Ann Martin - Kristy And The Mothers Day Surprise

So we did. I sat on the floor, leaning against a couch. Andrew sat in my lap. Karen sat beside me, her head resting on my shoulder. My brothers lined up on the couch behind us. We knew this was good news — but not like we’d just bought another VCR or something. This sounded like life-changing news.

(I was pretty sure Mom was finally pregnant.)

“Hey, Mom, are you pregnant?” asked Sam for the four-thousandth time.

“No,” she replied, “but we’ve adopted a child.”

Adopted a child! Well, that was a different story!

“You’ve what?” cried Charlie.

“We’ve adopted a little girl,” said Watson. “She’s two years old, she’s Vietnamese, and her name will be Emily Michelle Thomas Brewer.”

“We’ll pick her up at the airport tomorrow,” added Mom. “And then she’ll be ours.”

“We wanted to tell you about this before,” said Watson. “It’s been in the works for so

long. But we didn’t want to say a word until we knew something for sure. Things kept falling through. This is definite, though.”

Andrew stirred in my lap, and I knew he didn’t really understand what was happening.

“So,” said my mother nervously, “what does everybody think?”

What did we think? What did I think?

“I think . . .“ I said, “I think this is totally fantastic!”

Suddenly I was so excited I could barely contain myself. A baby (sort of). But it wasn’t Mom’s and Watson’s. Furthermore, I was getting another sister! I’d always thought there weren’t enough girls in my family. Before Mom married Watson, it was me against three brothers. After the wedding, it was Karen and me against four brothers. Emily Michelle Thomas Brewer would almost even things up.

But it was more than that, of course. Even more than the stuff about Mom and Watson. I love kids. And we were adopting a two-yearold girl. She would be somebody to dress and play with. She would be somebody to teach things to. Things like, a family is just a group of people who love each other, whether they’re brothers and sisters and parents, or stepbrothers and stepsisters and stepparents. Or adopted kids.

Sam and Charlie were as excited as I was. “This,” said Sam, “is really cool.” He grinned. “I can’t wait to teach her how to play baseball,” added Charlie.

“Hey, that’ll be my job!” I cried. David Michael seemed less certain. “Do twoyear-olds wear diapers?” he wanted to know.

“Some of them do,” answered Mom. “Well, I’m not touching those Huggies things.

Dirty or clean. But I guess a little sister will be okay. I mean, I’ve already got one,” he said, poking Karen’s back with his toe. “And she hasn’t killed me yet.”

Karen turned around and stuck her tongue out at David Michael.

“Karen?” said Watson. “What about you?”

“What about me?” Karen knew what her father meant, but she was being difficult. After a pause she sighed and said, “I thought I was your little girl.”

Watson looked thoughtful. “You’re one of them. Knisty’s my little girl, too.”

I didn’t complain about being called a little girl. I knew that Watson was trying to make a point.

“Think of it, Karen,” I said. “She’s only two.

Practically a baby. You can help her with things. You’ll be her big sister. You can show her how to play with toys, you can teach her

to color, and you can dress her up. It’ll be fun!”

Karen smiled, despite herself. “Yeah . . .“ she said slowly.

“Andrew?” said Watson. “What do you think?”

“Whose baby is she?” asked Andrew. “Why is she coming to our house? Did her mommy and daddy give her away?”

Oops. I guess we had some explaining to do.

Watson took care of the explaining while Mom and the rest of us did other things.

Boy, was there a lot to do. “We have to get a room ready for Emily,” said Mom. And suddenly I remembered my mother talking about our spare bedrooms.

“A room!” I said. “What about clothes? What about toys?”

“I think we have plenty of toys here for now,” said Mom. “We can buy some things for a younger child later.”

“Well, we don’t have any clothes for twoyear-olds,” I pointed out.

“She’ll have a few things of her own, honey,” Mom said patiently. “I’ll buy her more on Monday. I think the room is the most important project to tackle now. She needs a place of her own from the beginning.”

“Wait a sec,” I said. “You’ll buy her clothes on Monday? On Monday you’ll be at work. So will Watson. The rest of us will be in school. What are we going to do with Emily all day?”

Mom was bustling upstairs and I followed her. “Watson and I are taking some time off from our jobs to be with Emily,” she said. “We’re going to find a nanny while we’re at it.”

A nanny? Like Mary Poppins? Boy, were things changing. I wondered if a nanny would make my bed for me.

We started in on Emily’s room, all eight of us. We chose a room that was near Mom and Watson’s. Some furniture was in it already, but it looked like an old lady’s room. We got toys and a crib out of the attic, and put some pictures on the wall. The room began to improve. A rocking chair helped. So did a white bookshelf and an old Mother Goose lamp.

“Not bad,” I said. I still couldn’t believe that the next day I would have a new sister.

Andrew looked up at me. We were alone in the room while everyone else was in the basement, searching for a particular dresser. I was supposed to be arranging some of David Michael’s old picture books on the shelf.

“It is so bad,” wailed Andrew, and he began to cry. His cry wasn’t one of those Knisty131

I-skinned-my-knees-and-want-Band-Aids -thesize-of-dinosaur cries. It was a Kristy-I’m-veryconfused-and-a-little-afraid cry.

I knelt down and drew him to me. “Whatever happens, you know,” I told him, “you’re still going to be our Andrew.”

That night, I called every single member of the Baby-sitters Club to tell them the news. I was so excited, I didn’t know how I was going to wait until the next day for Emily to arrive. But making five phone calls helped pass the time. I would say to each of my friends, “I’m going to have a new sister!”

And whomever I was talking to would say, “Oh, your mom’s going to have a baby! That’s great!”

And then I would tell my news. Each time I did, the person on the other end would have to shriek and scream for a few seconds. Then she would ask lots of questions. I was glad for that, because by the time I got into bed, I was exhausted and knew I would be able to sleep.

Chapter 15.

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I slept okay that night, but I was up at six o’clock the next morning. I don’t know the last time I voluntarily got up at that hour on a weekend. But who can sleep on the day her adopted sister is arriving? Not I.

I tiptoed downstairs and found that I wasn’t the first one awake. Mom and Watson were sitting at the kitchen table, sipping coffee. A high chair had been placed at one end of the table.

“Morning, Watson,” I said. Then, “Hi, Mom. Happy Mother’s Day!” I kissed her cheek.

“Thanks, honey.”

“I wish I had a present for you, but you got your gift yesterday.”

“Oh, I know,” replied Mom enthusiastically. “And it was great.”

“Funny,” I said. “We called yesterday’s outing the Mother’s Day surprise. But I think

Emily is the real Mother’s Day surprise. At least she is to me.”

“In a way she is to us, too,” spoke up Watson, as I slid into my chair with a glass of orange juice. “We’ve been trying to adopt for quite awhile. It takes time. We feel lucky to have Emily at last.”

“Mom? Watson?” I asked. “How come you adopted? You could have had a kid of your own, couldn’t you?”