Ann Martin - Baby-Sitters Club 059

"She doesn't play it right," Andrew whined. "She's too little to play this game." "That's okay. She likes it anyway. Give it back to her," said Kristy.

Andrew sat down in a huff. "I'm going to show her how to play it right." This involved setting up the pieces and scolding Emily every time she grabbed for one of them. "No, Emily, you're doing it wrong!" he'd shout.

"Just give it back to her. Please," said Kristy.

"No! I'm showing her," Andrew insisted angrily.

Kristy slid the game away from him and back in front of Emily. "She doesn't want to be shown," Kristy told him. "She was happy playing the game her own way." Andrew stood up and stomped out of the room. "Her own way is stupid!" "Emily is little/' Kristy caUed after him. "She doesn't know how to - " Again, Kristy was cut off. Her attention was diverted back to David Michael who had taken a tape player off a shelf and begun playing it at top volume. "Turn that down!" Kristy yelled over the noise.

"I want to drown out the Care Bears," he said. "I can't stand the way those characters talk." "Turn it down or take it to your room," Kristy told him.

"No," said David Michael. "I have as much right to be here as anyone else." Kristy turned it down for him.

David Michael turned it back up.

Kristy turned it down.

David Michael wrenched the box away and turned it to full volume.

Kristy pulled it back and took out the batteries. "Give me those!" David Michael shouted, grabbing at the batteries Kristy held.

Finally, Kristy took the batteries and threw them out the window into the yard.

The rest of the evening was no better. Andrew and David Michael were like a terror tag team. While one gave Kristy trouble, the other thought up new ways to make more trouble.

By the time the adults got home all the kids were asleep - including Kristy who had conked out on the couch. She said she couldn't remember ever being so tired or frazzled in her life.

Kristy told us this story at our Monday afternoon meeting. I sat on Claudia's rug, listening, glad to hear about somebody else's troubles. It stopped me from thinking about my own. And I sure had enough of them to think about.

That afternoon I'd finished washing the pinnies at about four-thirty. I was in such a hurry to get home for the BSC meeting that I almost forgot to check the mailbox to make sure it didn't hold a detention notice.

I was halfway up the stairs when I turned back for the mail. My heart almost stopped. There was no mail. The box was empty.

Maybe there was just no mail today, I told myself hopefully. And even if there had been mail, there might not have been a detention notice.

By five o'clock, I had almost convinced myself there was nothing to worry about. I'd changed my clothes and was running a brush through my hair when my mother walked into my room. One look at her face told me that the worst had happened. The detention notice had arrived.

Mom sat on my bed. "Mallory, what's this all about?" she asked, spreading the letter out on my quilt. "It says this is the third time you've been to detention." "Today makes four," I admitted dismally. "You'll be getting that notice in the mail in a few days." "What is going on?" she asked.

I sighed and plopped down on the bed. It was time to tell her the story. "And so," I said as I finished up, "it's like I'm under attack. Ms. Walden yells at me, the kids on the other team try to cream me with the ball just so they can win. It's horrible. And today Ms. Walden made me wash all the stupid pinnies . . . and some boys stopped to watch and were making fun of me and ..." My voice cracked, and the next thing I knew I was crying.

Mom put her arm around me, which only made me cry harder, but it felt good. I hadn't wanted to admit, even to myself, how much these last two weeks had upset me. It seemed easier to act tough. But I was surprised at how good it felt to tell her; how good it felt to cry.

"This really is a problem, isn't it?" Mom said seriously. I brushed away my tears and checked to see if she was kidding me. She wasn't.

Mom and I sat on the bed together, thinking. "Maybe you could try talking to Ms. Walden," Mom suggested. "Ask her if one of the other kids could give you some pointers." "She'd probably assign Helen Gallway," I said with a groan.

"You don't have to love Helen Gallway," Mom said. "Just let her give you some help. And maybe she could ask the other team to give you a break." "She wouldn't do that. Anyway, it's mostly Chris Brooks who's the problem/' I said.

"Could you talk to him?" Mom asked.

"I don't know him, really. I suppose I could try." "Give it a shot," said Mom. "Then come back and tell me how it goes. If it doesn't work, we'll think of something else." "Thanks, Mom," I said as she stood up.

"Sometimes we have to do things we don't like, Mal," she said. "Unfortunately, it's just part of life. Usually it's better not to run away from those things - although there are times when we'd like to." "What things would you like to run away from?" I asked.

My mother smiled grimly. "Right now, I'd like to run away from making dinner, but it has to be done." She picked the paper off the bed. "And I don't want to see any more of these. Understand?" "I understand," I said.

So, by the time I reached the BSC meeting I'd had an exhausting day. I was glad to sit back and listen to everyone else talk.

"I've been thinking about this boy thing a lot/' said Claudia. "What could be causing it?" "It's just a coincidence," Stacey said confidently. "It's like cards. You have a run of bad luck, then you have a run of good luck. It's mathematical, in a way." "Leave it to our resident math whiz to see the problem in terms of math." Dawn laughed.

"But it is a math problem," Stacey insisted. "It has to do with odds and statistics." "Statistics?" Jessi repeated.

"Yeah. Mr. Zizmore was talking about it today in class. Statistics can't always be trusted. Say, for example, a scientist surveys only people who support his theory and excludes people who don't support it. Then he could say one hundred percent of all people interviewed think this, but really he's only included in the survey the people who think a certain way to begin with." "I get it. I think," said Claudia. "But what does that have to do with boys?" "It means that we've come up with a theory that boys are a problem, but we're only looking at the cases in which they are a problem. I mean, look at the good time Mallory had sitting for the Hobart boys. And the other day. I sat for the Kormans. Bill was fine. And Dawn, you sat for Norman Hill. He was okay, right?" "Yeah, he was," Dawn admitted.

"See? They don't fit into our theory, so we're not talking about them. We're skewing the statistics, as Mr. Zizmore would say," Stacey concluded.

"That does make a lot of sense," said Kristy.

Maybe, I thought. Stacey made it sound very convincing. But I wasn't convinced. I liked my theory better. Boys from Stoneybrook had had their minds warped by gym class and were the weirdest creatures on earth. Now that was a theory which made sense to me.

After the meeting, Jessi asked me how the pinny-washing had gone. I told her the whole story, including the part about my mother finding the detention notice. "Wow," she said. "You're having some bad day." "I was glad to talk to Mom, though," I told her. "She had some good ideas. But I don't know if they'll work." "Ben was looking for you after school," Jessi said. "He wanted to hear how gym went." "Did you tell him?" "No. I figured you'd want to tell him yourself." I looked across the street at Ben's house. "I'm going to go see if he's at home," I said to Jessi. "See you tomorrow." Jessi waved good-bye as I crossed the street.

Ben answered the Hobarts' door. "Hi," he said, letting me in. "How did it go today?" "Not so good," I replied, and told my story again.