Ann Martin - Dawn's Big Move

"What about the underwear race?" I

asked. Mom gave Richard a Look. He cleared his

throat and said, "Yes, well, I'm afraid 1 put the kibosh on that one."

"He refused to come unless we substituted something else," Mom explained.

"Maybe next year." Richard's face was turning red just talking about it.

"Whaf s a kibosh?" 1 asked Mary Anne as we walked to the stands.

"A Dad word," she said. "It means to say

no to something."

"Dawn! Mary Anne!" Kristy's voice shouted

from the stands.

"Hi!" Mary Anne yelled back. My family

climbed the bleachers and took seats next to the Brewer/Thomases.

"I am psyched!" Kristy announced. "We're doing the Nerf home run derby, the three-legged race ..."

I should probably explain Run for Your Money in more detail. It was divided into two parts. The first half consisted of more standard events, the second half of the weird ones (including the ones the BSC had entered). Many events ran at the same time, with referees for each one. Each team scored two points for a win, one for a tie, and none for a loss. The refs kept scorecards, and "runners" circulated the field, collecting the cards to bring to the master scorekeeper.

The Schafer/Spier events were in the first half, beginning with the tug-of-war. We played a family named the Medallises, from Lawrenceville. They also had two eighth-grade girls.

"Everybody here?" asked the referee, who was the owner of a music store at the local mall.

"Yes, sir," Mr. Medallis said, picking up one end of the rope. Then he looked at us with a smile. "You ready to be beaten silly?"

One of the girls rolled her eyes. "Da-ad."

"We'll see about that!" Richard answered. "Come on."

Oh, well, boys will be boys.

"Ready ... set ... go!" the ref said.

The Medallises were strong — but we were stronger. "Pullll," Mom grunted. "Pullllll.."

We lurched backward. The Medallises fell to the ground in a heap.

"The winners — the Schafer/Spiers!" the ref called out. "Two points, Stoneybrook."

We hugged each other. We were two of the first points won that day! Then Mary Anne insisted we shake hands with the other family (what a good sport).

We celebrated our victory by getting some drinks at a concession stand. We said hi to the Newtons, the Barretts, and about a million other people. Then we watched Kristy's family win a three-legged contest, and the Kishis lose a relay race. Before long the scoreboard said Stoneybrook 24, Lawrenceville 8. Yea!

Next we ran the potato sack race. Our opponent was this incredibly enthusiastic family, the Smiths, who had a boy and a girl. As soon as we met them, one of the boys said, "You're sisters? You don't even look alike."

1 don't know why that bothered me, but it did. Mary Anne cheerfully explained that we were a stepfamily, and the race began.

We lost that one. The baton relay was next, and we lost that, too. Mary Anne was very good-natured about it. She kept on saying,

"Between my dad and me, I'm glad we won anything."

But our mood had sunk a little, and Morn could tell.

"Hey, how about some pinball, Dawn?" she asked.

"Sure."

As we walked to the midway games, I looked around at the crowd. I wondered how many other people were part of stepfamilies. I saw a lot of look-alike siblings.

Everyone seemed somehow more . . . warm and excited than we did. I kept telling myself that was ridiculous, but it wasn't.

I knew why, too. They were real families. They knew they were going to live together, year in and year out. Not partial families, with one member going away for months at a time. I had one foot in Stoneybrook and the other in Palo City. No wonder we lost. I was pulling us apart.

I felt an awful twisty sensation in my stomach. How can you love two separate families and not feel like an outcast, or a traitor?

One thing was for sure. I needed a good game of pinball.

I took a peek at the scoreboard as Mom and I started to play. It looked like this:

StoneybrookLawrenceville

S

o o

°oo°

gooo

Suddenly I couldn't wait for the BSC events to start.

Chapter 12.

"And then Becca decided her sneakers were too tight, just as the referee yelled, 'Go!' " Jessi said.

It was half time at Run for Your Money. The score was now Stoneybrook 97, Lawrenceville 94. All seven of us regular BSC members had decided to get together to find lunch at a concession stand. Everyone had a crazy story to tell about her family's events. Jessi's saga was about the triathlon.

"So Becca just sat there, screaming 'Do-over, do-over!' " Jessi went on. "But she wouldn't wear the sneakers, and Daddy wouldn't let her run in bare feet. Well, she sulked for about an hour, until we entered Squirt in the baby race. He wouldn't go in the right direction, because he kept wanting to hug Becca. He felt bad for her."

"That is so cute!" Stacey said.

"Remember the rolling race we practiced?"

Mal asked. "Well, Adam refused to do it with Jordan because he was too embarrassed to hold hands."

We groaned.

"I thought my family had done great in the three-legged race," Kristy said, "until Mom noticed that David Michael had used one of her silk scarves as a binding. Whoa, was she angry."

We walked from stand to stand, talking and laughing. Each time we stopped, everyone looked at Stacey and me to see if the food would be all right for our "diets."

Do you know what it's like to be a vegetarian surrounded by nothing but hot dogs, hamburgers, sausage, and fried chicken? Torture!

We finally settled on a stand that sold corn on the cob and bags of peanuts. I was still full from our power breakfast, so that was okay.

As we wandered over to the midway games, Mr. Kishi called out, "Hello, girls!" He and Mrs. Kishi were playing foosball against Ja-nine. Honestly, I had never seen that girl move so fast. She was grabbing those knobs as if her life depended on it, shouting and laughing and having the best time.

We looked at Claudia. She smiled and shrugged. "The girl is crazed. I always knew there was an animal hiding inside her."

Just as we sat down in the stands, a voice boomed out, "Attention, please. Will everyone take your places for the second half of Run for Your Money!"

We checked our list. In five minutes we were scheduled for the dance relay race.

By one of the goalposts, an official was inserting a cassette into a huge tape deck with twin speakers. We met our Lawrenceville opponents, seven girls about our age.

The referee was this prim old woman, who said, "Stoneybrook is Lane One, and Lawrenceville is Lane Two. You'll see six orange marks ahead of you in each lane, one for each teammate in the relay. If anyone drops the baton, the team is disqualified. Now, we're going to play a pretty fast tune, so you can really boogie down."

We burst into giggles at that. .Then we took our marks. Kristy was first in the relay, I was second, then Mary Anne, Stacey, Mal, Clau-dia, and Jessi.

When the ref said, "Go!" a rock dance tune started blaring. Kristy froze. Her face turned beet red.

The girl on the other team was gyrating down the track, her hair swinging back and forth. Her teammates were doubled over laughing.

Well, Kristy may have been embarrassed,

but she was also losing. And Kristy hates to lose.

She began bopping down the track, somehow moving her legs forward very fast. She looked . . . well, dorky would be an understatement. We were all cracking up.

I was next. Let me tell you, it is hard to run and dance at the same time — especially when you feel like a total fool. Crowds were forming on the sidelines, howling at us. I could see Jarnie Newton staring in shock, as if something were wrong with us.

The teams were neck-and-neck to the last dancer. That's where we had our secret weapon — Jessi Ramsey, star ballerina.