Ann Martin - Baby-Sitters Club 030

"We'll get them!" said Jessi and Mal at the same time. They were sitting on the floor and were within easy reach of the food and didn't want Claud to have to get up.

Jessi scrambled for the crackers and Mal peered under the bed.

"Which box?" Mal asked, and sneezed, adding, "It's dusty under here!" "Sorry," said Claud. "Urn, the M and Ms are in the woodcut supplies box - 1 think." Mal found a box labeled WODCUT SUP-PLISE. (What did I tell you about Claudia's schoolwork? She couldn't spell properly if someone offered her a million dollars.) Mal opened the box, pulled out a new bag of plain M&Ms, and passed them around.

Everyone took some except Stacey.

"The crackers are for you," Claud told her.

"Thanks, but I can't have them. The doctor wants me to be stricter than usual about snacks. I can't eat until dinner. Dawn'11 want them, though." Stacey was right. When Dawn blew in at 5:29, she made a grab for the crackers. "I'm starving," she announced.

And then Kristy got the meeting underway. We took care of club business and waited for calls to start coming in. The first one came precisely at 5:35. The next one was at 5:38. We, (well, I) became very busy scheduling jobs while the others took turns answering the phone.

At 5:51 came a call that Mallory answered.

"Hello, Baby-sitters Club," she said. There was a pause., Then, "Hi, Mrs. Arnold! How are you?" Mrs. Arnold is the mother of identical twins, Marilyn and Carolyn. Mal had once had a steady but short-term job with the twins while their mother took on a fundraising project for Stoneybrook Elementary School. The twins had started out as terrors, but wound up as very different little girls - much sweeter and nicer once people began to see that they were individuals, not two of a kind. Anyway, now Mrs. Arnold was working on another school project and would need a regular sitter for several weeks. We couldn't provide her with one regular sitter, but we did manage to get her a sitter for every afternoon when she would need one. Guess who got most of the jobs? Me! "Hmm," said Mallory thoughtfully when she'd hung up the phone. "I wonder what the twins are like now. We haven't sat for them much lately." If only we had. I might have been a little better prepared for what was to come.

Chapter 4.

Ding-dong.

I rang the Arnolds' bell and waited for the sound of four feet running to the door. Marilyn and Carolyn used to hate baby-sitters because nobody, including sitters, could tell the twins apart. But since the girls are different now, they like sitters.

However, only one pair of feet dashed to the door. Marilyn's. As soon as she opened it, 1 recognized her. Here's why. Up until the girls were eight years old, their parents were so thrilled with the idea of identical twins that they insisted on dressing Marilyn and Carolyn in exactly the same outfits every day, right down to their jewelry. And their hair was styled the same way. Furthermore, they were given the same toys. And they still share a room with identical furniture on either side. Carolyn's half of the room looks like a mirror image of Marilyn's half. It used to be that the only difference between the girls is that Marilyn takes piano lessons (Carolyn is tone deaf), while Carolyn likes science.

Those two things haven't changed, but a lot of others sure have. When Mallory was sitting for the twins she saw how miserable they were. The kids at school couldn't tell them apart, so they called both of them "Marilyn-or-Carolyn." Even Mallory couldn't tell them apart unless they wore their name bracelets. What no one knew (because the girls just weren't mature enough to figure out how to tell their parents) was that Marilyn and Carolyn desperately wanted their own, personal, separate identities. Marilyn wanted to grow her hair out. Carolyn wanted hers cut. Neither one liked the frilly clothes their parents chose for them. Marilyn wanted simpler clothes, Carolyn wanted trendier clothes. Furthermore, Marilyn was the more dominant twin. She's kind of like Kristy. But Carolyn was more outgoing - like Claudia or Stacey.

They were two different seven-year-olds when Mallory first met them - only no one knew it. Not, that is, until Mallory started talking to the twins and finally came to understand them. Then she found the nerve to help them have a discussion with their mother and even convince Mrs. Arnold to let them spend their birthday money (they turned eight recently) on new clothes. New nonidentical clothes. Later, Carolyn got her hair cut short - very stylishly, with longer curls down the back of her neck - and now Marilyn's hair has grown out an inch or two.

So when a girl with longish hair, wearing a simple gray skirt, a white blouse, white knee-socks, and red shoes opened the door, 1 knew right away that it was Marilyn.

"Hi!" I said.

"Hi!" she replied. She was trying to sound happy, but 1 could tell that something was bothering her.

1 stepped into the Arnolds' front hall. "Where's Carolyn?" 1 asked.

"Out." "Out? Out where?" "With her friends." Obviously, this was a touchy subject, so 1 didn't pursue it. Anyway, Mrs. Arnold came bustling in from the living room then. Somehow when she's around, the calmest situation can turn into a flurry of excitement.

"Hello, Mary Anne," she greeted me. "Oh, you brought your Kid-Kit. Great. Now, Marilyn's the only one here. Carolyn's off with her friends. She's over at Haley Braddock's. There was a chance she and Haley are going to visit Vanessa Pike, so if you need Carolyn, try one of those places." (I noticed Marilyn scowling then, but Mrs. Arnold didn't see it.) "I'll be at Stoneybrook Elementary," Mrs. Arnold went on. "The number for the school office is posted by the phone. Mr. Arnold's office number is there, too, along with the emergency numbers. I should be back in about two hours. Maybe two and a half. Marilyn, you have fun with Mary Anne. And if Carolyn comes home, be nice to her," she added ominously.

"Okay," said Marilyn sulkily.

Mrs. Arnold left then, and I said brightly to Marilyn, "You know, you can go play with Carolyn, if you want. I won't mind." Marilyn looked sad. "You don't want to play with me, either?" she said.

Oops. What did Marilyn mean? "Of course I want to play with you," I assured her. "I brought the Kid-Kit with me, didn't I?" Marilyn nodded.

"I just thought you might want to play with your sister and your friends," I added. "I'd come with you." "Nah," said Marilyn. "They're not my friends. I don't have any. I mean, I have a - a different friend." "Oh. Well, that's nice. What's her name?" "Her name is ... Gozzie Kunka." "Gozzie Kunka!" 1 exclaimed. "What kind of name is that?" "Foreign. She comes from a faraway place," replied Marilyn. "She's new at school," she went on. "She's not in my grade, but I met her on the playground. She didn't have anyone to play with or talk to, so 1 sat down next to her on the swings." "Does she speak English?" 1 asked.

Marilyn and 1 had moved into the living room and were opening the Kid-Kit.

"Oh, yes. Very well. She just has a sort of - what do you call it?" "An accent?" 1 suggested.

"Yeah, an accent. But I can understand her." Marilyn took a puzzle out of the Kid-Kit, but she didn't dump it out. Instead she said, "You know what Gozzie told me? She told me that she can ride a horse bareback. And that once when she and her family were in Paris, they ate snails and frogs' legs." "Ew," I said.

"I know. That's what 1 said, too. But Gozzie said the frogs' legs were good - kind of like chicken. She didn't like the snails, though. They were rubbery and covered with garlic. . . . You know what else Gozzie has eaten?" "What?" I asked.

"Sushi, elk meat, and rice paper. She has traveled everywhere." "She sounds fascinating." "Oh, she is." I thought Marilyn would dump the puzzle out then, but instead she said, "Once Gozzie and her family were on a plane, and a man said he was going to hijack it. It turned out he was only fooling, but he got arrested anyway. The plane made an emergency landing in Brazil and a whole bunch of police officers trooped onto the plane and arrested him. They had to carry him out because he made a fuss and wouldn't walk." "Gosh," I said, "that must have been awfully "scary." "It was. Gozzie's family was too upset even to eat the meals on the plane trip." Marilyn finally spread the puzzle pieces on the floor and began fitting them together, but while she did, she kept talking.