The author would like to thank
Dr. Linda Gray
for her sensitive evaluation of this book.
Contents
Title Page
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Letter from Ann M. Martin
Acknowledgment
About the Author
Scrapbook
Also Available
Copyright
Taptaptaptap …
That was the sound of my short nails impatiently drumming on my desk. I didn’t even realize I was doing it until my science teacher, Mrs. Gonzalez, turned and scowled at me.
You know the look. One of those real Looks of Doom teachers must learn in college. “Done with your test already, Ms. Stevenson?” she asked skeptically.
“Uh … yeah,” I replied, taken by surprise. I’d been in sort of another world, happily remembering a soccer game I’d played in last year when I still lived on Long Island. I’d been the high scorer in that game. You should have seen me.
I’d probably started tapping the desk while I was picturing myself anxiously waiting for Maggie Sweeney to pass me the ball. She was completely boxed in, surrounded by players from the other team, and I was right out in the open. Totally clear. What was taking her so long to figure it out? She had to know I was there. And then she did — pass the ball, that is. I slammed it right past the goalie. Score! Another point for Awesome Abby the Soccer Machine! “Yesss!”
“Perhaps you should use this extra time to check your answers,” Mrs. Gonzalez suggested.
“Oh … yeah … okay,” I agreed, looking down at my test. I squinted, frowned, and acted concerned. Actually, though, I wasn’t even reading the test questions. I’m no science genius, but I’d studied, and I happened to know these answers. What was I supposed to do, rip my hair out and start sweating, worrying whether they were right or not?
Give me a break. Not my style.
While I pretended to agonize over my answers, I tried to return to my memories of that glorious, victorious soccer game. But it was like trying to reenter a fantastic dream after waking up in the middle of the night — almost impossible to do.
Don’t get me wrong. It’s not that I live in the past a lot. Not at all. It’s just that I was bored. Actually, I was Bored.
It was January. I hate January. Hate. Loathe. Despise. February, too. The time between the holidays and springtime has got to be the longest, draggiest, most awful time of year.
It’s also the time of year when my dad died in a car accident, which is probably another reason I detest the season so much.
That was four years ago. There I was, this incredibly sad nine-year-old kid, staring out the window at the bare, winter trees, wondering how such a rotten thing could have happened.
I remember that I didn’t smile or even talk much after he died. Why bother? Then one day my best friend told me a joke, kind of a stupid joke, really. And I cracked up. Somehow, my laughter turned into tears. It was as though I were crying and laughing at the same time. Although it must have looked strange, it was actually a turning point. All the emotion I’d kept bottled up inside poured out that day. After that, I began to heal. Slowly.
Life went on, more or less. Of course, there was this gigantic hole in my life, where my father had been, but there wasn’t anything I could do about it. The next big change came when my mother, my twin sister, Anna, and I moved here to Stoneybrook, Connecticut.
At first I was extremely bummed. I missed my Long Island friends. I thought I’d never find kids as great in Stoneybrook.
But it turns out that some of the Stoneybrook kids are actually cool. I made friends fast enough. Joining the BSC helped a lot. (BSC stands for Baby-sitters Club. I’ll fill you in on that later.)
The sound of static filled the air, which meant that an announcement was about to come over the PA system. My classmates and I looked up expectantly from our papers.
“Eighth-grade classes have been canceled for the next two periods,” said the distinctive voice of Mrs. Downey, the school secretary.
“All right!” I cheered.
Mrs. Gonzalez frowned.
“All eighth-graders are to report to the gymnasium for health checks,” Mrs. Downey went on. “Seventh-graders will report during …”
I stopped listening. Health checks? What was this about? I raised my hand and Mrs. Gonzalez nodded at me. “What’s the matter?” I asked. “Is there some plague going around or something?” (Anna and I had watched a scary movie the night before. It was about a killer virus that almost wiped out the planet.)
“No,” Mrs. Gonzalez replied, smiling. “It’s just routine. Eye tests. Hearing. And a scoliosis check.”
“A what?” I asked.
“Scoliosis check. For curvature of the spine.”
I relaxed and settled into my chair as Mrs. Gonzalez began collecting the test papers. I already knew my eyes aren’t great. That’s why I wear glasses or contact lenses (depending on how I feel). I hear fine, and I stand up straight. No problems there.
If they’d been testing for allergies, that would have been a different story. Guess what I’m allergic to. Go ahead. Almost anything you’d answer would be correct. I’m allergic to … everything!
Well, not everything, but it seems that way sometimes. I’m sure if I landed on Mars I’d find some little Martian spore that would have me sniffling. The cosmos makes me sneeze.
Besides that, I also have asthma. I carry two inhalers, a regular one and a prescription one for really bad attacks. It’s a drag, but it could be worse, right? I don’t let it stop me from doing anything. And anyway, I’m stuck with it so there’s no sense complaining.
When science let out, I left the classroom and was swept up in the river of eighth-graders flowing down to the gym. I felt glad to be missing my boring health class and happy to let the crowd carry me along until I was inside the gym.
Testing stations had been set up all around the gym. Teachers tried to create order, directing the kids into different lines, scolding them to keep the noise level down. At the different stations, people in white medical jackets had already begun the testing.
Craning my neck above the heads of other kids, I searched for Anna. It was kind of like looking for myself, except not exactly. Although Anna and I are identical twins, we don’t look completely the same. Anna’s curly brown hair is short and mine is long. We have the same narrow face, pointy features, and large brown eyes. And Anna wears glasses or contacts, just like me.
I didn’t see her anywhere. Then I remembered that her orchestra group was on a field trip that day. Anna plays violin — lives to play violin — and she’s a member of the Stoneybrook Middle School orchestra. (That’s another difference between us. She’s a musician and I’m an athlete.)
For a moment, I worried. Would she miss being checked?
It didn’t really matter, though. As I mentioned, she already wears contacts or glasses. We know her hearing is fine — better than fine. All she has to do is hear a note to be able to play it. And I seriously doubted she had — what was it Mrs. Gonzalez had said? — scoliosis.
Across the gym I spotted a petite girl with a brown ponytail. I waved to her. It was Kristy Thomas, my neighbor and president of the BSC. Like me, she was waiting for her health check, standing in a crooked line of chattering kids. She noticed me and waved back. I
’d see her after school on the bus and then again later at the BSC meeting.
When my turn came for the eye test, the short, blonde doctor (or nurse, or whatever she was) found my name on a computer printout, wrote down “corrective lenses,” and sent me on to the next area.
A tall man in a white medical coat was sitting in front of some kind of electronic machine at a table. I had to put on headphones and tap either the right or the left one every time I heard a beep or boop in one of them. It was fun, like a game.
For the scoliosis test, I went to the girls’ locker room. (All the girls did.) I lifted my shirt up as he indicated and stood with my arms at my sides while a slim, dark-haired woman ran her hand down my spine and poked at my shoulder blades. It tickled a little.
“I’m going to lift your hair up, all right?” the woman said. “I need to get a better look at your neck and shoulders.”
“Sure,” I agreed. I didn’t remember having to do this at my old school. Maybe Anna and I’d been absent that day. Last year Mom had taken us out of school for a week to go to Disney World. Could my school have done the test then? Or maybe they simply didn’t run tests at my old school. Anyway, this was a new one on me.
“Can you lower your right shoulder for me?” the woman asked.
I tried lowering it. “Is that good enough?” I asked.
Instead of answering, she made another request. “Breathe deeply and make your back as straight as you can.”
I thought I had been standing straight, but I pulled in my stomach and tried to stand even straighter.
“Press your hands together and lean forward, please,” the woman requested.
I did, and she ran her hand along my spine again. As I hung there, bent over, it suddenly occurred to me that I had seen only a few other kids leaning forward.
Maybe I just hadn’t been paying attention.
“Okay, stand up,” the woman said. “You can put your shirt back down.” As I straightened, I noticed she was writing something on her printout. “Do you have any discomfort in your back?” she asked me.
“No. Never,” I replied. Right about then, I started feeling alarmed.
“How about when you sit for a long time?”
“I never sit for long,” I joked nervously as I tucked my shirt into my jeans.
The woman just kept looking at me expectantly.
“No, no pain,” I answered seriously. What was going on?
She tore a piece of paper from her pad, signed it, folded it, stapled it, and handed it to me. “What’s this?” I asked as I took it from her.
“It’s a note for you to show your parents.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, my voice climbing higher. “Do you think I have scoliosis?”
“I don’t know for sure,” she said calmly. “It’s merely a recommendation that you have a more thorough exam.”
“But I probably don’t have it, right?”
“I’m not an orthopedist, Abby,” she said, checking the printout on the clipboard for my name. “My job is to perform certain broad screening tests and recommend further testing if I think it’s needed.”
“Oh … well … I … no,” I sputtered, too upset to talk clearly. “They can test all they want, but … but … I’m fine.”
The woman glanced over my shoulder and I could tell she wanted to test the next person in line. In a daze, I moved away, out into the gym, my heart thundering like a race car engine.
Further testing. I didn’t like the sound of that one bit.
When I walked into BSC headquarters with Kristy Thomas, the only other person there was Claudia Kishi. She’s almost always there first, because we hold our meetings in her bedroom. Claudia has long, silky, black hair and expressive, dark, almond-shaped eyes (she’s Japanese-American).
Claudia is definitely cool. In fact, I’d say all my BSC pals rate high on my personal Abby Cool-Meter, but in very different ways.
For instance, Claudia scores a ten (on a scale of one to ten) for creativity. She’s very artistic and very original. The wild outfits she wears are her own creations. That day she had on multicolored, tie-dyed painter’s overalls she’d dyed herself over a blue, hand-beaded, long-sleeved shirt. Five colorful, bead-studded papier-mâché bracelets clattered softly on her wrist whenever she moved her arm.
I also give Claudia a ten for hospitality and generosity. She supplies snacks for everybody, at every meeting, in her own, original way. As I sat down on Claudia’s bed that day, something crunched beneath me. “Oops! Doritos!” Claudia giggled, as I leaned over and pulled a crushed bag of corn chips out from under the covers.
“You are too weird,” I said with a laugh, handing them to her. Claudia is a total junk food freak, but her parents don’t approve of her habit. That’s why she stashes the stuff all over her room.
She hides books, too — Nancy Drew mysteries. Claudia’s parents don’t approve of her passion for them, either. They don’t think mysteries are intellectual enough. I guess that’s because they’re used to dealing with Claudia’s older sister, Janine, who is an actual genius with a super-high IQ.
Claudia might be an artistic genius, but she’s definitely not a school genius. In fact, she’s had such a hard time in school that she’s been bumped back to the seventh grade. I’d be mortified if that happened to me, but Claudia seems okay about it.
“Where is everybody?” Kristy complained from her seat in Claudia’s director chair. (She always sits there.)
“It’s not even five-thirty,” I said, glancing at Claud’s digital clock.
“It’s five twenty-eight,” Kristy countered, frowning. “They have exactly two minutes left.”
Kristy and that clock! She demands that everyone arrive by the stroke of five-thirty. If you’re even a minute late, you get the Look from Kristy. You know that expression, “If looks could kill …”? Kristy’s Look probably could.
Kristy goes up and down the Cool-Meter. It goes up when she’s being funny and smart and a great friend; it drops when she’s being bossy, unbending, and crazed over her own club rules. (She sometimes makes the Cool-Meter seem like a roller coaster.)
I really like Kristy, but she makes me nuts, too. Anna suggested to me not long ago that my problem with Kristy is that we’re both leaders who think we should be in charge, so we clash. I have to give that more thought. I suppose it’s possible.
Kristy is petite and very athletic. She has brown hair and brown eyes. She doesn’t do a thing to enhance her looks, which are already quite nice. A baseball cap, sweatshirt, and jeans are her usual attire. No makeup or jewelry.
Kristy is always herself and doesn’t care what anyone thinks. I have to admire that. I’d say that no matter how I feel about her on a certain day she always rates an additional three points on the Cool-Meter for independence and self-reliance.
Also, I think it’s extremely cool that even though Kristy’s stepfather is a millionaire, Kristy is not the least bit stuck-up or snobby. Wealth doesn’t matter at all to her.
She didn’t start out rich. Just the opposite. Her father split right after Kristy’s little brother was born. Their mother was on her own then, supporting four kids — Kristy’s two older brothers (Charlie and Sam), Kristy, and her little brother (David Michael). Kristy’s mom is a super go-getter, like Kristy, so the family did all right. But things became a whole lot easier for them once Watson Brewer came on the scene. He’s the millionaire. When Kristy’s mother married him, the Thomases moved across town to his mansion.
Kristy and I are neighbors, but her house is much fancier than ours. It’s a lot noisier, too. Kristy’s mom and Watson adopted a little girl from Vietnam, whom they named Emily Michelle. (She’s two and a half now.) And Watson has two kids from his first marriage, Karen, who is seven, and Andrew, who is four. They spend every other month with their father. Sometimes there are seven kids in that house. Nannie, Kristy’s grandmother, lives there, too. She helps take care of Emily Michelle. With ten people going in different directions,
Kristy’s house can be a pretty hectic place.
“Five twenty-nine! Yesss!” Stacey McGill cheered as she hurried into the room. “Made it!”
Like Claudia, Stacey is a Cool-Meter ten. She’s originally from Manhattan, which may be one reason why we click. Long Island is only a half hour from the city, and there’s a lot of urban influence on Long Island style and personality (in my opinion, anyway).
Stacey landed here in Stoneybrook when her father’s company transferred him to Connecticut. Just when Stacey was adjusting and making friends (she and Claudia had become best friends), her dad’s company sent him back to the city. Saying good-bye was a bummer for her, but there was an even bigger, badder bummer waiting in Manhattan. That’s where her parents decided they needed a divorce.
So, Stacey came back to Stoneybrook with her mother, and she joined the BSC again. She still goes back to New York on some weekends and stays with her father. It keeps her city sophistication sharp.
Stacey has blonde, permed hair, amazing big blue eyes, and happening clothes. But that’s not why she rates. Style is what earns her a ten. By style I mean a way of being. Attitude. Maybe it’s self-confidence. Stacey is just naturally cool. And you can tell that she hasn’t been totally suburbanized yet. She still has “Manhattan” written all over her.
On the Cool-Meter I might even have to give Stacey extra bonus points for Coolness Under Stress. The stress in her case is diabetes. She has a very severe form of the disease and has to give herself insulin injections every day, plus watch her diet very carefully. She doesn’t let her diabetes stop her from doing anything, though, and she’s so upbeat most of the time that you’d never guess she was living with such a serious condition.
“It just now turned to five-thirty,” Mary Anne Spier said, coming into the room and pointing to Claudia’s clock. “I saw the numbers move.”
“You’re right,” Kristy agreed.
Mary Anne smiled and sat down cross-legged on Claudia’s bed.
My Cool-Meter registers major respect for Mary Anne. I’d have to call her personality Quiet Coolness. She doesn’t talk a lot, but when she does she usually has something sensible to say. Plus, Mary Anne is an excellent listener. She really hears you. She’s not just sitting there quietly daydreaming while you talk. (I’ve noticed that a lot of people tend to do that.) She’s actually thinking about what you’re saying. Big coolness points there.
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