Except for Mel. “What happened?” he asked Gina.
“She,” said Gina angrily, pointing at me, “got mad. I want my dollar back.”
“Your dollar back!” I said with a gasp.
“Yeah! Mel’s charging us a buck apiece to go inside and see the incredible retard who can memorize dates and music. The amazing dumbo who can sing but not talk,” said Gina.
My jaw dropped.
Mel Tucker had a real sideshow going. He thought he’d found an even better attraction than the stupid chicken he’d once seen playing a piano.
“You,” I said, advancing on Mel — and I can look pretty menacing, even though I’m short. (Several children ran away.) “Do you know what you’re doing? You’re using Susan. You’re making a spectacle of her.” I turned to the rest of the kids. “And I don’t ever want to hear any of you use the words ‘retard’ or ‘dumbo’ again. Do you hear me?”
“Yes,” murmured the few children who hadn’t already run off. “And as for that money, Mel, half of it — at least half of it, belongs to Susan. She did all the hard work. So fork over,” I ordered him.
But of course he didn’t. Mel and the remaining kids ran down the street. When they were about half a block away, they began to laugh. How can people be so insensitive?
And how could I have been so naive? How could I have thought those kids suddenly wanted to be Susan’s friend? I should have seen through them. At least Susan couldn’t see through them. I was glad she didn’t know what was going on.
I needed to cool off.
So I led Susan over to the Hobarts’, where I knew Claud was baby-sitting.
While I was dealing with Mel Tucker and the other neighborhood kids, Claudia was sitting for the three younger Hobart boys. No wonder James hadn’t come over to play with Susan. He’d been busy trying to prove that he was neither a Croc nor a wimp….
Claudia’s afternoon started with Johnny’s tears. As soon as Johnny realized that his mother was going to leave him with someone he barely knew, he began to cry.
“Don’t go!” he wailed.
“Johnny,” said Mrs. Hobart gently, as Claudia stood in the front hall of Mary Anne’s old house, trying to look as nonthreatening as possible, “your brothers are going to be here with you. Mathew and James are here.”
Johnny stood on tiptoe and tugged at his mother’s shirt. Mrs. Hobart bent down so Johnny could whisper to her. She listened for a moment. Then she smiled and said, “No. I promise that Claudia will not call you a Croc.”
“I promise, too,” said Claudia. “I’ll only call you Johnny.”
“What do I call you?” Johnny asked Claudia, holding his mother’s hand.
“You can call me Claudia or Claud — or whatever you want. Gabbie Perkins next door sometimes calls me Claudee Kishi. She likes to call people by their first and last names.”
Mrs. Hobart smiled at Claudia, and Claudia smiled back. She thought how similar the Hobarts looked, with their reddish-blond hair, their round faces, and the smattering of freckles across their noses. Even Mrs. Hobart had freckles. Claudia hadn’t seen Mr. Hobart close up, though, so she didn’t know whether he had freckles.
“All right, Johnny, I have to leave now,” said Mrs. Hobart.
“No!” squawked Johnny.
“Mathew! James!” called Mrs. Hobart. “Can you please come here?”
The boys clattered down the stairs.
“I’m leaving now,” their mother told them. “Please give Claudia some help with Johnny. Oh, and Johnny, you can help Claudia, too. I don’t think she knows where the telly is. Or maybe you’d like to offer her a lolly.”
“Lollies? We can have lollies?” asked Johnny.
“Yes. If you’ll let go of my hand.”
Johnny let go. He made a dash for the kitchen, and Claudia said good-bye to Mrs. Hobart. “Everything will be fine,” she assured her. “Don’t worry.”
The Hobart boys and Claudia each helped themselves to a lolly. (No way was Claudia going to turn down an offer of junk food.) Then Mathew said, “Let’s watch the telly. I like Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch.”
“Me, too,” agreed Claudia, “but do you really want to stay inside on such a nice day?”
“I do,” spoke up Johnny, who was already a sticky mess.
“He doesn’t want to be called a Croc,” said Mathew.
“Do the kids still call you Crocs?” asked Claudia.
“Yes, but not as much,” admitted James.
“Then let’s go out to your backyard,” said Claudia. “Johnny, you can bring your new truck out. We’ll have fun. Honest.” She gave Johnny’s hands and face a wipe with a wet cloth.
“We’re going out,” said James, speaking for himself and Mathew.
“Then I’ll come, too,” Johnny said finally.
So Claudia and the Hobarts ventured outside, Johnny clutching his truck.
The boys played peacefully for twenty minutes. Johnny steered the truck around the yard, making sound effects as he went. James and Mathew played on a swing that their father had made for them. It was a huge tire suspended from a tree branch by a thick rope. The boys could stand on the tire and swing back and forth together.
“Awesome!” yelled James as he and Mathew swung higher and higher.
“Slow down!” was Claudia’s horrified reply. Ever since she was little she had heard that it was possible to swing so high you went right over the top of the swing set or the tree branch, making a complete circle. She had never known if that was true, but she didn’t want to find out while she was baby-sitting and have to explain to the Hobarts that their sons had done a three-sixty on the tire.
“Yeah, slow down,” echoed a voice.
Claudia turned around.
Johnny brought his truck to a stop.
And James and Mathew jumped off the swing.
Zach Wolfson had entered the Hobarts’ yard. Claudia didn’t know it, but he had come straight from the Felders’ house, where he had paid Mel a dollar to ask Susan the three dates. (I realized later that Zach had not been among the kids hanging around Mel when I had charged out of Susan’s house after Gina.)
“Pay attention to your baby-sitter … you babies,” teased Zach.
“We are not babies,” replied James hotly.
“Yes you are.”
“No we’re not.”
“Yes you are.”
“Well, I’m not,” said James. “I’m even in advanced maths in my new school.”
“Advanced maths? Maths? You can’t even say the word right.”
“What word?”
“Math. It’s math, not maths…. James, can you say math?”
James didn’t miss a beat. “Zach, can you say How would you like your head bashed in?”
“Sure,” replied Zach. “How would you like your head bashed in?”
James had fallen into his own trap.
He turned and marched out of the backyard. When he came back, he was carrying an old wooden crate and a boxing glove. He set the box on the ground near Zach.
“Watch this,” said James. He put the glove on and smashed his fist clear through the top of the crate, almost to the ground.
Claudia knew better than to ask James if he was okay. She knew that he and Zach had to have this out (whatever it was) between themselves and on their own terms.
Zach’s eyes widened. “Whoa,” he said. “What was that? Crocodile Dundee stuff?”
“No,” replied James.
“Karate?” asked Zach.
“No. I’m just strong. Very strong. Think how you’d look if that crate had been your face.”
Zach winced. Then he backed away. He looked a little frightened.
But James said, “I could teach you to do that.”
“You could?”
“Sure. All you need are big muscles. Do you have big muscles?”
“Well … well, maybe I would if I worked out….”
James nodded knowingly. Zach was a bully, but probably not a bad
kid.
“You want to go bike-riding sometime?” Zach asked James.
“Yeah! That would be ra — that would be great. Or how about skateboarding? Do you have a skateboard?”
“Of course.”
“We could go skateboarding now,” said James. “You could borrow my brother Ben’s if you don’t want to go home for yours. He’d let you. He’s awfully nice about things like that.”
It was at this point that I stormed into the Hobarts’ backyard with Susan in tow. I fully expected James to run to Susan — his mate. Instead he waved, but turned back to Zach.
“Hello, everyone!” I called.
“Hi,” replied Claudia and the boys.
“Here’s Susan,” I announced needlessly.
“Hullo, Susan,” called James.
“Claud,” I said, “I have to talk to you.” Then I added, “James, can you play with Susan while I talk to Claud?”
“Can — can Susan skateboard?” asked James doubtfully.
“I don’t think so,” I replied.
“Oh. Zach and I were going to go skateboarding.” James looked quite pleased to be able to say “Zach and I” as if Zach were a celebrity. He also looked hesitant. I could tell he didn’t want to hurt Susan or disappoint me.
“Hey, that’s okay,” I said. “You guys go on. Susan will be fine with Claudia and me.”
Johnny went back to his truck, Mathew went back to the swing, and Claud and I sat on the stoop. Susan stood nearby. She refused to sit down for some reason.
“So you know what that Mel Tucker was doing?” I said indignantly as I finished telling Claud about the afternoon’s events.
Claudia leaned forward. “What?”
“He was charging the kids around here a dollar to go into the Felders’ house and either ask Susan dates or get her to memorize a new piece of music. It was like she was a freak or something. Mel was calling her ‘the retard who can memorize dates and music’ and ‘the dumbo who can sing but not talk.’”
“That’s — that’s terrible!” cried Claud. Then she lowered her voice. “Are you sure you should say that in front of Susan?”
I looked over at Susan, who was standing exactly where I had left her. As usual, her hands were flapping away. She was staring at the sky, weaving her head from side to side.
“You know, I really don’t think she hears us. I don’t think she knows who we are. I don’t think she even knows where she is. Worse, I don’t think any of that matters to her.”
Claud’s eyes filled with tears. So did mine.
“Where does she fit in?” I asked.
“Maybe not here,” replied Claud sadly. “Maybe not with ‘regular’ kids.”
Susan and I spent the rest of the afternoon at the Hobarts’. James and Zach played the time away. Zach never asked Susan to join him, but he called “hullo” to her every now and then.
James had found the kind of friend he needed. The friend was Zach.
There have been very few jobs in the history of the Baby-sitters Club that I really did not want to go on, and today’s job was one of them. Oh, sure, there have been times when I didn’t look forward to sitting for Jenny Prezzioso, or when I wondered what I’d be getting into when I signed up to sit for Jackie Rodowsky, the walking disaster.
But today was different.
Today was my last day at the Felders’, and Susan’s mother needed me not so much to baby-sit as to help pack Susan’s trunk for her new school. This was a bigger job than it sounded. You might think that all Mrs. Felder would have to do was fold up Susan’s clothes, put them in the trunk, and throw in a stuffed animal or two. It wouldn’t be like packing for Karen, my stepsister, who would want to bring along books, games, toys, her roller skates, and a lot of other things.
But it was a big job. The school had sent the Felders a list (a long one) of the belongings a new student was to bring, and each item had to be labeled with Susan’s name. Plus, Mrs. Felder insisted on washing and ironing everything first. I guess she wanted to make a good impression.
The washing and ironing and labeling were not what I disliked, however. What I disliked was that we had to pack Susan’s trunk at all.
I had failed in my mission to keep Susan at home, where I thought she belonged. But I did not mention this to Mrs. Felder.
Anyway, I arrived at Susan’s house at three-thirty, and Mrs. Felder greeted me with a smile and an armload of freshly washed and ironed clothes.
“Hi,” she said. “Come on inside.”
In the background I could hear Susan singing, “I love you madly, madly, Madame Librarian, Marian,” and accompanying herself on the piano. Mrs. Felder and I left her alone. As long as we could hear the piano, we knew she was safe.
We carried the pile of clothes to Susan’s bedroom, where a steamer trunk was open on the floor.
“Okay,” said Mrs. Felder. “There’s the checklist from the school.” She pointed to a piece of paper lying on Susan’s bed. “The items I’ve checked off have been washed, ironed, folded, labeled, and packed. I don’t check anything off until all five things have been done. That way, I know I’ll send Susan off in good —” Mrs. Felder paused, and her eyes looked awfully bright. I could tell she was trying not to cry, and I hoped she wouldn’t. (I never know what to do when an adult cries, especially an adult I don’t know very well.) “Off in good shape,” Mrs. Felder finished, apparently getting control of herself.
I guessed that sending Susan away again wasn’t easy for Mrs. Felder. There were times when I thought that packing her off was the Felders’ idea of the easy way out. But Susan was their only child. It couldn’t be easy to let her go.
“Can you sew?” Mrs. Felder asked me.
“A little,” I replied. (I hate sewing, but I can do it if I have to.)
“Good. These clean clothes in the basket need Susan’s name tags sewn inside them. The job goes faster than you’d think.”
“Okay,” I replied, as Mrs. Felder handed me a threaded needle and then threaded one for herself.
We settled into our work. At first we didn’t talk. The sounds of “Gary, Indiana,” another song from The Music Man, floated upstairs.
“Today Susan is playing the score from the movie,” Mrs. Felder informed me. “She’s playing the songs in the order in which they’re played on our record.”
I nodded. Then, from out of the blue, I asked, “What was Susan like when she was little?” I think I asked because I was looking around her room and it reminded me of a hotel room — no personality. No indication of what kind of person the room belonged to. There were no posters on the walls, no books, and very few toys, because Susan didn’t care about such things.
That was sad. Even my littlest sister, Emily Michelle, who is only two and barely talking, has much more of a personality than Susan. We know her. Emily already has strong likes and dislikes. As soon as she came to stay with us she developed a fascination with teddy bears. So there are bears all over her room, and pictures of teddies on her walls. She likes balloons, too, so we got her a lamp that’s shaped like a bear holding a bunch of balloons, and someone made her a mobile of bears and balloons, and Nannie is knitting a sweater for her with bears and balloons on it.
There are no secrets with Emily. Not like Susan, who is all locked up and so secretive we don’t know her.
“When Susan was little?” Mrs. Felder repeated. “You mean when she was a baby? Or when she was a toddler?”
“Both, I guess,” I replied. I knotted a thread, cut it off, folded one of Susan’s shirts, name tag in place, placed the shirt in the trunk, and put a mark on the checklist.
“Well,” Mrs. Felder began, looking faraway, “I know this sounds silly — I guess every mother says it, or at least thinks it about her own child — but when Susan was born, my husband and I agreed that she was the most beautiful baby we’d ever seen. We thought she was perfect. She wasn’t all scrunchy and red-faced and bald like the other babies in the nursery.” (I smiled.) “She was born with cu
rly dark hair, and she had wide eyes with long lashes and her face was just, well, perfect.”
“She is beautiful,” I broke in.
“Thank you,” said Mrs. Felder. Then she went on, “Her father and I counted her fingers and toes and exclaimed over her tiny, tiny nails — just like all the other new parents were doing with their babies.
“Anyway, we brought Susan home and she was so alert. Our pediatrician assured us she was very advanced. She did everything early. Held her head up early, sat early, crawled early, walked early, talked early. She was speaking in sentences before we knew it. She even taught herself to read. Mr. Felder and I thought we had a genius on our hands. We looked into progressive schools for Susan and dreamed of the great future we were sure she’d have. We put money away so she could go to the best possible college someday…. We never imagined we’d be spending that money on the school she’s going to now.” (I felt a lump rise in my throat and hoped I wouldn’t cry.) “But then,” said Mrs. Felder, “when Susan was two and a half, she just — just shut down. She stopped speaking, stopped playing, even started wetting her pants, and she’d been toilet-trained for over six months. The pediatrician said it was the ‘terrible twos,’ but it soon became clear that that wasn’t the problem at all. This was when I taught her to play the piano. It was the only way I could reach her. And it was a way to be near her, since she wouldn’t let anyone touch her or hold her anymore. Apart from the piano, she became fascinated with the oddest things, like little pieces of paper that she’d wave in front of her eyes. When she found her father’s perpetual calendar we let her be fascinated with that because it seemed more … normal. It seemed smart, not like hand-flapping or paper-twirling. But soon it became an obsession, like the piano. That was how she learned the years and dates.
“By the time Susan was three and a half, we’d lost her completely. She’s pretty much now the way she was then, except that she’s toilet-trained again, for the most part, and can dress herself and feed herself, with a lot of prompting.”
Wow. I hadn’t expected to hear all of that. I was trying to think of what to say to Mrs. Felder when the piano-playing stopped.
“I’ll go check on her,” I said.