Ann Martin - Good Bye Stacey, Good Bye

GOOD-BYE, STAGEY, read Jamie Newton's card. Jamie had written his name inside, but his mother had written everything else.

I WILL MISS YOU. YOU WERE FUNNY. AND NICE,

Karen Brewer had written. She'd drawn a picture of a witch on the cover. I knew the witch was supposed to be Morbidda Destiny, not me.

ROSES ARE RED, VIOLETS ARE BLUE, GOOD-BYE

STAGEY, I'LL ALWAYS MISS YOU. That was Vanessa Pike, who planned to become a poet.

At last I looked at Charlotte's card again. I WISH YOU WERE MY SISTER. Oh, Charlotte, I thought. I wish I were, too. Then we wouldn't have had to say good-bye. We could stay together, because sisters do.

I put the cards back in the envelope, and the envelope back in the box. Now what? I couldn't go downstairs because my eyes were still red.

"Stacey!" I heard someone call. "Hey, Sta-cey!"

The voice was outside. I ran to my window.

"Oh, my gosh!" I exclaimed. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. I think I started to do both.

The rest of the members of the Baby-sitters Club were standing in the yard below me. Stretched between two of them was a bedsheet. On the sheet, in dripping blue letters, had been painted the words SEE YOU SOON, STACEY.

Kristy was grinning up at me while she tried to straighten out her end. Dawn was tugging at the other end. Claudia was the one who had shouted to me. Mary Anne was just standing there crying.

"I'll be right down!" I shouted to them.

"Okay!" Claudia shouted back.

I grabbed my purse and ran downstairs. By the time I reached the front yard my parents were already there, admiring the sheet.

"You guys are too much," I told my friends. I felt like hugging them all, but knew we'd be doing plenty of that soon enough.

"This is for you," Kristy said, indicating the sheet. "To remember us by."

"Gee, do you think it's big enough?" I joked, and we all laughed. I turned to Mom and Dad.

"Can I keep it?" I asked.

"Of course," replied my father. "Most kids want to keep a dog or a cat. All you want is a bedsheet." (His good humor must have returned when the movers showed up on time.)

Mom and Dad went inside then to direct traffic. Kristy and Dawn folded up the sheet and handed it to me. "Thanks," I said," and now I've got something for you guys."

My friends looked interested. Mary Anne dried her tears.

"Don't get too excited," I warned them. "It isn't much." I reached into my purse and pulled out the thing I'd leaped from my bed to check on at 2:56 that morning. It was a packet of calling cards. Mom and Dad had had them printed up just for me. This is what they looked like:

Need a baby-sitter? Call: Stacey McGill 14 W. 81st St., Apt. 12E New York, New York JK 5-8761 The New York Branch of the Baby-sitters Club

"I realized I hadn't even given you my new address or phone number," I told my friends.

"Now you've got everything. Plus, see? I'm not going to forget the Baby-sitters Club. In fact, it's going to grow."

The five of us sat on the front lawn and watched the movers haul every last thing out of our house and load it into the van that was parked in our driveway. While beds and tables and boxes and bags went by, we talked and giggled. We promised to write, to phone, to visit. But sometimes, there were long silences. I didn't like them. I felt as if I should be filling them up. During one of them, I retrieved the bag of leftovers and handed it to my friends. "Take whatever you want," I told them. "Mom doesn't want to waste this stuff."

Finally the van was loaded. After a last tour through our empty, echoing house, my parents climbed into the car. It was packed with suitcases, just in case anything should happen to the van on its way to New York.

"Come on, Stacey!" called Dad.

I faced my friends. "How can I say goodbye to you?" I asked them.

They shook their heads. Then Mary Anne held her arms out and we hugged. After that, I hugged Kristy, Dawn, and finally Claudia. Claudia and I hugged the longest of all. As we pulled apart she handed me a long envelope.

"Open it in the car/' she whispered.

I nodded. I couldn't talk. I fled to the car, crawled into the backseat, and nestled between my bed pillows, which Mom had put there for me.

The van pulled slowly down the driveway, and we followed it. I gazed out the window. Claudia, Kristy, Dawn, and Mary Anne were still standing on the lawn. "Good-bye, Stacey! Good-bye!" they called.

I waved until we turned a corner and I couldn't see them anymore. Then I opened the envelope from Claudia. Inside was a letter. It was thirteen pages long. "Dear Stacey," it began, "I bet this will keep you amuzed intil you get to NY. City." I smiled. The letter was full of jokes, riddles, gossip, the details on how Dori and Howie had suddenly decided to break up (Dori had returned the ring, so Howie was now stuck with something of mine!), and Claudia's thoughts about our friendship.

"Maybe I will never have another best friend," she wrote, "but it would be wirth it. I mean it would be wirth it to have had you for my best freind even if it was for just a yer. You will always be my best best freind if you know what I mean. What I mean is I might get another best freind sometime but she wouldnt

be as good a best freind as you."

And you, Claudia Kishi, I thought, will always be my best best friend.

We turned onto the highway. I was ready. Ready for New York and whatever it held for me.

About the Author

ANN M. MARTIN did a lot of baby-sitting when she was growing up in Princeton, New Jersey. Now her favorite baby-sitting charge is her cat, Mouse, who lives with her in her Manhattan apartment.

Ann Martin's Apple Paperbacks are Bummer Summer, Inside Out, Stage Fright, Me and Katie (the Pest), and all the other books in the Babysitters Club series.

She is a former editor of books for children, and was graduated from Smith College. She likes ice cream, the beach, and 7 Love Lucy; and she hates to cook.