Dawn's Family Feud

by Ann M. Martin

  “I’ve got it!” Jeff cried. “We’ll take it in the barn. We can each get in a stall and pretend to be an animal.” Jeff dropped to his knees and crawled in a circle around the room. “Mooooo! Mooooo! Mooooo!”

  “Stop that mooing.” Richard put his hands to his temples. “How can anyone think?”

  “Excuse me!” Marshall Gaines interrupted. “Would you like me to come back another day?”

  “Yes!” Jeff shouted.

  “Jeff, hush up,” Mom ordered. “We have to take this photo today.” She turned to the photographer and tried to remain calm. “As soon as Mary Anne comes downstairs, we’ll take the picture.”

  “We still haven’t decided where we should pose,” Richard pointed out.

  “Pose in the kitchen,” Mom said, throwing her arms in the air. “I don’t care. Just take the picture.”

  “I’ve got an idea,” Marshall Gaines said. “We’ll pose in the living room first and then take a shot on the porch. How does that sound?”

  “Fine!” Richard marched into the living room. By this time Mary Anne had come back downstairs. She was wearing the dress we’d picked out.

  “We’re posing inside?” she asked.

  “Yes!” everyone, including the photographer, answered her.

  Mary Anne’s eyes widened. “You don’t have to shout.”

  It took several minutes for Marshall Gaines to position everyone because no one wanted to get too close to anyone else. He finally decided to seat Mary Anne and Jeff and me on the couch, with Mom and Richard standing behind it.

  “I’ll take a few Polaroids of this pose,” Marshall Gaines said. “Then we can decide if we want to continue with it.”

  He set up his tripod and was ready to take the first photo when Mary Anne suddenly bolted off the couch and ran for the kitchen. “Wait a minute. We forgot someone!” she yelled.

  “Who?” I asked, taking a head count. There were five of us. “No one’s missing.”

  Mary Anne returned, cuddling Tigger. “Poor baby. We almost forgot you.”

  “Oh, no, you don’t,” Mom said, stepping in front of the couch. “I will not have animals in this portrait.”

  “But Tigger’s part of the family,” Mary Anne protested.

  “He is not part of the family,” Mom said stiffly. “He’s just a cat.”

  “Dad,” Mary Anne looked up at Richard with tears in her eyes. “Please?”

  Richard turned to Mom. “I don’t see the harm in having Tigger in the picture. Come on, Sharon, let her hold him.”

  Mom’s voice was tense. “Okay. Fine.”

  Mary Anne sat down on the couch and just as Marshall Gaines was about to shoot the photo, Tigger sprang off her lap. She started to go after him, but Richard put his hand on her shoulder. “Let him go, Mary Anne.”

  “Take the picture,” Mom said with a frozen smile on her face. “Please! Before we completely disintegrate.”

  Mr. Gaines posed us in different positions, trying to make us look like one big happy family. We didn’t. After about fifteen minutes, he handed me and Mary Anne the Polaroids.

  “Here, girls,” Marshall Gaines said. “Take a look at these and tell me what you think.”

  He handed me the first shot. I was glaring at Mary Anne. Mary Anne was leaning as far away from Jeff as she could get. Jeff had crossed his eyes as he stared at the camera. Mom and Richard were smiling with clenched teeth.

  Mary Anne and I burst out laughing.

  “We look terrible!” I exclaimed.

  Mary Anne was giggling so hard that tears rolled down her cheeks. “This is possibly the worst family portrait in history.”

  Jeff, Mom, and Richard joined in our laughter as we examined photo after photo of ourselves with cross faces, jerking away from each other, looking miserable.

  After we stopped laughing, Mom dashed upstairs to repair her mascara, which had run in two streaks down her cheeks from laughing so hard. While she was gone, Jeff and Richard chatted with the photographer about his equipment and I helped Mary Anne find Tigger.

  As we headed back to the living room, I caught Mary Anne’s arm. “Mary Anne,” I whispered. “I feel pretty silly.”

  She nodded. “I don’t know what happened to us.”

  “I’m really sorry for everything,” I said.

  “Me, too.”

  Then we hugged each other.

  The rest of the photo session went smoothly. We posed in front of the fireplace for Richard and on the porch for Mom. We even took a couple of shots by the big maple tree for Marshall. By the time he finished, we agreed we’d had a lot of fun.

  Unfortunately, the end of the photo session meant that it was time for Jeff to pack. In just half an hour we would have to leave for the airport.

  We all trooped upstairs to Jeff’s room. Mary Anne and I stretched out on his bed. Richard perched on the edge of Jeff’s desk and Mom helped him pack.

  “I wish we hadn’t fought so much while you were here,” I said as I watched Jeff put his striped T-shirt, which really was too small for him, into his suitcase.

  “Yeah.” Jeff scratched his head. “I can’t even remember how it all began.”

  “Well,” said Mary Anne, her hands clasped in her lap, “I may have been too sensitive, but I got upset because I thought Jeff was hurting Dad’s feelings.”

  “Really?” Jeff asked. “How?”

  “Well, you didn’t like the museums and you made fun of him because he can’t throw a softball.”

  “It’s true,” Richard cut in. “I can’t throw a softball. Or catch one. In fact, sports are not my thing at all. But I wanted to spend time with Jeff.”

  I turned to Mary Anne. “At first I got mad at you because I thought you were criticizing Jeff too much. But then Jeff really did start acting like a spoiled brat. So I got mad at him.”

  “So this whole fight was my fault,” Jeff exclaimed. “I started everything.”

  “No,” I said. “If it was all your fault, nobody else would have been fighting.”

  Jeff kicked at the carpet with the toe of his sneaker. “I know I acted like a jerk. It’s just that nothing was like what I thought it’d be.” He raised his head and looked at Mom and me. “When it was just the three of us, things were different.”

  “That’s something you’re going to have to live with,” Mom said, draping her arm over his shoulder. “Richard and Mary Anne are part of our lives now.”

  “It’s not just our family,” Jeff said. “It’s everything. My friends here found new friends and completely forgot about me.”

  “That’s not true,” Mary Anne replied. “The triplets ask about you every time I baby-sit for them.”

  “Really?” Jeff’s face brightened.

  Mary Anne nodded. “Honest.”

  “Look,” Mom opened her arms. “What do you say, we all hug each other and then enjoy our last few moments together.”

  Jeff and I stepped into Mom’s embrace. Then Richard and Mary Anne wrapped their arms around us. I breathed a huge sigh of relief. Our family feud had ended.

  Ding-dong!

  “Now who could that be?” Mom asked as we carried Jeff’s bags down the stairs.

  “Probably the photographer saying he found the perfect location for our portrait,” I said.

  “Yeah,” Jeff chuckled. “And for only a million dollars more, he’ll actually take the picture.”

  Mary Anne answered the door. “Oh, Jeff!” she called. “Your friends are here.”

  “What friends?” Jeff asked, adjusting his baseball cap on his head.

  “Us!” Byron, Adam, and Jordan popped their heads inside the doorway. “We came to say good-bye.”

  Jeff’s face lit up with a grin that seemed to stretch from ear to ear. “Hey, you guys want to see my souvenirs from Boston?”

  “Sure!”

  As the triplets stepped into the front hall, Mary Anne and I exchanged smiles. Things were back to normal.

  “California, here I come, Right back wh
ere I started from.”

  It was Richard’s idea to sing every song ever written about California as we drove to the airport. Richard, Jeff, and the Pike triplets (who had called their mom and gotten permission to come with us) were having a blast singing at the top of their lungs. Mary Anne and I just covered our ears and laughed. It was great to see Jeff and Richard have fun together.

  At the airport, we unloaded Jeff’s bags and while Richard parked the car, the rest of us walked Jeff to the loading gate. When we reached the waiting area, Jeff and the triplets made a beeline for the hospitality table. Within seconds, they’d jammed their pockets with packets of smoked almonds, little white creamer cartons, and red and white plastic stir straws.

  “All right, guys,” Mom said, guiding them away from the table. “That’s enough souvenirs for now.”

  “Hey, Jeff!” Byron said. “When you get on the plane, get me a barf bag, will you?”

  “Sure!” Jeff said. “Anything else?”

  “I’d like one of those cool oxygen masks that drop out of the ceiling,” Adam said.

  “Those are only for emergencies,” Jordan said to his brother. “Jeff can’t get that.”

  “Want to bet?” Adam said, folding his arms across his chest. “Jeff can do anything.”

  Jeff beamed proudly at his friends. “I’ll talk to the flight attendant and see what I can do.”

  Richard joined us and, almost immediately, a voice came over the speaker. “May I have your attention, please? Flight four-one-seven is now ready to board.”

  “Oh, no,” I groaned. “That’s your plane. It’s time for you to go!”

  Mom handed Jeff his ticket and boarding pass. Then she gave him her usual list of last minute instructions. “Be sure and eat right, take plenty of vitamins, work hard in school, be careful on your bike, listen to your father, call me once a week, and —”

  Jeff and I finished her sentence for her. “Write me. You never write,” we said, imitating her voice and shaking our finger at her.

  Mom’s eyes widened. “Do I always say that?”

  Jeff and I looked at each other and then back at Mom. “Always.”

  “Well, it’s because you don’t write,” Mom said, straightening the collar on Jeff’s shirt and smoothing his hair. “I think I’ve gotten one letter from you in the past six months.”

  “I’ll write, Mom,” Jeff said, kissing her on the cheek. “I promise.”

  Mom’s eyes teared up and her chin quivered a little as she hugged and kissed him. “Good. Because I’m going to miss you.”

  Then we wrapped our arms around Jeff. Mary Anne and Richard and me. “I’m going to miss you, too,” Mary Anne said. “And I’m really glad we’re all friends again.”

  “Yeah, I just wish it could have happened a little earlier,” I said.

  “Jeff’ll just have to come back for another visit soon,” Richard said.

  “Okay,” Jeff replied. Then he grinned mischievously. “Hey! I’ve got an idea. Why don’t we take a trip to Boston?”

  “Great idea!” I giggled. “I’d love to see what it looks like when I’m not angry.”

  * * *

  Several weeks after Jeff left, a package arrived in the mail from the photographer, Marshall Gaines. It was the proofs from our photo session. We waited until we’d eaten dinner before we sat down and looked at them.

  “Oh, these are very nice,” Mom said, flipping through the pictures. “It’s going to be difficult to choose just one.”

  Richard nodded in approval. “I have to say it, we are a good-looking family.”

  “Not all the time.” I held up the proofs from the beginning of the photo session. “Take a look at these.”

  “It’s amazing,” Mom said, chuckling. “Every single one of us looks angry.”

  “Even Tigger,” Mary Anne said, pointing to the shot where Tigger was leaping off her lap.

  We took turns holding up first the funny shots, then the good shots, and laughing.

  “I think we should have this one blown up and framed,” I said, holding up an angry photo. “To show us how silly we were to let things get so out of hand. And as a reminder never to let it happen again.”

  “That’s a great idea, Dawn!” Mom exclaimed.

  “But we should also frame one of the happy shots,” Mary Anne added. “To show us how great we can look when we get along.”

  And that’s what we did. Now two family portraits hang on our living room wall, each in a lovely frame. One’s funny, and the other’s beautiful. We put them together so we’d never forget our family feud.

  * * *

  Dear Reader,

  When I was growing up, my parents and my sister and I went on lots of family vacations. We never had a family feud like Dawn and her family did, but plenty of unexpected things happened when we were on vacation. There was my sister’s stomachache in Seattle that turned out be appendicitis. There was the night in Nova Scotia when we couldn’t find a hotel, and ended up staying in a priest’s house. And then there was the time my father miscalculated the distance from a state park to a California airport, and we ended up arriving at LAX six hours before our flight. My sister and I were so bored! I found a plasticizing machine, and I laminated nearly every item in my wallet. I guess when you’re on a trip you have to be prepared for everything — even family feuds.

  Happy trails!

  * * *

  The author gratefully acknowledges

  Jahnna Beecham

  and

  Malcolm Hillgartner

  for their 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 © 1993 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.

  First edition, May 1993

  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.

  e-ISBN 978-0-545-76807-8