Ann Martin - Kristy And The Mothers Day Surprise

To my surprise, Stacey said, “Can I ask a question?”

“Of course.”

Ring, ring.

“Oops, the phone. Hold on just a sec, Stace.” I was reaching for the phone (so were Mary Anne and Jessi), when Stacey leaped up. “Can I answer it, please? It’s been months and months since I’ve taken a —“ (Ring, ring.) “— job call here with you guys.”

“Sure,” the rest of us replied at once.

Stace reached for the phone. “Hello, Babysitters Club,” she said, sounding like she might either laugh or cry.

(This meeting was emotional for everyone.) “Doctor Johanssen!” Stacey suddenly exclaimed. “Doctor Johanssen, it’s me, Stacey!

No, you called Stoneybrook. I’m visiting. I’m here for the ~weekend. I’m going on the Mother’s Day outing tomorrow.” (Dr. Johanssen is Charlotte Johanssen’s mother, and in case you can’t tell, she and Stacey are pretty close. Stacey helped Charlotte through some rough times, and Dr. Johanssen helped Stacey through some rough times.) “Oh, don’t tell Charlotte I’m here, okay?” Stacey was saying. “I’ll surprise her when she gets to Claudia’s tomorrow.. . . Yes.. . . Right.. . . Oh, a sitter for next Saturday? Boy, I wish it could be me.

No, I’m leaving the day after tomorrow. But we’ll get you a sitter. I’ll call right back, okay?. . . Okay. ‘Bye.”

Stacey’s face went from excited to disappointed and back to excited while Mary Anne looked at our appointment pages. The Johanssen job was for the evening, and we signed Dawn up for it.

Stacey called Charlotte’s mother back. While she did, Claud began searching the bedroom.

“What are you looking for?” asked Mal, as if we didn’t know. (It must have been junk food.)

“Junk food,” Claud replied. “I bought a bag of those licorice strings. I thought we could make jewelry out of them before we ate them. Oh, and Dawn and Stacey, I’ve got pretzels for you. I know that’s not very interesting, but at least the pretzels look like little goldfish.”

Claud handed around our snacks.

Then Stacey said, “Urn, I had a question . . . ?“

“Oh, right!” I exclaimed. “Sorry, Stace.” (If I’d been in a commercial, I would have hit myself on the head and said, “I coulda hadda

V-8!”)

“Well, I was just wondering. Could we run through tomorrow’s schedule and all the details? I mean, like, who exactly is coming, and if we should expect any problems. I don’t even know some of these kids. And you guys have talked about a carnival, but. . .“

“Oh, of course we’ll run through everything,” spoke up Mary Anne, who was playing with a licorice bracelet. “We didn’t mean to leave you out. It’s just that we’ve been making plans for so long.”

“Anyway, it’ll probably help us to run through the schedule,” added Jessi.

I jumped right in. “I’ll start,” I said. I try hard not to be bossy, but after all, I am the president.

“The kids will come here at eight-thirty,” I began. (I was trying to make licorice earrings.) “The fathers have been really cooperative, and they’re doing all the stuff like dropping the kids off and picking them up. They’re making the lunches, too, and watching any brothers and sisters who are too little —“

“Or too big,” added Dawn.

“— to come on the outing. So the moms will really have a day off tomorrow.”

“One exception,” interrupted Mallory, as she braided together three strings of licorice. “The Barretts.”

“Oh, yeah,” said Stacey. “No Mr. Barrett.”

“Right. So guess what?”

“What, Mal?”

“My dad is going to be Mr. Barrett for the day. He’s going to bring Buddy and Suzi with my brother and sisters in the morning and pick them up at the end of the day. He’s going to fix their lunches, and he’s even going to babysit for Marnie all day.”

“You are kidding!” cried Stacey.

“Nope. Dad loves little kids. Why do you think there are eight of us?”

We laughed, and I added, “Marnie ought to

spend the day with my mother. It would be, like, a dream come true for Mom.”

At that point we almost got off the subject, but I went ah~ad and outlined the day 5or Stacey (in between a few job calls).

We were finishing up when Mimi wandered into Claudia’s room, and I mean wandered in. She looked like someone who had gone for a walk without any destination in mind. She just sauntered in — and then she seemed surprised to find us club members there.

“Oh . . . oh, my,” said Mimi vaguely.

Claudia leaped to her feet. “What are you looking for, Mimi?”

“The . . . cow.”

The cow? My friends and I glanced at each other. But not one of us was tempted to laugh. This was not funny.

Claudia took her grandmother by the arm and led her gently toward the doorway. On the way, Mimi seemed to “wake up.”

“Dinner is almost ready, my Claudia,” she said. “To please help salad with me after meeting.” (That was normal for Mimi.)

“Sure,” agreed Claudia. “Just a few more minutes. Then Stacey and I will come help you.”

Mimi left. An awkward silence followed. Jessi tried to make conversation. “I really like

your bedroom, Stacey,” she began. “You should come over and see it, if you want. The wallpaper is so pretty that we left it up, and my furniture looks great. . .“ She trailed off.

Claudia had tears in her eyes again.

Stacey said, “I decided I like it better than my room in New York.”

Another awkward silence. Both Mallory and Jessi looked awfully uncomfortable. I wondered if they felt like the new kids on the block all over again.

“I wonder,” I said, as if it were the only thing on my mind, “what my mom will look like when she’s pregnant.”

“Like she’s going to tip over,” replied Dawn, and we all cracked up. We became ourselves again. In the last few moments of the meeting we giggled and laughed and told school gossip to Stacey. Then the meeting was over. We left Claudia and Stacey, calling to each other, “‘Bye!” and “See you at eight!” and “Remember your lunches!”

That night, I could barely get to sleep. I was so, so excited about the Mother’s Day surprise.

V\TeH, we did have some tears, but Stacey was right. The morning got off to a shaky start — but not a bad one.

However, the kids’ tears came later in the morning. Stacey began her day much earlier, waking up in the cot that had been placed in Claudia’s room. She yawned and stretched. She looked over at Claudia. Claudia was dead to the world. She could sleep through a tornado. No, a tornado and a hurricane. No, a tornado, a hurricane, a major earthquake, and a garbage truck. Luckily, when Claudia does wake up, she gets up fairly easily.

But Stacey didn’t need to wake her up right away, which was fine because Stacey wanted to lie in bed and daydream. Actually, what she wanted to do was “rememberize,” which was an old word of hers meaning “to remember something really well.”

She rememberized the first time she ever met Claudia. It was the beginning of seventh grade — I think it might even have been the first day of school — and they ran into each other in the hallway. I mean, ran right into each other. Each of them was kind of mad because the other was dressed in such cool clothes — and each wanted to be the coolest.

But they calmed down and became very close

friends.

Then Stacey rememberized the first time she baby-sat for Charlotte Johanssen. After that, she was about to begin a good daydream about Cam Geary, the gorgeous star, when she realized she really ought to wake up Claudia.

So she did. She leaned across Claud’s bed and tapped her on the arm.

“Claud. Hey, Claud!”