The Fire at Mary Anne's House Read online

  Abby has nearly as much energy as Kristy. She channels most of her intensity into sports. Abby is a super athlete. I wouldn’t be surprised to see her in the Olympics someday, playing soccer or running the one-hundred-yard dash. The amazing thing is that she does it all even though she’s constantly battling allergies and asthma, two problems that can make it hard for her to breathe.

  When Abby and Anna first moved here, we invited both of them to join the club. Anna declined, saying she was too busy with her music (she’s an outstanding violin player). Abby’s way busy too, but somehow she manages to fit in a few sitting jobs here and there.

  Their interests may be different, but the sisters do look alike. Both have dark curly hair (though Anna’s is short and Abby’s is long), and both wear contacts or glasses. Still, we rarely mix them up. Once you know them, it’s hard to mistake one for the other.

  Like everyone else I’ve told you about, Anna and Abby are thirteen (they recently celebrated their Bat Mitzvahs, a ceremony for Jewish girls coming of age). But there are two members of the BSC who are younger, Jessica and Mallory. Both of them are eleven and in the sixth grade, and while they’re only allowed to sit in the afternoons (or for their own families at night), they are both just as responsible as the rest of us.

  Jessi Ramsey is the most graceful person in our school, if not our whole town. She’s strong and athletic too. That’s because she’s been studying ballet since she was little. She’s such a good dancer that she was invited to New York not long ago to take part in a workshop with a real ballet company. Jessi brings her sense of grace and strength to everything she does, including baby-sitting, which is why she could be Baby-sitter of the Year. Jessi has a baby brother named Squirt (well, his real name is John Philip Ramsey, Jr.), and a younger sister named Becca. Both her parents work, and her aunt Cecelia lives with the family and helps take care of the kids.

  Mallory Pike, Jessi’s best friend, comes from a much larger family. She has seven brothers and sisters! Mal has reddish-brown hair and freckles, and she wears glasses. She wants to be an author/illustrator of children’s books someday, and she writes all the time. She is the only BSC member who truly enjoys writing up jobs in the club notebook. Maybe her natural talent for documenting the changes that our charges go through would be enough to win her the Baby-sitter of the Year award. Mal hasn’t been sitting too much lately, though, since she has been away at a boarding school called Riverbend. That’s why she’s now an honorary member of the BSC, while Jessi’s a junior officer.

  “Mary Anne! Earth to Mary Anne!”

  Oops. I was so involved in thinking about my friends’ baby-sitting talents that I almost rode my bike right past Claudia’s house. Fortunately, Kristy and Abby were just hopping out of Charlie’s car (Kristy’s brother drives them to meeting in his old clunker, the Junk Bucket).

  “Hey!” I said, putting on the brakes. I got off my bike and joined them. As we walked up the stairs to Claudia’s room, I filled Abby and Kristy in on the contest, showing them the page from Teenzine with all the rules on it. I knew I should wait until the meeting started, but I was too excited. “The thing is,” I told them, “I can’t figure out which one of us should enter. We all have our strong points.”

  Once everyone was settled in Claudia’s room (Stacey and Jessi arrived soon after we did), Kristy called the meeting to order. Then we started talking about the contest again. I explained that I’d already figured out why each of them should be nominated.

  “What about you?” Kristy asked.

  I hadn’t thought about that.

  Stacey smiled at me. “I think Mary Anne should be nominated because she’s so caring. Isn’t that a great quality for a sitter to have?”

  “I second that,” cried Kristy.

  “I third it,” added Abby.

  I blushed and felt like crying. “Thanks, you guys,” I said. “But really, how do we decide which one of us should enter?”

  “We don’t,” said Kristy.

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  She held up the page of rules, which she’d been studying. “We enter as a group!” she said. “There’s nothing in here that says we can’t.”

  “Cool!” yelled Claudia. She reached under her bed for a bag of pretzels and began passing them around. “Let’s start celebrating now because we are definitely going to win.”

  Everybody cracked up. But you know what? I had a feeling Claudia was right. Add it all together: energy and enthusiasm + creativity + organization + caring + a sense of fun + grace and strength + a knack for keeping track of things. Together, we’re an incredible combination. What single baby-sitter could beat us?

  “Aughh!” Kristy groaned and ripped the page off the pad. She crumpled it up and threw it into Claudia’s wastebasket. “Score! Two points,” she yelled.

  I glanced at the overflowing wastebasket. “You’ve made enough points to win the World Series all on your own,” I told her.

  “The World Series is baseball,” Kristy reminded me patiently.

  Claud was sitting at her easel, sketching Kristy and me as we worked. It was Thursday, and we were at Claud’s house, where we’d been looking through the BSC notebooks and records, in order to start work on our contest entry.

  Teenzine was not making it easy for us. If we wanted to be named Baby-sitters of the Year, we were going to have to work for it. The contest rules were demanding. Each entry had to have three parts: a history of the entrant’s baby-sitting experiences, “testimonials” from charges, and an essay on why the entrant likes to baby-sit. Not only that, but we had a very tight deadline to meet. The entry had to be postmarked by next Tuesday.

  Kristy was working on the essay. Without much luck.

  “Why should this be so hard?” she asked with a sigh. “Why should it be hard at all? I love baby-sitting — we all do — but I can’t figure out how to explain why.”

  “Have you tried making an outline?” I suggested.

  She shot me an exasperated Look. “I’ve tried everything.”

  I couldn’t help giggling. “We’ve only been here for half an hour, Kristy,” I pointed out. “Don’t give up yet.” I held up my pad, which was blank. “I haven’t even started writing yet,” I confessed.

  At the meeting the day before, I’d been nominated to work on the history part of the entry. Mal would have been perfect for the job, but her school doesn’t end for another week and a half, so I was stuck with it. Actually, I didn’t mind so much. It was fun to read through all the old notebook entries.

  But I was beginning to realize that my job might be a real challenge. There was just so much to choose from! The BSC has had so many experiences. I’d have to write a whole book — a whole set of books — if I wanted to tell our complete story. But did I have time for that? No way. Instead, I’d have to pick out some of the highlights and concentrate on them.

  I couldn’t help laughing as I read that entry, written by Dawn when she still lived here. We’ve all had the Jackie Rodowsky experience. He’s an adorable seven-year-old who is so accident-prone he should probably be walking around in full body armor.

  “What’s so funny?” asked Claudia.

  “Oh, just some stuff about Jackie,” I said. I read it out loud. “Has anybody ever sat for him when he didn’t break something — either a bone in his body or a window or —”

  “Or his head,” said Kristy grimly. I knew she was remembering a time Jackie had hurt himself seriously. He’d been riding his bike without a helmet, and he smashed into a tree. He ended up in the hospital with a concussion.

  Kristy was shaking her head. “That’s not one of my favorite memories,” she said. “Thank goodness he was okay.”

  “We’ve had some close calls,” I said, remembering a few scary times. “How about when Jenny had that high, high fever?” I shuddered just thinking about it. Jenny Prezzioso is four. Once when I was sitting with her, her temperature soared to 104 and she had to be taken to the hospital. It turned out she had st
rep throat.

  “You handled that well, though,” said Kristy. She smiled at me. “But you’re not just going to write about all the disasters, are you? What about the funny stuff?”

  “There must be plenty of that,” Claudia chimed in.

  “There is,” I said. “Hold on a second.” I flipped through the notebook. Then I laughed. “Do either of you remember what a google-blaster is? Or a snorkaphone?”

  Kristy looked bewildered, but Claudia cracked up. “I do,” she said. “Those are both instruments. The kids were going to have an orchestra. I remember when Stacey and I helped the Barrett-DeWitt kids make theirs.”

  “That’s just what I was reading about,” I said.

  Orchestras, parades, circuses … The BSC has helped with so many fun events. The kids we sit for come up with the wildest ideas. And some of the sweetest ones too. Like the time Charlotte Johanssen, a nine-year-old we sit for regularly, thought of making Thanksgiving food baskets for the residents of Stoneybrook Manor, a retirement home in town. All the kids were excited about it, especially Buddy Barrett. He could hardly wait for the first basket-making meeting, according to Jessi’s entry in the notebook.

  “Where was the meeting?” Kristy asked, curious. I’d been reading aloud again.

  “Take a guess,” I said, smiling.

  “In your barn,” chorused Kristy and Claudia.

  All the kids love to do stuff in my barn. I think it has to do with the hayloft, and the way you can play hide-and-seek in the horse stalls. It’s especially nice in there on rainy days, when the comforting smells of the barn make you feel all cozy and safe. Plus, there’s the secret passage.

  “Remember when we were positive there was a ghost in the secret passage?” I asked the others.

  “I still think there is,” said Claudia.

  “Even after we discovered the truth about those noises?” Kristy asked.

  Nicky Pike, one of Mallory’s younger brothers, gave us a real fright one time when he hid out in the secret passage — partly because we thought he was lost, and partly because of all the creaks and weird sounds we’d heard coming from there. “I’ll have to include that episode in our history, for sure,” I said, making a note.

  “What about the time when Jake was missing?” said Kristy. “Don’t forget to put that story in.”

  How could I forget? Jake Kuhn, who’s only eight, was gone much longer than Nicky (Nicky was only missing for a few hours). Jake disappeared for two days, while everyone in Stoneybrook searched for him. “Matt was a real hero that day,” I said. Jake had finally been found — he’d fallen through the cellar of a house under construction — by Matt Braddock, a seven-year-old who’s profoundly deaf.

  “Yikes,” said Claudia, shaking her head. “That was so scary. Let’s go back to some of the funny memories!”

  “Gladly,” I said, leafing through the notebook. “How about the time Jessi sat for the Mancusis?”

  Kristy laughed. “I knew that was going to be trouble!”

  The Mancusis don’t have any kids. So why did they need a sitter? For their menagerie of pets! Jessi volunteered and ended up with a missing snake, runaway dogs, and a sick hamster, who turned out to be pregnant.

  Maybe it wasn’t so funny at the time, but it is now. That’s true of a lot of BSC moments, I guess. Like the time we sat for twenty-one (Count them! Twenty-one!) children. That was when Kristy came up with the brilliant idea for Mother’s Day Off, when the BSC members treated all our clients to a free day of sitting. There weren’t any great disasters, and we sure made the mothers happy, but it was a wild day just the same.

  I made a few more notes:

  Then I sighed. It was going to take forever to write up the history. If only Mal were here to help.

  From the other side of the room, Kristy sighed too. “If it weren’t for the incredible publicity we’ll get from winning this contest, I’d give up now,” she confessed. She crumpled another piece of paper and tossed it into the wastebasket.

  Claudia looked from my discouraged face to Kristy’s. Then she grinned. “I had a feeling you guys might need a little extra boost at some point,” she said. “Wait just a second.” She ran downstairs and came back a few minutes later carrying a plate piled high with fudge brownies that she’d baked just for us. “You know what I always say,” she told us. “No matter what the question is, chocolate is the answer!”

  As usual, when it comes to junk food, Claudia is right. After a couple of brownies, Kristy and I felt a lot better. By the end of the afternoon, we still hadn’t gotten very far with our contest entry, but we had sure had fun reminiscing.

  Little did we know. While Kristy and I were struggling with our parts of the contest application, Stacey was keeping busy too, collecting testimonials from our charges.

  Stacey was sitting for Charlotte Johanssen that afternoon. I should mention that she and Charlotte are very close. In fact, they call each other “almost sisters.” Since neither has any siblings, they share a special bond. Stacey is the older sister Charlotte never had, and Charlotte is the younger sister Stacey always wanted.

  Charlotte adores Stacey and is also a big BSC fan in general. So when Stacey mentioned the Baby-sitter of the Year contest that afternoon, Charlotte jumped on the idea.

  “Baby-sitter of the Year!” she said. “That’s you, Stacey. You’re the Baby-sitter of the Decade. You’re the Baby-sitter of Forever!”

  Stacey laughed. “That’s sweet, Char. And you’re the Charge of Forever. But I’m not entering this contest on my own. The BSC is entering it as a group.”

  “That’s even better,” said Charlotte. “Because if you won, the others might feel jealous. This way you’ll all win.”

  “Well, maybe,” Stacey said. “It’s always possible that there’s some other baby-sitter out there who might deserve to win more than we do.”

  “No way!” Charlotte shouted.

  Stacey laughed.

  “So what do you have to do for the contest?” Charlotte asked.

  “Three things,” answered Stacey, ticking them off on her fingers. “We have to put together a history of our baby-sitting experiences, write an essay on why we like to baby-sit, and collect some testimonials from the kids we sit for.”

  Charlotte looked confused. “What’s a testimonial again? I think I know, but not really.”

  “It’s when somebody says how great you are,” said Stacey. “Sort of like those detergent ads, when the mom goes on and on about how well the soap removed stains from Jimmy’s jeans?”

  “Or in the magazines, when they have all those quotes from people about how much weight they lost using some dumb diet system?” Charlotte asked.

  Charlotte is one smart kid.

  “Exactly,” Stacey said.

  “I can write you one!” cried Charlotte, jumping up. They’d been sitting on the porch, enjoying the afternoon sun. She ran inside and came back a few seconds later with a pad and a pencil. As Stacey watched, amused, Charlotte began to scribble away. A few minutes later, she signed her name with a flourish at the bottom of the page. “Done!” she said. “Want to read it?”

  “Sure,” Stacey replied. “Or maybe you’d like to read it to me.”

  “Okay.” Charlotte picked up the pad, cleared her throat, and began to read. “ ‘The BSC is the best. They are all the greatest baby-sitters in the universe. I would never want any other baby-sitters but them, and if my mom hired one, I would hide under my bed until she went away.’ ”

  Stacey stifled a giggle. Charlotte continued to read. “ ‘I have been baby-sat by every member of the BSC: Kristy, Claudia, Jessi, Mary Anne, Mallory, Stacey, Abby, and Dawn. Even Logan and Shannon have been my baby-sitters. I swear that they are all the most excellent sitters, especially Stacey, who is the —’ ” she paused. “Is there such a word as ‘excellentest’?”

  Stacey shook her head, smiling.

  “I didn’t think so,” said Charlotte. She made some quick corrections, then finished reading. “ �
��… especially Stacey, who is even more excellent than the rest.’ ” She looked up. “That’s it! Then I signed my name. Do you think this will help you guys win?”

  “Definitely,” said Stacey. “No question about it.”

  “But you’ll need more, won’t you?” asked Charlotte.

  “We’ll need a lot,” Stacey answered.

  “Well, what are we waiting for?” Charlotte jumped up again. “Let’s go!”

  “Wait,” said Stacey. “You mean you want to go around collecting written testimonials?”

  “Why not?” Then Charlotte stopped to think. “Hmm,” she said. “Not all the kids you sit for are old enough to know how to write. Hold on a second.” She dashed into the house and returned a few minutes later, carrying her backpack. She showed Stacey what she had inside. “Remember when I was — you know — spying a little?” she asked, blushing slightly.

  Stacey remembered. Charlotte and some of the other charges we sit for had gone through a big spying phase after reading Harriet the Spy. It had caused more than one fight among friends, and we BSC members had been relieved when the kids eventually grew tired of spying on one another.

  Charlotte had hoped to avoid the problem Harriet ran into (having her secret spy notebook stolen and read) by using a tape recorder instead. Her plan hadn’t worked, but Charlotte still had the tape recorder. “This will be perfect,” she told Stacey. “We can record what kids have to say and send the tape as part of your contest entry.”

  “Sounds like you have a plan,” said Stacey, allowing herself to be swept up by Charlotte’s enthusiasm.

  Charlotte ended up recording several “testimonials” that afternoon, interviewing kids from her neighborhood as well as a few others she and Stacey found at the playground. She did an excellent job too. But will we send the tape along with our contest entry? Stacey wasn’t sure it would be a good idea, unless we added a few explanations. And when the rest of us heard the tape, we had to agree.