Claudia and the World's Cutest Baby Read online

  “I thought we could only take one,” Melissa replied. “I love rolls. Just like Claudia. Right, Claud?”

  I didn’t respond. I was too busy shoveling.

  Melissa picked up her hoagie. “So, I guess this is our table for the weekend, huh?”

  Puh-leeze.

  Fortunately, Ms. Bernhardt stood up to speak. “Listen up, brave travelers! Here’s our schedule in brief: Tonight we stay in the hotel. Tomorrow we meet here for breakfast at seven-thirty, then take a historical tour of Independence National Park, maybe visit Betsy Ross’s house and the U.S. Mint —”

  “I love mint,” I whispered to Abby. Boy, was I ready for dessert.

  “Then lunch at the Gallery,” Ms. Bernhardt went on, “where you can do some shopping if you like.” (Now she was talking!)

  “We’re going to shop until we drop, huh, Claud?” Melissa said.

  We? Oh, groan …

  “After that,” Ms. Bernhardt continued, “we’ll board the buses again and hit the museums, then have an early dinner and — here’s my big surprise — we’re going to the theater!”

  “All riiight!” Abby cried.

  Overall, a pretty cool schedule. I couldn’t wait.

  * * *

  My dessert selections for the evening, should you be interested, were cheesecake, ice cream, and something called shoofly pie (which was brown and sweet and made with molasses). On the way back to our room, Stacey, Abby, and I stopped off at the snack and soda machines near the laundry area.

  With chips, pretzels, and chocolates, we went upstairs and had a symposium about the Declaration of Independence.

  Well, actually, we watched the hotel’s movie channel and ate and laughed.

  The trip was off to a fabulous start.

  “Claudia, are you okay?” My eyes opened. Stacey was in her pj’s, sitting at the edge of her twin bed. Abby, who had slept on a roll-away cot, was looking at me curiously.

  An awful dream was slowly fading from my mind. “Fine,” I replied. “Just a nightmare.”

  “You were moaning,” Stacey said.

  “A visit from the ghost of Benny Franklin?” Abby asked.

  I tried to hold on to the image. “Baby Lynn was running through a big field, on those teeny legs. She was heading toward a cliff. I was running and running, trying to catch her.”

  “Sounds like Holden Caulfield,” Stacey said. “You know, that scene in The Catcher in the Rye, where he imagines himself catching all the kids near the cliff?”

  That was it. Mary Anne had mentioned reading that book at the Arnolds’. I must have been thinking of it.

  Whew. For a minute I’d been afraid that the dream was a premonition. That something bad was happening to Lynn.

  My stomach started fluttering at the thought.

  “Um, I think I’ll call home,” I said as casually as I could.

  “At this hour?” Abby asked.

  Ehhhhhhhhhhhh!

  The clock radio alarm gave me a jolt. We’d set it for seven o’clock, which gave us half an hour until breakfast.

  “Last one to the privy is a colonial guttersnipe!” Abby called out in a fake British accent.

  (I don’t know where she comes up with this stuff. She must have a writer.) Stacey and I scrambled into the bathroom after her.

  We brushed. We washed. We combed. We elbowed each other. We ran back out to change.

  Somehow we managed to emerge from our room looking halfway human. Then we barreled down the hall to the elevator.

  “Wait for me, guys!” Melissa’s voice called out.

  A couple of businessmen in the elevator were not happy to be waiting for Melissa. (Frankly, I wasn’t thrilled about it, either.)

  We rode down and showed up at breakfast on time.

  The first thing I noticed at the buffet table was Eggs Benedict. The next thing I noticed was a dish of canned peaches among the condiments.

  Peaches. Benedict. Coincidence or omen? You be the judge.

  Thinking about Peaches made me think of Lynn. I had a huge pang of longing. I wanted to call just to hear Lynn’s breathing on the phone. I missed her so much. Did she miss me? Was her diaper rash improving?

  Was I being ridiculous or what?

  I chose Belgian waffles, scrambled eggs, bacon, and a small bowl of Frosted Flakes. (Shopping in an unfamiliar mall, I was going to need extra energy.)

  Melissa, of course, sat next to us. As we stuffed our faces, Ms. Bernhardt handed out a list of groups. Eight kids were assigned to each parent/teacher chaperone. Ours was Mrs. Karp. Melissa was in the group.

  Melissa nudged me. “I pulled strings,” she said with a grin.

  (Lucky us.)

  “Okay, before we leave, this word from your sponsor,” Ms. Bernhardt announced. “We’ll be doing a lot of walking in some crowded places, and the groups may split up from time to time. So remember rule number one: You are to stay with your group at all times. No straggling, no haggling. Your parent/teacher chaperone is boss …”

  Blah, blah, blah. My eyes wandered back to the buffet table. The workers were clearing the Belgian waffles, and I was dying to have just one more.

  Abby elbowed me and I snapped back to attention.

  “… the address of the hotel. Remember, this is not just a historical site but a major city. Be careful, have fun, stick together, and remember, you are representatives of Stoneybrook, and anything you do reflects on you, your friends, and your town. Now let’s finish up and go!”

  I dug into the rest of my breakfast.

  “Representatives of Stoneybrook?” Abby murmured.

  “Puh-leeze,” I said, “as if total strangers will know where we come from, just by looking at us.”

  Melissa giggled. “It’s like, oh wow, those girls are so bad? So let’s, like, ask where they came from so we can, you know, never go to their horrible town?”

  Uh-huh. Right.

  Abby smiled politely. Stacey cleared her plate.

  Fortunately my mouth was full and I could not respond.

  A few minutes later we were outside, walking the sidewalks of Philadelphia. It was gorgeous and clear, and my jeans jacket was the perfect weight.

  We detoured through the alleyway I had seen on the bus ride. Alan Gray decided to test the echo by neighing like a horse. (Would this occur to anyone but Alan? I doubt it.)

  At Independence Park, we saw a great historical film in the visitors’ center and then went on a guided walking tour. I actually choked up when I saw the crack in the Liberty Bell. I could picture the joyous, tear-streaked face of the young colonist who caused that crack by ringing in the news of independence with so much enthusiasm. (The guide told us that was just a legend, but I believe it anyway.)

  We saw the hall where the Declaration of Independence was adopted, and the house where Thomas Jefferson drafted it. We threw pennies on Ben Franklin’s grave. We sat in the pews of the church Franklin and George Washington went to. We checked out Betsy Ross’s house.

  By lunchtime, I was beat. But I perked up after we trudged over to the Gallery. (Malls do that to me.) We ate at a fabulous bagel restaurant, and Mrs. Karp gave us half an hour to browse.

  She and Lily disappeared into a record store. Abby went with them to find a present for Anna. Stacey and I went boutique-hopping. I bought some hoop earrings for me and a few souvenirs for the rest of my family. For Lynn I picked up an adorable little dress, a pair of pj’s, some bath toys, and a Philadelphia T-shirt. Melissa tagged along, begging us to go to look at some new CDs. (Why she hadn’t gone with Lily, I don’t know.)

  “Ugh, I’m broke.” Stacey groaned as we walked out to the bus, which was waiting at the curb.

  “I’ll float you the rest of the day,” I said, checking my pockets. “I have two dollars and eleven cents.”

  “Thanks a lot,” Stacey said as we climbed aboard.

  Soon we were trundling along a tree-lined boulevard toward the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Mrs. Karp turned from her seat in front of us and said, “
We have until four o’clock. The bus is going to stop at three places: the art museum, the Franklin Institute Science Museum, and the Academy of Natural Sciences Museum. Let’s choose one, and if we have time, we can walk to the others.”

  “What about the Rodin Museum?” I asked.

  “Who’s Row Dan?” Melissa asked. (Shades of Kristy Thomas.)

  “Rodin,” Lily told her. “It’s French. He was a great sculptor.”

  (Sigh. If someone had to attach herself to us, why couldn’t it have been Lily?)

  “We can go if there’s enough time and interest,” Mrs. Karp said.

  We decided on the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Abby made us all climb the endless steps while she sang the Rocky theme. (Could we have taken the convenient street-level entrance? Noooo.)

  I always forget how time speeds up in an art museum. At least for me it does. I become hypnotized by great paintings. I can stand in front of one and see a million different things in the light and texture and perspective and composition — and when I look up, twenty minutes have passed.

  Unfortunately, I am not terrific company for non-artistic types. After a couple of rooms, Abby and Stacey scooted ahead of me.

  Melissa did not. At first I assumed she loved art, too. But she kept making these dumb comments, such as “I did something like that in kindergarten,” or “That would look nice in my den.”

  Finally I heard her say, “It’s almost three-thirty. Can we go now?”

  Enough. I spun around angrily. “You can go whenever — wait a minute. Three-thirty? Are you sure?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  I slumped on a wooden bench. “Oh, groan. I wanted to see the Rodin Museum.”

  “Where is it?” Melissa asked.

  “We passed it on the way — the one with the statue in front, about four blocks away?”

  “That’s close. Let’s go.”

  “No way, Melissa! We can’t just leave. Remember what Ms. Bernhardt said —”

  “Oh, come on! We’ll just, like, run there and look, then run back! Who’ll know?”

  It was definitely tempting. “Well … I guess we could ask Mrs. Karp.”

  “We’ll never find her. Let’s just do it.”

  “I don’t know. The bus leaves in half an hour …”

  “You’ve been to New York City, right?” Melissa said. “There, a block takes one minute to walk. So if Philly’s the same, that’s an eight-minute round trip. That gives us twenty minutes to look at sculptures!”

  Melissa sounded so confident. And twenty minutes would be better than nothing.

  What the heck. Who knew if I’d ever have this chance again? “Let’s do it,” I said.

  We ran outside and headed back down Benjamin Franklin Parkway.

  Melissa had just enough money for two admissions. When she saw the statue The Thinker, she remarked, “What a hunk.”

  I gave her a Look.

  “Of marble, I mean,” she quickly added.

  If you have never checked out Rodin sculptures, you must. They are so fluid and voluptuous, you can’t believe they’re made of stone.

  I wish time were, too. Fluid and voluptuous, that is.

  It’s neither. When I looked at my watch, it was eleven after four.

  “Oh my lord!” I exclaimed. “Melissa, we’re late!”

  We raced to the door. We took a left and bolted.

  After a couple of blocks, absolutely nothing looked familiar. “This isn’t the right way,” I said.

  I started to run back, but Melissa grabbed my arm.

  “Claudia, the street to the museum runs diagonally, right? If we go up this side street, we’ll cut off the triangle and save time.”

  “Huh?” Geometry. I could feel my eyes glaze.

  “I saw it on a map. Come on.”

  We ran and ran, peeking up and down each cross street for a familiar landmark.

  Finally we stopped. Melissa was out of breath, looking around frantically. A half block away I spotted a subway station, near a hospital. “Race-Vine Station,” I read. “Is that near the museum?”

  Melissa shrugged. “How should I know?”

  We sprinted to the subway stop. The fare was posted in bold numbers. A dollar fifty each.

  I reached in for my two dollars and eleven cents.

  “How much money do you have?” I asked.

  “Nothing. I spent it at the museum.”

  I was seeing red. “Great, Melissa, just great. We’re lost. And it’s your fault.”

  “My fault? You wanted to go, didn’t you?”

  “Excuse me? I was the one who said we didn’t have time. But no. You said we did.”

  “Well, I was just trying to help —”

  “And who led us here? I thought we were going to cut off the triangle, Melissa! Now where are we? Ms. Bernhardt’s probably having a heart attack. Maybe if we just lie here on the sidewalk and make X’s with our bodies, the search helicopters will find us in a few hours.”

  Melissa’s lips quivered. “We could call.”

  “I don’t have a quarter. Do you?”

  Melissa shook her head.

  “Honestly, Melissa, you are the world’s biggest pest!”

  The dam suddenly burst. Melissa started crying.

  Wonderful. Just wonderful. I was totally lost and broke in the middle of a strange city.

  Just like the young Ben Franklin.

  Worse. He didn’t have to deal with a blubbering thirteen-year-old girl he didn’t like. And two social studies classes who probably thought he’d been kidnapped.

  I was in deep, deep trouble.

  I’m glad somebody was having fun on Saturday. While I was stewing and Melissa was watering the sidewalks of Philly with her tears, Kristy was baby-sitting for the Arnold twins. And listening to a blow-by-blow description of “The Making of Horrorville.”

  “You know that dangling eye?” Carolyn said eagerly, pacing across the family room floor. “It’s just rubber. They attach it with makeup.”

  Kristy pretended to be shocked. “Really?”

  “Yup,” Carolyn replied. “And the actor doesn’t even feel it. The people who play all those gross monsters are normal like us. When they’re not filming, they just walk around with their plastic guts hanging out, like, ‘La la la, hi, how’s it going? What’s for lunch?’ ”

  “And you know what else?” Marilyn continued. “The ghosts who come through the window, and the guy who squeezes out of the electrical socket? Not real. They’re both computer grappics.”

  “Graphics, dummy,” Carolyn said.

  Marilyn stuck out her tongue. “You’re the dummy!”

  Kristy flipped into Damage Control Mode. “Whoa, hold it. I want to hear more about those special effects.”

  “Why?” Marilyn asked. “Are you scared, too?”

  “Well, no. I mean, I don’t watch too many of these movies, but —”

  “You should,” Carolyn said. “I want to be a horror movie director when I grow up. It’s so cool.”

  “Me, too,” Marilyn added.

  Zing! Zap! Boiiiing!

  Kristy’s idea mill was cranking up. She spotted three shrink-wrapped, blank video cassettes on the den shelf. “Do your parents have a camcorder?”

  Carolyn’s face lit up. “Yes!”

  “We can make a movie!” Marilyn exclaimed.

  “Great idea!” Kristy said. “I mean, if your parents will allow it.”

  “They will!” Carolyn said. “As long as we’re supervised and we use a blank tape.”

  “We have plenty of those,” Marilyn added.

  “Let’s see, we could call it Twin Terror,” Kristy mused, “Or Horror at the Arnolds’ …”

  “I know!” Carolyn blurted out. “The Twin Who Mutilated Her Sister.”

  “I’m the one who mutilates!” Marilyn called out.

  “No way!”

  “Way!”

  “How about,” Kristy interrupted, “The Twins Who Mutilated Their Baby-sitter?”


  “YEAAAAHHHH!”

  “Okay, what’s our plot?” Kristy asked.

  “Um … Carolyn and I play twins,” Marilyn declared.

  “Good start,” Kristy said.

  “Our baby-sitter is mean,” Carolyn went on.

  “And ugly,” Marilyn added.

  “Thanks a lot,” Kristy harrumphed.

  “Not in real life. It’s a movie, silly!” said Metro-Goldwyn-Marilyn.

  “One day our baby-sitter comes over,” Carolyn continued, “and she’s so disgusting we plot to destroy her.”

  “By mutilating her!” Marilyn squealed, as if she were suggesting a really fun sleepover.

  “And we develop all these superpowers, so she can’t escape,” Carolyn concluded.

  “I like it,” Kristy said. “I see a future in directing for you both. Now, find me the camera. I’ll load it while you guys figure out the makeup and props. We’ll use the kitchen table as our base of production.”

  Marilyn ran to the den closet and fished out the camcorder. As Kristy loaded it, the twins scampered upstairs.

  Every few minutes Kristy would hear a gale of laughter, and the twins would run down with something else. Before long the table was full of junk.

  “What are the cotton balls for?” Kristy asked.

  “We’ll draw an eyeball on one,” Marilyn explained. “Then you can squeeze it under your eyebrow and it’ll look like your eye.”

  “And then, when it falls out — ew! Ew! Ew!” Carolyn screamed.

  Marilyn pointed to a tan-colored piece of Play-Doh. “We’ll plaster that over your ear and cover it with ketchup, for the part where you tear your own ear off.”

  “In frustration,” Carolyn added.

  Kristy picked up an aging hunk of olivegreen Play-Doh flecked with red. “What’s this for?”

  Marilyn and Carolyn looked at each other. Then they cracked up so hard they could barely speak.

  “Boogers,” Carolyn finally managed to say.

  “For your nose,” Marilyn elaborated.

  The fright wig was self-explanatory. As was the ripped Oxford shirt from the rag pile.

  Kristy’s costume.

  Charming. (I told you Kristy was dedicated.)

  Taking a deep breath, Kristy grabbed the camera. “Ready to start?”

  “No, no, no!” Carolyn declared. “We must rehearse. Now Kristy, you go to the door and ring the bell …”