Ann Martin - Baby-Sitters Club 032

"Hey, look!" cried Dawn.

Mary Anne and I turned in the direction Dawn was looking. There were Mallory and Ben walking through the hall together, their hands touching lightly.

"Notice anything?" said Dawn.

"Yeah," I replied. "1 think Mal's in love." "Not that," said Dawn. "What I mean is - no one's paying a bit of attention to Ben." "Oh," I replied. Hmm. Either the older kids didn't care that Ben was Australian - or the Hobarts were beginning to be accepted.

Chapter 11.

"Bye, Mrs. Felder. Have fun!" I called, as Susan's mother left through the garage door. To be perfectly honest, Mrs. Felder looked as if she were escaping. She was on her way to the beauty parlor to have her hair col - I mean, cut (that was exactly what Mrs. Felder had said!), and to get a manicure and a pedicure. She said that an afternoon at the beauty parlor was just what she needed to relax. And she did look as if she needed some relaxation. Some rest, too. She said Susan had barely slept the past three nights - and that when Susan was up, Mr. and Mrs. Felder were up as well. Susan screamed and cried and whined when she was up at night. No one knew why. She also prowled the house. Mrs. Felder said she and her husband had considered locking Susan into her room at night, but that they just couldn't bring themselves to do it.

I was glad.

I closed the door after Mrs. Felder and turned around to face Susan. I had planned to take her over to the Hobarts' to see James that afternoon, and I wanted to catch her before she could sit down at the piano.

Just as I was taking her hand, the doorbell rang.

"Hey, Susan! That was the doorbell," I said emphatically. I was hoping to help Susan pick up some vocabulary. "Let's answer it," I went on. "Maybe a friend is at the door. A friend for Susan. Maybe it will be James or Mel." Click, click, click went Susan's tongue. I don't think she'd heard me at all.

I led Susan to the front door.

"Okay, Susan. Open the door," I said. I helped her to turn the knob and pull the door open. She did this with one hand, flapping the other hand in front of her eyes.

On the steps stood the tall teaser. The tall Bob-or-Craig - whose name I was now certain was neither Bob nor Craig, since the short teaser's name was Mel.

"Hi," I said, half-heartedly. (I'd really been hoping for James.) "Before you say a word, please tell me your real name." "It's Zach," he said. "Zach Wolfson." "Okay. Thank you. I'm Kristy Thomas, Susan's baby-sitter." "I know," replied Zach. "I, um, I came to see Susan." "You did?" Susan certainly was lucky. I was amazed at the number of children who were willing to play with her.

"Yeah," replied Zach. "I did. Do you think - do you think she could do the calendar trick for me again? That was great." "Well, sure. Come on in." 1 held the door open for Zach, and he stepped inside the Felders' house, staring at Susan.

"Let's sit on the floor," I suggested. "That'll be the most comfortable." 1 settled Susan and Zach on the floor. No, that's not true. Zach settled himself on the floor, and I tried to settle Susan, but she kept squirming around and trying to stand up.

That is, until Zach pulled a rumpled piece of paper out of the pocket of his jeans and said, "August twenty-sixth, nineteen forty-three." Immediately, Susan settled down. "Thursday," she said to the ceiling. She focused on the task, but not on Zach.

Zach consulted his paper. "Yup!" he said.

"Okay, June tenth, nineteen sixty-two." "Sunday," said Susan in her monotone voice.

Zach shook his head in amazement. "Right again. Um, October twenty-fifth, nineteen fifty-four." "Monday," said Susan.

"Yup," replied Zach after a glance at his paper. "Well, I guess I better be going. I've, um, got a lot of homework." "Oh," I said, feeling disappointed.

Zach stood up. I started to stand up, too, in order to see him to the door. "Hey, that's okay. I can let myself out," he told me.

And he did. But he'd only been gone for a few seconds when the bell rang again.

"That must be Zach," I said to Susan. "He probably forgot something. Did you ever forget anything?" Click, click, click.

Susan and 1 answered the door for the second time. But we didn't find Zach on the stoop. Instead we found a girl. I knew she lived in the neighborhood somewhere, but I couldn't remember her name.

"Hi," she said cheerfully. "I'm Kathie. Can I come in and see Susan?" "Well. . . sure," I replied, thinking, I should be so popular. I turned to Susan. "You've got another visitor," I told her.

Kathie smiled at Susan.

Susan looked like she was heading for the piano, so I sat the three of us on the floor again. Guess what. Kathie gave Susan a bunch of dates, just like Zach had done. Then she left. She said she thought she heard her mother calling.

Why wasn't I surprised when the bell rang for a third time? I didn't even bother leading Susan to the door and talking to her about answering it or anything. I just left her in the living room and ran to the door myself. Before I'd opened it all the way, Susan was at the piano. She began playing a song from The Music Man. (I knew the whole score by then.) This time another girl was on the stoop. She was holding a record album, and she introduced herself as Gina and said she'd come to see Susan. How interesting that three kids came by all in one day. Maybe this would change the Felders' minds about school.

Before I could say a word to Gina, she walked right inside and said, "She can play the piano! She really can!" "Susan is playing a song from The Music Man," I told her.

"Oh," Gina replied. "Well, I was wondering if - I mean, Mel said Susan can memorize a new song if she hears it just once. Is that true?" "Usually." "Okay. I've got a song here - on a real old record of my grandparents - that I bet Susan doesn't know. Can she do her memorizing trick for me?" "I guess so. Let's make sure she doesn't already know the music, though. What is it?" " 'Sheik of Araby.' It's a Roaring Twenties song." Whatever the Roaring Twenties are.

"Susan," I said loudly. "Susan! Play 'Sheik of Araby.' " Susan continued playing "Wells Fargo Wagon" from The Music Man.

"I don't think she knows 'Sheik of Araby,' " I told Gina.

"Goody. Let's play it and see if she can memorize it." "All right," I replied, even though Mrs. Felder had never said whether it was okay to touch the stereo. I took the record from Gina, put it on the turntable, and practically shouted, "Listen, Susan! Here's 'Sheik of Araby.' It's a new song." As soon as the music came on, Susan stopped playing. She sat quietly at the piano, her head cocked, as if she were concentrating very hard. In the middle of the song, the old record began to skip. It skipped six times before I could rescue it. A few moments later the song ended.

"Okay, Susan, play 'Sheik of Araby,' " said Gina bossily.

Hesitantly, Susan began to play - and then to sing. The first part of the recording had been only music, with a lot of different instruments. Not only did Susan translate the piece to music for the piano, but she came in right on cue with the words.

"How does she do that?" asked Gina.

I'd asked myself the question about a million times, but I hadn't found any answers.

Susan played on until near the end of the song when suddenly Gina and I heard her sing, "All the stars that shine above with light, will light, will light, will light, will light, will light, will light our way to love . . ." Susan had played and sung the skips as if they were part of the actual song. So she really did just memorize what she heard. The music and the words didn't have any meaning for her. I felt achingly sad all of a sudden.

But not Gina. Gina began to laugh. "She played the skips!" she hooted. "I don't believe it. She played the skips! Boy, this was really worth it." "Worth what?" I asked suspiciously.