Mallory Pike No.1 Fan

  Mallory Pike, No.1 Fan

  Ann M. Martin

  Mallory Pike, No1 Fan

  Ann M. Martin

  Chapter 1.

  I love English class. I really do. And today I was loving it more than ever. My teacher, Mr. Williams, was giving us this really interesting assignment. "I want you to think about a career you might be interested in pursuing someday," he told the class. "Then express something about that career in written form. It can be a series of poems, a report, a play, a short story. Be creative. I don't want a report on your prospective career. I want to know why it interests you. How does the career fit into your view of what matters in life? What is it about you that feels drawn to this career choice?" My best friend, Jessi Ramsey, raised her hand. "You mean, we can do anything we want?" she asked when Mr. Williams called on her.

  "Well, yes and no," replied Mr. Williams. "I'm giving you a lot of leeway, but I want to know what you're doing. By the end of next week each of you must submit a one-page written proposal telling me what you plan to do. After I've read your proposal I'll have a short conference with you. I'll either give you the go-ahead, or we'll discuss ways to shape the project further." That sounded fair enough to me. One thing I love about Mr. Wffliams is that he treats us like adults. Not many teachers would give a sixth-grade class this much freedom.

  Picking a career would be easy for me. I've always known what I want to be - an author of books for children.

  I've loved reading and writing forever. When I was ten, I met one of my favorite authors, Amelia Moody, at a book signing in the Washington Mall. The meeting was sort of a disaster. (I got so nervous I burst into tears. Not too embarrassing!) But meeting her and seeing how much her work affected so many kids made me absolutely certain that I wanted to be an author, too.

  The day I see the name Mallory Pike (that's me) on the cover of a book will be the greatest day of my life. I can easily imagine it. That may be because I spend a lot of time imagining it.

  One thing I don't like to imagine, though, is my picture on the jacket flap. That's because I can't stand the way I look. I don't have a monster face or anything, but I do have frecIdes, glasses, and a terrible nose. (I'm told I inherited my nose from my grandfather, who died before I was born. I wish I'd inherited a horse farm or a million dollars instead.) I also have curly reddish brown hair which does whatever it wants. Plus, I have braces. At least they're the clear kind, so no one calls me metal mouth or anything like that. Jessi always tells me I'm better looking than I think I am, but I think she's just being a pal. Maybe I'll forget the author picture and let kids imagine what I look like. Why spoil a good book for them?

  "Your grade for this assignment will make up eighty percent of your grade this marking period, and you'll have the remainder of the marking period to complete the assignment," Mr. Williams continued. "So, give it some hard thought and come up with something that will really hold your interest." I glanced at Jessi. Her chin was propped on her hands and her delicate, dark brows were knit into a thoughtful frown. She'd obviously started the hard thinking part already. Of course, I knew what her career choice would be. Jessi is a super-talented ballerina. She studies twice a week at a ballet school inStamford , the city closest toStoneybrook,Connecticut , where we live. Jessi has even danced in some professional productions. So, like me, Jessi knew exactly what she wanted to do her project on. The tricky part would be working ballet into a written project. But knowing Jessi, she'd come up with something clever.

  Meanwhile, I had absolutely no idea how I wanted to do my project. Writing something about being a writer seemed to offer endless possibilities. I would have to think hard. I could have a great time with this assignment if I came up with something good.

  The bell rang for the end of second period. I gathered my books and joined Jessi. "What are you going to do for your project?" I asked her.

  "Well, I was thinking that I could interview Madame Noelle about her life as a dancer." (Madame Noelle is Jessi's dance teacher.) "Good idea. That would be like reporting on the history of ballet for the last hundred years," I teased. I've seen Mme. Noelle, and she's old.

  Jessi smiled. "She's not that old. What are you going to do?" We stepped out into the hallway and entered the flow of students changing class. "I have no idea. None," I admitted.

  "You could write about winning that award for your short story," Jessi suggested. I'd won Best Overall Fiction in the Sixth Grade for my story, "Caught in the Middle," on Young Author's Day.

  "What would I say about it?" I asked.

  Jessi shrugged. "I don't know - how hard it was to write, and how you felt when you won?" "No, I don't think that would be enough. I'll think of something, though." Which was exactly what I did for the rest of the day -think.

  I was still thinking about the assignment when I walked through the front door of my house that afternoon. As usual, things were a little wild.

  The triplets, who are ten, were each wrapped in one of my father's white dress shirts, and each one had a tie knotted around his head. They were pretending to be ninjas, slicing the air and jumping off the living room sofa yelling "Ha! Ya!" like a bunch of maniacs. Adam, Byron, and Jordan are identical, a!though I have no problem telling them apart. I knew which ninja was which.

  My sister Vanessa paid no attention to the ninja triplets. She was busy trying to master one of those Skip-It rings. You know, those giant ankle rings, with a rope attached. You put one foot through the ring, and use that foot to swing the rope around, then you jump over the rope with the other foot. She wasn't having much luck. Like me, Vanessa is a dud at most sports. (She's a good writer, though. For a nine-year-old, she writes some pretty amazing poems.) Nicky, who is eight, was driving our bassett hound Pow insane with his new Squiggle Ball. The ball has a battery inside and never quits moving. Even if it shoots under a dresser it will roll its way out. Pow was trying to catch it, but the ball never stopped, so he couldn't.

  Margo (she's seven) was trying to get Claire (she's four) to play Skatch. Even with the Velcro mitt, which the Velcro ball sticks to, Claire couldn't catch it (another female Pike athletic superstar in the making).

  Sometimes the craziness of my house bugs me. But today I was too deep in thought. I dodged three flying ninjas, stepped over a Squiggle Ball and a bassett hound, ducked a runaway flash of wild pink Velcro, and hopped over a Skip-It rope, barely noticing any of it as I made my way across the living room. I just had to come up with a good project.

  I was halfway up the stairs when I heard the phone ring. "Vanessa," Mom called my sister from the kitchen. "Phone. It's Haley." Haley Braddock is Vanessa's best friend. Hearing Haley's name gave me a thought. Haley is a member of a club in theStoneybrookElementary School called the Kids-Can-Do-Anything Club. Jessi's younger sister, Becca, belongs to it, too. The members of the KCDAC, or Kids Club (as most members call it), do a lot of community service work, such as organize food drives and recycling projects. I wondered if I could find a way to include the club members in my English project. After all, my future career would involve writing for kids, so shouldn't kids be a part of the project? It seemed like a natural connection.

  But how could I include them?

  By the time I reached the room I share with Vanessa, I had that limp, brain-drain feeling you get from thinking about one thing for too long. I decided to put the project aside for awhile. Instead, I took a novel called Alice Anderson from my backpack. I'd checked it out from theStoneybrookMiddle School library. (SMS is my school.) Alice Anderson, the main character, is a seventeen-year-old girl who lives in a small farming town. She is the only girl in a family of four brothers.Alice dreams of going toHollywood and becoming a movie star but she has no idea how she'll make it out of her small to
wn, because her family is poor.

  I had taken Alice Anderson from the library because I needed to do a book report. It looked interesting, but I never expected it to be so hysterically funny. It doesn't sound like it would be, but it is.Alice 's brothers are always getting in messes. WhenAlice tries to help them out, she ends up in worse trouble.

  In the last chapter I had read,Alice 's brothers wantAlice to perform the lead role in the town play because they think some big talent scout is in the audience, so they lock the nasty lead actress in the closet. WhenAlice hears what they've done she goes wild trying to get the closet door open. She succeeds in setting the actress free, but accidentally knocks over the man who plays the back half of the mule.Alice is the only one who can fit the mule costume, so she takes his part, and makes her brother, Sven, put on the maid's costume and take her small part. Sven keeps forgetting the lines, soAlice whispers them to him from the back of the mule outfit, which makes everyone in the audience laugh.

  Crazy things like that are always happening toAlice . But the cool thing about the book is the way her family sticks together. No matter what happens, Mrs. Anderson, the mother, always manages to make a big dinner and the family sits arOund laughing about whatever it was that went wrong.

  I stretched out on my bed and opened Alice Anderson. In a second, I felt as if I were there with theAndersons . Henrietta Hayes, the au8 thor, had to be a genius. How could she think of so many funny things to write? Her characters were so happy and full of fun. Just reading the book gave me a great feeling.

  When I reached the last pages, my eyes brimmed with tears. Nothing sad had happened. I was just touched by how Alice's brothers saved all their money to buy her a train ticket to Hollywood. And then Alice cashed it in so their youngest brother, Evan, could have an emergency operation. (He'd fallen through a weak spot in the ice while ice fishing to earn money for Alice's ticket.) In the end, Evan was all right, and the family sat around the big dinner table laughing and having a good time.

  Maybe tears filled my eyes because the book was over. I hate when a good book ends.

  One way I judge whether or not a book is great is if I feel I know the author when I'm done reading. If I do, then it was a great book! I definitely felt that I knew Henrietta Hayes. It was as if we were friends. I wanted to tell her how much I loved her book, just the way you'd tell a friend who'd written something great.

  I wiped my eyes and took a sheet of my good stationery from my top dresser drawer. In my best handwriting, I began a letter to Henrietta Hayes.

  I opened to the title page of the book, and turned it over. The address of the publishing company was printed there. (It's there in any book.) Publishing companies pass people's letters on to authors. I knew this because I'd once written to Amelia Moody.

  After copying the address onto an envelope, I put the letter inside and sealed it. Mom usually has stamps, so I'd borrow one from her and drop the letter in the mailbox on the way to my BSC meeting.

  Oh! I can't believe I haven't mentioned the BSC to you yet. It stands for Baby-sitters Club. Along with writing and books, it's one of the most important parts of my life. And at that very moment, I was dangerously close to being late for a meeting! Chapter 2.

  Even though I'm no athlete, I slid into my BSC meeting like a baseball player sliding into home base. "Made it!" I cried, watching the digital clock in Claudia Kishi's bedroom change from5:29 to5:30 .

  Kristy Thomas, the club president, called the meeting to order. "That was awfully close," she said. Kristy is a fanatic about being on time. Every meeting must start at five-thirty - sharp! Five-thirty-one is not acceptable. (If you're late you get the dreaded Look from Kristy. You know that expression, if looks could kill? Well, her Look definitely could.) "I was finishing a great book and I lost track of time," I explained. "But I'm here." Before I go on, I should explain to you what the Baby-sitters Club is all about. We meet every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday afternoon from five-thirty untilsix o'clock . During that time parents who need reliable baby12 sitting can call and reach a group of sitters all at once. One of us is bound to be free to take the job. It saves them a lot of calling. We're very popular with parents around here.

  The BSC was Kristy's great idea. It came to her one day when her mother was trying to find a sitter for her younger brother, David Michael, and not having much luck. Kristy told her idea to her best friend, Mary Anne Spier. Then they told their friend Claudia. Claudia told her new friend Stacey McGill, and the BSC was born. They put up some fliers around Stoneybrook and, almost instantly, the club was successful.

  Business grew so much that they added another member, Dawn Schafer, who had recently moved to Stoneybrook fromCalifornia . Five sitters worked fine, but after awhile Stacey had to move away. (Although she eventually came back, at the time we thought Stacey was gone forever.) That's when Jessi and I were invited to join. We're junior officers since we're eleven and the others are all thirteen. We baby-sit only on weekends or during afternoOns (unless we're sitting for our own siblings), but that frees other members to take more evening jobs, so it works out well.

  Recently, we've had another staff switch. Dawn went back toCalifornia to stay for awhile with her father and brother. (Her parents are divorced.) In her absence, Shannon Kilbourne is filling in. Before Dawn left,Shannon was an associate member, which meant she didn't come to meetings regularly. Instead, we'd call her up when we needed her to take sitting jobs no one else was free for. Now, she attends meetings.

  Let me tell you about the members of the club. I'll start with Jessi, since you already know a little about her. As I've said, she's a talented ballerina and my very best friend. Like me, she loves to read, especially books about horses. Unlike me, she doesn't have a huge family. Her family consists of her mother, father, her younger sister Becca, and her little brother Squirt (his real name is John Philip Ramsey, Jr.). Jessi's Aunt Cecelia lives with them, too. She takes care of Becca and Squirt while Mr. and Mrs. Ramsey are at work.

  Jessi moved to Stoneybrook from Oakley, New Jersey. (She moved into Stacey's old house!) The move was difficult for the Ramseys. They are African-American, and their neighborhood back in New Jersey was comfortably integrated. Stoneybrook is mostly white, and some of the Ramseys' new neighbors weren't exactly happy about a black family moving in. Experiencing this kind of prejudice was painful for Jessi's family. (When I think of people hurting Jessi's feelings like that, I get furious.) But the Ramseys waited it out, and now their neighbors know them as the nice people they are.

  The best way to describe Jessi is to say she looks like a dancer. She's slim, with long legs, and she moves gracefully no matter what she's doing. She has big brown eyes with long lashes. Her dark hair is usually pulled back, dancer-style, in a ponytail or bun.

  Next, I'll tell you about Kristy Thomas. I think of Kristy in terms of opposites. Here is Kristy opposite number one: small physical size, huge personality. She is a petite person, the shortest one of us~ Yet she has a big presence. Kristy doesn't keep anything to herself. She lets you know exactly what she's thinking - and she's always thinking something. Great ideas are Kristy's trademark.

  Kristy opposite number two: super casual appearance even though she can afford to dress like a model. Kristy likes to wear jeans, a T-shirt or turtleneck, and sneakers. Her shoulder-length brown hair is usually back in a ponytail. Sometimes she wears a baseball cap. I've never seen her wear makeup. Her carelessness about her appearance seems like an opposite because her stepfather, Watson, is a millionaire! Kristy's father abandoned the family not long after her younger brother, David Michael, was born. She has two older brothers, Sam and Charlie, which meant there were four kids for Mrs. Thomas to support on her own. It wasn't easy, but she managed. Then, not long ago, she met Watson, fell in love, and married him.

  After the wedding, Kristy's family moved into Watson's mansion, which is in a different part of Stoneybrook from the Thomases' old house. (They used to live across the street from Claudia, here onBradford
Court .) And just as Kristy's house became much bigger, her family did, too. Watson has two kids from his first marriage, Karen and Andrew, who are seven and four. They live with Watson every other month. Both of them adore Kristy and she adores them back.

  Kristy's also crazy about Emily Michelle, her newest sibling. Emily's fromVietnam . Watson and Kristy's mother adopted her shortly after they were married. She's two and a half now. Nannie, Kristy's grandmother, moved in soon after Emily came home. She helps to look after Emily during working hours.

  I'll tell you aboutShannon next, since she's Kristy's across-the-street neighbor. When they first met, Kristy thoughtShannon was a snob.

  But Kristy soon discovered thatShannon isn't snobby at all.

  Shannon's family (which consists of her mom, her dad, and her two younger sisters) breeds their pedigreed Bernese mountain dog. When Kristy's dog, Louie, died, Shannon gave Kristy a Bernese pup. Kristy named the puppy Shannon. From then on, they were friends.

  Shannon has great hair. It's curly, blonde, and thick. She has blue eyes, high cheekbones, and a ski-jump nose.

  Since Shannon goes to a different school than I do, I'm still getting to know her, so I can't tell you that much about her. I know she's a good student and very involved in school activities. So far, she's done a great job of filling in for Dawn.

  Speaking of Dawn, I'll tell you about her, even though at the moment she's in California. Dawn moved here with her mother and her younger brother, Jeff, after her parents divorced. Mrs. Schafer was originally from Stoneybrook. They moved into an old farmhouse (built in 1795) on Burnt Hill Road. Jeff was never really happy here. He went back to live with his father in California pretty quickly. Dawn had trouble adjusting to the cold weather, but, mostly, she liked Stoneybrook.

  I think Dawn is totally gorgeous. She's tall and thin with long, white-blonde hair. Dawn is seriously into ecology and healthy food. She eats no red meat, no junk food. She actually enjoys stuff like tofu and seaweed salad. No matter how much the rest of us kid her or pretend to gag, she just keeps on eating it.