Ann Martin - New York, New York!

Hmm. At the Pikes', Mallory was probably tripping over her seven younger brothers and sisters and packing the trendiest stuff she could find. Unfortunately, Mr. and Mrs. Pike don't allow Mal to dress very fashionably. They're not strict parents, but Mal is only eleven. So far, they have allowed her to get her ears pierced. They have not allowed her to switch her glasses for contacts, to have her braces taken off early, to have her curly red hair straightened, or to wear just about anything that Stacey or I get to wear. She manages not to look like a first-grader, though. She spends most of her baby-sitting money on any clothes or jewelry she thinks she can get away with wearing. (She spends the rest of her money on journals, and on materials for drawing and sketching, and on books. Mallory is a big writer and a big reader. She especially likes horse stories.) Jessi Ramsey likes to read, too, but her true love is ballet. Jessi is a very talented dancer. She takes special classes at a school inStamford , and she has danced onstage before hundreds of people. She would probably pack a leotard and her toe shoes. (She likes to exercise even when she's on vacation.) Otherwise, she would pack stuff pretty similar to Mallory's. Her parents feel the same way about clothes that the Pikes do. This is interesting, since the Pikes and the Ramseys are pretty dissimilar. The Pikes are white, the Ramseys are black. There are eight Pike kids, but just three Ramsey kids. The Pikes have lived in Stoneybrook since before Mal was born. The Ramseys moved here (right into Sta-cey's old house!) at the beginning of the school year. I guess the parents of eleven-year-olds are sort of the same everywhere.

And what was left in my suitcase after I'd removed that three years' worth of clothing? Outfits like Stacey's, only wilder, if you can believe it. I would say that, like Stacey, I'm pretty sophisticated, but I may be the chilliest dresser in the BSC. That's because I like to look different from other people. I make a lot of my own jewelry — big, dangly earrings, papier-mache bracelets and pins — and I'm always trying new ways to wear belts, layer my clothes, fix my hair. . . . I'm Japanese-American, and my hair is long and straight and black. It looks good when I pull it back with bright ribbons or combs or barrettes. And my eyes are dark and almond-shaped. I think I look exotic, especially with the right kind of makeup.

I stepped back and checked my suitcase. The floor around the bed was littered with discarded outfits, I still wasn't going to be able to close the suitcase, and I hadn't even packed my art materials yet. I had to bring them along if I was going to study with HIM.

Oh, well. I'd just borrow another suitcase from my sister.

Kristy.

Chapter 2.

It was time to say good-bye. I have never liked that very much. Not because it's sad or because maybe I'll never again see the people I'm saying good-bye to. (Mary Anne is always sure of that; she thinks some disaster will strike.) It's just that people get so mushy when they're saying good-bye. Also, my family is pretty big, so we make a spectacle of ourselves at train stations or airports.

These are the people who came to the train station to see me off on the day we left for New York: Mom, my stepfather, my grandmother Nannie, Charlie and Sam (my big brothers), David Michael (my little brother), Karen and Andrew (my stepsister and stepbrother), Emily Michelle (my adopted sister), and our dog, Shannon. I'm surprised the cat and the goldfish didn't come, too.

At least this time I didn't feel as conspicuous as usual. That's because eventually all the members of each of my friends' families showed up. You can imagine what the Pike crowd looked like. Before they arrived, though, I had to deal with my family myself. Mom had insisted that we leave for the station a half an hour before the train to New York was due in. The station is exactly four minutes from our house. That left us with twenty-six minutes to kill — and an audience of about fifteen people to watch us kill the time.

I hope they were entertained. We did our best to put on a show for them.

Emily, who is two and a half, used my suitcase and backpack as her own personal jungle gym. She kept trying to stand on top of the suitcase (when it was standing up). And Mom kept saying, "Be careful, Emily. Emily, be careful." Then there was Karen, who's seven, jumping all around, singing, "New York, New York! A wonderful town. The Bronx is up and the Battery's down!" Mary Anne had baby-sat for her and Andrew two days before.

Meanwhile, Andrew (who's almost five) and David Michael (who's going on eight) found one of the rattly baggage carts.

"Cool!" exclaimed David Michael.

"Give me a ride!" said Andrew, scrambling on.

Nannie saw them. "David Michael! Andrew! That isn't a toy!" she called. (Pause.) "David Michael, come back here! Andrew, please get off." I had the feeling that the people around us were quickly learning our names.

"Kristy, will you buy me something in New York?" asked Karen loudly.

"Me, too?" cried Andrew and David Michael, abandoning the baggage cart.

"Potty!" exclaimed Emily Michelle.

"I'll take her/' said Mom.

Luckily, Mallory and her family arrived then, and the people at the station found them more interesting than my family. (Anyway, there were fewer of us at that point. David Michael, Andrew, and Karen had all followed Mom to the bathrooms, and Charlie had taken Shannon for a quick walk in the parking lot.) Here's the thing about the Pikes: Three of the boys are ten-year-old identical triplets. They don't dress in matching outfits, but their faces are exactly the same. There's no mistaking that they're triplets.

"Hi, Mal!" I called.

"Hi!" she replied. "Guess what. I had to pay Jordan to carry my suitcase." Mallory pointed to one of the triplets.

"Well, you offered," said Jordan.

"I did not. You said, 'Want me to carry your suitcase?' and I said, 'Sure,' and you said, 'Okay, that'll be fifty cents.' " I giggled. "Hey, here come Mary Anne and Dawn." Mallory clapped her hand over her mouth. "I don't believe it. Mary Anne brought Tigger with her!" Tigger was mewing pitifully inside his carrier.

"Well, now I don't feel so bad/' I said. "Everyone's looking at Tigger." Ten minutes later, the rest of the BSC had reached the train station. There were Jessi, her parents, her Aunt Cecelia, and her younger sister and baby brother. There were Claudia, her sister, and her mom and dad. And there were Stacey and her mom.

My friends and I huddled together, away from our families.

"Do you think anyone knows we belong with them?" asked Claudia, indicating the knot of anxious parents, and the kids who were running around.

"I'm afraid so," I replied. "They even know the names of my brothers and sisters. We're hard to miss." Claud sighed.

Then Dawn spoke up. "This morning my mom asked Mary Anne and me if we really wanted to go to New York for two weeks. She said if we stayed here she'd take us on a shopping spree. I told her that New York was going to be one big spree all by itself, didn't I, Mary Anne? . . . Mary Anne?" Mary Anne had opened a booklet about New York and was gazing at it intently. "You know," she began, "if all the coffee shops in New York City were placed side by side, I bet they would — " ' Dawn groaned, and Mary Anne stopped talking. She went right back to the book, though, and immediately became lost in it again.

"Uh-oh," I whispered.

"What?" asked Jessi.

"Look." I pointed to our parents. They had gathered in a pack under the sign that read: NEW YORK-BOUND TRAINS. I "Ooh," breathed Jessi. "That doesn't look good. You don't think they'll suddenly decide not to let us go, do you?" "They might," Mal replied darkly.

"I'll take care of them," announced Stacey. She marched over to the parents. The rest of us followed her uncertainly.