Kristy’s long letter told us about the entire incident. It began on Sunday morning when Watson Brewer announced that he and Elizabeth (Kristy’s mom) were going to spend the day at an estate auction. Kristy didn’t know what that was, and didn’t ask.
Then her older brothers, Sam and Charlie, announced that they were going back to the old neighborhood to visit friends for the day.
“I guess you’re in charge, then, Kristy,” said her mother. “Can you baby-sit?”
“Sure,” Kristy replied. She turned to David Michael, Karen, and Andrew. “What do you guys want to do today?”
“I’m busy,” said David Michael. “Linny Papadakis is having a dog show. I’m entering Louie. Hey, do you want to come with me?”
“Yes,” said Karen.
“No,” said Andrew. (Andrew likes Louie all right, but he’s afraid of most other dogs.)
“Karen, you can go to the dog show with David Michael,” Kristy told her. “You could play with Hannie.” (Hannie, Linny’s younger sister, is a friend of Karen’s.)
“That’s okay. I’ll stay with Andrew.”
David Michael looked a little hurt, but didn’t say anything.
Watson spoke up then. “I’ve got a job to be done,” he said. “I need someone to wash the Ford.”
“Oh, we’ll do it! We’ll do it!” shouted Karen. “Can we use the hose and those big sponges? We’ll do a great job, Daddy! Andrew and Kristy and I. We’ll get your car cleaner than anything!”
The Ford is no big deal as cars go. In fact, it’s sort of an emergency car. It’s this old black thing that Watson used to drive years and years ago. He keeps it parked in a shed at the back of the property. (In his garage are a red sports car and a fancy new car and the Thomases’ green station wagon.) But Watson won’t give the Ford away. He says you never know when you might need it. Kristy pointed out, though, that in all the time she’s known Watson, he’s washed the Ford twice, and driven it once.
But she didn’t care. Car washing would be a good project for Andrew and Karen. So before everyone left that day, Watson drove the Ford out of the shed and parked it in the drive. Then he and Kristy’s mother drove off in the sports car, Sam and Charlie drove off in the station wagon, and David Michael led Louie, his fur brushed, his special plaid collar in place, over to the Papadakises’.
“Well?” said Kristy to Karen and Andrew. “Should we start?”
“Yay! Yay!” Karen jumped up and down.
“Okay,” said Kristy. “First off, we put on our bathing suits. Then we get everything we’re going to need.”
Twenty minutes later, the three of them were standing on the drive amid buckets, sponges, cloths, and soap.
“All right, Andrew. Let ’er rip!” called Kristy.
Andrew twisted the nozzle of the hose. A fine spray shot out. But they had no more than gotten the hood of the car wet when David Michael came slowly up the driveway with Louie. Louie was limping and David Michael was crying.
Kristy dropped her sponge and ran over to them. “David Michael, what happened?” she exclaimed.
David Michael could barely speak. “I (sob)—at the dog show (hiccup)—a big dog came (sniff)—and (hic)—he growled at Louie (sob)—and Louie growled back (sniffle)—and the dog showed his teeth (hic)—and Louie showed his teeth (sob)—and the big dog ran at Louie (hiccup)—and Louie ran away (sniff)—and cut his foot on something (hic, sob, sniffle).”
Kristy examined Louie’s foot. Sure enough the pad was bleeding. The cut looked pretty big. “Well,” said Kristy, “we better bring Louie inside and figure out what to do. Come on, you guys,” she said to Andrew and Karen.
“No, we want to wash the car,” cried Karen. “We can do it ourselves. Really.”
Kristy looked doubtfully at the kids. Then she thought, What could go wrong? It’s a black car. If they don’t get it very clean, no one will notice.
“Will you remember to keep the windows closed?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“And don’t spray anything but the car.”
“Okay.”
“And don’t rinse out the sponges in the garden. The soap’ll kill the plants.”
“We won’t.”
After a few more instructions, Kristy took Louie and David Michael inside. She spread out a towel for Louie and gave David Michael some lemonade. Then she tried to clean Louie’s paw.
“I think we better call the vet,” she said after a few minutes. “Maybe Dr. Smith will make a house call.”
Dr. Smith, of course, did not make house calls.
So Kristy began phoning around the old neighborhood, trying to track down Charlie since he could drive, but he wasn’t answering his phone. While she was on the telephone, she noticed that Karen and Andrew ran in and out of the house a couple of times, but she didn’t pay much attention.
Kristy finally reached Charlie at his friends the Ackermans’, and he said he’d come right home. So Kristy made one more call—to the vet to say that Louie would be on his way out there soon. Then she decided she better check on Karen and Andrew. She went out the back door and approached the car from behind. It was just after noon and the sun was shining brightly. The Ford was gleaming.
“We’re done, Kristy!” cried Andrew.
“Yup, we sure are,” said Karen. “I bet the car has never looked so shiny.”
Kristy had to agree. The car looked shiny all right. In fact, it looked kind of … silvery.
Kristy’s heart sank, but she managed to ask, “What, um, did you two wash this car with?”
“Oh,” said Karen proudly, “we didn’t use the sponges. They were no good. We used something better. These. Daddy always uses them to get pots shiny.” Karen held out two pieces of steel wool.
“Oh, no,” murmured Kristy. At last she dared to inspect the car closely. It was covered with big silvery-gray patches where the paint had been scrubbed away. “You guys!” Kristy shouted. “You took the paint off! You can’t wash a car with steel wool. Your dad wanted the Ford clean, not naked. Oh, no! What are we going to do?”
Kristy was a nervous wreck. As the afternoon wore on, Charlie came home and drove Louie and David Michael to the vet. Kristy cleaned up the mess in the driveway. She got herself, Karen, and Andrew dressed again. Louie returned with three stitches in his paw.
And then … Watson and Kristy’s mom came home. They’d bought two crystal champagne glasses at the estate sale, which they brought inside and showed off proudly.
“Watson?” Kristy began, just as Watson said, “How did the car washing go? We didn’t look at the Ford yet.”
Kristy, Karen, and Andrew glanced at one another guiltily. “I think you better look now,” said Kristy.
They all trooped outside. Kristy explained what had happened.
“Oh, no!” gasped Kristy’s mother.
Watson turned slightly pale.
“I’m really sorry,” said Kristy. “I should have been watching the kids more closely.”
“I’m afraid I have to agree with you,” replied Watson. “I know you had an emergency, but you were in charge, and you should have been keeping a closer eye on them. In a way it’s all right, though. See, I’d been thinking of having the car painted. I’ve always wanted a purple car. But there was no real excuse to paint the Ford since we hardly ever drive it. Now I have an excuse.”
“Paint the car?” repeated Karen with a gleam in her eye. “Can Andrew and I paint it? That would be fun.”
Watson, Kristy, and Kristy’s mother fixed their eyes on her.
“No,” said Kristy’s mother.
“Absolutely not,” said Watson.
“When chickens have lips,” said Kristy.
And that was the end of the car wash.
K—Sun.
Noth. new to rept. Kids fine. B. still afrd. of H2O. —S.
Sunday
Dear Claudia,
The most awful, humiliating thing in the world has happened. I can’t believe it. I feel like such a jerk.
Mary Anne tried to warn me about Scott but I wouldn’t listen. She told me he was older. She told me this, she told me that. And I wouldn’t listen. Oh, I am such a jerk. (I guess I’ve run out to room. I’ll tell you the rest in the next postcard.)
Luv,
Stace
I had to write three more postcards in order to tell Claudia the whole story. See, what had happened was completely unexpected—at least, it was unexpected to me.
We’d been in Sea City just over a week. I was having the time of my life. My hair was about two shades lighter, thanks to the sun, the salt, and, of course, my bottle of Sun-Lite. My skin was turning nice and brown. I had actual tan lines at the edges of my bikini. I also had another new bikini. I’d bought it on the main drag one afternoon. It was pink, with palm trees and parrots all over it.
(Mary Anne had gotten rid of her sunburn, but she didn’t have much of a tan. The only thing that happened when she sat in the sun was that her skin turned sort of blotchy and pink. So she covered up on the beach and stayed under the umbrella as much as possible.)
I wasn’t having a bit of trouble with my diabetes, either. I’d been able to stay on my diet, and my mother had only called twice to see how I was doing. The Pike kids hadn’t paid any more attention to that than they had to the fact that I never joined them in ice cream or candy or breakfast doughnuts. The best thing, though, was Scott. The bad weather had cleared up, and I saw him both Friday and Saturday.
On Saturday Mr. and Mrs. Pike decided to go to Atlantic City for the day, so Mary Anne and I were on our own with the kids. But by the end of the day, she practically wasn’t speaking to me. She accused me of spending too much time with Scott.
Personally, I think she was jealous. And if I were Mary Anne, I’d have been jealous, too. That nerdy mother’s helper had been hanging around her endlessly, and the two of them were always doing stuff with the kids, like building sand-castles, or collecting shells to make a moat around the towels and umbrellas.
Mary Anne says I’m not spending enough time with the children, but I am doing something important when I’m on the beach. I post myself by the lifeguard stand and watch the kids when they’re in the water—and Adam and Jordan are in the water nonstop. I can’t help it if Scott talks to me every now and then, or asks for a soda or something.
“Sweetheart,” he said to me on Saturday afternoon, “did anyone ever tell you you’re beautiful?”
Immediately, my heart began to beat faster.
“No,” I replied, which wasn’t quite true. My parents are always telling me I’m beautiful, but they don’t count. A blond-haired, blue-eyed,tanned, muscled eighteen-year-old hunk certainly counts, though.
Scott smiled down at me. He started to say something then, but suddenly he jumped up, blowing his whistle.
FWEET! FWEET! “You’re too far out!” FWEET! “Too far out!”
“What were you going to say?” I asked him when the excitement was over.
“Oh,” replied Scott, “you’re—you’re the greatest.”
See? I thought. He wants to say more, but he’s just too shy.
I wished Mary Anne had been saying a little more. Later that afternoon when I asked her if she wanted a soda, she just shrugged.
“I’ll go back to the house and get you a really cold one,” I offered.
“No, thanks.”
“Well, I’m going to get one for me.”
“ ‘Kay.”
I paused. Then, “See you,” I said.
Those were the last words we spoke to each other for the rest of the afternoon.
Mr. and Mrs. Pike returned from Atlantic City in a great mood.
“How would you like the evening off?” Mrs. Pike asked Mary Anne and me.
“We’d love it,” I said. I tried to sound excited, but it was hard with Mary Anne so mad at me.
“Why don’t you change out of your bathing suits right now?” Mrs. Pike went on. “We’ll let you off the hook until ten o’clock tonight. You can join us for dinner —”
“We’re going back to Burger Garden so I can get my free meals!” interrupted Nicky.
“— or you can go somewhere on your own,” Mrs. Pike finished.
“We’ll think about it while we change,” I said. “Come on, Mary Anne!”
We flew upstairs to our room. “Mary Anne, please don’t be mad,” I said. “It’s only five o’clock. We have five whole hours to ourselves. We could go to the boardwalk, eat supper, hang around, shop.”
Mary Anne began to look a teeny bit interested. And by the time our bikinis were off, we had showered, and our boardwalk clothes were on, she was actually speaking to me.
We selected our outfits carefully. Who knew who we might see on the boardwalk at night. Cute guys … Scott … I put on a white cotton vest over a pink cotton dress and tied a big white bow in my hair so that it flopped over the side of my head. Mary Anne couldn’t find anything of her own that she really liked, so I loaned her my yellow pedal pushers, a yellow and white striped tank top, and an oversized white jacket. We looked at ourselves in the mirror. Pretty nice! We were ready for a night on the town!
Mary Anne and I went straight to the boardwalk. We ate hamburgers for dinner, which Mary Anne topped off with a couple of pieces of fudge that we had watched being made.
Then we wandered around.
We went to a souvenir stand. Mary Anne bought Sea City visors to bring back to Kristy and Dawn. I bought Claudia a bright yellow T-shirt. It didn’t have any words on it, just a hunk surfer. The surfer looked kind of like Scott.
We went to the arcade and played ring toss and penny pitch. We didn’t win a thing. I swear those games are rigged.
“Want to ride the Ferris wheel?” Mary Anne asked as we left the arcade.
“Sure,” I said.
We sauntered over to a ticket booth. The guy in the booth winked at us.
“Two for the Ferris wheel, please,” I said.
“Okay, cutie.”
Cutie! In Sea City, there were adorable guys everywhere!
The view from the Ferris wheel was great. When you reached the top, you were pretty high up. Below, lights twinkled in the houses along the beach, the moon cut a path of light across the ocean, and the boardwalk looked like a fairyland.
I don’t know quite what made me think of it, but while we were sitting so high up, gazing down at the lights, I suddenly said, “I should buy Scott a present.”
“Hmph,” was all Mary Anne replied.
Nevertheless, when the Ferris wheel ride was over, I dragged her in and out of store after store. She waited patiently while I chose, then unchose, a book about shells and a blue hat (for when Scott was sitting in the sun); and while I decided for, then against, having a T-shirt printed up that said STACEY + SCOTT = LUV.
We were passing one of the many candy stores on the boardwalk, when suddenly I saw the perfect gift. I ran in and bought it. It cost more than I wanted to spend, but I didn’t care.
Outside the shop I showed Mary Anne the present—a giant red satin heart-shaped box of chocolates.
“This’ll really show him how I feel, don’t you think, Mary Anne? … Mary Anne?”
Mary Anne wasn’t answering, but she didn’t look angry, just preoccupied.
I turned in the direction she was gazing.
“Wait, Stacey,” said Mary Anne. “No.”
But it was too late. I’d seen.
Snuggled up on a bench behind me were a girl and a guy. The girl was curvy and gorgeous and at least eighteen.
The guy was Scott.
They were kissing.
I turned back to Mary Anne. “Guess I won’t be needing this,” I said. I thrust the satin box at her. “You take it. You deserve it. You were right all along. Enjoy your prize.” I burst into tears.
Mary Anne left the unopened box on a bench. Then she put her arm around me and walked me back to the Pikes’.
Sunday night
Dear Dawn,
Stacey is still being a pai
n, but I feel bad for her because she saw Scott kissing another girl—a much older one—and she started to cry. How is California? I miss you. I’m thinking of getting another bikini at this store here called If the Suit Fits. Stacey got another one.
Love,
Mary Anne
P.S. Stacey’s been dyeing her hair!
P.P.S. Destroy this card in California!!
As bad as Saturday night was, Sunday morning was just awful. How could I go to the beach and face Scott? I decided there was no way.
After breakfast, I pulled Mrs. Pike and Mary Anne aside. “I have a headache,” I said. “Would it be all right if I didn’t go to the beach this morning? I’d just like to take it easy. The beach gets so noisy.”
“Of course,” said Mrs. Pike sympathetically.
“Sure,” replied Mary Anne. But up in our room later, she said, “Thanks for sticking me with all the kids again. You know, last night you dragged me around to about a billion stores looking for a present for Scott. Then when you saw him with that girl, you practically blamed me. You are so rude. The least you could do is apologize.”
“I’m sorry. I really am,” I said.
But Mary Anne wasn’t finished.
“If you actually had a headache, well, that would be one thing, but it’s Scott, isn’t it?”
I nodded.
“Boy.” Mary Anne shook her head.
“Well, what are you complaining about?” I shot back. What was her problem? I’d already apologized. “That guy mother’s helper will be hanging around.”
“His name is Alex.”
“He looks like such a nerd.”
“Well, he’s not! He’s funny and nice. And he’s good with kids.”
“Who are those kids, anyway?”
“They’re Kenny, Jimmy, and Ellie. Ellie’s the baby. And he is a mother’s helper, but so what? … And don’t change the subject!”