Claudia and the Bad Joke Read online

  Mary Anne checked the appointment calendar in the record book. “Yup,” she replied. “I’ll call Mrs. Sobak.”

  Kristy looked at me. “The war is on,” she said with a grin.

  I felt a lot better.

  But after dinner that night, Ashley called, and I made a mistake. I told Ashley I might drop out of the club.

  “Good for you!” Ashley declared. “I’m really glad to hear that.”

  “You are?” I replied.

  “Sure. I’ve always told you: If you want to be a serious, professional artist, you have to devote more time to your art. You can’t be baby-sitting every day. Think of the extra classes you could take if you weren’t sitting.”

  I thought about them. I could take water-colors or portrait-painting or still life. But for some reason, that didn’t cheer me up. And that should have told me something. It didn’t, though. Not then. So I let it go by.

  At the club meeting, I had bought time. Kristy had pointed out that I couldn’t sit for awhile anyway. How would I feel without kids around me? Without jobs? Without a way to earn money? Would I miss Jamie and the Perkins girls and the Pike kids? It would be an interesting test.

  Even more interesting, however, would be watching to see who won the practical-joke war.

  Thursday

  When I went over to Betsy Sobak’s, I was armed with a package of sneezing powder, a rubber slug, and a very realistic-looking furry rat. I had rented them from the triplets for the afternoon. It cost me $1.50 — 50¢ per triplet. Anyway, I was feeling pretty confident when I reached the Sobaks’, but I was also jumpy. I knew I would have to be on my toes with Betsy ….

  Hey, Mallory, remind me at our next meeting that we should pay you back the $1.50 “rental fee” from the treasury.

  — Kristy

  The joke war was on, even though us sitters were the only ones who knew it. We had declared it at the last meeting, and we weren’t going to stop fighting until we had won it. We’d never had a problem we couldn’t handle, and we weren’t going to let Betsy get the best of us.

  This was the main idea of a speech Kristy gave at the end of the meeting during which we had declared war. Mallory found Kristy’s words running through her head as she rode her bike over to Betsy’s on Thursday afternoon. She told me later that as she pedaled along, she tried to psych herself up, the way boxers do before important fights. She talked to herself encouraged herself, reminded herself of the jokes she had rented and that she knew what jokes Betsy kept in her room. By the time she reached the Sobaks’, she felt prepared — on guard and ready.

  Before Mrs. Sobak left, she told Mallory that Betsy would want a snack first thing, so as soon as Mal and Betsy were on their own, Mal said, “What would you like for a snack, Bets?”

  “Cookies,” Betsy replied immediately. “Cookies and milk.”

  “Okay,” said Mal. “I’ll fix the snack.” She wasn’t taking any chances. “Furthermore,” Mal added, “you sit right here at the kitchen table while I fix it.” Mal was trying to keep Betsy away from her stock of jokes.

  “Okay,” said Betsy obediently.

  Mal stood at the counter, taking cookies from the jar and pouring glasses of milk. Every so often, she looked over her shoulder at Betsy.

  Betsy was just sitting in her chair. She was barely moving.

  Mallory never let her guard down, though. She carried everything to the table at once, so Betsy couldn’t switch anything around or add anything weird to the food — like plastic ants or ice cubes with flies in them.

  But Betsy was an absolute angel during the snack.

  Maybe she’s learned her lesson, thought Mallory.

  Betsy bit into a cookie. She chewed it thoughtfully. “How’s Claudia?” she asked.

  “Not bad, considering,” Mallory replied. “She’s home from the hospital, which means her leg isn’t in traction anymore. But she can’t go back to school yet. She might get a walking cast later, but she’s not sure.”

  “What’s a walking cast?” Betsy asked politely. (She had a milk mustache.)

  “It’s a shorter cast and it has this piece on the bottom, sort of like the heel of a shoe, only sturdier, so you can walk around as if you had two regular legs.”

  “Oh.” Betsy nodded solemnly. Then she noticed that Mallory had finished her cookies and milk. “Want some more?” she asked.

  “Yes, thanks. Oh, but I’ll get it,” Mal answered quickly.

  She opened the refrigerator and stood in front of it, pouring milk into her glass. She’d been planning on having another cookie, too, but realized that she hadn’t been able to keep her eyes on them while she’d had her back turned, so she decided she better not take one after all. They’d probably been coated with itching powder or something by then. Even seeing Betsy take another cookie didn’t convince Mal that the rest were safe.

  “How was school today?” Mal asked Betsy. (What a dumb question, she thought, but she didn’t know Betsy very well. Besides, it might be a dumb question, but it also seemed safe.)

  “It was fine. Our class is going to be in a school program. We’re going to recite Wynken, Blynken, and Nod. We’re doing choral speaking. Do you know that poem?”

  “Parts of it,” said Mal.

  “It goes like this: Wynken, Blynken, and Nod one night sailed off in a wooden shoe — sailed on a river of crystal light —”

  “Into a sea of dew,” Mal chimed in.

  Then she and Betsy said together, “‘Where are you going and what do you wish?’ the old moon asked the three. ‘We have come to fish for the herring fish that live in this beautiful sea; nets of silver and gold have we!’ Wynken, Blynken, and Nod.”

  “Hey, you’re good!” Betsy said approvingly to Mal. “Did you do choral speaking in third grade, too?”

  Mal shook her head. “Nope. I just like poetry. My two other favorite poems are The Owl and the Pussycat and Jabberwocky.”

  Betsy and Mal had finished eating by then.

  “You like those, too?” asked Betsy. “I read The Owl and the Pussycat to myself. Our teacher read Jabberwocky to us. Hey, I’ve got The Owl and the Pussycat in the den. Want me to get it?”

  “Sure!” said Mallory. She couldn’t believe how well things were going. Not only was Betsy on her best behavior, but she shared an interest of Mallory’s. Maybe my accident had taught Betsy a lesson, and she’d sworn off practical jokes.

  “I’ll clean up our snack while you get the book,” Mal added.

  Betsy ran off. A few seconds later, Mallory heard the doorbell ring.

  “I’ll get it!” called Betsy.

  “Okay,” Mal replied. She heard feet running through the hallway, followed by the sound of the front door opening. Then she heard Betsy talking to someone. And then she heard the door close …. Silence.

  “Betsy!” Mal called.

  No answer.

  “BETSY!”

  No answer.

  Now, if Mal were a panicky person, she might have thought Betsy had gone out to play with someone without her permission. But Mallory is sensible. She looked out the window and didn’t see Betsy or any other kids. And she hadn’t heard a car pull away, so she knew Betsy hadn’t gone off with anyone. Betsy must be inside, and she was probably playing another joke.

  Mallory threw down the sponge she’d been wiping the table with, and cried, “Betsy Sobak, I know you’re hiding! You come out this instant!”

  Boy, is Betsy sly. She had lulled Mallory into thinking she was a normal kid, then WHAM! She pulled a stunt when Mallory wasn’t prepared.

  “Betsy, you’re asking for it!” Mallory shouted.

  She searched the house from top to bottom. She looked under tables, behind couches, under beds. Then she looked outdoors.

  No Betsy.

  Finally, Mallory really did start to worry. She went back in the house and was passing by a closet, when the door burst open and Betsy jumped out, shouting, “BOO!”

  “Betsy!” Mal admonished her.

  B
etsy burst into giggles. “Gotcha!”

  “I checked that closet twice! Were you in there all the time?”

  Betsy nodded. “Well, almost all the time. First I rang the bell, then I tiptoed back to the living room and pretended to answer the door. Then I hid. I’ll show you how I hid.” She ducked into the closet, stepped into a pair of her father’s galoshes, then wrapped an overcoat around her. The coat was still on its hanger. Betsy was disguised as raingear. She was nearly invisible.

  Mallory had to admit that the prank was original, but she was mad at Betsy for making her worry. However, she didn’t want to give Betsy the satisfaction of seeing that she was mad. Instead, she said, “Okay. Very funny. Come on out now. Oh, and if you do, I’ll show you this new powder I got yesterday.”

  That brought Betsy out in a hurry. Mal knows that most girls Betsy’s age like powder and perfume and makeup. Her sister Vanessa does. Mal opened her purse. She took out the sneezing powder. It was in a fancy little jar. “Here,” she said, and poured a small amount into Betsy’s hands.

  Betsy rubbed her hands together, then sniffed them, and … “ACHOO!”

  “Bless you,” said Mallory politely.

  “Ah-ah-CHOO! ACHOO!… ACHOO!”

  Betsy began sneezing and laughing at the same time. “Is this sneezing — ACHOO! — powder?” she managed to ask.

  “Yup!” (Mal was quite proud of herself.)

  “Oh, great joke. I knew that powder was going to be fake. I better — ACHOO! — get a Kleenex.”

  Betsy ran off and returned with a tissue. “Ah-ah-ACHOO-OO!… Oh, no!” Betsy cried. She was holding something in her hand. “I sneezed my tooth out!” she exclaimed.

  Mallory was worried, until she realized it was the fake bloody tooth she had seen in Betsy’s room. She narrowed her eyes. Time to get even … again.

  During the rest of the afternoon, Mal scared Betsy with the slug, Betsy scared Mal with a rubber snake. Mal scared Betsy with the rat, Betsy scared Mal with her cockroach. Just as Mal ran out of jokes, she heard Mrs. Sobak’s car pull into the garage.

  Betsy and Mal looked at each other. They smiled. Mallory was almost embarrassed to admit it, even to herself, but she and Betsy had actually had fun that afternoon. Well, not when Betsy had hidden from Mal. That wasn’t fun. But the other jokes, the harmless ones, were cause for an awful lot of giggling.

  And Mal knew something just from looking at Betsy then. She knew that neither of them would mention the jokes to Betsy’s mother. As a baby-sitter, Mal shouldn’t have been playing them on one of her charges. But Betsy shouldn’t have been playing jokes after what had happened to me.

  A battle of the joke war had been fought, but nobody had won and nobody had lost.

  Saturday

  I prepared for my sitting job with Betsy by calling my brother in California. When I explained to Jeff what was going on, he said, “Boy, Dawn. Awesome! You could scare her with a rubber spider! You could pretend there’s a mouse loose in the house … or a rat! Or you could pretend to faint, and then when she bends over to see how you are, jump up and scare her. Oh, and you could stuff her room with wadded-up newspaper so she can’t get inside!”

  Well, some of Jeff’s ideas were good. I went to the Sobaks’ well-armed ….

  Hey, Dawn, remind me at our next meeting that we should pay you back for the call to California.

  — Kristy

  Dawn left for Betsy’s house feeling less confident than Mallory had. She was prepared with some tricks, but by then she knew that Betsy hadn’t given up her practical joking, no matter what Mrs. Sobak said or thought.

  Dawn was carrying a rubber spider with her. It wasn’t the triplets’, since she didn’t want to have to rent anything. She knew it was probably too tame a trick for Betsy. (After all, Betsy had all sorts of rubber things of her own.) But Dawn thought the spider was worth a try. Under the right circumstances, anything could be scary. Dawn had borrowed the spider from Buddy Barrett.

  Also, she had polished up her acting skills. (Did she even have any acting skills to polish up? she wondered.) She was prepared to scream and jump up and down as if she had seen a mouse, she was prepared to pretend to faint, and she was prepared to be very dramatic about both things.

  Last but not least, Dawn had brought her Kid-Kit with her. She was hoping that maybe a good distraction was all Betsy needed.

  Dawn was sitting for Betsy on a Saturday, from ten o’clock until three o’clock, while her parents went to a golf tournament. She was relieved that she didn’t have to feed Betsy first thing. I had had to, and Mallory had had to, and each time the snack had somehow led to a major joke. But by the time Dawn arrived, Betsy had already eaten breakfast and Mrs. Sobak said Dawn didn’t have to make lunch until about twelve-thirty.

  As soon as the Sobaks had left, Dawn said to Betsy, “Want to see the Kid-Kit I brought with me?”

  “What’s a Kid-Kit?” asked Betsy suspiciously.

  Ah-ha! thought Dawn. Betsy is suspicious. That must mean that she’s worried about having jokes played on her. Well, she had every reason to be suspicious.

  “A Kid-Kit,” said Dawn, “is just a box full of fun. Toys and games and stuff. I left it in the living room. Come on and take a look at it.”

  Dawn led Betsy into the living room. They sat on the floor with the Kid-Kit between them.

  “I brought Old Maid,” Dawn began as she opened the box, “and Mad Libs and a really great book called Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle and some other stuff.”

  Dawn was looking at Betsy as she spoke, but fishing around in the Kid-Kit with one hand. She felt the deck of cards, she felt some books, she felt a pad of paper and a box of crayons, she felt slime ….

  “Aughh! Oh, no! Ew!” Dawn jerked her hand out of the Kid-Kit. “Oh, there’s something slimy in there!” She looked at her hand. “And it’s green … and it’s on me! Ew! GROSS!”

  Dawn was just working up the nerve to look inside the Kid-Kit when she realized that Betsy’s face was turning red.

  “Betsy,” said Dawn warningly.

  Betsy burst out laughing. “Gotcha! I slimed you!” she cried. “I slimed you! I saw the Kid-Kit as soon as you came in. While you were talking to Mom and Daddy, I dumped the slime in the box. And you put your hand right in it!”

  “That’s nice, Betsy,” said Dawn. “That’s very nice. Thank you so much. I want you to know that I really appreciate your ruining my Kid-Kit.”

  “Oh, it’s not ruined,” Betsy assured her. “The slime is just one big glob. I can get it all out of the box at once. I’ll show you.”

  Betsy reached her hand in the box and withdrew the slime. Sure enough, it was in one big glob. Dawn checked the Kid-Kit anyway, though.

  The slime was gone.

  “Where do you keep it?” asked Dawn.

  “The slime?” said Betsy. “In this can.” Betsy pulled a can out from under a chair, where she’d apparently been hiding it. She dropped the slime back in. Slurp.

  “What a disgusting noise,” said Dawn, trying to look ill. “That slime is … Oh … Oh, my ….” Dawn raised her hand to her forehead.

  “What’s wrong?” asked Betsy, looking alarmed. She put the lid on the can and set the slime on the table.

  “I — I feel a little … a little … faint,” Dawn replied weakly. And with that, she flopped over onto the rug.

  “Dawn!” Betsy exclaimed. “Dawn, wake up!”

  Dawn waited until she was pretty sure Betsy was leaning over her. Then she opened her eyes and shouted, “BOO!”

  “Eeee!” cried Betsy, leaping back.

  Dawn began to laugh.

  After a moment, so did Betsy.

  Dawn shrugged her shoulders. There seemed to be no beating the practical-joke queen.

  “Come sit on the couch,” Betsy said to Dawn. “I’m sorry about the slime.” Betsy stood up, sat on the couch, and patted the seat next to her.

  An apology. That was a good sign. Maybe Betsy would want to read for awhile. Dawn got Mrs. Pigg
le-Wiggle and joined Betsy.

  FWOOOOOO!

  Suddenly, Betsy was hysterical again. “Gotcha with the pooh-pooh cushion!” she exclaimed.

  That did it. Dawn lost no time in pretending she’d seen a mouse. She screamed, “A MOUSE!” and jumped up on a chair. Before she could even think, Betsy did the same thing.

  “Got you!” cried Dawn. “There is no mouse!”

  Once again, Betsy laughed.

  Another joke battle was on. Betsy startled Dawn with a fountain pen that squirted water at her. Dawn pulled out the rubber spider. Betsy pulled out a fat rubber toad. That was unfortunate, because by then, Dawn had run out of tricks.

  She decided to try reasoning with Betsy. “Why do you play jokes all the time?” she asked her.

  “Because I like to,” Betsy replied.

  How could Dawn argue with that? The kid just liked jokes. And she was quick to point out that her baby-sitters played them, too.

  “Well, do you think you could stop for awhile?” asked Dawn. “It would be a refreshing change.”

  So Betsy stopped. She and Dawn played with some of the stuff in the slime-free Kid-Kit. They actually had a good time. They even got so involved in a game of Monopoly that Dawn forgot about lunch until she heard Betsy’s stomach growl. She looked at her watch.

  “Quarter of one!” she cried. “Betsy, we’ve got to eat lunch.”

  “Aw, but —” Betsy started to protest.

  “It’s okay,” Dawn told her. “We’ll leave the game right here. We’ll come back to it after lunch.”

  “Okay,” said Betsy.

  Dawn fixed soup and sandwiches. After she and Betsy had eaten, Betsy sat back in her chair and looked at Dawn thoughtfully. “I’m really sorry,” she said quietly. “You know, about the jokes. All of them.” This time Betsy sounded as if she meant it.

  “You are?” Dawn replied. “Well, I’m glad to hear you say that. It isn’t easy to apologize.”