Ann Martin - Claudia And The Genius On Elm St.

"Uh ... I don't know," Jessi said. "How about one of the Across words that shares a square with it?"

"Fifteen Across," Rosie replied. " 'Ansel Blank, American photographer.' Five letters."

Jessi shook her head. "Let's try another."

"I thought you said you had a good vocabulary," Rosie remarked. "How about Twenty-three Across. 'Jurassic giant.' Eleven letters beginning with A, P."

Huh?

By then Jessi's alarm signal was going off. She felt completely useless, but an emergency plan popped into her head. "You know Janine Kishi, right?" she said. "She's much better at this than I am. I'll call her."

"Wait — " Rosie started to protest. But Jessi ran to the downstairs phone and called our house.

Janine answered right away. "Kishi residence."

"Hi, Janine, it's Jessi Ramsey."

"Hi, Jessi. Claudia's at the Johanssens'. Do you have their number?"

"Yeah, but I wanted to talk to you. Urn, Claudia told me you once helped Rosie Wilder with her homework ..."

"I made what I considered a valiant attempt," Janine said.

"Well, I'm sitting for her right now, and ... I know you must be really busy, but I was wondering if you could come over for a few minutes. She needs help doing crossword puzzles. It's for a school contest."

Janine laughed. "I guess I'm becoming Ros-ie's official tutor."

"I'm sorry, Janine," Jessi said quickly. "I didn't mean to — "

"No, no, it's okay," Janine said. "I can take a break. I'll be right over."

"Thanks!"

"You're welcome. 'Bye."

When Jessi went back upstairs, Rosie didn't even look up from her book. "Janine's on her way," Jessi said.

"Uh-huh," mumbled Rosie.

"Do you want me to try helping you on some other clues?" asked Jessi.

"Nope."

"Okay, then I'll go downstairs and do some homework. Call me if you need me."

"Uh-huh."

Jessi had barely settled herself on the couch in the den when Janine rang the doorbell. "Boy, am I glad to see you," Jessi said.

"You ought to make me an honorary member of the Baby-sitters Club," Janine replied with a smile. "Where's Rosie?"

"At the top of the stairs," said Jessi. "In her room."

Janine went up to Rosie's room. Jessi returned to the den and breathed a sigh of relief.

But not for long. The walls in the Wilder house must be pretty thin, because Jessi could hear just about every word spoken upstairs.

Janine began the conversation with a friendly "Hi."

Rosie's reply was, "What's a two-letter word for a three-toed sloth?"

Janine paused a moment, then said, "Ai. A,I."

Jessi nearly dropped her notebook. She couldn't believe Janine actually knew that.

"A,I?" Rosie replied. "Are you sure?"

"Pretty sure."

"How did you know?"

"It's a word people use a lot in Scrabble," Janine answered. (I have to admit, I should have known it, too, because I'm the one Janine beats in Scrabble with words like ail)

Janine also knew that a Jurassic giant was

an apatosaurus, and the photographer was Ansel Adams, and a bunch of other hard answers.

Well, you'd think Rosie would be happy to get such expert help, right?

Wrong.

Rosie kept giving Janine clues, pausing sometimes to answer them herself. Whenever Janine didn't know the answer, Rosie would exhale loudly as if Janine were really stupid. At one point Rosie remarked, "You're in high school?" because Janine didn't know a three-letter word for "Southwest Asian musical instrument of the lute family."

"Yes, I am," Janine snapped. She must have been really upset, because Janine never acts that way.

The next thing Jessi knew, Janine was poking her head in the den. "See you, Jessi," she said.

"Is everything all right?" Jessi asked.

"Mm-hm. Rosie doesn't need me anymore, that's all. 'Bye."

" 'Bye."

As Janine walked to the front door, Rosie came downstairs and headed for the refrigerator. She pulled out a carton of orange juice and poured herself a glass.

"Time to get ready for your voice lesson?" Jessi asked.

Rosie gulped down the juice, set her glass on the kitchen table, and said, "From now on, I only want Claudia to sit for me!"

That took Jessi by surprise. "Okay," she said calmly. "I'll bring it up at our next meeting. Maybe we can work it out."

"Good."

"Can I ask why?"

That's when Jessi noticed the tears in Rosie's eyes. "Because I like her the best!" she cried out.

Then she stomped up the stairs and into her room and slammed the door behind her.

Chapter 9.

"Yuck. These markers come off on your hands!" Dawn said.

Kristy ran her index finger along a piece of paper that said PRIVATE INVI TION in red marker. (The "TA" in INVITATION had already been wiped off.) "It isn't the markers," she announced. "It's the glossy paper. We should return it to the store and get the regular kind."

"You mean like oak tag?" Stacey asked. "That's so dull-looking. These invitations have to look chic!"

"There's nothing chic about a piece of shiny paper full of smudges," Kristy said.

Jessi lifted up the paper and turned it around. "Hey, the back has a dull finish."

"I still think it would make more sense just to write up something simple and make photocopies of it," Mary Anne suggested.

"Not after we bought all these markers," Stacey said.

"Besides, this is a special event!" exclaimed Mal.

It was Saturday, a nonmeeting day, but the entire BSC had gathered in my room. As you probably guessed, we were going to send out invitations to the "Junk Food Fantasy" opening at the Claudia Kishi Gallery.

Well, maybe I shouldn't say we. Since I was the featured artist, I got to paint. The others had to worry about the invitations.

I was deeply involved in a new Gummi series. I'd finished Gummi Bears and was now working on Gummi Worms. I was concentrating really hard, so I only picked up pieces of the conversation around me.

"Let's make a rough draft," Mal said, taking out a piece of looseleaf paper. "Okay, what information do we want on the invitation?"

"The date and time, the name of the exhibit, the name of the gallery," Kristy said.

Mal began to write.

"We can say, 'Come one, come all —' " Kristy began.

Stacey interrupted her. "No, that sounds like the circus. For an art exhibit you have to say something more sophisticated."

"Something sophisticated about junk food?"

Dawn said. "It should be fun, like the paintings."

"Okay, what?" Kristy asked.

Silence.

"Maybe we should put a miniature version of one of the paintings on each invitation/' Jessi said.

"Oh, no!" I piped up. "1 have enough work to do."

"Oooh, I know!" Dawn blurted out. "We could take actual candy wrappers and, like, glue them to the invitations."

Kristy shook her head. "Not practical. They'd get crushed in the mail, and it would look like we put trash in the envelopes by mistake. And what if there were still little bits of chocolate inside the wrappers — "

"Let's just say something simple," Mary Anne suggested. " 'You are invited to the opening of Junk Food Fantasy, a series of paintings by Claudia Kishi, in the Kishi garage,' and so on."

"Did you write that down, Mal?" Jessi asked.

"Wait," Mal said, scribbling furiously. '" . . . a series of . . .' what?"

Well, now you know the secret of the Babysitters Club. We may be excellent baby-sitters, but that doesn't mean we're good at everything. Like making invitations.

After about an hour, my friends had finally sketched a decent-looking invitation. It didn't include any cute pictures of junk food, or even a title (we thought it would be fun to surprise people with the subject when they arrived) — just a simple message in elegant handwriting. We decided to make copies on card stock (thick paper).

Then we had to decide who to send them to.