Ann Martin - Mary Anne Saves The Day

She looked from me to Kristy and back to me again. "Who is that and what are you doing?" she asked.

Kristy crossed her eyes at us, then yanked her window shade down.

"What's going on?" Dawn demanded. "That girl looks familiar. I've seen her around school, haven't I?"

"Oh, that's just Kristy Thomas. She's nobody."

Dawn looked skeptical. "If she's nobody, how come you guys are bothering to stick your tongues out at each other?"

I took a deep breath, but before I could say anything, Dawn went on, "And how come you put your arm around me just now? Was that something you wanted Kristy to see?"

"Well, the thing is," I began, "Kristy and I used to be friends." (The truth was going to have to come out sometime.)

"And you had a fight, right?" asked Dawn. She put the album aside and got to her feet.

"Yes. ..."

"Mary Anne, the first day we met — when we were eating in the cafeteria — you told me you were sitting alone because your friends were all absent. Was Kristy one of those friends?"

"Yeah. ..."

"And then you kept on saying your friends were absent," Dawn continued thoughtfully. "It seemed kind of weird, but I needed a friend of my own so much, I guess I just tried to forget about your other friends. How come you said they were absent?"

"Well, see we'd just had this big fight and we were all mad at each other. ..." I trailed off.

Dawn nodded her head. She looked really disgusted. "So you lied to me," she said.

"I guess," I replied uncomfortably.

"From the first day of our friendship you lied to me."

I didn't know what to say to that.

"You know, not bothering to tell a person the real truth," Dawn went on, "is just as bad as telling lies. You've been lying to me the

whole time we were friends, you know that?"

"Hey, that is not true!" I cried, jumping up.

"Why should I believe that, coming from a liar? I'll tell you what I do believe, though. I believe I was pretty convenient when you needed a new friend. . . . No, don't say anything, Mary Anne," she rushed on when I started to protest. "I know the rest of this story. See you later." Dawn stomped down the stairs.

I jumped up and ran after her. "Watch those steps," I said sarcastically. "Hope you have a nice trip."

"Have a nice life," Dawn shouted over her shoulder. She let herself out the front door. I ran back to my room and stood at the window that faced the front of the house.

I watched my last friend pedal her bicycle furiously down the street.

Then I flung myself on my bed and cried.

Chapter 13.

I spent the rest of the afternoon moping around my bedroom. My father called to say that he'd stopped in at the office, wouldn't be home until six, and could I please start dinner?

I did, numbly.

When Dad came home, we sat down to hamburgers, peas, and French fries. Dad tried hard to make conversation, but I just didn't feel like talking. We were both relieved when the phone rang.

"I'll get it," said Dad. "I think it's a client." He reached behind him and picked up the phone. "Hello, Richard Spier. . . . Pardon me? What antibiotics? . . . Oh, really? . . . No. No, she didn't. . . . Well, I'm flajtered to hear that. I'm proud of her, too. . . . I'll give her the good news." Dad raised his eyebrows at me.

"What?" I mouthed.

He shook his head, meaning I'll tell you in a minute. "Yes. I certainly will," he said. "All right. . . . Thank you very much. Good-bye."

Dad hung up the phone, looking somewhat puzzled. "Mary Anne?" he asked. "Did anything . . . out of the ordinary happen today?"

I was so upset over my fight with Dawn (which was pretty out of the ordinary) that it was all I could think about. How could Dad possibly have heard about it, though? That couldn't have been Mrs. Schafer on the phone. Dad had said he was proud of me. (He had meant me, hadn't he?)

Then in a flash I remembered Jenny Prez-zioso. The trip to the hospital seemed like a million years ago. "Oh, my gosh!" I said. "How could I have forgotten to tell you? Yes, I — Who was that on the phone?"

"Mrs. Prezzioso. She was calling to tell me what a good job you did this afternoon, and to let you know that Jenny does in fact have strep throat but is feeling much better. I was a little embarrassed to admit that I didn't know what she was talking about. I still don't think I know the whole story. Mrs. Prezzioso was speaking very fast. She kept mentioning an angel."

I smiled. "That's Jenny. The Prezziosos call her their angel."

"Well, tell me what happened. It sounds rather exciting."

"It was, I guess, only I was so concerned about Jenny I hardly had time to feel excited or scared or anything. What happened was I was baby-sitting, and I noticed that Jenny seemed cranky and quiet, but at first I didn't think much of it. She gets cranky a lot. Then she fell asleep right in the middle of reading a book, and I realized she felt awfully warm, so I took her temperature. And, Dad, it was a hundred and four!"

"A hundred and four!"

"Yes. I couldn't believe it, either. So I called her doctor, but I only got his answering service. Then I started calling neighbors, trying to find someone who could drive us to the doctor or the hospital, but no one was home — "

"Including me," added Dad.

"Including you. And including Dawn's mother. But Dawn came over, and she suggested dialing nine-one-one, so I did, and I explained everything to the man who answered and he sent an ambulance over.

"You know," I went on, "now that I think about this afternoon, I'm surprised at everything I remembered to do. I remembered to call the gym in Chatham that the Prezziosos

were driving to, so they could be paged to come home; I remembered all the instructions the man told me over the phone; and I remembered to lock the Prezziosos' front door as we left with the ambulance attendants."

Dad smiled at me. "Mrs. Prezzioso said she was proud of you."

"So did her husband/' I added.

"And so am I," said Dad.

"You are?"

"Very."

"Thanks/' I said.

Dad sighed.

"What is it?"

"You're growing up," he said, as if it was some sort of revelation to him. "Right before my eyes."

"Well, I am twelve."

"I know. But twelve means different things for different people. It's like clothes. You can put a certain shirt on one person and he looks fabulous. Then you put the shirt on someone else and that person looks awful. It's the same way with age. It depends on how you wear it or carry it."

"You mean some twelve-year-olds are ready to date and other twelve-year-olds still need baby-sitters?"

"Exactly."

"But isn't that a double standard?" I asked.

"No, just the opposite. An example of a double standard would be that just because a boy or girl had turned fourteen he or she would automatically be encouraged to date, no matter how mature he or she was — but absolutely no thirteen-year-old would be encouraged to do so."

"Oh. ... Am I. ..." I hardly dared to ask the question. "Am I more mature than you realized?"

"Yes. Yes, I think you are, Mary Anne."

"Am I. ..." Oh, please, please, please let him say yes. "... old enough to stay out a little later when I baby-sit?"

For a moment, Dad didn't answer. At last he said, "Well, ten o'clock seems a bit late for school nights. How about nine-thirty on school nights and ten o'clock on Friday and Saturday nights?"

"Oh, Dad, that's perfect! Thank you!" I started to get up, wanting to hug him, but we're not huggers. I sat down again. Then I had a great idea. "Dad, I want to show you something," I said. "I'll be right back." I ran upstairs to my room, pulled the rubber bands off the ends of my braids, shook my hair out, and brushed it carefully. It fell over my shoulders, ripply from having been braided when