Ann Martin - Baby-Sitters Club 056

Stacey, looking huffy, added, "I'm blonde-haired and blue-eyed and you wouldn't catch me dead sitting for the Lowells." "Ditto," said Dawn.

By then, Kristy was grinning. "Perfect. Okay, watch this," she said. I couldn't help smiling a little myself. Kristy was up to something, and I knew it would be good.

Kristy phoned Mrs. Lowell back. "I'm sorry," she told her. "We're all out of blonde-haired, blue-eyed baby-sitters. And everyone else is busy. Oh, except for one of our associate members. His name is Logan." Kristy paused, apparently because she'd been cut off by Mrs. Lowell. Then I heard her repeat, "Boys don't baby-sit? Well, Logan does, but anyway, let me see. You know what, Mrs. Lowell? I might be able to sit after all. That is, if I'm not sitting for Emily Michelle. Did I tell you I have an adopted "sister? She's Vietnamese. . . . What? You don't? . . . Yeah, well, I had a feeling. Later, Mrs. Lowell." Kristy hung up the phone. "We just lost a sitting job," she said.

"Good," I replied. ' "She heard about Logan and Emily and suddenly - like magic - she didn't need a sitter anymore." "What's wrong with Logan?" asked Mary Anne.

"He's a boy," said Kristy. "In Mrs. Lowell's world boys don't baby-sit. And I committed the crime of being a member of a family who adopted a Vietnamese child." Kristy's grin hadn't faded yet. "Hey, Dawn, Stacey, you blonde-haired, blue-eyed people - I bet you guys wouldn't have been good enough for Mrs. Lowell, either." We were all starting to smile by then. "Why not?" asked Stacey.

"Because your parents are . . ." - Kristy dropped her voice to a whisper - ". . . divorced." "Ooh!" I cried. "I'm telling! I'm telling Mrs. Lowell." "You know what?" said Mary Anne. "When you think about it, none of us would be good enough for the Lowells. Claud, you're Japanese. Jessi, you're African-American. Stacey, Dawn, and Kristy, your parents are divorced. I have a stepsister. Oh, and by the way, I made the mistake of mentioning that to the Lowell kids. And Mallory - " "Yeah?" "Your family is just too darn big. Caitlin thinks you're Catholic. You know what else?" Mary Anne went on. "I feel sort of sorry for Mrs. Lowell." "How sorry?" I asked.

Mary Anne held her thumb an eighth of an inch from her finger. "This sorry," she said, gigging.

Later that evening I was sitting in the kitchen with my father. He was making salad dressing. I was chopping vegetables. "Dad?" I said. "Did anybody ever hate you because you're Japanese?" Dad's back had been facing me. Now he turned away from the counter. "Why do you ask that, honey?" "I was just wondering." "Did something happen?" "There's this woman named Mrs. Lowell. She's a baby-sitting client. She doesn't want me to sit for her kids because I'm Asian. That's never happened to me before. I mean, I don't understand. What's wrong with being Japanese?" "Nothing," Dad answered. "And I'm sorry anyone made you feel you had to ask that question." "Did you know," said Janine, who apparently had been listening to our conversation from somewhere nearby, "that during World War Two thousands of Japanese were interned in concentration camps in the United States?" "In the United States?" I repeated, aghast. "There were concentration camps here in America?" My voice had grown shrill. "I thought the only concentration camps were the ones in Europe with those funny names. Treblinka and Dachau and - well, I don't remember any others, but we learned about them in school this year. Our teacher didn't tell us about death camps here, though, for Japanese people." "They weren't death camps," said Janine. "But they were places where American Japanese were made to stay during the war." "Because Japan and the U.S. were fighting on opposite sides?" I asked.

Janine nodded. "So Japanese-Americans weren't trusted, and they were pulled out of their homes, away from their jobs and lives, and made to stay locked up in camps." "But they hadn't done anything wrong," I protested. And then I remembered what Mary Anne had said: Prejudice isn't rational. "How come people like Mrs. Lowell can't look underneath other people's skin? How come what's on the outside matters so much?" I asked.

"I don't know," Dad replied. "But I guess what's really important is that you can look underneath." My father smiled sadly at me.

Chapter 11.

One Saturday, not long after Jackie had suggested putting on a show, we held a band rehearsal and nearly everyone came. All of us BSC members were there, and the kids just kept trickling into the Newtons' yard, clutching their instruments.

The Papadakis kids arrived with Karen, Andrew, and David Michael. Most of the kids from the neighborhood had shown up, as well as the younger brothers and sisters of the BSC members. I was standing in a noisy, happy crowd.

"Should we start the rehearsal now?" I asked Kristy.

"Let's wait a few more minutes," she answered. "If we do, maybe everybody will show up." So we waited. Karen and her friends Nancy Dawes and Hannie Papadakis made up a dance to the "Little Girls" song. Then they surrounded Nicky Pike, hands on hips, singing, "Little girls! Little girls!" Nicky broke out of their circle and ran to David Michael. "Save me!" he cried.

The drum players - and there were quite a few of them - grouped together near the swing set, beating away happily.

Marilyn and Shea sat at the keyboard and played a duet.

"Claudia?" said Jackie, tapping my arm. "Can I make an announcement?" "We're waiting for a few more kids to arrive," I told him.

"But I can't wait." "He might as well go ahead," Dawn whispered to me. "I think the only kids who aren't here now are the Lowells." I nodded. "Okay, Jackie. What's your announcement?" "Shea, help me," said Jackie. "Help me get their attention." Shea crashed out a chord on the keyboard. The kids gathered around him.

Jackie stood on an overturned plastic crate. "Everybody!" he said loudly. "I have an idea." "Another one?" asked Vanessa Pike.

"Yup. It's about our show. I think we should play the songs from Fiddler on the Roof, not Annie." "What's Fiddler on the Roof?" asked Becca Ramsey.

"I know!" cried Linny Papadakis. "We saw that show in Stamford." It turned out that a lot of kids had. And many of them owned the music and were familiar with the songs. Still, not every kid knew what Jackie was talking about, so I said to him, "Tell them the story of Fiddler on the Roof." "Okay," answered Jackie, pleased to have been trusted with that task. "See, there's this family with all these girls - " "More girls?" protested Nicky.

" - living in Russia a long time ago," Jackie continued. "And their father wants them to get married, only he wants this lady called a matchmaker to choose husbands for them. But the daughters fall in love with other men. Also, a war is coming, and the family is in trouble because they're Jewish . . ." Jackie trailed off and glanced over his shoulder at me. "I'm not sure why that got them in trouble. I mean, why the soldiers didn't like them. Well, anyway." Jackie turned back to the kids. "And the soldiers want to make the family - and all the Jewish people in town - leave the place where they've been living. It's called Anatevka. And they have to pack up their stuff and find another home and it's very sad. But the songs are good and Shea knows how to play some of them and I think our program should be called Fiddler on the Roof instead of Annie," Jackie finished up.

The kids who had seen Fiddler on the Roof, which was more than half of them, agreed. Our entire program had changed.

"Shea? What song do you and Jackie want to teach the kids first?" I asked.

Shea considered this. "How about 'Tradition'? I like that one. It has a good beat. And we know most of the words." "Okay. Let's start." Soon after we began, the Lowell kids showed up. Mrs. Lowell was with them.

"Tradishu-u-u-u-un! Tradition!" the singers were belting out.