Dawn and Whitney, Friends Forever Read online

  Carol turned back to me and said, “She was very responsible, making sure the girls didn’t get on animals that were too big for them. And she wouldn’t let them go on the Zipper.”

  “See?” said Whitney. “See? I am grown-up! I’m grown-up enough to baby-sit.”

  By now, I knew what had happened. Whitney had wanted to prove that she could baby-sit, too, that she was grown-up. And she had done a good job, except that she had taken Clover and Daffodil without telling anyone.

  “We’ve got to go,” I said aloud. “It’s good to see you again, Carol.”

  “It’s good to see you,” Carol told me, and to my surprise, she leaned over and gave me a quick, impulsive hug.

  That night, after all the excitement was over, I remembered to tell Dad I’d seen Carol at the carnival.

  “It was great to see her,” I said. “She was terrific. And she was really nice to Whitney.”

  My father looked pleased. “I’m glad,” he said.

  “You know,” I said slowly. “Maybe you should call her.”

  I looked down at the toe of my shoe, then up at my father. He wasn’t looking at me. He was staring into space, rubbing his chin, a thoughtful smile on his face.

  It was time for Whitney and me to have a talk, I decided as I walked over to the Caters’ house to begin my last week of baby-sitting for Whitney. The following Monday, Whitney’s day camp program was going to begin. If Whitney and I didn’t settle what had happened between us, we might never get it sorted out at all.

  As soon as Mr. Cater left for work, I walked over to where Whitney was sitting by the window in the den. She hadn’t said hello when I’d come in, but at least she didn’t have her back turned to me.

  “Whitney, we have to talk,” I said.

  Whitney looked at me, but she didn’t say anything.

  “Okay. Okay, listen. You took really good care of Clover and Daffodil. You were very responsible with them. Everyone says so.”

  I took a deep breath and Whitney burst out, “See? I can do it! I really can be grown-up! But no one ever listens to me. Especially Mom and Dad.”

  I didn’t smile. I felt a huge twinge of sympathy. We’d all gone through that. We’re still going through it, whether it was Stacey’s overprotective parents not trusting her enough to be responsible about her diabetes, or Mary Anne’s father keeping her in pigtails until she was practically grown-up.

  Thinking hard, I told Whitney about Mary Anne and about Stacey. And about some of the things that I’d been through, too.

  “All of us have had to convince our parents that we are ready for more responsibility. You have to convince your parents, too, Whitney,” I concluded.

  “I can! I can do things. But they won’t let me!”

  “You’ll have to prove it to them. And I know you can. It might take time, but I know you can.”

  “How?” asked Whitney.

  I paused. We’d all been able to make changes. And although Whitney couldn’t make radical changes, some of the things that had worked for us should work for her, too.

  “What about this?” I began. “Why don’t you make a list of the things you know you can do now, the grown-up things. Not things you can’t do, like drive a car, but real things.”

  Whitney nodded, watching me intently. I went on. “Then show the list to your parents and you decide together which things you can be responsible for now. You can try those things out, and if you do them, then maybe you can add more things to your grown-up list.”

  “My grown-up list,” repeated Whitney. She nodded again and then, for the first time in days, smiled at me. “That’s what I’ll do, Dawn. Thank you!”

  We spent the rest of the afternoon drafting the list. Holding the list in one hand, Whitney walked me to the front door as I was leaving.

  I stopped and cleared my throat. “So, Whitney. Good luck with that list.”

  “Thank you, Dawn,” said Whitney.

  “There’s something else. Do you think we could be friends now, as well as, well, baby-sitter and baby-sittee?”

  Whitney frowned, then smiled again. “We can be both,” she agreed.

  “I’m glad,” I said.

  “Me, too,” said Whitney. “Me, too.”

  A couple of days later, the We ♥ Kids Club met and I made a proposal: that Whitney be made an honorary club member and maybe special helper, to accompany us on some jobs, like baby-sitting for Clover and Daffodil Austin. I didn’t have to convince Sunny that Whitney was great with kids.

  “You should see her,” she told the club. “She’s super. She really plays with the kids and she’s great at thinking up games. Plus she’s very, very careful. Clover and Daffodil loved her.”

  Not that we needed much convincing. But Sunny’s words made me feel good inside. I coughed to get everyone’s attention, then called for a vote.

  Unanimous. It was official. Whitney Cater was now an Honorary Member and Special Helper in the We ♥ Kids Club.

  I could hardly wait to let Whitney know. I decided to tell her on the last day I sat for her.

  “Let’s go sit on the swings in the backyard,” I suggested.

  “Okay,” said Whitney.

  We swung back and forth for a little while. But I could tell Whitney’s heart wasn’t in it. After a minute or two, she stopped.

  “I’m going to miss you, Dawn.”

  “I’ll miss you, too, Whitney. But I have some good news. So maybe you won’t miss me too much.”

  “I will miss you,” insisted Whitney.

  “Not if you are an Honorary Member and Special Helper in the We Love Kids Club,” I said. “Which you officially are. We voted you in on Wednesday. That means you’ll be helping us out on special baby-sitting jobs.”

  Whitney’s mouth opened and then closed. “A member?” she managed to say at last. “Of your club? I’m a baby-sitter!”

  “Yes!”

  With a whoop, Whitney pumped her swing high in the air, then jumped off, her eyes sparkling.

  “Me?” she kept saying. “Me? In your club?”

  “That’s the deal,” I said. “What do you think?”

  “Yes!” shouted Whitney. Then she made herself serious for a moment. “Yes, thank you, Dawn. I’d like that.”

  But the seriousness couldn’t last and a moment later she was dancing around me, laughing with delight.

  It was a great afternoon. I didn’t want it to end. But I knew now there would be other, different afternoons to which I could look forward with Whitney.

  And as I was leaving, after giving Whitney a big bear hug and getting one back, I knew that Whitney and I would remain friends.

  I reached up and touched the friendship necklace. Whitney had given it back to me. Friends again.

  Friends forever.

  With the end of my job with Whitney, life got a little less hectic. I kicked back and invested some serious time on the beach, working on my surfing and giving my full support to the perfect days that kept arriving one after the other.

  Whitney was doing well in her new day camp. And one Saturday, she and Sunny and Clover and Daffodil and I went on a special Baby-sitters excursion to the park. Needless to say, it was a big success — as good as the best surfboard ride.

  Another part of life slowed down some, too. Dad stopped dating so much. He showed up for dinner more often, and even cooked a few weird Dad meals, like tofu-turkey dog casserole.

  Surprise. Some things aren’t meant to be eaten, even if they are good for you. We ended up going out for pizza and having a great time.

  I wondered if that last date with Alana-the-Pain-a and Kayla had put Dad off dating forever. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. I liked having him around. But from time to time, I thought I saw a sort of lonely look on his face.

  Then things picked up a bit and I knew he’d started dating again. He didn’t mention her name, but Jeff and I braced ourselves for another family outing.

  “Maybe it’ll be to the zoo,” said Jeff one night, �
�and we can feed her to the bears.”

  “Poor bears,” I said, thinking back over some of the family date disasters.

  We didn’t ask Dad what was happening. We decided, by mutual unspoken agreement, that it was better not to know.

  Then one day, Dad said casually, as he was putting on his jacket, “So, I’ll be going out with someone you know tonight, guys.”

  Jeff clutched his throat and fell over backward. “Kayla!”

  Dad smiled and shook his head.

  “Not Karina!” I gasped.

  Rolling his eyes, Dad shook his head again. “I’ll put you all out of your misery. It’s Carol.”

  “Carol! Wow,” said Jeff.

  “Decent,” I said. I suddenly suspected that it had been Carol he’d been seeing all along now.

  But Dad didn’t say anything more about her after his date and he didn’t mention any family dates.

  Finally, one night after dinner was over, Dad began to gather up the plates. “I’ll just get this into the kitchen and then we’ll have dessert,” he said.

  “Jeff and I can get that,” I said.

  “Thanks,” said Jeff.

  “No, no,” Dad insisted. “I’ll get it.”

  He rushed back and forth, clearing the table and bringing out all the dessert stuff. Except the ice cream. Instead he sat down at the table and stared at us.

  “Dad?” I prompted.

  “Where’s the ice cream?” asked Jeff.

  “How would you feel about having Carol as your stepmother?” Dad burst out. “I know we went through this before, and I …”

  “Carol?” said Jeff. “Carol’s okay.” He frowned. “Can I go get the ice cream?”

  “Go get the ice cream, Jeff,” I said. Good grief! Dad dishes out some major news and all Jeff can think about is ice cream.

  As Jeff disappeared in the direction of the kitchen I looked at my dad. He was smiling. He looked relaxed and happy and pleased with himself.

  And suddenly I was happy and pleased, too. “I think it would be great, Dad. You and Carol.”

  Maybe that’s what all those weird dates had been about, after all. Maybe Dad had been thinking about Carol and that’s why he’d gone out with such strange people — people who couldn’t possibly replace Carol.

  I remembered Carol shaking hands with Whitney and smiled even more. “Great,” I said again.

  Jeff reappeared with ice cream and a bigger spoon for himself and we concentrated on dessert after that — on dessert and a special dinner Dad wanted to have for Carol to celebrate and “make everything official.”

  We spent one day planning the menu and two days getting the dinner ready, including old-fashioned Parker house rolls that had to rise three times, a special pasta sauce that had to sit for twenty-four hours, and three kinds of appetizers.

  Carol’s eyes widened when she saw the table (which we’d set up outside) with the candles and tablecloth and fresh flowers on it. “It’s lovely,” she said.

  “For our special guest,” I said, bowing a little.

  Jeff snorted, but you could tell he was excited, too.

  The meal went perfectly. Jeff and I kept exchanging pleased glances, but Dad just kept looking at Carol. She kept looking at him, too, and maybe she didn’t taste anything we cooked after all, but she did remember to say, from time to time, “This is wonderful,” and “I love this. It’s delicious.”

  When the meal was over and we’d brought out dessert and coffee (and more milk for Jeff and raspberry seltzer for me), Dad cleared his throat.

  “As you know, this is a very special occasion. We have a special guest here. She’s been here before, so I don’t need to introduce her.”

  “Is it Carol?” my brother the wit asked.

  “Give the boy in the striped shirt the prize,” I said. “Be quiet, Jeff.”

  Grinning, Jeff rolled his eyes at me. Carol saw him and smiled.

  Dad went on. “But we don’t want to think of Carol as a special guest anymore.”

  Dad stopped and suddenly sounded a lot less formal. And a lot more nervous.

  “So,” he said.

  “Go on, Dad. You can do it,” urged Jeff.

  “Jeff!” I said.

  “Just say it!” Jeff jumped out of his chair, threw himself on one knee, and spread his arms out. “Carol, will you marry me?” he said, and clasped his hands over his heart and fell backward.

  Carol laughed and leaned forward to help Jeff up. Then she stopped and gasped. She turned to my Dad and her face grew bright pink.

  “Is Jeff …” She began and stopped. She tried again. “Did you …” She stopped once more.

  “Dad!” I said.

  Dad’s face was as pink as Carol’s. “If you say yes,” he said, “you’ll be saying yes to me. And to these two here, too. I … wanted us to be in this together.”

  “Ohhhh!” Carol threw her arms around our father and hugged him so hard he almost fell over to join Jeff.

  “It’s about time,” Jeff complained.

  After that (while Jeff concentrated as usual on dessert), we made wedding plans. By the time Dad got up to walk Carol to her car and say good night, we knew the wedding was going to be in December, that I was going to be the maid of honor, and that Jeff was going to be the best man.

  I could hardly wait.

  I went to bed that night on a cloud of excitement. But I didn’t go to sleep right away. I had one more thing to do to make it a perfect end to a perfect day.

  I picked up the phone and punched in the number.

  “Hello?” I said. “Mary Anne? It’s me. Guess what? You’re going to love this. There’s going to be another wedding in the family!”

  * * *

  Dear Reader,

  Although I haven’t gotten to know anyone with Down syndrome as well as Dawn gets to know Whitney in Dawn and Whitney, Friends Forever, when I was younger I worked with kids with various disabilities. During the summers when I was in college, I worked at Eden Institute, a school for children and young people with autism. But for a couple of summers when I was in high school, I worked at a day camp for kids with disabilities.

  Some of the kids at the camp had Down syndrome, like Whitney; many of them did not. The day camp was a typical summer program. The counselors and the kids went swimming, did arts and crafts, put on plays, took field trips, and went to the playground. Although I had done lots of baby-sitting and some tutoring, I had not worked with kids with disabilities before, so I was a little nervous. But the day camp turned out to be a wonderful experience. I liked getting to know the kids and meeting some of their families. In fact, I enjoyed the experience enough so that a couple of years later, when a friend of mine told me about Eden Institute, I decided to volunteer there. Now, years later, Eden is still an important part of my life.

  Happy reading,

  * * *

  The author gratefully acknowledges

  Nola Thacker

  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 © 1994 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 tra
demarks of Scholastic Inc.

  First edition, August 1994

  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.

  e-ISBN 978-0-545-76846-7