Graduation Day

by Ann M. Martin

  I don’t know which is more satisfying — having finally talked with Logan or having finally finished my letter. Actually, yes I do. Finishing the letter was more satisfying. Talking with Logan was … well, it was as if a great weight had been lifted from my chest. It was a hugh relief. And after it was over, I felt almost exhilarated.

  I’ll get to that in a minute, though. First, here’s my letter. (And what a struggle it was. writing it was almost like preparing for another final exam. But it was worth it.)

  I didn’t think I’d be embarrassed when I read the letter again in four years. In fact, I was proud of the letter. And very pleased that I had talked to Logan before I had written the final draft. I had actually asked him if he could meet me at Pizza Express one day after school. He hadn’t sounded thrilled with the idea (no wonder, since I haven’t been terribly friendly lately), but he had agreed. We sat in a booth in the back, so we had as much privacy as possible, and … nothing earth-shattering happened, but at least we admitted that we don’t like feeling mad, and that we especially don’t like this business of not speaking to each other.

  I am very relieved. If nothing else, when we run into each other we won’t have to feel all uncertain and embarrassed. And we can start SHS on good terms. Maybe we’ll even hang out every now and then. If we wind up with a couple of classes together next fall, that will be okay too. Nice, even.

  Oh. My. Lord. Will finals ever be over? For days now I haven’t done anything but study, study, study. Thank goodness for Stacey. She has been helping me almost every day with math and science. Here’s the weird thing: I think I was more prepared for the math final than the science final. That must be a first. At least those two exams are OVER. In fact, only English is left. I take that one tomorrow and also will start finding out the results of my first exams.

  I am SOOOOOO tired of looking at my English notes, though. So I am going to take a break here and write the letter to myself. I think I finally know what I want to say in it. And I had a fabulous idea for it. Instead of writing a regular letter I am going to interview myself.

  Here goes.

  That letter took so long to write that I had to finish it before school the next morning. (I was just determined to finish it and get it out of the way.) Then, the moment my letter and I arrived at school I ran to the office to pick up my first two graded exams — math and science. I took them politely from the secretary, walked daintily out of the office … and tore down the hall to the girl’s room, where I could look at them in the privacy of a stall.

  I opened the math exam first. At the top was a … C+. A C+!! I had passed. That wasn’t a bad grade for math at all. In fact, it was a pretty good one. Thank you, Stacey, thank you. I let out an enormous sigh. Then I looked at the science exam.

  When I saw the grade at the top my hands began to shake.

  An F.

  I had flunked science completely.

  Every time I sat down to work on my letter I found myself going off in a different direction.

  Time was running short. The letters were due in two days. And I had one more final left to study for. I decided just to sit down and write the letter. One draft. Whatever came out would be what wound up in the letter, what I would read in four years. I was feeling confined and needed to write in what I knew was called “stream of consciousness.” (Being able to recall that term gave me high hopes for my last exam, which was English.)

  And so … I pulled up a blank page on my computer screen and got to work.

  Dear Kristy,

  I am writing this at a time in my life when I feel that everything is about to change. It occurs to me that the next time you read this, everything will be about to change again. Right now, Charlie is going off to college (the first one of us Thomases to leave home), and I’ll be starting high school in the fall. High school will bring so many changes. In four years, though, I’ll be the one leaving for college, Sam will be in college, and Charlie will be graduating from college and going on to the rest of his adult life. Karen and David Michael will soon be sixth-graders, Andrew will be entering third grade, and Emily will be entering first grade. And a whole slew of new changes and challenges will be waiting.

  Anyway, I don’t care what Mr. Kingbridge said to write about. I just want to tell you about the Baby-sitters Club. Maybe the BSC will seem childish in four years. If it does, remind yourself that when you were in middle school, it was the most important thing in your life. Why? Because in many ways it was what connected so many other important things in your life.

  When I think of the BSC I think of friends. Of course, Claudia and Mary Anne and I were already good friends when the BSC began, but the club drew us closer. And because of the BSC I became friends with Dawn, Jessi, Abby, Stacey, and Mallory. Also Logan and Shannon. Plenty of adults and little kids became friends as well. A giant network of people. When I think about it, that network extends to California, to New York, even to Europe.

  You know what? I have to admit something. I will admit it only once, and only here. The club is so important to me that I have been really hurt that it has changed and that it will probably change again. Whenever anybody dropped out of the club, even if it was because that person had to move away, I felt stung. And recently, when Abby and Jessi dropped out (after having already lost Dawn and Mal), and when Stacey, Claud, and Mary Anne said they could stay in the club but would have to scale back, I felt as if my world had fallen away. I know that sounds overly dramatic, especially since even I realized I couldn’t devote quite as much time to baby-sitting anymore. But that is how I felt.

  The Baby-sitters Club is my baby. It’s my creation. I am SO proud of it. It may seem small and amateurish to some people, but it doesn’t to me. It is the greatest thing I have done, and I must keep it alive. If it ends, a little part of me will die. And the worst thing is that no one understands this. Not even Mary Anne, who is my best friend in the world. I could explain it to her, and she might understand it intellectually, but she wouldn’t feel it. Feeling it would be true understanding.

  Why is the BSC not as important to anyone else as it is to me? Maybe in four years I’ll have the answer to that. Right now I just feel as though I am standing at the edge of a cliff. I feel alone, and I feel scared, and I feel confused because I know I am the only one of my friends who feels this way. Everyone else is ready to move ahead, ready for high school, ready to move beyond the Baby-sitters Club. They’re going to say good-bye to so many things so casually. And I’ll be left standing at my cliff, afraid to fall, unable to turn around and go back. If only I had wings. Then I could soar into the sky. Maybe that’s how my friends feel — as if they have wings. But not me.

  So there we have it. I suppose the creation of the Baby-sitters Club was the defining event of my life. It must have been, if it’s all I can write about now. I mean, here’s my opportunity to write about Dad, about the impact his leaving had on our family and on my life, about how mad at him I’ve been. And here’s my opportunity to write about what Watson’s coming into our lives meant, about Emily’s arrival. But all I can focus on is the Baby-sitters Club. Or maybe I’m obsessing about it. Who knows?

  I don’t want things to change now. I hope that in four years change will seem a more positive thing. I hope I’ll be looking forward to going to college. When you read this letter again, remember that being thirteen can be really, really hard.

  Love, Kristy

  From: NYCGirl

  Subject: Burying the time capsule

  To: MRDALI

  Date: Wednesday, June 21

  Time: 8:11:37 P.M.

  Dear Ethan,

  Just two days until graduation! I can hardly believe it. I have such butterflies in my stomach. Good butterflies. I’m excited, but not nervous.

  Finals are over. We still haven’t gotten all our exams back, though. Guess what. Claud has already flunked her science final. We’re not sure what that will mean. Her parents are pretty upset and are going to have a meeting with some of her teac
hers tomorrow. I feel bad about the exam, since I’d been tutoring Claud in science. On the other hand, I’d also been tutoring her in math and she passed that.

  Keep your fingers crossed. Claud is terrified that she’ll be held back again.

  News of the day: We helped the kids bury the time capsule. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but everyone has taken the project seriously and some very interesting things went into the capsule. I was actually kind of impressed….

  So much is going on. We arrived at school today thinking we would get the last of our finals back, only to find that the teachers need one more day with them, so we will have to wait until tomorrow. Poor Claud is practically dying. I’m a little nervous myself, since I have a shot at straight A’s, although I didn’t tell Claud that’s why I’m nervous. Tomorrow we will also be issued our caps and gowns. And our year-books. Friday is … ta-da! … graduation. And, of course, Claud’s party, if her parents aren’t so mad that they decide she can’t hold it.

  For one miserable, miserable period of time earlier this week I thought that I myself would not be graduating. And all because of Ribsy. I had looked absolutely everywhere for that book. I had even looked in New York when I visited my dad over the weekend. I didn’t expect to find it there, but you never know. Sometimes the contents of my closets are a considerable surprise to me. When, in the back of the one in the city, I unearthed a box that clearly had not been opened in quite some time, my heart leaped. I ripped it open and sifted through it, but no Ribsy. I did find a really nice pair of unworn socks, though.

  On the train ride back to Stoneybrook on Sunday I tried to imagine how I would break the news to Mom that I would not be graduating (or that I would not be able to attend graduation — I wasn’t sure which). When I pictured myself explaining that this all had to do with Ribsy, I figured Mom would either laugh at me or be furious. Neither response was appealing. Then something occurred to me, something that me think, Stacey, you are the stupidest person in the world. What I realized was that our librarian wouldn’t care whether I gave him back the exact same copy of Ribsy that I took out two years ago. All he wants is a nice copy of the book for the library. The copy I checked out was probably a hardcover, so I could just go to the bookstore and buy a hardcover copy of Ribsy and hand it in to the librarian.

  When I realized that, I almost burst out laughing. How could I possibly have thought I wouldn’t graduate because I couldn’t find some old copy of Ribsy?

  On Monday after school I went to the bookstore downtown, bought Ribsy, and on Tuesday I gave it to our librarian. I handed it to him gift-wrapped, just in case he was in a bad mood or something. He accepted it with a grin and erased my name from a nasty-looking list in the computer.

  Ahh. I could graduate.

  And I could truly enjoy this afternoon’s activity — the burying of the time capsule. At four o’clock, I cut through my backyard into Mal’s and met up with her and her brothers and sisters. We walked to Mary Anne’s house and found that a little crowd of kids was gathering. Of course, Kristy was already there. She was standing on the milk crate, wearing her visor. On a chain around her neck was her whistle. Next to the crate stood the empty popcorn tin.

  “Hold on to your things until everyone has arrived!” she was yelling. “Don’t put them in the box yet.”

  Everyone in the yard was clutching a paper bag or a package or an envelope. And if everyone felt the way I did, we were a pretty excited crowd.

  “Hey!” Kristy called when she spotted Mal and me.

  “Hi!” I called back.

  I helped Kristy with crowd control for a few minutes. When we were pretty sure everyone had arrived, Kristy cupped her hands to her mouth and shouted, “Welcome! Thank you for coming. This is going to be a great time capsule. Now, the first thing we have to do is dig a hole to bury it in.”

  The Pike triplets were prepared for this and got to work with shovels near an herb garden behind Mary Anne’s new house. While they dug, the other kids and my friends, one by one, stepped up to the tin box and dropped into it whatever they had brought. If they felt like saying a few words, they did.

  “Here’s a Krushers’ softball,” said Jackie.

  “I cut out a newspaper article,” said Jessi.

  “This is one of our old BSC fliers,” said Kristy.

  “I’m putting in our school newspaper,” said Charlotte. “Stacey, read this first, though, okay?”

  Charlotte handed the newspaper to me instead of dropping it into the tin, and while the other kids continued to step forward, I read what she was pointing to. It was an essay she had written for school about an important person in her life. And she had chosen me as her important person.

  “Charlotte, thank you,” I told her. “I don’t know what to say.”

  “That’s okay,” she replied. “When you’re almost-sisters, you don’t always have to say everything. Sometimes you just know.”

  I gave Charlotte a hug, and we turned back to the kids gathered around the box in time to see Claire drop her old teddy bear into it.

  “Claire, are you sure you want to put Ba-ba in there?” said Kristy.

  “That’s what I’ve been asking her all along,” Vanessa whispered.

  Kristy glanced at Mal, who simply shrugged. Ba-ba went into the capsule with everything else.

  By the time the capsule had been filled, the hole had been dug. Kristy lugged the box to the edge of the hole and, with great ceremony, placed it inside. “On this day, the twenty-first of June,” she said, “the citizens of Stoneybrook hereby bury a time capsule, not to be opened for seven years. At which time, Byron, Jordan, and Adam Pike” — Kristy motioned for them to stand beside her — “will be in charge of digging it up.”

  “I hope they remember where it’s buried,” I heard Nicky whisper to Vanessa.

  “And now, who will throw the first handful of dirt in the hole?” asked Kristy.

  “You, Kristy, you!” cried several of the kids.

  So Kristy threw in a handful of dirt, and the rest of the kids followed suit. I noticed that Claire looked horrified as the tin slowly disappeared, but she said nothing.

  A few minutes later, our time capsule officially buried, we began to walk home.

  Sharon was the one who answered the phone. She was edging around the breakfast table with a plate of toast, and she was right in front of the phone when it rang. “Hello?” she said, grabbing it before it could ring again. I knew she wanted Dawn and Jeff to be able to sleep as late as possible. Then, “What? … What?” After a moment, she handed the phone to me. “Mary Anne, I think it’s for you.” When I raised my eyebrows at her, she added, “I’m not sure who it is.”

  “Hello?” I said.

  The voice on the other end was tearful. What I heard was, “Wawaaa … be … can’t … Ba-ba … ”

  “Claire? Is that you?”

  “Yeeeeeess!” A wail.

  “What’s the matter? Is Mal there?”

  There was a clunk as the phone was set down. Then someone said hello.

  “Mrs. Pike? This is Mary Anne.”

  Mrs. Pike sounded crabby. It turned out she hadn’t had a whole lot of sleep the night before. Neither, I was guessing, had the rest of the Pikes. Claire had awoken shortly after midnight and had discovered that she couldn’t sleep without Ba-ba next to her.

  “Uh-oh,” I said.

  “Mary Anne, here’s Mal. I’m going to let you talk to her.”

  Mal sounded as crabby as Mrs. Pike.

  “What do you want to do?” I finally asked her.

  “I think we’re going to have to dig up the time capsule.”

  “Dig it up?! Kristy will kill us.”

  “I know, but we have to do it. Claire needs Ba-ba, and she knows where she is. We can’t just leave her buried in the ground.”

  I looked at my watch. “Okay. Can Claire wait until after school, though? We don’t have time to do it now. Plus, I kind of think Kristy will want to be present for this.”

&n
bsp; “Whatever,” Mal replied crossly. “Anyway, Claire has morning kindergarten for some reason today.”

  As I had suspected, Kristy was none too pleased with the idea of digging up the time capsule. “We just buried it!” she exclaimed.

  We were standing in the hallway by Kristy’s locker.

  “I know, but Claire is desperate,” I explained.

  It was Kristy’s turn to become crabby. “All right,” she said gruffly. “Right after school today.” She turned and walked off, muttering under her breath, “Whoever heard of digging up a time capsule twenty-four hours later?”

  “Can’t you just pretend you buried it today instead of yesterday?” I called after her.

  “No!”

  I decided not to let anyone else’s crabby mood ruin my day. It was one of our last days at SMS and I intended to enjoy it. Everywhere the eighth-graders were lounging around with their yearbooks, leisurely signing them. The sixth- and seventh-graders were in their classrooms working away at who knew what, but us eighth-graders were DONE! Classes were over. We were here to get our final exams, to clean out our lockers, to sign yearbooks, to have a rehearsal for graduation …

  The moment homeroom was over I tore down to the main office to get back my last two final exams — social studies and French. Ha! An A on the French exam and a B+ on the social studies. I was going to end my career at SMS with nearly straight A’s. Not bad. Not bad at all.