Ann Martin - Kristy's Big Day

The adults walked around to the front of the house and piled into their cars.

Katherine, Patrick, Maura, Tony, Beth, and

Peter all began to cry. Andrew took stock of the situation and began to cry, too.

Something elseus baby-sitters didn't count on: seven crying children.

"Quick, put on the rest of the nametags and divide into groups," I said.

We did. Stacey and Dawn had no criers, Mary Anne and I had two crierseach, and every kid in Claudia's group was crying.

But nobody panicked. Mary Anne put Tony in Beth's Walk-a-Tot and Beth in her stroller, and walked Beth around the yard as Aunt Theo had suggested.

I talked quietly to Andrew and he stopped crying right away. After all, he knew where he was. Then I took my group off to a corner of the yard, pulled Katherine onto my lap, and began to read Green Eggs and Ham.

Claudia had a tougher job, but she did what I did, and led her three criers to a different corner, sat down and began reading Where the Sidewalk Ends. Soon every one of our criers had become a giggler. And Mary Anne's criers were quiet.

When I finished reading Green Eggs and Ham, I looked around the yard and took a fast head count. Stacey was sitting at one of the picnic tables with Luke, Ashley, and Emma. They

weremaking woven placemats out of construction paper.

Nearby, Dawn was playing monkey-in-the-middle with David Michael, Berk, and Karen.

Claudia and I were reading to our groups, and Mary Anne had successfully put both babies in the playpen and was tickling their feet.

Good.Fourteen happy children. The first crisis was over.

The rest of the morning went fairly smoothly. There were a few arguments and tears, but nothing to complain about. At lunchtime, we seated the twelve older children around the picnic tables, and put Tony in the Walk-a-Tot and Beth in her stroller. Then Stacey and Dawn went into the kitchen to get the children's lunches. Mom had asked the parents to pack a separate lunch for each kid. This was a little hard on my aunts and uncles since they were staying in a motel, but it worked well because my friends and I didn't have to spend time making lunch. Also, we knew the parents would send food their kids would eat. This was important: We had a lot of picky eaters and a few kids with food allergies.

After lunch Tony, Beth, Maura, Patrick, and

Peter went down for naps. We simply lined them up on a blanket in the living room, and after a while they all fell asleep.

Good timing. At two-thirty a horn beeped in our driveway.

"That'sNannie ," I told Mary Anne. "She's here for Karen and me."

Nanniewas helping out at Watson's that week, too, and she was supposed to take Karen and me to the florist to look at wedding flowers. Mary Anne was watching thenappers while Claudia took over my group. Claudia was reading to Grace, Katherine, and Andrew on a blanket under a tree, and the three of them looked pretty drowsy.

"Come on, Karen!" I called.

Karen raced across the yard and we scrambled into the Pink Clinker.

"How come we're going to see the flower lady,Nannie ?" Karen asked. (Nannieisn't any relation to Karen, of course, but Karen loves my grandmother and started calling herNannie the first time they met.)

"We have to see about flowers for your hair,"Nannie told her.

"Flowers for my hair?"Karen squealed with delight.

"And for Kristy's," saidNannie . "You two will have matching flowers."

"What about the flowers for my basket?" Karen wanted to know.

"Rose petals.We'll talk to the florist about them, too. And Kristy, we'll see about your bouquet."

Who would have thought that choosing a few flowers could be so difficult? You would have thought we were choosing flowers for a royal wedding inLondon instead of just Mom and Watson's backyard wedding.

First,Nannie showed the woman in the store swatches of the material from Karen's dress and my gown, which were going to be yellow. The woman said, "How about white flowers?" and Karen said, "Yuck," andNannie said, "Salmon," and I said, "Yuck," and Karen said, "What's salmon?" and I said, "It's a fish," and Karen said, "Yuck" again.

After about fifteen minutes of that, we finally settled on yellow and white, with yellow petals for Karen's basket.

But the job was only half done. We still had to decide how Karen and I would wear our hair so the florist would know whether to make up wreaths or rosettes or what.

An hour later, we left. I was exhausted.

And a herd of children would be waiting for me when I got home.

However, coming home turned out to be the nicest part of the day. The little kids were rested from their naps and stories, and the older kids were excited because Stacey and Dawn had helped them put together a play, which they performed with great delight for Claudia, Mary Anne, me, and the younger children.

At five o'clock, the parents came home to fourteen happy children.

The members of the Baby-sitters Club decided that the first day had been a success.

Chapter 8.

Tuesday morning started off a lot like Monday morning, except that the mothers didn't have any more instructions,us baby-sitters were a lot more confident and a lot less worried, and Mr. Fielding had a much easier time prying Maura and Patrick off his legs.

When the parents left, there were only six criers (Andrew barely noticed that Watson was gone), and they were just crying token cries, except for the babies, who kept Mary Anne's hands full for quite a while.

We had agreed the evening before that we would take the kids on the trips that Dawn described in the Baby-sitters Club Notebook, and we decided to get started right away.

We must have looked pretty funny.

First of all, once the pink group had calmed down, Mary Anne had to fit both babies into Beth's stroller. It wasn't easy, but finally she sort ofsmushed Tony into Beth's lap.

Claudia and I had to get seven small children (our two groups, plus Jamie Newton) all the way to the library. We figured it would take about half an hour to walk them there.

"Wagons!" said Claudia suddenly.

"Oh, great idea!"I breathed a sigh of relief. Then I loaded Maura, Patrick, and Peter into

David Michael's oldwagon, and Claudia loaded Grace, Katherine, and Andrew into Mary Anne's old wagon. After we each packed a bag containing graham crackers, cans of juice, toys, extra diapers, and spare training pants, we were ready to pick up Jamie and go.

Despite the fact that David Michael hadn't used his wagon in at least two years, he yelled after me as I pulled my load down the driveway, "And those kids better not hurt my wagon while you're gone, Kristy!"

It must be a little hard for him practically to have a day-carecenter in his house.

Anyway, everyone left for wherever they were going. Stacey set off for the brook with Luke, Ashley, and Emma. They reached it pretty quickly, even with Ashleygallumping along on her crutches, and settled in for a morning of fun, which Stacey told me about later.

Stacey had brought along a garbage bag to wrap around Ashley's cast so it wouldn't get wet. Even so, Ashley wasn't able to do much at first.

"I can't get into a good fishing position!" she exclaimed. "My leg just won't go that way."

It was true. Luke and Emma were crouching

alongthe bank with pails and nets, but Ashley could only stand up or sit with her leg straight in front of her.

"I could help you wade," Stacey said uncertainly. "You could take off your sneaker, and I could help you stand in the brook on your good leg."

Ashley looked from her cast to the water tumbling over the rocks and then at Stacey. "I better not," she said, sounding disappointed.

"It's probably just as well," replied Stacey. But she was afraid Ashley would be bored.

It turned out that she didn't have to worry. Ashley sat down a safe distance from the bank and assigned herself all sorts of jobs, like minnow-counter and storyteller. Later, she moved to a patch of clover and made cloverjewelry for the whole group.