Mary Anne and the Great Romance Read online

  “We’re sorry to disappoint you girls,” Mrs. Schafer said a moment later. “We had no idea you wanted a fancy wedding. It’s a nice idea, but it’s not what we want.”

  “Are you at least going on a honeymoon?” asked Dawn.

  “Sort of,” Dad answered. “Your mother and I will spend the night after the wedding at the Strathmoore Inn. Then maybe we could take a family vacation in the summer. We’ll ask Jeff to join us, of course.”

  “You want us along on your honeymoon?” I squeaked.

  “Mary Anne, that won’t be the actual honeymoon. As I said before —”

  “I know. You’ve already been through this.”

  “Right.”

  We finished our dinner then, managing to decide on a date for the wedding. Later, when the kitchen had been cleaned up, Dawn and I went to my room to talk things over.

  “I can’t believe we won’t get to be in the wedding after all,” I said, flopping down on the bed and staring at the ceiling.

  “Yeah, what a drag,” agreed Dawn. “Oh, well. At least we won’t have to wear those awful pink dresses you saw.”

  I yanked the pillow out from under my head and threw it at Dawn. She wasn’t expecting that, and it hit her in the face. We started giggling. Dawn threw the pillow back at me.

  More giggling.

  “I am so glad we’re going to be stepsisters,” I said.

  “Me, too. In fact, I think we’ll be more like regular sisters. We’ll be the closest sisters ever. I think we should share my bedroom instead of having separate ones.”

  What? What had Dawn said?

  I sat up. “What did you just say?” I demanded.

  “I said I think we should share my bedroom.”

  “Your bedroom?”

  “Yeah. When you and your dad move into our house.”

  I just stared at Dawn. I stared at her until her face fell.

  “Uh-oh,” she said. “Hasn’t your father told you yet?”

  “No,” I replied coldly. “He hasn’t.”

  “Uh-oh,” said Dawn again.

  “Is that all you can say? ‘Uh-oh’?” I was incensed. Dawn was still sitting on the floor, so I slid off the bed and stood up, towering over her. “Who made that decision?” I cried. “Who made it? And how come you know about it already and no one told me? How come I wasn’t asked where I want to live? I suppose we’ll have to get rid of Tigger, won’t we, since your mother hates cats so much. And how come I have to leave my house? I grew up here. You just moved to Stoneybrook. You’ve only lived in your house for a little over a year.”

  “Whoa,” said Dawn. “I’m sorry. Really I am. I thought your dad had told you about the move, because —”

  “Well, he hadn’t. And furthermore, how are we supposed to fit all our furniture into your house? It’s already full of your furniture. I guess my dad and I have to give ours away, but you get to keep yours, right?”

  Dawn’s eyes had filled with tears. “I don’t know,” she said in a wavery voice. She brushed at one of her eyes with the back of her hand.

  “This is the most unfair thing I have ever heard of!” I exploded.

  I must have been talking awfully loudly. For one thing, Tigger had long since fled from the room. For another, Dad and Mrs. Schafer had appeared in the doorway.

  “Girls,” said Dad, and I could tell he was trying hard to control his voice, “what on earth is the matter?”

  “I’ll tell you what’s the matter,” I replied in a tone that surprised even myself. I never blow up at Dad or talk to him sharply. “She,” (I pointed to Dawn), “has just informed me that you and I are moving out of our house and into hers. Apparently everyone knew except me. How come Dawn knew? Huh? How come she knew already? Well, I’ll tell you one thing — no, I’ll tell you two things. One, I am not getting rid of Tigger no matter how much she,” (this time I pointed to Mrs. Schafer), “hates cats. And two, I don’t have to like this decision or be nice about it. So there.” I crossed my arms and sat down on my bed so hard I was afraid I’d break it. Oh, well. What would that have mattered? I’d be getting one of the Schafers’ beds soon enough.

  Needless to say, everyone looked stunned, even Tigger, who was peeping cautiously into my room. At last Mrs. Schafer said, “Come on, Dawn. I think it’s time for us to go.”

  Dawn was crying hard by then, but I didn’t care. Let her. At least she got to keep her house.

  Mrs. Schafer put her arm around Dawn as they were leaving. “Mary Anne,” she said softly, “I’m sorry you found out this way. We didn’t mean for this to happen. And please let me assure you that Tigger will be welcome in our house.” Then she led Dawn out of the room, saying over her shoulder to my father, “Call me later tonight, okay?”

  “All right,” replied Dad quietly. Then he sat next to me on the bed.

  I was still so mad that I burst out, “You better have a good explanation for this,” which is something he has said to me a number of times.

  Dad didn’t even get angry at me for being so rude. He just started talking. “Mary Anne, I knew you’d be upset about the arrangement,” he began. “That’s why I hadn’t told you yet. I was trying to figure out the right way and time to do it. But it is the best arrangement. You see, it makes much more sense for us to move into the Schafers’ house than for them to move into ours. Theirs is bigger. Dawn and Jeff can keep their rooms, and you’ll have a room of your own, too. That guest bedroom upstairs will become yours, and the den downstairs can be used when we have guests. You can move all of your furniture into the guest bedroom. You can decorate it so that it looks just like your old room, or you can redecorate it any way you want.

  “But if the Schafers moved in here,” Dad went on, “you and Dawn would have to share a room when Jeff came to visit. Also, we have fewer rooms than the Schafers do, and they have a bigger yard, as well as the barn for Jeff to play in. It just makes sense for the smaller family with the smaller house to move in with the bigger family with the bigger house. You can see that, can’t you?”

  “What about Tigger?” was my only reply.

  “You heard what Dawn’s mother said. Tigger will be welcome.”

  “But Mrs. Schafer doesn’t like cats.”

  “That’s true. But no matter where we lived she’d have to put up with him. He’s part of the package. He comes with our family.”

  “Okay.”

  Tigger stepped carefully into my room then, stepped delicately over to the bed, and jumped into my lap.

  “How come Dawn knew we were moving before I did?” I asked. I felt a little calmer.

  “That was my fault,” Dad replied. “When Sharon and I made the decision that we would move into her house, we each agreed to tell our children separately. She must have told Dawn, and probably Jeff, right away. But I knew the news would be difficult for you so I put off telling you. Finally, I put it off for too long, I guess. But Dawn didn’t know that.”

  I could feel tears slipping down my cheeks. “I don’t want to move,” I whispered. “I grew up here. Claudia’s always been across the street from me. Kristy used to live next door. I could look out my window and right into hers. When Kristy moved away and the Perkinses moved in, I showed Myriah how we could look in each other’s windows. She’ll miss that. And I’ll be further away from Logan, further away from school, further away from everything — except Dawn’s haunted secret passage.”

  Dad smiled. “Mary Anne, that passage is not haunted. It’s not even secret anymore, since we all know about it.”

  I tried to smile, too. Then Dad folded me into his arms and gave me a big hug. I felt safe — but I still didn’t want to move.

  * * *

  By the next day, I was relieved that Dad had been so nice about my outburst, but I was still angry. I barely spoke to Dawn in school. Lunchtime was especially tough. We had to pretend to act happy whenever one of our friends brought up the wedding or the business of becoming stepsisters. But neither of us said anything about my moving to Dawn’
s house.

  And when Dawn whispered to me, “You know, my mother doesn’t hate cats. She just doesn’t like them much,” I replied, “She does too hate them.”

  That was the end of that conversation.

  * * *

  As you can imagine, I was not in a great mood when I arrived at the Arnolds’ house for a sitting job that afternoon. I would never in a million years have taken my feelings out on the girls, but I was hoping that maybe they would be an amusing change of pace.

  No such luck. At least, not at first. Mrs. Arnold told me as she was putting on her coat that Marilyn was in the living room, practicing for a piano recital, and that Carolyn was up in the girls’ bedroom. Something in her voice implied … trouble.

  After Mrs. Arnold left, I decided not to interrupt Marilyn (who was playing quite loudly and with a lot of force), and to see what Carolyn was up to instead.

  The first thing I saw in the twins’ bedroom was that the masking-tape divider was back. I guessed that was why Marilyn was downstairs practicing so loudly. She was angry because she couldn’t enter her own room. She’d have had to cross Carolyn’s side first.

  “Hi,” I said to Carolyn. “Your mom just left.”

  “Okay.” Carolyn went back to Baby Island, the book she was reading.

  “I guess you’re mad at your sister again, aren’t you?”

  “You mean Jerk-Face?”

  “No, I mean Marilyn.”

  “Same thing.”

  “Look,” I said. “You two cannot go on fighting forever. What’s the problem this time?”

  “I said I was inviting Haley over to play, so then Marilyn said she was inviting Gozzie over to play.”

  “So?”

  “We wanted to play separately.”

  “Couldn’t you and Haley — or Marilyn and Gozzie — have played outdoors while the others played indoors?”

  “No. We both wanted to play in our room.”

  I sat thoughtfully on Marilyn’s bed. “You know what’s wrong here?” I said. “You and Marilyn are very different people now. You’ve gone off in different directions. I think you need your own space. Do you two have to share a room?”

  “No,” Carolyn answered, brightening.

  “Then why doesn’t one of you move into the guest room? Or the sewing room? There are plenty of rooms on this floor.”

  “Yeah!”

  So Carolyn and I ran downstairs and interrupted Marilyn’s practicing. We told her our idea.

  “Yeah!” exclaimed Marilyn as happily as Carolyn had.

  From then on, the afternoon was fun. The twins talked and made plans. They giggled. They couldn’t wait for their mother to come home. When she did, they greeted her at the back door with cries of “Mommy! Mommy!”

  “What? What is it?” Mrs. Arnold looked slightly alarmed.

  “Could we have our own rooms?” asked Marilyn.

  “I want the guest room!” said Carolyn.

  “I want the sewing room!” said Marilyn.

  Mrs. Arnold looked questioningly at me. I shrugged. “The girls seem to be having a little trouble sharing their room,” I said. “I just mentioned separate rooms, and …” I trailed off.

  “Well,” said Mrs. Arnold, “I don’t see why not. But your room is so cute now,” she told the twins.

  “We’re not babies anymore,” said Carolyn. “And we’re not the same person. We’re different.”

  “But why do you want the sewing room?” Mrs. Arnold asked Marilyn. “It’s so small.”

  “I just do,” Marilyn replied. “I like it.”

  “And I like the guest room,” said Carolyn. “Our old bedroom could be the guest room.”

  Mrs. Arnold’s eyes began to gleam. “It would be fun to redecorate,” she said. “New curtains, new rugs, new bedspreads.”

  “But can we choose our own things?” asked Marilyn. “You can decorate the guest room any way you like.”

  “That’s a deal,” said Mrs. Arnold.

  The twins began jumping up and down. They even hugged each other.

  I went home feeling that I had accomplished something important.

  “Hi, Stacey! Hi, Stacey!”

  Marilyn and Carolyn greeted Stacey at the door as if they were old friends, which they weren’t. True, Stacey does see a little more of them now that she lives in their neighborhood, but she hasn’t baby-sat for them very often.

  It turned out that the twins were just eager to show off their new rooms — and Stacey hadn’t seen them yet. Mrs. Arnold hadn’t even left when the girls began tugging at Stacey’s hands, pulling her upstairs.

  “Look at my room first!” cried Marilyn.

  “No, mine!” said Carolyn.

  “Mine’s closer,” Marilyn pointed out.

  “Oh, all right.”

  At the head of the stairs was the sewing room. It was small, but it was bright and sunny and made a perfectly nice, if cramped, bedroom. All of Marilyn’s furniture had been moved into it. “But we had to move some of my toys downstairs,” she told Stacey. “I didn’t mind. Look. New wallpaper and a new rug and a new bedspread. See how they match? Mommy let me pick out everything.”

  “All yellow,” Stacey said. “Very nice.” Personally, she thought it was just a little on the dull side, but she would never have said so.

  “Now come see my room,” cried Carolyn. So she and her sister and Stacey passed the girls’ old room, turned a corner, and entered Carolyn’s new room. Boy, was it different from Marilyn’s. The rug was shaggy and blue. The bedspread was printed with cats, and two pillows in the shape of cats sat at the head of the bed. The wallpaper was blue-and-white striped, and the curtains and wastebasket matched the bedspread. The wastebasket came complete with pointy cat ears and a furry cat tail.

  “Neat,” said Stacey. “I didn’t know you like cats.”

  “I didn’t, either,” replied Carolyn, “but I saw all this stuff and I knew it was what I wanted. Mommy wanted me to get pink-flowered everything —”

  “And she wanted me to get blue-flowered everything —” added Marilyn.

  “— but then she remembered that she’d told us we could choose whatever we wanted. Within reason,” finished up Carolyn.

  “I think you each did a very nice job,” said Stacey. “A room should reflect your personality. I’m glad your mom let you make your own decisions.”

  “So are we,” said the twins at the same time.

  Stacey waited a moment. Then she said, “Well? Aren’t you going to hook pinkies? You just said the same thing at the same time.”

  The girls laughed. “If we hooked pinkies every time we did that,” Carolyn began, “we might as well just have our pinkies joined.”

  “Yeah. We’re always saying the same things at the same time. That’s because we’re twins.”

  “Identical, but different,” added Marilyn.

  Funny, thought Stacey. The twins had changed so much. They’d been allowed to go their separate ways and now they had their own rooms and their own friends. Yet they seemed closer than ever. Was that what moving apart could do? Make you grow closer?

  It was something to think about.

  “So what do you want to do today?” asked Stacey.

  “You brought your Kid-Kit, didn’t you?” Carolyn asked.

  “Yup.”

  “Oh, goody! Is there anything new in it?”

  “Come on down and see.”

  The girls raced ahead of Stacey to the living room, and Stacey placed the Kid-Kit on the floor. Marilyn and Carolyn watched eagerly as she opened it.

  “Okay,” said Stacey, “in place of the Doctor Doolittle books we have the Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle books. And we have a new pad of paper and three sheets of new stickers. Plus pastels instead of crayons. Have you ever made a picture with pastels? They’re neat. You can blend the colors with your fingers.”

  “Like chalk?” asked Marilyn.

  “Sort of.”

  Stacey opened the new box of pastels and let the girls peer in
side.

  “Ooh,” said the twins as they gazed at the tidy row of colors.

  “Try experimenting,” suggested Stacey. “We can sit at the kitchen table.”

  So they did.

  Halfway into her picture of a boat on the ocean, Marilyn said, “This is going to be for Daddy. No, for Mommy. I haven’t given her a picture in awhile. No, wait. It’ll be for both of them.”

  “Mine will be for both of them, too,” said Carolyn, looking at her close-up picture of a butterfly and a ladybug.

  Interesting, thought Stacey. No more, “Mommy will like mine better …” or, “Daddy always likes my …” That was a nice change.

  “Hey,” she said, “why don’t you make frames for your pictures? They’re so pretty I think they ought to be framed.”

  “How do you make frames?” asked Carolyn.

  “Like this.” Stacey showed the twins how to cut out frames from construction paper and glue them onto the pictures.

  “Cool!” exclaimed Carolyn. Then she turned her picture over and wrote To Mommy and Daddy — Love, Carolyn. So Marilyn turned hers over and wrote, To Mommy and Daddy — Love Marilyn.

  Stacey expected sparks to fly since Marilyn had copied Carolyn, but nothing happened. Each twin made and framed another picture. When they were done, Carolyn said, “I think I’ll call Haley.”

  Marilyn watched wistfully as her sister made the phone call.

  “Come over?” Carolyn repeated into the receiver. “Sure. Let me ask Stacey first.” Carolyn put her hand over the receiver and said, “Haley invited me over. Can I go? Claudia is baby-sitting there.”

  “Sure,” said Stacey.

  Then, to everyone’s surprise, Carolyn said, “Marilyn, do you want to come, too?”

  Marilyn’s eyes widened. “Yeah!”

  “Okay,” said Carolyn.

  “Wait a sec,” Stacey broke in. “I better talk to Claud.”

  So Stacey and Claud had a conversation, and Claud said she didn’t mind a bit if Stacey brought the twins over. “As long as they’re not fighting,” she added.

  “No, no. Everything’s fine,” Stacey assured her. She put the Kid-Kit away, left a note for Mrs. Arnold, and she and the girls walked over to the Braddocks’ house. It was a beautiful day and when they arrived, Stacey and Claud sat on the back deck and listened to the girls below them. Aside from the twins and Haley were Vanessa Pike and Charlotte Johanssen. Matt was playing at the Pikes’.