Maid Mary Anne Read online

  I could tell Claudia was trying not to laugh, especially at the outraged look on Becca’s face.

  “And butterflies,” I put in quickly.

  “Hey! What about birds?” said Buddy. “Or a scarecrow? This’ll be cool.” He began to erase his piece of paper vigorously.

  “We’ll start over with new paper,” said Claudia.

  “I’m going to begin with a rose, I suppose,” said Vanessa.

  “Can I make a robin?” asked Haley anxiously. “Even though I don’t think I can draw one exactly right?”

  “Of course. Claudia can help you draw a robin,” I told her. I wasn’t surprised when Nicky picked a spider for the first of his blocks. But when Claudia suggested he make it on a blue piece of material and embroider a silver web for the spider, Nicky was even more pleased with his idea.

  Charlotte decided to begin with a sunflower. Becca chose a butterfly.

  “I’m going to try a watering can,” said Claudia. “What about you, Mary Anne?”

  “A tulip,” I said. I like tulips. And it wouldn’t be too hard, so I could concentrate on what the kids were doing.

  With Claudia’s help, we had soon designed all our squares.

  “Now what?” demanded Buddy.

  “Now we take another field trip.” I heard a car pull into the driveway. “Perfect timing.”

  Vanessa tilted her head and said, “That sounds like a car. Come from afar?”

  “That’s right, Vanessa. Your mother has volunteered to drive us to the fabric store. She’s going to take us in one of your station wagons. That way we can all go together.”

  Taking six kids anywhere is a major expedition. But since we are experienced baby-sitters, Claudia and I settled everybody into the station wagon (three in each seat so we could all wear seat belts) after not too long and headed for the fabric store downtown.

  As class trips go, this one rated an A-plus, I could tell. The kids loved it. Vanessa trailed through the store, patting the velveteens and corduroys. Charlotte zeroed in on the embroidery thread, while Buddy fell into fascinated contemplation of the sewing machines for sale. Becca and Claudia and Haley disappeared down the aisle leading to the trim and braids.

  And Nicky held his nose and said, “Euuw. It smells.”

  “That’s the dye from the material,” I told him.

  I let everyone look for a little while, then shepherded them toward the remnant table in the back. “We should choose from here,” I explained. “You can buy just a little bit of material, which is all you need, and you have a huge choice.”

  And, I added silently, we’ll have enough money for it. We had asked the parents for a small fee to pay for materials.

  Several people looked at us curiously as we sorted through the scraps of material, holding them up and saying things like, “Velvet would be perfect for a rose. Too bad it’s blue,” and “Do you think a pansy could have a face made of brown corduroy?”

  Occasionally, another child would drift over and watch, and once I saw someone who I think was one of Nicky’s classmates peering in through the window, watching us. But we had the remnant table pretty much to ourselves.

  “Remember, we can embroider things onto the pictures, too,” I told everyone. “That way, Nicky, your spider can have eyes.”

  Nicky looked pleased. “Good. Big red eyes.”

  Claudia unearthed a piece of rough black wool. “This would be good for a spider, too. It’s sort of fuzzy like one.”

  “Ick, yick,” said Vanessa.

  Nicky took the wool, inspected it, and added it to the pile of scraps he was making.

  By the time we’d finished, we’d looked through every remnant in the store. But we had a beautiful collection of fabric.

  “This is going to be the most bea-uutiful quilt,” said Vanessa happily as we left the store.

  I smiled down at her. “You know what, Vanessa?” I said. “You are absolutely right.”

  And I knew it would be — spiders and all.

  When Stacey arrived at the Barretts’ house on Wednesday, she was not surprised when Mrs. Barrett didn’t answer the door on the first ring. Or the second. Or even the third. Mrs. Barrett tends to be disorganized. So it was entirely possible that she had a) forgotten Stacey was coming; b) couldn’t remember where the doorbell was; or c) both of the above. Not for one minute, though, did Stacey think that Mrs. Barrett was lying in the kitchen, say, with a broken ankle (as I would have).

  And she was right not to worry. She was just about to press the bell a fourth time when the door flew open and Mrs. Barrett burst out, looking stunning as usual and as usual, trailing half-formed sentences and a bit of chaos behind her.

  “Stacey!” She looked down in her purse and shouted, “Stacey’s here. Buddy! Suzi! Marnie!”

  Of course, Mrs. Barrett didn’t have an intercom in her purse. She was looking for her keys. She pulled them out as Pow, the Barretts’ basset hound, and five-year-old Suzi came tumbling out into the front hall.

  “Hi, Suzi,” said Stacey, smiling.

  “Hi,” replied Suzi. She leaned over a little, and lifted one of Pow’s long, soft ears and rubbed it against her cheek. Pow wagged his tail and turned and licked Suzi’s other cheek. (His ears are long enough so that he can do that.)

  Stacey couldn’t repress an “euwww” feeling, but since Pow and Suzi seemed happy with the arrangement, she didn’t say anything.

  “Did I tell you? Five-thirty, not a minute later than six, anyway — and, ah — on the notepad by the phone, the number where I, ah —” Mrs. Barrett raised her voice, “Be good, kids. Do what Stacey tells you!”

  And she was gone, on an almost overwhelming tide of Passion perfume. Stacey interpreted what Mrs. Barrett had said to mean she’d be back by five-thirty, or at least no later than six and that on the notepad by the phone was a number where Mrs. Barrett could be reached. Mrs. Barrett hardly ever gives more instructions than that to the baby-sitters, but Stacey also knew where the list of emergency numbers was and she wasn’t worried.

  She closed the door behind her and bent over to pet Pow. “Where’s Marnie?” she asked Suzie.

  “In her room having a nap,” said Suzi. “She’s a baby.”

  “How about Buddy? Seen him around?”

  Suzi nodded solemnly, but before she could answer, Buddy appeared in person.

  “I’m going to go out and play, okay, Stacey?”

  Mrs. Barrett hadn’t said anything about it and it was a nice, clear day, so Stacey said, “I don’t see why not, Buddy. But you must stay on this block. And you can’t cross the street. Understood?”

  “Sure,” said Buddy. “ ’Bye.”

  Stacey smiled. “Somebody’s in a hurry, huh, Suzi? Okay, now, I’m going to go check on Marnie and then why don’t we open up the Kid-Kit I brought?”

  Suzi’s eyes lit up. “Okay!”

  “I’ll meet you and Pow — if he wants to join us — in the playroom.”

  “Come on, Pow.” Suzi let go of Pow’s ear. He gave her face a last lick, then trotted alongside her as she headed for the den.

  Marnie was sound asleep. Stacey pulled the shade down so the sun wouldn’t wake her, then returned to Suzi and Pow.

  They sat down on the floor by the couch in the playroom and Suzi began to take things out of the Kid-Kit and examine them. She was reviewing the books in it and showing them to Pow (“This is Goodnight Moon, Pow. It’s a baby book. Mommy reads it to Marnie. Oooh. This book is scary!”) when the back door banged open.

  Stacey jumped. Something about the force of the door slamming sounded a little ominous. And the high-speed pounding of the footsteps down the hall added to the feeling.

  “Buddy? Is that you?”

  “Yeah.” The footsteps ran on toward the stairs.

  “Hey, want to come join us?”

  “No!”

  With the instincts of a great baby-sitter, Stacey knew something was wrong. “I’ll be right back,” she told Suzi. Suzi nodded and pulled another bo
ok out. “You’ll like this one, Pow. It’s Harry the Dirty Dog.”

  Buddy was halfway up the stairs when Stacey caught up with him.

  “Buddy?” He put his head down and kept going. Stacey chugged alongside him until they reached the top. Then she put her hand on his shoulder.

  “Buddy?”

  Buddy looked slowly up at her and she saw why he was trying to ignore her. His lip was bleeding, his T-shirt was torn, and his knees below his shorts were skinned and battered. He also looked like he was going to have a black eye before very much longer.

  Keeping her voice calm and trying not to jump to any conclusions, Stacey said, “So what happened here?”

  “Nothing,” replied Buddy.

  Stacey steered Buddy toward the bathroom. “What kind of nothing? You want to give me any details?”

  Buddy shrugged. Stacey found a washcloth and washed off the scrapes, then inspected Buddy’s lip. He had only a small cut, in spite of what had, at first, looked like a lot of blood.

  “Here,” she said. “You put the peroxide on.”

  “Peroxide?” Buddy’s voice rose slightly.

  “Or I can do it, if you want. It’ll only sting a minute. Don’t be afraid.”

  Almost ferociously, Buddy took the peroxide out of Stacey’s hand. “I’m not afraid! I’m not a sissy!”

  With that, he splashed a huge amount of peroxide over his knees.

  It made Stacey wince, but Buddy only scowled.

  “So, give me a hint, Buddy. You met a saber-tooth tiger and didn’t want to be dinner?”

  Buddy continued to scowl as he shook his head.

  “A rosebush leaped out from one of the flowerbeds and grabbed you and made you beg for mercy?”

  “No,” said Buddy shortly. “I better change shirts.”

  He pushed past her, but Stacey wasn’t about to give up. “I’ll wait outside,” she said.

  When Buddy didn’t come out of his room, she tapped on the door. “Buddy?”

  His voice was grudging. “Come in.”

  “Okay, Buddy, what happened?”

  Buddy’s face grew very red. He looked angry. “I got in a fight, okay?”

  “I thought you did. I bet the other guy looks sort of like you, too.”

  “He sure does.” Buddy made one of his hands into a fist and air-boxed for a few moments.

  “How did it start?”

  “He started it.”

  “He who?”

  “I can’t tell you that. I’m not a tattletale. And I’m not a sissy!”

  “No one said you are … unless the guy you were fighting with did.”

  It was a good guess on Stacey’s part. Buddy’s eyes blazed. “He said taking sewing lessons is for girls and wimps and babies and sissies!”

  Stacey felt a faint surge of anger. Where did kids learn to be so mean? And so sexist!

  “I’d say calling someone those names is for losers,” she said quietly.

  Buddy shrugged. “I’m quitting.”

  “You’re quitting? Quitting sewing lessons with Mary Anne? Because of what someone said?”

  Buddy shrugged again.

  “Oh, Buddy. Just because someone says something doesn’t make it true. And usually, when people tease, it’s because they don’t know any better. It’s because they’re afraid of what’s different. They’re the ones who are scared. They’re the sissies.”

  Stacey stopped. She could see that what she was saying wasn’t gaining any ground with Buddy. She sighed. “Okay, Buddy. I’m sorry you’re quitting, and I know Mary Anne and everyone else will be, too. You’ll have to call her and tell her. Meanwhile, I’d say it’s time for a snack. What do you think?”

  Some of the wariness left Buddy’s face. “Okay,” he said.

  The rest of the afternoon passed uneventfully. Suzi pretended to read Georgie’s Halloween (with a little help from Stacey) aloud to Marnie several times. Marnie didn’t seem particularly scared by it despite all the thrilling sound effects Suzi added. Pow fell asleep under the sofa, with only his hind legs sticking out. Buddy lay on his stomach, pushing the pieces of a puzzle from the Kid-Kit aimlessly around.

  And Mrs. Barrett arrived home late, as breathlessly as she had left. She didn’t seem upset by what had happened to Buddy, especially after checking him over.

  “It’s too bad,” she said, sighing and releasing Buddy, who had squirmed under his mother’s scrutiny and took himself quickly out of reach. She walked Stacey to the door. “I wish I’d learned to sew. I was delighted Buddy was learning. Oh, well, maybe … well, anyway, good-bye, Stacey, and thank —”

  “Good-bye,” said Stacey as the door closed behind her.

  Since Mrs. Barrett had returned late, the BSC meeting was over, so Stacey went home to brood over the unfairness of life.

  That night after dinner, Buddy called me up.

  “Buddy,” I said. I hadn’t seen or heard from Stacey, so I didn’t have any idea why he was calling. “Hi! How are you doing?”

  “I’m fine, thank you,” he said stiffly. “I called to tell you I can’t take sewing class anymore.”

  “You can’t? Oh, Buddy, I’m sorry. Why?”

  “I can’t,” he said. “Uh, I’m sorry too. I gotta go. ’Bye.”

  He hung up the phone before I could say anything else.

  I put the receiver back slowly. It rang immediately. Weird.

  “Hello?” I said.

  “Hello, may I please speak to Mary Anne Spier?”

  “Nicky Pike,” I said. “This is Mary Anne. I recognized your voice.”

  Nicky said, “Oh. Well, I’m sorry, but I can’t take sewing class anymore.”

  “You can’t? Oh, Nicky, that’s too bad. You know what? Buddy Barrett just called up and told me he couldn’t either.”

  Nicky said, “He already did?”

  “You knew? Nicky, what’s going on?”

  “Nothing,” said Nicky. “We just, you know, we’re busy.”

  I didn’t want to press Nicky, since he sounded so uncomfortable, although I was disappointed. “Well, we’ll miss you. You’re good at sewing.”

  “Uh, thanks,” said Nicky. “Well, good-bye.”

  “Good-bye, Nicky,” I said.

  No one else called to cancel, although I half expected it. I wondered what was going on, but neither Dawn nor I could come up with any logical explanations.

  But we agreed: this was a topic for discussion at the next BSC meeting.

  Of course, at the next BSC meeting, I found out why Buddy had canceled his sewing lessons. No one knew who had been teasing Buddy. But we figured whoever it was probably had been teasing Nicky, too. Mal couldn’t shed any more light on her brother’s decision to quit, though. “He won’t talk about it,” she reported. “At least not now. But I think he does miss your class, Mary Anne.”

  I missed Buddy and Nicky, too, but the class was still going well — although it was taking us a long time to make the friendship quilt. Meanwhile, when I wasn’t teaching the class, I was spending a lot of my free time at Mrs. Towne’s house.

  I loved taking sewing lessons with Mrs. Towne. She knew what she was talking about, and she explained things simply and clearly. Not only that, but she could always explain why things were sewn certain ways, or where a certain quilting pattern came from. Plus, she told stories about her sewing career. I liked to listen almost as much as I liked to sew. I looked forward to every lesson.

  In the meantime, I tried to help her out as much as I could. I was afraid at first that our exchange wouldn’t be fair — that I wouldn’t be able to do enough to pay for the sewing lessons. But it wasn’t that way at all. And Mrs. Towne seemed to be counting on me more and more. “You’re so reliable, Mary Anne,” she told me one afternoon while I was watering her flower beds. She was leaning on two canes, just inside the back door of the sun porch.

  I smiled and waved. It was a soothing feeling, standing in a garden, waving the hose back and forth over the flower beds in the late afternoon
sun. I had started watering the flowers every day for Mrs. Towne. I did it in the afternoons because she didn’t like for them to be watered in the morning. She said some plants had a tendency to get something called “sun scald” if they had water on their leaves on a hot, sunny day.

  After I watered the garden, I always went inside and watered the plants on the sunporch.

  Those were a little more complicated. Not all of them needed to be watered every day, or even every other day. Some of them, like the funny, skinny pencil cactus, only needed watering when the soil grew dry. Mrs. Towne showed me how to take a pinch of soil so I could tell just how much water each plant needed, how to tell from the leaves of others whether they needed water or not.

  Often, after I’d finished watering the plants, we’d have tea. I was getting very good at fixing it just right.

  Which is what I’d been doing one day when I realized I was supposed to leave for a BSC meeting. I couldn’t believe it! I’d almost forgotten.

  I felt bad about rushing away and leaving the tea things out. Mrs. Towne said, “Don’t worry, dear, I can take care of these.” But that didn’t make me feel any less guilty. As I dashed for Claudia’s house, I resolved to work harder. I’d do twice as much the next day.

  Kristy was on the phone with a client when I burst into the room.

  “I’m sorry,” I gasped. “I was at Mrs. Towne’s and —”

  Kristy signaled me to be quiet, then said, “Thank you, we’ll call you back.”

  I grabbed the schedule book.

  “The Braddocks,” said Kristy. “For Saturday afternoon from one until five.”

  “Me, Mal, or you, Kristy,” I said, checking the dates.

  “Can’t,” said Mal. “Sorry, I forgot to tell you guys. We’re going on a family outing to the mall.” She rolled her eyes.

  “Sure you don’t need an extra baby-sitter for that?” teased Stacey.

  “Uh-uh,” said Jessi, grinning. “I’m going, too. We’re getting paid in ice cream after it’s over.”

  “Why don’t you take the job, Mary Anne?” asked Kristy. I knew she was, in her own Kristy way, trying to make up for the mean “You’re late” look she’d given when I’d burst in.

  I smiled to show I understood, but I shook my head. “I can’t. Thanks, though. Can’t you do it, Kristy?”