Ann Martin - Little Miss Stoneybrook...and Dawn

"We'll sit as close to the front as we can!" Mrs. Pike called as she pulled into the street.

The girls and I struggled into the high school building with our bags. Someone showed us to the auditorium, and we walked through a doorway labeled Stage Door.

Chaos. Pure chaos.

There were going to be fifteen contestants in the pageant, and most of them seemed to have arrived already. Backstage was a sea of little girls waiting to be told what to do. Some were rehearsing, some were checking their wardrobes, some were patiently having their hair curled or braided or brushed.

Claire and Margo immediately panicked.

"Look at that girl!" exclaimed Margo in a loud whisper. "She's wearing nail polish. Dawn."

"That girl has makeup on!" Claire added, not even bothering to whisper.

"Hey, there's Myriah," said Margo. She pointed across the room. "Look. She's tap dancing. And she's good! I mean, she's really goo - Oh, no! Oh, no, Dawn! Oh, no!"

"What! What?" I cried.

"Did you remember my banana?"

"Yes, It's in the bag with your painter's pants. Now will you two please calm d - "I stopped when someone tapped me on the shoulder. "Yes?" I said, turning around.

Behind me stood a stout woman with iron-gray hair piled high on her head. She was holding a clipboard. "Hello," she said warmly. "I'm Patricia Bunting, the pageant coordinator."

"Hi," I replied, shaking her hand. "I'm Dawn. This is Claire Pike and this is Margo Pike."

"Wonderful," said Ms. Bunting. She handed me a list. "Here's the order in which the contestants will appear onstage in each portion of the show. The order - youngest to oldest - will remain the same, so be sure Claire and Margo know whom to follow. As soon as

everyone has arrived, I'll talk to the contestants. I'll explain how the pageant will run, and then I'll show them the stage. Mothers and big sisters will wait right over there," she went on, indicating an area in which folding chairs had been set up.

Claire and Margo looked at me, and we smiled. Ms. Bunting thought I was their sister!

Ms. Bunting walked away, and I sat the girls down so we could study the list together. "Let's see," I said. "Claire, you're near the beginning. You'll always go on stage right after Myriah. And Margo, you're sort of near the middle. You'll always go on right after Sabrina Bouvier."

"Right after who?" exclaimed Margo.

"Shh," I said. "A girl named Sabrina Bouvier."

Margo looked frantically around the backstage area. Her eyes traveled over Myriah, Charlotte, Karen, and several other contestants, and landed on the girl who was wearing the makeup (and plenty of it, I might add).

"That's her," said Margo fiercely. "I just bet that's her. Who else would have a name like Sabrina Bouvier?"

I didn't have an answer to that. Besides, I was trying to size up Claire and Margo's competition. There was Myriah, tapping away

as Mary Anne watched her. Mary Anne looked exhausted but approving. No doubt about it, Myriah really was good. Her talent was true talent, not just some little act thrown together for the pageant. And there was Karen, looking awfully pretty. Kristy was nervously brushing her hair. And there was Charlotte, simply looking scared to death. She and Claudia were standing around awkwardly, almost as if they didn't even want to be there.

I caught Claudia's eye and we waved.

The girls waved to Charlotte and then ran over to her.

I followed them. "Hi," I said to Claud. "How are you doing?"

"Nervous. I'll be glad when this is over. It was a bigger deal than I thought it would be. How about you?"

"I'm a little nervous."

"I'm a lot nervous," I heard Margo tell Charlotte.

"I wish I'd never said I'd do this," Charlotte replied.

A new voice spoke up. "I can tell you how to get rid of the Pageant Jitters forever," it said, sounding as if it were reciting something from a TV commercial.

The voice belonged to the girl with the makeup.

"You can?" said Claire, Margo, and Charlotte in unison.

"Certainly. It would be my pleasure."

I glanced at Claudia. Who was this kid? She was about Margo's age, but she looked and acted twenty-five.

"How do you know how to do that?" Margo asked. "By the way, my name's Margo."

"I'm Sabrina," said the girl, and Margo shot me a look that plainly said, "I told you so."

Sabrina curtsied daintily. "So very pleased to meet you," she said in this funny, false voice. "This is my sixth pageant. That's how I know about the jitters." She was showing the girls some relaxing breathing exercises when a woman wearing tons of jewelry and even more perfume approached us. Her perfume reached us before she did.

"Come along, Sabrina," said the woman. "I want to try to introduce you to the judges."

Sabrina smiled sweetly at the other girls. "This is my mother. I really must run," she said. "There's always so much to do before a pageant. I do wish you the very best of luck."

Charlotte and the Pikes stared after Sabrina as Mrs. Bouvier whisked her away.

"Do you know what that was?" Claudia whispered to me. "A pageant-head, that's what. A poor kid who gets roped into any

beauty contest or pageant that comes along. Her whole life is one big smile."

"She's not that pretty," I pointed out.

"And maybe not very talented," added Claudia. "But she knows pageants - or her mother does - and she knows what the judges like."

I was about to say that Sabrina's life might be one big smile, but it must be awfully boring, when Ms. Bunting clapped her hands together loudly. It \vas time for her to talk to the excited contestants. The girls gathered around her, and the rest of us drifted toward the folding chairs.

I sat with Claudia, Mary Anne, and Kristy, but none of us said much. We were getting awfully nervous. A whole bunch of butterflies were flapping around in my stomach.

I watched the girls as Ms. Bunting spoke earnestly to them.

I watched Sabrina's mother and some other mothers. While most of the mothers chatted or poked through their daughters' bags of clothing, Mrs. Bouvier glued her eyes on poor Sabrina and watched her intently.

Finally Ms. Bunting led the girls onto the stage. As soon as they were out of sight, the rest of us relaxed a little.

"Myriah looks good," I said to Mary Anne after a few minutes.

"Thanks," she answered. "She's rehearsed endlessly. She nearly had a heart attack this morning, though. She lost another tooth. It shook her up a little. I hope it won't break her concentra - "

Ms. Bunting and the girls returned and Ms. Bunting raised her voice. "The pageant will begin in exactly half an hour," she announced. "It's time to get ready for the first event of the afternoon - the introduction to the judges and the audience."

Claire and Margo ran to me.

"Time to get dressed! Time to get dressed!" cried Margo.

"I'm Popeye the sailor man!" added Claire.

I produced the girls' bags, and they began to change their clothes.

In just a few short hours, one of the girls now getting dressed backstage would be crowned Little Miss Stoneybrook.

Chapter 14.

As you can probably imagine, the talent show was the best part of the Little Miss Stoneybrook pageant, so I'll mostly tell you about that, but I won't leave you in the dark about the rest of it.

Picture this: You are backstage with a bunch of nervous mothers (or baby-sitters) and an even more nervous bunch of overdressed little girls. A heavy curtain separates you from an auditorium full of people - mostly the families and friends of the overdressed little girls. The curtain also separates you from the stage, on which is now standing an announcer who is saying, "Welcome to the first annual Little Miss Stoneybrook pageant, sponsored by the friendly folks at Dewdrop Hair Care, hair products for today's youth."