Happy Holidays, Jessi Read online

  Becca and I were struggling to keep our eyes open. So far, we hadn’t gone to any of the departments we needed to go to.

  “This is so boring,” Becca complained.

  I was gazing through a Plexiglas barrier into the section next to us. I could see a rack labeled “Jokes ‘n’ Notions” near a huge sign that said PARTY GOODS.

  Aunt Cecelia and the manager were still fussing. Squirt was out cold, making little baby-snores.

  I pulled Becca by the sleeve. “We’ll be right back,” I called out to Aunt Cecelia’s back.

  We ran around the Plexiglas divider into the party goods area.

  “Yuck!” Becca said, pulling a plastic bloody eye out of a bin.

  I found a rubbery tarantula and shook it so that it quivered. “Aaahh, it’s alive!”

  Becca screamed.

  I looked through the Plexiglas. Now Aunt Cecelia was yelling at two managers. Both of them were nodding like animated dolls.

  I strapped on a fake Santa beard and a plastic pig snout. Becca donned a pair of glasses with a mustache and a hat of foam plastic that looked as if an axe were embedded in it.

  We were howling.

  Then I caught a glimpse of two sales clerks looking at us. They were giggling, too.

  “Let’s scare Aunt Cecelia,” Becca said behind her mustache.

  “She’s in a sour mood,” I said.

  “She always is! This will make her laugh.”

  Becca walked around the Plexiglas barrier. She crouched behind a stack of food processors a few feet away from Aunt Cecelia.

  I followed. Through a gap between the boxes we could see one of the managers hanging up the phone and smiling weakly at Aunt Cecelia. “You’re in luck, ma’am,” he said. “The factory has a few of the old model in storage, and they’ll send one to us right away.”

  “Of course they will. I’ll be back.” Without a good-bye, Aunt Cecelia turned and pushed the stroller in our direction. “Jessica? Rebecca?”

  I put my hand on Becca’s shoulder. Just a few more steps and Aunt Cecelia would be in the perfect place, right in front of us.

  “… no sense of discipline whatsoever …” Her voice was coming closer. “I don’t know why I bother to —”

  Now.

  “Boooo!”

  “Oh!” Aunt Cecelia put her hand over her chest and staggered backward. “Oh, mercy! Oh!”

  Becca burst into giggles. “Surprise!”

  Squirt awoke with a start. “Eeeee!” he cried, twisting under his strap.

  For a moment Aunt Cecelia didn’t say a word. She glowered at Becca, then at me, her lips pursed tightly.

  I knew that look. We were dead meat.

  “Follow me,” Aunt Cecelia snapped, pushing the stroller toward the exit. “We are leaving.”

  I pulled off my disguise. “Why?”

  “Sorryyyyy,” Becca pleaded.

  “Eeeeeee!” Squirt screamed.

  “And you better return that merchandise!” Aunt Cecelia called over her shoulder.

  Becca and I ran back to the party section. We dumped our disguises and followed Aunt Cecelia.

  “But we didn’t buy anything!” Becca protested.

  Aunt Cecelia stared straight ahead without replying.

  “Please, Aunt Cecelia?” I begged.

  Aunt Cecelia marched forward like a wooden soldier. Squirt was squalling, probably wet and hungry. Becca began crying.

  As we charged through the exit, a Salvation Army Santa was ringing a bell. “Ho ho ho!” he boomed. “Merry Christmas!”

  Aunt Cecelia ignored him. She went straight to the car.

  But just before we reached it, she stopped in her tracks and gasped, “Well, of all the nerve …”

  Neatly folded under the windshield wiper was a white parking ticket.

  I wanted to say “I told you so,” but I kept my mouth shut.

  Sometimes it’s better to quit while you’re behind.

  “It’s perfect!” Kristy said. “I mean, all the Kwanzaa principles are right there —”

  Claudia was shaking her head. “No, Kristy.”

  “Unity … self-determination …” Kristy counted out the words on her fingers.

  “The history of the Baby-sitters Club,” Abby said, “is not the right topic for a Kwanzaa skit.”

  “Cooperative economics …” Kristy continued, “collective work and responsibility … purpose … Hey, those concepts are the BSC!”

  We all stared at her, stunned.

  “The kids could play themselves,” Kristy barged on. “Think of the great publicity!”

  “Kristyyyyy …” Mary Anne said warningly.

  Claudia’s clock clicked to five-thirty. “Well, we’re off to a good start,” Kristy said. “I call this meeting to order!”

  “Chow time!” Claudia announced, pulling a bag of Cape Cod potato chips out of her pillowcase.

  “Dues!” Stacey added.

  We quickly paid up and grabbed some chips. Kristy was munching away, finally silent.

  I reached into my backpack for a pile of Kwanzaa books I’d borrowed from the library. Mallory and I had gone there two days earlier, after the awful trip to Bellair’s.

  All weekend long we’d read up on Kwanzaa and African-American stories. That day at lunch we’d come up with a great idea for a skit.

  “Jessi and I did some research,” Mallory began.

  “This book is great,” I said, leafing through Her Stories, by Virginia Hamilton. “It’s all folktales and stories about African-American women.”

  “Research for what?” Kristy asked.

  “The play,” Mal replied.

  “But — but what about my idea?” Kristy sputtered.

  “Save it for Hollywood,” Abby suggested.

  “Have some more chips, Kristy,” Claudia said.

  Kristy scowled and slumped into her chair.

  “I was thinking of this story called ‘Malindy and Little Devil.’ ” I found an illustration from it and held up the book. “It’s about this farm girl who meets the devil on a road.”

  “But he’s a little devil,” Mal continued, “doing his first devilment. He’s never had a soul and he wants one desperately. So he makes Malindy promise to give him hers when she reaches womanhood.”

  “And she does,” I added.

  Total, baffled silence.

  “That’s it?” Stacey asked.

  “At least the history of the BSC has a happy ending,” Kristy grumbled.

  “So does this,” I continued. “See, when the devil finally comes to collect, Malindy hands him what he asked for. A sole … from her shoe!”

  “Ohhhhhh,” groaned Abby and Claudia.

  “He doesn’t know any better,” Mallory said. “So he kind of scratches his head, duhhh —”

  “And Malindy skips away, free as a bird,” I concluded.

  Stacey laughed out loud. “All riiight, Malindy.”

  “The kids will adore it,” Mary Anne said with a smile.

  “Some of the smaller or shyer kids can play animals who live on Malindy’s farm,” I suggested.

  Kristy was nodding her head slowly. “Not bad, but it’s missing something …”

  “How many kids have volunteered to be in this?” Abby asked.

  “I’ll find out when I talk to Becca,” I replied.

  Kristy blurted out, “I’ve got it! As a young woman, Malindy belongs to an organization of baby-sitters. The day she has to give her soul away, the sitters come up with the shoe idea at a meeting —”

  “Attack!” Claudia grabbed a pillow and threw it at Kristy.

  “What?” Kristy said, cowering. “What’d I say?”

  Rrrring!

  Claudia picked up the phone. “Hello, Baby-sitters Club!” she said sweetly.

  Well, the phone hardly stopped ringing for the rest of the half hour. In between calls, we made plans.

  We decided to set aside certain weekend days for festival rehearsals. Claudia volunteered to make fliers and
posters. Kristy promised she’d force Charlie to drive her around into the surrounding towns, where she’d post fliers wherever she could. (You see, Kristy does have good ideas.)

  After the meeting, I was flying. My little idea was going to come true. I jetéd all the way home.

  “I’m ho-o-o-ome!” I sang as I opened the front door.

  Hurricane Becca nearly knocked me over. “They can do it they can do it! All the kids want to be in the festival!”

  “Yaaaay!” I grabbed Becca and started dancing across the room.

  We stopped when we ran smack into Aunt Cecelia at the kitchen door.

  “Ahem,” she said. “Do you girls expect the salad to make itself?”

  I could see Mama and Daddy preparing dinner at the kitchen counter. “Hug time first!”

  Becca and I ran into the family room to hug Squirt, who was in his playpen. Then I went back to the kitchen to help.

  I told Mama and Daddy all about our plans. I mentioned the kids Becca had involved and described “Malindy and Little Devil.”

  They both thought the idea was fantastic. (I knew they would.)

  I could hear Aunt Cecelia’s orthopedic shoes click-clacking dully on the kitchen floor behind me. “And what does this story have to do with Kwanzaa?” she asked.

  “Well, I guess you could say it’s about self-determination,” I replied.

  “Creativity,” Mama said. “She had to outfox the devil.”

  “You know, not everything has to be strictly about Kwanzaa,” I explained. “The festival is really a celebration of African-American culture.”

  “Mm-hm,” Aunt Cecelia grunted. “And you couldn’t have picked something a little more serious?”

  I shrugged. “Well, this is a folktale. The hero is a little girl. The kids’ll like it —”

  “When I was young,” Aunt Cecelia plowed on, “I played Harriet Tubman in a school play. That was educational. I still remember my speech. I memorized it in front of a mirror, so I could hone my facial expressions. I did not make one mistake. When I was through, people’s eyes were red.”

  “That’s because they’d been napping,” Daddy murmured.

  “Pardon me?” Aunt Cecelia said.

  “Uh, they couldn’t stop clapping,” Daddy shot back.

  Becca came running into the kitchen, carrying a huge collage on a sheet of oaktag. Squirt followed close behind.

  “Ta-da!” Becca sang, holding up her artwork.

  It was a collection of toy and clothing advertisements from catalogs and magazines. They were carefully cut up and pasted closely together, with the prices circled in red. Loops of rolled-up masking tape were on the back.

  “Now no one has to ask me what I want for Christmas,” she exclaimed. “It’ll be right here in the kitchen.”

  “Who-o-o-oa,” Daddy said. “Santa’s going to need extra reindeer, just for you.”

  “No such thing,” Becca announced, pressing the sheet onto the kitchen wall.

  “What are you doing?” Aunt Cecelia bellowed. “Do you know how hard it is to get rid of tape marks? Your parents spent good money on that wallpaper.”

  “It’s all right, Cecelia,” Mama said gently.

  “Oh?” Aunt Cecelia snapped. “Who’s the one who will have to scrub off the glue when that poster is removed?”

  Daddy took a deep breath. “Cecelia, I’ll do it. It’s the holidays, remember? The season for love and compassion?”

  “And the season for spoiling small children, too, I suppose?”

  “Excuse me?” Daddy asked.

  Aunt Cecelia turned to leave the kitchen. “I’ll wash John Philip’s hands.”

  “Excuse me?”

  Uh-oh. Daddy was using the Boom voice. It’s so loud, it must begin down at his toes. The last time I’d heard it was the time Becca flushed a twenty-dollar bill down the toilet.

  Aunt Cecelia turned back around. “I said, I’ll wash —”

  “No, before that!” Daddy barked.

  Mama put her hand on Daddy’s shoulder. “John, it’s okay.”

  “I’ll take down the poster,” Becca volunteered.

  “You will not!” Daddy retorted. “Jessica, Rebecca, will you please go to the family room?”

  Zoom. We were out of there in a nanosecond. We shut the family room door and pressed our ears to it.

  “Cecelia, this house belongs to me and my family,” Daddy began. “You are living here as a guest —”

  “Guest?” Aunt Cecelia huffed. “For heaven’s sake, John, I am your sister!”

  “Of course you are, Cecelia,” Mama interrupted. “And we all love you —”

  “But like it or not, you must abide by the rules of our house,” Daddy went on, “not make them. We decide how our walls are treated. And more importantly, we decide how our children should be raised. You are not their mother.”

  “All right, John,” Aunt Cecelia snapped. “You’ve made your point.”

  “Look, Cecelia, I don’t mean to lose my temper,” Daddy said firmly, “but I would like to see some changes around here. Loosen up with the kids. Don’t expect them to be perfect, miniature grown-ups. Keep them from harm, guide them — but allow them to be kids, to make a mistake here and there.”

  “John,” Aunt Cecelia replied softly, “you’re expecting me to be somebody I’m not.”

  “No,” said Daddy. “I am asking that you do that as long as you live in this house.”

  Mary Anne is so polite. If I had been sitting that day, I’d be pulling my hair out.

  And not because of the glitter.

  The Harrises are an African-American family who live in Stoneybrook. Omar is seven years old, and his brother, Ebon, is six. An aunt lives with them, too, like Aunt Cecelia. She usually baby-sits, so none of us had sat for the boys before. On that day, though, the aunt was visiting relatives.

  Mary Anne thought: new client. Not used to non-family sitters. Possible shyness. Clinginess. Tantrums.

  She went to the job prepared. She brought along a Kid-Kit, stocked with appropriate stuff. She told herself not to take it personally if the kids had separation anxiety.

  When Mr. and Mrs. Harris met her at the door, she was all smiles.

  “Hello, I’m Mary Anne Sp —”

  “Yaaaaaaay, the baby-sitter!” A small boy darted toward her and grabbed her hand. “You’re helping with the Kwanzaa festival.”

  “It’s nice to meet you,” Mrs. Harris said. “Now, we do have a no-TV rule on school days —”

  “Come on!” Omar was trying to yank Mary Anne across the living room. “We can do some Kwanzaa stuff now!”

  “Uh, Omar?” Mrs. Harris said. “Would you mind giving us a chance to meet the young woman?”

  Omar dropped Mary Anne’s hand. “I’ll call my friends! They can come over, too.”

  “Art projects are fine,” Mrs. Harris continued. “It’s okay to have friends over, no sugary snacks before dinner …”

  As the parents rambled on, Ebon quietly walked in. He stood at his mother’s side, shyly staring at Mary Anne.

  Mary Anne smiled to reassure him.

  He walked toward her and wrapped his arms around her legs. “You’re nice.”

  Two for two. So much for new client-itis.

  The Harrises left, and Omar raced in from the kitchen. “They’re coming! They’re coming! Okay, what are we going to do?”

  “Uh, well, I don’t really know that much about Kwanzaa yet,” Mary Anne said. “The first get-together for the festival is this Saturday —”

  “We have books,” Ebon exclaimed. “Come on.”

  Mary Anne followed the boys into the family room. They ran straight for the bookshelf, which lined one entire wall.

  Omar grabbed two books: The Seven Days of Kwanzaa, by Angela Shelf Medearis, and Crafts for Kwanzaa, by Kathy Ross.

  Mary Anne opened one of the books and began leafing through it. Ebon stopped her at a page that described how to make a mkeke mat, a special kind of place mat for the Kwanz
aa table.

  “That looks cool,” he said.

  Mary Anne read through the instructions. “The basic idea is to weave red and green paper strips through cuts in a sheet of black paper. So we need construction paper, glue, and scissors.”

  Omar and Ebon dug into an art box and pulled out all the necessary stuff. Then they went to the kitchen.

  Soon, seven-year-old Sara Ford and her nine-year-old brother Marcus arrived. Then Bob and Sharelle Ingram. (He’s seven and she’s five.)

  The Fords and the Ingrams are African-American families I didn’t know well. Like the Harrises, they live in Kristy’s neighborhood and attend Stoneybrook Academy, which is a private school. (Meeting new African-American Stoneybrookites was one of the nicest things about the Kwanzaa festival.)

  The noise level in the kitchen had jacked up to high. Mary Anne’s baby-sitting job had suddenly turned into a small day-care center.

  “I do the cutting!” Marcus called.

  “They’re my scissors!” Omar retorted.

  “So, you get to use them all the time?” Bob said.

  “One at a time,” Mary Anne said, picking up a sheet of black construction paper. “First of all, each of you should fold one of these in half, lengthwise.”

  “Ewwwww, Ebon’s eating the glue!” Sharelle cried.

  Ebon grinned. “It says ‘nontoxic.’ I was just tasting it.”

  “Not a good idea,” Mary Anne said.

  A black paper airplane whizzed by her face. Marcus was giggling like crazy.

  “Marcus!” Sara yelled. “You’re supposed to make mats!”

  “Can I make a plane, too?” Ebon blurted out.

  “Hey, cool, look at this!” Omar was pointing to a page in the book entitled “Foil Cup.”

  “Let’s do that!” Bob cried.

  “Foil cup … let’s see …” Mary Anne looked at the instructions. “You need a cardboard tube from a toilet paper or paper towel roll, tinfoil, and an egg-shaped container that may be cut from an egg carton …”

  “I can get tubes,” said Ebon, running off.

  Sharelle was deep into the other Kwanzaa book. “Toe puppets!” she cried out. “That’s what we should make!”