Ann Martin - Baby-Sitters Club 030

Jessi got the feeling right away that the pine tree was a favorite hiding spot of Vanessa's, because Nicky and Claire made a beeline for it. But they managed to creep in without the others seeing them.

Haley, Matt, and Carolyn searched the yard high and low.

Not a sound came from the pine tree.

Matt looked under an overturned wheelbarrow.

Haley climbed up and looked in the Pikes' tree fort.

Carolyn peered behind the toolshed.

"Where are they?" Haley finally exclaimed - and Jessi and Mal heard a giggle from under the pine tree. It was Claire. She just couldn't help herself. Unfortunately, Haley heard the giggle and made a dash for the pine tree. Matt saw her and followed.

So Carolyn was left alone. That meant she was the next hider, and she chose the tree fort. Once again Claire's giggles gave the spot away when she found Carolyn.

"I think Claire should have to be the next hider, just for giggling," announced Nicky, when the kids had gathered in the yard again.

"I should not!" exclaimed Claire.

"Should too." "Should not." "Should too - monkey-breath." For a moment, Claire looked as if she were going to cry. But then her giggles erupted again. Nicky laughed, too, and so did the others, even Matt, once Haley had finger spelled "monkey-breath" to him.

Matt was the next hider and he found a wonderful spot beneath the overturned wheelbarrow. Nobody could see a speck of him.

Also, nobody else could hide in there with him. Matt realized this too late when Claire discovered him. She made a huge racket and everyone saw her and came running.

No one would confess to being the last to have seen her.

"It wasn't me! It wasn't me!" everyone kept saying.

Then Nicky said that he was thirsty, so Mallory brought a pitcher of ice water and a stack of paper cups out to the back patio. Sardines was over. Claire drank her water and wandered over to the swing set. Nicky and Matt decided to hold batting practice. (They're members of Kristy's Krushers.) And Carolyn, Haley, and Vanessa sat on the patio with Jessi and Mal.

"Where's Marilyn?" Mal asked Carolyn.

Carolyn shrugged. "At home, I guess. She never plays with me anymore." "I guess you've got your friends now and Marilyn's got hers," said Jessi.

Carolyn made a face. "Marilyn doesn't have any friends. She's too bossy." "What about Gozzie Kunka?" asked Mal, who'd heard about her from Dawn and me.

"Who?!" exclaimed Haley.

"Gozzie Kunka. The foreign girl. The one who's new at your school." "I never heard of anyone named Gozzie Kunka," said Haley, frowning.

"Me neither," said Vanessa.

"I have," said Carolyn. "I wouldn't exactly call her Marilyn's friend, but Marilyn's been talking about her a lot. She says she's been all around the world. Gozzie's father is with the government, only now they've settled down." "You'd think a fancy family like that would settle down in Washington, D.C., or New York or some other big city," said Jessi. "Not in Stoneybrook, Connecticut." The girls looked at each other and shrugged. Then Carolyn, Vanessa, and Haley decided to talk about their club. Half an hour later, Jessi took Matt, Haley, and Carolyn back to the Braddocks'. The kids waved good-bye to each other, a sign everyone understands.

As they left the Pikes' yard, Carolyn looked at Jessi and said, "Boy, will Daddy be proud of me when he finds out I'm learning sign language. Marilyn doesn't know a single sign, but I'm going to learn lots from Haley and Matt. I bet Marilyn will be jealous. . . . Really jealous." Chapter 7.

"Rain, rain, go away, and never come back another day," sang Marilyn Arnold.

"That's not how the song goes," Carolyn informed her. "It's, Rain, rain, go away. Come again some other day." "I know. Sheesh. I was just thinking how nice it would be if the sun shone all the time. And the flowers were always blooming and - " "That couldn't happen," said Carolyn, the science expert. "Flowers can't bloom all the time, especially if it never rains. And if it never rained, we'd run out of water. We wouldn't have any to drink or to take baths in, and everything would dry up and we'd all be dead." "Would not." "Would too." "Would not." "WOULD TOO!" "WOULD NOT//" "Girls, enough!" I finally cried. I was babysitting at the Arnolds' house, and it was indeed a rainy day. I hadn't interrupted the girls' argument until now, because I'd been hoping they would work things out for themselves. But apparently they weren't going to.

"Well, Marilyn's being a pest," complained Carolyn, who was sitting on the floor of the Arnolds' rec room, taking things out of my Kid-Kit, one by one.

"I am not." Marilyn turned away from the window where she'd been gazing out at the rain that had been falling steadily all day. "I just want to go outside. We were stuck indoors all day at school, even during recess." "Yeah, but we got to play Seven-Up in our classrooms," said Carolyn.

"That's a dumb game." "You're a dumb person." "You guys!" I cried. "What has gotten into you?" "Nothing," they both said sullenly.

"Well, come on over here. Take a look in the Kid-Kit. There was a sale at Bellair's, and all us baby-sitters went to it and got some great new stuff. Here's a kaleidoscope. See? You can make neat patterns by looking through it." I held the kaleidoscope up to one eye and said, "Right now, I see a thousand Carolyns moving around." "Great," muttered Marilyn.

"And I got some modeling clay," I went on. "Oh, and well, this didn't come from the store, but it's a board game. It's called 'Mary Anne's Game of School.' You roll the dice and have to do things like take extra gym or go to the principal's office or - here, if you land on this square, you get straight A's and you can move ahead ten whole spaces. The object of the game is to make it from September all the way around the board to June. The first person to do that is the winner." I was very proud of my game, in case you couldn't tell. It was the first game I'd invented, and I thought that any kid who was old enough to go to elementary school would like it. I had even found big buttons to use as playing pieces and I had carefully lettered a stack of cards that said things like, "Forgot gym suit. Move back one space." Or, "Teacher makes a mistake and you correct him. Move ahead two spaces." Just as I'd hoped, the twins were intrigued by the game. They even seemed to forget about their argument and we set the game up on the floor. The twins sat across from each other, though; they wouldn't sit next to each other.

"Carolyn'11 cheat if she can see my cards," said Marilyn.

"Marilyn'11 cheat right back," said Carolyn.

(And I had thought they were through fighting.) "Okay, how do we start?" asked Marilyn.

"We roll the dice to see who goes first," I replied.

The twins grabbed for the dice. Then they looked at me warily.

"Who gets to roll first?" asked Carolyn.

"Does it matter?" I replied.

"Yes, because I want to roll first," said Carolyn.

"So do I," said her sister.

1 solved that problem. "I'll roll first," I said. "The person on my left - that's you, Carolyn - will go next." "No fair!" cried Marilyn.

"Yes, it is. In most games, the players take their turns going clockwise. That's to the left." Marilyn pouted and wasn't happy until she realized she'd rolled the highest number and would get to start the game. We played calmly for about ten minutes. Carolyn was winning, but Marilyn was taking it well. All was peaceful until Marilyn landed in the square Carolyn was in. When that happened she had to draw a card. It said, "Caught talking in class. The first person on the space moves back ten spaces." "Ten spaces!" screeched Carolyn. "Marilyn, you - you have monkey-breath." Marilyn's face turned an interesting shade of purple, but all she said was, "I'm through with this game. I'm going to my room." "It's not your room, it's our room," Carolyn spat out, "and I want to go to it." "Well, you can't, because I'm going. I said so first." Carolyn paused. Then she murmured, "I hate sharing a room with you." "I don't know why," replied Marilyn. "You're hardly ever there. You're hardly ever home. It might as well be my room." "Well, it isn't." .