Abby's Un-Valentine Read online

  Contents

  Title Page

  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

  If everyone is going to make such a big deal out of Valentine’s Day, then why isn’t it a real holiday? Why don’t we have the day off? Why do we have to go to school? You want to show some real heart, close school for the day.

  When Kristy Thomas, our fearless leader and president of the Baby-sitters Club (also known as the BSC — more about that later), runs for President of the United States, I’m going to suggest that as one of the planks in her platform.

  As it is, Valentine’s Day is just an excuse for candy and universal silliness. The candy I don’t mind, but the silliness I could live without. When I realized February 14th was almost upon us, I hoped Stoneybrook Middle School, or SMS, would not descend into valentine madness the way my school on Long Island did. But I quickly learned that the red-heart syndrome infested Connecticut as well as New York. At least two weeks before the date, the memos on the bulletin board next to the principal’s office appeared on red paper (including a memo about the school’s Valentine Day’s Dance, on red paper cut into a heart shape, in case we missed the point). Teachers began to decorate their classrooms with paper heart chains strung from one end of the room to the other. Really fanatic teachers even taught about Valentine’s Day. Dolly One (one of two teachers at SMS with more than a passing resemblance to Dolly Parton), also known as Mrs. Bernhardt, my history teacher, gave us a little lesson on Saint Valentine, who may or may not have been a mythical figure.

  Mythical or not, he clearly had some influence in Stoneybrook. I briefly considered volunteering to do an extra-credit report for Dolly One, exploding the whole Valentine’s Day myth and revealing it for the overly sentimental, overly celebrated advertising campaign that it really is.

  But who wants to be a Valentine Scrooge? Not even I, Abigail Stevenson of Stoneybrook, Connecticut.

  So I kept quiet and tried not to remember my unhappy history with V-day — like the year, back on Long Island, I decided not to waste my time sending valentines to my friends. We used to stick Valentine’s Day cards through the vents in our lockers, which most people at our school decorated for the big day, turning them into big valentine mailboxes. I opened my locker at the end of the day and found it full of valentines. I felt really crummy and totally embarrassed.

  And then there was the time, when I was much, much younger, when Anna, my twin sister, and I bought a box of valentine candy for Mom and Dad. It was my favorite kind of chocolate candy. I loved the heart-shaped box, and I kept opening it to stare at the chocolates. Then I took just one chocolate. And then another.

  You know what happened next, don’t you? You’re right. I ate the whole box.

  Mom and Dad found out because by dinner that night I had a major stomachache. They thought it was pretty funny. My father said, “Abby, next time save a little to share with the rest of us.” But Anna was furious with me for weeks, even when I paid back her half of the money we’d used to buy the candy. And let her have the heart-shaped box.

  That kind of candy, in a heart-shaped box, is still my favorite.

  And then there was the V-day in fifth grade, when Perk Watkins decided he wanted me to be his valentine. He followed me around, gave me a bag of those little candy hearts with sayings like “Be Mine” and “Forever Yours” printed on them, and made me the laughingstock of the whole school. Fortunately, I came down with a bad cold and had to stay home for a week. When I went back, Perk had transferred his attentions to someone else.

  So you can see that Valentine’s Day and I are not made for each other. I do not want a BF (boyfriend). I do not want to play kissyface in the halls the way some people do. Although some people (Mary Anne Spier, the secretary of the BSC, for instance) are dating genuinely nice, mature guys who don’t say gross or stupid things and are fun to hang around with, I have noticed that most guys my age are, well, a little immature. So, while BFs are fine in theory — especially if, like Mary Anne and her BF, Logan, you truly enjoy each other’s company — I’ve decided to wait on the whole deal, to give the guys a chance to grow up a little.

  Meanwhile, I have plenty to do. I have athletics, including soccer, only the most perfect sport in the world (INVENTED BY MEN, PERFECTED BY WOMEN, as one of my favorite T-shirts says). I am a member of the aforementioned Baby-sitters Club, which means I do a lot of baby-sitting. I have schoolwork, which, since I am an average student, keeps me on my toes. And, of course, I have my family and my allergies and my asthma.

  Allergies? Asthma? How can such things keep you busy? Easy, when life makes you sneeze. I travel with an inhaler in case I have an asthma attack. And I have to be careful because a bad attack could send me to the hospital (it’s happened a couple of times). I’m planning on outgrowing all this, but meanwhile I am allergic to cat litter, milk, shellfish, and probably dozens of things I don’t even know about yet. Which brings us back to February and V-day. The one good thing about the day is that it falls during a month when pollen doesn’t plug the air, when the pollution count is generally low, and when the things that make me sneeze do not rule (at least, not so much). It means that I can wear my contacts instead of my glasses because I don’t have to deal with watery eyes. It means that I can smell things (chocolate, not flowers).

  So as long as no one sends me any valentine flowers, I’m willing to admit that the day has a good point.

  I was thinking about all these things as I slammed my locker at the end of that Wednesday, not quite two weeks before V-day, and paused to admire its un-valentine decorated surface.

  “A penny for your thoughts,” said a vaguely familiar voice. I looked up to see Ross Brown, who has a locker at the other end of the hall.

  “Prices have gone up,” I joked. “Didn’t you know that? I charge a lot more for my thoughts.”

  Ross laughed.

  I smiled. Not everyone appreciates my sense of humor.

  “Hey, Ross. Hi, Abby,” said Claudia Kishi, approaching us with her best friend, Stacey McGill.

  “Hi,” Ross said. To me he said, “See you later, Abby. And next time, I’ll be sure to make you an offer you can’t refuse.”

  I laughed.

  “Huh?” said Claudia.

  “Just a dumb joke,” I explained. “What’s up?”

  “We’re going over to Claud’s to do homework before the BSC meeting,” Stacey said. “Want to come?”

  I thought about it. I remembered the gruesome math homework with which we’d been presented earlier, remembered also that Stacey is a math whiz, and said, “Sure.”

  “You can call your mom from my room,” Claudia offered. Claudia is the vice-president of the BSC. She has her own phone line, which is the reason the BSC meets in her room. But I’ll explain all the details in a little while.

  “I can tell Anna,” I said. “She has orchestra practice. We can stop by on our way out.”

  So we did. Anna was doing something to the bow of her violin when I waved to her from the door of the practice room. Anna and I are identical twins (I am eight minutes younger than she is). We both have pointed faces; curly, dark brown hair (Anna wears hers a little shorter than mine, but not
much); the same deep brown eyes; and even the same way of talking. Besides Anna’s slightly shorter hair, the only other outward difference is that Anna wears her glasses more often than I do. Of course, we differ in plenty of other ways too. Anna’s musical, and I can’t carry a tune in a bucket. Anna has a case of scoliosis and has to wear a brace to correct the curve of her spine. (You can’t really tell.) Anna’s not allergic to anything — except sports. (Her idea of athletic endeavor is to wish me luck before a soccer game.) I joined the BSC and Anna didn’t, because she wanted to concentrate on her music. Those are just a few of the ways you could tell us apart.

  But side by side, we look pretty, well, identical. In fact, we used to get a big kick out of switching with each other when we were kids. And, needless to say, one of our favorite videos is the old Disney movie with Hayley Mills The Parent Trap, about twins who switch places.

  I told Anna my big plans for the afternoon and she nodded. “I’ll be home before Mom, so I’ll let her know,” she said.

  “Thanks,” I replied. I looked around at all the musical instruments and added, “Have a good workout.”

  Anna grinned. “You mean practice? Thanks.”

  I grinned back. “Whatever.”

  I waved and left. Anna doesn’t always appreciate my sense of humor, even though we are twins. But it’s nice when she does.

  Of course, Anna loves V-day.

  But then, nobody’s perfect … not even my twin sister.

  The first thing Claudia said when Mary Anne walked into the meeting at 5:26 that afternoon was, “Has Logan asked you to the Valentine’s Day Dance yet?”

  Claudia, Stacey, and I had just finished putting away our homework, and Claudia was shifting into her catering mode. By this I mean she was opening drawers, peering behind the headboard of her bed, and excavating secret stashes of junk food from other places around her room. Claudia is a junk food fanatic, something her parents unfortunately don’t understand. They consider junk food on the level of the Nancy Drew mysteries that Claudia loves to read, so Claudia squirrels books and bags of chocolate away, where her parents won’t see them.

  As long as Claud eats her vegetables and doesn’t pork out, I don’t understand what the problem is. But then, Claudia’s parents are stricter than my mom. Compared to most parents, my mom gives me a lot of freedom.

  That’s because Anna and I had to grow up fast four years ago, when our father was killed in a car accident. It happened very suddenly. One morning I had a father and by that afternoon, I didn’t. It changed the way I looked at the world. For a long time, I couldn’t laugh. I felt that by laughing I might betray him.

  It’s better now. But I still miss him. We all do.

  Anyway, Mom works long hours at her new job at a publishing house in New York City (which is one of the reasons we moved to Stoneybrook — Mom couldn’t take the long, long commute on the Long Island Railroad). She trusts Anna and me with a lot more independence than most of the other kids I know who are the same age.

  Of course, even without parental influence my junk food intake would be limited to some extent by my allergies. But I had no problem with the salt-and-vinegar chips Claudia tossed in my direction. I began to munch blissfully.

  Mary Anne blushed, but she didn’t look surprised by Claudia’s abrupt greeting. “Yes, Logan’s asked me to the dance,” she said. “Last night. He called.”

  Kristy frowned. I sensed that I might have a fellow valentine-phobe. She cleared her throat, looked at Claudia’s clock, and sighed.

  The clock now read 5:27. I knew the sigh meant Kristy wanted to start the meeting, but she couldn’t rag anybody for being late yet. Our meetings don’t start until 5:30.

  Sharp. By Madame President’s decree.

  5:28.

  Claudia passed a bag of pretzels to Stacey and began distributing Hershey’s Kisses wrapped in red foil. She unwrapped a Kiss for herself carefully, saving the foil.

  “Art?” I inquired.

  5:29.

  Kristy straightened in her chair and cleared her throat.

  Jessica Ramsey and Shannon Kilbourne came through the door.

  “We’re heeere,” sang Jessi, giving Kristy a great big smile.

  I won’t say Kristy looked crestfallen, but she did look a little disappointed. She enjoys those occasions when she can exercise her authority.

  But she made up for it by the way she rapped out, just as the clock rolled over to 5:30, “This meeting of the BSC will come to order.”

  “Art,” Claudia agreed, nodding at me and taking another Kiss from the bag before passing it to Shannon and Jessi.

  Claudia is an artist.

  But wait. I guess if I were an artist, you’d find the picture I’ve made so far pretty confusing. So I’ll tell you all you need to know about the BSC, starting with Kristy (that should please her).

  But then, the BSC started with Kristy. It was one of her Brilliant Ideas. She was inspired by watching her mother call several baby-sitters one afternoon, trying to find someone to watch Kristy’s younger brother, David Michael. What if a person could call one number and reach several baby-sitters at once, Kristy thought.

  The next day, she put her thoughts into action, recruiting Mary Anne, her next-door neighbor and best friend, and Claudia, another good friend, who lived across the street. In no time, business was (baby) booming, and the BSC grew and grew. We now have six regular members, plus two associate members and two honorary members. All of us are thirteen and in the eighth grade at SMS except Shannon, who goes to Stoneybrook Day School, a private school, and Mal and Jessi, who are eleven and in sixth grade. Regular members are required to attend every meeting unless prevented by an emergency or a BSC job. Associate members don’t have to attend meetings, but they are trusty, tried-and-true backup when we have more work than we can handle. Honorary members are inactive, usually because they’ve moved away.

  We meet Monday, Wednesday, and Friday afternoons, from five-thirty until six at Claudia’s. Clients know that if they call us during meeting times, they’ll reach six reliable, experienced baby-sitters. Since Claudia has her own phone number, the line isn’t busy with family calls (and Claud’s family isn’t prevented from using the phone while we are meeting). When a client calls, Mary Anne checks the record book to see who is available and we schedule the baby-sitting appointment.

  We pay dues every Monday. The club uses the money to pay Kristy’s older brother Charlie for gas (he usually drives Kristy and me to meeting — I live two houses down the street from Kristy), to contribute to Claudia’s refreshments fund, to splurge on the occasional pizza party, and to keep our Kid-Kits stocked.

  Kid-Kits are another Kristy invention. Every club member has one: a box decorated according to our individual style (my latest Kid-Kit is an old soccer shoe box, with the picture of the soccer shoes outlined in glitter). We fill the boxes with games, toys, books, puzzles (new and hand-me-down), stickers, crayons, and anything else we think might interest a cranky, bored, or shy baby-sitting charge. Our Kid-Kits don’t go along on every job. We use them as secret weapons when kids might have cabin fever from being stuck inside by the weather or a bad cold, or to win the trust of a new kid when we sit for new clients.

  The record book is Mary Anne’s responsibility as club secretary. In it, she writes down all our baby-sitting appointments, our other appointments (such as Jessi’s dance classes), and all the pertinent information about our clients — names, addresses, rates paid, and important details: who is allergic to milk, for example, or who might have developed a phobia about cats. Amazingly, Mary Anne has never, ever made a mistake in that record book.

  Kristy also instituted the BSC notebook, in which we keep an ongoing journal of our jobs. It’s a pain to write up what happened on each job, but it’s fun to read — and useful. The past experiences of other members can be very helpful in solving problems when they arise.

  Kristy is the president of the BSC not only because she came up with the idea, but also because
she likes to be in charge of things. She is extremely organized and very opinionated. With Kristy, the main rule is that things are done her way. It is often difficult (although not quite impossible) to convince her to change her mind.

  Like me, Kristy had to do some fast growing up, not because her father died, but because he walked out one day when David Michael was a baby. That left Kristy, David Michael, who is seven now, Sam (now fourteen) and Charlie (now sixteen) (their two older brothers), and Kristy’s mom on their own.

  It wasn’t easy. They all had to work hard, and the Kids took on a lot of responsibility. But they managed it. Then, in a fairy-tale-like moment, Kristy’s mom fell in love with Watson Brewer. I don’t know if Watson qualifies as a prince among men, but he turned out to be very nice, and a millionaire. When he and Kristy’s mom got married, the Thomases moved to the Brewer mansion across town.

  Now Kristy is a member of a very large blended family. Fortunately, the mansion is large enough to hold everybody. “Everybody” includes Kristy; her brothers and mother and Watson; Watson’s two kids from his first marriage, Karen, who is seven, and Andrew, four, every other month; Emily Michelle, who is two and a half and who Kristy’s family adopted from Vietnam; Nannie, Kristy’s maternal grandmother, who joined the family to help keep things running smoothly; a Bernese mountain dog puppy named Shannon; a guide-dog-in-training puppy named Scout; a new kitten named Pumpkin (their cranky old cat, Boo-Boo, recently went to the Great Mouse Hunting Grounds in the Sky); and even, according to Karen (who has a vivid imagination), the ghost of Ben Brewer, one of Watson’s ancestors.

  Naturally, Kristy has to speak loudly and firmly to make herself heard. Some people think she is bossy, but I suspect they are the disorganized people of the world, who don’t know how to get things done. She is stubborn, though. She even argues with me!

  It may be that Kristy has another reason for speaking up: She is the shortest person in our class. Kristy has brown hair, medium-fair skin, and big brown eyes. She usually wears what we call her uniform: jeans, a sweatshirt or pullover sweater, and running shoes. Her clothes are about comfort, not style. She doesn’t want to waste her time on things she considers frivolous. Kristy is a decent student and one of those people who aren’t just sports fans but sports fanatics (one of her best qualities, in my opinion).