Ann Martin - Baby-Sitters Club 090

"We're up to the fortune part," Bill explained. "We're going to write fortunes on pieces of paper and stick the fortunes into the bottles, see? Fifty cents a fortune." "And a prize," Melody added.

"A prize with every fortune? Not bad," said Kristy.

"No! If your fortune says prize, then you get a prize. We're going to the store this afternoon to buy prizes." "We're building the booth, too," said Bill. He fixed Kristy with a Look. "Only Mom and Dad said we couldn't do any sawing and hammering and nailing without them around, or someone grown-up. Are you grown-up enough?" "I think so," answered Kristy solemnly.

"But let's write some fortunes first. Then a little later we can go outside and work on the booth." She settled Skylar with a crayon and her extra-big coloring book and then sat cross-legged next to her to help Bill and Melody.

Kristy took a ruler and drew lines across plain pieces of paper. Then the three of them settled down to write fortunes on each line. They were writing the fortunes with gold and silver glitter pens.

"What about, 'You will get lots of presents for Hanukkah/ " suggested Melody.

"But what if you don't have Hanukkah," Bill pointed out. "What if you celebrate Kwan-zaa or Christmas instead?" Melody frowned. Then she said, "Okay. 'You will get lots of presents near the end of the year.' " "That works," agreed Kristy. "Here's one: 'You will find the missing sock soon.' " She cracked up over that. Bill and Melody looked at her and frowned.

"Why is that funny?" asked Melody.

"Because everybody has socks that are missing. Drawers full of single socks that don't match. And they save them because they hope they'll find the other socks soon." "I don't," said Bill.

"I like it when my socks don't match," added Melody.

Kristy looked at Melody's feet and realized it was true. One of Melody's ankles was encased in a lime-green sock and the other in a lavender sock.

"Well, it's funny anyway," said Kristy.

They came up with a bunch of fortunes after that. Bill created: "One night soon, you will stay up very, very late" and "Your favorite team will win its next game." ("I hope it's the Krushers," said Kristy.) Melody's favorite was, "You will discover a new flavor of ice cream." Just as they were running out of fortune-telling steam, the doorbell rang.

'Til get it," said Bill. He jumped up. A minute later, he returned with Druscilla following him. He looked a little surprised.

"It's Druscilla," he announced.

Druscilla lives next door to Kristy (between Kristy and me) with her grandmother, Mrs. Porter. It's just a temporary thing, while her parents sort out some problems. They're in the process of separating and selling their old house. (Have you ever noticed how when parents get "separated" the kids somehow get "separated" too? I mean, Druscilla's parents took her to her grandmother's so that she could continue going to her old school and not have her entire life disrupted by her parents' problems. But it makes her feel pretty unsettled all the same.) Plus, her grandmother, who is a perfectly nice person, is not your usual warm and fuzzy grandma. Her house is a big old Victorian number that looks as if it's haunted. She even has a black cat that hangs out in the windows, giving everybody the mean cat eye. So it's no wonder that Karen Brewer is more than half-convinced that Mrs. Porter is really a witch named Morbidda Destiny - and for awhile was convinced that Druscilla was a witch, too.

All of this flashed through Kristy's mind as Druscilla walked into the room. So Kristy was pleased to see her. As loving and kind as her grandmother might be, Druscilla needed to hang out with some kids her own age, play with them, bury her troubles in kid stuff.

"Dru!" Kristy said. "Come in. We're working on a booth for the carnival." Dru looked interested. "You're going to be in the carnival? What are you doing?" Melody and Bill were a little formal at first with Druscilla. Maybe they were thinking about Karen's tales about Morbidda Destiny. And of course, they didn't know Druscilla all that well. But as they warmed to the subject of the carnival and their brilliant fortune-telling idea, their reserve began to melt away.

From there it was a short step to reading her their favorite fortunes. Druscilla laughed at all of them, and made faces at the gross joke fortunes that Bill had been making up. ("If your goldfish is missing, avoid sushi for dinner.") "Try writing some yourself," suggested Bill. "We still need thousands and thousands of fortunes." Okay, so Bill was exaggerating a little. But it was all the encouragement that Druscilla needed.

Looking far less self-conscious than when she'd first entered the family room, Dru sat down and picked up a lined sheet of paper. She thought for awhile, then began to write.

"Read some," said Melody.

"Okay." Druscilla held up her sheet of paper. "Beware the cold, cold snows of winter!" "Oooh! That's a good one," said Melody.

"Are you going to have a booth?" asked Bill.

Dru shook her head. "No," she said softly.

"Why not?" demanded Melody.

"My grandmother can't do it and my parents are . . . busy," Druscilla replied.

Melody frowned.

"Here's the last batch!" said Bill, who had gone into the kitchen to check on the final load of soda bottles he'd put in the dishwasher earlier. He carefully set down an armload of clean bottles.

"Wow! You have lots and lots of bottles/' said Druscilla.

"Maybe we have enough," Bill answered. "Maybe not. We've been saving all our soda bottles for days and days. I've been collecting them after school, too." Druscilla said, "I can ask my grandmother if you could have ours out of the recycling bin." She added, "We always wash them before we put them in, so they'd be clean." Bill looked pleased. "That'd be great!" Druscilla ducked her head with pleasure and looked down at the page of fortunes she was holding. "I know! Let's decorate these before we cut them up and put them in the bottles," she suggested.

"I have colored pencils in my room," said Melody. "That'll look good with the glitter writing." Soon the fortunes were in fancy dress, decorated with flowers and hearts and animals and bows and geometric designs and even drawings of footballs and baseballs and spaceships. When Bill and Melody and Druscilla were satisfied that the fortunes were as beautiful (and fortunate-looking) as they could make them, they cut the paper into strips. Then they rolled up the strips and began to stick them carefully into the necks of the bottles lining the room.

"We are going to have a super fortune-telling booth," said Melody, with a sigh of satisfaction. "I am going to wear a fortune-telling outfit. I'll tie a scarf around my head and another around my waist and my mother is going to make me a skirt out of one of her old fancy skirts." "Wear lots of bracelets," said Druscilla. "And big earrings." "Yes," agreed Melody. Suddenly she picked up a scrap of paper and wrote something on it. Then she rolled it up and pushed it into the neck of a bottle and handed it to Druscilla. "Here's a fortune for you," she told Druscilla. "For practice." "For me?" Druscilla took the bottle and carefully removed the curl of paper. She unrolled it and began to smile a huge smile.

"Read it aloud," Kristy urged her. "What's your fortune, Druscilla?" " 'You will help in a fortune-telling booth in the carnival,' " Druscilla read aloud. She looked at Melody. "Can I?" "If your grandmother will let you," said Melody.

"She will!" said Druscilla happily.

Kristy was pleased. Druscilla needed to be included - in the neighborhood and in the carnival.

And it looked as if it were happening.

Chapter 7.

In New York City and Los Angeles and places that have really big pollution problems from all the cars and the industries that dump their junk into the air and the water, some people wear these little white masks over their faces when they go outside to jog or bike or whatever on days when the pollution is really bad.