made what I considered a valiant attempt,” Janine said.

  “Well, I’m sitting for her right now, and … I know you must be really busy, but I was wondering if you could come over for a few minutes. She needs help doing crossword puzzles. It’s for a school contest.”

  Janine laughed. “I guess I’m becoming Rosie’s official tutor.”

  “I’m sorry, Janine,” Jessi said quickly. “I didn’t mean to —”

  “No, no, it’s okay,” Janine said. “I can take a break. I’ll be right over.”

  “Thanks!”

  “You’re welcome. ’Bye.”

  When Jessi went back upstairs, Rosie didn’t even look up from her book. “Janine’s on her way,” Jessi said.

  “Uh-huh,” mumbled Rosie.

  “Do you want me to try helping you on some other clues?” asked Jessi.

  “Nope.”

  “Okay, then I’ll go downstairs and do some homework. Call me if you need me.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Jessi had barely settled herself on the couch in the den when Janine rang the doorbell. “Boy, am I glad to see you,” Jessi said.

  “You ought to make me an honorary member of the Baby-sitters Club,” Janine replied with a smile. “Where’s Rosie?”

  “At the top of the stairs,” said Jessi. “In her room.”

  Janine went up to Rosie’s room. Jessi returned to the den and breathed a sigh of relief.

  But not for long. The walls in the Wilder house must be pretty thin, because Jessi could hear just about every word spoken upstairs.

  Janine began the conversation with a friendly “Hi.”

  Rosie’s reply was, “What’s a two-letter word for a three-toed sloth?”

  Janine paused a moment, then said, “Ai. A, I.”

  Jessi nearly dropped her notebook. She couldn’t believe Janine actually knew that.

  “A, I?” Rosie replied. “Are you sure?”

  “Pretty sure.”

  “How did you know?”

  “It’s a word people use a lot in Scrabble,” Janine answered. (I have to admit, I should have known it, too, because I’m the one Janine beats in Scrabble with words like ai!)

  Janine also knew that a Jurassic giant was an apatosaurus, and the photographer was Ansel Adams, and a bunch of other hard answers.

  Well, you’d think Rosie would be happy to get such expert help, right?

  Wrong.

  Rosie kept giving Janine clues, pausing sometimes to answer them herself. Whenever Janine didn’t know the answer, Rosie would exhale loudly as if Janine were really stupid. At one point Rosie remarked, “You’re in high school?” because Janine didn’t know a three-letter word for “Southwest Asian musical instrument of the lute family.”

  “Yes, I am,” Janine snapped. She must have been really upset, because Janine never acts that way.

  The next thing Jessi knew, Janine was poking her head in the den. “See you, Jessi,” she said.

  “Is everything all right?” Jessi asked.

  “Mm-hm. Rosie doesn’t need me anymore, that’s all. ’Bye.”

  “ ’Bye.”

  As Janine walked to the front door, Rosie came downstairs and headed for the refrigerator. She pulled out a carton of orange juice and poured herself a glass.

  “Time to get ready for your voice lesson?” Jessi asked.

  Rosie gulped down the juice, set her glass on the kitchen table, and said, “From now on, I only want Claudia to sit for me!”

  That took Jessi by surprise. “Okay,” she said calmly. “I’ll bring it up at our next meeting. Maybe we can work it out.”

  “Good.”

  “Can I ask why?”

  That’s when Jessi noticed the tears in Rosie’s eyes. “Because I like her the best!” she cried out.

  Then she stomped up the stairs and into her room and slammed the door behind her.

  “Yuck. These markers come off on your hands!” Dawn said.

  Kristy ran her index finger along a piece of paper that said PRIVATE INVI TION in red marker. (The “TA” in INVITATION had already been wiped off.) “It isn’t the markers,” she announced. “It’s the glossy paper. We should return it to the store and get the regular kind.”

  “You mean like oak tag?” Stacey asked. “That’s so dull-looking. These invitations have to look chic!”

  “There’s nothing chic about a piece of shiny paper full of smudges,” Kristy said.

  Jessi lifted up the paper and turned it around. “Hey, the back has a dull finish.”

  “I still think it would make more sense just to write up something simple and make photocopies of it,” Mary Anne suggested.

  “Not after we bought all these markers,” Stacey said.

  “Besides, this is a special event!” exclaimed Mal.

  It was Saturday, a nonmeeting day, but the entire BSC had gathered in my room. As you probably guessed, we were going to send out invitations to the “Junk Food Fantasy” opening at the Claudia Kishi Gallery.

  Well, maybe I shouldn’t say we. Since I was the featured artist, I got to paint. The others had to worry about the invitations.

  I was deeply involved in a new Gummi series. I’d finished Gummi Bears and was now working on Gummi Worms. I was concentrating really hard, so I only picked up pieces of the conversation around me.

  “Let’s make a rough draft,” Mal said, taking out a piece of looseleaf paper. “Okay, what information do we want on the invitation?”

  “The date and time, the name of the exhibit, the name of the gallery,” Kristy said.

  Mal began to write.

  “We can say, ‘Come one, come all —’ ” Kristy began.

  Stacey interrupted her. “No, that sounds like the circus. For an art exhibit you have to say something more sophisticated.”

  “Something sophisticated about junk food?” Dawn said. “It should be fun, like the paintings.”

  “Okay, what?” Kristy asked.

  Silence.

&nb
sp; “Maybe we should put a miniature version of one of the paintings on each invitation,” Jessi said.

  “Oh, no!” I piped up. “I have enough work to do.”

  “Oooh, I know!” Dawn blurted out. “We could take actual candy wrappers and, like, glue them to the invitations.”

  Kristy shook her head. “Not practical. They’d get crushed in the mail, and it would look like we put trash in the envelopes by mistake. And what if there were still little bits of chocolate inside the wrappers —”

  “Let’s just say something simple,” Mary Anne suggested. “ ‘You are invited to the opening of Junk Food Fantasy, a series of paintings by Claudia Kishi, in the Kishi garage,’ and so on.”

  “Did you write that down, Mal?” Jessi asked.

  “Wait,” Mal said, scribbling furiously. “ ‘ … a series of …’ what?”

  Well, now you know the secret of the Baby-sitters Club. We may be excellent baby-sitters, but that doesn’t mean we’re good at everything. Like making invitations.

  After about an hour, my friends had finally sketched a decent-looking invitation. It didn’t include any cute pictures of junk food, or even a title (we thought it would be fun to surprise people with the subject when they arrived) — just a simple message in elegant handwriting. We decided to make copies on card stock (thick paper).

  Then we had to decide who to send them to.

  First we were going to send them only to regular clients, but that seemed too selective. Then we were going to post an invitation in the local supermarket, but we thought too many strangers would come.

  Finally we made up a list of about forty names of friends, clients, relatives.

  That left even more questions. Who was going to go to the copy shop? Who was going to buy the stamps and envelopes? Who was going to address the invitations?

  A half hour later, everyone was tired and cranky. I had set aside Gummi Worms to take part in the discussion (okay, argument). Finally Kristy brought up something we’d been putting off. “Claud, how long will it take to clean your garage?”

  I pictured it in my mind: the mounds of old newspapers, the old tools that had been thrown into corners, the spare tires Dad hadn’t thrown out …

  “Uh, if we start today,” I said, scratching my chin, “about five or six years.”