Ann Martin - Kristy And The Snobs

Claudia had brought her Kid-Kit to the Pikes' and left it outside the doorway to the girls' room. She carried it in with a flourish and set it on the table between their beds.

"Yea!" cried Claire.

"You guys can play with this stuff until I bring the TV in. Then you can trade, and give the Kid-Kit to the boys, okay?"

"Okay," said Margo, forgetting to scratch as she pawed through the box.

Meanwhile, Mallory had returned to the kitchen and was setting the trays and the table. Further downstairs, in the rec room, eight-year-old Nicky and nine-year-old Vanessa were playing - supposedly. But as Claudia joined Mallory again, she heard Vanessa shriek, "Stop that! You stop that, Nicholas Pike! . . . STOP IT!"

"Whoa," exclaimed Claudia. "I'll go see what that's all about. You finish the trays, okay, Mallory?" She ran downstairs without waiting for a reply. "Hey! What are you two doing?" she cried.

Nicky and Vanessa were sitting on the floor surrounded by Legos. An entire town of Lego buildings had sprung up between them. Claudia couldn't see anything broken or wrong.

"Vanessa?" she asked.

"Nicky gave me the Bizzer Sign!" Vanessa sounded practically hysterical.

"She gave it to me first," grumbled Nicky. "She started it. Honest." He drew a hand wearily across his eyes.

"Did not!" said Vanessa.

"Did, too!"

"Okay, okay," Claudia cut in. Claudia has no patience for the Bizzer sign, which is a hand

signal the Pike kids invented purely to annoy each other. "Look, it's almost time for supper. Come on upstairs. You're going to eat in the kitchen with Mallory. A nice, quiet meal," she added.

"I'm not hungry," Vanessa whined.

"Me, neither," said Nicky.

"Not even for cream cheese and jelly sandwiches?"

"Well, maybe ..." Vanessa conceded.

Mallory, Nicky, and Vanessa did eat a quiet, almost somber, meal in the kitchen. Upstairs, Claudia tried to eat with the chicken pox crew, but she hardly had time. No sooner had she settled onto the end of Claire's bed with her tray than she heard tinkle-tinkle.

"Coming!" she called, and ran into the triplets' room. "What is it?" she asked the three spotty faces.

"Could we have soda instead of milk?" asked Adam. "Please? It feels so nice and cold."

"Sure," Claudia replied, feeling unduly sorry for them.

She was racing back upstairs with the soda when ding-ding sounded from the girls' room. "Coming!" she called. She handed out the sodas rather hastily and dashed back to Claire and Margo.

"Claudia, there's a speck in my cream

cheese," said Margo. "I think it's a bug. If I eat it, I'll throw up."

Claudia examined the speck. "Just a crumb," she pronounced, but to be on the safe side, she picked it out of the cream cheese.

"Could I have some more milk, please?" Claire asked then.

Tinkle-tinkle. The boys were ready for second helpings of fruit salad, and Byron, who loves to eat, wanted dessert, too.

Claudia brought all the food upstairs, then realized it was seven o'clock and time to switch the TV for the Kid-Kit. She did so, wolfed down part of her sandwich, then began carrying the trays to the kitchen so she could help Mallory clean up.

The bell and the triangle were quiet for a full five minutes before Jordan asked for an aspirin for his headache. It was during the next lull that Claudia peered down into the rec room to see what Vanessa and Nicky were up to. She saw them both sitting in front of the TV, their shirts pulled up, examining their tummies and chests. "What are you doing?" she called.

"Counting," Nicky called back.

"Counting what?"

"Our spots."

"Uh-oh," said Claudia, and she dashed

downstairs to find that, just as she'd feared, poor Mr. and Mrs. Pike had two new chicken pox patients.

"Bedtime, you guys," she announced, and neither one objected.

Chapter 12.

Louie was in bad shape. Everyone could see it. Even David Michael. He didn't understand it, but he could see it.

"He's falling apart," Mom said one Saturday as she and Louie returned home from a trip to the vet. "He's simply old. Nothing is working very well anymore."

It was true. Louie had lots of accidents now, so we had to keep him in the kitchen and the family room, where there were no Oriental rugs. His arthritis was worse, and we could tell he was in a lot of pain. He didn't move unless he had to, and when he did, it was a big effort. Now, instead of calling Louie for dinner, David Michael brought dinner to him.

"After all," said my brother, "when I'm sick, Mom brings me my meals on a tray, so I'm kind of doing the same thing for Louie."

Even though he didn't feel well, Louie tried to be the same good old collie as always. For

instance, he usually tried to get to his feet and over to the back door so somebody could let him out before he had an accident. It's just that often he didn't make it. He was too slow. One day, the day before Mom took him back to Dr. Smith, he staggered to his feet as David Michael was approaching him with his dinner.

"You need to go out, Louie?" my brother asked. "Okay, hold on a sec." David Michael set the bowl down. He went off in search of his slicker since it had begun to rain, and returned to the kitchen in time to see Louie's hindquarters disappear through the open basement doorway.

"Louie!" David Michael cried. "No! Wait!"

Ever since Dr. Smith had told us about Louie's eyesight, we'd tried to keep the door to the basement closed, but now and then one of us would forget. It just hadn't become a habit yet. Which was too bad, because a steep flight of fourteen stone steps led from that doorway into the dark cellar below.

David Michael grabbed for the banister with one hand and Louie's collar with the other, even though Louie had already stumbled down the first couple of steps. Thank goodness Louie moves slowly, otherwise he probably would have fallen headlong to the bottom of the stairs. As it was, he and David Michael fell several

more steps together and David Michael banged his face on the banister and wound up with a black eye.

It was that accident that prompted Mom to take Louie to Dr. Smith the next day. And it was at that visit that Dr. Smith said Louie was deteriorating rapidly (translated into regular speech, that meant "getting worse fast"), and suggested injections. I hadn't gone with Mom to the vet and didn't ask what the injections were for. I didn't really want to understand. All I did know was that Dr. Smith said she could try a last resort with Louie - she would give him special injections two times every day.

Needless to say, this was not easy to fit into our schedule, although of course we agreed that it must be done, since no schedule was more important than Louie. We finally worked out a plan where Mom left the house early and drove Louie to Dr. Smith's for his first injection of the day, while Watson took care of breakfast and seeing us Thomas kids off to school. Then Mom dropped Louie back at the house and arrived at her office fifteen minutes later than usual. On Monday and Wednesday afternoons, Charlie sped home from school, picked Louie up, drove him to Dr. Smith's for his second injection, sped home, dropped Louie

off, picked me up, and drove me to my Babysitters Club meeting. On Tuesday and Thursday, when Charlie was busy, Watson skipped lunch, and used his "lunch hour" in the middle of the afternoon to take Louie to Dr. Smith. The new schedule was hectic, Mom and Watson and Charlie were harried by it, and worst of all, by Friday, after almost a week of injections, Dr. Smith admitted to Charlie that they weren't helping Louie much - and that the two car trips every day were too much for him.

Charlie was upset by the news, and so was I, when he told me about it as we settled Louie into the kitchen. In fact, I was so worried that I actually called Claudia to tell her I wouldn't be able to make our Friday club meeting. Dawn, as our alternate officer, would have to take over my duties as president.