Ann Martin - Little Miss Stoneybrook...and Dawn

"I know," I said finally. "I guess I'm just . . . sad. I wish there were some way to keep him here."

"Oh, we could keep him here, all right," Mom told me, "but it would be like keeping a wild bird in a cage. Unfair. And the bird would be unhappy. Do you understand?"

"Yes," I replied. "I don't like it, but I understand."

Mom kissed me on the forehead. "We're going to be fine, you and I," she said. "You were my first baby, my special girl."

"Sometimes," I said, "I feel more like your sister than your daughter."

"Funny. I feel more like your sister than your mother."

We smiled ruefully at each other.

"I think I'll go to my room," I said.

Mom nodded.

"On second thought, I'll go to your room. If Jeff's off the phone can I call Mary Anne?"

"Of course."

In Mom's room I dialed Mary Anne's number. I hoped she would keep her head when I gave her the awful news. Mary Anne cries so easily that sometimes you wind up comforting her when it should be the other way around.

But Mary Anne was great. She said she knew how awful I must feel. She said the arrangement stank. She said Jeff was being selfish. Her voice only wobbled once.

When I got off the phone I went to my room and closed the door. I flopped on my bed. I began to cry, but before I really let go, I hastily wiped my tears away.

I started to think about Claire and Margo and the pageant instead. I was supposed to work with them the next day. I wondered what they could do. Sing? Claire knew her brother Nicky's silly song about jingle bells and Batman

smelling, but I wasn't sure what else. Margo was hopelessly uncoordinated, so dancing and baton-twirling were out of the question. She could stand on her head, but that probably didn't qualify as talent. Maybe I could teach her a song on the piano. (The Pikes have a grand piano.) And maybe Claire knew some other songs. I hoped so. I would find out the very next day.

Chapter 6.

I went over to the Pikes' house right after school. Just to refresh your memory, the eight kids are: Mallory (eleven);Adam,Jordan , and Byron (the ten-year-old triplets); Vanessa (nine); Nicky (eight); Margo (seven); and Claire (five). There are very few rules at the Pikes', but one is that if more than five of the kids are at home when the parents are out, then two sitters must be there. On that day, Mr. Pike was at work (he's a lawyer for some company), and Mrs. Pike was busy with her library project. Since the triplets had stayed at Stoneybrook Elementary for after-school sports, and I was going to be working with Claire and Margo, Mallory was left alone in charge of the remaining two kids - Vanessa and Nicky. She was already on duty by the time I got there, having rushed home from school so that her mother could get going.

Claire and Margo greeted me at the door in great excitement.

"Hi!" cried Claire. "Hi, Dawn-silly-billy-goo-goo!" (Claire can be very silly at times. It's a phase she's going through.)

"Are you here to help us?" asked Margo, jumping up and down. "With the pageant, I mean? We can't wait!"

"We love to get dressed up!" added Claire.

"Hey, Claire! Margo!" I could hear Mallory call. "Let Dawn in, for heaven's sake. She can't help you if you leave her standing outside."

"Come in come in come in come in come in!" shrieked Margo.

Oh, brother, I thought. As my dad would have said, the girls were wound up tighter than ticks. (Which, when you think of it, doesn't make much sense. How do you wind up a tick?)

I entered the Pikes' hallway. Mallory came out of the kitchen, smiling.

"Hi, Dawn," she said.

"Hi," I replied. "Listen, I really hope you don't mind that I'm, um . . ." (I didn't want to humiliate the girls, but what I meant was that I hoped Mal didn't mind that I was getting her sisters ready to be the embarrassment of her life.)

"Well," said Mallory slowly, figuring out what I meant, "you know how I feel about . . . this, but it is your job, and besides, Claire and Margo are so excited."

Were they ever! They were sashaying around the living room with their hands on their hips, looking like . . . I'm not sure what, exactly.

"Why don't you take them up to their room?" Mallory suggested. "You can have some privacy there, and besides, Mom said something about looking through their closet. We haven't gotten the official rules from the judges' panel yet, so we don't know the details about the pageant, but we do know that . . . Let's see. What did Mom say? Oh, yeah. They need a sort of party outfit for this parade in front of the judges and the audience, and another thing to wear in the talent competition, and a third, but we don't know what yet."

"Bathing suits!" shouted Margo.

Mallory smiled. "No. This isn't MissAmerica , Marg. There's no swimsuit competition."

"I want to wear my bathing suit!"

Mallory raised her eyebrows as if to say to me, "See what a pain in the neck this pageant's going to be?"

I sighed. "Come on, girls. Let's go upstairs and see what's what."

The girls thundered up the stairs ahead of me.

"Good luck!" Mallory called.

"Thanks," I replied.

Claire and Margo raced into the bedroom they share. Before I could say a word, they opened their closet and began peeling their clothes off. Margo reached for her bathing suit. On the front was a gigantic alligator, its mouth open in a grin full of big triangular felt teeth.

"This is what I'm wearing," she announced.

"For what?" I asked.

"The pageant," Margo replied impatiently.

"But what part of the pageant? You heard Mallory. I really don't think you'll need a bathing suit. Listen, the first thing we'll pick out is a fancy outfit for the parade. Won't it be fun to get all dressed up?"

"Like for church?" asked Claire.

"Well, or for a birthday party," I replied.

"But I don't wear sparkly dresses to birthday parties or church," said Claire. "The ladies on TV wear sparkles. Or fur. I need to do that, too."

"Claire, you don't need to," I said desperately. "You don't need bathing suits, either," I added, glancing at Margo. "Look, let's forget about your clothes for awhile. We can choose

those any time. Why don't you get dressed again? Then you better start thinking about the talent show. Because you'll have to rehearse whatever you decide to do. Do you guys know what rehearse means?"

"Choose?" asked Claire.

"It means practice, dummy," Margo told her.

"Margo," I admonished her.

Claire stuck her tongue out at her sister. "Silly-billy-goo-goo!"

"Okay, that's enough," I said. "Now listen. What do you want to do in the talent show?"

"What are we supposed to do?" Claire asked.

"Whatever you're good at. Most people sing or dance or play an instrument. Or they twirl a baton or do acrobatics. The talent competition is like a variety show on TV. What can you do?"

The girls looked thoughtful.

"Do you play the piano?" I asked them.

"I play the kazoo!" exclaimed Claire.

"I can play 'Chopsticks' on the piano," said Margo. "Jordantaught me."

I shook my head. Then, "How about dancing?" I asked, knowing that Margo, at least, was hopeless.

Claire put her arms in the air. She twirled

around and around, got dizzy, tripped over a teddy bear, and fell down.

"What about singing?" I asked after I had kissed her bumped knee.

"I can sing," said Margo. (Claire was sniffling and rubbing her knee.) "We sing all the time in music class at school. Listen to this. It's the song about the smart reindeer: Rudolph the Red knows rain, dear."

"Margo," I said when she had finished. I paused to think. Margo was giggling away at her reindeer joke, but there was a little problem. She couldn't carry a tune. She might have been singing any song. Any song at all.

"What?" asked Margo.