Karen's Puppet Show Read online

  The author gratefully acknowledges

  Stephanie Calmenson

  for her help

  with this book.

  Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  1 Red Light! Green Light!

  2 Saturday Lunch

  3 Camp Spirit

  4 Who Needs You?

  5 The First Day

  6 Paper, Scissors, Tape, and Glue

  7 A Special Announcement

  8 The Second Announcement

  9 Karen’s Puppet Theater

  10 A Great Idea

  11 Pizza Express

  12 The Drive-in

  13 Doing Fine

  14 Hide-and-seek

  15 Greetings

  16 Tickets for Sale

  17 Shannon, How Could You?

  18 Surprise Guests

  19 The Show Must Go On

  20 The Three Musketeers

  About the Author

  Also Available

  Copyright

  Red Light! Green Light!

  It was my turn to be It. I love to be It. Especially when we play Red Light! Green Light! The person who is It gets to be the Traffic Light. Being a Traffic Light is a very important job.

  I was facing a tree outside the big house. (The big house is only one of my houses. I have two. I will tell you why later.)

  “Green light!” I called.

  I waited a few seconds. Then I called out, “One, two, three, red light!”

  I spun around to see if I could catch any of my friends moving. They are allowed to move when I am facing the tree. But they have to freeze when I turn around.

  “I saw you move, Hannie!” I said.

  Hannie Papadakis stomped her foot. She does not like being caught. But I saw her moving fair and square. I had to call her a name even though she is one of my best friends. My other best friend is Nancy Dawes. We call ourselves the Three Musketeers. We like doing everything together. That is because we get along so well. Most of the time, anyway. (Sometimes we fight.)

  None of my other friends had moved. Melody and Bill Korman were as still as stones. Melody is seven. Bill is nine.

  Maria Kilbourne was frozen in a running position. Maria is eight, by the way.

  “Achoo!” Andrew sneezed.

  “You moved! Go back to the starting line,” I said, giggling.

  “No fair,” said Andrew. He looked as if he were going to cry.

  “I was only kidding,” I said. “I know that was not a real move. It was a sneeze move.”

  Andrew is my little brother. He is four going on five. He was feeling a little mopey. That is because we had just moved back to the big house. We switch houses at the beginning of each month. Yesterday was the first day of August.

  Wait. I have told you about everyone but me. My name is Karen Brewer. I am seven years old. I have blonde hair, blue eyes, and a bunch of freckles. I wear glasses. I wear my blue glasses for reading. I wear my pink glasses the rest of the time.

  “Karen! Andrew! Are you ready to come in?” called Daddy. “It is time for lunch.”

  “I am coming!” called Andrew.

  “Me too,” I said.

  We had been playing all morning and I was hungry. Even traffic lights need a break sometimes.

  Saturday Lunch

  Saturday lunches at the big house are my favorite. Everything left over from the week comes out of the refrigerator and goes onto the kitchen table. We get to make any weird lunch we want.

  I put cold spaghetti with tomato sauce, some tuna salad, and a big pile of potato chips on my plate. Yum.

  Little-house lunches are a lot different from big-house lunches. Oh, right. I was going to tell you why I have two houses. I guess this is a good time.

  The story starts when I was little. I used to live in the big house with Mommy, Daddy, and Andrew. But Mommy and Daddy were not getting along. They were fighting all the time.

  Mommy and Daddy told Andrew and me that they loved us very much. But they did not want to live with each other anymore. So they got a divorce.

  After the divorce, Mommy moved to a little house not too far away. She met a very nice man named Seth. Mommy and Seth got married. That is how Seth became my stepfather. Now four people live at the little house. They are Mommy, Seth, Andrew, and me. And there are some pets. They are Rocky, Seth’s cat; Midgie, Seth’s dog; Emily Junior, my pet rat; and Bob, Andrew’s hermit crab.

  After the divorce, Daddy stayed at the big house. (It is the house he grew up in.) He met someone nice too. Her name is Elizabeth. She and Daddy got married. That is how Elizabeth became my stepmother.

  Elizabeth was married once before and has four children. They are Kristy, who is thirteen and the best stepsister ever; David Michael, who is seven like me; and Sam and Charlie, who are so old they are in high school.

  I have another sister named Emily Michelle. (Yes, I named my pet rat after her. That is because I love my sister a lot.) Emily is two and a half and was adopted from a faraway place called Vietnam.

  There is one more important person who lives at the big house. She is my stepgrandmother, Nannie. Nannie is Elizabeth’s mother. She came to the big house to help take care of Emily. But really she helps take care of everyone.

  Do you want to know about the pets at the big house? They are Shannon, David Michael’s big Bernese mountain dog puppy; Boo-Boo, Daddy’s cranky old tabby cat; Crystal Light the Second, my goldfish; and Goldfishie, Andrew’s elephant. (Oops. I mean goldfish.) Emily Junior and Bob live at the big house whenever Andrew and I are there.

  When Andrew and I switch, we do not have to take much with us. That is because we have two of so many things. I even have special names for Andrew and me. I call us Andrew Two-Two and Karen Two-Two. (I got the idea for those names from a book my teacher read at school. It is called Jacob Two-Two Meets the Hooded Fang.)

  Here are some of the things Andrew and I have two of. I have two bicycles, one at each house. Andrew has two tricycles. I have two stuffed cats. Goosie lives at the little house. Moosie lives at the big house. I have two pieces of Tickly, my special blanket. And I have my two best friends. Nancy lives next door to the little house. Hannie’s house is across the street from the big house.

  So now you know about my two houses and two families. And now I am stuffed because I ate so much! That happens a lot after Saturday lunch at the big house. Ugh. I am going to go to my room to lie down.

  Camp Spirit

  Ring, ring! I was not able to go to my room just then. That is because the phone rang. I had to answer in case it was someone important. Guess what! It was someone important.

  It was Claudia Kishi. She is a member of the Baby-sitters Club. That is a business run by Kristy and her friends in Stoneybrook, which is where I live. Kristy is the president.

  This summer the Baby-sitters Club was running an arts-and-crafts day camp. It was going to be held at Mary Anne Spier’s house. Claudia was in charge. And I was going to be one of the campers. Claudia asked if I was ready to start camp on Monday.

  “I am ready,” I replied. “Is camp ready for me?”

  Claudia said she was not sure. She knows I can be a handful. (“Handful” is a word people use to describe me sometimes.) Claudia asked if she could please talk to Kristy.

  “Okay. See you Monday,” I said.

  I called Kristy to the phone. Then I ran to my room. I did not feel like lying down anymore. I was too excited about camp.

  I tried on my camp T-shirt. Kristy and her friends had made T-shirts for the campers and counselors. The T-shirts were navy blue with yellow lettering that said STONEYBROOK ARTS CAMP. Each camper got five shirts. I put on matching navy shorts and went downstairs to show off my camp outfit.

  “Ho
w do I look?” I asked Daddy.

  “You look wonderful. But aren’t you dressed a little early for camp? It does not start until Monday,” he said.

  “I am getting into the camp spirit,” I replied.

  Oomph! Shannon raced in from her walk with David Michael. She jumped up and put her paws on my chest. She almost knocked me down, but Daddy caught me. Shannon gets out of control sometimes because she is a puppy.

  “I think Shannon needs a leash inside the house too,” I said.

  I looked down at my new shirt. It had two big muddy paw prints on it. Boo and bullfrogs.

  “Sorry,” said David Michael.

  I went upstairs and put on my second T-shirt. Then I looked around for Elizabeth and Nannie. They were reading the newspaper in the kitchen.

  “How do I look?” I asked them.

  “Terrific,” replied Elizabeth.

  “Now that you are here, how about putting away these dishes?” said Nannie.

  “Sure,” I said.

  “La-la, dee-dee, la-la!” sang Emily. She was sitting in her high chair. She had a cup of chocolate milk in her hands. The cup was shaped like a big crayon with a straw sticking out of the top.

  She was shaking the cup while she sang. “La-la, dee-dee, la — ”

  Oomph! Emily shook the cup a little too hard. The top flew off. Chocolate milk splashed on everything, including me and my T-shirt. Boo and bullfrogs number two.

  I went upstairs to change my shirt again. Two shirts down, three to go. I decided to wait until Monday morning to put on another camp T-shirt. (I have a very messy family.)

  While I was changing my clothes, the phone rang again. This time Elizabeth answered.

  “It is for you, Karen,” she said.

  I love getting phone calls. Hannie was calling to invite me to her house. Nancy was already there. (Her mom had just dropped her off.)

  “I will be right over,” I said.

  I put on a clean white T-shirt. Then I took my camp spirit across the street to Hannie’s house.

  Who Needs You?

  When I arrived at Hannie’s house, I told my friends about the muddy paw prints and the chocolate milk.

  “I was wearing a camp shirt because I am so excited about Monday. Aren’t you?” I said.

  “Um, Karen, there is something I have to tell you,” said Hannie. “My mom got a phone call from my aunt yesterday. She and my uncle invited us to visit them for a couple of weeks. They got a new boat and a new puppy! So, well, I am not going to camp after all.”

  “But you have to! You signed up. Camp will be fun,” I said.

  “I cannot stay here if my family goes away,” replied Hannie.

  “Maybe you could stay at my house. I will ask Daddy and Elizabeth. The Three Musketeers should stick together,” I said.

  “Thanks. But I have to stick together with my family,” said Hannie.

  “That is too bad. You will be missing out on so much fun. I guess the Two Musketeers will just have to go to camp without you,” I said.

  “I do not think so,” spoke up Nancy. “You see, I am not going either.”

  “What?” I could not believe what I was hearing.

  “I said I am not going to camp either.”

  “Why not? Did your aunt and uncle get a new airplane or something?” I asked.

  I knew that was not a nice thing to say. But I was upset.

  “I just plain do not want to go. I want to hang around this summer. I do not want to have plans every day,” said Nancy.

  “Bor-ing!” I said.

  “Maybe for you. But it is what I want to do,” said Nancy. “And it will not be boring. Mommy and Daddy said they will take Danny and me special places sometimes.” (Danny is Nancy’s brother.)

  “But Danny is just a baby. Maybe the reason you want to stay home is because you are a baby too,” I said.

  “That is mean,” said Hannie.

  “You are being mean. You are being deserters,” I replied. “But you know what? I do not care. The One Musketeer will be at art camp — me. And I am going to have a very good time. So who needs you?”

  I stormed out of Hannie’s house. I was gigundoly mad at my two friends. But I was not going to let that stop me. I was going to camp. I was going to have fun with or without them.

  The First Day

  On Monday morning when my alarm clock went off, I jumped out of bed in record time. Sunlight was pouring through my window. It was the perfect day to start camp.

  “Good morning, Moosie!” I said. “Too bad you do not get to go to camp. No stuffed cats allowed. Hannie and Nancy do not get to go either. No meanie-mo deserters allowed.”

  I put on a clean camp T-shirt and went downstairs for breakfast. Kristy was wearing her camp T-shirt too. She was on her way out the door.

  “Ooh, can I go with you?” I asked.

  “I am sorry,” said Kristy. “Campers come at nine. See you later.”

  Part of me wanted to go to camp early. The rest of me wanted to stay home and eat breakfast. I was hungry. I ate three of Nannie’s blueberry pancakes with butter and syrup. I washed them down with a glass of milk. Then Daddy drove me to Mary Anne’s house.

  I already knew most of the kids who were going to camp. There were the younger Pike kids: Vanessa, who is nine; Nicky, who is eight; and Margo, who is seven. (Their older sister, Mallory, is in the Baby-sitters Club and was going to be one of the counselors.) There were the Arnold twins, Marilyn and Carolyn, who are eight; and Jamie Newton, who is four. (Kristy asked Andrew to sign up, but he wanted to take swimming lessons instead.) There were also three kids from my school: Natalie Springer and Omar Harris, who are in my second-grade class; and Ebon, Omar’s brother, who is in first grade.

  “Hi, Karen!” said Natalie. “I am excited about starting camp, aren’t you? Hey, where are Hannie and Nancy?”

  “They decided not to come,” I said. I said it as if I did not care.

  Tweee! Tweee! A loud whistle blew.

  “Attention, campers!” called Claudia. “Everyone over here, please.”

  We gathered around her.

  “As you all know, my name is Claudia Kishi and I am your camp director,” said Claudia.

  She introduced the counselors: Kristy, Mary Anne, Mallory, Jessi Ramsey, and Stacey McGill.

  “Stoneybrook Arts Camp is about having fun and making great things,” continued Claudia. “Today we will start with an easy project, as a way to get to know each other. Kristy, will you tell everyone about the project?”

  “Sure,” replied Kristy. “You may make anything that could go in a circus. When you finish, we will put all of your projects together. Any questions?”

  “No questions!” I called over my shoulder. I was already on my way to the supplies table. It had been covered up when we came in. But now we could see everything.

  I took one look and knew I was going to love this camp. I saw a rainbow of paper, glitter, glue, fat pipe cleaners, skinny pipe cleaners, and lots of other good stuff.

  I knew what I wanted to make and got right to work. I took a bunch of pipe cleaners and bent and curled them to make arms, legs, a body, a neck, and a head. I made a paper hat with glitter and a pom-pom on top. I worked very hard. When I finished, I had made a clown.

  “Beep, beep! Coming through,” called Omar. He had made a cardboard clown car.

  We looked at his car. We looked at my clown. There was no way my clown could fit in the car. It was too big.

  Then Natalie showed us her project. She had made a pony. It was tiny. I got an idea. I put Natalie’s pony into Omar’s car. I put my clown on top. The three of us started to laugh.

  “Kristy! Come look!” I called.

  Kristy came over and started laughing too.

  “Perfect,” she said.

  She put the things we made into the center ring of the circus. Our first camp project was a big hit. I was gigundoly proud.

  Paper, Scissors, Tape, and Glue

  When the circus was finished,
we ate lunch, then played games. After that the counselors taught us a cheer:

  At Stoneybrook Arts Camp we have fun.

  We make great things for everyone.

  Our camp’s the best and so we’ll cheer

  As loud as we can so you can hear:

  WE’RE STONEYBROOK CAMPERS! WE HAVE FUN!

  WE MAKE GREAT THINGS FOR EVERYONE! YAY!

  Every day that week was as good as the first. That is because we were always doing something different. Here are some of the things we made: tie-dyed T-shirts, lanyard key chains, candles that smelled good, soap sculptures, fingerprint paintings.

  Every day I thought I had found the craft I liked best. Then we would learn something different and I liked that too.

  One afternoon when it started to rain, we went inside Mary Anne’s barn.

  “This afternoon we are going to use only paper, scissors, tape, and glue. You may make whatever you like. We will help,” said Stacey.

  I decided to make a paper chain. Here is how I did it. I gathered lots of colored paper, a roll of Scotch tape, and a pair of scissors. I cut one strip of paper. I made the strip into a loop and taped it closed. After that I cut another strip and looped it together with the first one. I added another loop. And another. And another. Then Marilyn sat down next to me.

  “Hi, Karen,” she said. “Look, I am making a paper chain too. Mine is really long already.”

  Marilyn held up her chain. I wished my chain were as long as hers. That gave me an idea.

  “Let’s put our chains together,” I said. “We can make the longest paper chain in town.”

  “Cool,” said Marilyn. “If we work hard, we will make the longest paper chain in the state of Connecticut.”

  “We will make the longest chain in the country!” I said.

  “Or the continent!”

  “We will make the longest paper chain in the world!” I said.

  I started cutting, looping, and taping as fast as I could. So did Marilyn. Our chain was getting longer and longer.

  “That looks like fun,” said Carolyn. “May I help?”

  At first I had thought it might be more fun if just two of us made the longest paper chain in the world. Then I thought how much fun the Three Musketeers always had together. But I did not have time to miss my friends. I was too busy.