Ann Martin - Dawn And The Impossible Three

"Okay, upstairs and into your suits."

"Even Marnie?" asked Suzi.

"What about you?" Buddy wanted to know. "Did you bring your suit?"

"No, but it doesn't matter. Marnie and 1 won't really need them. Go upstairs and change

now."

Buddy and Suzi thundered upstairs and returned a few moments later with their bathing suits on. Mary Anne couldn't help smiling. In his suit, Buddy turned out to be a skinny little boy with big, knobby knees, and Suzi was pudgy with a fat, round tummy.

"That was fast," said Mary Anne. "What did you do with your clothes?"

"Threw 'em on the floor," replied Buddy.

Mary Anne pointed up the stairs. "Back," she said. "Go back and pick them up. Put them on your bed — neatly." She turned to Suzi. "Where are your clothes?"

"In my doll bed."

Again Mary Anne pointed upstairs.

After much grumbling, Buddy and Suzi returned.

"Now what?" asked Buddy.

"Now," said Mary Anne, "Marnie and I take off our shoes, Marnie puts on her boots, we all put on our raincoats and rain hats, and then we go for a walk in the puddles."

"Barefoot?" asked Suzi incredulously.

"Almost," said Mary Anne. She had found a whole bunch of thongs — all sizes — in the closet, and she handed them around.

"Oh, boy!" cried Buddy.

So Mary Anne and the Barretts headed outdoors for a puddle walk. The day was wet but very warm. Mary Anne herded the kids down the driveway and onto the sidewalk. "Jump in as many puddles as you can," she told Buddy and Suzi. "Try to make big splashes."

"Eee-«7" shrieked Buddy, running toward a

wide puddle. "Bonsai!" He leaped into it, sending out a spray of warm puddle water.

"He splashed me!" accused Suzi.

"Good," said Mary Anne. "That's the idea. You're wearing your bathing suit and your raincoat. Those clothes are supposed to get wet."

"Oh," said Suzi. Then, "Blam!" She jumped into the puddle with Buddy. She and Buddy ran down the sidewalk.

Mary Anne followed slowly with Marnie, who liked to get into a puddle and stay in it, patting her boots in the water and laughing. Between puddles, she stooped down to examine every worm she saw. She would poke them, smile at them, and then look up at Mary Anne and give her the ham face.

The puddle walk ended when Suzi threw a worm at Buddy, and Buddy said, "The puddle walk rule is, if you throw a worm, you have to eat it. So, here. Take a bite." He held the worm out to Suzi.

"No, no, no!" Suzi began to cry again.

"All right," said Mary Anne. "The puddle walk is over. It's time to go camping."

Back at the Barretts' house, the raincoats and bathing suits were hung up to dry, and everyone got dressed again. Then Mary Anne helped the kids make a "tent" by throwing some old

blankets over a card table in the playroom. They added "rooms" to the tent by overturning the kitchen chairs, placing them by the table, and covering them with more blankets.

"Kristy and I used to make tents all the time," Mary Anne told me over the phone, "but this one was the biggest I've ever seen."

The Barrett kids loved the tent. Suzi and Buddy crawled around inside it, playing an imaginary game about camping and bears and spacemen. Mamie invented a game of her own, which involved peeking at Buddy, Suzi, and Mary Anne from under the tent flaps.

When it was time for the picnic (orange juice and graham crackers), the kids wanted to eat in the tent. Just as they were finishing up, the phone rang.

"I'll get it!" shouted Buddy. "It's the space phone."

"Sorry," said Mary Anne, remembering that I'd said Mrs. Barrett didn't want the kids to talk to their father. Besides, she had a feeling 7 might be calling.

Buddy scrambled out of the tent, anyway, but Mary Anne was hot on his heels. She reached the phone at the same time he did, and since she was taller, she answered it first.

Out of sheer frustration, Buddy gave her the Bizzer Sign.

"Hello," saidMary Anne. "Barrett residence. Can you hold on a sec?" She covered the receiver with her other hand. "Buddy, you are in trouble. Go to your room."

Buddy stuck his tongue out at Mary Anne and stomped upstairs.

"Hello?" Mary Anne said again.

"Hello," answered a man's voice. "Who's this?"

"This is Mary Anne Spier, the baby-sitter. Who's this?"

"This is Mr. Barrett. May I speak to Buddy please? Or Suzi?"

"I'm sorry, they're . . . they're at a friend's house," Mary Anne lied.

"Oh, fine," said Mr. Barrett, and slammed down the phone.

Mary Anne felt afraid. What was wrong? Why didn't Mrs. Barrett want Mr. Barrett to talk to the children? Was Mr. Barrett angry at Mary Anne now? Did he know she had lied?

Probably, Mary Anne decided.

There was a scene when Mrs. Barrett came home. Buddy was mad because he'd been punished, and Mrs. Barrett was mad both because Buddy had misbehaved and because Mr. Barrett had phoned.

"He's only supposed to speak to the kids on alternating Tuesdays. That's part of the custody

arrangement. This is the wrong Tuesday. He can't keep his own schedule straight," she said, fuming.

"And Buddy, what is the matter with you? I get notes from your teacher; you give Mary Anne trouble. I don't have time for this, young man. I cannot be your mother and your father, run this household, look for a job, and straighten out the messes you get yourself into. It's too much to ask of anybody."

Buddy, standing at the top of the stairs, began to cry silently.

At the bottom of the stairs, Mrs. Barrett did the same thing. Then she opened her arms and Buddy rushed into them. Mary Anne, who had already been paid, tiptoed out the front door.

Chapter 13.

The rain continued for several more days. Although it was dreary, I didn't mind it — much. It was kind of like the California rainy season. Meanwhile, my mom was in a great mood. She went around smiling and whistling. The house became more organized. Three straight days went by in which I didn't once have to tell her to change her clothes.

She talked to Mr. Spier on the phone almost every evening.

The Barrett kids, on the other hand, were being driven zooey by the rain. Four days after Mary Anne sat for them, I sat for them. There had not been a drop of sunshine since the puddle walk. It was a Saturday. The weather forecast was for rain ending before noon, followed by cloudy skies.

By the time Mrs. Barrett had been gone for an hour, I was as zooey as the Barretts were. They didn't want to do anything, not even take a puddle walk or make a tent.

"How about putting on a play?" I suggested.

"No!" said Buddy.

"Making our own comic book?"

"Too hard," Suzi said grumpily. She was scrunched down in a corner of the couch, wearing a sundress, her mother's high heels, and a plastic mixing bowl as a hat.

"Well, what do you want to do?" I asked.

"I don't know. What do you want to do?" replied Buddy.

"Get a big piece of paper and make a mural?"

"Nah," said Buddy.

"Pretend we're spacemen?"

"Nah," said Suzi, peering at me from under the bowl.

We were back where we had started.

I sighed and looked out the window. That was when I noticed that the rain had stopped — actually stopped. The sky was still heavy and gray, the ground was soaking wet, but it wasn't raining.

"Hey! Look at that!" I exclaimed. "The rain stopped. Lef s play outside."

"Yea!" cried Buddy and Suzi.

There was a mad scramble for the back door.

"Whoa! Just a sec," I said. "Buddy, you're dressed to go out — as soon as you put your boots on — but Suzi, you aren't. And neither is Mamie. It's chilly out there today. You can

go on outdoors, Buddy, and we'll be there in a little while."

Suzi immediately began to whine. "I want to go out, Dawn. No fair. Buddy's going out."