Baby-Sitters Club 059

by Ann M. Martin

  On Monday I entered gym class with the very best of intentions. Really. I did.

  "Are you going to play?" Jessi gasped as I walked out toward my teammates.

  "Yes," I replied, chin up, eyes straight ahead.

  "Good for you," she said. "You'll be great." "Thanks, but I'll settle for being alive when this is over." With an encouraging pat on the shoulder, Jessi ran off to her team.

  "To what do we owe this honor?" asked Helen Gallway as I tied on my pinny.

  I gave her a tight little smile and said nothing.

  Robbie Mara exchanged a quick glance with another boy on the team, Noah Fein. Noah rolled his eyes and threw up his hands. "We're doomed," he muttered.

  I really couldn't blame my teammates for not being thrilled about my return, I think they may actually have won a couple of games while I was on the bleachers. But I couldn't worry about that. I was supposed to play, and I was going to play. That's all there was to it.

  Ms. Walden noticed me, but she didn't say anything. Soon Mr. De Young blew his whistle and the game started. I don't know if it was intentional, but the girl serving on the other side gave me a break. She didn't send the ball directly to me. I was able to get away with looking like I was paying attention, hopping lightly on the balls of my feet with my hands half up in the air as if I were prepared to - even hoping to - slap the ball at any moment. (Truthfully, my hands were poised to cover my head in case the ball came flying at it. But no one else had to know that.) If the game had continued that way, everything would have been fine. But it didn't.

  Chris Brooks came up to serve for the other team. He looked at me and remembered the one bright idea he'd probably ever had in his life. (I imagined him thinking in caveman talk: "Hit ball to Mallory. Win game.") In minutes, I felt like a character in a video game, one who has to keep darting and leaping to avoid being pulverized by some cosmic blast. Chris pounded serve after serve directly at me. I wanted to return the ball, but I couldn't. I'm sorry, it just goes against human nature - at least my human nature - not to duck when a flying object is heading straight at you.

  It was so demoralizing! It wasn't fair that I was under attack like this. The grunts and groans of my teammates didn't help. I felt bad enough about being such a clod. Having to deal with their annoyance just made me feel worse. I was sorry I was letting them down. But they could have had a little sympathy for what I was going through. They weren't being bombarded with a volleyball, after all. I was the one under attack.

  Someone could have said, "Hey, leave her alone, Chris!" But no. They yelled: "Come on, Mallory!" "Don't just stand there!" "Hit it!" (Maybe they felt they had to fill in for Ms. Walden since she wasn't there at the moment to torment me.) Then came the last straw. "We were winning," said Helen, groaning loudly. Then she sighed as if she couldn't bear the pain of losing at volleyball.

  That was all I could take. "Listen, Helen," I snapped, untying my pinny. "You don't have to worry anymore. Win your idiotic game. I'm leaving!" Throwing my pinny on the ground (and stepping on it just for good measure), I stomped over to the bleachers.

  I'd tried. But it hadn't worked. Volleyball and I simply weren't a match. There was no way I was willing to subject myself to it for another minute.

  After about thirty seconds on the bench, Ms. Walden was by my side. Today she took a different approach with me. Instead of biting my head off, she sat down beside me.

  "Okay, Pike. Let's talk about this. What, exactly, is bugging you?" Looking down, I tried to think of a way to explain. But all I could do was notice how white Ms. Walden's sneakers were. And what thick ankles she had.

  "Pike! I asked you a question," Ms. Walden pressed.

  "I can't play volleyball, and I don't see why I should have to," was all I could think to say.

  "Maybe if you tried, you'd learn how to play." "I just did try," I said, trying not to sound too disrespectful. "It didn't work." "Quitting isn't going to get you anywhere in life," said Ms. Walden. "This is a bad pattern. First you quit at volleyball, next thing you know, you'll be quitting college if it gets tough. Or you'll be quitting jobs you don't like. I'm telling you, don't start this quitting stuff now. Life eats up quitters." Okay. I know that, in theory, what she said was true. Quitting is not a good habit to get into. But I'm not a quitter! I've done lots of difficult things in my life.

  I simply could not play volleyball.

  It drives me crazy that sports people think life is like sports. Life is not sports! Life is life and sports is sports.

  Ms. Walden's telling me that I would end up some huge failure in life just because I didn't want to play volleyball made me even madder and crabbier than I already was. "I'm not playing volleyball, Ms. Walden," I said calmly. "I don't care what you do to me. I'll go to detention every afternoon if I have to. But I'm not playing." "What do your parents say about this?" she asked.

  I studied her sneakers. Did she have some secret for keeping them so white? Did she have many pairs? Maybe she threw her sneakers out the minute they got smudged and bought new ones.

  "Your parents, Pike! What do they think of this?" "They say it's okay," I lied. "They don't think I should have to play if I don't want to." "Is that so?" Ms. Walden muttered. Then, without another word, she stood up and walked back to the volleyball games.

  Now I was really confused. Had I won? Was she going to leave me alone? She hadn't mentioned detention or anything.

  When gym ended, I headed for the locker. "Just a minute, Pike," Ms. Walden called, approaching me. "Instead of detention today, I have a different idea. See those pinnies?" She pointed to the pile of colored cloth that was growing as the girls filed by, each throwing her pinny on. "I want you to come by after school and pick them up. The boys' pinnies, too. They have to be washed. You can use the washing machine in the home ec room." My jaw dropped. This was inhuman.

  "But . . . but ..." I stammered. It was no use. Before I could get any more words out, Ms. Walden was on her way into the locker room.

  "What happened?" Jessi asked, from behind me.

  "I have to wash all those stinky pinnies this afternoon," I said, still stunned by the news.

  "Pew." She looked at me sympathetically. "I'd stay and help you, but I have a ballet class this afternoon." "That's okay," I told her as we trotted into the locker room. "It's not the end of the world." That's what I said. But when I was standing in the home ec room with a reeking, steaming, pile of sweat-stained pinnies, I decided the end of the world might have been preferable. They were so stinky I didn't even want to touch them.

  "I'll be in the classroom across the way, doing some paperwork," Ms. Walden told me. "Keep this door open." I'm sure she would have claimed she wanted the door open for safety reasons. I think it was really part of her scheme to punish me, though. As I stood there tossing pinnies into the machine, everyone who passed by could see me. Since it's not usual to see someone doing wash in the home ec room after school everyone looked in.

  With my head down, I pretended to be unaware of the kids gawking at me. And I was able to do some homework while the machine ran through its cycles. After a while, I had a bunch of clean but soaking wet pinnies. I began throwing them into the dryer.

  When I looked up, I was face to face with a bunch of boys hanging in the doorway. Apparently they had been watching me work and were getting a huge kick out of it.

  One of them was Robbie Mara. "Hey, Mal-lory. Don't get pinny-washer's elbow/' he ^teased. "You wouldn't want to throw off your volleyball game." "Ha, ha," I said with as much disdain in my voice as possible.

  "Yeah!" Noah Fein chimed in. "It would break Chris Brooks's heart. He wouldn't have anybody to smash with the ball." "Get lost, jerks," I muttered.

  That just made them laugh. "Hey, Mal, don't fall into the washing machine!" Torn Harold called as the boys moved on. "But maybe you should go soak your head. It might help." Yuck. Sports and Stoneybrook boys. I couldn't think of any two things I hated more! Chapter 11.

  There's no arguing with ev
idence. And the evidence against boys was mounting. That's what Kristy discovered when she sat for her younger brothers and sisters.

  Watson and Kristy's mom were going to some fancy black-tie awards dinner and they'd invited Nannie along. Kristy's older brothers were both busy, so Kristy was left in charge.

  Since Karen and Andrew only live at their father's every other weekend, Kristy was glad to spend time with them. She was looking forward to an evening of playing board games, popping popcorn, and telling jokes. That's not what happened, though.

  Emily Michelle, who you might expect to be the problem since she's so little, was great. She sat on the floor, stacking blocks or playing with her current favorite game, Shark Attack. (Emily doesn't really know how to play but she likes to fool around with the game pieces.) Karen, who adores Kristy, decided to be her baby-sitting helper.

  But Andrew and David Michael acted like . . . like boys. David Michael hogged the TV. He insisted on watching G.I. Joe videos and threw a fit when Kristy insisted that he let Emily watch The Care Bears. After sulking, he dragged out his small plastic jets and began flying them across the family room.

  "Stop it!" Kristy cried as a jet skidded off the top of the TV and crashed into the wall.

  David Michael didn't listen. He was still mad about losing control of the TV. He hurled another plastic jet over Kristy's head.

  "That's enough!" Kristy shouted, pulling the jets from his hands. "I think you better - " She didn't get a chance to finish her sentence. A blood-curdling scream from Emily Michelle stopped her cold. Andrew had taken away Shark Attack, which she was playing with while watching The Care Bears.

  "She doesn't play it right," Andrew whined. "She's too little to play this game." "That's okay. She likes it anyway. Give it back to her," said Kristy.

  Andrew sat down in a huff. "I'm going to show her how to play it right." This involved setting up the pieces and scolding Emily every time she grabbed for one of them. "No, Emily, you're doing it wrong!" he'd shout.

  "Just give it back to her. Please," said Kristy.

  "No! I'm showing her," Andrew insisted angrily.

  Kristy slid the game away from him and back in front of Emily. "She doesn't want to be shown," Kristy told him. "She was happy playing the game her own way." Andrew stood up and stomped out of the room. "Her own way is stupid!" "Emily is little/' Kristy caUed after him. "She doesn't know how to - " Again, Kristy was cut off. Her attention was diverted back to David Michael who had taken a tape player off a shelf and begun playing it at top volume. "Turn that down!" Kristy yelled over the noise.

  "I want to drown out the Care Bears," he said. "I can't stand the way those characters talk." "Turn it down or take it to your room," Kristy told him.

  "No," said David Michael. "I have as much right to be here as anyone else." Kristy turned it down for him.

  David Michael turned it back up.

  Kristy turned it down.

  David Michael wrenched the box away and turned it to full volume.

  Kristy pulled it back and took out the batteries. "Give me those!" David Michael shouted, grabbing at the batteries Kristy held.

  Finally, Kristy took the batteries and threw them out the window into the yard.

  The rest of the evening was no better. Andrew and David Michael were like a terror tag team. While one gave Kristy trouble, the other thought up new ways to make more trouble.

  By the time the adults got home all the kids were asleep - including Kristy who had conked out on the couch. She said she couldn't remember ever being so tired or frazzled in her life.

  Kristy told us this story at our Monday afternoon meeting. I sat on Claudia's rug, listening, glad to hear about somebody else's troubles. It stopped me from thinking about my own. And I sure had enough of them to think about.

  That afternoon I'd finished washing the pinnies at about four-thirty. I was in such a hurry to get home for the BSC meeting that I almost forgot to check the mailbox to make sure it didn't hold a detention notice.

  I was halfway up the stairs when I turned back for the mail. My heart almost stopped. There was no mail. The box was empty.

  Maybe there was just no mail today, I told myself hopefully. And even if there had been mail, there might not have been a detention notice.

  By five o'clock, I had almost convinced myself there was nothing to worry about. I'd changed my clothes and was running a brush through my hair when my mother walked into my room. One look at her face told me that the worst had happened. The detention notice had arrived.

  Mom sat on my bed. "Mallory, what's this all about?" she asked, spreading the letter out on my quilt. "It says this is the third time you've been to detention." "Today makes four," I admitted dismally. "You'll be getting that notice in the mail in a few days." "What is going on?" she asked.

  I sighed and plopped down on the bed. It was time to tell her the story. "And so," I said as I finished up, "it's like I'm under attack. Ms. Walden yells at me, the kids on the other team try to cream me with the ball just so they can win. It's horrible. And today Ms. Walden made me wash all the stupid pinnies . . . and some boys stopped to watch and were making fun of me and ..." My voice cracked, and the next thing I knew I was crying.

  Mom put her arm around me, which only made me cry harder, but it felt good. I hadn't wanted to admit, even to myself, how much these last two weeks had upset me. It seemed easier to act tough. But I was surprised at how good it felt to tell her; how good it felt to cry.

  "This really is a problem, isn't it?" Mom said seriously. I brushed away my tears and checked to see if she was kidding me. She wasn't.

  Mom and I sat on the bed together, thinking. "Maybe you could try talking to Ms. Walden," Mom suggested. "Ask her if one of the other kids could give you some pointers." "She'd probably assign Helen Gallway," I said with a groan.

  "You don't have to love Helen Gallway," Mom said. "Just let her give you some help. And maybe she could ask the other team to give you a break." "She wouldn't do that. Anyway, it's mostly Chris Brooks who's the problem/' I said.

  "Could you talk to him?" Mom asked.

  "I don't know him, really. I suppose I could try." "Give it a shot," said Mom. "Then come back and tell me how it goes. If it doesn't work, we'll think of something else." "Thanks, Mom," I said as she stood up.

  "Sometimes we have to do things we don't like, Mal," she said. "Unfortunately, it's just part of life. Usually it's better not to run away from those things - although there are times when we'd like to." "What things would you like to run away from?" I asked.

  My mother smiled grimly. "Right now, I'd like to run away from making dinner, but it has to be done." She picked the paper off the bed. "And I don't want to see any more of these. Understand?" "I understand," I said.

  So, by the time I reached the BSC meeting I'd had an exhausting day. I was glad to sit back and listen to everyone else talk.

  "I've been thinking about this boy thing a lot/' said Claudia. "What could be causing it?" "It's just a coincidence," Stacey said confidently. "It's like cards. You have a run of bad luck, then you have a run of good luck. It's mathematical, in a way." "Leave it to our resident math whiz to see the problem in terms of math." Dawn laughed.

  "But it is a math problem," Stacey insisted. "It has to do with odds and statistics." "Statistics?" Jessi repeated.

  "Yeah. Mr. Zizmore was talking about it today in class. Statistics can't always be trusted. Say, for example, a scientist surveys only people who support his theory and excludes people who don't support it. Then he could say one hundred percent of all people interviewed think this, but really he's only included in the survey the people who think a certain way to begin with." "I get it. I think," said Claudia. "But what does that have to do with boys?" "It means that we've come up with a theory that boys are a problem, but we're only looking at the cases in which they are a problem. I mean, look at the good time Mallory had sitting for the Hobart boys. And the other day. I sat for the Kormans. Bill was fine. And Dawn, you sa
t for Norman Hill. He was okay, right?" "Yeah, he was," Dawn admitted.

  "See? They don't fit into our theory, so we're not talking about them. We're skewing the statistics, as Mr. Zizmore would say," Stacey concluded.

  "That does make a lot of sense," said Kristy.

  Maybe, I thought. Stacey made it sound very convincing. But I wasn't convinced. I liked my theory better. Boys from Stoneybrook had had their minds warped by gym class and were the weirdest creatures on earth. Now that was a theory which made sense to me.

  After the meeting, Jessi asked me how the pinny-washing had gone. I told her the whole story, including the part about my mother finding the detention notice. "Wow," she said. "You're having some bad day." "I was glad to talk to Mom, though," I told her. "She had some good ideas. But I don't know if they'll work." "Ben was looking for you after school," Jessi said. "He wanted to hear how gym went." "Did you tell him?" "No. I figured you'd want to tell him yourself." I looked across the street at Ben's house. "I'm going to go see if he's at home," I said to Jessi. "See you tomorrow." Jessi waved good-bye as I crossed the street.

  Ben answered the Hobarts' door. "Hi," he said, letting me in. "How did it go today?" "Not so good," I replied, and told my story again.

  "Robbie Mara is such a jerk," Ben said sympathetically when I got to the part where the boys teased me in the home ec room.

  As I finished my story, Johnny, James, and Mathew came into the living room. They greeted me happily. "What are you guys up to?" I asked.

  "We have to clean our rooms tonight," Mathew said. "They haven't been cleaned in two days." "Two days!" I cried, impressed. "My brothers haven't cleaned their rooms in two months!" "Boy, I wish I lived at your house," said Johnny.

  "I wish you did, too." I laughed. "I'd love to trade brothers with Ben." "You keep saying that, Mal, but I don't think you'd really want to," said Ben.

  "I'm not kidding," I insisted.

  "Let's do it then," said Ben. "Let's trade brothers." "If only we could." "We can. For one night, anyway. You send your brothers here, and I'll send my brothers to your house." "Yeah! Cool!" cried James.