Starring the Baby-Sitters Club!

by Ann M. Martin

  Then, as we approached Cokie’s first solo line in the song, a wonderful, hideous idea came to me. I sang along with Cokie, right through her line. And through every other line Cokie was supposed to sing alone. I did a wonderful job. I knew Cokie’s part as well as my own.

  “What are you doing?” she hissed at one point during the song.

  “I’m sorry,” I hissed back. “I’m just all confused. You know, a little fuzzy about my material.”

  Cokie tossed her head and continued the song. So did I. Her parts and my parts. At the end of Act II, Mr. Cheney pulled me aside backstage. “You’re doing splendidly, Kristy, splendidly. I’m very proud of you. But you fell down a little during ‘Ugg-a-Wugg.’ You’ll have to work on that tomorrow.”

  “Yes, sir. Sorry,” I said.

  When the curtain parted and the final act began, I barely felt nervous. Just exhilarated. I was having a great time. The time of my life.

  I don’t know if I’ve ever told this to anyone before, but I don’t like to be the center of attention. At least I don’t think I do. I’m not shy; not like Mary Anne. It’s just that people so often seem to need me. I’m better at being a helper and quietly following along with things than I am at standing out and saying, “I’m here! Pay attention to me!” Not that I follow the crowd, either. I do things my own way, but I usually do them quietly. And when my parents (I mean my mom and my dad, not my mom and my stepfather) are having problems I’m there for them to lean on. When my brother is upset about the divorce I’m there for him to lean on. When Mary Anne is having trouble with Logan I’m there for her to lean on. See? I’m not a follower, but I’m in the background a lot of the time. And I like it that way. Or I thought I liked it that way.

  Which was one reason I began to feel nervous about the opening night performance. Who am I to want to shine? I asked myself. Why did I set myself up to be the center of attention? (Okay, Kristy was the real center of attention, but I did have a leading part in the play.) Why had I done this to myself? I should have stayed in the background. I’m usually needed in the background. I’m good at being there.

  Basically, I talked myself into being extra nervous for opening night. Even though the dress rehearsal went fine, I decided that maybe I should skip lunch that day. Then in the afternoon I realized I was a teeny bit queasy. So I didn’t eat a snack when I came home from school. And the queasiness did not go away. I worried more and more about puking onstage, so of course I didn’t eat supper, either.

  By the time Mary Anne and I had returned to SMS to get ready for the performance, I felt as if I were going to faint. I hadn’t intended to tell that to anyone, but when I was talking to Kristy, it slipped out. And Kristy had a fit. She told Mary Anne to do something about me.

  “Did you even eat breakfast this morning?” asked Mary Anne as she marched me off to the vending machine. “You didn’t, did you? I don’t remember seeing you eat anything.”

  “I had a rice cake,” I said truthfully. “You were in the bathroom then.”

  Mary Anne grunted.

  We stopped in front of the machine and looked over the possibilities.

  “You should eat something with sugar in it,” said Mary Anne.

  “No way. I’m not that desperate.”

  “All right. Then how about peanut butter crackers? They’ll fill you up and they’re full of protein.”

  “Probably chemicals and additives, too.”

  “One package isn’t going to kill you. Besides, do you want to faint tonight?”

  “No. I want to be a star.”

  “You will be, you know,” said Mary Anne. “You keep joking about that, but Mr. Cheney cast you as Wendy for a reason. And you’re doing a great job. You haven’t even rewritten J. M. Barrie’s lines lately.”

  “And when I did,” I replied, watching the package drop into the bin, “I never said anything as wild as crocabunga.”

  Mary Anne laughed. “Now eat your crackers, calm down, and we’ll go back to the stage. I’ll help you with your makeup.”

  The crackers tasted chemically and felt gritty, but I ate all of them, and had to admit when I finished, that I felt better. I put on my costume and Mallory checked me over. Then I put on my makeup. I was standing in front of a mirror between Kristy and Stacey. Mary Anne was behind us.

  “Feel better?” Kristy asked me.

  “What’s wrong?” Stacey wanted to know.

  “My stomach. I didn’t eat all day.” I watched Stacey’s eyes grow wide, and knew what she was thinking. “My stomach is fine now. I needed to eat. I am not going to barf, Stace.” Stacey cannot stand barfing or anything remotely connected to it. “I was nervous, that’s all.”

  “You know what?” said Kristy a moment later. “This is so silly, but I wish my father were here tonight. I wish he could see me.”

  “That’s not silly,” said Stacey.

  “I mean, I haven’t seen him in years. Why should tonight suddenly be so important? My mom’s here.”

  “I wish my dad were here, too,” I said. “He’d never have believed it. Me, onstage. I didn’t even tell him about the play, though. He’d feel bad he was missing it. I’ll send him the program, maybe.”

  “Boy. Now I feel lucky,” said Stacey. “I was complaining because my dad’s going to be here tonight, but he won’t stay with us. He’s staying in a motel. I guess I should be glad he’s here at all.”

  The three of us looked at each other in the mirror. I felt a sob rise into my throat. “Don’t cry, you guys. We cannot cry. Not now. Our makeup will run and we’ll have to start over.”

  So we hugged each other instead.

  The hug fortified me. (It was much better than crackers.) When Mr. Cheney gathered Jackie and Barry and me so we could wait to make our entrance, I didn’t have a heart attack or faint or barf or anything. I walked onto the stage and was instantly transported into the story of Peter Pan. The audience was already transported. They had found themselves looking at Claud’s set when the curtains parted, and now the three Darling children were before them. The audience was in an English nursery decades ago. So was I. All thoughts of suggesting that Peter learn to sew or that the Lost Boys learn to cook left my mind. I wasn’t there to teach the audience a lesson. I was there to present to them a fairy tale with which they were already familiar and which was comforting because it was familiar. And for those children watching it for the first time, well, I had to hope they would enjoy the magic and drama and energy, and learn from some other story that boys can cook and sew as well as girls, and girls can have adventures as exciting as boys’.

  Those thoughts swarmed through my head in, like, a tenth of a second. Trust me, I could not think about much of anything aside from the play. I concentrated so hard, people could probably see me concentrating. At first. But by the time we had finished singing “Tender Shepherd” I was caught up in the story and I just floated through it. I was the story.

  I was Wendy.

  And guess what. I liked being the center of attention. I liked making the audience happy. I liked making the children laugh.

  When the curtains closed at the end of the last act, I burst into tears. I was happy and sad and relieved and confused.

  “Prepare for curtain calls!” said Mr. Cheney, harried as usual. “You were splendid tonight, kids. Every single one of you.”

  Through my tears I glimpsed the curtain parting again. “Go on, Dawn,” said Stacey. “You’re first.”

  I returned to the stage, alone this time. The audience was clapping so loudly that the sound echoed off the walls. Somehow I caught sight of Mary Anne in that huge crowd, and she waved to me. Then I moved to one end of the stage while the rest of the cast took their bows. When we were assembled in one large group, Mr. Cheney took a bow.

  I was about to turn and lead everyone off into the wings when I saw someone from the audience make his way up the steps to the stage, and then over to Kristy.

  It was Bart. He handed her flowers and she burst into tears.<
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  Charlie Thomas followed Bart with more flowers for Kristy and a small bouquet for Karen, too.

  Once again I almost left the stage, but Barry Soeder grabbed my hand and pulled me back. Mary Anne’s father, my stepfather, was approaching. He handed me a dozen roses.

  “Congratulations, Dawn,” he said. “I’m so proud of you.” Then he slipped something else into my hand. I looked down. It was a videocassette. “I taped the play, the entire play,” Richard told me. “You can send this to your dad. Then he won’t miss your performance after all.”

  When the curtain closed for the last time, backstage became a sea of crying, hugging, laughing cast members who were soon joined by their crying, hugging, laughing families and the crying, hugging, laughing crew. Sam kissed Stacey in front of everyone. Bart kissed Kristy. Jackie shouted, “Crocabunga!” (which he had not done during the play). And Jessi let her little sister try on the crocodile costume.

  When I went to bed that night, I dreamed of roses and clapping hands.

  Well, it’s over. And I mean, really over. Peter Pan has opened and closed. The scenery has been taken down and put away. So have the costumes, except for the special ones like Nana and the crocodile which were rented from someplace in Stamford. They were returned the Monday after closing night. I wish they were a little closer at hand. I got sort of attached to them in the two nights I wore them. After all my griping, after my temper tantrums and bad moods, you know what I discovered? That I really did want to be in the play. I should have taken up Mr. Cheney’s offer to be a pirate from the start. Plus, I guess it’s true. I am a great dancer, but maybe I am not such a hot singer or actress. Yet. Oh, well. Live and learn. In the end, I made up with all my friends, and had a terrific time playing Nana and the croc. I’m only sorry Pete Black had to break his nose in order for me to learn these lessons. But he says there will be other plays.

  Pete has his head screwed on straight, no matter what Kristy’s opinion of him might be.

  Anyway, as you can see, I finished the article. I handed it in to Emily Bernstein, and a couple of weeks later it was printed in our school paper. When I first sat down to write the rough draft, my friends gave me a hand once again. I asked them for their final thoughts and observations. This is what they wrote:

  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 © 1992 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, December 1992

  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 978-0-545-63320-8