Ann Martin - Mary Anne And Too Many Babies

When Sammie was nestled safely in her basket again, Logan said stiffly, "Maybe we

should hard-boil her." Then he tugged at my elbow. "Come on. We're going now, Mary Anne."

"Fine," I replied.

"Good," said the man.

We carried our stuff to the lobby, threw away our trash, and struggled into our coats. Logan picked up Sammie's basket.

"I'm supposed to have her tonight!" I cried.

"No way. You almost lost her," said Logan. "Not that I really want to take care of her again. I'm always taking care of her."

"You mean you're always taking her. You never let me have her."

"Okay, then you take her tonight."

"Oh, no. You don't trust me. You just said so."

Logan didn't answer. He grabbed Sammie's basket. Then he went off to call his parents for a ride home, and I called my dad, and Logan and I went off in a huff.

Chapter 11.

On Tuesday night Mr. and Mrs. Pike went to Parents' Night at Stoneybrook Elementary School. Imagine what the evening is like for them. Seven of their kids are students at the school: Claire in kindergarten, Margo in second grade, Nicky in third, Vanessa in fourth, and the triplets in fifth. No wonder they stay for the full three hours the school is open. (When I went to SES, my dad could do Parents' Night in under an hour.)

While the Pikes visited SES, Mal and Dawn sat for Mal's younger brothers and sisters. Dawn left our house shortly after six-thirty. She left with her child, an egg named Skip. Skip lived in an empty Kleenex box, standard size. Dawn and her husband, this guy Aaron Albright, whom Dawn didn't like very much, hadn't fixed up the box except to line it with some paper towels to prevent Skip from injuring himself. (For the record, Dawn did not name Skip. Aaron did. Dawn said if she'd had her way, she would have named her son Douglas. She said Douglas is a good, strong name, and that Skip is what you'd name some little cartoon character, like maybe a young chicken wearing sneakers and a beanie.)

Dawn and Skip arrived at Mallory's just as Mr. and Mrs. Pike were getting ready to leave. Mal was trying to involve the triplets in help-

ing her clean up the kitchen after dinner.

"Washing dishes is girls' work," Dawn heard Adam say,

"Adam," Mal replied, "there is no such thing as girls' work. But if there were, it would be called women's work."

"There is too girls' work," said Adam.

"Is there boys' work?" Mal asked him.

"Sure."

"What is it?"

"Shoveling snow."

"I can do that," said Mal.

"Mowing lawns."

"I can do that."

"Cleaning gutters."

"I can do that."

Adam turned away from his sister, looking pained. He couldn't win the argument, and he knew it. Luckily, when he turned around, he found a distraction. Dawn and the Kleenex box.

"Hi, everybody," said Dawn.

The youngest kids were still sitting at the kitchen table, dawdling over dishes of ice cream. Vanessa was sitting there, too, but a pad of paper lay in front of her. She was scribbling on it, probably composing a new poem. Mal was at the sink, and the triplets were hovering around the doorway, trying to escape the cleanup process.

Adam spotted Skip's box immediately. "What's that?" he asked.

"What's what?" answered Dawn, which only goes to show how accustomed my friends and I had grown to lugging around mixing bowls and Kleenex boxes and stuff.

"That box/' said Adam.

"Yeah, what is it? It's too small to be a Kid-Kit," added Margo.

"Oh, it's Skip, my egg," said Dawn wearily. "I'm supposed to pretend he's my baby. You know, feed him and everything."

"Feed an egg?" asked Jordan.

"Well, not really." Dawn described the Modern Living experiment with a little help from Mallory.

The Pike kids were so interested that they barely noticed when their parents left for the elementary school. " 'Bye," they called vaguely.

"Dawn? How long will you be married to Aaron?" asked Vanessa.

"Hey, is your name Dawn Albright now?" Claire wanted to know.

"Yeah, do we have to call you Mrs. Albright?" Nicky giggled.

"Oh, I hope not," said Dawn, but she was smiling. "Even if we had really, really, really gotten married, I wouldn't have changed my

name. I like my name. I will always be Dawn Schafer."

Byron was looking into the Kleenex box for about the ninety-fifth time. "Your baby is naked," he commented.

"Yeah, he isn't even wearing a diaper," chimed Vanessa.

"I wish I were married and had an egg-baby," said Margo.

"Me, too," said Vanessa. She looked hopefully at Byron.

Byron sighed. "Okay. I'll be your husband," he said. "But only for tonight."

"Who will be my husband?" asked Margo.

"Not me," said Adam defiantly. "I am never, ever getting married."

"Jordan?" said Margo.

"Oh, all right."

Surprisingly, Nicky agreed to be Claire's husband.

"Okay, let's adopt babies!" cried Vanessa.

"Adopt them from where?" asked Mal, even though she thought she knew what the answer would be.

"From the refrigerator, of course." Vanessa removed a partially empty carton of eggs from the bottom shelf of the fridge. She set it on the table and opened the lid carefully. "Aw, aren't they sweet?" she said.

"It's the egg nursery," added Nicky.

"Hey, there are enough here for each couple to adopt two children/' Byron pointed out. "And Morn will still have one left over for tomorrow. Mal, can we? Adopt the eggs, I mean?"

"I suppose so," Mallory replied.

A bunch of hands reached for the carton. They were stopped in midair by Jordan. "Wait! Where are you going to put them? We better fix up rooms or something for them."

"My children are not going to live in any Kleenex box," said Margo. "My children are going to live in a house. Come on, Jordan." Margo took two eggs and led her brother to the rec room, where she succeeded in talking him into fixing up the dollhouse for their children.

Meanwhile, Vanessa and Byron arranged their eggs in a shopping bag, and Claire and Nicky put theirs in eggcups.

"That's what eggcups are for," said Claire.

"Plus, now they're dressed," added Nicky. (Each eggcup was in the shape of a pair of crossed legs wearing blue pants. On the feet were polka-dotted socks and big red clown shoes.)

"We better dress our babies," said Vanessa. "I don't want them to go around naked, like Skip."

"How are we going to dress them?" asked

Byron. "I'm not sewing anything. I'll be these eggs' father, but not their tailor."

"Oh, we don't have time to sew clothes," Vanessa replied. "We'll just color their outfits on with crayons." She retrieved a box of crayons from a shelf in the rec room. "Here we go." Vanessa aimed a yellow crayon at one egg. "A nice bright shirt for you. . . . Hey, this hardly shows up at all." Vanessa pressed down harder.

The egg broke.

"Oh! Oh, no! I've killed him!" shrieked Vanessa. "I've killed little — I've killed poor little, um, little — "

"We didn't even name him," said Byron sadly. "Poor egg."

"Poor, poor nameless killed egg," added Vanessa. She was holding the yellow crayon in one hand and the broken egg in the other. The yoke was sliming through her fingers and dripping onto the floor.

Dawn and Mallory both rushed forward — not to comfort Vanessa, but to cup their hands under the egg goo in an attempt to catch it.

"You stay here," Mal said to Dawn. "I'll go for the paper towels."

"The paper towels?!" wailed Vanessa. "Is that all you care about? The rug? Our egg has just been in a terrible accident. If I were in a terrible accident, would you run around trying

to clean up my blood, or would you — "

"Vanessa! For heaven's sake, it's an egg/' Mal reminded her.

"And you've only known the egg for a couple of minutes," said Dawn.

"I had grown attached," Vanessa replied stiffly.