Stacey's Mistake Read online

  “Yeah, the limo must be here,” added Laine.

  It was. It was right in front of the restaurant. We climbed inside, feeling like celebrities and hoping someone would see us. Then we turned on the TV for a few seconds (just so Kristy would be able to tell people that she’d actually watched TV in a limousine), examined the bar, and settled back to watch the streets slip by as we zipped downtown to the Gershwin Theatre.

  We were ushered to our seats. The magnificent set spread before us. No curtain was hiding it, so the audience could get a good look at the hills and roads and passages that snaked around the stage for the roller skaters.

  At 8:05 the play began. We were in awe. The cast roared through the set at top speed, taking curves practically on the edges of their wheels. Sometimes they looked like they were going to fly right off the stage and into the audience. The story seemed like an old one (will the underdog beat out the mean new guy in the race?), but there was so much action that we were on the edges of our seats from the beginning until the end.

  When it was over, Mary Anne sighed with pleasure. “A Broadway play. A limo. I’ve died and gone to heaven.”

  We left the theater and climbed back in the limousine. We were tired, but we just talked and talked all the way home. Claudia and Laine began teasing me.

  “Once Stacey left her lunch on the radiator,” said Laine, “and it smelled up the whole classroom. That was in fourth grade.”

  “Once she had to baby-sit for some snob kids and she used this weird kind of psychology,” said Claudia. “She tamed the kids all right, but they thought she was nuts.”

  We laughed. And since we were getting along so well, I said, “Laine? You want to spend the night? You could make up for last night.”

  Laine looked thoughtful. “I do want to,” she answered, but I think you guys need time to visit alone. I mean, without me. We had fun this evening — and, Claud, I’m really happy I got to know the real you — but now I should probably go home.”

  She was right. I was glad Laine felt she could be so honest with us. The evening, I decided, had been perfect. Not only had it been fun, but now that the members of the Baby-sitters Club had relaxed and gotten used to traveling together and being in New York, they’d been able to feel comfortable with Laine.

  The limo cruised up the West Side, dropped my friends and me off in front of my building, and then headed for the Dakota with Laine.

  But before Claudia climbed out of the car, she and Laine exchanged phone numbers and addresses.

  Dear Shannon,

  Hi! How’s our associate club member? Have you had any interesting baby-sitting jobs this weekend? Wait till you hear about the one we had. It involved ten children and Central Park, but I’ll tell you more the next time I see you. After our sitting job, we went out to dinner, and rode to a Broadway play in a LIMOUSINE. Then we tried to have a (fake) club meeting, for old times’ sake. I wish you had known Stacey better. I think the two of you would have been friends.

  See you soon!

  Kristy

  Our club meeting was really fun (a lot more fun than the uncomfortable one we’d held that morning), but it wasn’t an actual meeting at all. We were just fooling around. It really was “fake,” as Kristy had written to Shannon Kilbourne. (By the way, in case you’re wondering, an associate club member is someone who doesn’t come to meetings, but whom my friends can call on if they’re offered a job they’re too busy to take. Sort of a backup. They have two associate members. Shannon is one. Guess who the other is? Logan, Mary Anne’s boyfriend!)

  When Dawn, Claudia, Kristy, Mary Anne, and I entered my apartment, Mom and Dad were waiting up for us (of course). They looked only a little worried, and as soon as they saw that we were in one piece and heard that we’d had a good time, they went to bed.

  My friends and I looked at each other. Great! The night was ours. Remember how tired we’d been after· our afternoon of sitting? And how tired we’d been when we climbed into the limo to come home? Well, suddenly we weren’t tired anymore. We got our second winds.

  “Everybody, change into your nightgowns and come to my room,” I said.

  “Oh, good,” said Kristy. “Let’s have a meeting of the Baby-sitters Club.”

  Fifteen minutes later, Claudia and I were lying across my bed on our stomachs, Mary Anne and Dawn were sitting cross-legged on the floor, and Kristy was settled in my armchair.

  “This meeting of the Baby-sitters Club,” said Kristy, “will now come to order.” Usually Kristy speaks fairly loudly, but since Mom and Dad were nearby, trying to sleep, she kept her voice down. “Any official business?” she asked.

  “No,” we replied.

  “Any problems with the club notebook or record book?”

  “No.”

  “They’re not here,” Claudia added.

  “Just play along,” I whispered, nudging her.

  “Anybody had any sitting jobs she needs to talk about?”

  Well, now this was getting out of hand. It was silly. No one was really paying attention to Kristy. Dawn and Mary Anne were trying on my sparkly silver nail polish. Claudia was looking longingly at a movie magazine on my desk.

  Kristy sensed that she did not have control of the “meeting.”

  I spoke up. “This doesn’t have much to do with baby-sitting, Kristy, but how are things going at Watson’s? How are Karen and Andrew?”

  “Oh, they’re great!” said Kristy. (She loves to talk about her little stepsister and stepbrother. I knew I could get her off the subject of baby-sitting. I just knew it.) “And I’ll tell you something,” she went on. “I hardly think of the house as ‘Watson’s’ anymore. It’s just ‘ours.’ All of ours. Mom’s, Watson’s, Charlie’s, Sam’s, David Michael’s, Andrew’s, Karen’s, mine, and even Shannon’s and Boo-Boo’s.” (Shannon is David Michael’s puppy, and Boo-Boo is Watson’s cat. Shannon is named for Shannon Kilbourne, the associate club member. It’s a long story.)

  “That’s great,” I said. “So you feel like you’re fitting in? I mean, in the neighborhood?”

  “I’m getting there,” Kristy replied.

  “How about you, Dawn?” I wanted to know.

  “How about me?” Dawn repeated vaguely. She had painted her fingernails and was now putting a tiny dot of silver polish in the center of each toenail. She looked up. “Oh, you mean fitting in in Stoneybrook?”

  I nodded.

  “I hardly even think about it anymore,” she replied. “Getting used to the Jeff thing is much harder.”

  “The Jeff thing?”

  Silence. Four heads turned toward me.

  “Don’t you know?” asked Claudia, aghast. “I was sure I told you.”

  “Know what? I don’t remember you telling me anything. Tell me now!”

  My friends glanced at Dawn, who had finished dotting her toenails.

  Dawn handed the bottle of polish to Mary Anne, and looked quite uncomfortable. At last she said, “My brother moved back to my dad.”

  “He moved to California?” I cried. Then I clapped my hand over my mouth, realizing how loudly I’d spoken. “I knew there were problems,” I went on quietly. “I guess I even knew your mom was considering letting him go back, but I didn’t know it had actually happened. Oh, Dawn, I’m really sorry.”

  I don’t know how close Dawn and her younger brother are, but being an only child I sometimes fantasize about having a brother or sister. It seems like the most wonderful thing in the world. So losing a brother or sister seemed like the most horrible thing in the world.

  Dawn’s eyes filled with tears. She blinked them away. Then she said, “Well, it’s no wonder you didn’t know. Remember what was going on at the same time Jeff was getting ready to leave?”

  Claudia, Mary Anne, and Kristy burst out laughing.

  “The Little Miss Stoneybrook Pageant!” Claudia cried. “What a mess!”

  “Tell me more about it,” I said eagerly, wishing I’d still been in Stoneybrook then. “I only heard bits and pi
eces.”

  “It started with me,” said Dawn, who seemed to have recovered. “It was this pageant for five-to eight-year-old girls, and Claire and Margo Pike were dying to be in it, so their mother gave me the job of preparing them to enter. Each girl had to have a talent. You know what Margo’s was? Peeling a banana with her feet and reciting The House That Jack Built.”

  Every single one of us became hysterical. We grabbed pillows and stuffed them over our faces to muffle our laughter.

  But Dawn was on a roll. “And you know what Claire’s talent was?” she went on. “She sang, I’m Popeye the sailor man. I live in a garbage can. I eat all the wor-orms and spit out the ger-erms. I’m Popeye the sailor man.”

  We could barely contain ourselves.

  “I’m going to wet my pants!” exclaimed Claudia who was laughing so hard she was crying. She dashed for the bathroom.

  When Claudia returned, Dawn said in a whisper, “You guys, I have just had the best idea. Let’s goof-call Jeff in California. It’s only eight-thirty out there.”

  “Okay,” I agreed, “but just one call. It’s expensive. What should we say?”

  “Let’s see if he falls for the oldest goof-call in telephone history,” suggested Mary Anne. “Oh, please, Dawn, can I call him?”

  “Sure,” replied Dawn. She gave Mary Anne her father’s phone number.

  Mary Anne dialed it. “It’s ringing,” she told us. Pause. Then she cupped her hand over the receiver. “Jeff answered!” she whispered loudly. She removed her hand. “Hello?” she said. “Is your refrigerator running?”

  “Yeah, I think so,” Jeff replied.

  “Then you better go catch it!” cried Mary Anne gleefully, and hung up.

  Further hysteria. I laughed until I rolled off the bed. Then an awful thought occurred to me. “Dawn!” I said. “What if Jeff thought that was you and he calls your house? Now? He’ll wake up your mom.”

  After a moment of horrified silence we started laughing again. We just couldn’t help it.

  “I bet,” said Mary Anne, “that if he called my house now, he’d get a busy signal. You know why?”

  “Because your father has a girlfriend and spends hours talking on the phone with her?” I teased.

  “No. Because Tigger knows how to take the phone off the hook and he does it all the time.”

  “You’re kidding!” I cried. “Tigger’s only a kitten.”

  “It’s true!” said Dawn. “I’ve seen him do it. It’s the phone on Mr. Spier’s desk. He bats the receiver until it falls off.”

  At this point, I was afraid my parents were going to come in and tell us to stop being so noisy (it was impossible to calm down), so I told my friends we had to move into the living room.

  “Good,” said Claudia as we tiptoed down the hall. “I’m hungry and the living room is closer to the kitchen. Got any junk food?”

  “Party leftovers,” I told her.

  We raided the refrigerator. Then we sat around the living room eating heroes and potato chips and pretzels. (Well, not me. I just had a diet soda. I have to be extremely careful about my food intake because of my diabetes. And Dawn had only pretzels and the tomatoes from one of the heroes, since she won’t touch meat.)

  “Boy,” said Kristy after she swallowed a mouthful of potato chips. “I wish we’d had as much fun at the party last night as we’re having now.”

  “I guess you guys were too nervous,” I said. “Maybe a party your first day here wasn’t such a good idea.”

  “I don’t know why I was so nervous,” spoke up Claudia. “Maybe I was trying too hard to fit in. I’m sorry about Coby, Kristy.”

  “That’s okay,” Kristy replied. “I overreacted. Anyway, Coby has my phone number and address and I have his. I bet we’ll be in touch soon.” Kristy blushed, but I knew she was pleased with the idea of writing or talking to … a boy!

  “As long as we’re apologizing,” said Mary Anne, “I’m sorry I’ve been such a pain. I mean about New York. It’s just that it’s such a glamorous place.”

  “Well, I’m sorry I’ve been such a scaredy-cat,” said Dawn. “New York always seemed like such a frightening place.”

  “I’m sorry I haven’t been very understanding,” I added.

  And Kristy said, “And I’m sorry I have such a big mouth.”

  With that, we started giggling again. We talked and giggled until Mom really did have to get up and tell us to be quiet. Then we went to bed.

  Dear Jessi,

  Writing this postcard is ridiculous, because we’re on the train coming home now. It’s a New York postcard and I’ll be mailing it in Stoneybrook! Oh, well. Today was great because the five of us were just being ourselves so we were having a blast. It was sad Because we had to say good-bye to Stacey. Anyway, this is

  Guess what just happened? Kristy is asleep next to me and her head keeps falling on my arm! I better end here. Claudia wants to go to the snack car for M&M’s and

  Love, Dawn

  It was our last day together and guess how we spent half the morning? Sleeping! We were exhausted. We hadn’t fallen asleep until about one o’clock the night before. I hated to waste time sleeping, but it felt so nice to keep stretching my legs out in bed and rolling over for “just five more minutes.” (Each five minutes lasted at least fifteen minutes, and I must have done that eight times.)

  Anyway, when my clock read 10:08, I finally yawned and stretched and struggled to sit up. Then I wandered into the living room to see what was going on. I found a note from my parents saying they’d gone to church and then planned to take a walk. I felt kind of sorry for them. With the club members asleep in the living room and den, there was no place my parents could go except the kitchen or their bedroom — or outside.

  I hated to wake everyone up, but it had to be done. My friends’ train was leaving at two-thirty that afternoon, and we didn’t want to sleep away our last few hours. I began making kitchen noises. I put up a kettle of water for tea, got out plates and knives, and then opened the refrigerator, hoping to find what I usually find there on Sunday morning — lox and cream cheese. In a paper bag in the bread drawer were fresh bagels. Goody!

  “Oh, you guys!” I called. “Breakfast time!”

  I heard rumblings and muffled, sleepy sounds from the other rooms, but nothing else.

  I put the bagels on a platter, the lox on a plate, and the cream cheese on another plate. A breakfast assembly line was now ready — if anyone would get up.

  “Yoo-hoo!” I called.

  “Yoo-hoo?” replied Kristy. “You sound like my grandmother.”

  “Come on. Get up. I’ve got a great breakfast for you. Even you will like it, Dawn.” We had whole-wheat bagels as well as regular ones, so Dawn wouldn’t have to poison her body with white bread.

  I heard thumps, and rustlings, and soon my bleary-eyed friends had found their way into the kitchen.

  Kristy’s eyes bugged out at the plate of bright orange lox. “What is that?” she asked, pointing.

  “Lox,” I replied.

  “I’m hoping,” said Kristy, “that lox isn’t what it looks like, which is fish.”

  “It is fish,” I told her. “Salmon.”

  “Raw?”

  “Smoked.”

  “Is it like sushi?” asked Mary Anne warily.

  “No, it’s cooked,” I said. “It just looks raw.”

  “I’ll try it,” said Dawn. She paused. “How do you eat it?”

  “Like this,” I answered. “I’ll fix you a breakfast you won’t forget.”

  “I bet,” muttered Kristy.

  I sliced a bagel in half, toasted the halves in the toaster, slathered them with cream cheese, placed some lox on top, arranged the bagel halves on a plate, and presented the plate to Dawn.

  She took a bite. “This,” she said, closing her eyes, “is heaven. Food heaven.”

  “I now pronounce you a true New Yorker,” I said.

  “You mean I won’t be a true New Yorker until I eat smoked o
range fish?” asked Mary Anne.

  “That’s right.”

  “Oh, lord,” said Claudia.

  Well, in the end, all my friends wanted to be true New Yorkers, so they ate the lox and bagels. Even Kristy. Then we got dressed (we wore our Hard Rock Cafe T-shirts), and we sat around and read the New York Times, which Mom and Dad brought home with them when they finally returned.

  “A New York City Sunday morning tradition,” I said.

  “Really?” asked Mary Anne. She looked quite pleased with herself. Then she glanced at her watch and her expression changed to utter sadness.

  “What’s wrong?” asked Dawn.

  “It’s noon.”

  “Oh, wow. In less than two hours we’ll have to leave for the train station,” I said.

  At that moment the doorbell rang.

  Good. A diversion. I ran for it.

  “Who’s there?” I called.

  “It’s Mrs. Walker.”

  I opened the door. There stood Mrs. Walker with Henry and Grace.

  “Hi!” I said.

  “Hi,” answered Mrs. Walker.

  Henry and Grace scooted behind their mother and peeped around at me, but they were smiling.

  “Come on in,” I told them.

  They did. Henry and Grace each held out a piece of drawing paper.

  “These are for you … and your friends,” said Henry.

  “Hey, you guys, come here!” I called.

  Kristy, Dawn, Mary Anne, and Claudia joined us in the hallway.

  “This was the kids’ idea,” said Mrs. Walker. “They were up early, drawing pictures, and they said they wanted you to have these. They had a great time yesterday.”

  “Thanks!” said my friends and I.

  Henry’s picture was identifiable as a dinosaur. (A stegosaurus, he informed us.) Grace’s was a blue circle with some squiggly pink and green lines around it. She said it was Central Park.

  After the Walkers left, my friends decided that they wanted to say good-bye to the other kids we had sat for, so we did just that, only this time we started with the apartment on the lowest floor and worked our way up. Dawn rode the elevator like she’d been doing it an· her life. Mary Anne didn’t quote one fact about New York, Kristy didn’t make a single snide remark, and Claudia mentioned that she was going to write a letter to Laine when she got home.