Ann Martin - Mary Anne And Too Many Babies

Bobby was Stacey's little boy. (Claudia's child was over at his father's house.) He lived in a plastic mixing bowl. His father was Austin Bentley, a friend of Stacey's and Claudia's. Austin sometimes invites one or the other of them to school dances or to parties, but he isn't their boyfriend. (A good thing, too, because I think he'd have trouble choosing between them.) The three of them are just regular friends.

Claud had fixed a sort of nursery in her room. The nursery was an area on her dresser on which sat Sammie in her basket, Izzy in his shoe box environment, and Bobby in his mixing bowl. She had placed pillows on the

floor around the dresser in case one of the babies fell off.

"Why don't you just put the babies on the floor?" asked Mal practically. "Then they wouldn't be able to fall."

"Too drafty/' Kristy answered.

"So how are your kids doing?" Jessi inquired politely.

"Sammie's fine," I said, "but Logan —

"Order! Come to order, please!" said Kristy.

(I checked the official club timepiece. Sure enough. Five-thirty.)

My friends and I straightened up. We adjusted ourselves.

"Any club business?" our president wanted to know.

No one answered her. So I said simply, "Logan is hogging Sammie. Lately, he is almost always taking care of her." Tears welled in my eyes. "This is the first time I've brought her home after school since the day I baby-sat for the Tragedy Twins."

Stacey giggled. "You mean Ricky and Rose?"

"Yeah." I couldn't even laugh at my own joke.

The phone rang and Claud picked it up. "Hello, Baby-sitters Club. . . . Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. ... In Karen Brewer's class? . . . Oh. . . . Thursday afternoon? I'll check and call

you right back." Claud hung up and said, "That was someone named Mr. Gianelli. He said his son is in Karen's class at Stoneybrook Academy."

"Gianelli," repeated Kristy. "He must be Bobby's father."

"Right," said Claud. "The Gianellis have two kids, Bobby and his little sister, Alicia. They need a sitter on Thursday afternoon."

I looked at the appointment pages in the record book. "You can do it, Stace," I said. "Want the job?"

"Sure."

Claud phoned Mr. Gianelli back while I scribbled in the BSC record book. I love filling in those blank spaces.

"I don't know why you want to spend so much time with an egg," Stacey said to me. She brushed her hair out of her eye.

I gasped. "Sammie is my daughter." I exclaimed.

Stacey made a face. "Honestly, Mary Anne."

"You heard what Mrs. Boyden said."

"Yeah, yeah. And I'm doing the project. So's Austin. We're very fair and careful. We each take care of Bobby exactly half the time. One day I bring him home, one day Austin brings him home. But what a pain. I don't think I have time for Modern Living class.

Always having to stop and think about feeding Bobby or giving him a bath or something. On Monday I took him shopping with Mom and me. I figured a baby would need new undershirts and diapers and stuff pretty often. So I lugged the mixing bowl around four baby departments while Mom shopped for fun things, like books and presents. All I saw were baby thermometers and baby minders and baby sneakers and baby toys and baby bottles and baby blankets. Babies sure need a lot of equipment. I never even had a chance to check out clothes for me."

"Oh, but buying baby things is fun," I spoke up. I was thinking about the Kumbel catalog.

"For five minutes," said Stacey.

"Well, anyway, I — I — " (I was trying to think of a nice way to say I didn't agree with Stacey.) "I guess I don't mind shopping for baby things. And I still wish Logan wouldn't hog Sammie."

From her place on the floor, Mal tried to hide a giggle.

"What's so funny?" asked Dawn.

"Mary Anne keeps saying Logan is hogging Sammie. And 'hogging' makes me think of bacon. And Sammie is an egg. Get it? Bacon and eggs?" Mallory snorted with laughter.

Jessi began to laugh, too.

But us five older club members remained

serious. After a few moments, Claud said, "You guys don't understand. You aren't parents yet."

Mal and Jessi quieted down.

We took a few phone calls. Then Kristy got up from the director's chair, crossed the room to the dresser, and peeked into Izzy's box. "I think Izzy is getting spoiled," she said.

"Too much attention?" I asked.

"No, I mean I think he's spoiling. Smell him."

Kristy is forever asking me to smell disgusting things. I don't know why she thinks I'll do it.

"No, thanks," I replied.

But brave Dawn stood up and sniffed around in the box. "I don't smell anything," she said. "You're making up worries."

"I am not," Kristy replied. However, she sat down again.

"You guys? What's being married like?" asked Jessi.

"Yeah, what's it like?" echoed Mal.

"Well," Stacey began after a moment, "I don't know what to compare it to. But a lot of it is communicating. With your husband or wife. You have to be able to talk about who's going to watch the baby when, and who has to remember to do which things with the baby."

"And you have to agree on stuff," added Kristy. "And trust your husband. That's really important. You have to trust him."

"Being married is expensive," I added.

"Nobody has said anything about love," pointed out Jessi.

The room grew silent.

"Yeah, aren't you supposed to be in love?" asked Mal.

"I guess that would make things easier," said Stacey slowly. "If I were actually in love with Austin, I'd want to spend more time with him. And I'd want our child to spend more time with us. Maybe being married wouldn't seem like quite so much work."

"I know what you mean," I said. "Marriage would still be difficult and expensive. But, boy, if I didn't love Logan — Um, if I didn't like him a lot — " (I was blushing.)

Dawn smiled. "You can say 'love,' Mary Anne."

"Okay. If I didn't love him, I could never be married to him and take care of Sammie with him. It's hard enough when we do love each other. . . . Oh, I almost forgot. I have to feed — "

The phone rang. Jessi picked it up. "Logan? Sure, hang on a sec." Jessi handed the phone to me. "It's your husband."

"Hi, dear," I said.

"Hi. Did you feed Sammie?"

"I was just about to."

"Okay. By the way, is Claudia's room warm enough?"

"Yes." Logan reminded me of Kristy and Alan.

"Maybe you should add a little blanket to the basket."

"But it's almost seventy degrees outside . . . dear," I said. "Sammie is fine. Or she will be after I feed her."

Logan let me hang up and feed Sammie. Kristy fed Izzy, and Stacey fed Bobby. "You know," said Kristy, "if we really had to feed babies, we'd have to stop and fix formula. That would take even more time. I think we're getting off easy."

"I still wish Logan would let me take care of Sammie more often," I said. "Sometimes I think he doesn't trust me/'

"Oh, he's just being overprotective," said Claud.

There seemed to be a lot of that going around.

"Well, I think you guys should just feel lucky that you don't actually have babies," said Jessi. "That this is just a school project."

"And that it will be over in less than a month," added Mal. "I remember when my mom was pregnant with Claire. If she had

been in school then, she would have had to drop out."

"Mallory. She had six other kids to care for," said Kristy.

"That's not what I mean. You don't know how tired you feel when you're pregnant. And you're even tireder after the baby comes. Busier, too."

Hmm. I wondered if Sharon could handle her job, as well as being "tireder" and busier than usual. Well, of course she could. Dawn and I would help her whenever she wanted. She would only have to do one third of the usual mothering. Now, if only she and Dad would just come to their senses.