Ann Martin - Logan Likes Mary Anne !

When it did, Logan climbed the bleachers once again. "You'll come down now, won't you?" he asked with a little smile.

I smiled back, relieved that he wasn't mad. "Sure," I said.

As we approached the door to the gym I added, "Thank you for the flower."

"Thanks for coming with me. I'm glad you did."

"Honest?"

"Honest. Dancing with you was really fun. No girl has ever fooled around with me like that. Most of them like to prove how well they can dance."

Really? I thought. Well, maybe I could try it again at the next dance. ... If there was a next dance with Logan.

Chapter 11.

Kristy's notebook entry was complete in terms of baby-sitting concerns, but not in terms of everything that happened that night. A lot of talking (especially about my birthday) went on, but I didn't find out about it until much later.

Let me start at the beginning, though. It was Friday night again. Logan hadn't seemed too upset about the dance. In fact, he'd called me the next morning to ask if I wanted to go over to school to watch the junior varsity football game. On Monday and Tuesday he'd sat with our club at lunchtime. On Wednesday, he and I had sat by ourselves (but we joined the club again the next day). On Thursday he had invited me to go to the movies on Friday.

Needless to say, I was ecstatic! We still had a little trouble talking sometimes, but Logan always seemed so interested in me, and in everything I did or said. It's hard to be shy around someone who thinks you're wonderful.

On Friday night, Kristy was stuck at home baby-sitting for Karen, Andrew, and David Michael, so her mother and Watson said she could invite a friend over. Usually she would have invited me, but since I was busy with Logan, she asked Dawn to come over.

Talk about ecstatic. Dawn still hasn't gotten over the days when Kristy was jealous of Dawn's friendship with me, and would barely speak to her. And Kristy had never invited just Dawn to sleep over. So Dawn gladly accepted. Her mother drove her to the Brewer mansion not long after Kristy's mom and Watson had left.

When Dawn rang the doorbell, she heard shrieks coming from inside, only they sounded like terrified shrieks, not joyful ones.

Nervously, Dawn turned around and looked at her mother who was waiting in the car until Dawn was safely inside. What should she do? She didn't want to call her mother to the door and then find out there was nothing wrong. That would be embarrassing.

Dawn rang the bell again. More shrieking. She screwed up her courage. With a shaking hand, she turned the knob and slowly peered around the door and into the front hall.

"Aughh! Aughh! Au — Dawn?"

"Karen?"

"Oh, I thought you were Morbidda Destiny, creeping into our house to put a sp — "

"Karen, that is enough." It was Kristy's impatient voice. "I don't want to hear another word about poor old Mrs. Porter — or the ghost of Ben Brewer — tonight. And I mean it." Kristy

appeared in the hall, followed by Louie the collie, and Dawn waved to her mother who waved back, then started down the drive.

"Okay, okay." Karen flounced off.

"Sorry about that," said Kristy. She reached out to help pawn with her things. "I was in the kitchen. I could hear Karen screaming and I knew what she was doing, but I was too far away to stop her."

Dawn grinned. "That's okay." She held her hand out to Louie, who gave it a halfhearted lick.

"I don't think Louie's in top condition tonight," said Kristy. "He's getting old. Well, come on. We'll put your things upstairs. Then we'll have to keep an eye on the kids. After all, I'm baby-sitting."

"No problem. You know I like the kids."

Kristy and Dawn settled Andrew, Karen, and David Michael on the living room floor with the Memory set. Louie lay down nearby, his head resting mournfully on his paws. Then Kristy and Dawn retreated to a couch, where they sprawled out with a box of graham crackers — one of the few snack foods they'll both eat, since Kristy considers graham crackers semi-junk food and Dawn considers them semi-health food.

"I wonder what Mary Anne and Logan are doing right now/' said Kristy.

Dawn looked at her watch. "The movie's probably just beginning."

"Yeah. The theater's all dark. . . ."

"Maybe they're holding hands. . . ."

"Kristy!" shouted Karen. "David Michael cheated. He just peeked at one of the cards." Karen stood indignantly over the blue cards that were arranged facedown on the floor.

(I guess I should explain here how Memory is played. It's very simple. The game consists of a big stack of cards. On each is a picture — and each card has one, and only one, matching card. The cards are laid out facedown. The players take turns turning two cards over. If someone gets a pair, he or she goes again. When all the cards have been matched up, the winner is the one with the most pairs. Simple, right?)

Wrong!

"I did not cheat!" cried David Michael. "It's a rule. Each player gets one peeksie during a game."

"Show me where it says anything about a peeksie in the rules," answered Kristy, holding her hand out.

"Well, that's how we play at Linny's."

"Why don't you play by the rulebook?" suggested Kristy.

The game continued.

"Where were we?" Kristy asked Dawn. "Oh, yeah. In the dark theater."

"Holding hands — maybe," said Dawn. "I wonder if they'll, you know, kiss."

"Ew!" exclaimed Kristy, looking disgusted, but then she grew quiet. "You know," she said after several moments, "maybe they will. Mary Anne seems more serious about Logan than Claudia ever was about Trevor."

"How do you mean?"

"Well, she's not silly about him. Remember how Claudia used to giggle about Trevor all the time? It was as if she liked the idea of going out with him better than she liked Trevor himself."

"Karen! No fair! You didn't let me finish my turn!" Now Andrew was shrieking.

"Woof?" asked Louie from his spot on the floor.

"Hey, hey!" cried Kristy.

"I got a match and Karen took her turn anyway! No fair! No fair!"

"Andrew, I just forgot, okay? Finish your turn," said Karen.

"But you've already turned over two cards," said David Michael indignantly. "And An-

drew saw them. He knows where two more cards are. So nothing's fair now. The game's ruined."

"Excuse me/' said Kristy, "but did you all see which cards Karen turned over?"

"Yes," chorused the three kids.

"Then everything's fair. You all got an advantage. Think of it as a bonus or something. Andrew, finish your turn."

Kristy sighed. "You know," she said, picking at a tiny piece of lint on her sweater, "I was always the brave one and Mary Anne was always the scaredy-cat. Now everything's reversed. And suddenly she's ... I don't know . . . ahead of me, and I've been left behind."

Dawn nodded. "But you're still her friend, one of her very best friends."

"I know. I just have a feeling this is going to be an awful year. I moved away from you guys, and Mary Anne's moving away from me, if you know what I mean. And I haven't made any friends here in Watson's neighborhood. My brothers have, but I haven't." Kristy stretched her hand toward Louie, but he wouldn't come over to her for a pat. He looked exhausted.

"It might help," said Dawn carefully, "if you stopped thinking of it as Watson's neighborhood and started thinking of it as your own."

"Karen, you give those back!" This time, the indignant voice belonged to David Michael. "Kristy, she keeps hiding my pairs under the couch. Look!" David Michael pulled up the slipcover on the loveseat he and Karen were leaning against. He revealed a row of paired Memory cards.

"They're not his, they're mine!" squawked Karen.

"Are not!"

"Are, too!"

Kristy stood up. "The game is over," she whispered.

Karen and David Michael had to stop screaming in order to hear her.