Stacey's Mistake Read online

  A fast song ended and a slow one started. Kristy wrapped her arms around Coby’s neck and they smiled at each other. And Claudia chose that moment to tap Coby on the shoulder and say, “May I have this dance?”

  Kristy drew back in horror. If looks could kill, Claudia would have been dead and buried. Kristy flounced over to the couch and sulked.

  It was eleven o’dock by then and kids were starting to leave. One by one they got their coats and drifted out the door. Even Coby, although he did say a special good-bye to Kristy, and they exchanged phone numbers and addresses.

  Finally, only Laine and the members of the Baby-sitters Club were left.

  We were utterly silent.

  Dear Mom, Watson, Charlie, Sam, and David Michael,

  We are having a blast! Stacey threw this super-cool party tonight, and everyone got along great. I met this terrific guy named Coby. And we all met Stacey’s New York best friend, whose name is Laine. Laine and Claudia are like sisters now. It’s amazing. I can’t believe how easily Mary Anne, Dawn, and Claudia and I fit right into the New York scene.

  Ciao

  Kristy

  I don’t think I need to tell you what a bunch of lies Kristy’s postcard was. Hardly anyone got along. Laine and Claudia were more like wicked stepsisters than regular sisters, my New York friends thought Mary Anne was a jerk, and thanks to what she’d said, they thought Dawn was a jerk, too. And Kristy and Coby may have hit it off, but Claudia totally spoiled Kristy’s evening by butting in on Coby and flirting with him.

  After Laine, Claudia, Mary Anne, Dawn, and Kristy and I had looked at each other silently for a few moments, I said brightly, “Wow, what a mess we’ve got to clean up. Let’s get to work.”

  “Just a sec,” Laine interrupted. “You invited me to spend the night with you guys. Do you still want me to?”

  “Of course I do,” I replied.

  “Well, now,” Claudia spoke up quickly, “Laine should only have to spend the night here if she wants to. We wouldn’t want to force her into anything.”

  “I,” said Laine, “am only going to spend the night here if I’m wanted.”

  “You’re wanted by me,” I said nervously.

  “And me,” said Kristy.

  “And me,” said Dawn.

  “And me,” said Mary Anne.

  Claudia said nothing.

  “Claudia?” I prompted her.

  Still nothing.

  “What’d I do to you?” Laine asked Claudia sharply. “I didn’t do anything and you act like you hate me.”

  “You did too do something,” Claudia replied haughtily.

  “What?”

  “Don’t you know?”

  “No.”

  “Well, I’m not going to tell you.”

  “Oh, that’s mature. You’re a jerk.”

  “And you’re a stuck-up snob.”

  “You know something?” Kristy spoke up. “Laine’s right. You are a jerk, Claudia.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I said, ‘You are a jerk, Claudia.’”

  “I heard you the first time,” Claud snapped.

  “Oh. It’s just that you said, ‘Excuse me,’ which usually means you haven’t heard properly,” Kristy said sweetly.

  “Kristy — shut up. Or else tell me why I’m an alleged jerk.”

  Claudia may not be a great student, but she I picks up words like alleged from reading Nancy Drew stories.

  “You,” said Kristy, “are not an alleged jerk, you’re an actual jerk. You cut in on Coby and me. We were having a great time and you flirted with him and spoiled the whole evening.”

  “I did not flirt with him!” Claudia cried. “He was the only boy here that I — I wasn’t afraid of. And I didn’t want to be a wallflower all night. No one was asking me to dance.”

  “It’s no wonder,” I heard Laine mutter.

  What was happening here? I was crushed. I’d wanted so badly for all my good friends to get to know each other and like each other, but they were becoming enemies, even the club members.

  “Could — could you guys, um, keep your voices down?” I asked. “If you don’t, Mom and Dad are going to come out here and try to help us patch things up.”

  “We’re beyond patching,” said Mary Anne.

  “Well, let’s at least move into the living room,” I suggested.

  I’d hoped that once we were in the midst of the mess, my friends would start to clean up, and that eventually they’d forget about their problems and we could have a nice slumber party.

  I must have been crazy.

  No sooner had we set foot in the living room than Dawn — quiet, even-tempered Dawn — said icily, “Claudia and Laine aren’t the only jerks around here.” She looked directly at Mary Anne, who, I might add, is her best friend.

  “Me?” asked Mary Anne incredulously. “Are you saying I’m a jerk, too?”

  “Allegedly,” replied Dawn.

  “Why?”

  “You don’t have any idea?”

  Mary Anne shook her head. I could see her confidence (what there was of it) oozing away. Her eyes grew bright with tears.

  “Then try this,” said Dawn. “See if it sounds familiar. ‘She saw a mouse and thought it was a rat. And she was afraid we’d get trapped in the elevator. She even believes there are alligators in the sewers. Isn’t that crazy?’ Then imagine a lot of snickering and laughing.”

  Mary Anne looked at the rug. The tears slipped down her cheeks. She’s a champion crier.

  Laine looked at everyone disgustedly. “Can we get back to the original issue here?” she said.

  I was so confused and upset that I couldn’t remember what the original issue was. “Huh?” I replied.

  “You asked me to spend the night,” Laine said slowly, as if she were speaking to a really little kid.

  “Oh. Oh, yeah. Well, you’re still invited.”

  “Thanks,” Laine replied. She looked around the living room. Mary Anne was sniffling and wiping her eyes. Dawn was sprawled in an armchair, her feelings apparently wounded for life. And Claudia and Kristy were glaring at each other, archenemies. Occasionally, Claudia’s glare would switch to Laine. “Thanks,” Laine said to me again, “but I guess I’d rather not. I’m going to call my dad and have him come get me.” Then she added under her breath, “A funeral would be more fun than this.”

  While Laine waited for her father, she helped clean up. The six of us wandered silently around the living room, tossing paper plates and cups and napkins into garbage bags. Then we carried the leftover food into the kitchen. We were wrapping up the remaining hero sandwiches when the buzzer buzzed.

  I ran for it. “Yes?” I said.

  “Mr. Cummings is here.”

  “Okay. Thanks. Laine’ll be right down.”

  “Have a nice day.”

  “Good night, Isaac.”

  Laine gathered her things together. I walked her into the hallway. “It’s been real,” she called to Kristy, Claudia, Mary Anne, and Dawn.

  “Yeah, real torture,” Claud muttered.

  “Laine, I’m sorry,” I said quietly.

  “Don’t worry about it,” she reassured me. “Everything will get straightened out. I’ll call you tomorrow.”

  The elevator arrived and the doors swallowed her up. She was gone.

  I wished I didn’t have to go back inside my apartment. Imagine — not wanting to go into your own home. Of course, I did anyway. But I was so mad at all my friends — even Kristy and Dawn, whom I also felt sorry for — that I marched right inside, shut and locked the door behind me, and said firmly, “Kristy and Dawn, you sleep on the sofa bed in the den. Mary Anne and Claudia, you sleep on the sofa bed here in the living room. I’m sleeping in my own bed.”

  My friends nodded. They got their stuff out of my room. A half hour later, we were ready for bed. Not one of us had spoken since I’d made the bed announcement. I told my friends to gather in the living room.

  “Look, you guys,” I said. “It�
�s been a long day. It hasn’t been a great evening. We’re all tired. But I’m calling a truce. The truce has to last until at least tomorrow night. Because tomorrow, we’ve got ten kids to sit for, and we can’t do that if we’re not speaking. So, truce?”

  “Truce,” mumbled Kristy, Mary Anne, Dawn, and Claudia.

  As I was walking down the hall to my room, Dawn called after me, “Stacey? Are the doormen on duty all night? And do your locks work? And, oh, by the way, you do have an alarm system, don’t you?”

  “Yes,” I told her, even though the alarm system part wasn’t true. Then I went to bed.

  Dear Mimi

  Remerber when the Babbysiters club took car of forteen children? At Kristy’s house. Well today was are day to take car of ten kids what a job that was. We met the kids yesterday, just to say hi to them and today their parnets dropped them of at Stacey’s apratment. They all know Stacey but some were confused when they saw the big crowd and their were some tears.

  I luv you.

  Claudia

  When I woke up the next morning I felt pretty subdued. I wondered how the others were feeling. I had purposely separated Kristy and Claudia, and Dawn and Mary Anne, but I knew that had not solved the real problem.

  What was the real problem? I lay in bed and thought about it. Maybe there were several problems. I finally decided that was true. In fact, there were three problems:

  1. People get out of whack when they’re on a trip. Their routine is different and they’re spending more time together. Those changes might put them on edge.

  2. My Connecticut friends had desperately wanted to impress my New York friends. This was especially important to Mary Anne.

  3. Laine and Claudia were jealous of each other, but neither would admit it.

  Hey! I thought. We’ve got a lot of problems here, but none of them are exactly mine.

  Although I am the host of these people, so it would help (a lot) if everybody could get along.

  What I did have to worry about was baby-sitting for ten kids all afternoon. They were going to start showing up around eleven-thirty and it was already nine o’clock. I got out of bed and went to the window, hoping the weather was nice. I peeked outside — a perfect day. The sky (what I could see of it) was a glittering blue, not a cloud in sight. Great. We could take the kids outdoors. Being stuck indoors in one apartment with ten children and five squabbling baby-sitters was not my idea of a stellar afternoon.

  I tiptoed down the hall and into the living room, where I found a note from my parents saying that they’d gone out for breakfast. Mary Anne and Claudia were still asleep.

  I peeked into the den. Kristy and Dawn were awake. Not up, but awake.

  “Morning,” they said sheepishly.

  “Morning,” I replied. “How are you feeling? Did you sleep okay?”

  “Like a log,” Dawn replied. “I didn’t think I would. I thought, you know …”

  “Ghoulies and ghosties?” I supplied, smiling.

  “More like burglies and ratties.”

  “You know,” I said, “you do have to be careful here. You have to be careful in any big city. But be reasonable, too. You’ll make yourself crazy if you worry about everything.”

  “I know.”

  “Besides,” added Kristy, “I bet there are things to worry about that you haven’t even imagined yet.”

  “Kristy,” I said.

  “Well, it’s true. Like getting food poisoning in a restaurant. Or getting run over by a bus. Or getting bitten by an animal in the petting zoo in Central Park.”

  I didn’t know whether to strangle Kristy or laugh at her. Shaking my head, I left the den to wake up Claudia and Mary Anne. I was beginning to feel edgy again. Was Kristy going to be a pest for the rest of the weekend? Would Dawn worry herself into a frenzy?

  “Hey, you guys,” I said, gently shaking Claudia and Mary Anne.

  The living room, at least the part of the living room around the sofa bed, was a huge mess. I knew most of the mess was Claudia’s. Mary Anne is usually fairly neat. (Actually, Claudia is, too. It’s just that she had those two years’ worth of clothes with her.)

  “Rise and shine!” I said cheerfully.

  “Ohhh,” groaned Claudia. “Please.”

  I remembered then how I’d hated for my mother to stick her head in my bedroom and say that.

  “It’s nine o’clock,” I informed them. “No, it’s nine-oh-six. The children are going to start coming by in about two and a half hours. So we better get up and get going. We’ve got to make some plans.”

  “You sound like a cruise director,” mumbled Claudia.

  My only reply to that was, “Remember our truce.”

  An hour later, Mom and Dad had returned, and my friends and I had dressed, eaten breakfast, folded up the sofa beds, and tidied the living room, den, and my bedroom. We were sitting around in my room.

  “It’s kind of like the old days, isn’t it?” I said. “This could be a club meeting. My room could be Claudia’s room, and I could be the treasurer again —”

  Kristy jumped up from where she’d been sitting on the floor, ousted me from my armchair, reached over to my desk, grabbed a pad of paper and a pen, stuck the pen over her ear, and said, “Even though I don’t have my visor on, I call a meeting of the Baby-sitters Club.”

  (In Stoneybrook, Kristy conducts meetings from Claudia’s director’s chair and always wears a visor and sticks a pencil over one ear.)

  Claudia made a rude noise, but Kristy said sharply, “Truce.” Then she went on, “Remember when we were going to sit for the fourteen kids before my mom got married to Watson? We made a list of all the children, in age order. That was pretty helpful. Let’s do that again. Mary Anne, you’re the secretary. You make the list. Stacey, go over the names and ages of the kids.”

  “Okay,” I replied. And we got to work. When we were finished, Mary Anne’s list looked like this:

  Natalie Upchurch - 10

  Dennis Deluca - 9

  Carlos Barrera - 9

  Peggie Upchurch - 8

  Blair Barrera - 7

  Sean Deluca - 6

  Cissy Barrera - 5

  Henry Walker - 5

  Leslie Reames - 4

  Grace Walker - 3

  “It does sort of put things in perspective,” Dawn commented.

  “Maybe we should make name tags,” Kristy suggested. “We did that with the fourteen kids, too. Remember how useful they were?”

  I shook my head. “No name tags,” I said firmly. “It’s not a good idea. It’s not safe. We don’t want strangers to know the kids’ names.”

  “We don’t?” Dawn said in a trembly voice.

  “Oh, lord,” muttered Claudia, giving Dawn an exasperated look.

  “TRUCE!” said Kristy, Mary Anne, and I at the same time. If we hadn’t all been so edgy, that would have been funny. But none of us laughed. We just shut up.

  “So what are we going to do today?” Kristy asked after a little while. “You mentioned the museum and the park, Stacey, but we should have some sort of schedule in mind. Oh, and what time do we bring the kids back? How long is the meeting their parents are going to?

  “I don’t know exactly,” I answered. “I mean, no one does. But Mom said she thought it would be three or four hours. I figure we should bring the kids back between three-thirty and four.”

  Kristy nodded. Then we decided on a tentative schedule for the afternoon, which included lunch at the museum. (The parents were going to give us money in advance to cover expenses such as food and the admission to the museum.)

  At 11:35 the doorbell rang. I looked at my friends. “Well,” I said, “this is the beginning: I hope we’re up to this.”

  I really meant that last part. We had conducted our meeting civilly (the truce was working), but that was about all you could say. There hadn’t been any laughing or joking or teasing. Just grim business.

  “Come on. Let’s see who’s at the door.”

  It was Leslie R
eames and Martha.

  “Good-bye!” Martha called happily as she left Leslie in our doorway. It was Martha’s afternoon off, and she looked as if she planned to enjoy it.

  Leslie stepped inside. “Remember my wheat allergy,” she said. “And not too much running, and I hate dogs.”

  Us baby-sitters refrained from rolling our eyes.

  Unfortunately, the next kids to arrive were the Barreras. It was unfortunate because Cissy dislikes Leslie so much. I couldn’t blame Cissy, really, but we’d have to try to keep the girls apart. Cissy is this sturdy, playful tomboy who has no use for delicate, nervous Leslie. She and her brothers are sort of rough and tumble. They’re not bullies. They’re just lively and full of fun.

  Before a fight could break out, though, the Walkers arrived. Peggie and Natalie were right behind them, and a few minutes later the Delucas brought Dennis and Sean by.

  Our living room was packed. Mr. and Mrs. Walker and Mr. and Mrs. Deluca hadn’t left yet. Henry, Grace, and Sean were in tears, and Leslie was screeching because Carlos Barrera had invited her to come see the Barreras’ new puppy. Carlos was trying to be nice; Leslie thought he was being mean.

  “It’s time to get rid of the adults,” I whispered to Kristy.

  Before I could say anything, though, my parents came into the living room and announced, “The meeting will start in ten minutes. We better get going.”

  With difficulty, the Walkers left Henry and Grace, and the Delucas left Sean. The three kids were still crying.

  “Have fun and be careful,” Mom said to me.

  The apartment door closed behind the adults. I locked it. Then I returned to the living room. I looked into the faces of the ten children and four other baby-sitters. Every last one of them looked nervous — no, scared.

  Hi, Mal!

  Guess what we did today. We went to the American Museum of Natural History. It was so, so cool. You would have loved it. So would your brothers and sisters. Especially the triplets, I think. Dinosaur skeletons everywhere. And big cases showing animals (stuffed ones) in their habitats. But we had a scare. Boy, did we have a scare! We lost one of the kids we were sitting for. We almost panicked … until Mary Anne helped us to remember that a good baby-sitter keeps her head at all times. Anyway, everything turned out fine, of course.