Ann Martin - Little Miss Stoneybrook...and Dawn

''ll do it!" I said to Mrs. Pike happily.

I got off the phone and told the others about the job. Their reactions were interesting.

Jessi rolled her eyes - at the thought of the sexist pageant, I guess.

Claudia and Mary Anne looked thoughtful.

Kristy looked cross. Very cross.

And Mallory clapped her hand to her forehead and moaned, "Oh, no. My sisters. My baby sisters. They'll be contaminated. They'll be brainwashed. If I become the sister of Little Miss Stoneybrook, I will absolutely die!"

Chapter 4.

Us baby-sitters try not to play favorites among the kids we take care of, but it's no secret that Kristy's favorite charges are her brother David Michael, and her stepsister and stepbrother, Karen and Andrew. She doesn't see Karen and Andrew all that often, since they only spend every other weekend, every other holiday, and two weeks during the summer at Watson's house, but she sees them enough, I guess, and she really loves them.

Who wouldn't? Karen is this funny, daring, imaginative, outspoken six-year-old. She likes to tell wild stories and make up games. And Andrew is a shy, sweet, and adoring four-year-old. Then there's David Michael, who's seven. Sometimes he and Karen don't get along too well, but he's a good kid. Kristy has been a second mother to him. Her real father left so long ago that David Michael barely remembers him, and then her mom went back to work. So Kristy has taken plenty of care of David Michael over the years.

Anyway, not long after the newspaper article about Little Miss Stoneybrook, Kristy was sitting for the three kids. It was a Saturday afternoon, and as she mentioned in her notebook entry, her mother and Watson had gone

to some auction to bid on a birdbath. Why? I don't know.

As soon as they were gone, Karen said, "Let's play Let's All Come In." (Let's All Come In is a game she made up. You need about four - or more - people to play, and what you do is pretend you're guests at a fancy hotel. You get to dress up in wild outfits and be all different people.)

Ordinarily, David Michael does not like this game.

"It's for babies," he announced that afternoon.

"I'm going to play," Kristy told him.

"'Yeah, but you get to be the bell captain. That's not such a stupid part. The bell captain doesn't have to dress up like countesses."

"Or dogs," added Andrew. As the youngest, he usually gets stuck with the worst roles.

"Well, you can be the bell captain this time," Kristy said to David Michael. "I'll play guests instead."

"I don't know . . ."he replied.

"Aw, come on, David Michael," said Karen. "It's raining out. What else will you do if the rest of us play Let's All Come In?"

David Michael frowned. He didn't have an answer for that.

So the game began.

David Michael, as bell captain, stood in the living room, which was the hotel lobby. He was supposed to talk to the various guests and direct them to their rooms.

Karen got to be the first guest. She dressed up as Mrs. Mysterious, on her way to a witch convention. Mrs. Mysterious was one of her favorite characters.

"Heh, heh," she cackled. "What a lovely, spooky convention it will be. Hundreds of witches. Maybe a ghost or a goblin or two. Well, what room am I in this time?" Before David Michael could answer, Karen went on, "I hope it's the Halloween Suite. I'm just dying to stay there again."

"Yeah," said David Michael, looking a little bored. He pretended to consult the hotel registration book. "It's the Halloween Suite, all right. I hope you like it. See ya later."

Karen gave him an exasperated look. "My key, please?" she said.

"Oh, right." David Michael slapped the spare key to the downstairs bathroom into her hand.

Mrs. Mysterious left the room and Andrew entered. For once, Karen had given him a pretty good part. He was dressed as a sailor.

"Hiya, mate," David Michael greeted him.

"Hiya, mate. I need a room for two nights.

Our ship just landed here. I want to be a, um, a ..."

"A landlubber," Karen prompted him from the doorway. (While she was dressing Andrew up, she had told him a few things that sailors might say.)

"A landlubber," finished Andrew.

"Naw. Really?" replied David Michael. "Don't you want to be on the ocean again? Be in a storm? Maybe see some pirates?"

"Yeah, pirates!" Andrew answered excitedly. "Say, you want to come back to my ship with me?"

"Sure!"

"Hey!" cried Karen. That wasn't the way the game was supposed to go.

But it was too late.

"We'll be pirates ourselves!" David Michael went on.

"Wait! You're the bell captain," Karen said desperately.

"No, I'm not. I'm Old Bad John. And this is my co-pirate, Andrew the Awful. Come on, Andrew."

The boys ran out of the living room, Andrew shedding parts of his sailor costume on the way.

Karen looked at Kristy with tears in her eyes, which was unusual. Karen is tough, not a crier.

"Oh, Karen," said Kristy. She opened her arms for a hug, and Karen ran to her. "It's okay," Kristy murmured.

"No, it's not," Karen sobbed, her voice muffled against Kristy's shoulder.

Kristy patted her back.

"There are too many boys around here," said Karen, obviously thinking of Kristy's big brothers, as well as Andrew and David Michael. And probably mad that Andrew had chosen to play with someone other than Karen herself.

"Well, us girls will just have to stick together, that's all," replied Kristy. And that was what made her think of the Little Miss Stoneybrook pageant.

"Hey," Kristy went on. "Do you know what a pageant is?"

Karen pulled back and looked at Kristy. She gulped. She sniffed. She wiped her eyes. "Like Miss America?" she replied.

"Exactly."

"Where the beautiful, beautiful ladies dress up in sparkles and sit on pianos and sing songs?"

"Yes."

"I saw the Miss America pageant on TV."

"Well, guess what. There's going to be a Little Miss Stoneybrook pageant right here in

town. You can be in it if you're a girl and you're five to eight years old."

Karen's eyes grew huge. Her tears stopped. She began wiggling all over like a puppy. "Me! That's me! I'm five to eight! I mean, I'm six. Could I be in the pageant? Could I wear sparkles and stuff?"

"You'd want to be in the pageant?" Kristy asked her, just to make sure.

"Yes, yes, yes! What would I have to do?"

"Well, for one thing, you'd need some sort of talent. A talent show is part of the contest."

"I could sit on a piano and sing! Or I could tap dance, or - or twirl a baton, or make a doll talk."

"But Karen," Kristy said, "you don't know how to do those things. You've never taken lessons."

"I can sing!" Karen exclaimed. "Anyone can do that. Listen to this. The wheels on the bus go round and round, round and round, round and round. The wheels on the bus go round and round. Oh, you know the rest, Kristy. A million verses. The driver on the bus says, 'Move on back, move on back.' I could make up more verses. And what do you mean, I can't tap dance?"

Karen found her black patent leather party shoes and stomped across the wooden floor of

the hallway. "See?" she said. "I can too tap dance."

Kristy told Karen about the beauty and poise parts of the pageant and meeting the judges and everything.

Karen grew more and more excited. "If I win I get a crown, right? And maybe a big bunch of roses?"

"Well, don't count on winning," replied Kristy. "I mean, you just never know." But then she went on, "If you did win, you'd get to be in another pageant, the county pageant."

"Oh, I just have to be Little Miss Stoney-brook!" cried Karen. "I have to!"

I suppose that at that moment, Kristy felt like I did when Mrs. Pike offered me the special job with Claire and Margo. Here was her chance to prove how great she was with kids.