Ann Martin - Baby-Sitters Club 027

The woman on the other end of the phone took about an hour to find the list of people who had made it into the audition and another hour to search for my name on the list. Okay, it might not have been an hour each. Maybe it was more like five minutes. But those five minutes were long. To me, each one could've been a century.

"Ramsey, Ramsey," the woman muttered, as she looked down the list. "What did you say your first name was?" "Jessi," I said. "Well, I'm probably listed as Jessica." "Yes, here you are," said the woman. "Jessica Ramsey." "But what does that mean?" I asked anxiously. "Is my name on the list of cuts or did I get into the show?" "You're in," she said simply. "Congratulations." "All right!" 1 yelled. I knew that that was not the most delicate thing to do, but I couldn't help it. "Thank you very much," 1 babbled. "Thank you very, very much." I hung up the phone and stood there beaming.

Mama had heard my screech and came into the room.

"You made it?" she asked.

I couldn't even answer. I just nodded.

"Oh, honey, congratulations!" Mama gave me a warm hug.

"So what part did you get?" she asked me. "Are you one of the swan maidens?" "Oh, my gosh!" I laughed. "I forgot to ask. I guess I'll have to call the theater back. Now that woman'll really think I'm nuts." Mama stayed by my side while I dialed again and asked the question.

"I wondered if you were going to call back." The woman chuckled. "Yes, you're in the corps. You're one of the swan maidens." "Ask for the rehearsal schedule," Mama prompted.

"Oh, right." At that moment I would've had trouble remembering my own name. "And when do rehearsals start?" The woman gave me all the necessary information. I repeated it and Mama wrote it down.

Of course, as soon as I hung up, I called Mallory right away.

"I'm a swan!" I cried into the phone.

"I knew it all along," she said. I could practically hear her grinning into the receiver.

Shortly after I got off the phone with Mallory, Daddy came home from work, early again.

"I hear we've got a ballerina in the house," he said, smiling.

I ran to his arms and he caught me up.

"I'm so happy, Daddy," I said. "I wanted this so badly." "You think I didn't know that?" He smiled. "All that modeling and agent business didn't fool me for a moment. You were going so far in the other direction, I knew Swan Lake must've meant a lot. " So much that you couldn't even admit it to yourself." "Oh, yeah. The modeling stuff," I mused. As soon as I'd heard that I'd gotten into the show, I'd forgotten about those calls to the agents in Stamford. That whole world had just fled my mind.

Daddy went on. "I think sometimes if we want something too badly, we have to play tricks on ourselves so that we won't think it matters so much," he said.

"Is that what I was doing?" I asked. How did parents know these things?

"Well, thaf s what it looked like to me," Daddy said.

Hmm. All those index cards. Suddenly, I didn't have any use for them at all. I was right back where I started from - ballet. And suddenly I knew it was exactly where I belonged, sort of like my true home. I did a couple of quick little jumps and ran down to work at my barre until the club meeting.

It wasn't until later that week that I got to tell Derek that I had made Swan Lake after all. I decided not to call him up, that it would be better if I went over and told him in person. That way I'd also get to say my goodbyes.

One afternoon after school, I stopped by the Masterses' house. It was kind of sad to go there and see that they were really moving out again. Of course, since they were going to keep the house, they were leaving all their furniture and everything, but there were lots of boxes and suitcases scattered around, and Mrs. Masters had put sheets over the chairs in the living room. The place looked kind of ghostlike.

"Derek will be so glad to see you," Mrs. Masters said as she let me in. "Derek!" she called upstairs. "You've got a visitor!" Derek came bounding down the steps.

"Jessi!" he cried. "I was hoping you'd come over." Derek grabbed me by the hand and dragged me up to his room, which looked every bit as strange as the living room had. Derek's clothes were all over the bed, and beside them was an open suitcase.

"I'm packing," he said.

"I can see. When are you leaving?" "Tomorrow morning," said Derek.

"Gee, it seems like you just got here." "Well, maybe you'll be coming out to L.A. soon yourself," Derek said hopefully.

"I wouldn't count on that," I said. I tried to sound as gentle as I could.

"Who knows, though?" Derek went on. "The agents in Stamford sent me to L.A." How was I going to tell him?

"I don't think I'll be working with those agents," I started to explain.

"What?" Derek said. "But you told me you'd made a million phone calls." "That's true. I did," I said with a sigh. "But then something happened. I made Swan Lake." "You did!" Derek cried. "Great, Jessi! I knew you'd make it! Ever since I heard those other ballerinas tearing you apart." "It is great." I smiled. "But once I got in, 1 realized that ballet is the thing I really love. I want to be a ballerina, not a model or an actress. I've already put so much time and work into dance." Derek's face fell.

"So now you won't ever come to L.A.," he said. He looked so forlorn, that I laughed all of a sudden.

"Never say never," I said. "And besides, you'll be coming back to Stoneybrook sometimes. And now when you come you've got friends, and you know the kids in school. . . ." "Yeah," Derek agreed. "Thanks to the Babysitters Club." He was starting to cheer up. "Thanks again for the party, Jessi. It was great. No one ever threw me a surprise party before." I thought back to that morning and how nice it had been to watch Derek with his friends. That reminded me.

"Oh, yeah, Derek," I said. "Listen, I've been meaning to ask you. I thought you said that John Superbrat was in your class. But there was no John on your class list. What ever hap- pened with that kid? Did he stop bullying you?" "John?" Derek said quickly. His eyes shifted away from mine.

"Yeah. John. Is he in another grade?" "No, he's the same grade," Derek said slowly.

"A different class then?" Derek gulped and started fiddling with a string hanging from his bedspread.

"No, he's even in the same class," he answered.

"Well, why wasn't he on the list?" I persisted. "You mean, we gave all the kids invitations except him?" "Sort of," Derek said vaguely. "But he was at the .party anyway." "He was at the party?" I cried. "John? The Superbrat? He was there?" "Jessi, let's go downstairs," Derek said quickly. "Maybe Todd wants to say goodbye." "Wait a minute, Derek," I said. "Why are you trying to change the subject? Did something awful happen with John? You have to tell me now." Derek sat there a long time before he opened his mouth again.

"It was kind of awful," he said. "John's an awful kind of kid." "What did he do?" I pressed. "And how could he have been at the party?" "Jessi," Derek said. He lowered his voice to almost a whisper. "I hate to tell you this. It's really embarrassing. I was John. And all those things I said John did? Well, I did them." "What?" What in the world was Derek talking about? I didn't get it at all.

Derek went on.

"See, what happened," he said, "was that the kids were bothering me so much that I had to get back at them. So whenever they did something mean to me, I started doing mean things back to them." "Well, why'd you say it was John?" I asked.

"I don't know." Derek shook his head. "When I told you, it was like I had to tell somebody what I'd been doing, but I didn't really know how to tell. And then once the boys started actually being friends with me, I didn't have to do those things anymore. So John just kind of disappeared." "You tied a kid's shoes together in gym?" I was still incredulous. "You dumped someone's books all over the playground?" Derek nodded sheepishly. "Only because I wanted to make friends so badly," he said.