Ann Martin - Baby-Sitters Club 027

"Hmm," she said. "Looks like the only time might be Saturday afternoon." "No, we can't do it then," said Dawn. "Remember, I just took that job at the Newtons'." That was the last call that had come in. In all the excitement, Mary Anne had forgotten to write it down.

"Anyway, Saturday afternoon's no good because that's when Jessi has her final Swan Lake audition," Mallory piped up.

Oh, no. I shot Mallory a withering glance. Why did she have to tell the whole club about that?

"You do?" Mary Anne asked, all excited. "You mean you got through the other auditions? Why didn't you tell us?" Suddenly, everyone surrounded me, giving me their congratulations and asking me questions. I didn't know why, but I felt very uncomfortable. This was a new feeling that had taken over. After Saturday and the initial rush of making the cut, I didn't want to talk about Swan Lake. I didn't even want to think about it. All I wanted was to get the last audition over with.

Lucky thing the phone rang then. Another job call came in. Everyone settled back into their places and left me alone.

Mallory was watching me. She could see I looked kind of squirmy.

"Why didn't you want everyone to know?" she whispered.

"I don't know." I shrugged.

After the phone call, Kristy rapped again on the arm of her chair.

"So when are we going to have this party?" she said. "It looks like the only time available would be some night at midnight." Mary Anne looked over the pages of the appointment book.

"That's not the only time," she said thoughtfully. "If we can't have it Saturday afternoon, how about Saturday morning? Hey, I have an idea! It could be a breakfast party. We could have it from nine until twelve." "Great idea," cried Kristy. "We could have a table with a whole assortment of cereals." "And juices," said Dawn.

"A breakfast party?" said Claudia. She didn't sound at all sure about the idea.

"Yeah," said Mallory. "A breakfast party. "It's so unusual. It's a great idea." "But if it's breakfast, we can't serve cake," said Claudia. "Or ice cream. Or cookies. Well," she said with a sigh. You could see the wheels turning in her head. "I guess we could have doughnuts." All the rest of us laughed.

"Doughnuts, cereal, and juice." Mary Anne wrote all the suggestions down.

"And fruit slices," Dawn added.

Claudia crinkled her nose.

We decided that we would each be responsible for bringing two boxes of cereal, and we divided up the rest of the food equally. (Guess who got doughnuts.) Kristy put Mallory in charge of getting the names of all of Derek's classmates, since her brother Nicky was in the same class. That brought up one last issue for discussion.

"Are you going to invite John?" Mallory asked.

"John?" Kristy looked puzzled.

"The Superbrat," Claudia explained.

Everyone looked to me for the answer.

"I think we should invite him," I said. "If we're inviting the whole class, we have to. Anyway, this may be Derek's last chance to win the kid over." "And I want to meet John finally," said Claudia. "I'm dying to know who the Superbrat is." That settled that.

When the meeting broke up, I headed home for dinner. Becca was already setting the table, but I slipped upstairs to my room and fished out the phone list from under my pillow. Time to get back to Project #1. I went back down to the kitchen, helped Mama put the food onto plates, and waited until everyone was seated and Daddy was helping himself to butter for his mashed potatoes.

I cleared my throat.

"Mama, Daddy?" I said.

"Yes?" Daddy answered.

I had rehearsed a whole speech, thinking of just the way I wanted to present my idea, but suddenly I couldn't remember what I had planned to say.

"I was talking to Derek," I said.

Becca dropped her fork. I think she figured she was about to get more information about Lamont. Sorry, Becca, no such luck.

"Well," I stumbled on, "Derek suggested that I move out to L.A." "Move to L.A.?" Now it was Mama's turn to drop her fork.

"I mean, I don't want to go to L.A.," I said quickly. "But Derek suggested I come to L.A. so I could do some modeling or get on commercials. Anyway, that made me think. I might be able to do that here, the way Derek did before he got on TV. There are some modeling and talent agencies in Stamford, and I think they do local commercials and some newspaper and magazine ads." I pulled out the list of numbers I had taken down and passed it to Mama.

"I was thinking of calling them," I said, "to see if they might be interested in me, but, of course, I wanted to check with you first." Mama looked at Daddy. He was already looking at her. Squirt smashed his spoon into his mashed potatoes.

"Po-po!" he cried.

Mama handed the list over to Daddy and he looked it over, too. For the longest time, I thought no one was going to say anything.

"Why do you think you want to do this?" Daddy asked.

I wasn't prepared for that question.

"I don't know," I said. "I just do." "You've got quite a full schedule already with ballet class and the Baby-sitters Club," Mama said.

"And who knows, you may have a full Swan Lake rehearsal schedule coming up," Daddy added.

"I'm probably not going to get into that," I mumbled.

Daddy shot a look at Mama. "Are you nervous about Swan Lake?" he asked.

"I'm not nervous," I said. "I just don't care anymore." "Mmm-hmm," Daddy said. He didn't sound like he believed me.

"Well," I said, "maybe I do care, but I'll tell you, this audition process is driving me crazy. And after I go through all this, I'm probably not going to make it anyway. So it seems to me that I might as well branch out, get some other kinds of work. Modeling can't be as nerve-racking as ballet. I mean, all you have to do is stand there and smile, right?" Mama wiped mashed potatoes off of Squirt's cheeks and chin.

"Well, if you want to look into this," she said, "I don't see why you shouldn't. Why don't you go ahead and make some phone calls. You can find out some more information, and then we'll talk again." "As long as it's limited to Stamford," Daddy added.

"Right," Mama agreed. "That's as far as this chauffeur service goes." "Really?" I jumped up from the table. "I can call?" "Well, not right now," said Daddy, laughing. "I think agencies are closed this time of night, and besides, you've got a plateful of dinner to eat." "Oh. Right," I said.

I sat back down at the table and poked at the food on my plate. Becca was still staring at me. Her mouth was gaping and she hadn't yet picked up her fork.

"You mean you're going to be a TV star, too?" she said.

"Tee-vee!" Squirt cried.

Daddy, Mama, and I just laughed.

Chapter 12.

By midweek, party plans were in full swing. I had made a couple of secret calls to Mrs. Masters to clear the date with her and make sure that she could get Derek and Todd to the party on time. Of course, Mr. and Mrs. Masters thought that the party was a great idea.

"We're very touched that you girls have spent so much time helping Derek readjust," she said. "I don't know how he would have done it without you." I was practically beaming on the other end of the phone. It's true, I thought. The Babysitters Club is special that way.

That Wednesday I was scheduled for another sitting job at the Masterses'. Before Mrs. Masters left to go out that day, she wanted to offer some last-minute help with the party. Of course, that was not the easiest thing to do with Derek standing right there, but she managed to get the information across anyway.

It was a funny exchange. First she winked at me. "Tell your mother I have those bowls she wanted," she said. She emphasized the word "bowls" as if it had great significance.

"Bowls?" I asked blankly. I didn't get what she was talking about.

Mrs. Masters winked again, this time more obviously.