Ann Martin - Mary Anne Saves The Day

it was still damp that morning. Then I ran down to the kitchen and stood in front of my father. "How do I look?" I asked.

I watched Dad's face go from serious to soft. "Lovely," he finally managed to say.

"Do you think I could wear it this way? I mean just sometimes, not every day."

Dad nodded.

"And maybe," I went on, hoping I wasn't pressing my luck, "I could take Humpty Dumpty off my wall and put up a nice picture of Paris or New York instead?" I could ask him about Alice in Wonderland some other time.

Dad nodded. Then he held his arms out. I crossed the room to him and he folded me into his arms.

"Thank you, Dad," I said.

Before I went to bed that night, I wrote two letters, one to Kristy and one to Dawn. Both were apologies.

Chapter 14.

As it turned out, Stacey was both right and wrong. Jamie's party was almost a disaster, but

something really good came out of it. I'm getting ahead of myself, though. Let me go back to Monday, the morning of the day Stacey wrote in our club notebook.

When I got to school, the first thing I did was find Dawn. I gave her the letter and stood next to her in the hall while she read it. I had been very honest in the letter, explaining that several times I had used her to make Kristy mad, but that I really liked her, and thought she was one of my best friends, Kristy or no Kristy. Then I apologized.

Dawn read the letter slowly. Then she read it again. Then she hugged me. I knew our fight was over.

A moment later, I realized that Dawn was staring at me. "What?" I asked.

"Mary Anne, your hair. . . . Where are your braids?"

I grinned. "Do you like it?"

"I love it! You look so pretty with your hair down!" Dawn made me turn around so she could see me from the back, too.

"Thanks. I plan to wear it this way often." I opened my locker, put my lunch away, pulled out some books, and slammed the locker shut again. "Now," I went on, "since I was able to make up with you, I ought to be able to make up with Kristy, too." I held up the other note

I'd written. "This is for Kristy. I have to go find her."

I looked everywhere, but I couldn't find her. At last, just before the bell rang, I slipped the note into her locker. Several times that day I glimpsed her in the halls, and I knew she saw me, too, but she didn't say anything, and didn't act any differently than she had over the past few weeks.

Had she gotten the note? Maybe I'd stuck it in the wrong locker. Or maybe it had slid into a notebook and she hadn't seen it.

Or maybe she was just still mad.

Jamie's birthday party began at 3:30 that afternoon. I went to it with mixed feelings — excitement and dread. It could be a lot of fun. Or, as Stacey had pointed out, it could be a disaster. But the members of the Baby-sitters Club had promised Mrs. Newton we'd help out, so I knew we'd all be there.

I rang the Newtons' bell at 3:15, armed with a present for Jamie. I had arrived early so I could give Mrs. Newton a hand.

"Hi-hi!" Jamie greeted me excitedly. "I'm four today! Four years old! That's this many." He held up four fingers.

"Hi, Mary Anne," Mrs. Newton called from the kitchen when Jamie let me in. "I'm glad

you're here early. I can really use you." She put me to work filling goody baskets for the table and making punch. By the time I finished, most of Jamie's guests had arrived.

The living room sounded like a school playground. Jamie's friends, all dressed up in their party clothes, were running around, screaming and shrieking, and wanting him to open his presents. Mrs. Newton pulled Kristy, Claudia, Stacey, and me aside.

"Try to get them to sit down. We'll do presents first, because nobody can wait. It should go pretty fast."

The members of the Baby-sitters Club nodded. But we carefully avoided each other's eyes.

Mrs. Newton clapped her hands. "Time for the presents!" she called.

Kristy rounded up four children and led them to the couch. "Sit over here," she told them.

Stacey rounded up four other children and led them to the floor in front of the fireplace.

Claudia guided several little girls to the floor by the piano.

Uh-oh, I thought. "Get everybody in one spot!" I directed.

Claudia, Stacey, and Kristy gave me the evil eye.

"Around the couch is fine," said Mrs. Newton.

Kristy gloated.

After Jamie had opened his presents, Mrs. Newton announced that it was time for Pin-the-Tail-on-the-Donkey. "Will three of you give me a hand, and somebody else go check on the baby?" Mrs. Newton asked us.

The four of us made a mad dash for the stairs.

"I'll check on Lucy," said Kristy.

"No, 7 will," said Stacey.

"No, you won't. I will," I said.

"None of you will because I'm going!" Clau-dia exclaimed.

The four of us shoved each other around, trying to be the first to run up the stairs.

"Girls!" cried Mrs. Newton.

We turned around guiltily. She was frowning at us.

"Stacey, would you please check on her?" said Mrs. Newton. "I need the rest of you over here."

It was Stacey's turn to gloat. "Ha, ha," she said under her breath, and started up the staircase.

"Brat," muttered Kristy as we turned around.

Mrs. Newton gave me the job of blindfolding the kids; Kristy, the job of guiding them if they

strayed too far from the donkey; and Claudia, the job of watching the kids who were waiting their turn. Mrs. Newton disappeared into the kitchen.

She hadn't been gone long when, just as I was tying the blindfold on Claire Pike, I felt something crunch down on my foot.

"Ow!" I cried.

"Oh, I'm so sorry!" I heard a voice say. "Was that your foot I stepped on?"

I straightened up and looked into Kristy's eyes. I narrowed my own eyes at her. "Yes it was, Kristin Amanda Thomas," I said coldly. "Do you have a problem?"

"Yes, I do."

"I could tell."

"My problem is that your foot is in my way."

I stuck my tongue out at her.

The game continued with no more "incidents." In fact, everything went smoothly until it was time for cake and ice cream. Mrs. Newton had fixed up the table in the dining room. Streamers crisscrossed the ceiling and a huge bunch of balloons was tied in the middle. The table was decorated in a teddy bear theme: teddy bear paper plates and paper cups, a tablecloth with teddy bears all over it, and even tiny teddies for party favors.

The children "oohed" and "aahed" as they

came into the room, and Mrs. Newton helped them find seats. "I want you girls to sit down, too," she told the members of the Baby-sitters Club. "Place yourselves strategically around the table so you can pass things and give the kids a hand if they need help."

After a little scuffle with Claudia, I sat down next to Jamie at one end. Kristy was sitting on one side, two places away from me. Stacey was across from her and Claudia was sitting across from me, at the opposite end of the table.

"Mary Anne, how would you like to pour the punch you made?" asked Mrs. Newton when we were settled. "Then I'll bring the cake in."

"Sure," I replied. She handed me the heavy pitcher full of red juice and I walked around the table with it, carefully filling each cup halfway. When I reached Kristy I filled her cup to the top — and kept on going.

"Hey, watch what you're doing!" she exclaimed.

I watched.

"It's — that stuff's getting in my lap!" She jumped up.

"Oh, so sorry. My mistake," I said.

"You bet it's your mistake! What's the big idea?"

"What's the big idea? What's the big idea? That's what you get when you step on my foot and don't answer my note."

"What note?"

"You know what note."

"I do not." Kristy sat down and began mopping up her lap with a paper napkin.

At that moment, Claudia appeared with another napkin. She wiped up some of the punch by Kristy's plate, then walked around the table and flung the wet napkin in Stacey's face.