Ann Martin - Good Bye Stacey, Good Bye

I would have started crying right there in the middle of everything if another man hadn't approached me wanting to know how much the folding tables were.

I told him they were six hundred dollars.

It was time to close up shop.

Ill-

By dinnertime, our garage looked like a garage again. Everything was put away. The stuff we hadn't sold was in a carton for Goodwill. (There wasn't much in the carton.) The Barretts had left, happy with the money they had earned. Now my friends and I were doing the fun part. We were totaling up the money in the cash boxes. When I announced the final figure, Kristy pretended to faint.

"We're practically millionaires!" she cried as she crashed to the ground.

I had to agree. Even split up, and even after we'd paid my father back the ten dollars he'd lent us, each share was a lot more money than I'd seen in a long time.

My friends looked like they had dollar signs for pupils. They were unusually excited. I mean, this was a lot of money, but what was going on? Of course, I didn't know it then, but what they were thinking was that my party was definitely going to be one MAJOR celebration.

Chapter 13.

I just love parties. So when I got an invitation to one a couple of days after the yard sale, I was thrilled. It was from the other members of the club, and it instructed me to come to a farewell party in my honor at Kristy's house at two o'clock the following Saturday.

Although I was excited (and touched), I thought that a number of things about the invitation were strange. For starters, my friends and I almost never send written invitations to parties anymore. We just pick up the phone and say, "Come to a party." Sometimes we don't even do that. We go around school inviting anyone we see. For another thing, two o'clock in the afternoon was a funny time for a party. Most of our parties are held on Friday or Saturday evening. A third thing — the invitation said: Important! Wear old clothes! What were we going to do? Paint Kristy's room?

When I called Kristy to tell her that of course I'd be at my party, I asked her about the old clothes and stuff, but she wouldn't say a word. Something was up. I just knew it.

On Saturday, I pulled on a pair of blue stretch pants and a white sweat shirt decorated with stars and sequins.

Kristy called me at one o'clock. "What are you wearing?" she asked.

I told her.

"Much too nice," she replied. "Put on jeans and your gray sweat shirt — if they're not packed."

"Those rags?"

"Are they packed yet?"

"No."

"Then trust me. Put them on."

When Dad dropped me off at Kristy's an hour later, I was wearing the jeans and the sweat shirt. I looked like I was ready to do yard work. Or paint a room.

I rang the bell next to the massive front door of Watson Brewer's mansion. When Kristy answered, I waved to my father and he drove off. Kristy was wearing jeans and a blue sweat shirt.

"At least I'm not underdressed," I kidded her.

She smiled and led me through the house

and to the back door. "Now close your eyes/' she said as she turned the knob.

I wondered why I needed to do that since I knew who was going to be in the yard — Claudia, Mary Anne, Dawn, Logan Bruno and Shannon Kilbourne (associate club members), Pete Black, Rick Chow, maybe Trevor Sand-bourne, and Emily Bernstein. I hoped Howie Johnson and Dori Wallingford hadn't been invited, but I figured Claudia would know better.

Kristy flung the door open.

"SURPRISE!" shouted a loud chorus of voices.

My jaw dropped practically to my knees.

The guests were not who I had expected at all. Claudia, Mary Anne, Dawn, Logan, and Shannon were there, but the other guests were children ... all the kids (except for babies) that our club sits for. As I looked slowly around at the grinning faces, I saw the eight Pikes — Mallory, Byron, Jordan, Adam, Vanessa, Nicky, Margo, and Claire; Jamie Newton; Myriah and Gabbie Perkins; Charlotte Johanssen; Buddy and Suzi Barrett; Dawn's brother, Jeff; Kristy's brother, David Michael; Karen and Andrew; Nina and Eleanor Marshall; Jackie, Shea, and Archie Rodowsky; Hannie and Linny Papa-dakis; Amanda and Max Delaney; and even Jenny Prezzioso. (I guess they really couldn't

leave her out.) The yard was twinkling with tiny golden lights, and lanterns and bunches of balloons were strung up everywhere.

"Oh, wow!" I said softly.

"Did we surprise you? Did we surprise you?" cried Karen, jumping up and down.

"You sure did."

Charlotte stepped forward and handed me a little corsage made of chrysanthemums. Kristy helped her pin it to my sweat shirt.

"These flowers are for you," Charlotte said, obviously reciting something she'd memorized. "Today is your special day. We are all here to honor you, to say good-bye, and to ..." (She turned to the other children.)

"HAVE FUN!" they shouted.

I wondered if I was supposed to say something, but Kristy spoke up then. "This is a party not just for Stacey, but for everybody here," she said. "And everyone is going to have a good time. I guarantee it. So ... let the fun begin!"

"What are we going to do first?" asked Karen.

"We're going to have an egg relay race," Kristy replied.

I couldn't imagine how my friends were going to organize twenty-eight children into a

relay race, but they did — and fast, too. They were all prepared. They'd carefully figured out five teams (uneven in numbers, but even in ability), and they handed out eggs and spoons in the wink of an eye.

Soon, little kids were charging back and forth across the yard with fragile eggs balanced on spoons. Jenny tripped and her egg splattered to the ground. Her teammates moaned. They were out of the race.

Then Buddy Barrett and David Michael crashed into each other and squashed their eggs on their fronts.

"I see why we were supposed to wear old clothes," I whispered to Mary Anne, and she grinned.

Only two teams were left, and it looked as if the race might end in a tie. Myriah Perkins and Jamie Newton were both heading for the finish at the same pace. But just a few steps from the end, Jamie's egg seemed to fly off the spoon all by itself. Squish.

"I won! I won!" Myriah shouted as she and her egg made it safely back home.

"You mean, we all won," said Karen, who was her teammate.

"Congratulations," said Claudia. "Prizes for everyone on Myriah's team." And she handed

each child a Silly Putty egg. The prizes came from a big box. I peeked inside. It was chock full of toys!

"Where'd you get the money for all this?" I asked incredulously. "I don't mean to be rude, but . . ."

"Where do you think?" answered Dawn with a smile. "From the yard sale. Thanks to your junk, we are going to have one hot party!"

"Oh, no!" I cried, giggling. "I don't believe it. You guys spent that money on this party?"

"Every last cent."

"You're too much," I said tearfully.

I was about to turn on the waterworks, but luckily Kristy announced that it was time for some more fun. And she wasn't kidding. During the next hour or so, us baby-sitters held our own egg race, the kids played Musical Rug (easier than Musical Chairs when a lot of children are involved) and Pin-the-Baby-on-the-Sitter (for that game, Claudia had drawn a picture of me holding out my arms, and made twenty-eight crying babies that were supposed to go in my arms). The children hunted for peanuts and ran races, and we all played Simon Says. The winner, or winners, of each game received a pretty nice prize — a Transformer, a sticker book, a Slinky, a bag of Gummi Bears.

By the time Simon Says was over and Jordan Pike had been given a Transformer, half the kids were getting tired, and the other half were hysterical with excitement.

"Time to quiet down," Kristy whispered to the rest of us club members. "Mary Anne, can you help me? And Dawn and Stacey, can you get all the kids to the front of the house? Keep them right by the driveway."