Baby-Sitters Club 085

by Ann M. Martin

  Chapter 4.

  You know who's really, really great? My sister, Janine. I mean it.

  Here's what happened when I broke the news at dinner: Mom and Dad smiled. Then Mom asked if the show would interfere with my schoolwork. Dad wanted to know if I would be paid.

  Janine? She immediately ran into the kitchen. When she returned, she had a bottle of ginger ale and four wine glasses.

  "A toast to Claudia, the first media celebrity in the family!" she announced.

  "Hear, hear!" Dad said.

  Janine was the first to clink glasses with me. She was wearing this huge grin.

  I almost cried.

  Between dinner and bedtime, every single BSC member called. Dawn gave me a list of songs to play (ecology-oriented, of course). Kristy told me her brother, Charlie, had agreed to drive me to the radio station the next day. Then she asked about seven hundred questions about the show. Shannon, Jessi, Mal, and Mary Anne each had questions of their own. 1 must have said "I don't know" a hundred times.

  This distressed me. Was I supposed to know? Was Mr. Bullock really expecting me to come to the meeting with suggestions? Of course he was! I had written in my essay that I had good ideas flying around my brain. I had exaggerated. A lot.

  Now what? Should I bring tapes to the interview? A list of talk-show-type topics? A list of people to interview? Or was this supposed to be a call-in show?

  What had I gotten myself into?

  That night I had nightmares. The entire world was listening to WSTO. Kids riding bikes and wearing headphones. Shoppers in malls. A capacity crowd in a sports arena with enormous speakers on stage, wailing: "And now, WSTO presents what you've all been waiting for — Claudia Kishi!" And then, dead silence.

  By morning I must have sweated off ten pounds.

  I sleepwalked through school the next day. After last period, I walked to the front door, clutching my directions to the station.

  Kristy was waiting for me there. Mary Anne and Dawn joined us soon after.

  "Your barrette is crooked/' Dawn said, reaching toward my hair.

  "This is exciting," Mary Anne said, squeezing my hand.

  "I'll go in with you if you want," Kristy volunteered.

  "Uh, I don't think so, Kristy," I said.

  "Hold still!" Dawn warned.

  "Guys, it's not that big a deal!" I insisted.

  HONK! HONK! Saved by the Junk Bucket.

  That's the name of Charlie Thomas's car, for exactly the kinds of reasons you'd expect. It is air-conditioned by two holes in the floor. You have to open the right front window with a monkey wrench. The rear floor is carpeted with crushed soda cans.

  Kristy opened the back door, picked up an old T-shirt from the floor, and wiped off the seat. "Enter," she said.

  "Good luck!" Mary Anne and Dawn shouted.

  I climbed in back and Kristy got in front. "Thanks," I called out the window.

  "I'll take good care of her," Kristy assured them. Then she yelled to a group of kids standing in front of the car: "Clear, please! Radio star coming through." Bang! Clank! Rrrrroar! The Junk Bucket's noise was enough to scatter everybody.

  We were off.

  "Where to?" Charlie asked.

  I read him the directions, and he clanked away from the school. His radio was turned up so loud, I expected the police to pull us over. The station? WSTO, of course.

  "You ain't nothin' but a hound dog," sang the voice of Elvis Presley.

  "Don't they play any good stuff?" Charlie asked.

  "They will on Claud's show," Kristy replied confidently. "Right, Claud?" "I guess," I said.

  "Not to mention the guest appearances," Kristy barged on. "You will have kid guest appearances, right?" "Well, I don't know." "Or, like, a comedy hour," Charlie chimed in. "I memorized this Robin Williams routine and — " "Hour?" Kristy shot back. "Don't be a hog, Charlie." I sighed. Already this show was overwhelming me.

  The radio station was on the outskirts of Stoneybrook, in a low, tan brick building near the highway. Two tall towers stood next to it, with blinking lights on top. The Junk Bucket chugged noisily into the parking lot.

  While Charlie waited in the car, Kristy walked inside with me to a small reception area. A young man sat at a desk, wearing a telephone headset and sipping coffee. His desk was piled with memos. On the walls around him hung photographs and plaques.

  "Claudia?" he said, looking up.

  "Yes," Kristy answered.

  "Hi. My name's Max. I spoke to you on the phone — " "I'm Kristy Thomas," Kristy said with a big grin, reaching out to shake the guy's hand.

  He gave her a puzzled look. "You're the assistant?" he asked.

  Kristy's eyes lit up. "Sure!" "No!" I exclaimed.

  All three of us laughed. I gave Kristy a sharp nudge in the ribs.

  Max pressed a button on his telephone console and said, "The first-place girl is here, Mr. Bullock." Then he said to me, "He'll be out in a second. Have a seat." Almost immediately a tall, thin, gray-haired man with glasses and a great smile walked into the room.

  Kristy bounced to her feet.

  "Claudia, this is Mr. Bullock," Max said.

  Mr. Bullock energetically shook Kristy's hand. "Hello, there, Claudia! Congratulations!" "Uh, Mr. Bullock," I said meekly, standing up. "I'm Claudia." Mr. Bullock looked confused.

  Ugh. What a great start.

  1 shot Kristy a Look. "This is my friend, Kristy. She'll be waiting outside to take me back." "Great," Mr. Bullock said. He gave Kristy a friendly wink, then turned to me. "Okay, this way, Claudia." I could feel Kristy's eyes burning a hole in the back of my head as Mr. Bullock led me down a hallway.

  We passed three doors, marked Studio 1, Studio 2, and Studio 3. Through two of them I heard muffled sounds of music. The floors were thickly carpeted, and so were the walls (soundproofing, I guess). At the end of the hallway were two other doors, the one on the left marked Conference Room and the one on the right, Station Manager.

  "My office," Mr. Bullock said, opening the door on the right. "Believe it or not, it's highly organized." I tried not to laugh. The place was a pigsty. It looked sort of like my bedroom. 1 sat on a chair that was empty (probably just cleared for the occasion).

  As Mr. Bullock began to close the door, I heard Max call out, "Mr. Bullock, the other girl's here." Other girl?

  "Terrific," Mr. Bullock said. "Send her in." He stood at the door, smiling. "Here's your assistant, Claudia." "Assistant?" Mr. Bullock nodded. "The second-place winner gets to assist you. Contest rules. And believe me, you'll be glad you have one. A radio show is hard work." From my seat I could not see who was approaching. "Hello, there," Mr. Bullock said into the hallway. "Welcome to WSTO, and congratulations.'' As my assistant walked through the doorway, I froze.

  Ashley Wyeth was shaking hands with Mr. Bullock.

  Ashley Wyeth, the Artist with a capital A. Ashley Wyeth, who moved to Stoneybrook from Chicago, where she had studied at the country's best art school. Who wore peasant dresses and combat boots and had six ear holes. Who liked my artwork and became my friend — then told me I should quit the BSC and devote my life to "my calling." Who al- most single-handedly turned all my best friends against me.

  Needless to say, Ashley and 1 did not remain friends. Not that we became enemies or anything (although the BSC members couldn't stand her). 1 just realized that an artist, especially a kid artist, had to have a life.

  Ashley was the last person I'd have expected to see at WSTO. Why on earth had she entered this contest? Did she want old wax records to melt for a sculpture? Was she interested in sketching a microphone?

  And why was she wearing normal clothes? Her outfit was a plain, button-down shirt and khaki slacks with running shoes. (She still had six studs in her ears, but I guess you can't plug up the holes, can you?) "Claudia Kishi," Mr. Bullock said. "This is Ashley Wyeth." Ashley smiled. "Hi, Claud. How's your art?" "Great," I replied. "Yours?" "Fine." "So you know each other," Mr. Bullock said. "That's terrific." I forced t
he sides of my mouth upward into a smile.

  Mr. Bullock cleared off another chair, and Ashley and I sat. "Now, I want you to know how thrilled we are to have you two aboard," he said, sitting behind the desk. "As you know, your show will be twice weekly, Thursday and Saturday, for a month. The first show will be a week from this Thursday. You'll be planning and broadcasting the shows. How you two divide your duties is completely up to you. We've never done anything quite like this, so we'll be counting on you for ideas." Gulp.

  "Do you want a music show?" Ashley asked. "Or, like, call-ins and featured guests?" "Yes." Mr. Bullock laughed. "In other words, anything goes. It's your show. We have facilities for all of the above. I'll just ask that you submit a program sheet the day of the first show, and at least a day in advance for subsequent shows. Remember, the station is at your disposal. And I've assigned one of our interns to help you. His name is Bob At-kinson, and he did a show like this in New York when he was a teenager. Okay?" "Okay," I squeaked.

  "Now, come on, let me show you around." Mr. Bullock led us back into the hallway. He pushed open the incredibly thick, padded door to Studio 1. Outside the door was a red light that said On Air. It was unlit.

  Inside was a room with electronic equipment crammed in every corner. Shelves of tapes and CDs lined the walls and a rock song was playing loudly.

  One wall was glass, from about waist up. Through it I could see a man sitting at a desk. He was young and skinny, and his hair was in a ponytail. He was wearing earphones, bopping along with the song, and scribbling something on a sheet of paper.

  "That's one of our engineers, testing the equipment," Mr. Bullock said with a smile. "You'll be sitting in this big room with your guests, and the tech staff will work behind the soundproof glass." Wow. 1 was beginning to tingle. I could not wait to start.

  Ashley was beaming, too.

  The engineer caught a glimpse of us and waved his pencil. I waved back.

  Mr. Bullock took us to a huge stockroom with nothing but shelves of records, tapes, and CDs. "Our library," he called it.

  Next we saw the conference room. In there, a bearded, dark-blond-haired guy was putting labels on tapes while eating a donut.

  "Bob, meet Claudia and Ashley," Mr. Bullock said.

  "Heyyy, the two winners," he said, offering his hand. "Nice to meet you. Did Mr. Bullock manage to scare the daylights out of you yet?" Ashley and I laughed. Neither one of us dared to say yes.

  "Well, I'll leave you three," Mr. Bullock said. "Come talk to me if you have questions." We said good-bye, and Bob pulled up a couple of folding chairs for us. I got three cups of water from a cooler in the corner. From under the piles of tapes, Bob pulled out a legal pad.

  "Your first dangerous mission, should you accept it," he said, "will be finding two things: a title and a format. By format, I mean, how exactly are you going to divide up the hour? What kinds of features? How long? Will they be continuing? Varying from show to show? Stuff like that." Nod, nod, nod, nodded Ashley and I.

  "At some point, you'll want to look at these notes," he said, pushing the legal pad toward us. "Just some stuff I did in New York. Like . . . 'Mr. Science/ a call-in show on which kids learn weird science facts from this wisecracking, street-smart character. Kids loved that. Then we had 'Book Talk.' Kids reviewed books and actually spoke to their favorite authors. You get the idea." He looked at his watch. "Now, I have a few things I need to do. Discuss amongst yourselves. I'll be back." He rose from his seat, shot out the door, and closed it behind him.

  I was alone in the room with Ashley Wyeth.

  Suddenly 1 wished I had decided on the tuba, after all.

  "I, uh, didn't know you were interested in radio," I said, trying to be friendly.

  Ashley shrugged. "The contest sounded fun. It was sort of, you know, spur of the moment." "But won't this take time away from your art?" I asked.

  "I guess. But art isn't everything." I laughed. "1 never thought I'd hear you say that." "Yeah. I guess not. Well, people change, huh?" "Mm-hm. Sure. I guess." Ashley pulled the legal pad close to her. "Okay, let's see . . ." she said. "We can definitely do without this 'Mr. Science' thing." "Oh. I liked that idea." "Are you serious?" She raised her eyebrows. "Well, you're the boss, aren't you?" I did not like her tone of voice, but I let it pass. Instead I leaned over and read, " 'Tom the Taxi Driver' — special guest who answers kids' questions about feelings and behavioral issues." I burst out laughing. "Nahhh." "Really? I think that sounds perfect," Ashley said.

  Slowly but surely, my heart was starting to feel like the Titanic. Sinking fast.

  Chapter 5.

  "How about 'For Kids Only,' " I suggested, taking a taco plate from the cafeteria display.

  "I don't think we should have the word kids in the title." Ashley picked up a small sprouts salad, inspected it carefully, then finally put it on her lunch tray. "It's kind of patronizing." Patronizing? You patronize places, right? Restaurants and stores? I had no idea what she was talking about.

  " 'The Young Adults Education Hour'?" I suggested.

  "Please." " 'Yo, Dudes'?" Ashley furrowed her brow. "It might be too informal." "It was a joke, Ash." I smiled. Ashley smiled. I grabbed two bowls of chocolate pudding and headed into the lunch room.

  Have you ever met anyone with absolutely no sense of humor? That's Ashley.

  Our meeting at WSTO had been pretty much a disaster. We hadn't fought or anything. But we were in two different worlds. Immediately we'd forgotten Bob's instructions and started talking about features. Ashley would suggest something like "A Mozart Moment" or "Art Gallery Calendar," and I'd pretend to consider it. Then I'd come up with "Stoneybrook Top 40" or "Guest Movie Review," and she'd kind of snort and sniff and say, "Well, you're the boss." So I had to humor her dumb ideas, and feel bad about mine.

  Then Bob had returned to the conference room and reminded us to concentrate on a title and format. He'd suggested we meet him the next day with some "concrete ideas." And here we were, the next day, and our concrete ideas were still in the mush stage.

  " 'Something for Everyone,' " Ashley said as she sat at a table.

  "Nice," I lied. "But that name could be for anything. Kids should hear the title and know what the show's about right away." Ashley scowled and fed herself a mound of sprouts.

  I didn't want to spend the whole day bickering about the title. So I decided to change the subject.

  I pulled a pen and legal pad out of my shoulder bag and set them on the table. On the top page of the pad, in big letters, I had written Format? Underneath were notes I had taken.

  "I was thinking," I said, "that maybe we should divide the show into three segments — " "But what about a title?" Ashley insisted.

  "We'll go back to that!" "Okay. You're the — " "What about making the first segment music?" I suggested. "That'll get us off to a good start." Ashley frowned. "I don't know. You can hear music on any station. I was thinking of having a feature, like current events or something school-related." Bo-ring! "What about a call-in segment?" I suggested.

  Ashley thought about that for a moment. "Yeah, but you know some kids. They'll call up and act stupid." "Yeah. The Alan Gray factor," I said. Alan once came to an art show of mine and put wadded-up gum all over the floor. He would definitely call the radio show just to burp — or something worse. Still, it might work.

  "What about themes?" Ashley asked. "Like, a theme for each show? And all the segments can have something to do with it?" A great idea from Ashley! I almost choked on my taco. "Uh~huh," I mumbled.

  "We can play music related to the theme, interview people, maybe find some archival radio tapes." Archival radio tapes? Puh-leeze. "Uh, why not just have kid guests. I mean, guests our own ages? You know, hold auditions, have people sing, read aloud, tell stories, whatever." "Well, that could be part of it." Now 1 could see Kristy and Mary Anne heading our way. Mary Anne was eyeing us with caution. Kristy was more obvious. She looked completely disgusted.

  Ashley, as I mentioned, is not b
eloved by the BSC.

  "Oh, Ashley/' Kristy said, with the same tone of voice she might have used if she'd found Godzilla sitting next to me. "Hi," Ashley replied.

  "Ash is my assistant on the show," I quickly explained to Mary Anne. I had told Kristy about her on the way home from WSTO. "You're doing an art show?" Mary Anne asked.

  I carefully explained. I wanted to make sure Kristy and Mary Anne knew that Ashley wasn't up to her old tricks again.

  I guess it worked. My friends sat with us and ate peacefully.

  Well, at least Mary Anne did. Ashley and I had to put up with Kristy's constant questions. But by the end of lunch period, I had written down our tentative format: When I finished, I passed it across to Ash-ley.

  Kristy was still spilling out ideas. "Now, the play about baby-sitting will not only be educational, but a good advertisement for us — " "Whoa, whoa," I said, "not so fast, Kristy. You're not on the show yet." "I'm not?" "Well, no. I mean, we haven't had auditions." "Piece of cake," Kristy replied. "Mary Anne, you could play — " "No," Mary Anne interrupted. "No way." As Kristy rambled on, Ashley pulled a pen from her backpack.

  "What's that for?" 1 asked. "Your spelling," Ashley replied. "It's atrocious. And you also used the title we rejected." I grabbed the sheet out of her hands. "It's only a rough draft, Ashley. And it says, 'Working Title/ " Ashley just shrugged. "Well, 1 guess you don't really need my help, then." "What do you mean?" "You and Kristy seem to have the whole thing worked out." "You just called Claudia atrocious!" Kristy snapped.

  "Not her — her spelling," Ashley replied.

  "It's still not very nice," Mary Anne said quietly.

  "Mm-hm. Okay. Well, excuse me." Ashley sniffed. "I was just trying to help." "Yeah?" Kristy muttered. "Well, try a little harder next time." "What?" Ashley said.

  "Never mind." Ugh. This was not getting any better.

  I wasn't optimistic as Mrs. Wyeth drove us to WSTO after school. Ashley and I were just not hitting it off.

  Bob was ready for us. He brought Ashley and me into the conference room and read my list (which I had typed and Spellchecked on the Express computer).