Ann Martin - Dawn On The Coast

Chapter 10.

All that weekend I looked forward to the next meeting of the We Love Kids Club. I had had such a good time with Clover and Daffodil, and couldn't wait to tell Sunny and the other members of the club.

When I arrived that Monday afternoon, Sunny was sitting on the floor of her room, with newspapers spread out all around her. She had a bag of potting soil, a couple of small clay pots, and a few jars in which she had rooted some babies from her spider plant.

"Hi. Come in," she said. "If you can find a place. I'm just potting these."

I sprawled out on an empty stretch of Sunny's green shag rug. It was the usual relaxed, California atmosphere of the We V Kids Club.

While we waited for Jill and Maggie, I told Sunny all about my afternoon at the Austins, about Clover's wild imagination, and about Daffodil's tries at the ring toss.

"I think Clover's going to be an actress," said Sunny. "Or a writer or something like that."

"And Daffodil is the real surprise," I said. "You think because she's quiet she's going to be shy, but she has a real determination to her."

"Did you notice how she's suddenly all leg?"

Sunny asked. "She's like a colt or a baby deer. ..."

"Exactly," I laughed.

As we were talking, a warm, homey feeling spread through me. It occurred to me that what we were doing was sharing the exact same kind of information that Kristy has the members of the Baby-sitters Club write up in the official Club notebook. And here we were just talking. Simple as that. See, I thought, you can accomplish things informally.

Jill and Maggie arrived together, talking about some kids at school. Sunny finished up her potting.

"Do you remember Joe Luhan?" Jill asked me.

"Sure." He had been one of the boys in my class.

"Well, he and Tom Swanson are having a party on Sunday. Will you still be here or are you leaving before then?"

"The day before," I said. "I'm leaving Saturday."

Too bad. That sounded like fun. A party with Joe Luhan and Tom Swanson. I'd grown up with those guys. I knew them better than I knew most of the boys in Stoneybrook.

Sunny's mom poked her head in the door.

"Am I allowed in here?" she asked.

"Mo-om," Sunny moaned. "Of course. What do you think?"

Her mom looked over at me and smiled.

"It just occurred to me," she said. "Dawn, would you and the girls like to stay for dinner? We won't get many more chances to see you this visit. You're just here for another week, aren't you?"

I looked at Sunny. Sunny looked at me.

"Oh. Stay, stay, stay," Sunny pleaded.

"I'll have to check with Dad," I said. He was back at work that week and wouldn't be home for another half hour. "Can I let you know at the end of the meeting?" I asked Sunny's mom.

"Sure," she said. "If your dad says yes, we'd love to have you." She winked at me. "Spinach lasagna," she said, and she disappeared out the door.

"Yum," said Sunny. "That reminds me. I'm hungry."

"Me too," said Maggie. "Starving."

"Should I get us our snack?" Sunny asked.

"Yeah!" we all agreed.

Sunny stood up and dusted the potting soil off her hands.

"Ick! Wash your hands first," Maggie teased.

Sunny wiggled her muddy fingers in Maggie's face.

"No way!" she laughed, then bounded down the stairs.

Since no phone calls were coming in, we just sat around chatting. Jill and Maggie talked some more about the kids I remembered in our class. Right then an idea began taking seed in my mind. I started to picture myself back in the class, and how easy it would be to slip right back in.

Sunny came back up with the food — gua-camole dip and cut-up raw vegetables that she had made earlier in the afternoon.

"All right," Jill said, grabbing a carrot stick.

"No calls yet?" Sunny asked.

We shook our heads. The phone hadn't rung once.

"Maybe we should work on the recipe file," Sunny suggested.

This was a project I hadn't heard about yet. Sunny pulled a yellow plastic file box off the top of her desk. On the front she had pasted a picture of a bright red apple. Inside were cards with recipes that kids could make and that they liked to eat.

"Healthy recipes," said Sunny. "It's an extension of that cookbook I showed you."

"Wow!" I said. "What a great idea."

Maggie and Jill fished into their purses and each pulled out a recipe she had found over

the weekend. Jill's homemade lemonade was from a magazine. Maggie's "Raisin Surprise" was from the back of a raisin box. They set about copying the recipes onto the small yellow index cards.

Sunny chomped on a celery stick and looked at me. "It'd be great if you can stay for dinner," she said.

I thought back to all the times in the past that I had had dinner over at Sunny's house. How many times had it been? Probably a thousand. Well, at least a hundred. Sunny's mom and dad were great. When we were younger they always let us be excused from the table as soon as we had finished eating, just so we would have a longer time to play.

"I hope you can stay," Sunny said again, and suddenly something popped into my head.

Maybe I could stay. Maybe I could really stay. Maybe I didn't have to go back to Connecticut at all, or just go back to get my things. Maybe I could move back in with Dad and Jeff, have my old room back, my old friends, my old school.

It was a strange thought, scary and exciting at the same time. Until then, I had just been having a great time, a fabulous time, but it had never occurred to me that I could think about making it last forever (or at least for longer).

Now that the thought occurred to me, what was I supposed to do?

I was still sitting in the same room, but it felt like I was in another world. Around me, I could hear Sunny and Jill and Maggie chattering away. Jill rummaged around in her purse for her bottle of nail polish, a different color this time. The phone rang, a call came in. I think it was one of the neighbors down the street, and Maggie took the job.

"Earth to Dawn. Earth to Dawn," said Sunny. She had her hands cupped over her mouth like a megaphone.

"Oh, yeah," I said. "I'm here." (Just barely.)

"So what do you think?"

"About what?"

"About the nail polish."

"What about it?"

"Do you think Berry Pink is better on Jill or Lucious Blush?"

Hmm, I guess I had missed a part of the conversation. I took a look. Jill had half of the old polish on and half of the new.

"Which is which?" I asked.

"Forget it," Jill giggled. "They'll discontinue the colors before you decide."

"What time is it?" I asked suddenly.

"Five-thirty," said Sunny. "Hey, you can call your dad now."

Five-thirty. Time to leave.

"I don't think I can stay for dinner," I said abruptly. "I have to do something. I mean, I have to talk to Dad about something."

"But ..." Sunny started.

The phone rang again.

"It's Mrs. Austin," she said. "She needs someone for Clover and Daffodil. Do you want it?" she asked me.

"Yeah," I said. "Of course. Thanks. Sign me up. But I gotta run."

Sunny and the others stared after me. I grabbed my purse and ran out the door. It must've all looked very strange. Well, what can I say? It felt strange for me, too. Suddenly it seemed like my whole world was changing.

Chapter 11.

Well, that was a card I never finished writing. How do you tell your mother that you want to move away from her? That you want, in fact, to move to the other side of the country?

When I came back from the We Love Kids meeting I ran right to my room. I thought it might help if I wrote a draft of a letter to Mom and figured out how I might approach this very delicate subject. As you see, I didn't get very far.

I decided, really, that it was too early to think about Mom. The first step was just to talk to Dad.