Baby-Sitters Club 028

by Ann M. Martin

  I closed her door, taking a long look at her walls as I did so. They were covered with her drawings and paintings.

  Then 1 walked Henry to his room and we read one more book together, Angus and the Ducks, before Henry went to bed, too. And as I left Henry's room, I also took a long look at his walls. I felt almost as if I might not see those walls again.

  Why did I feel that way?

  With Grace and Henry safely in bed, I sat down in the Walkers' living room. My school-books were in a stack on the coffee table. I flipped through them. I had a ton of homework to catch up on, but I knew I wouldn't be able to concentrate.

  I closed the books and leaned back against the couch to think. The first things that came to my mind were Judy's words from the day before. "Crying shame," she'd said about the divorce. What had she meant? If she were being sarcastic, maybe she'd had a right. After all, she had no family, no job, not even a home. My parents were getting a divorce; that was all. It sort of put things in perspective. I was not nearly in such bad shape as Judy was.

  Still, I did have problems. Soon I was going to have to make some big decisions. If Mom left New York, could I really go with her? Could I leave New York again? How could I leave behind everything I love? I'd have to leave Laine, Grace, Henry, and the city itself - and I truly W New York. Every time I have to leave it, I have a hard time. Moving to Stoneybrook had been difficult and I'd been glad to get back. Even going to Camp Mohawk for two weeks had been hard. I'd been glad to get back then, too.

  On the other hand, I had more friends in Stoneybrook than I did in New York. In New York I hung around with Laine and her friends at school, but Laine's friends really were her friends. Much more hers than mine. I always felt on the edges of things with Laine's crowd. In Stoneybrook, I was one of the coolest kids around, but not in New York. In New York, I had a lot of competition for the Queen of Cool. And I would never win the crown.

  I knew that I was heading for a bad time in my life, a time when I'd have to adjust to a lot of things. Would that adjustment be easier in a nice safe place like Stoneybrook, where I was surrounded by good friends? Probably.

  On the other hand, how could I leave New York for a second time? How could I leave Bloomingdale's and Broadway and shopping and The Last Wound-Up and great movie theaters and even greater restaurants, like the Hard Rock Cafe? Would I be bored silly in Stoneybrook, with only Washington Mall for entertainment? Maybe.

  But I was missing two big pieces to the puzzle. If I went to Stoneybrook, 1 would have to leave my dad. How could I do that? If I stayed in New York, I would have to leave my mom. How could I do that? I might be mad at them now, but I still loved them. A lot.

  Furthermore, I bet Dad would be hurt if I chose to live with Mom, and I bet Mom would be hurt if I chose to live with Dad. They'd said the decision was up to me, which was nice, but someone - Mom or Dad - was going to get hurt. And I was going to be the cause of the pain.

  Maybe I could arrange to live with one parent during the school week when we wouldn't see each other much anyway, and the other parent all the rest of the time. That would work if Mom didn't move too far away. But what if she moved to Maine or someplace?

  It was too much to think about.

  I guess that was why Dawn had recommended taking one step at a time.

  However, I wouldn't have any problems at all if my parents were not getting a divorce. Now that was something to think about.

  Maybe, just maybe, I could do what that so-called marriage counselor hadn't been able to do. Maybe I could get my parents to quit thinking about a divorce and make them remember "till death do us part." It was certainly worth a try.

  All I needed were a few good ideas and a little romance.

  I took a piece of paper out of my notebook and began scribbling away - not at homework, but at a list of ideas. By the time the Walkers came home, I had filled up nearly a page. I could hardly wait to try my ideas! I was sure I could get my parents together again. They probably just needed encouragement from someone who knew them. And who was the "marriage" counselor? A stranger, that's who.

  But I was Stacey McGill, their daughter.

  And if anyone could fix things up for them, I could.

  Chapter 9.

  That next week was a busy one.

  On Saturday afternoon, while my parents were seeing their lawyers, I went to a theater and bought three tickets (with baby-sitting money) to a movie I knew we all wanted to see. My plan was to wait until almost the last minute to give Mom and Dad the tickets, to ensure that we wouldn't be able to find three seats in a row once we got to the theater. Then I'd insist that my parents sit together while I found a single seat.

  But when I gave them the tickets, Dad said, "Stacey, what a nice surprise, but I plan to spend the evening combing the paper for apartment ads. Why don't you and your mom take Laine instead?" So we did, and anyway we found three seats together.

  On Sunday, I suggested a carriage ride through Central Park. This was particularly meaningful, since years ago Dad had proposed to Mom in one of those carriages. My new plan was to wait until my parents had already climbed into the carriage, and then say, "Uh-oh! I forgot to give myself my insulin. You guys go on without me." But we never even made it to Central Park. Mom liked the idea, but this time she was busy reading the real estate section of the paper and didn't want to leave the apartment.

  On Monday when I got home from school I was delighted to find Mom out for the afternoon. Time for plan number three. I put our card table in the middle of the living room, covered it with a white tablecloth, set it for a romantic dinner for two, and cooked up a meal of chicken and vegetables. I even made two ice-cream parfaits for dessert. When my parents came home, I would tell them that I'd been invited to Laine's for dinner, and leave them to the romance. But Dad didn't come home. He phoned to say that he was going to spend the evening apartment-hunting and then sleep at his office. (He does that sometimes. There's a couch in his office and he ,81 keeps a clean suit hanging behind the door.) So Mom and I ate the dinner (but I saved the second parfait for Dad).

  On Tuesday I was out of ideas. Ditto on Wednesday.

  But by Thursday I was rolling again. I slipped each of my parents a note written on the official paper of my school, saying that I was behind in my work and that my guidance counselor wanted to meet them for dinner at the Silver Spur, a restaurant in our neighborhood. Unfortunately, Mom and Dad both smelled a trick and called the guidance counselor. Why did they have to be so smart? If they'd just followed directions, they would have had a nice, romantic dinner together and called off the divorce. Instead, I got in trouble with Mom, Dad, and my counselor, and was also given three weeks in which to catch up on my homework. I guessed the special treatment was over.

  So much for romance.

  On Saturday morning, Mom unexpectedly announced, "Stacey, I'm going to drive up to Stoneybrook today to house-hunt." Then she added, "Why don't you come with me?" I thought and thought. I didn't really want to leave the city, and Laine had said something about going to a play that night. On the other hand, I wanted to see Claud and the other members of the BSC. And if Mom was going to buy a house in Stoneybrook, I wanted to have some say in her choice. I didn't want to end up with, like, some dinky, falling-apart, olive-green house in a teeny yard with no grass.

  "Okay," I said nonchalantly to Mom. "I'll go with you." I barely had time to phone Laine and tell her I wouldn't be able to go to the play. Mom was waiting for me, holding the door to the apartment open as I hung up, so I couldn't even call Claudia. Oh, well. I would just surprise her.

  And, boy, did I surprise her! As we were driving to Stoneybrook, Mom said, "Honey? Would you like to invite Claudia to house-hunt with us?" "Sure!" I cried. "Oh, she'll die of excitement!" "Well, don't let her," said Mom with a smile. "And remind her that we're not sure we'll be moving here. We're just checking out the real estate. I've heard it's a buyer's market, but I want to see for myself." I didn't know what a buyer's market was and 1 didn'
t care. I was too busy imagining pulling into the Kishis' driveway, running up their front walk, ringing the bell, and giving Claudia a heart attack when she answered it. It never occurred to me that the Kishis might not be at home, or that Janine or Mr. or Mrs. Kishi might answer the door.

  And it didn't matter, because things went just as I'd imagined. We arrived in Stoneybrook, Mom stopped to buy a paper and to call a real estate agent, agreed on a place to meet the agent, and then we pulled into the Kishis' driveway. I ran up their walk, rang the bell, Claud answered the door, and for a second, I thought she really was going to have a heart attack.

  At last she managed to gasp out, "Stacey?" I giggled. "Yup. It's me." Claud threw the storm door open and we hugged and hugged.

  "What are you doing here? How come you didn't call first?" asked Claud.

  "It was spur of the moment," I replied. "Mom didn't give me a chance. She was in such a hurry to get here and start house- hunting. We're supposed to meet an agent in fifteen minutes. Want to come look at houses with us?" "Are you kidding? Of course I do!" Claud had to find her father, though, explain what was going on, and show him that my mom really was parked in the driveway. Then she jumped into the backseat with me.

  "So you're actually moving back to Stoneybrook?" she cried. "This is awesome. Totally awesome!" Mom smiled. "It isn't definite yet, Claudia." She pulled into the street and turned right. "But it's certainly my first choice for a place to live." Claud looked at me with raised eyebrows, meaning, "And you? This is your first choice, too, isn't it?" But I just shook my head at her. We could discuss that some other time - when Mom wasn't in earshot.

  "Okay," said my mother, "we're supposed to meet this agent - her name is Ms. Keller - at Forty-two twenty-one Rosedale." "Oh, I know where Rosedale is, Mrs. McGill," said Claudia, and she directed us there.

  We found the address without any trouble, and also found Ms. Keller waiting in the driveway.

  Mom and Ms. Keller shook hands, and Mom began explaining why we were moving and what she was looking for in a house, while Claud and I gazed suspiciously at 4221 Rose-dale. It was not my olive-green nightmare house, but it wasn't any dream house, either.

  "It's kind of small," said Claudia tactfully. (The place was the size of a bird feeder.) "There aren't any trees in the yard, either," I pointed out. There was grass, though, so it wasn't a total loss.

  Just then we heard Ms. Keller say brightly to Mom, "Well, let's take a look inside, shall we?" The four of us picked our way up the crumbling walk to the front door. I pulled Mom aside and whispered, "Can't we afford something nicer?" Mom's cryptic answer was, "We're on a tight budget." Tight budget or not, nobody liked the inside of 4221 Rosedale any better than the outside. Even Ms. Keller. I could tell. Faucets dripped, the kitchen looked like it would have to be sandblasted before it could even be cleaned, and three of the rooms were painted purple, ceilings and all.

  Mom gave Ms. Keller a tiny smile. "What else do you have in our price range?" she asked.

  "A little house on Burnt Hill Road," Ms. Keller replied.

  "Burnt Hill Road. That's where Dawn lives!" Claudia cried.

  We got back in our car and followed Ms. Keller to the second house. It wasn't near Dawn's, and it wasn't as nice, either. The front porch was going to need replacing, the roof needed reshingling, and the house was pink. We'd have to repaint it.

  "I wish we could move back to our old house," I said wistfully, "but Jessi's in it." "Anyway, it's out of our price range," whispered Mom.

  The next house Ms. Keller showed us wasn't bad at all - but it was next door to an olive-green, grassless nightmare house. Littering the bare yard were two broken-down cars, a refrigerator with no door, three rusty bicycles, and a lot of tools I couldn't identify.

  Claudia pulled me aside. "That place gets worse at Christmastime," she told me con- spiratorially. "The owners outline the entire house - windows, doors, everything - with colored lights. They put a mechanical Santa on the chimney, and all day and all night he waves one arm back and forth and goes, 'Ho-ho-ho. Ho-ho-ho.' They set wooden carolers in the yard and elves on the front steps, and they shine a spotlight onto the roof where they put a Rudolph with a blinking red nose." "Mom," I said, "I could not live next door to reindeer and a refrigerator." "I agree," Mom replied. "Anything else, Ms. Keller?" The real estate agent consulted a book. "We-ell," she said after a few moments, "there is something bigger in your price range and in a nicer neighborhood, but - " "Let's see it," interrupted Mom.

  So we drove to a house not far from the one we'd just seen. And as soon as we'd gotten out of the car, Claudia cried, "I know this house! It's right behind Mallory's! Look through the backyard, Stacey. See? There's the back of the Pikes' house." I looked. I could even see the triplets fooling around with a bat and ball.

  "I thought someone lived here," Claud said to Ms. Keller. Then she whispered to me, "The people were really weird and the Pike kids used to spy on them." "That couple moved out awhile ago," Ms. Keller told us.

  "Gosh, they didn't stay very long," mused Claudia.

  From the outside, the house didn't look bad. A little weird, maybe, but in pretty good shape except for a few small problems like a loose brick in the front steps and a crooked shutter.

  "How old is the house?" Mom asked, as Ms. Keller unlocked the front door.

  "Turn of the century. Actually, probably a little older. Eighteen-eighties." "Eighteen-eighty," I whispered to Claud. "Pretty old." We stepped into a dark hallway. The house smelled musty, the air was stale, and a thin layer of dust covered everything.

  "It has the typical old-house problems, but with just a little work, you can see that it would be a lovely home. Not too big, not too small, and plenty of attractive old features." Ms. Keller showed us a bathtub resting on claw feet, a bedroom with dormer windows, and a kitchen with appliances that appeared to be about a thousand years old.

  "They all work, though," Ms. Keller informed us. Then she added, "At least for the time being." Mom looked at me. I shrugged. It was kind of a neat house, but still . . .

  "I'll give you my answer within a week," Mom told the agent.

  Chapter 10.

  Dawn was on the phone with her brother Jeff when Claudia and I called her from the Kishis' house. Since the Schafers have call-waiting, Dawn put Jeff on hold and spoke to us for a few moments.

  "You'll never guess where I am," I told her.

  "Where?" asked Dawn.

  "In Stoneybrook. I'm over at Claud's. Mom and I were up here house-hunting today, and Mom drove back to New York, but she said I could spend the night here and take the train home tomorrow." Claud took the phone from me then and added, "BSC slumber party at my house tonight. Can you come?" "Sure!" exclaimed Dawn.

  "Great. Be here around seven." Dawn had to get back to Jeff then, so Claud and I hung up and began calling the other club members.

  What an unexpected weekend this had turned out to be. First house-hunting, and now a slumber party, just like in the old days! I couldn't believe Mom had let me stay in Connecticut. (But I was happy knowing I would return to New York the next day.) Promptly at seven o'clock, the Kishis' bell rang. "That must be Dawn," said Claud. "She is always exactly on time. See? My digital clock says seven on the nose." It was Dawn at the door. She was quickly followed by Jessi and Mal. The five of us settled ourselves in Claud's room with hoagies and salad. We had a real feast. Then Claud and Mal attacked a package of Oreos (hidden in the closet), Jessi delicately took a single Oreo (she watches her weight to stay in shape for dancing), and Dawn and I passed up the junk food. We braided each other's hair instead.

  At eight-thirty the Kishis' bell rang again, and soon we heard feet pounding on the stairs.

  "Kristy's here!" said Claud, giggling.

  The rest of us smiled. No one else can thunder up a flight of stairs quite the way Kristy can.

  "Hi!" cried Kristy. "Hi, you guys! Hi, Stacey!" Kristy is not much of a hugger, but she opened her arms and we hugged anyway. "I'm so glad
to see you!" she said. "Did you find a decent house? I'm starved." Kristy can be hard to keep up with.

  "You're starved?" said Claud. "You were sitting at the Rodowskys' at dinnertime. Didn't you eat there?" "I ate part of a hot dog when I fed the boys, but that was it. I was so busy cleaning up after Jackie that I didn't have time to eat anything else." I sat back down on the bed with Dawn and we began working on each other's hair again, while Jessi and Mal experimented with Claudia's makeup and nail polish.

  "What did Jackie do tonight?" I couldn't resist asking.

  "Squirted his hot dog across the kitchen the second he bit into it - " Kristy began, grinning.

  "He bit into the kitchen?" said Dawn.

  "No, the hot dog!" "The hot dog bit into the kitchen?" We all started laughing.

  See? This is what I love about my friends up here. They're so ... natural. They don't spend every second of their lives trying to impress each other. Sure, they talk about boys sometimes, and they care about how they look (well, some of them do), but those things aren't the focus of their lives. With my friends in New York (except for Laine) all they do is talk about who's dating whom, where they went, what they ate, and what they wore. Or who's going skiing in Aspen, or who'll get the best tan in Bermuda over spring vacation.

  "Do you want something to eat?" Claudia asked Kristy.

  "Anything," she replied desperately.

  "There's half a hoagie left over," said Claud. "I'll go get it for you." Claudia left the room, and Kristy sat in her favorite place, the director's chair. She didn't bother with the visor, though, since we weren't having a meeting.

  A few moments later, Claud returned with not only the hoagie, but Mary Anne.

  Another happy reunion followed, and then the seven of us got down to serious slumber-party business. First, we took Mal and Jessi's lead, and all painted our nails. I painted my fingernails with sparkly pink polish. Then I painted my toenails with clear pink polish and added a green dot in the center of each one.

  "Who's going to see your toes?" asked Kristy, who would only go so far as to paint her fingernails with clear polish.