Ann Martin - Kristy's Big Day

"Mom - "I started to say.

David Michael tiptoed across the kitchen and held my hand. He stared at Mom, fascinated.

Louie hid under the table.

"A tent!We have to rent a tent!" she cried.

"Rent-a-tent, rent-a-tent," chanted David Michael, giggling.

"Mom- "

"We'll hold the wedding in Watson's yard. We'll never be able to rent a hall somewhere for the reception.What if it rains?!"

"Mom- "

"Oh, lord - decorations!"

"Mom, why don't you call Watson?" I managed to say.

"I better call Watson," said Mom. (She hadn't heard me.)

Good. I hoped he could calm her down.

Mom went into her bedroom and called Watson privately. When she returned, she looked saner.Sort of. But then she opened up a cabinet and began pulling pots and pans and things out of it. She seemed to be sorting them into piles.

"What are you doing?" I asked her.

"Not only do I have to plan a wedding, I have to get ready to move. This whole house needs to be packed up. We can take the opportunity to clean things out. I bet we haven't cleaned the house out in five years. We can make a big donation to Goodwill."

David Michael began to whine. And even though I'm too old to whine, I joined in.

David Michael started with, "But I don'twanna move. Iwanna stayhe- ere." (David Michael is a champion whiner. Anybody who can turn a one-syllable word into a two-syllable word is good - very good.)

I added, "I want one more summer here. I don'twanna leave yet."

Mom pulled her head out of the cabinet. Very slowly she turned around to face us. She didn't say one word, just looked at David Michael and me.

"Uh-oh," said David Michael under his breath. He apologized quickly."Sorry, Mom." Then he hustled out of the kitchen with Louie at his heels.

Mom was still looking at me. But I wasn't about to apologize. I was sorry I'd whined at her, but I was still upset about the move. "You said we weren't moving until the fall," I told her. "You said we'd still be here this summer."

"Those weren't promises, Kristy," replied Mom. "That's simply what I thought was going to happen."

"But Mom, no fair.I don't want to spend this summer at Watson's."

"You'll be spending next summer at Watson's," she pointed out."And the one after that and the one after that."

"I know. That's why I want this summer

here, with my friends. One last summer with Mary Anne and the Baby-sitters Club and Jamie Newton and the Pikes and - and in my own room ..." I trailed off.

"I'm sorry, honey," said Mom. "This is the way things are, fair or otherwise."

"Boy," I exclaimed. I stomped upstairs.

When I got to my room I closed my door. I considered slamming it, but I wasn't really angry. I was sad.

I sat down at my desk and looked out the window. There are two windows in my room. One faces the front yard. The other faces the side. Mary AnneSpier's house is next door, and I can look right into her bedroom from that side window.

She wasn't there that day. She was babysitting for JennyPrezzioso . I was kind of glad, because I just wanted to be able to stare and think. If Mary Anne had seen me at the window, she would have wanted to talk.

A lot of things, both good and bad, have happened at those windows. For years, every night after Mary Anne's strict father had made her go to bed, we used to stand at the windows with flashlights and signal each other with a secret flashing code Mary Anne had made up. (We don't have to do that anymore, though, because Mr.Spier has changed. Now he lets

Mary Annetalk on the phone at night like a normal person.)

When Mary Anne and I had fights, I knew I could always get to her by pulling my window shade down. It was like not speaking to her. When we weren't fighting, which was most of the time, we would string a paper-cup telephone between our rooms, or sail paper airplanes with messages on them through the windows. What was I ever going to do without Mary Anne next door?

And what was I going to do in a new bedroom? The room I was in had been my bedroom since the day my parents brought me home from the hospital. It was fixed up just the way I wanted it. Over at Watson's, I could have my pick of bedrooms. I could be on the second or third floor. I could be near my brothers or away from them. I could have a big room or a not-so-big room, but it didn't matter. It wouldn't be the same. No matter what my room was like, I wouldn't be able to look out the window and into Mary Anne's room. "My" room would never feel like my room.

I tried to picture all the bedrooms I had ever seen at the Brewers'. Maybe there was one like mine - with a window facing front, another window facing the side, the closet opposite

thefront window, the door opposite the side window. Maybe I would take that room and arrange my furniture in it just the way it's arranged now. It wouldn't be the same, but it would help.

"Kristy?" I heard Mom call.

I opened my door. "What?" I shouted back.

"I need you here."

"All right."I went slowly downstairs.

Mom was sitting at the kitchen table with papers spread out all around her. Before I asked her what she wanted, I peeked in the cabinet she'd started to clear out. Everything had been thrown back in. I guessed the packing was going to wait until later.

"Can you help me make some lists, sweetie?" said Mom. "We've got to start listing everything if we're going to pull off this wedding: things to do, things to buy, people to call. ..."

"Okay," I said.

"First we'll list people to invite to the wedding. I'll go through our address book and you write down the names I call out."

When we were done, Mom looked at the list I had made."Hmm. An awful lot of these people are from out of state, and a lot of them have a lot of children. It's a good thing they'll only be in town a night or two."

We started in on some other lists. Weddings

sureare complicated. I didn't know they take so much work. By five-thirty, when it was time for a meeting of the Baby-sitters Club, I was overwhelmed. I realized why Mom had gone crazy earlier. I began to feel sort of sorry for her.

Chapter 3.

Mom had kept me so busy with the wedding lists that by the time I dashed across the street to Claudia's house, it was five-thirty-six and I was the last to arrive. As club president, that was not an ideal situation. However, since the others were all there already, I took advantage of the situation to get a good, long look at them. Since I knew I'd be moving soon, I felt I wanted to do that, even though I'd still see them at our meetings and in school.

ClaudiaKishi , our vice-president and a junk-food addict, was prowling around her room, trying to remember where she'd hidden a large bag of M&M's. She was wearing one of her usual outrageous outfits: a black leotard andskintight red pants under a white shirt that was so big it looked like a lab coat. Claudia's a wonderful artist and she had decorated the shirt herself, covering it with designs painted

inacrylic. She had pinned her long, black hair back at the sides with red clips.

Mary AnneSpier , secretary of the club and my best friend, was sitting on the floor, leaning against Claudia's bed. Her wavy brown hair had recently been brushed and looked shiny and full. Until a few months ago, she had always worn it in two braids. I still wasn't used to seeing it loose. As secretary, Mary Anne was in charge of the Baby-sitters Club Record Book, where we write down appointments and keep track of our clients' addresses and things.

Stacey, our treasurer, was sitting cross-legged on the bed with the envelope containing the club dues in front of her. Like Claudia, Stacey enjoys looking good. She enjoys putting together outfits and she enjoys shopping. So does her mother, who has time for such things. (I'm happy in jeans and a T-shirt.) But Stacey is from New York City, where shopping is the official city sport. Stacey's blonde hair waspermed , and what with that, her purple nail polish, and her Swatch accessories, she looked, well, kind of like a thirteen-year-old Madonna. (If Claudia weren't Japanese, she'd look a little like Madonna, too.)