Ann Martin - Baby-Sitters Club 056

Kristy shrugged. "Who knows? She might." "Or what if the kids show up at a band rehearsal one day? That could happen, too," I said.

"Well, I think we need to teach the Lowells a lesson," Mal spoke up.

"How?" asked Dawn.

"I'm not sure. But I want to get back at them for the way they treated Claudia and Jessi. That was rude and mean and . . . and, well, dumb." "How are we going to teach Mrs. Lowell a lesson?" asked Kristy. "We're just a bunch of kids." "The next time she calls we should tell her we're not going to sit for her family anymore because we don't like bigots," I said hotly.

"Claudia. You know darn well we cannot say that," Kristy replied.

"Okay, we'll say we don't sit for blonde-haired, blue-eyed people." "Claudia! Geez!" cried Dawn. "Stace and I are blonde-haired, blue-eyed people. Besides, if we say anything like that then we're no better than the Lowells. That's bigoted, too." "Isn't there a term for that?" said Stacey. "Reverse something-or-other?" "Oh, who cares," I said.

"You know, we really ought to teach Caitlin and Mackie and Celeste a lesson," said Mal. "But not a mean one; just that most people are nice. If we don't do that and they grow up prejudiced, it'll be our fault." "No, it won't," interrupted Jessi. "It'll be their parents' fault. It's already their parents' fault." Ring, ring.

I dove for the phone. A split second before I picked it up, I remembered not to sound angry. I drew in a deep breath. "Hello, Babysitters Club." "Hi . . . Claudee?" "Hi, Jamie!" I said brightly. (Not too many people call me Claudee.) "Hi-hi. Um, Mommy said I could telephone you. I was worrying about something. What if it rains tomorrow?" I opened my eyes wide. Then I covered the mouthpiece of the phone and said to my friends, "Oh, my lord! What if it rains tomorrow? We never thought about that. The electric keyboard can't be on the porch if it rains. The rain always blows in. This is a disaster!" "Claud," said Kristy calmly, "it isn't a disaster yet. It isn't raining. And the weatherman is predicting sunshine for tomorrow." "Well, what does he know?" "If it rains, we'll figure something out. We'll set up the band in the garage so the kids won't get wet." "But the audience can't fit in the garage, too." Then we'll cancel," hissed Kristy. She waved wildly at the phone. "Talk to Jamie before he hangs up." "Jamie?" I said sweetly. "Don't worry about it. See you tomorrow." I hung up the phone.

"The Lowells - " Jessi began to say.

Ring, ring.

"I'll get it this time," said Kristy, eyeing me. "Hello, Baby-sitters Club." Pause. "Karen? What's the matter? . . . Your kazoo? Well, did you look euerj/where in your room? . . . Okay, how about the car? . . . Are you sure you had it when you left rehearsal this afternoon? . . . What? You blasted it in Andrew's ear on the way home?" Kristy tried not to giggle. "Well, maybe Andrew has it. Maybe he doesn't want to be blasted at anymore. . . . Okay, put Andrew on. ... Hi, Andrew. Listen, you don't know where Karen's kazoo is, do you? You know, she needs it for the concert. And if she can't find hers, then I'll lend her Sam's. . . . You just remembered where it is? Okay, why don't you go find it, and give the phone back to Karen." Kristy paused again and made a face. For a moment she held the phone away from her ear. Then she said, "Karen, what on earth is going on? . . . No, let Andrew get the kazoo himself. You don't have to see his hiding place." Kristy stayed on the phone for over five minutes, straightening out the problems between Andrew and Karen. By the time she hung up, Andrew had produced the missing kazoo and Karen had apologized for nearly deafening him earlier. Kristy was laughing, but she quickly became sober. "Okay. The Lowells," she said to us. "We haven't made a decision yet." "I have an idea," said Jessi. "I think if Mrs. Lowell calls the BSC again we should just tell her that no one can take the job. If that happens a few times, she'll stop calling." "I guess," I replied with a sigh. "But then nobody has learned anything, except us. And we didn't need the lessons we learned." "Maybe teaching the Lowells a lesson isn't our job," said Dawn.

"You know we can do one thing," said Jessi.

"What?" (The rest of us practically pounced on her.) "We can be good examples for the kids we sit for. For all of them, whether they have prejudiced ideas or not." "Yeah!" exclaimed Stacey. Then she added more seriously. "But we don't want to impose our ideas on them." "No," agreed Jessi. "We can just show them how to be good neighbors." Everyone was silent for a few moments. Then I said, "You know what? This may be hard to believe, but I can't hate the Lowells. I feel as though I ought to hate them, but I just can't." "My parents," spoke up Mal, "say it's okay to hate some of the things people do, but it's not okay to hate the people who do them." "Like Karen hating the fact that Andrew hid her kazoo, but not hating Andrew," said Kristy.

I frowned. "You guys? This is too much like school. Let's have a junk-food fest or something." Mary Anne looked at her watch. "Too late. It's almost six. We don't have time. Anyway, let's be good girls and not spoil our appetites for dinner." "But we're having liver," I objected.

"Then by all means scarf up a candy bar before you go downstairs," said Mallory. "Liver. Ew. Why not just serve up monkey or something?" "Monkey!" exclaimed Kristy. "Hey - " "Oh, please don't start," wailed Mary Anne. "Mal, why did you mention disgusting food? That's Kristy's favorite subject." Kristy ignored her. "Six o'clock," she announced. "Meeting adjourned." "Wait!" I cried. "Don't leave yet. The concert starts at two. Meet here at one o'clock tomorrow. Wear jeans and red shirts like the kids. Who's bringing those baskets for donations?" "I am," said Mallory. "I found three." "And who's bringing chairs?" (We had decided to provide a few folding chairs for older people in the audience. Everyone else would have to sit on the ground, like at any outdoor concert.) "Me!" said Mary Anne, Dawn, Jessi, and Stacey.

Kristy looked at me. "Is that it, Claud?" "I think so." "Okay. See you guys tomorrow." "And keep your fingers crossed for sunshine!" I added.

Chapter 15.

I had nightmares about rain and thunderstorms. In one, All the Children were performing in Jamie's yard on a sunny, perfect day. Then, without warning, a storm blew in. It blew in so quickly that the children and the audience couldn't even run for cover before a bolt of lightning sliced down through the porch roof and struck the keyboard. The keyboard lit up like a neon sign, then crumbled into a little pile of ashes. Shea and Marilyn stood over it, their hands still poised to play, their mouths forming round O's of surprise. In the dream, I screamed. (I hope I didn't really scream. That would be too, too embarrassing.) And then the storm blew away, and the concert began again, and Shea and Marilyn played air guitar instead of the keyboard. The audience thought the lightning had been a special effect, and they applauded loudly at the end of the concert and donated enough money for all the red T-shirts we needed.

Maybe that wasn't a nightmare after all.

At any rate, I was relieved to wake up on Saturday and see that the sun was shining. (Frankly, I was relieved just to wake up.) The sky was a deep, clear blue, without so much as a hint of a cloud. Still, I jumped out of bed, ran to my phone, and dialed W-E-A-T-H-E-R. "Good morning," said a tinny female voice. "Thank you for calling Weather. Here are today's readings and forecasts. Highs in the low seventies, lows tonight in the high fifties. The current temperature is a pleasant sixty-two degrees." "Is it going to RAIN?" I shouted.

"Stay tuned for the remainder of the forecast following - " I held the phone in front of me and said, "'What is this? The Telephone Company Variety Show?" I listened for another minute and the weath-erwoman assured me that the day would be "brilliantly sunny." "Thank you," I said to her, and hung up.