Claudia and the Disaster Date Read online

  The phone rang again. I wanted to laugh. I wanted to cry. I wanted to scream.

  I wanted to leave.

  “Baby-sitters Club,” Kristy said, her voice still unnaturally soothing and calm.

  Her next reaction was pure baby-sitter-meets-ax-murderer-and-loses-it. “What?” she screeched. “Absolutely do not call here during club business hours again, or you’ll be deeply and permanently sorry!”

  She slammed the phone down so hard that it jumped.

  So did the rest of us.

  “Kristy?” I said. “That phone is mine. You break it, you buy it.”

  She turned her wrathful face toward me. “It was Alan,” she said through gritted teeth.

  As an artist, I could appreciate the color her face had turned. I didn’t know it was humanly possible.

  As a person, I resented her attitude. She was being bossy, unreasonable, and typically Kristy. But this time, I wasn’t going to let her push me around.

  “Alan can call here,” I said frostily. “It’s my phone in my room in my house. You don’t have the right to hang up on him.”

  “He called during our meeting,” Kristy answered, just as frostily.

  “I’ll request that he refrain from calling during our meetings in the future.”

  “Do that,” said Kristy. “Refrain him.”

  We glared at each other.

  Mary Anne glanced at the clock on my desk. “Oops. Six o’clock!”

  “This meeting of the Baby-sitters Club is now adjourned!” Kristy barked. She stood up and stalked out of my room.

  “It’ll work out,” Mary Anne said.

  “Ha,” I said.

  We heard a door slam.

  “The coast is clear,” Dawn said cheerfully. “Well, this has been an interesting meeting.”

  Somehow, I sensed that Dawn wasn’t taking this too seriously.

  “Glad you enjoyed it,” I said as she and Mary Anne departed.

  Stacey left last. She said, “Claudia, I’m glad you told Kristy.”

  “Yeah. But I don’t think it helped anything. In fact, I might have made matters worse. What’s Kristy going to do to Alan when she sees him now?”

  Stacey laughed. “I think Alan can take care of himself. In fact, no matter what you think of Alan, you’ve got to admit that he has one thing in his favor.”

  “What’s that?” I said.

  “He’s one of the few people around who isn’t afraid of Kristy.” Stacey gave me a sweet smile and walked out, closing the door softly behind her.

  The phone rang.

  I knew it was Alan. I picked it up. “Hello?”

  Talking through his nose, Alan said, “Baby-sitters Club, have I got a baby for you! How long do you sit on them before they hatch?”

  “Alan,” I said.

  “How’d you guess?” He laughed heartily.

  Maybe at another time I would have thought he was funny. Okay, mildly amusing. But at the moment I was just annoyed. For this I was having a fight with my friend?

  “Alan,” I said, “now’s not a good time.”

  “How about Sunday night, then?”

  “What?”

  “How about a good time on Sunday — like a movie-dinner good time?”

  I hesitated, torn between annoyance with him and anger at Kristy.

  “If you’ll agree, I’ll hang up the phone quietly,” Alan said.

  “Okay,” I told him, maybe just a tad ungraciously.

  “See you Sunday,” he said, and hung up.

  I hung up too, more confused than ever. I’d had a fight with Kristy, shocked the entire BSC, and wasn’t even sure I wanted to go out with Alan.

  I could hardly wait for Sunday.

  Or maybe I could hardly wait for Sunday to be over.

  * * *

  “Claudia.” I opened our front door on Sunday evening, and Alan handed me a flower. But it wasn’t just an ordinary flower. It was a carnation in an amazing number of colors, many of them completely unnatural.

  “I thought, with your artist’s eye, you’d appreciate my attempt to improve on nature,” Alan said, almost as if he’d read my thoughts.

  “It’s — amazing,” I said. I smelled the carnation. The sweet spicy scent was still there. It was still a carnation in spite of its outward appearance. “How did you do this?”

  “Split the stem about six different ways and stuck little test tubes of colored water on the end of each one. It wasn’t easy. But you’re worth it.” Alan was laughing, but something about the way he said it made me blush.

  I turned hastily away. “Let me just put this in some plain water, and I’ll be right back.”

  When I returned to the front door, he was talking to my mother. I heard her say, “Won’t you come in, Alan?”

  She gave me a disapproving look and I could see she thought I’d been rude not to invite Alan in.

  And she was right. But honestly, at that moment I was so confused about so many things that I’d forgotten. I really had.

  Alan didn’t seem to mind. “Thank you, but our ride is waiting.” He motioned behind him, and I saw a man in a car at the curb. “My dad,” Alan said. “He’s going to drop us off at the movie and pick us up afterward.”

  “Have fun.” My mother gave Alan a smile. I wasn’t sure if I was included. Things were still pretty tense between us.

  “We will,” Alan assured her.

  We didn’t talk much until we were in our seats at the theater. Alan glanced around. “Sundays aren’t big movie nights, are they? I guess you always get a good seat.”

  I said abruptly, “Alan. About calling during the club meetings. Could you not do that? It … it upsets Kristy.”

  “Really?” he said innocently. He leaned back and turned to look at me. “Gee, I’m sorry.”

  Part of me wanted to laugh. Another part of me was annoyed. “Your crank calls mean that fewer of our clients can get through to us,” I continued.

  “You’re calling me a business liability?”

  I wasn’t sure what that meant. “No,” I said. “But if you keep it up, I’ll be calling you a real pain.” I smiled when I said it, so it wouldn’t hurt Alan’s feelings.

  He raised his eyebrows. The house lights went down.

  “Only fifteen minutes of commercials until movie time,” I said.

  “Yeah,” said Alan.

  “Good grief! Look at that. Those are the same lame commercials as the last time we were here. They could at least change them.”

  “Never overestimate the intelligence of the public. That’s what P. T. Barnum said, more or less.”

  I thought about that for a minute. “You mean someone is saying that most people are so stupid it doesn’t matter how many times you show them the same commercial?”

  “That’s it,” Alan said. He looked thoughtful. Then he went on. “Barnum owned a circus. I just read a book about him. I think it would be cool to have a circus.”

  “I can see it,” I said.

  Alan turned toward me. “Not just so I could be a clown.”

  “I didn’t mean that,” I said. But the truth was, I had envisioned exactly that: Alan in a clown suit, with a big nose and bulbous shoes and one of those gag flowers that squirts water in your face when you sniff it.

  “Not that there’s anything wrong with clowns,” Alan went on.

  “Of course not.”

  Behind us, someone said, “Shhh!”

  So we weren’t the only ones in the theater. We didn’t talk after that. But I kept thinking about Alan, kept seeing him as a clown in the middle of a three-ring circus. Was that what Alan really was at heart? Was the old Alan lurking somewhere inside, his clown suit hidden beneath a cloak of good behavior?

  When the movie ended, we walked to Pizza Express. It was still light outside, and at Alan’s suggestion we took the pizza to the covered patio strung with fake grapevines and crammed with wooden plank tables topped by red-and-white-checked plastic tablecloths.

  I scanned the pati
o as we sat down.

  “Looking for someone?” Alan asked.

  “No,” I said quickly. “Just looking. It’s a nice night.”

  I sounded like my mother, talking about the weather. I sat down and grabbed a slice of pizza.

  “Careful, it’s — ”

  I crammed the pizza in my mouth and let out a gooey yelp. As I gulped soda, Alan finished, “ — hot. Are you okay, Claudia?”

  I nodded. When I could talk again, I said, “I should have known it would be too hot.”

  We ate in silence for a moment. Several times, Alan looked as if he were about to speak, but he didn’t.

  “Good pizza,” I said finally, just to say something.

  “My favorite,” Alan said. “I love anchovies.”

  I let out another yelp. “Anchovies. I hate anchovies.” I jerked the slice of pizza away from my mouth and let it drop onto the plate. Bending over, I examined it. “Great. I must have eaten all the anchovies on this slice. Ugh. I can’t believe I didn’t taste them. I —”

  I looked up. Alan was laughing.

  “Claudia,” he said, “there are no anchovies.”

  “No … oh.” I didn’t know whether to laugh or smack Alan with the pizza slice. Starting a food fight, however, was beneath my dignity. (Although, as Kristy might have observed, it probably wasn’t beneath Alan’s.)

  “I was just teasing, Claudia,” Alan said.

  “Right.” I smiled. If anybody else had pulled that on me, I probably would have laughed.

  But if I laughed at Alan, I might just encourage him. And who knew where that might lead — to an impromptu dance with the pizza pan on his head? A burping demonstration? A display of his ability to squirt soda out of his nose?

  “I guess I fell for it. Good one.” To my own ears, I sounded like a baby-sitter talking to a bratty little kid. I hoped I didn’t sound like that to Alan. He gave me a long look, but he didn’t say anything.

  When Alan’s father arrived to pick us up, I admit I was relieved. I forced another smile for Alan’s slam-dunk of the paper plates and napkins into the trash can while I slid the pizza pan onto the busboy’s tray. But I couldn’t think of anything to say.

  We rode to my house in silence.

  “Thanks,” I said when I got out. “It was fun.”

  “It was?” Alan said. I had the sudden, uncomfortable feeling that he knew exactly what I was thinking.

  But that wasn’t possible. Was it?

  “See you later,” I went on.

  “I hope so,” said Alan. But his voice was cool, careful. Very un-Alan.

  I hurried into the house. The car pulled away.

  Upstairs in my room, I flopped on my bed. I’d been on worse dates, but few that had felt so awkward. How had that happened? Up until tonight, I’d enjoyed Alan’s company and I was pretty sure he had enjoyed mine.

  But tonight, he’d been stiff, awkward. And that had made me feel the same way.

  Or did I make Alan feel weird? Had he picked up on my nervousness about being seen with him?

  That would be a first, I told myself. Someone else making weird Alan feel weird.

  I knew I wasn’t being fair. But I was tired. And confused. How could I go out with somebody if I always had to worry about what he might do, or what other people might think?

  It wasn’t worth it.

  It just wasn’t worth it.

  I told myself that over and over until I finally fell asleep.

  “First let me tell you that everybody does not love a clown,” I said as I walked into the break room in the basement of the library on Monday morning at precisely fifteen minutes before the doors opened.

  Erica, who was sprawled on the couch, holding a cup of hot tea, looked up with a startled expression. “What?”

  She looked exhausted. “You look tired,” I said. “Are you okay?”

  “Oh, I’m full of frustration, aggravation, and temptation,” she answered, waving one hand. “But you go first. What’s this about clowns in love?”

  I made myself a cup of tea and sat down next to Erica. We had the lounge to ourselves. The faint smell of burned coffee told me that Ms. Feld had already come and gone.

  “Not clowns in love,” I corrected her. “At least I hope not. But this whole thing is turning into a circus.”

  “You’re not making any sense,” Erica said.

  “Sorry. It’s just that … well, I had a date with Alan this weekend. Last night. We went to the movies. And for pizza. And this is not the first time I’ve gone out with him. We went out last Monday too.” I sounded as if I were making a confession.

  Erica looked surprised but not disgusted. Which was a relief. “Wow,” she said. “Who’d have guessed?”

  I sighed. “I know. I know. Who could possibly go out with someone like Alan?”

  “Well, his sense of humor is pretty … second grade … sometimes,” Erica said. “But I don’t think he’s hopeless or anything.”

  “You don’t?”

  She took a sip of tea, thought for a moment, then shook her head. “Nope.”

  “Kristy does. She was totally freaked out when I told her. She did everything but call me a loser.” Perhaps I exaggerated a little, but not much. “And I don’t think she’s going to be the only one who reacts that way. Alan Gray has been Alan the class joke since first grade.”

  “People change,” Erica assured me. “And you shouldn’t worry so much about what other people think. If they’re going to pass judgment on you for something as harmless as going out with a guy who isn’t Mr. Maturity, then they’re not worth listening to.”

  “You think?” I said, feeling slightly better.

  “I think,” Erica agreed. Then she sighed.

  “Your turn,” I said. “What’s up?”

  “Nothing,” she answered glumly. “I spent most of the week on the Web and on the phone. I learned a lot about the process of finding your birth parents. I read tons of stories about other peoples’ reunions.” She sighed again.

  “But?”

  “But legally there’s nothing that I can do. I mean, a thirteen-year-old has no legal way to get the adoption agency to release adoption records. I have to have my parents’ permission — and they’re being totally stubborn and unreasonable about this.”

  “Yeah, I know,” I said sympathetically. Had my mother apologized to me for the mural misunderstanding? I think not. She was being pretty stubborn and unreasonable herself. I mean, sure she was talking to me pleasantly enough now, but did she mean it? No. She was still annoyed, I could tell. And I was annoyed that she was annoyed. “Listen, if there is anything, I mean anything I can do to help …”

  “Maybe you can. I might have another plan,” Erica said.

  “What?”

  “I’ll tell you if I have to put it into effect.” Erica managed to look determined and mysterious at the same time.

  “Okay.” I sipped my tea, added another tea-spoon of sugar, and took another swig. Better.

  Erica looked at her watch. “We should get going,” she said. She finished her tea, rinsed out her mug, and set it on the drainboard.

  “Two seconds,” I said. I drank as much of my tea as I could (how did Ms. Feld swallow all that scalding coffee first thing in the morning?), poured the rest out, rinsed my own mug, and headed upstairs with Erica.

  As we entered the children’s room, Ms. Feld looked up from a box of books she was unpacking. “I just love opening big boxes of new books, don’t you?” she said.

  “Definitely,” Erica agreed. “Like when you order books through the book clubs at school. I can’t ever remember what I ordered, so it’s sort of like getting a present.”

  I didn’t say anything. Unwrapping boxes of books did not make it onto my list of “Things to Love.”

  Ms. Feld lifted out the last stack of books. Boxes covered the floor around her. Erica said, “I’ll take these boxes down to recycling.”

  “Thanks, Erica,” said Ms. Feld. “And you can see what we
’ll be doing this morning until the children arrive for story hour. Processing books!” She said this with so much enthusiasm that I almost felt excited about the idea myself. Almost.

  Then Ms. Feld said something that did pump up my excitement. She looked at me and said, “And, Claudia, guess what! I’ve gotten the go-ahead for the mural. I’d like to get started on Wednesday, if that’s okay with you.”

  How had she done that? Had my mom approved? Or had they taken a vote on Friday at the meeting? Had my mom been against it and been outvoted?

  I didn’t want to think about all the possibilities. I simply said, “Great! I’ve drawn up a couple of ideas that I think we can use. I’ll show them to you.”

  “As soon as story time is over,” Ms. Feld agreed.

  Needless to say, the next couple of hours stretched on as if they were years. Whatever my mom might have had to say about the mural, it was going to happen now. My artwork was going to be permanently (or at least, pretty permanently) installed on the wall of the Stoneybrook Library. I admit, I was psyched.

  I was even more pysched by Ms. Feld’s reaction to the ideas and sketches I showed her. The old mural was a series of panels showing children reading in different places and situations: a child in a tree house, a child sprawled on a rug in front of a fireplace, a child in bed beneath the covers with a flashlight, a child in a rocking chair with her grandmother reading to her, a child in a porch swing. It was nice and pretty and sweet, except that all of the children looked much the same: pink-cheeked kids, the girls in frilly dresses, the boys in pants. I’d used the same motif, but the kids looked like the kids I know: dark-skinned, light-skinned, curly hair, straight hair, a girl (who looked a little like Kristy in overalls), a solemn boy sitting by his grandmother, an older kid reading to a younger kid in the porch swing. There was even a row of little kids in sunglasses on towels, reading at the beach.

  Then I’d added different characters altogether — real characters. In the row of kids at the beach, for example, a seagull read Jonathan Livingston Seagull, a pelican read The Enormous Fish, and a crab read Sandcastles. Behind them, a girl in a red cloak with a hood, carrying a basket, walked by. From the basket several books stuck out: Maps to Grandma’s House, How to Survive in the Woods, and Never Trust a Wolf. Up in the tree house, a nest full of baby robins each had a teeny-tiny book, except for one, whose mouth was open in complaint. Above the baby robin, a parent robin was swooping down with a book in its beak. In the background, far, far away, a princess in a tower with long golden hair read a book. In tiny letters on the cover of the book, I’d written, The Princess’s Guide to Building Ladders. Beneath the porch swing, a large dog with glasses read How to House-train Your Human. In a corner, a frog with a crown on its head read The True Story of the Frog Who Kissed a Princess.