Ann Martin - Baby-Sitters Club 031

BSC031 - Dawn's Wicked Stepsister - Martin, Ann M.

Chapter 1.

Mom's wedding bouquet was flying through the air. Mary Anne, my new stepsister, and I were both leaping for it. At the last second, Mary Anne's arms seemed to grow about five inches, and even though she is not terribly coordinated, she caught the bouquet.

I couldn't believe it.

The bouquet was my mother's. I should have caught it. Well, that wasn't quite true. I don't know of any rule that says a daughter should catch her mom's bouquet. Plus, there were several people behind Mary Anne and me - several other women who wanted to catch it, too - and we were all supposed to have an equal shot at it. Why did we want to catch it so badly? Because there's this belief that if an unmarried woman catches the bride's bouquet after the bride has tossed it, that woman will be the next to get married.

Now Mary Anne and I are only thirteen, so we didn't have any plans to get married, but I still thought I should have caught my own mother's bouquet. Anyway, I guess Mary Anne just tried a little harder than I did. After all, she's got a boyfriend. Logan Bruno. Maybe she hopes they'll get married someday, when they're older and ready for it.

Anyway, Mary Anne was holding the bouquet triumphantly over her head. "I caught it!" she said with a gasp.

Well, of course she'd caught it. She'd practically killed the rest of us in the process. I don't know why she was so surprised.

Everyone was laughing and cheering.

"All right, Mary Anne!" called Kristy Thomas, one of her best friends.

I got into the spirit of things. Mary Anne is shy - extremely shy. And she's one of the nicest people I know. She's my best friend, she's now my stepsister, and she does have a boyfriend, while I don't. So I didn't mind too much that she'd caught the bouquet. I found myself turning to her and giving her a big hug.

"Congratulations . . . sis!" I said.

Mary Anne, the world's teariest person alive, immediately began to cry.

"Sis," she repeated. "It's really true. We're stepsisters now." "No, just sisters," I corrected her.

Mary Anne's tears flowed harder. "Thanks . . . sis," she replied.

It was my mother's wedding day. Well, it was her second wedding day. Her first one had been sixteen years ago, when she married my father. About fourteen years later they had gotten divorced. We were living in California then - Mom; Dad; my younger brother, Jeff; and I. After the divorce, Mom moved Jeff and me here to Stoneybrook, Connecticut. She didn't choose Stoneybrook randomly. Stoneybrook is the town where she grew up, and her parents, my grandparents, were still living here. It was also the town where she had gone to school with a guy she liked a lot (although that didn't have anything to do with her decision to move back here). The guy's name was Richard Spier, and he is Mary Anne's father. She and Mr. Sp - I mean, Richard (Mary Anne and I had decided to call our stepparents by their first names, Richard and Sharon) had dated when they were in high school. But my grandparents hadn't approved of Richard. Mom's family had a lot of money; Richard's didn't. They said he came from the wrong side of the tracks. What soreheads. And they saw to it that after graduation, their daughter (my mother) got as far away from Richard as she could. They sent her to college in California. That's where she met and married my dad. Meanwhile, back here in Connecticut, Richard met and married Mary Anne's mom. He put himself through law school and got a good job (fake out on my grandparents), even though some terrible things happened. His parents died, Mary Anne's mother's parents died - and Mary Anne's mom died. It was awful. Mary Anne was quite young when she lost her mother and barely remembers her. Still, I think it must have been terrible to be almost alone in the world, just Richard and Mary Anne.

But fate intervened. (I read that sentence in a book once. Isn't it great?) Mom and Jeff and I moved back here, and in no time, Mary Anne and I not only met and became friends, but figured out that our parents had been in love years ago. We reintroduced them and - zap! They started dating and today they'd gotten married. Finally. Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if they'd gotten married after high school. For one thing, Mary Anne and Jeff and I wouldn't be here, at least not in these particular bodies. That was a weird thought.

I guess you probably want to know a little about the wedding. Well, since it was the second one for both Mom and Richard, they'd kept it simple and small. Mom didn't even wear a wedding gown, just a gorgeous new dress. They got married in the chapel of a local church and didn't have any attendants. (Mary Anne and I were awfully disappointed. We'd wanted to be bridesmaids.) The guests were three friends of my brother's (the Pike triplets), Mary Anne's and my friends from the Babysitters Club (I'll tell you more about the BSC later), some work friends of Mom's and Richard's, and my grandparents. Mary Anne's and my friends (just so you know) were: Kristy Thomas, Stacey McGill, Jessi Ramsey, Mallory Pike (she's the triplets' sister), Claudia Kishi, and Logan Bruno. Even though the wedding ceremony was short, it was pretty traditional. There were flowers at the altar, Mom and Richard said vows and exchanged rings, Richard kissed my mother on the lips in front of absolutely everybody, and Mom even wore something old, something new, something borrowed, and something blue.

Now we were at this tres swank French restaurant called Chez Maurice. "We" is all the people I just told you about. We had had a sumptuous dinner (actually it was lunch, and I had had trouble finding a good vegetarian dish on the menu - Mom and Jeff and I are health nuts), my mother had just tossed her bouquet (standing backward on her chair and throwing it over her shoulder), and Mary Anne had just caught it.

I was trying to be happy for Mary Anne, but the truth is, I would gladly have killed to get my hands on that bouquet.

Luckily, I was distracted from those thoughts. The wedding reception was over and people were starting to leave. First Mom's and Richard's friends left. Then my grandparents left. Then Mr. Pike arrived to pick up the triplets and Jeff. Jeff was going to spend the night at the Pikes' house. He could have spent the night with our grandparents, but he was just dying to visit with the triplets. (I think I forgot to tell you that Jeff lives in California with our father now. He moved back there because he simply couldn't adjust to Connecticut.) Meanwhile, Mom and my new stepfather were going to the Strathmoore Inn for the shortest honeymoon on record - they were going to be back the next day. And that day, Sunday, was moving day. Mary Anne, her father, and her kitten, Tigger, were moving into our house, which is bigger than theirs.

" 'Bye, Jeff!" I called as the Pikes drove off. "See you tomorrow!" " 'Bye, Dawn!" he replied.

A few moments later Charlie Thomas, Kristy's oldest brother, arrived in his beat-up second-hand car to take Mary Anne, all of our friends, and me back to Mary Anne's house. We were going to sit around and dish about the wedding for awhile. ("Dish" means "gossip.") Then Mary Anne and I were going to spend one last night in Mary Anne's room at her old house - by ourselves. Mary Anne was nostalgic. I was excited and nervous. I'm not used to sleeping in a house without any adults around.

As my friends and I climbed into Charlie's car, I waved to Richard and the new Mrs. Spier. That's right - Mom was changing her name. She said she wanted to take on the name of her husband. Why? It's beyond me. I wanted the name I'd been born with, which is Dawn Schafer. Mom said it was perfectly all right for Jeff and me to keep our old names.

"Is everybody in?" called Charlie, glancing in the rearview mirror.

"Yes," chorused the eight of us. We sure were in. We were squished in, like sardines in a can.