Mary Anne and the Music Read online

  “Oh, there’s the phone,” said Sharon. “I’ll grab it, if you can just start setting out the dip and chips.” She gave my shoulder a quick squeeze. “You look wonderful, Mary Anne. And thanks for your help. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

  She dashed off toward the phone, and I dashed off toward the kitchen. For the moment, I forgot about the bracelet and the questions it had raised.

  I set out the dip and chips, and the sodas and the cups, and the paper plates and napkins. I unwrapped the food the caterers had dropped off and set it out as well, making sure that there were enough large serving spoons handy. The food looked terrific. Sharon had ordered all kinds of yummy things such as shish kebab and chicken teriyaki and huge platters of vegetables for dipping. Even though Sharon’s a vegetarian and into eating healthily, she knows what most people are looking for at a party.

  Logan was one of the first guests to arrive. “You look really pretty,” he said, kissing me. Then he turned his attention to the food. (Typical boy.) I had to stop him from digging right in.

  “We can’t eat until Granny and Pop-Pop arrive!” I said.

  Logan looked so disappointed that I relented. “Okay, go ahead and have some chicken. Nobody will ever know.”

  He kissed me again, grabbed a piece of chicken, and took off to see who else was arriving.

  The doorbell began ringing almost continuously as people piled into the house. Everybody was in good spirits, trying to top each other’s tales of how they’d nearly messed up the surprise. Esther had spoken to Granny on the phone and ended the conversation by saying, “See you tonight!” She’d had to think fast to cover her mistake, but Granny hadn’t seemed to notice.

  “I’ll bet she already knows about the party,” said Hank the Grump. “You can’t put one over on Gracie.”

  “I wouldn’t be so sure,” said Eddie, who’d overheard Hank’s comment. “The last thing I heard her say as I was leaving this afternoon was that she was looking forward to a nice, quiet evening with the family tonight.” He grinned at me and winked. “So, as hard as we all tried to blow it, I think they’ll still be surprised.”

  Guess what? They were. At least, as far I could tell. When they arrived, Sharon and Dad and I chatted with them for a few moments in the front hall. Then we casually wandered into the living room — where all their nearest and dearest friends happened to be sitting around. (Sharon and I had decided that the jumping-out-of-hiding-places-and-yelling type of surprise might be a little much for her parents, so we’d opted for a lower-key approach.)

  “What —?” said Granny as she slowly took in the scene.

  “Hey,” said Pop-Pop when he saw two of his best friends from his former job. “What’s going on here?”

  “A party,” said Sharon, walking toward her parents and taking each of them by the hand. “To celebrate a couple whose marriage is a model for all of us. And to wish you many more years of happiness!”

  The guests applauded. Granny and Pop-Pop stood in the middle of the room, looking just a tiny bit overcome.

  Dad came to the rescue. “And now, how about some dinner?” he asked. “After all, that’s what we invited you here for.” He offered his arm to Granny, and Sharon took Pop-Pop’s arm. “Shall we?” asked Dad, sweeping Granny toward the long table in the dining room, which was piled high with food.

  That was enough to break the ice. Soon the table was surrounded by people loading up plates, filling glasses, and grabbing hunks of garlic bread. Then everyone moved into the living room and began to eat, balancing plates on their knees.

  Logan and I waited until the rush was over. Then we approached the table together and filled up a huge plate of food to share. We took our feast to a quiet spot in a corner of the living room. It didn’t stay quiet for long, since all my BSC friends soon joined us, but still, it was nice to share a meal with Logan.

  I was just finishing my last meatball when Granny poked her head around the corner. “Mary Anne,” she said, “do you suppose you could help me find something in the kitchen? I don’t want to bother Sharon right now.”

  “Sure,” I said, jumping up. I followed her into the kitchen, and she told me that she was looking for some antacids for Pop-Pop.

  “I’m afraid he has a little indigestion,” she confessed. “All that rich food on the ship, and now this wonderful party.”

  I smiled. “Maybe these will make him feel better,” I said, reaching into the cabinet over the sink for the antacid tablets. “So, are you enjoying the party?”

  “Oh, yes,” she said. “It’s lovely to see all our friends, especially after being away. It was so thoughtful of Sharon to arrange this, and so nice of you to help her out.”

  “I was glad to do it,” I said.

  “Your young man,” Granny said. “What is his name again?”

  I blushed a little. It was funny to hear Logan referred to as my “young man.” “Logan,” I said. “Logan Bruno.”

  “Well, he seems very nice,” she said. “And you two make an adorable couple.” She sighed. “There’s nothing like a first love. Savor it, my dear. You’ll always remember him, no matter what your future brings.” She had a faraway look in her eyes, and she wore a faint smile.

  “Granny,” I said impulsively, “do you know anything about this bracelet?” I held up my wrist. Granny gave a little gasp. “I have a feeling it belonged to a girl who used to live in your house,” I said. “A girl named Lydia? I think her boyfriend gave it to her. They called each other Little Star and How I Wonder. Do you remember writing to your cousin June about their romance?”

  I’d thought she’d be surprised at how much I knew, but Granny still hadn’t spoken. In fact, she hadn’t taken her eyes off the bracelet.

  “Granny?” I asked, suddenly concerned. “Are you feeling all right?”

  “I’m fine,” she said. She reached out and touched one of the stars on the bracelet. “And I do, indeed, remember Lydia and her boyfriend,” she said. “But this bracelet didn’t belong to her. It belonged to me. I was Little Star.”

  “You?” I gasped.

  She nodded. “That’s what Frank called me. And I called him How I Wonder. Silly names, but that’s how young lovers are.” She still had that faraway look in her eyes.

  “Frank?” I asked, shaking my head as if to clear it. I’d grown used to thinking of the boy in the picture — and the sailor in my dreams — as Johnny, since I’d been so sure that he was Lydia’s boyfriend. Granny was turning everything upside down.

  “That was his name,” she said. “I met him at the ice-cream shop. He was my first true love. He gave me the most beautiful music box in the world. Then he went off to war and was killed.”

  Killed? How awful. I couldn’t even speak. I reached out and hugged Granny. “The music box really is beautiful,” I mumbled into her shoulder.

  “So you opened it despite the horrible warning?” asked Granny. I stood back from her and nodded. She laughed. “I wrote that when I was younger, to keep out snoops,” she said. I suddenly remembered that the handwriting in young Grace’s letters had looked somehow familiar. It must have reminded me of the handwriting on the wrapper. “You know, I never told anyone about Frank. He’s my secret. I kept that box, of course, but always hidden. When Pop-Pop and I moved to that house and I saw that cubbyhole, I tucked the box away there and never told a soul.”

  “I won’t tell anyone, either,” I promised.

  “Thank you,” she said, looking at me very seriously, then reaching out to hug me again. “I’d like you to have the music box, Mary Anne,” she said. “It’s yours, as long as you keep my secret.”

  “My lips are sealed,” I replied, thinking that I’d have to come up with some story to satisfy my friends’ curiosity about the mystery of L. S. and H. I. W. “And I’ll treasure the music box forever.”

  Granny and I talked for a little while longer in the kitchen that night, about first loves and lost loves and secret loves. Then we realized we’d better rejoin t
he party. “Just tell me one more thing,” I asked her. “Whatever happened to Johnny and Lydia?”

  Granny laughed. “Them? Well, they eloped. Oh, my, it was so romantic and thrilling. But you know what’s funny? They’re still married, all these years later, and they’re the most boring old couple you’d ever want to meet!”

  Back in the midst of the party a few minutes later, I watched Granny dance around the room in Pop-Pop’s arms. And when I saw the way she looked into his eyes, I knew for sure that even though Frank may have been Granny’s first love, Pop-Pop was the love of her life.

  I never did tell Granny about the way I’d dreamed of Frank. I guess I was afraid it might upset her. But I did have one last dream about my sailor boy, the night after the party. Once again, I saw him from a distance, and I sensed a question in those beautiful blue eyes of his. But this time, he was able to talk to me, and I finally found out what the question was. “How is she?” he asked me. “How is my Grace, my Little Star?”

  I told him she was fine, happy and healthy. He seemed satisfied. His eyes lost that sad look. And after that, I never dreamed about him again. But every now and then I look at the music box sitting on my bureau, and I think about first love, and I sigh.

  The author gratefully acknowledges

  Ellen Miles

  for her help in

  preparing this manuscript.

  About the Author

  ANN MATTHEWS MARTIN was born on August 12, 1955. She grew up in Princeton, New Jersey, with her parents and her younger sister, Jane.

  There are currently over 176 million copies of The Baby-sitters Club in print. (If you stacked all of these books up, the pile would be 21,245 miles high.) In addition to The Baby-sitters Club, Ann is the author of two other series, Main Street and Family Tree. Her novels include Belle Teal, A Corner of the Universe (a Newbery Honor book), Here Today, A Dog’s Life, On Christmas Eve, Everything for a Dog, Ten Rules for Living with My Sister, and Ten Good and Bad Things About My Life (So Far). She is also the coauthor, with Laura Godwin, of the Doll People series.

  Ann lives in upstate New York with her dog and her cats.

  Copyright © 1997 by Ann M. Martin

  Cover art by Hodges Soileau

  All rights reserved. Published by Scholastic Inc. SCHOLASTIC, THE BABY-SITTERS CLUB, and associated logos are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Scholastic Inc.

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  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher. For information regarding permission, write to Scholastic Inc., Attention: Permissions Department, 557 Broadway, New York, NY 10012.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  First edition, August 1997

  e-ISBN 978-0-545-79358-2