“Don’t worry about it. Open the envelope,” I said.
Her face lit up when she saw the phone card and she threw her arms around me. “Mary Anne, this is so thoughtful. It’s the most perfect gift.”
She used the card then to phone her parents (this time not collect). “I wanted to say Merry Christmas,” I heard her say. And then, “That’s not my fault, Mom. The other day I tried to call but —”
In a minute Angela sat down next to me in the living room. “My mom hung up on me,” she reported, looking crushed.
“Call someone who’ll be glad to hear from you,” I suggested. I could never imagine Dad or Sharon hanging up on me, no matter what.
“My friends in California,” she said, brightening. She checked her watch. “It’s nine there. They’ll be awake.” Using her new card once again, she phoned them. “Yes, yes, I’m finally coming,” she reported happily. I could tell from the rest of the conversation that this news was received with a lot of enthusiasm.
As Angela spoke on the phone, Dawn, Jeff, and Sharon returned. Dawn whispered in my ear, “We bought some gifts for Angela. We didn’t want her to feel left out.”
“Thank you,” I whispered back.
Sharon hurried in with shopping bags, which she whisked upstairs for wrapping. Jeff turned on the TV. It’s a Wonderful Life was playing. “Don’t change it,” I said. “I love this movie.”
Angela hurried out of the kitchen, seeming very happy. “Hi,” she greeted Dawn. “You must be the sister from California.”
“And I guess you’re Angela.” Almost instantly they began talking enthusiastically about California. My attention wandered to the movie. It was the last scene, in which all of George Bailey’s friends come through to replace the money his uncle misplaced. I started to tear up with happiness, as I always do at the end of this movie.
“Hey, is that It’s a Wonderful Life?” Angela asked.
“Yes,” I replied. “It sure is.” That was exactly how I felt too. I have a wonderful life.
* * *
Dear Reader,
In The Secret Life of Mary Anne Spier, Mary Anne takes on the most embarrassing job of her life in order to earn money for holiday gifts for her friends and family. When I was younger, like Mary Anne I often needed to earn money to buy gifts for my family and friends. One memorable summer, when I was about nine, I suddenly realized that my parents’ anniversary was just two weeks away and I didn’t have enough money to buy them a present. So I talked my friend Beth into holding a backyard carnival with me. The money that I earned at the carnival was spent on a gift for my parents. But what a lot of work: Beth and I had to plan an entire carnival, borrow money from our parents to buy the materials we needed, and plan, announce, and run the carnival. All of this netted me seven dollars, but I was thrilled. I went to Woolworth’s and bought them a set of orange juice glasses. Not as lavish as the gifts Mary Anne bought for her friends, but at least I didn’t have to dress up as an elf!
Happy reading,
* * *
The author gratefully acknowledges
Suzanne Weyn
for her help in
preparing this manuscript.
About the Author
ANN MATTHEWS MARTIN was born on August 12, 1955. She grew up in Princeton, New Jersey, with her parents and her younger sister, Jane.
There are currently over 176 million copies of The Baby-sitters Club in print. (If you stacked all of these books up, the pile would be 21,245 miles high.) In addition to The Baby-sitters Club, Ann is the author of two other series, Main Street and Family Tree. Her novels include Belle Teal, A Corner of the Universe (a Newbery Honor book), Here Today, A Dog’s Life, On Christmas Eve, Everything for a Dog, Ten Rules for Living with My Sister, and Ten Good and Bad Things About My Life (So Far). She is also the coauthor, with Laura Godwin, of the Doll People series.
Ann lives in upstate New York with her dog and her cats.
Copyright © 1997 by Ann M. Martin
Cover art by Hodges Soileau
All rights reserved. Published by Scholastic Inc. SCHOLASTIC, THE BABY-SITTERS CLUB, and associated logos are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Scholastic Inc.
The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher. For information regarding permission, write to Scholastic Inc., Attention: Permissions Department, 557 Broadway, New York, NY 10012.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
First edition, December 1997
e-ISBN 978-0-545-79349-0
Ann M. Martin, The Secret Life of Mary Anne Spier
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