Ann Martin - Kristy And The Mothers Day Surprise

In the middle of the page, we had written:

“SURPRISE! Happy Mother’s Day! The members of the Baby-sitters Club would like to give our special moms a special gift.”

(I thought that part was corny, but no one agreed with me.)

Then the invitations went on to say who was invited, what we would do, where we would meet, and that sort of thing.

I was at home on the Saturday my own mom received her Mother’s Day surprise. It was one of those gorgeous spring days when you look at the sky and think, Could it possibly get any bluer? It was also unusually warm, so David Michael, Andrew, Karen, and I were out in our yard with no jackets or sweaters.

“It’s summer! It’s just like summer!” exclaimed Karen.

We still had a good two months before vacation, but I didn’t say anything.

The kids were doing the outdoor things they missed during the winter, like skipping rope, tossing a ball around, and turning somersaults. Mom and Watson were inside. They were on

the phone. They’d been making an awful lot of phone calls lately. And Sam and Charlie, as usual, were off with their friends.

Sometimes I feel . . . I don’t know . . . left out of my own family. I love everybody, but I’m too young to hang around with Sam and Charlie, and too old for Andrew, David Michael, and Karen. They’re fun, but they are just kids.

Anyway, David Michael’s game of catch with Andrew was beginning to get out of hand.

“David Michael,” I said, “you don’t have to throw it so hard. Andrew’s not that far away from you.”

“But he keeps missing the balls.”

“Maybe he’s afraid of them. They’re coming at him like freight trains.”

“I’m not afraid!” protested Andrew.

I sighed. Since I wasn’t baby-sitting, I didn’t feel like getting involved in this argument. “I think I’ll take Shannon on a walk,” I said.

Shannon was playing in the yard, but I knew she’d want to take a walk. Any change of scenery was fine with her. I clipped her leash to her collar and we set off. I chose one particular direction. It was the direction in which Bart Taylor’s house lies.

Bart Taylor is nice. Oh, okay, he’s gorgeous and wonderful and smart and athletic. We sort

of like each other, even though we don’t go to the same school. Bart coaches a softball team called Bart’s Bashers, and I coach one called Kristy’s Krushers. So Bart is my rival, too. We try not to think of that. But we hardly ever see each other anyway.

Which is why I walked Shannon by his house that day. I tried to glance at it casually every few steps, but I couldn’t see a thing that way. So finally I just stared. The front door was closed, the shades were drawn, the garage door was pulled down.

No one was home.

I walked Shannon sadly back to my house, feeling lonely and a little depressed. But the warm weather and the thought of the weekend stretching before me cheered me up again.

“Hey, you guys!” I called when 1 reached our yard. “How about some batting practice? The Krushers have another game coming up!”

Andrew, David Michael, and Karen are on my softball team. That ought to give you some idea of what the team is like. It’s a bunch of kids who are either too young for Little League or even T-ball, or who are too embarrassed to belong to one of those teams — but who really want to learn to play better. The first time the Krushers played Bart’s Bashers we almost beat them. That’s how much spirit we have.

“Batting practice?” echoed Karen. “Okay. Let’s go.”

We found several bats and two softballs.

“I’ll be the pitcher,” I said. “We’re going to work on your technique. David Michael, show me your batting stance, okay?”

My brother demonstrated.

“Good!” I cried. “That’s really terrific.” No doubt about it, my brother had improved since I’d started coaching him. I don’t mean to sound conceited, but it was true.

I tossed the ball — underhand, easy.

David Michael missed it by a mile.

I take it back. Maybe he was still a klutz.

“Karen?” I called. “Your turn.”

Karen was testing the weights of the bats when Mom dashed into the backyard, waving a paper in her hand.

Oh, darn, I thought. Which one of us messed up? What was she waving? A math test with ~an E on the top? A report with the words “See me” in red ink? (I swear, those are the worst words teachers ever invented.)

“Kristy!” Mom called.

Yikes! It was me! I had messed up!

“Honey, thank you,” said my mother breathlessly as she reached me.

Thank you? Well, I couldn’t have done anything too bad. I dared to look at the paper. It

was the Mother’s Day surprise. Whew. “You’re welcome,” I replied, smiling. Mom put her arms around me.

“It’s your Mother’s Day surprise,” I said unnecessarily.

Immediately, Mom began to cry. It wasn’t that sobbing, unhappy crying that mothers do when they’re watching something like Love Story or Brian’s Song on TV. It was that teary kind of crying where the voice just goes all wavery. “Wha-at a lo-ovely invita-ation,” she managed to squeak out. She wiped at her eyes. Then she found a tissue stuffed up her sleeve, so she blew her nose.

(Well, I knew the invitations were nice, but I hadn’t expected this. I would have to call Jessi and Mallory to find out if their mothers had freaked out, too.)

“Urn, Mom,” I began, gathering my nerve to ask the question that so far only Sam had dared to ask, “are you pregnant?”

My mother shook her head. She blew her nose again. “No.”

“Are you positive?”

“Positive. . . . But if you were to have a new brother or sister, how —“

“Well, you know how I feel about kids, Mom,” I said. “It would be fine.”

But suddenly it didn’t seem quite as fine as

it had seemed in the past. I love babies. I really do. But what would it be like if Mom and Watson had a baby of their own? That would be different from Mrs. Newton or Mrs. Perkins having a baby. It might draw Morn and Watson closer together — and shut us kids out, just when us kids need to be drawn closer to everyone in the family. Why hadn’t I thought about that before? But all I said was, “Fine, fine.”

Mom smiled. The two of us sat down in the grass. “So tell me more about this invitation,” said my mother. “Who planned the surprise?”

“Everyone in the Baby-sitters Club,” I answered, “only, the basic idea was sort of mine. Well, it was all mine.”

“I’m sure it was. You always did have big ideas.”

“Remember when we lived in the old house, and I worked out the flashlight code so Mary Anne and I could talk to each other from our bedroom windows at night?”

“Of course. And your big idea to marry me to the mailman?”

“David Michael wanted a father,” I reminded her. “I was only ten then.”

Mom and I laughed. We watched Andrew, Karen, and David Michael practice their pitching and catching.

“Well, anyway,” I said, “we sent out invitations to twenty-nine kids.”

“Twenty-nine!” squawked Mom.

“Don’t worry. They won’t all be able to come. Besides, Stacey is going to be in town that weekend. She’s going to help us. So there’ll be seven sitters. If we wind up with, let’s say, twenty kids, that’s only about three kids per sitter. We can handle that.”

“And you’re taking the children to a carnival?”

“Yup. It’s called Sudsy’s. It’s just a little one. It’ll be set up in that big parking lot near Carle Playground. We’ll spend the morning at Sudsy’s, go to the playground for lunch and some exercise, then walk back to Claudia’s house for stories and stuff, so the kids can rest. We figure we’ll have the kids from about nine until four. That’ll be a nice rest for you, won’t it, Morn?”