Karen's Good-Bye Read online

  The author gratefully acknowledges

  Stephanie Calmenson

  for her help

  with this book.

  Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  1 Amanda

  2 One-Ones and Two-Twos

  3 Hannie’s Announcement

  4 A Party for Amanda

  5 Lovely Ladies

  6 The New Family

  7 Invitations

  8 The Mommy Blanket

  9 Pictures

  10 Surprise!

  11 Friends 4-Ever

  12 Coming Apart

  13 Moving Day

  14 Good-bye, Amanda!

  15 Vampires?

  16 New Neighbors

  17 Waiting and Waiting

  18 The Spies

  19 Melody

  20 Old Friends, New Friends

  About the Author

  Also Available

  Copyright

  Amanda

  SPLASH! Guess where I am. I am in Amanda Delaney’s gigundo big swimming pool!

  “I’m the Little Mermaid!” I said. “I am going to hunt for treasures!” I held my nose and —

  “Wait. Who will I be?” asked Amanda.

  “You can be my friend, Flounder,” I said. “Your job is to watch out for the … the shark! The shark is after us!” I shouted.

  “Eeek!” yelled Amanda. We were yelling and giggling and racing around the pool.

  “Take it easy, girls,” said Mrs. Delaney.

  “Yes, Mommy,” said Amanda.

  Hi! I am not really the Little Mermaid. (You probably guessed that.) I am Karen Brewer. I am visiting my daddy’s house this weekend. Amanda lives across the street and one house down from Daddy.

  When I visit Daddy, I play mostly with Hannie Papadakis. She is one of my two best friends. (Nancy Dawes is my other best friend. Together we are the Three Musketeers!) But today was Sunday and Hannie was visiting her grandma.

  I do not play with Amanda much when Hannie is around. Hannie does not like Amanda at all. She thinks Amanda is a snob. And I guess she is a little.

  I might turn into a snob, too, if I lived in a house like Amanda’s. First of all, right in the front hall is a real fountain. It is shaped like a fish standing on its tail. The fish spits water into a little pool. (I think the fountain is funny!) In the backyard are two tennis courts and the swimming pool. The pool is bright blue, with two sets of stairs, a water slide, and a diving board!

  That is not all. Amanda has a white Persian cat named Priscilla. She goes around telling everyone in the world how her cat cost four hundred dollars. That makes Hannie so, so mad.

  But I get along fine with Amanda. Even if she does say snobby things sometimes. (I ignore her.) And even if she is a little older than me. (I’m seven. Amanda is eight.)

  “I guess we scared the shark away,” said Amanda. “Now what should we do?”

  “Let’s have a penny hunt!” I said. Mrs. Delaney always keeps a cup of pennies at the side of the pool for us.

  We each took a handful and dropped them into the water.

  “On your mark. Get set. Go!” I called.

  We ducked underwater and scooped up as many pennies as we could hold. Then we put them at the side of the pool and ducked down again. We kept going until no pennies were left.

  “Let’s see who got the most,” said Amanda.

  We each reached for the same pile of pennies.

  “Those are my pennies,” said Amanda.

  “No they’re not. They’re my pennies!” I said.

  Amanda and I looked at each other. Then we started giggling. We had put all our pennies in the same place.

  “I won!” we shouted together.

  “Hey, your lips are turning blue,” I said. “You look like the Slimy Monster From the Sea!”

  “Your lips are blue, too,” said Amanda.

  I really was feeling cold. That is because the sun was going down. Uh-oh. If the sun was going down, it meant it was getting late. And if it was getting late, it meant that Mommy would be coming to take me and my little brother, Andrew (he’s almost five), back to her house.

  “I’ve got to go,” I said. I grabbed my things and ran to Daddy’s.

  One-Ones and Two-Twos

  Honk! Honk! I got back to Daddy’s and dried off just in time. Mommy was there to take Andrew and me back to her house.

  “ ’Bye! See you in two weeks!” we said to everyone at Daddy’s house.

  I guess you are wondering why Mommy and Daddy live in different houses. Well, I will tell you.

  It started a long time ago when Andrew and I were one-ones. We lived in one house with one mommy and one daddy.

  But then Mommy and Daddy decided they did not want to be married anymore. It had nothing to do with Andrew or me. They love both of us a lot. But they did not love each other anymore. So Mommy and Daddy got divorced.

  Then Mommy married a man named Seth. He is our stepfather. Mommy and Seth live in a little house not far from Daddy in Stoneybrook, Connecticut. That’s where Andrew and I live most of the time. A little house is just fine because the only people in it are Mommy, Seth, Andrew, and me.

  Oh, yes. There are three animals. There’s Midgie, Seth’s dog, and Rocky, Seth’s cat, and Emily Junior, my pet rat.

  Daddy got married again, too. He married a woman named Elizabeth. She is our stepmother. Daddy and Elizabeth live in a huge mansion. Andrew and I live there every other weekend and for two weeks in the summer. It’s a good thing the house is so big. An awful lot of people live there.

  These are the people at the big house: Daddy, Elizabeth, and Elizabeth’s kids (our stepbrothers and stepsisters). They are Charlie and Sam, who are so old they go to high school; David Michael, who is seven; and Kristy, who is thirteen. Kristy is one of my most favorite, favorite people. Sometimes she baby-sits for Andrew and me. She is a very good baby-sitter. She even started a business with her friends called The Baby-sitters Club. Kristy is the president.

  Wait. I am not finished. There are more people at the big house. Emily Michelle is my adopted sister. Daddy and Elizabeth adopted her from a faraway place called Vietnam. She’s two and a half. And I like her even if she did take my place as the littlest girl in the house. (I named my rat after her.)

  Then there is Nannie, Elizabeth’s mother. (She is my stepgrandmother.) She came to help take care of Emily Michelle. But really she helps take care of everyone. I love Nannie!

  There are animals at the big house, too. There’s Shannon, David Michael’s puppy. There’s Boo-Boo, Daddy’s fat, mean, old cat. There’s Goldfishie. That’s Andrew’s fish. And Crystal Light the Second. She is my fish.

  So Andrew and I have two houses, two families, two sets of pets. And because we do not like to carry a lot of stuff back and forth, we have two of almost everything else. I have two bicycles. I have two stuffed cats. (Goosie lives at the little house, Moosie lives at the big house.) I have two sets of clothes, including two pairs of pink sneakers and two unicorn shirts. I even ripped my special blanket, Tickly, in half so I could have two pieces — one for each house.

  This is why I call us two-twos. (I thought of that name after my teacher, Ms. Colman, read my class a book called Jacob Two-Two Meets the Hooded Fang.)

  Would I want to be a one-one again? Sometimes, like when something I need is at one house and I am at the other. Or when I am at the big house and I miss the people at the little house.

  But mostly I like being a two-two. I have the most gigundoly wonderful family there ever was!

  Hannie’s Announcement

  It was a rainy Wednesday morning. Yuck! I pulled up my rain hood and hurried into Stoneybrook Academy.

  “See you later, Mommy!” I called.

&
nbsp; “Thanks for the ride, Mrs. Engle,” said Nancy.

  Sometimes Nancy and I ride to school together. Nancy lives next door to Mommy’s house.

  Nancy and Hannie and I are all in second grade. Our teacher, Ms. Colman, is the best there is. You see, I am the youngest in my class because I skipped. So sometimes I forget things. Like I get excited and forget that we are not supposed to yell in class. Ms. Colman does not get mad. She just says, “Indoor voice, please, Karen.”

  Or I forget to wear my glasses. I have two pairs. Blue for reading and pink for the rest of the time (except when I am sleeping). If Ms. Colman sees me squinting, she taps her own glasses to remind me to put mine on.

  And sometimes I’m a show-off, like when I kept winning spelling bees. Ms. Colman did not embarrass me in front of the whole class. She just pulled me aside and talked to me quietly about being a good winner.

  You want to know something? I think that I would get excited and yell and forget to put my glasses on and act like a show-off even if I had not skipped a grade. That’s just the way I am.

  Nancy, Hannie, and I were early, so we got to talk before class started.

  “Guess what! I have a Surprising Announcement to make!” said Hannie. (That is what Ms. Colman says when she has special news. And it is usually good news.)

  “Hurray! What is it?” I said. I love Surprising Announcements.

  “Amanda Delaney’s family is moving!” said Hannie. Her smile was about a mile wide. Remember — she and Amanda are mortal enemies.

  I was too upset to say anything. No one had told me the Delaneys were moving.

  “Where are they going?” asked Nancy.

  “They’re going to a place called Lawrenceville,” said Hannie.

  “That’s not very far from here,” said Nancy.

  “Too bad,” said Hannie. “Amanda is going to be more of a snob than ever. Her new house is even bigger than the one she lives in now.”

  “Good morning, class,” said Ms. Col- man. “Everyone please be seated.”

  I was glad it was time to go to our seats. And I was extra glad that I did not have to sit next to Hannie. Hannie and Nancy and I used to sit together in the back row. That was before I got my glasses. Then Ms. Colman put me up front with Natalie Springer and Ricky Torres. (Ricky is my husband. We got married once at recess.) Ricky and Natalie wear glasses, too.

  It really was a good thing that I did not have to sit next to Hannie now. When we sat together we used to pass notes to each other. If I wrote a note now, it would be a mean note. It would say,

  But I would not want to send that note. I would not want Hannie to know she made me feel bad.

  But I did not turn around once all morning. And at recess I did not play with Hannie Papadakis!

  A Party for Amanda

  “Rise and shine, Moosie!” I said. It was Saturday morning at the big house. I usually love waking up at the big house. But today something was making me sad.

  “I remember,” I said to Moosie. “Amanda is moving away.”

  I had talked to Amanda on the phone the night before. I promised to visit her first thing in the morning.

  I put my clothes on really fast and went down to the kitchen. I ate about three bites of Krispy Krunchies cereal.

  “See you later!” I called to my big-house family. Then I hurried over to Amanda’s. She was up in her room, on her gigundo bed with the white lace canopy. Her cat, Priscilla, was keeping her company.

  “Hi,” she said gloomily.

  “What should we play?” I asked. (I tried to sound super cheerful.)

  “Maybe we should practice saying good-bye to each other,” said Amanda with a sigh.

  “No way! I hate good-byes,” I said.

  Here’s how many good-byes I’ve said in my life. (And I’m only seven.)

  — I say good-bye to Mommy and Seth and Emily Junior every other Friday when I go to Daddy’s.

  — I say good-bye to Daddy and Kristy and all the people at the big house every other Sunday when I go back to Mommy’s.

  — I had to say good-bye to David Michael’s dog, Louie. That is because he got so old, he had to be put to sleep.

  — I had to say good-bye to my first goldfish, Crystal Light. She died.

  — And now I am going to have to say good-bye to Amanda because she is moving. Boo!

  Amanda was asking me something. “Do you want to see a picture of my new house?” She was already getting it from her dresser.

  “Wow!” I said when I looked at the picture. It was about twice the size of Daddy’s house. And his house is a mansion!

  “It’s really pretty inside. The front hallway is marble. Marble is really expensive, you know,” said Amanda.

  (Amanda was being snobby. So I ignored her.)

  “And Granny and Grandpa live nearby. So I will get to see them a lot,” continued Amanda. “But I still do not want to leave this house. I do not want to say good-bye to my friends, or my teacher, or my room, or the neighborhood, or anything.”

  Amanda looked like she was going to cry. I had to do something. Fast.

  “Moving will not to be so bad. Really. We just have to do a few things to make it easier,” I said. “Do you have paper and Magic Markers? We will make a list.”

  Amanda went to her desk. She had paper every color in the rainbow, with Magic Markers to match.

  I picked pink paper and a purple marker. At the top of the paper, I wrote:

  Right away, we thought of three things to put on our list:

  I had one more idea. But I was not going to write it down. It would be a surprise. Anyway, I had to ask Daddy and Elizabeth first. But I was sure they would say yes.

  In my head I wrote down:

  Lovely Ladies

  It was Sunday. I was back at Amanda’s house. We had to do everything fun at least once.

  “Let’s play Lovely Ladies first,” said Amanda.

  “Okay,” I replied. I play that game with Hannie and Nancy a lot. But Amanda was the one who started it.

  I helped Amanda drag her trunk of dress-up clothes out of her closet. (Her closet is almost as big as my whole room at the little house.)

  “When we finish, let’s play Snail!” I said.

  “Then let’s play Nintendo!” cried Amanda.

  “Then let’s watch the Little Mermaid video. And after that we will go swimming!” I said.

  “And then we can read Doctor Dolittle!” said Amanda.

  Amanda opened her trunk of clothes. If we wanted to do everything, we had to hurry. So I said, “One, two, three, go!”

  “That is not how we start Lovely Ladies,” said Amanda.

  “It’s how we start today,” I said.

  I was already pulling clothes out of Amanda’s trunk. I pulled out a pink lace dress. I put it on. Only it was inside out. I grabbed shoes. One was yellow with a high heel. The other was blue with a low heel.

  “Too bad. No time to change,” I said, giggling.

  Amanda grabbed a hat. She put it on backwards. She put on gloves. One was white. One was blue.

  We piled on lots of clothes. Then we stood in front of the mirror. Boy, did we look silly.

  “Let’s say everything together,” I said. “And we have to say it fast.”

  You see, one of us always says, “Oh, I am a lovely, lovely lady.”

  Then the other one says, “Would you like to have some tea?”

  Then the first one says, “Why, certainly. Lovely ladies must always have tea.”

  I counted to three again and we started together. We talked really fast. The words came out, “O-why-um-a-lolly-lolly!”

  Ding-dong! We were laughing so hard, we almost did not hear the doorbell.

  We ran downstairs. We still had on our lolly-lolly clothes. And we were still laughing. Amanda opened the door. It was Hannie. She looked mad.

  “I thought you were playing with me this weekend, Karen. You always play with me when you stay at your daddy’s house.”

  I stopped laug
hing. “Amanda’s moving,” I said. “I have to see her before she goes.”

  “You could have played with Amanda yesterday, and me today,” complained Hannie.

  “I see you every day at school,” I said. “And you are not moving. So I will see you tomorrow.”

  “I may be going to school tomorrow. But I will not be talking to you!” said Hannie. She ran off in a huff.

  I had made Hannie jealous. I was sorry about that. But Hannie had been mad at me before. We always make up.

  Now I had to spend time with Amanda. Soon she would be moving.

  “Where is your chalk?” I said. “It’s time to play Snail!”

  The New Family

  Amanda drew a huge spiral on the ground with the chalk. Then we both drew lines to make boxes.

  “You can go first,” I said. (I was trying extra hard to be nice.)

  “Okay,” said Amanda. She did not sound too excited. Hop. She landed in the first box. Hop. She landed in the second box. Hop …

  “Oops. I stepped on a line. It’s your turn,” said Amanda.

  “You were not really trying,” I said. “That’s no fun.”

  “That dumb Hannie upset me. And now I can’t stop thinking about moving,” said Amanda. “I wonder how many trucks it’s going to take to move all our stuff to the new house.”

  I looked at Amanda’s gigundo big house. Then I looked back at Amanda.

  “At least a thousand!” I said.

  “What if I leave something behind?” asked Amanda.

  “Don’t worry. I will send it to you,” I said. “Hey! Did you tell Priscilla she’s moving?”

  “Not yet,” said Amanda. “I’ll go get her.”

  Amanda came back with Priscilla.

  “Now, Priscilla, I have something important to tell you,” said Amanda. “We are moving away to another house. What do you think of that?”

  She held Priscilla’s face up to her ear so she could hear her answer.

  “Oh, good,” said Amanda. “Priscilla thinks it will be fun to move. She says there will be new grass to smell. And new cats to play with. And she won’t ever, ever have her tail hurt by that naughty Pat.”