Welcome to the BSC, Abby Read online

  Then I’d let her have it.

  The BSC meeting turned into a brainstorming session for the carnival. In between taking calls and setting up appointments we came up with a million ideas for booths, some of them completely whacked out (decorative trees made of junk food — that was Claudia’s), some of them more reasonable.

  By the time I left, I was psyched. I knew I was going to love working on the carnival and especially on the booth with the other baby-sitters. But I was also worried. My family was the only one not committed to the carnival.

  I decided to tackle them again that night. Mom returned home late from work. Anna and I ate dessert (ice cream for Anna, ice cream made from tofu for me, since I’m allergic to milk) while Mom finished off a frozen dinner.

  “Not bad,” she said, rinsing the container and sticking it in the recycling bin (we only buy frozen dinners in recyclable containers). “With a little salt, a little seasoning, practically gourmet fare.”

  “So about the booth at the carnival —”

  “Booth?” said Mom, as if she’d never heard of the idea.

  “Mooom,” I groaned.

  “Oh, right,” said Mom, leaning over to snatch a spoonful of ice cream out of Anna’s dish.

  “So what do you want to do? I’m open to suggestions. The sky’s the limit!”

  “No flying lessons, Abby,” said Mom.

  “Feeble,” I said, making a face at her joke.

  Anna asked, “Do we really have to do this?”

  “We do,” I said firmly. “Unless you think the school music program is not all that important.”

  “I see your point, Abby,” Mom said. “Okay, the Stevenson family is in.”

  “Great,” I said, with enough enthusiasm to make up for the dire lack on the part of Mom and Anna. “You’re gonna love this.”

  Mom patted my shoulder and then swiped a bite of tofu ice cream. “I have a feeling we’d better,” she said with a smile.

  Kristy arrived at the Kormans early to find them already moving at top speed. She said good-bye to Mr. and Mrs. Korman, who were on their way to a tennis date, and sidled around the huge, fish-shaped fountain in the entrance hall. The Kormans live across the street from me, in the Delaneys’ old house, and I can see why everyone used to think it was pretty, well, ostentatious. (Check that out in your Funk & Wagnalls.)

  So the fountain’s still there, but it’s never turned on now because Skylar (not quite two and the youngest Korman) is afraid of it. The rest of the house is a lot more comfortable and lived-in-looking, too.

  I wish I’d seen it in the old days.

  Kristy knew from Mr. Korman that Skylar, her older brother, Bill, who is nine, and her older sister, Melody, who is seven, were working in the huge family room in the back. When Kristy walked in, the room was full of empty soda bottles. Bill wasn’t there, but he came into the room behind her.

  “Here’re some more,” he said, and dumped an armload of soda bottles next to the wall by the sofa. “I reloaded the dishwasher with more bottles.”

  Melody nodded. Skylar, who was in her huge playpen in one corner of the room, screamed happily when she saw Kristy. She was clutching a graham cracker in one fist.

  “Hey, Skylark,” said Kristy, bending over and scooping Skylar into her arms. “What’s happening, guys?”

  “We’re getting ready for the carnival,” Melody replied. “We’re going to have a fortune-telling booth.”

  “Great idea,” said Kristy. “I wish I’d thought of it.”

  Melody said, “Yes,” as if this were a matter of course. She didn’t realize that she was talking to the Idea Ruler of the World.

  “We’re up to the fortune part,” Bill explained. “We’re going to write fortunes on pieces of paper and stick the fortunes into the bottles, see? Fifty cents a fortune.”

  “And a prize,” Melody added.

  “A prize with every fortune? Not bad,” said Kristy.

  “No! If your fortune says prize, then you get a prize. We’re going to the store this afternoon to buy prizes.”

  “We’re building the booth, too,” said Bill. He fixed Kristy with a Look. “Only Mom and Dad said we couldn’t do any sawing and hammering and nailing without them around, or someone grown-up. Are you grown-up enough?”

  “I think so,” answered Kristy solemnly. “But let’s write some fortunes first. Then a little later we can go outside and work on the booth.”

  She settled Skylar with a crayon and her extra-big coloring book and then sat cross-legged next to her to help Bill and Melody.

  Kristy took a ruler and drew lines across plain pieces of paper. Then the three of them settled down to write fortunes on each line. They were writing the fortunes with gold and silver glitter pens.

  “What about, ‘You will get lots of presents for Hanukkah,’ ” suggested Melody.

  “But what if you don’t have Hanukkah,” Bill pointed out. “What if you celebrate Kwanzaa or Christmas instead?”

  Melody frowned. Then she said, “Okay. ‘You will get lots of presents near the end of the year.’ ”

  “That works,” agreed Kristy. “Here’s one: ‘You will find the missing sock soon.’ ” She cracked up over that. Bill and Melody looked at her and frowned.

  “Why is that funny?” asked Melody.

  “Because everybody has socks that are missing. Drawers full of single socks that don’t match. And they save them because they hope they’ll find the other socks soon.”

  “I don’t,” said Bill.

  “I like it when my socks don’t match,” added Melody.

  Kristy looked at Melody’s feet and realized it was true. One of Melody’s ankles was encased in a lime-green sock and the other in a lavender sock.

  “Well, it’s funny anyway,” said Kristy.

  They came up with a bunch of fortunes after that. Bill created: “One night soon, you will stay up very, very late” and “Your favorite team will win its next game.” (“I hope it’s the Krushers,” said Kristy.) Melody’s favorite was, “You will discover a new flavor of ice cream.”

  Just as they were running out of fortune-telling steam, the doorbell rang.

  “I’ll get it,” said Bill. He jumped up. A minute later, he returned with Druscilla following him. He looked a little surprised.

  “It’s Druscilla,” he announced.

  Druscilla lives next door to Kristy (between Kristy and me) with her grandmother, Mrs. Porter. It’s just a temporary thing, while her parents sort out some problems. They’re in the process of separating and selling their old house. (Have you ever noticed how when parents get “separated” the kids somehow get “separated,” too? I mean, Druscilla’s parents took her to her grandmother’s so that she could continue going to her old school and not have her entire life disrupted by her parents’ problems. But it makes her feel pretty unsettled all the same.)

  Plus, her grandmother, who is a perfectly nice person, is not your usual warm and fuzzy grandma. Her house is a big old Victorian number that looks as if it’s haunted. She even has a black cat that hangs out in the windows, giving everybody the mean cat eye. So it’s no wonder that Karen Brewer is more than half-convinced that Mrs. Porter is really a witch named Morbidda Destiny — and for a while was convinced that Druscilla was a witch, too.

  All of this flashed through Kristy’s mind as Druscilla walked into the room. So Kristy was pleased to see her. As loving and kind as her grandmother might be, Druscilla needed to hang out with some kids her own age, play with them, bury her troubles in kid stuff.

  “Dru!” Kristy said. “Come in. We’re working on a booth for the carnival.”

  Dru looked interested. “You’re going to be in the carnival? What are you doing?”

  Melody and Bill were a little formal at first with Druscilla. Maybe they were thinking about Karen’s tales about Morbidda Destiny. And of course, they didn’t know Druscilla all that well. But as they warmed to the subject of the carnival and their brilliant fortune-telling idea, their r
eserve began to melt away.

  From there it was a short step to reading her their favorite fortunes. Druscilla laughed at all of them, and made faces at the gross joke fortunes that Bill had been making up. (“If your goldfish is missing, avoid sushi for dinner.”)

  “Try writing some yourself,” suggested Bill. “We still need thousands and thousands of fortunes.”

  Okay, so Bill was exaggerating a little. But it was all the encouragement that Druscilla needed.

  Looking far less self-conscious than when she’d first entered the family room, Dru sat down and picked up a lined sheet of paper. She thought for a while, then began to write.

  “Read some,” said Melody.

  “Okay.” Druscilla held up her sheet of paper. “Beware the cold, cold snows of winter!”

  “Oooh! That’s a good one,” said Melody.

  “Are you going to have a booth?” asked Bill.

  Dru shook her head. “No,” she said softly.

  “Why not?” demanded Melody.

  “My grandmother can’t do it and my parents are … busy,” Druscilla replied.

  Melody frowned.

  “Here’s the last batch!” said Bill, who had gone into the kitchen to check on the final load of soda bottles he’d put in the dishwasher earlier. He carefully set down an armload of clean bottles.

  “Wow! You have lots and lots of bottles,” said Druscilla.

  “Maybe we have enough,” Bill answered. “Maybe not. We’ve been saving all our soda bottles for days and days. I’ve been collecting them after school, too.”

  Druscilla said, “I can ask my grandmother if you could have ours out of the recycling bin.” She added, “We always wash them before we put them in, so they’d be clean.”

  Bill looked pleased. “That’d be great!”

  Druscilla ducked her head with pleasure and looked down at the page of fortunes she was holding. “I know! Let’s decorate these before we cut them up and put them in the bottles,” she suggested.

  “I have colored pencils in my room,” said Melody. “That’ll look good with the glitter writing.”

  Soon the fortunes were in fancy dress, decorated with flowers and hearts and animals and bows and geometric designs and even drawings of footballs and baseballs and spaceships. When Bill and Melody and Druscilla were satisfied that the fortunes were as beautiful (and fortunate-looking) as they could make them, they cut the paper into strips. Then they rolled up the strips and began to stick them carefully into the necks of the bottles lining the room.

  “We are going to have a super fortune-telling booth,” said Melody, with a sigh of satisfaction. “I am going to wear a fortune-telling outfit. I’ll tie a scarf around my head and another around my waist and my mother is going to make me a skirt out of one of her old fancy skirts.”

  “Wear lots of bracelets,” said Druscilla. “And big earrings.”

  “Yes,” agreed Melody. Suddenly she picked up a scrap of paper and wrote something on it. Then she rolled it up and pushed it into the neck of a bottle and handed it to Druscilla. “Here’s a fortune for you,” she told Druscilla. “For practice.”

  “For me?” Druscilla took the bottle and carefully removed the curl of paper. She unrolled it and began to smile a huge smile.

  “Read it aloud,” Kristy urged her. “What’s your fortune, Druscilla?”

  “‘You will help in a fortune-telling booth in the carnival,’” Druscilla read aloud. She looked at Melody. “Can I?”

  “If your grandmother will let you,” said Melody.

  “She will!” said Druscilla happily.

  Kristy was pleased. Druscilla needed to be included — in the neighborhood and in the carnival.

  And it looked as if it were happening.

  In New York City and Los Angeles and places that have really big pollution problems from all the cars and the industries that dump their junk into the air and the water, some people wear these little white masks over their faces when they go outside to jog or bike or whatever on days when the pollution is really bad.

  On Long Island I used to have to wear one of those masks sometimes when I played sports in the spring when the pollen count or the pollution index was high.

  I was wishing I had a mask as Anna and I unpacked boxes after school one day. I was doing a fair amount of sneezing.

  “You okay?” asked Anna, stopping in mid-box.

  “Yup,” I said. “It’s not getting any worse.”

  “Look at this!” exclaimed Anna. “It’s that teapot shaped like a piano that Corley gave me in fifth grade.”

  “A kitchen box,” I said, “Let’s take it into the kitchen to unpack it.”

  I began dragging the box down the hall. Anna followed, holding the teapot as if it were made of gold.

  “Thanks for the help,” I said, plopping down in a kitchen chair and pulling the box to me. Anna sat in the chair across from me. She didn’t even notice I was being cranky.

  “I wonder what Corley and Roxanne are doing. I wrote letters to both of them, but I guess they haven’t gotten them yet.” She sighed.

  “They will. They’ll write you back,” I assured her. I am not much of a letter writer myself, but Anna’s best friend since the beginning of time (or at least since kindergarten), Corley, was the queen of the note passers. She started sending notes to people in class the moment she learned to write.

  As if she were reading my thoughts, Anna said, “I still have some of the notes she wrote me in first grade — big block letters on lined paper that say things like, ‘The teacher is a big meanie!’” Anna laughed, but she sounded a little wistful, too.

  Roxanne, who was Anna’s new best friend, (new compared to Corley — Roxanne and Anna have only known each other since third grade), was a music maven just like Anna. But her instrument of choice was the trumpet. She could really jam on that thing. She brought out the fast fiddle side of my sister, the classical violinist. Sometimes they would get together and make amazing (and amazingly loud) music.

  “You should invite them up to visit sometime,” I suggested. “Have them meet your new friends in the orchestra.”

  “Well,” said Anna. She stood up and carefully wiped the teapot with a kitchen towel, then put it on the shelf. “I don’t know anybody all that well.”

  “Yet,” I said. “The key word here is ‘yet.’ You will. And think of all the people you do know — an entire orchestra. A baby-sitting club.”

  My sister smiled. It was a smile that said, “It’s nice. But it’s not the same.” I thought of feeling on the outside of all the BFs in the BSC. I knew how Anna felt.

  I reached into the box and pulled out a handful of silverware. “Ha,” I said. “No wonder we have to keep washing the forks. This is where most of them have been hiding!”

  We unpacked for another hundred hours, shelving books, and being amazed at the stuff. A million tons of cookware — really bizarre things, too, such as cherry pitters and olive stuffers and all these copper dishes shaped like fish and fruit.

  “Molds,” said Anna, holding a copper dish shaped like a cake-sized donut.

  “Achoo.” I sneezed.

  “Don’t you remember? Mom used to make molds in these things.”

  “Like Jell-O molds,” I said, suddenly remembering.

  “Some of them might be for cakes, too. I don’t know. But they’re kind of pretty,” said Anna. “Let’s put them up on top of the cabinets as a decoration.”

  We arranged the molds around the tops of the kitchen cabinets and admired the effect.

  “Very artistic,” I said. That’s when I had my own Kristy-style inspiration. “Art food!” I cried.

  Anna said, “What are you talking about, Abby?”

  “For the carnival. Don’t you see? It’s a carnival to raise money for the arts program, right?”

  Anna shrugged.

  Undeterred, I went on. “So we bake up some cakes shaped like, oh, a violin and a paintbrush, and we sell pieces of it.”

  “So
unds hard,” said Anna. “Mom has a lot of molds, but none of them are shaped like a violin.”

  “But I bet you she could do it. She’s got a million old cookbooks, too. And there’s the library.”

  My twin did not share my enthusiasm. “You don’t know how to cook,” she pointed out.

  “But Mom does. We can do the research and then she can just help us in a — a supervisory capacity. And, we can also make plain cupcakes and let the kids decorate them with frosting. You know, fingerpaint food.”

  “Little kids will love it. But it’s going to make a world-class mess,” said Anna.

  “We can supply them with old aprons. Let’s see. We’ll need some of those tubes that you use for decorating cakes and …”

  “Can we get to that later?” asked Anna. “Let’s finish up here, first.”

  “Fingerpaint food,” I said. “It’s got franchise written all over it.”

  But I didn’t gloat over my ingenuity. I joined Anna in unpacking nine million more boxes. Then we took a break from unpacking to take some of the best empty boxes to the basement to save for whatever. We decided to mash the others flat for the recycling bin.

  “So we’ve done enough, right?” I said, doing the “I-Love-Lucy” stomping grapes dance on the last of the boxes. Anna, who had just run upstairs from the basement, laughed.

  “You bet,” she said. “But we forgot one.”

  She pointed to a small box in the corner of the kitchen.

  “Sneak it into the guest bedroom with the other boxes. We can get to it later,” I suggested.

  “Let’s just do it and be done with it,” said Anna. She picked up the box and carried it to the table. Then she sat down and bent forward and cut the masking tape that held it together. “This is, like, an ancient box,” she said. “The tape is practically crumbling….” Her voice trailed off.

  “Anna? What is it?” I jumped up. Anna’s face was contorted. “You didn’t catch one of my allergies or something, did you?”

  Anna shook her head. She pointed down into the box.

  I’ve seen too many horror movies, read too many of those books about things that jump out and get you. I bent over cautiously, expecting the worst.