Jessi's Secret Language Read online

  For Cary

  The author would like to thank

  Patty Jensen

  for her sensitive evaluation

  of the manuscript.

  Contents

  Cover

  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

  About the Author

  Scrapbook

  Copyright Page

  I happen to be very good at languages. Once, my family and I went to Mexico on vacation, and during the week we were there, I practically became bilingual. (Which, in case you’re not sure, means able to speak two languages really, really well. In this case, English and Spanish.) If I weren’t so good at languages, this story might never have happened.

  The story also might never have happened if I weren’t so good at ballet. If you think about it, ballet is just another kind of language, except that you talk with your body instead of with your mouth. I feel like I’m talking in circles, though, so let me start my story. I’ll begin it on the morning of the day I was going to try out for a part in the ballet that my dance school was planning to put on. My family and I had only been living in Stoneybrook, Connecticut, for a few weeks at that time….

  I woke up before my alarm went off. I’ve always been able to do that. But for some reason, I always set it anyway. Just in case I should have a mental lapse and not wake up on time. The reason I get up early is so that I can practice my ballet.

  Every morning, I wake up at 5:29, hit the alarm before it can go off and wake everyone else up, chuck my nightgown, and put on my leotard and warm-up stuff. Then I tiptoe down to the basement. No matter how quiet I am, I know Mama always wakes up and listens to me make my way to the basement. That’s just the kind of mother she is. I hope she goes back to sleep after she sees that everything is as it should be. But I’ll probably never know. Even though she and I are very close (which is how I know she wakes up when I do), I’ll probably never ask if she goes back to sleep, and she probably doesn’t know that I know she wakes up. It’s not the kind of thing you need to talk about.

  The barre in the basement is one of the nice things about moving to Stoneybrook. As I mentioned earlier, we haven’t lived here very long. In fact, until we moved, we had lived in a little house on a little street in Oakley, New Jersey. I was born there. Well, not in the house — in Oakley General Hospital — but my parents were already living in the house.

  Maybe I should tell you a little about my family now. (I’ll get back to the barre in the basement in Stoneybrook. Really, I will.) Here are the people in my family: Mama; Daddy; my eight-year-old sister, Becca (short for Rebecca); my baby brother, Squirt (whose real name is John Philip Ramsey, Jr.); and me — Jessi Ramsey. I’m eleven, and my full name is Jessica Davis Ramsey.

  My family is black.

  I know it sounds funny to announce it like that. If we were white, I wouldn’t have to, because you would probably assume we were white. But when you’re a minority, things are different.

  Of course, if you could see me, there wouldn’t be any question that I’m black. I have skin the color of cocoa — darkish cocoa — soft black hair, and eyes like two pieces of coal. That’s how dark brown they are. They’re the darkest brown eyes I have ever seen. My sister Becca looks like a miniature version of me, except that her eyes aren’t quite as dark. Also, she doesn’t have my long, long legs. Maybe that’s why she’s not a dancer. (Or maybe it’s because of her stage fright.) And Squirt looks like, well, a baby. That’s really all you can say about him. He’s only fourteen months old. (By the way, he got his nickname from the nurses in Oakley General because he was the smallest baby in the hospital. Even now, he’s a little on the small side, but he makes up for it by being extremely bright.)

  As I said, we used to live in Oakley. I liked Oakley a lot. In our neighborhood were both black families and white families. (Our street was all black.) And Oakley Elementary was mixed black and white. So was my dancing school. My grandparents and a whole bunch of my cousins and aunts and uncles lived nearby. (My best friend was my cousin Keisha. We have the same birthday.)

  Then Daddy’s company said they were going to give him a big raise and a big promotion. That was great, of course. The only thing was that they also wanted to move him to the Stamford, Connecticut, branch of the company. That’s how we ended up here in Stoneybrook. The company found this house for us in this little town. My parents like small towns (Oakley is pretty small), and Daddy’s drive to Stamford each morning isn’t long at all.

  But — I don’t think any of us expected the one bad thing we found in Stoneybrook: There are hardly any black families here. We’re the only black family in our neighborhood, and I am — get this — the only black kid in the whole entire sixth grade at Stoneybrook Middle School. Can you believe it? I can’t.

  Unfortunately, things have been a little rough for us. I can’t tell if some people here really don’t like black people, or if they just haven’t known many, so they’re kind of wary of us. But they sure weren’t very nice at first. Things are getting better, though. (Slowly.)

  Things started getting better for me when I met Mallory Pike. I think she’s going to be my new best friend. (Actually, she is my new best friend, but I feel funny saying that — like it might hurt Keisha somehow.) Mallory is this really nice girl in my grade who’s part of an eight-kid family. And she got me into a group called the Baby-sitters Club, which has been great.

  Well, now I’m way, way ahead of myself, so let me get back to the barre in the basement. Barre is just a fancy French word for “bar.” You know, that railing that ballet dancers hold onto when they’re practicing their pliés and stuff? Our new house is so much bigger than our house in Oakley, and Daddy’s job pays so much more money, that he and Mama set up this practice area in the basement for me. It’s got mirrors, and a couple of mats (for warm-ups), and of course, the barre.

  On the morning I’ve been telling you about, I practiced in the basement until I heard Mama and Daddy making coffee in the kitchen. That was my clue that it was time to shower and get dressed for school. I kissed my parents good morning, and then ran upstairs. As I passed Squirt’s room, I heard him babbling away, so I went inside and picked him up.

  “Morning, Squirts,” I said as I lifted him from his crib.

  “Ooh-blah,” he replied. He says only four real words so far — Mama, Dada, ba (we’re pretty sure that means bird), and ackaminnie (which we know means ice cream). Otherwise, he just makes funny sounds.

  I carried Squirt into Becca’s room. Becca was still in bed. She has a terrible time waking up in the morning, so I dumped Squirt on top of her. I can’t think of a nicer way to wake up than to look into Squirt’s brown eyes and hear him say, “Go-bloo?”

  Becca began to laugh. She tried to scold me at the same time. “Jessi!” she cried, but she was laughing too hard to sound cross. It’s easy for me to make people laugh.

  Becca and I got ready for school, and I changed Squirt’s diaper. Then the three of us went downstairs and joined Mama and Daddy for breakfast.

  Breakfast is one of my favorite times of day. Another is dinner. This isn’t because I like to eat. It’s because I like sitting at a table and looking around at my family, the five of us together, joined by something I could never explain but that I c
an always feel.

  “So,” said Mama, as soon as we were served and had begun eating, “tryouts today, Jessi?”

  “Yup,” I replied.

  “Are you nervous, honey?”

  “The usual, I guess. No — more than the usual. It’s not just that I want to be in Coppélia. It’s also that I don’t know how tryouts are going to go at the new school.” The ballet school that I got into in Stamford is bigger, more competitive, and much more professional than the one I’d gone to in Oakley. I know I’m a good dancer, but even though I’d auditioned and gotten into the advanced class at the new school, I was feeling sort of insecure. The most I could hope for at the tryouts that afternoon was not to make a fool of myself. I don’t plan on becoming a professional ballerina — I just like ballet, and the way I feel when I dance — but still I wanted to do my best at the tryouts.

  “What’s Coppélia?” Becca wanted to know.

  “Oh, it’s a great ballet,” I said with a sigh. “You’ll love it. We’ll have to go see it, even if I’m not in it. It’s a story about a dollmaker named Dr. Coppelius, this really lifelike doll he creates — that’s Coppélia — and Franz, a handsome young guy who falls in love with the doll. He sees her from far away and thinks she’s real.” I realized I was getting carried away with the story, but Becca looked interested, so I continued. “That’s not the only problem, though. See, Franz is engaged to Swanilda (she’s pretty much the star of the show), and when Swanilda thinks Franz has fallen in love with another woman, she feels all jealous and hurt. After that, the story gets sort of complicated. Swanilda even changes places with Coppélia, and poor Dr. Coppelius thinks his doll has come to life. In the end, everything is straightened out, and Swanilda and Franz get married, just like they’d planned.”

  “And live happily ever after,” Becca added.

  Mama and Daddy laughed. And Daddy said to me in his deep voice, “I know you’ll do fine this afternoon, baby.”

  “Maybe,” I replied. “We’ll see. Thanks, Daddy. I just hope I don’t fall over Madame Noelle or crash into a mirror or something.”

  That time we all began laughing, since I’d never done anything like that and wasn’t likely to. I was still nervous, though.

  “Okay, girls. Time to get a move on,” Mama said a few minutes later.

  Becca and I swallowed the last of our breakfasts, flew upstairs, and had a fight over who would get to use the bathroom first. In the end, we went in together and brushed our teeth in record time. Then we began the mad scurry to get out the door and on our way to school. I always think there’s not that much to do in order to get ready, but one of us usually loses something, and then Becca gets into a panic about school. (Lots of things about school upset her.)

  That morning it was, “Mama, we’re having a spelling bee today!”

  “Becca, you’re probably the best speller in your class. Don’t worry.”

  “But I can’t get up there in front of everyone.”

  “Think of me,” I told her. “Tryouts this afternoon. I have to dance in front of my whole school.”

  Becca didn’t look comforted.

  I took her hand and led her out the front door. “Don’t forget,” I called over my shoulder to Mama. “After ballet I have a meeting of the Baby-sitters Club.”

  And then Becca and I were off. Our day had begun.

  “Hi! Sorry I’m late!”

  I start most meetings of the Baby-sitters Club that way because I’m usually rushing to the meetings from either a ballet class or a sitting job. This time I was rushing in from tryouts. They had gone reasonably well, but I wouldn’t really know how I’d done until my next class.

  “That’s okay,” Kristy Thomas replied. She spoke briskly, but then she smiled at me, so I knew it really was okay.

  I sat down next to Mallory Pike, feeling relieved. Mallory and I are the two newest members of the club, so we don’t want to upset anybody. Especially Kristy.

  Kristy is the president of the club.

  Kristy started the club in order to help out parents in the neighborhood who need sitters, and to earn money, of course. But for me, the club has done something else. It has helped to pave my way here in Stoneybrook. I’m meeting lots of people, especially people in my neighborhood, and those people are finding out that I (a black girl) am not scary or awful or anything except just another eleven-year-old kid, who happens to have dark skin. (And who also happens to be a good dancer, a good joke-teller, a good reader, good at languages, and most important, good with children. But a terrible letter-writer.)

  I think I’m getting ahead of myself again, though. Let me back up and tell you about Kristy, her club, and the rest of its members. For starters, Kristy and all the other girls except Mallory are eighth-graders. Mal and I are not only newcomers to the club, we’re lowly sixth-graders. Anyway, as I said, Kristy was the one who began the club. She started it about a year ago when she saw how hard it was for her mom to find a sitter for Kristy’s little brother David Michael. Mrs. Thomas was making phone call after phone call and not getting anywhere.

  Kristy thought, wouldn’t it be great if her mother could make one call and reach a whole lot of sitters at once? So she teamed up with three other girls — Mary Anne Spier, Claudia Kishi, and Stacey McGill — and they formed the Baby-sitters Club. (Stacey’s no longer living in Stoneybrook, and Mal and I and another girl, Dawn Schafer, have joined the club, but I’ll tell you about all that later.)

  Anyway, the club meets on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday afternoons from five-thirty until six. People who need a sitter call us at those times (the club advertises a lot, so our clients know how to reach us), and when they call, they reach six sitters! Kristy, Claudia, Mary Anne, Dawn, Mal, and me. They’re bound to get a sitter for their kids with just that one phone call.

  As president, Kristy keeps the club running very professionally. Long ago, she got a record book in which we write down all sorts of things — our job appointments, of course, plus information about our clients, as well as all the money we earn.

  Kristy also makes us keep a club notebook. We’re supposed to write about every job we go on. The notebook is a sort of diary telling about which kids we sat for, what went on, how the kids behaved, and any problems we ran into. Once a week, each of us is supposed to read the last week’s entries so we can stay on top of things. We all agree that this was a good idea of Kristy’s, and that reading the notebook is helpful. But writing about the jobs can be a pain. Oh, well.

  I know why Kristy is the president of the Baby-sitters Club. It’s because she’s a take-charge kind of person who is brimming with ideas. Kristy’s one of those people who’s always beginning sentences with, “I know, let’s …” or “Hey, how about …” She has a big mouth and loves to be bossy. Some kids don’t like her, but I do. I like lively people who surprise you now and then.

  Kristy has a mom, two older brothers named Sam and Charlie (they’re in high school), and her younger brother David Michael, who’s seven. Also, since her mom (who was divorced) got remarried, Kristy now has a step-father, Watson Brewer, and a little stepsister and stepbrother. Karen is six and Andrew is four. (Kristy’s father left the Thomases a long time ago, and Kristy hardly ever hears from him.)

  Kristy used to live right across the street from Claudia Kishi (we hold our club meetings in Claudia’s bedroom) and next door to Mary Anne Spier, but when her mother and Watson got married, the Thomases moved across town to Mr. Brewer’s mansion. (He’s a millionaire or something.) Kristy’s having sort of a hard time adjusting to her new rich neighborhood (boy, can I relate to that), but she still sees her old friends, the club members. We use part of our club dues to pay Kristy’s brother Charlie to drive her to and from Claudia’s house so that she never has to miss a meeting. Plus, she still goes to Stoneybrook Middle School, and she and Mary Anne are still best friends. (They had lived next door to each other since they were babies.)

  Kristy has brown hair, brown eyes, and is on the small side. She a
lways dresses in jeans, turtlenecks, sweaters, and sneakers, and she has no interest at all in boys. She thinks they are gigantic pains. (So do I.)

  The vice president of the club is Claudia Kishi. This is mostly because Claudia has a private phone and private phone number, so it’s very convenient to hold our meetings in her room. When job calls come in, they don’t tie up anyone else’s line. (Once Mal and I tried to start a babysitting club of our own at her house, but her brothers and sisters always wanted to use the phone, so that never worked out. Also, our club needed some older members, not just us two sixth-graders.) But when Claudia’s phone rings during a meeting, we can be pretty sure it’s a job call.

  Claudia is absolutely the most exotic, sophisticated thirteen-year-old I have ever seen. She’s Japanese-American, and has long, silky, black hair which I don’t think I’ve ever seen her wear the same way twice. She braids it, puts it in ponytails, winds it around her head, and decorates it with clips or ribbons or barrettes or scarves or whatever she feels like. Her eyes are almost as dark as mine and she has a complexion I once heard Kristy say she would kill for (not that there’s anything wrong with Kristy’s skin). And her clothes! You should see Claudia’s clothes. Mallory and I have talked about her outfits. Claudia wears things our mothers won’t let us wear until we’re forty-five, if then. Don’t get me wrong. Her clothes aren’t, like, revealing or anything. It’s just that they’re so wild. Mallory and I are absolutely in awe of her. I think Mary Anne is, too, a little. Claudia wears the newest, most up-to-date fashions (whatever they happen to be), and adds her own personal, slightly crazy touches. She loves art and sometimes makes herself jewelry, especially big earrings. (Claudia, of course, has pierced ears, which Mal and I want desperately but are not allowed to have yet. All we’re going to get is braces on our teeth.)