Ann Martin - Good Bye Stacey, Good Bye

"I couldn't find the planet chart." She dove for the Kid-Kit. "What's in it today, Stacey?" she asked as she carried it into the living room. This was our ritual. We always opened the Kid-Kit on the floor in the living room, Charlotte taking the things out slowly so she could examine each one.

"Some of the same stuff and a few new things, including a new book," I replied.

"A new book? Oh, goody. We need one now that we're done with The Borrowers." Charlotte emptied the Kid-Kit and, just as I'd hoped, put everything aside except the one book she hadn't seen before. It was called Iggy's House, by Judy Blume. "Iggy's House. That's a funny title," said Charlotte. "What's it about?"

"Well," I said carefully, "it's about a family that moves away."

Charlotte looked thoughtful. "The last time I moved I was two. I don't remember it at all."

"The last time I moved was when I moved here. That was just one year ago. A year and a couple of months."

"I'm glad you moved here," said Charlotte, settling herself in my lap, and opening Iggy to the first page.

"Me, too. But . . ." (I couldn't put it off any longer) "I have to tell you something, Charlotte. We're moving again."

Charlotte wrenched her neck around and peered at me. "What?"

"We're moving back to New York in a couple of weeks."

"You mean you're leaving Stoneybrook? You're leaving me?"

I nodded. I watched Charlotte take in the awful information. She looked like she had just swallowed horrible medicine.

Iggy's House slipped to the floor as Charlotte put her head in her hands and began to cry.

"I'm really sorry, Char," I said. "I don't want to go. But my dad's job is changing. We have to move." I wrapped my arms around Charlotte, and she let me hold her for several moments. Then suddenly she leaped up and started shouting. "I hate you!" she cried. "I hate you! You're mean! I thought you liked baby-sitting for me."

"I do. I love it," I told her. "That doesn't have anything to do with the move. It's my dad's job, just like I told you. I wish I could stay in Stoneybrook, too."

For a moment I thought Charlotte was going to turn around and run upstairs to her room. Instead, she slowly crossed the room back to

me. When I stood up she put her arms around my waist in a desperate hug.

I had an idea. "Would you like to come over to my house?" I asked Charlotte. I thought it might help her to understand things. It wouldn't help explain why we were moving, but 1 decided it would be better if the move were gradual. Seeing our house while it was being packed up might be easier on her than just "here today, gone tomorrow."

"Okay," Charlotte replied, drying her eyes. "But why?"

"I'll show you what's going on over there. You might think it's interesting. We have to pack up every single thing in the house."

"Where will you find enough boxes?"

"The moving company gives us cartons. You'll see. Some of them are full of stuff already. Come on. Let's go."

I wrote a short note to Dr. Johanssen and then Charlotte and I walked hand-in-hand over to my house. Charlotte doesn't know any kids on my street, so she rarely comes to my part of the neighborhood, which was why she hadn't seen the for-sale sign in our yard before.

"Your house still looks the same," Charlotte said as we approached it.

"From the outside, yes. Wait'11 we get inside."

I opened the front door. We were greeted by the sight of my mother's backside. It was sticking out of a closet in the hallway. On the floor outside the closet was a heap of boots and shoes and gloves, a tennis racket, some tennis balls, a yardstick, a deflated football (who had that belonged to? Dad?), and a stepladder. As we approached my mother, she tossed an ancient pair of ballet slippers onto the pile.

"Ahem," I said. "Hi, Mom."

My mother jumped a mile, then straightened up, hitting her head on the coat hangers.

"Stacey! You startled me!"

"Sorry," I said sheepishly. "Mom, I brought Charlotte over to show her the progress we're making."

"Oh, hi, honey," my mother said to Charlotte. "Have you ever seen such a mess?"

Charlotte shook her head shyly.

"Come on, Char," I said, taking her hand. "I'll show you my room first."

My room was a good place to start because not much had been done to it. I'd cleaned out a lot of stuff for the yard sale, and put some of my books into boxes, but that was about all.

"This doesn't look too different," said Charlotte.

"I know. Mom's frantic. She keeps telling me to 'get cracking.' Look at my parents' room."

I led Charlotte into Mom and Dad's bedroom. The walls were bare. The tops of their dressers were bare. Their bookshelves were empty. Packing cartons and paper cluttered all of the floor space.

"Whoa," said Charlotte, looking at the cartons. "I hope you're moving to another big house."

"We're not," I replied. I told her about the apartment. Then I told her about the yard sale.

"A yard sale!" Charlotte exclaimed, brightening, "I love yard sales. We got my dresser at the Berks' sale. It only cost seven dollars. And I got a Barbie doll and a dollhouse at a yard sale in Sheridan, and you know how much both of them cost? Just two dollars. Two dollars all together. My dad said, 'Cheap at twice the price.' "

I laughed. "Come on down to the basement. You can see how we're getting ready for our yard sale. If there's something you want, I'll set it aside for you."

Charlotte was really perking up. She ran ahead of me all the way down to the basement. If I'd known she liked yard sales so much, I

would have told her about ours before I told her about the move.

"Kristy and Claudia and Dawn and Mary Anne and I are going to run the sale," I explained to Charlotte when we reached the basement. "See? We're tagging everything and writing down the prices. We're making ads, too. In a couple of days we're going to tape them up on all the trees around here. And in other parts of town, too."

"This sure is a lot of stuff," said Charlotte, awed. She began poking through a pile of clothes. Then she saw a stack of my old games. "Oh, Boggle!" she cried. "And Operation!" Her eyes lit on a doll and then on a copy of The Cricket in Times Square. Ordinarily, I don't give my books away, especially not hardcovers, but someone had given me a second copy of The Cricket. It looked almost new. Kristy had priced it at fifty cents.

"Remember when we read this together?" asked Charlotte.

"Sure I do. That was fun."

"Save it for me, okay? That's what I want you to put aside."

"I'll do better than that," I told her. I peeled the price tag off the book. Then I found a pen, opened the cover, and inside wrote "Love to

Charlotte, my favorite kid, from Stacey, her favorite baby-sitter."

I handed the book to Charlotte. "This is for you," I told her. "To remember me by."

Charlotte took the book and looked at the cover fondly for a long time. Then she burst into tears.

Chapter 11.

This is what happened with the Barretts and poor Dawn. It started when Mrs. Barrett asked her two older kids, eight-year-old Buddy and five-year-old Suzi, to clean their rooms. Not just to clean them up, but to clean them out. Of course, this caused hysteria. No kid likes to clean anything up or out, especially a bedroom. But then Buddy saw the signs for our yard sale and got an idea. He asked his mother if he and Suzi could sell the junk they didn't want, instead of just throwing it out. Mrs. Barrett decided that was all right with her, but asked the kids if they could wait until Thursday afternoon to hold their sale. That was when Mrs. Barrett would be at work. (Mr. and Mrs. Barrett are divorced, and Mrs. Barrett has a part-time job). It was also the day Dawn would be baby-sitting.

It was just like Mrs. Barrett not to mention this to Dawn beforehand. Mrs. Barrett is nice but too busy. She's always forgetting to tell us baby-sitters important things. (I will say, though,