Hello, Mallory (5 page)

Gabbie's eyes filled with tears and her chin quivered. "I miss Mommy," she said.

I sat on the couch and pulled Gabbie into my lap for a hug.

"What happened?" asked Claudia. She struggled into the living room, holding a wiggling, wagging Chewbacca by the collar.

"I said, 'Are you excited about seeing your mommy and your sister?' " I told Claudia, "and she started to cry. She misses her mother."

Claudia closed her eyes for a moment, as if I had made her so discombobulated that she had to stop and recover before she could do

anything else. "All right," she went on. "Let me just take Chewy outside. Then I'll come back and straighten things out."

She would straighten things out?! No way. I could do it myself. First I tickled Gabbie and made faces until she began to giggle. Then 1 called Myriah into the living room and told the girls they were going to have a pajama party in the middle of the day. Claire and Mar go like to do this sometimes.

I helped the Perkins girls into their night-clothes, and then the three of us gave each other new hairstyles and sang some songs.

Claudia looked somewhat happier.

Still, before the afternoon was over, I tripped while I was giving Myriah a piggyback ride and we fell down, and later I popped my Laura balloon, frightening both Gabbie and the cat.

I couldn't get home fast enough.

Chapter 7.

"Please come to order," said Kristy primly, adjusting her visor. She looked around at the other people in the room. Mary Anne, Dawn, and Claudia were sitting side by side on Clau-dia's bed. I was sitting in the desk chair, the outcast.

It was Friday afternoon, five-thirty, the beginning of another meeting of the Baby-sitters Club.

"Have you all been reading the notebook?" asked Kristy.

"Yes," chorused Mary Anne, Dawn, and Claudia.

"How's the treasury?"

Dawn flipped through the record book. "Fine. This week's dues helped. If we don't spend anything for awhile, then no problem."

"Okay," said Kristy. "In that case, the next — and most important — order of business is

Mallory's test. AndMallory herself." She glanced at me.

1 glanced back and tried to smile. I know my smile was wobbly.

"Mallory/' said Kristy, "you flunked the test." She said it flat-out like that, but she didn't sound mean. She sounded disappointed and a little sorry for me.

"It was a hard test," I said.

"We know. It was supposed to be. Babysitting is serious business."

"But the test wasn't fair."

"Fair?" cried Kristy. "Wait a second. We're not talking about fair here. We're talking about children. What if you were baby-sitting and one of the kids was in a bicycle accident and was bleeding really, really badly?"

"I'd dial nine-one-one. I'd call for an ambulance or the police."

"And then what? What would you do while you were waiting for help?"

"I — I'm not sure. I'd have to see what was going on."

"And really," said Claudia. "Your drawing of the divestive system was terrible."

"Digestive system," I corrected her.

Claudia blushed. I actually felt good that I'd made her do that.

"Furthermore," said Kristy, "what if you were sitting for a seven-month-old baby who was crying and crying and you did everything you could think of — maybe even gave it soy formula for colic — when the real problem was that the baby was teething? Only that didn't occur to you because you think babies don't cut their first teeth until they're eight months old?" ,

"But I wouldn't give a baby soy formula if the mother didn't tell me to!"

Luckily, thevphone rang then. The girls forgot about me and the test as Mary Anne took the call and made a sitting appointment for Dawn. The caller must have been a new client because Mary Anne kept telling her (or him) things like, "Yes, we meet three times a week — Monday, Wednesday, and Friday afternoons from five-thirty until six. . . . No, our going rate is a little higher than that. . . . We're available weekends, evenings, and afternoons."

But as soon as Mary Anne hung up the phone, Kristy turned to Claudia and said, "On a scale of one to ten, how would you rate Mallory's job with the Perkins girls yesterday?"

"On a scale of one to ten?" Claudia repeated.

"Yes. One being lousy, five being average,

and ten being so incredibly wonderful you almost can't believe it."

"Mmm ... a three," said Claudia.

"A three!" I exclaimed.

"Well, let's face it Mallory, you spilled milk, broke a glass, and had a complete disaster with the dog."

"But those were accidents," I protested. "Most of them."

"Then there was the business with the snack."

"What was that?" asked Dawn.

Claudia told the story about the apples and her stupid banana-men.

"You made me nervous!" I finally accused her. "You watched me like a hawk and you criticized everything I did!"

The phone rang again. Dawn answered it. Mr. Perkins was calling. They talked for several minutes, lining up appointments.

"How's the baby?" Kristy called from the director's chair.

"How's the baby?" Dawn asked Mr. Perkins. "Oh, good. . . . Thanks! I'll tell Claudia. She'll be glad to hear that. Yeah, she had fun yesterday, too."

What about me? I thought. Dawn was talking as if only Claudia had baby-sat. I was there with her. Didn't she think I counted? I guess

not, since I'd been responsible for all those accidents.

As soon as Dawn hung up the phone, the girls began talking excitedly about babies.

"Remember when Lucy Newton was born?" asked Claudia. "Remember her colic?"

"Yeah, that was terrible," said Mary Anne.

"She cried endlessly," added Kristy.

"Claire had colic," I spoke up.

"Oh, yeah. You mentioned that," replied Claudia. "I don't think the Newtons gave Lucy soy sauce, though, like you did."

"I hope not!" I exclaimed. "Soy sauce!"

"Huh?" said Claudia.

At last, I thought. Something I really knew about — that the girls didn't know much about at all.

"Soy sauce," I said, "is a salty, um, condiment. For your food. Soy formula is a very gentle formula to give to babies who have trouble with milk. I should know."

The girls were looking at me. I felt like saying, "Nyah, nyah-nyah, nyah, nyah. I know something you don't know."

"Oh," said Claudia in a small voice.

Silence reigned.

Then Kristy said, "When are Mrs. Perkins and the baby coming home?"

Dawn cleared her throat. "Tomorrow," she replied.

"Oh, wow. That's wonderful!" cried Mary Anne.

"Let's celebrate," added Claudia. "Now let's see. Where —"

"Do you still have Gummi Worms in your hollow book?" asked Kristy hopefully.

"Sure." Claudia pulled a fat book off her shelf. She opened the cover. To my surprise, there were no pages inside, just a hollowed-out space. And the hole was filled with a mess of squiggly Gummi Worms.

Claudia handed one to each of us. The girls raised their worms in the air. I raised mine, too.

"To Laura Elizabeth Perkins," said Kristy. And she bit into her worm.

The rest of us ate our worms, too, except for Dawn, who just played with hers. "Not only are these worms junk food," she said, "but they're disgusting. I personally do not see how you guys can eat worm heads."

We began to giggle.

"Once," I spoke up, "when Nicky was really little, he ate part of a mudpie."

"Oh, gross!" cried Mary Anne.

"My brother once ate dog food," said Kristy.

"He thought it was leftover hamburger."

"Ew, ew, ew!" said Mary Anne.

The phone rang and the girls lined up a couple of sitting jobs. It was almost six o'clock. Time for the meeting to end.

Even so, Dawn said, "The Barretts' dog once ate a knee sock."

We began to laugh again.

"Remember when we were at Sea City," Mary Anne said to me, "and I got sunburned and Claire brought me a tub of margarine to rub on my skin?"

We laughed harder. This was how I usually thought of the girls in the Baby-sitters Club — nice, funny people who like to have a good time (but who are also serious sitters, of course).

Since we seemed so relaxed, I dared to say, "Well, it's almost time to go home. Um . . . have you decided whether I can be in the club?"

Kristy sighed. She got out of the director's chair and crossed the room to the bed, where she had a huddle with the other girls. When they were done talking, Kristy turned to me. "You can be in the club if you pass another test."

"Another test?" I couldn't believe it. How dare they? One unfair test wasn't enough?

"You flunked the first one," said Kristy mildly.

"It ... was ... NOT . . . FAIR!"

"Was too."

"Was not!" Kristy must be crazy.

"Then you can't be in the club."

"Don't worry," I told her, jumping angrily to my feet. "I'm not going to be in your stupid club. I quit!"

"You haven't joined yet!" Kristy yelled as I stomped out of the room.

"That's the best thing that's happened to me all year!" I yelled back. Then I ran home.

Chapter 8.

There are a lot of things I do well, and one of them is mope. I moped all weekend and I moped through school Monday morning. At noon, I ate my lunch quickly, then escaped to the playground. Way off in a far corner of the playground is this fat, comforting sycamore tree. That's where I headed.

I walked slowly to it, dragging my feet with every step. When I reached the tree, I plopped down and leaned against its trunk. The tree is so huge you can only reach your arms about halfway around it. I wondered how old the tree was. 1 wondered how long the playground had been near it. I wondered how many other kids had sat by the tree or cried by it or even talked to it when they were upset.

While I wondered about these things, I felt around on the ground for a good worry stone, something smooth to play with while I brooded.

I ran my-hand through the pebbles until it met . . . another hand!

A brown hand was lying near mine. It jumped when I touched it.

"Aughhh!" I shrieked.

"Aughhh!" shrieked the person attached to the hand.

I scrambled to my feet and could tell someone else was scrambling to his or her feet on the other side of the tree. After a moment 1 dared to peek around the trunk. I found myself face to face with Jessi Ramsey.

"Oh, it's only you," we exclaimed at the same time.

Then we had to hook pinkies and say "jinx."

We sighed and slid back to the ground. This time we sat next to each other.

"I read Impossible Charlie," I told Jessi. "It was great. Really funny."

"And I read A Morgan for Melinda," she replied. "That was great, too."

"Let's switch back and then switch two more books. I've got one called The Lightning Time. It reminds me of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. You know, from the Narnia Chronicles."

"Oh, yeah? I've got all seven Narnia books."

"You do? I'll trade you The Lightning Time

for the The Horse and His Boy. I read every Narnia book except that one."

"Okay."

I looked at the ground. I still needed a worry stone. Jessi was looking at the ground, too.

"Everything all right?" I asked her.

She shrugged. "How about you?"

I shrugged.

"Do you come to this tree a lot?" Jessi wanted to know.

"Only to mope."

Jessi nodded. "It seems like a good moping place."

"Yeah."

"I'm so mopey I can't even think of any good jokes. How come you're moping?"

I paused, trying to decide whether to tell Jessi about my problem. She looked as if another problem were the last thing she needed. Finally I decided that telling her about it wouldn't make it her problem. It would still be mine. All she had to do was listen. And I'd be willing to listen to her problem, if she had one.

"Well," I began, "remember that baby-sitting test I told you about?"

Jessi nodded.

"I flunked it."

"Oh, wow. That's too bad. I'm really sorry."

"Me, too. But the thing is, it wasn't a fair

test. Listen to some of the questions they asked me: When does a baby cut his first tooth? What's the difference between creeping and crawling?"

"Huh?" said Jessi.

"That's what 1 thought. Then they asked me to explain how and when to use a tourniquet. And then they told me to draw a picture of the human digestive system."

"You are kidding!"

"Nope. All I could remember was the esophagus, the stomach, and the intestines."

"Ew," said Jessi. Then she added, "What else is there?"

"Oh, the liver, the pancreas, and a bunch of other organs. But it doesn't matter. You know what the worst part was?"

"What?"

"That I didn't fit in with those girls. I thought we could be friends. After all, I know them pretty well. But I was dressed all wrong at the first meeting, and I was really nervous when I went on this trial baby-sitting job with one of the girls. . . . Oh, it's just a big mess. And I don't belong."

"Tell me about it," said Jessi bitterly. "At least the only place you don't belong is in that club. I don't belong in this school, or even this town. Neither does my family."

"You mean because you're, um . . ."

"You can say it," Jessi told me. "Because we're black."

"Have people done things to you?" I asked.

"Nope." Jessi shook her head. "Well, a few things. Like Benny Ott shooting rubber bands at me in class. And I've overheard Rachel Robinson and her friends talking about me. Mostly, though, it's what they haven't done. The neighbors haven't said hello to my family, haven't introduced themselves to us, haven't paid any attention to us. Except my dad. His company asked him to take his job, so the people he works with are okay. But, well, do you know you're the only kid in school who talks to me? I mean, to me, not about me behind my back."

"I am?"

Jessi nodded. "No one talks to Becca, either."

"Wow."

"I'm even thinking of not taking dancing lessons here. I don't know if it's worth it. Can't you just imagine it? They'd hold auditions for a ballet, and I'd try out, but they'd never give me the lead, even if I were as good as Pavlova."