Ann Martin - Hello, Mallory

"Owl Ow, ow, owl" Now Nicky wasn't ready. He hadn't expected Buddy to return his shot, and he'd caught sight of the triplets with their haircuts. The ball had sailed over the net fast and hard. It whammed into Nicky's out-

stretched hand, and smashed his fingers.

"Owl" he cried again. "My hand!"

Nicky sounded terrified. Dad, my brothers, Claire, and I all ran to him.

"Ow! Ow!" Nicky continued to shriek. He doubled over, clutching his hand to his stomach.

"Let me see, Nick-o," said my father, easing Nicky's hand toward him.

We all stared. Nicky's pointer finger was sticking out from his hand at a strange angle.

"Oh, no," I said with a gasp.

"Broken," said Dad briskly.

Buddy burst into tears. "I'm sorry, Nicky. I'm sorry," he kept saying.

Mom drove up just then. She saw the crowd in our yard, rushed over to us (along with Margo and Vanessa), took one look at Nicky's finger, and said, "Emergency room. Mallory, you're in charge."

My brothers and sisters and I just stood in the yard with our mouths open while Mom and Dad carried Nicky to the station wagon and backed down the driveway. The only one making any noise was Buddy, who was still crying.

I remembered Mom's words, "Mallory, you're in charge," and decided I'd better act like it. First, I calmed down Buddy and sent him

home. Then I told the others to go inside and that I would fix them a snack.

When things were under control, I sank into a chair in the living room for a few minutes.

Wouldn't the girls in the Baby-sitters Club be proud of me? I thought. I was taking care of six of my brothers and sisters all by myself. None of the other girls had ever done that, since Mom insists on two sitters if more than five kids need to be taken care of.

Two hours later, Nicky returned.

"Look!" he said, marching proudly into the kitchen, Mom and Dad at his heels.

"What's that?" asked Claire, peering at his hand.

"A cast. My finger was broken in two places. They took X rays."

"He was very brave," said Mom.

Nicky's cast was a complicated thing covering most of his finger and hand, and positioning the finger in a way that looked pretty uncomfortable. But Nicky didn't mind. He was waiting for Monday so he could show off his injury in school.

And I was waiting for Monday so I could brag to the girls in the Baby-sitters Club about my unexpected job.

Chapter 2.

Monday morning at last! Sunday had seemed like the longest day of my life. I had finished Freaky Friday, read three more chapters of The Incredible Journey, and written a story about a frog in a rainstorm called "Rainy Days and Froggy Nights." I had entertained Nicky and baked cookies with Margo. When all that was done it was still onlyfour o'clock in the afternoon.

But now Monday had arrived. I leaped out of bed and flung open my closet door. I wondered what a person was supposed to wear to a baby-sitting meeting with thirteen-year-olds. I decided I should look just a little dressed up. I thought about Claudia and the other girls in the club. I was pretty sure that when they got dressed up, they wore trendy clothes like big, bright sweater-dresses or sparkly tops and tight pants. I don't have any

clothes like that. Mom says I'm too young. Maybe when I'm twelve or thirteen.

Well, I could look nice anyway. After standing in front of the closet for so long that Vanessa made a pig face at me while she chose her clothes, I finally decided on my red jumper that said Mallory across the front, a short-sleeved white blouse, and white tights with little red hearts all over them.

"You look like a Valentine," Vanessa told me, but I didn't care.

I put on my penny loafers.

"Mallory!" said Mom, as I sat down at the breakfast table a little while later. "You look lovely. . . . This isn't school-picture day, is it?" she added, glancing suspiciously at my brothers and sisters. They certainly were not dressed in their best clothes.

"No, Mom. Don't worry," I told her. "I'm going to the Baby-sitters Club meeting, remember?"

"Oh, that's right. Well, have fun."

Have fun, I thought. Sure. I was as jumpy as a cat.

When I got toStoneybrookMiddle School that morning I looked around for Kristy, Dawn, Mary Anne, and Claudia. I thought that if I saw them, I could just walk up to them, as

cool as anything, and say, "Hi, you guys. How is everything? Can't wait for the meeting." I could pretend I was a big eighth-grader instead of a twerpy sixth-grader.

But the sixth-grade wing is at the opposite end of the building from the eighth-grade wing. There was no chance I'd see them unless I took a little walk. I pretended I needed to go to the library, which is near the eighth-grade wing. As I wandered through the halls, I looked and looked for the girls, but I didn't see them. Not in the library, not outside the cafeteria, not hanging around the gym. I was still only halfway back to my homeroom when the bell rang.

The bell! I'd been fooling around longer than I thought. I tore through the halls to my classroom and darted through the door just before Mrs. Frederickson closed it. I was the last to arrive and slid into my seat between bossy Benny Ott and Rachel Robinson. (Mrs. Frederickson seats us alphabetically.)

Wait a second. I wasn't between Benny and Rachel. I was between Benny and some girl I'd never seen before. Rachel was one seat away from me. What was wrong? I checked my desk. Yup. It was the one I always sit at, with the big E.L. carved in an upper corner and the heart carved in a lower one.

I took another look at the girl sitting next to me. My eyes widened. For one thing, the girl was beautiful. She was long-legged and thin, and even sitting down she appeared graceful.

Also, she was black.

There were no black students in our entire grade. This new girl would be the only one. In fact, there are only about six black kids in the whole school. They're in the seventh and eighth grades.

Wow. This was pretty interesting.

"Class," Mrs. Frederickson said, rapping on her desk with a pencil. "Good morning. As you've probably noticed, we have a new student. Her name is Jessica Ramsey. Our seating has changed a bit to make room for her. Jessica is sitting at Rachel Robinson's old desk, and Rachel and everyone after her have moved over one seat."

I saw Rachel cross her eyes at Jessica, tilt her head to the side, and stick her tongue out. If Jessica noticed, she didn't pay attention. She just kept looking straight ahead at Mrs. Frederickson.

Why, I wondered, did Rachel care about her desk so much? We only sit at these desks during homeroom. We don't even keep stuff in them, since other classes use them the rest of the day.

"I hope," Mrs. Frederickson went on, "that you will make Jessica feel welcome." Mrs. Frederickson sounded sincere, but I noticed that she didn't ask Jessica to stand up and introduce herself and tell us where she had come from. That was what she had done when Benny Ott was new. From day one, we'd known that Benny was fromDetroit , and that his dad sold car parts and his mom was a secretary and Benny hoped to become a great actor.

Jessica Ramsey sat next to me, a mystery. I kept looking at her long legs. Maybe she was a dancer or a gymnast or something. Of course, I looked at her face, too. Jessica's eyes were huge and dark. Her lashes were so long I wondered if they were fake. Probably not, if her mother was anything like mine, and I decided that was a distinct possibility, since Jessica wore glasses and didn't have pierced ears, either.

I wondered what being the only black student in your grade would feel like. I guessed it would feel no different from being the only anything in your grade. I was the only one in our grade with seven brothers and sisters, including ten-year-old triplets. But I knew that wasn't quite the same. The kids couldn't tell that just by looking at me. But Jessica's