Mary Anne reappeared and slipped into her seat.
“Please, Mom?” I pleaded. “Won’t you think about it?”
Mom took a deep breath. “Honey, even if I did say yes, where are we going to get five hundred dollars? Five hundred dollars apiece,” she added.
Zzzip! Back into the flowchart. “We’ll do it together,” I said. “Mary Anne and I can earn some of it with baby-sitting money.”
“A lot of clients have been calling lately,” Mary Anne volunteered.
“Tons,” I added.
“Like, enough so you need extra sitters?” Jeff asked.
“Ohhhh, yes,” I said. “We need to clone ourselves. It’s a good thing I’m here. Whew.”
(Do you think I was being too hard-sell?)
“Look,” Mary Anne said softly. “We know it’s a lot of money. Just think about it, okay? Why don’t you call some of the other parents and see what they have to say?”
Mom looked at Richard. Richard smiled. “I think your mother and I will take this under advisement until later.”
“Thank you!” I shouted. “You guys are the greatest! Don’t take too long, though. It’s first-come, first-served for the regular sign-up and the waiting list.”
We tried to talk about other things during the rest of dinner. Fortunately, Jeff started asking a million questions about the Baby-sitters Club. (Why? I had no idea. At first I thought he was going to start cracking jokes about us, but he didn’t.)
Afterward, Mary Anne and I volunteered to do the dishes. Jeff started to help out, until the Pike triplets rang the front doorbell.
As Jeff scampered away, Mary Anne said, “I’m sorry, Dawn. I’m so bad at that stuff.”
“You were great,” I assured her. “We did the best we could.”
“Dawn, what if they say yes, and we sign up in time, but the group doesn’t take anyone from the waiting list? I don’t want to go without you.”
“We’ll worry about that if it happens,” I replied. “And if it does, we consult Kristy. She’ll know what to do.”
We poured ourselves some iced tea and went out to the porch. The evening was clear and breezy, just warm enough to be outside without a coat.
We sat and chatted. In front of the house, Jeff and the triplets were huddled together by the sidewalk.
“Uh-oh,” I said. “Looks like a brainstorming session for Jeff’s jokebook.”
“Or they’re tormenting some poor, defenseless frog,” Mary Anne guessed.
But nobody laughed and nothing jumped away. The next thing we knew, the triplets were walking home, and Jeff was striding toward us.
“I want to sit,” Jeff announced.
Mary Anne stood up from her chair. “Go right ahead.”
“No, I mean, sitting sit.”
“Baby-sitting?” I asked. “You?”
“Yup. JAB does, too.”
“Isn’t it ‘JAB do’?” I asked.
“Whatever. How can we form a boy baby-sitters club?” Jeff pressed on.
“Am I hearing things?” I said. “You’ve never wanted to do this before.”
“The triplets have been talking about it for a while,” Mary Anne admitted.
“I like little kids,” Jeff insisted. “You should have seen me at JAB’s house. I made Claire laugh her head off at my great jokes.”
I nodded. “They’re about her level.”
Jeff ignored the comment. “So, how should we start?”
“You guys are awfully young,” Mary Anne said. “Sometimes we sit for ten-year-olds.”
“I said, little kids,” Jeff replied. “Like, infants to nine years old.”
“Look, Jeff,” I said, “if you’re serious about this, you have to call some parents, let them know you’re available.”
Jeff looked horrified. “I can’t talk on the phone to strangers! I was thinking of, like, an ad in the newspaper.”
“Start with a flyer,” I replied. “Tack it up wherever parents go — supermarkets, pediatricians’ offices, places like that. That’s what we did.”
“That’s really making a commitment,” Mary Anne said. “I think they should start more informally.”
Jeff nodded sagely. “Maybe we’d be in competition with you. I wouldn’t want to hurt you guys like that.”
“Whew, thanks,” I said.
“Maybe you could try running a play group,” Mary Anne suggested. “Have parents drop off their kids at our house or the Pikes’ for a couple of hours each day.”
“I guess,” Jeff said. “It’s just that we’re, you know, kind of inexperienced. Could you run it with us?”
“If we had the time,” I replied. “But we’ll be busy, too.”
Jeff took a deep breath and headed inside. “Well, think about it, okay? I know we can do it. We’ll be great.”
As he stepped into the house, Mary Anne and I exchanged a Look. “Can you imagine?” Mary Anne whispered.
“Heaven help the little kids of Stoneybrook,” I whispered back.
We smiled and sipped our iced tea.
But you know what? Jeff was good with children. And he needed something constructive to do this summer.
As silly as it sounded, maybe it wasn’t such a bad idea.
I had heartburn all the next day.
Yes, I, Dawn Schafer, the consumer of only the best natural health products. Why? I could not stop thinking about Hawaii. I felt like someone in a court case awaiting the jury’s verdict.
I kept imagining what SMS looked like that day. A line snaking to the gym door. People with sleeping bags who’d camped out overnight to be sure of a place on the list.
That morning I hoped Mom would give us the okay before she left for work, so we could sign up. I kept hearing snatches of her phone conversations through her bedroom door. Questions such as, “But how many parents are going?”
Mary Anne and I finally decided to flee the house, for our own sanity. We called Stacey, who invited us to go to a movie with her and her boyfriend, Robert. (It’s a good thing we went, because Robert canceled at the last minute for some reason.)
Of course, we had talked with Stacey the previous night about the Decision. What had her mom said? Yes! Stacey had already signed up.
We made her call and tell her mom to call my mom.
I’m not sure whether Mrs. McGill did it or not. All I know was that Mom looked very, very serious when she came home from work that afternoon. And when Richard walked through the door, he and Mom went up to the bedroom for a loooong discussion.
They both seemed pretty grim as we all sat down to dinner.
“Hrrrumph,” Richard said, looking around the table. “I have a brief announcement to make.”
Mary Anne and I gulped.
“Uh, well, your mother and I have discussed the travel issue,” he began.
“I talked to some of the other BSC parents last night,” Mom said, “plus other parents I know from the PTO. Plus your assistant principal and someone from the tour group.”
“She really covered all bases,” Richard continued. “And I believe the consensus is that it’s a well-run trip, with plenty of teacher-chaperone coverage.”
“And most of your friends’ parents are going to let them go,” Mom added.
“So, after carefully talking it over,” Richard went on, “we’ve decided you can go, too.”
“Yaaaay!” I leaped up from my chair, ran around the table, and threw my arms around Mom. “I knew you’d say yes!”
Mary Anne was beaming at her dad. “Thank you,” she said.
“Lucky,” Jeff grumbled.
Richard held up an index finger. “This agreement is subject to the following conditions: since half of the money is due immediately upon the closing of the sign-up period, we agree to pay the deposit, two hundred and fifty dollars each. This leaves approximately two and a half weeks until the balance is due, during which time you girls must raise the remaining amount.”
“I just love it when you talk legalese,” Mom sa
id with a smile.
“We’ll do it!” Mary Anne agreed. “We’ll baby-sit like crazy.”
“We’ll throw in our savings,” I added.
“You realize it’s an awful lot of money to raise,” Richard warned.
“Maybe we can think of other ways to raise it,” Mary Anne said. “I can sell a lot of my old books.”
“A bake sale or something,” I suggested.
“JAB and I can start saving, too,” Jeff piped up. “For next year. Mary Anne and Dawn said we could start baby-sitting.”
“Oh?” Mom asked.
“We said we’d think of ways for them to —” Mary Anne began.
“Hey, want to hear a joke?” Jeff blurted out. “What’s another name for a chicken?”
“Uh, hen?” Richard the Hilarious answered.
“No, baby-sitter!” Jeff cracked up. “Get it? Because a chicken sits on her egg, which is her baby!”
“Clever,” Richard said.
“Dumb,” I murmured.
“That goes right on the first page of JOKES,” Jeff said. “All capital letters. That’s the new title of my book. It stands for Jeff’s Off-the-Wall, Krazy, Explode-Your-Sides Sense of Humor.”
“Ah, an acronym,” Richard remarked.
“A what?” Jeff asked.
“An abbreviation,” Richard replied. “Like the NASA, or —”
The conversation went from soaring to boring in one second flat.
I didn’t mind. I didn’t even tell my brother his title really should have been something like JOWKEYSSH with those words. I was feeling very kind to him. At that moment, I was feeling kind to the world.
I squeezed Mary Anne’s hand. “I am sooo psyched.”
Mary Anne nodded grimly. “I just hope we’re not too late.”
“We’ll take our sleeping bags and sleep outside the gym door,” I suggested.
“Cool!” Jeff said.
“You will do no such thing,” Mom shot back. “If you’d like to wake up early and go, fine.”
“Deal,” I said.
The rest of the evening I was flying. I didn’t even mind when Jeff cornered me and Mary Anne in the den later while we were looking at travel brochures.
“Why was Mar Anne crying?” he said.
“You mean, Mary Anne?” I asked.
“It’s a joke!” he informed us. “Give up? Because she was missing Hawaii. Get it? Mar Anne? Was missing her Y — sounds like Hawaii?”
Mary Anne chuckled politely.
“That is the worst joke in the history of the universe,” I said.
“Thanks.” Jeff smiled brightly. “Guess what? I know how JAB and I can be baby-sitters.”
“Is this another joke?” Mary Anne asked.
“No. We can be BITs. Baby-sitters in Training.”
Ugh. Another abbreviation. “I’d like to JAB your JOKES to BITs,” I said.
“I’m serious,” Jeff went on. “Byron thought of the idea. We can be your assistants. You know, until we learn how to do it on our own.”
“Then you’ll be our competition,” Mary Anne said.
“Not me,” Jeff replied. “I’ll be back in Palo City and I can start the WALK Club — We Absolutely Like Kids.”
I cracked up at that. “I’ll bring it up at the Baby-sitters Club meeting, okay?”
“Yyyyyyyyes!” Jeff bounced out of the room.
* * *
We arrived at SMS the next morning at 4:45 DBT (Dawn’s Body Time). Actually it was quarter to eight. My cheeks were pinched rosy and my signing hand already held a pencil. I wore my new floppy straw hat.
We had picked up Claudia, Jessi, and Logan on the way. Their parents had given the go-ahead the night before, also.
The SMS gym door is on the side of the school, near the playing field. It was locked, so we leaned against the wall and waited.
Not a sleeping bag was in sight. Nor a person.
“I guess we’re the first,” I remarked.
“Unless the list is closed,” Claudia said.
I hadn’t thought of that. My stomach suddenly began to flutter.
Soon the Stevensons’ car pulled up to the curb and Abby jumped out. She sprinted toward us with an enormous grin. “Hooray for the BSC parents telephone hotline! Yaaay!”
Abby had permission to go, too! So far, so good.
She was just in time. The big metal door swung open and Mr. Kingbridge peeked out. He’s the SMS assistant principal, and I believe it was the first time I’d ever seen him in shorts.
“Come on in,” he said with a chuckle. “Join the luau.”
We rushed inside. The “luau” was a table with a plastic lei tacked around it and two sign-up sheets.
“Remember me, Mr. Kingbridge?” I asked.
“Well, if it isn’t a ghost from the past,” Mr. Kingbridge said. “Don’t tell me you came all the way from California so you could go to Hawaii?”
“Sort of,” I replied. (Do all grown-ups think exactly alike?)
Mary Anne was signing her name on the left-hand sheet. The other one was totally blank, except for the words Waiting List printed at the top. Nothing else. Not one name.
I quickly wrote
I felt like John Hancock signing the Declaration of Independence.
As for my friends, they were numbers 16 through 20 on the regular list. (Stacey was number 11.)
We gave one another quiet thumbs-up signs. We said a polite good-bye to Mr. Kingbridge. We left the school.
Then we screamed all the way across the playing field.
* * *
We were still screaming at 5:29 in Claudia’s bedroom.
In the background, Elvis Presley was singing “Blue Hawaii.” (Abby had found the tape in her mom’s collection.)
Claudia passed out chocolate-covered macadamia nuts. Mary Anne poured cups of Mauna La’i juice. I ripped open a bag of dried pineapple rings.
Guess what? All of the other parents had cut the same fifty/fifty deal. We all had to earn half our fare.
But no one minded. We were ecstatic.
“Alo-o-o-haaaa-waaayyy!” Abby sang. “We’re only a thousand jobs awaaaaay … from going to Hawaiiiiiii …”
“Awrooooo! Oww-oww-owwww!” Logan barked.
Over her shorts, Kristy was wearing a plastic grass skirt Stacey had bought in a five-and-dime store. “I call this luau to order!” she shouted over the celebration. “Any new business?”
“Toss me one of those Hawaiian nuts!” Jessi called out.
“Which one, Dawn or Stacey?” Abby asked.
“Ha-ha,” I said. “You should meet my brother.”
“Oh!” Mary Anne blurted out. “Dawn and I do have some business!”
“We do?” I said.
“Jeff Schafer and the Pike triplets want to train as baby-sitters this summer,” Mary Anne announced.
Mallory nodded. “As Baby-sitters in Training. BITs.”
“Sure, why not?” Kristy tossed a chocolate-covered nut in the air and caught it in her mouth. “Everyone in favor?”
“Aye,” we all said.
“That’s it?” I tried not to sound too flabbergasted. “You don’t mind?”
Kristy shrugged. “They’ll lose interest after the first diaper change. No big deal.”
Mary Anne and I shared a glance. Kristy was probably right. But I was glad she agreed to the idea.
At least we had some good news for Jeff and JAB.
“Do we have to go?” Jeff whined.
“Can’t you just, you know, tell them we accept?” Adam asked.
Mary Anne, the triplets, Jeff, and I stopped in front of Claudia’s house. It was Friday afternoon, two days after the BSC had agreed to let the four boys become BITs. Now, five minutes before meeting time, they had cold feet.
“You guys are the ones who wanted to do this,” Mary Anne reminded them.
“We stuck our necks out for you,” I added. “You should feel lucky everyone said yes.”
“But you didn’t say anyth
ing about going to meetings!” Byron protested.
“We just wanted to baby-sit,” Jordan explained. “Not hang around with a bunch of girls.”
“Look,” I said, “Kristy has worked out some rules, and you need to hear them. Plus everyone wants to welcome you. This’ll be fun.”
“Yeah, right,” Adam grunted. “Whoopee.”
“Claudia has lots of candy and cookies,” Mary Anne offered.
“Yeah?” Byron said.
“What kind?” Jordan asked.
“Snickers, Kit-Kats, Yankee Doodles, M&M’S …”
Up the front walkway trudged Grumpy, Sleepy, Dopey, and Bashful.
Mary Anne led them through the Kishis’ front door and upstairs. I stayed behind, in case of any last-minute escape attempts.
“Heyyyyy, here come the boys!” Stacey called, peering out of Claudia’s room.
“Wheeere the boooyyys aaaaare,” Abby’s voice crooned.
Jeff froze in his tracks. “We have to go in there?”
“They’re just kidding around,” I said. “Go.”
I gave them a nudge from behind. They inched their way into the room, eyes cast downward, as if they were entering prison.
“Hey, guys, you’re just in time,” Kristy said.
“And cute, too,” Abby remarked.
Jeff gave me a please-don’t-let-them-do-this-to-me look.
“I call this meeting to order!” Kristy shouted. “Have a seat, men.”
Adam and Byron leaned against the door-jamb. Jordan slumped against the wall. Jeff stood fiercely by my side.
“Sit!” Kristy barked.
They plopped down onto the carpet.
“Now, you guys want to become baby-sitters, right?” Kristy asked.
Nod, nod, nod, nod.
“I guess you think baby-sitting is really easy, huh?”
Shake, shake, shake, shake.
“You’re right. It’s hard work and long hours. You have to put your charges first and yourself second. Kids make a lot of demands and have accidents. And through it all, no matter what, the buck stops with you.”
Abby saluted. “Thank you, Colonel.”
Claudia started giggling.
“You guys, this is serious,” Kristy snapped.
You should have seen those boys. The Four Faces of Gloom. Jeff looked terrified, Jordan looked sick, Adam was eyeing the door, and Byron seemed ready to cry.