Ann Martin - Claudia And The New Girl

So Kristy and Mary Anne short-sheeted my bed. Was I ever mad that night when I discovered what they'd done! I was dead tired because I'd stayed up late trying to catch up on my homework and read The Twenty-One Balloons (another Newbery book). By the time I was ready to go to bed, I was so sleepy I could barely turn my comforter back. When I did, and I slid between the sheets, my legs only went halfway down. I kicked around. I couldn't imagine what was wrong. Finally I lifted up my comforter and looked. I couldn't believe it! Pinned to the sheet was a note that read: Ha, ha! Sleep tight!

It wasn't the only note I found. That was because while Kristy and Mary Anne had been working on my bed that afternoon, Stacey had said, "Hey, Dawn, let's hide some notes for Claudia to find."

"Notes? What kind of notes?"

"Mean ones."

Stacey ripped a sheet of paper out of the club notebook. Then she stopped to think, tapping a pencil against her mouth. Finally she wrote: Roses are red, violets are blue, traitors are jerks, and so are you.

"Now what?" asked Dawn.

"I think I'll put it under her pillow."

Dawn grinned. Then she tore a piece of paper out of the book and wrote down the rhyme she'd made up earlier. I found that note in my jewelry box.

It was Kristy's idea to hide a blank piece of paper under Lennie, my rag doll.

"What for?" asked Stacey.

"To drive her crazy. She'll wonder if we used invisible ink, or maybe wrote something so mean we had to erase it."

Stacey began giggling. But she had to get herself under control when the phone rang. A new client was calling. Stacey took down the information we needed and got the man squared away with a sitter for his twin girls. Then she said, very seriously, "You guys, why do you think Ashley Wyeth wants Claudia to be her friend so badly?",

"What do you mean?" asked Mary Anne,

after a pause. "She just wants a friend, doesn't she? She's new here. She doesn't know anyone."

"I guess what I mean is, why only Claudia? Doesn't it seem that she wants just one friend and that friend is Claudia?"

"Yeah," said Dawn slowly. "I see what you mean, Stace. When I first moved here, I wanted friends — in general. It was great when you and I got to know each other, Mary Anne, but it wasn't like I wanted just one friend and once I had you I was happy. I was really glad when you introduced me to the rest of the club. I had a bunch of friends in California, and when we moved, I hoped I'd have a bunch in Connecticut, too."

"Exactly," said Stacey. "I felt the same way when I moved from New York. I met Claud first and we're still best friends ... I think. But I was really happy to meet all of you, too. Plus Pete and Howie and Dori and everyone we ate lunch with last year. But Ashley doesn't seem to want any friends except Claud."

"Yeah, she hardly ever speaks to us," added Dawn.

"She doesn't pay much attention to anyone but Claudia. She doesn't talk to other kids, either. If she didn't eat lunch with Claudia," said Stacey, "I'm sure she'd eat alone."

"Ashley's in "my gym class," spoke up Mary Anne. "She's always alone. You know, I think all Ashley really cares about is art, and she's found a good artist in Claudia. Maybe Claudia is sort of a project for Ashley." Mary Anne paused, putting her hands in her lap and staring down at them. "Oh, I'm not explaining myself very well."

"You're explaining yourself fine," said Sta-cey. "What you just said is that Ashley likes Claud because she's an artist, not because she's Claud. And if that's true, I'm beginning to wonder just how good a friend Ashley Wyeth is."

Chapter 11.

"W hoops," said Jackie Rodowsky.

You know how I'd be absolutely lost without the word "what"? Well, Jackie would be absolutely lost without "whoops," "oops," and "uh-oh."

I hadn't really been doing much baby-sitting lately. Since I kept missing meetings, I wasn't signed up for many jobs. But I'd been signed up for this afternoon with the Rodowsky boys for quite some time, and to tell you the truth, I'd really been looking forward to it. Jackie might be accident-prone, but whenever his mother comes home and finds something broken or a spill on the carpet or a Band-Aid on Jackie's finger, she never minds. Well, of course she's concerned if Jackie hurts himself, but she never gives me, as the baby-sitter, any grief. I guess she's used to such things.

Besides, there's something about Jackie's freckles and his shock of red hair and his great

big grin with one tooth missing that always makes me want to grin, too. Even if Jackie's holding out a toy he's broken or is coming to tell me he's just accidentally poured glue over the telephone.

So I had looked forward to sitting for the Rodowskys that day. Nevertheless, I glanced up warily at the sound of Jackie's "whoops" that afternoon. I knew it meant trouble of some sort. I was in the kitchen rinsing off dishes from the boys' afternoon snack. As I shut off the water, I heard the vacuum cleaner being turned off.

"Jackie?" I called. "Archie? Shea?"

"Um, we're in the dining room," said Shea as the vacuum cleaner whined into silence. Shea sounded as if he were admitting to the Great Train Robbery.

I dashed into the dining room. There I found Jackie peering into the hose of the vacuum cleaner as Shea and Archie looked on guiltily. All three boys were barefoot. Their shoes were lined up under the dining room table.

"What is going on?" I asked, trying not to sound too exasperated.

"We tried a speriment," said Jackie. "And guess what? You can vacuum up socks."

"Socks?!" I exclaimed. "Did you vacuum up all of your socks?"

"Six of 'em/' said Archie. "Three pairs, six socks."

I groaned.

"We didn't mean to, exactly," spoke up Shea. "They were in a pile. We thought maybe the vacuum would just get one, but they all went. Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh," he said, demonstrating with his hands.

"Shea, really. You're the oldest," I said, knowing that didn't mean a thing. (Why should it?)

"It was Jackie's idea," he countered.

"Well, what did you plan to do about your sock if it was vacuumed up?" I asked Jackie.

"See what happened to it," he replied simply.

This wasn't getting us anywhere. "All right," I said, sighing. "The next thing to do is find the socks."

"Goody!" cried Jackie, jumping up and down. "I wonder what they'll look like."

"Maybe the Vacuum Monsvter attacked them. Maybe they'll be all chewed up," suggested Archie.

I was just dying to ask Archie what he thought the Vacuum Monster was, but I didn't want to start anything. Instead, I lifted the

cover of the vacuum, pulled out the dusty bag at the back, and headed into the kitchen with it. The boys trailed behind me.

"What are you going to do?" asked Jackie.

"Cut it open and see what's inside," I replied.

"Awesome," said Shea.

I took a look. Nothing but a cloud of dust.

"Ew, gross," said Jackie, and sneezed.

I threw the bag away and returned to the vacuum cleaner. I noticed that the boys hadn't put an attachment on the end of the hose. Gingerly I reached into the hose as far as possible, which really wasn't very far, and withdrew my hand, a sock between my fingers. The sock was rumpled but otherwise fine.

The Rodowskys looked on in surprise.

"I wonder why the Vacuum Monster didn't want it," said Archie.

"Some experiment," commented Shea.

It took more than fifteen minutes, but after poking, prodding, and digging around with a pair of toast tongs, I managed to remove all the socks from the hose.

"Will you guys promise me something?" I said as they put their socks and shoes back on.

"What?" asked Jackie.

"That you won't use the vacuum again without asking me first."

"Promise," they replied.