Jessi and the Superbrat

by Ann M. Martin

  “Those girls are cutthroat, huh?” Derek said.

  “We were standing next to them for awhile,” Mrs. Masters added. “They didn’t have a nice word to say about anyone.”

  I shrugged.

  “They’re a certain type you find around ballet,” I said. “But most ballerinas aren’t like that.”

  When we got to the car, Derek pulled a small notepad out of his pocket.

  “I took a few notes on your performance,” he said.

  “You did?” I asked, surprised.

  “I hope you don’t mind. It really was super. Even I could tell that. But there were a few things that you could just clean up, and since you do have one last audition to go through, I figured I might as well give you some tips.”

  “Sure,” I said. “Shoot.” Though, to tell the truth, I was wondering what kind of corrections Derek could really give me about ballet. It’s a pretty exacting art, and you sort of have to know a lot about it to be able to notice what’s right and what’s wrong.

  Derek opened his notepad.

  “Well,” he said. “To start, during the piqué turns, you weren’t attaching your foot to the back of your knee.”

  I stared at Derek dumbfounded. How did he know about piqué turns? How did he know where your foot was supposed to be?

  “And another note,” said Derek. “During the tour jetés your spot wandered.”

  Tour jetés? Spot? Where was Derek getting this technical language? These were the kinds of things Mme Noelle was always hounding me about.

  I looked at Derek. He was grinning. I grabbed the notebook out of his hands.

  “Give me that,” I said.

  I looked over the page. It was filled with lots more notes that were just as technical. The only thing he had wrong was the spelling of the words. For instance, he had spelled “tour jeté” the way it is pronounced — “toor jetay.”

  “All right,” I said. “How did you come up with these notes?”

  “Certain cutthroat types can be very helpful without knowing it.”

  “You mean … ?”

  “We were standing by those girls for an awfully long time,” Mrs. Masters explained. “We heard them tearing apart everyone’s performance, so Derek got the idea to see what they had to say about yours. They have trained eyes and were very specific in what they saw. Derek just happened to get it all down on paper.”

  I looked over the notes. They were actually very helpful. I recognized a lot of the mistakes they had caught. They were things I often did wrong. Well, now I had the whole week to work on them.

  “Gee, I don’t know who I should thank,” I said. “You or the cutthroats.”

  “You can thank me,” Derek grinned. “I accept all donations of money, all presents, all major credit cards …”

  I cuffed Derek playfully on the head.

  “All bops on the head,” he continued, “all punches on the arm …”

  “All punches in the nose,” I said, laughing.

  “All kicks in the shins.”

  I have to admit, we were getting pretty silly. Suddenly, I remembered that I was supposed to be the baby-sitter. I glanced at Mrs. Masters to see if she seemed bothered. Mrs. Masters smiled.

  “All knocks to the noggin,” she joined in.

  Pretty soon we were all laughing. For me it was a way of letting out some of that giddiness that was left over from the audition.

  “You know, those notes are all fine and good,” Mrs. Masters said, “but we did catch your performance and I just want to say that it was beautiful.”

  “Really?” I said.

  “Breathtaking,” she went on. “There’s just something about ballet, isn’t there? And you looked like such a natural ballerina up on that stage.”

  “Except for the piqué turns and the tour jetés,” Derek teased.

  “I think those girls were picking on you because you were so good,” said Mrs. Masters.

  Boy, I sure wished I could let myself believe that. I still wasn’t sure I had the stuff to make it into the production. Now that I had only one more audition to go, I started to get really scared. I was in the big league now. Deep down, I was afraid of blowing it.

  By this time Mrs. Masters was pulling the car into the driveway. When she shut off the ignition, she turned to face Derek.

  “Well,” she said, “are you going to tell Jessi your news?”

  Derek blushed.

  “Shhh,” he said.

  “News?” My ears pricked up. “What news?”

  “I’ll tell you later,” Derek said.

  The front door of the house banged open. Todd had heard the car and was running out to greet us. He jumped right into my arms.

  “Jessi!” he cried.

  I set him down and followed him into the house. Mr. Masters was putting on his jacket to join his wife, who was waiting for him in the car. A few moments later, I was alone with the kids. My curiosity was getting stronger and stronger.

  “So,” I said. “What’s this news all about, anyway?”

  “Nothing.” Derek shrugged.

  Todd grabbed my arm and started jumping up and down.

  “We’re going back to L.A.! We’re going back to L.A.!” he said.

  “What!?” I shrieked.

  Derek stared at the floor.

  “Derek, are you really?” I asked.

  He glanced up quickly, then nodded his head.

  “Why?” I asked. “You just got here.”

  “Derek’s gonna be on TV again,” Todd said. “He’s gonna be on another show.”

  “A TV movie,” Derek explained. “They start shooting real soon, so we have to leave in a couple of weeks.”

  “A couple of weeks?” I said. I couldn’t believe it. This had all happened so fast.

  “I’m gonna go back to my old school,” said Todd. He was still hanging on my arm and tugging hard.

  “Just when I started to make friends,” said Derek. “I’ll miss my new friends and I’ll miss you…. Oh, no, Jessi,” he cried. “I just realized. I won’t get to see you in Swan Lake.” Derek’s eyes started to glaze over. You could tell his mind was wandering off somewhere. “Hey,” he said suddenly. “Jessi, why don’t you come out to L.A., too? There’re lots of dancers out there. You could pick up some modeling work. I’m sure you could get some commercials.”

  “I can’t go out to L.A.,” I protested.

  “Why not?” said Derek. “I did.”

  “Anyway, I couldn’t get work on commercials.”

  “Sure you could.” Derek grabbed my free hand and started tugging at me, too.

  “Come to L.A.,” he started chanting. “Come to L.A.”

  Todd joined in.

  With Derek tugging on one hand and Todd tugging on the other, I felt a little bit like a giant piece of taffy. Just then, the doorbell rang.

  “Saved by the bell!” I said with a laugh.

  Todd ran to the window to see who was there.

  “It’s your friends,” he called to Derek.

  Derek looked at me quickly.

  “Don’t say anything about L.A.,” he said. “I’ll tell them. Soon, but not yet.”

  He ran to the door. Four boys trooped in. I guess they were the same boys Claudia had invited over. Derek introduced me to them, but none of them was named John.

  Oh, well. I sighed to myself. Derek had been in Stoneybrook such a short time. It had been long enough for him to make a few friends, but not long enough to win over the Superbrat. I took Todd’s hand and brought him out to play in the backyard. There sure were big changes here. And something Derek had said was echoing in my brain. That I could get modeling jobs and work on commercials.

  “Come on, Todd,” I said.

  Modeling. Commercials. That might be a relief after all this ballet anxiety. I had a lot to think about.

  When Monday rolled around, I almost missed the meeting of the Baby-sitters Club. I had two projects in mind, and both of them had something to do with Derek. At 5:10, I
was still sitting in my room, working on Project #1. I had the Stamford phone book in my lap. I opened it to the yellow pages and was copying down names and phone numbers of certain kinds of businesses. I had closed the door because I didn’t want anyone to know what I was doing … at least not yet. It was my secret. I bet I have you curious about what I was up to. Well, I’ll give you this hint: the project had something to do with Derek’s idea about me going into acting and modeling. I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about the possibility, ever since Derek had brought it up.

  I glanced at the clock. Uh-oh! Only a few minutes to meeting time. Time to put aside Project #1 and get started on Project #2. (You’ll see what that one was in a minute.) I hid the list of phone numbers under my pillow and took off for Claudia’s.

  No one was surprised, of course, when I slid into the meeting at the very last minute. I guess at this point, they almost expect that. Kristy was already rapping on the arm of her director’s chair to call the club members to attention.

  “The Baby-sitters Club will now come to order,” she said.

  I sat up as tall as I could. I don’t usually talk a lot at the meetings, being a junior officer and all, but like I said, I had to start organizing this second project I had in mind. And that would mean getting all the club members involved.

  “Anybody have any club business?” Kristy asked.

  I shot up my hand even though Kristy had said at my first club meeting that I didn’t have to do that.

  Kristy looked a little surprised and so did everyone else. I hadn’t even told Mallory my idea yet.

  “Jessi,” Kristy called on me.

  “Yes. Well,” I began. “Well, all of you know by now that Derek and his family are moving back to L.A. in a couple of weeks. So my idea is … My idea is …” I swallowed hard. “My idea is that we give him a surprise good-bye party before he leaves. We could invite all the new friends he’s made. That way everybody will get a chance to say good-bye.”

  For a moment nobody said anything. Then Kristy’s face broke into a big smile.

  “Great idea!” she said.

  “Yeah!” Mallory echoed.

  “I could make invitations,” said Claudia.

  Everybody started talking at once.

  “We could invite some of the kids we baby-sit for.”

  “And all the kids in Derek’s class.”

  “All the kids?” I asked. That sounded like a big crowd. “I was thinking of having the party at my house. I don’t know if everyone would fit.”

  “Well, we could have it at my house,” Kristy offered. Kristy’s house, remember, is a mansion.

  “Really?” I said. “You wouldn’t mind?”

  “It would sure make Karen happy,” Kristy said, laughing. “She still hasn’t given up the idea of meeting Derek and asking him to make her a star.”

  A phone call came in and then another one, so we did have to do some of our usual meeting stuff, but we spent most of the time planning the party. Kristy, who loves to be in charge, had quickly taken over.

  The first problem we ran into was the question of when to hold the party. There wasn’t much time left before Derek would be moving again and we were all pretty tightly scheduled with jobs and all. Mary Anne paged through the appointment pages of the record book.

  “Hmm,” she said. “Looks like the only time might be Saturday afternoon.”

  “No, we can’t do it then,” said Dawn. “Remember, I just took that job at the Newtons’.”

  That was the last call that had come in. In all the excitement, Mary Anne had forgotten to write it down.

  “Anyway, Saturday afternoon’s no good because that’s when Jessi has her final Swan Lake audition,” Mallory piped up.

  Oh, no. I shot Mallory a withering glance. Why did she have to tell the whole club about that?

  “You do?” Mary Anne asked, all excited. “You mean you got through the other auditions? Why didn’t you tell us?”

  Suddenly, everyone surrounded me, giving me their congratulations and asking me questions. I didn’t know why, but I felt very uncomfortable. This was a new feeling that had taken over. After Saturday and the initial rush of making the cut, I didn’t want to talk about Swan Lake. I didn’t even want to think about it. All I wanted was to get the last audition over with.

  Lucky thing the phone rang then. Another job call came in. Everyone settled back into their places and left me alone.

  Mallory was watching me. She could see I looked kind of squirmy.

  “Why didn’t you want everyone to know?” she whispered.

  “I don’t know.” I shrugged.

  After the phone call, Kristy rapped again on the arm of her chair.

  “So when are we going to have this party?” she said. “It looks like the only time available would be some night at midnight.”

  Mary Anne looked over the pages of the appointment book.

  “That’s not the only time,” she said thoughtfully. “If we can’t have it Saturday afternoon, how about Saturday morning? Hey, I have an idea! It could be a breakfast party. We could have it from nine until twelve.”

  “Great idea,” cried Kristy. “We could have a table with a whole assortment of cereals.”

  “And juices,” said Dawn.

  “A breakfast party?” said Claudia. She didn’t sound at all sure about the idea.

  “Yeah,” said Mallory. “A breakfast party. It’s so unusual. It’s a great idea.”

  “But if it’s breakfast, we can’t serve cake,” said Claudia. “Or ice cream. Or cookies. Well,” she said with a sigh. You could see the wheels turning in her head. “I guess we could have doughnuts.”

  All the rest of us laughed.

  “Doughnuts, cereal, and juice.” Mary Anne wrote all the suggestions down.

  “And fruit slices,” Dawn added.

  Claudia crinkled her nose.

  We decided that we would each be responsible for bringing two boxes of cereal, and we divided up the rest of the food equally. (Guess who got doughnuts.) Kristy put Mallory in charge of getting the names of all of Derek’s classmates, since her brother Nicky was in the same class. That brought up one last issue for discussion.

  “Are you going to invite John?” Mallory asked.

  “John?” Kristy looked puzzled.

  “The Superbrat,” Claudia explained.

  Everyone looked to me for the answer.

  “I think we should invite him,” I said. “If we’re inviting the whole class, we have to. Anyway, this may be Derek’s last chance to win the kid over.”

  “And I want to meet John finally,” said Claudia. “I’m dying to know who the Superbrat is.”

  That settled that.

  When the meeting broke up, I headed home for dinner. Becca was already setting the table, but I slipped upstairs to my room and fished out the phone list from under my pillow. Time to get back to Project #1. I went back down to the kitchen, helped Mama put the food onto plates, and waited until everyone was seated and Daddy was helping himself to butter for his mashed potatoes.

  I cleared my throat.

  “Mama, Daddy?” I said.

  “Yes?” Daddy answered.

  I had rehearsed a whole speech, thinking of just the way I wanted to present my idea, but suddenly I couldn’t remember what I had planned to say.

  “I was talking to Derek,” I said.

  Becca dropped her fork. I think she figured she was about to get more information about Lamont. Sorry, Becca, no such luck.

  “Well,” I stumbled on, “Derek suggested that I move out to L.A.”

  “Move to L.A.?” Now it was Mama’s turn to drop her fork.

  “I mean, I don’t want to go to L.A.,” I said quickly. “But Derek suggested I come to L.A. so I could do some modeling or get on commercials. Anyway, that made me think. I might be able to do that here, the way Derek did before he got on TV. There are some modeling and talent agencies in Stamford, and I think they do local commercials and some newspaper and
magazine ads.”

  I pulled out the list of numbers I had taken down and passed it to Mama.

  “I was thinking of calling them,” I said, “to see if they might be interested in me, but, of course, I wanted to check with you first.”

  Mama looked at Daddy. He was already looking at her. Squirt smashed his spoon into his mashed potatoes.

  “Po-po!” he cried.

  Mama handed the list over to Daddy and he looked it over, too. For the longest time, I thought no one was going to say anything.

  “Why do you think you want to do this?” Daddy asked.

  I wasn’t prepared for that question.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I just do.”

  “You’ve got quite a full schedule already with ballet class and the Baby-sitters Club,” Mama said.

  “And who knows, you may have a full Swan Lake rehearsal schedule coming up,” Daddy added.

  “I’m probably not going to get into that,” I mumbled.

  Daddy shot a look at Mama. “Are you nervous about Swan Lake?” he asked.

  “I’m not nervous,” I said. “I just don’t care anymore.”

  “Mmm-hmm,” Daddy said. He didn’t sound like he believed me.

  “Well,” I said, “maybe I do care, but I’ll tell you, this audition process is driving me crazy. And after I go through all this, I’m probably not going to make it anyway. So it seems to me that I might as well branch out, get some other kinds of work. Modeling can’t be as nerve-racking as ballet. I mean, all you have to do is stand there and smile, right?”

  Mama wiped mashed potatoes off of Squirt’s cheeks and chin.

  “Well, if you want to look into this,” she said, “I don’t see why you shouldn’t. Why don’t you go ahead and make some phone calls. You can find out some more information, and then we’ll talk again.”

  “As long as it’s limited to Stamford,” Daddy added.

  “Right,” Mama agreed. “That’s as far as this chauffeur service goes.”

  “Really?” I jumped up from the table. “I can call?”

  “Well, not right now,” said Daddy, laughing. “I think agencies are closed this time of night, and besides, you’ve got a plateful of dinner to eat.”

  “Oh. Right,” I said.

  I sat back down at the table and poked at the food on my plate. Becca was still staring at me. Her mouth was gaping and she hadn’t yet picked up her fork.