“It’s a lot of fun, too,” Stacey said. “You’ll be fantastic. Don’t let Kristy scare you.”
“I’m only being realistic,” Kristy retorted.
“Here, guys, these’ll loosen you up.” Claudia pulled out a big bag of mini Snickers bars from under her bed and tossed them toward the boys.
Instant happiness. The boys dove for the bag, ripped it open, and took out fistfuls.
“What do you say, Jeff?” I whispered to my brother the boor.
“Do you have Kit-Kats?” he asked.
Claudia bounced off the bed and reached up behind the hats in her closet. She pulled out Kit-Kats, a bag of pretzel nuggets, and a box of Famous Amos cookies. “Enough for the whole family!”
“All riiiiight!” Jeff cried out.
“He says thank you,” I said to Claudia.
As Claud passed around the snacks, Kristy called out, “Listen up, please! Here are the rules for Baby-sitters in Training.”
“Give me those!” Jeff whispered, grabbing the pretzels from Jordan.
Kristy harrumphed. “We’ll start by taking you on jobs, one boy per sitter.”
“What about Little League days?” Byron asked.
“Work around them,” Kristy answered. “A commitment is a commitment —”
“Sto-o-o-op!” Adam yelled as three arms reached into the Famous Amos box on his lap.
“Your job is to listen to whatever your sitter says,” Kristy forged on. “In some cases you may be one-on-one with —”
“Brrrrrup!” burped Adam. Then, “Excuse me,” he squeaked. His face turned bright red. Jeff, Byron, and Jordan were trying so hard not to laugh that their shoulders were shaking.
“Ahem,” Kristy said. “As I was saying, you will work your hardest, and you will be paid. Your sitter will give you one quarter of her earnings —”
“A quarter?” Jordan looked dismayed.
Next to him, Byron suddenly started squirming. He shot Jeff a nervous glance.
“Twenty-five percent,” Kristy clarified. “Now, you’ll keep in mind that we’re doing this for you. Despite the fact that we desperately need to save money for our Hawaii trip —”
Now Adam was whispering something to my brother. Jeff’s eyes grew wide and he clapped his hand over his face.
That was when I noticed the odor. It seeped up from the floor, spreading like an unexpected warm front.
“And most of all, be polite, be cheerful, and give one hundred and ten percent,” Kristy droned on. “What do you say, guys?”
Jordan crinkled up his nose. “Who farted?”
Well, forget it. Those boys were rolling on the floor. Convulsing with laughter. Screaming.
To tell you the truth, we weren’t exactly stone-faced ourselves. Jessi and Mallory were scrambling for the hallway. Abby was laughing so hard she started to wheeze.
Kristy? She scowled and folded her arms. Then her face suddenly lost its color and she ran to open a window.
Poor Byron. He was sinking into the floor.
Rrriiiing!
“Sssshhhhh!” Claudia put her hand over the receiver and waited for us to quiet down. Then, taking a deep breath, she picked it up. “Hello, Baby-sitters Club.”
“He who smelt it, dealt it,” Adam said softly to Jordan.
“It wasn’t me!” Jordan insisted.
Jeff went into a fit of laughter.
Kristy shot them a murderous glance. “Once more and you can forget about BITs!”
“Sure, Mrs. Braddock, I’ll call you right back.” Claudia hung up and turned to Mary Anne. “The Braddocks, a week from Wednesday?”
“Let’s see … Stacey, Jessi, and Abby are free,” Mary Anne said.
“I’ll do it,” Stacey volunteered.
“Me, too!” Adam shouted.
Stacey shrugged. “Okay.”
“No fair!” Jeff whined.
“You can go with me to the Prezziosos’,” Jessi said. “I can use some help with Andrea.”
“Yyyyyyes!” Jeff said.
“Me me me me me me!” Jordan and Byron waved their hands as if they were in class.
“Can I take one of them next time I have to sit?” Mallory asked.
“Yes yes yes yes yes yes!”
Mary Anne ran her finger down the calendar. “The next time is two weeks from Monday.”
Kristy shrugged. “If you think you can handle it.”
“Take me!” Byron cried.
“No way,” Jordan said. “He’ll stink up the whole house.”
“Guyyys,” Mallory warned.
Rrrrring!
“Hello, Baby-sitters Club,” Kristy said, picking up. “Hi, Mr. DeWitt! What’s up?”
The phone kept ringing the rest of the half hour. Soon all four boys had assignments.
They also had full stomachs. The floor around them looked like the town trash heap.
After our last phone call, Kristy was beaming (despite the mess). “We are on a roll this summer!”
Stacey began scribbling something on a legal pad. Her face grew grimmer and grimmer. “It had better be a big roll. We have four weeks to raise the money. Which works out to three jobs a week for each of us.”
“That’s twenty-four jobs a week for the club,” Kristy said.
Stacey nodded. “Three jobs per day.”
Yikes.
Suddenly Claudia’s room felt like a funeral parlor.
In my mind, the palm trees were starting to fade.
“Ew ew ew ew — take it off me!” yelled Jenny Prezzioso. “I hate sun scream!”
Jessi sat with my brother on the Prezziosos’ back stoop. In her right hand she held a glop of white SPF 25 sunscreen. The sun was blazing. It was one of those muggy New England days that remind you summer is near.
It was also a Jenny Prezzioso bad day.
Jenny has good days, too. She tends to do everything to extremes. The basic problem: she’s spoiled. That’s the plainest way to put it. She has enough clothing in her closet to make Stacey jealous. When her baby sister was born, Jenny received a ton of gifts. I think she’s still opening them.
Not that baby Andrea didn’t receive any. Her bedroom looks like an infant boutique.
“But you need sunscreen, Jenny,” Jessi insisted.
Jenny rubbed her forehead, where Jessi had applied the lotion. “It smells yucky, and it’s sticking to me!”
“Your mom and dad say you have to,” Jessi told her.
Jenny’s lower lip was quivering. “It’s all over me. I WANT TO TAKE A BAAAAAATH!”
Jeff grabbed Jessi’s hand. Before she could say anything, he smashed her open palm into his own face.
The glop left a big white mark on his nose and forehead. “Duh, is this too much?” he said in a goony voice.
Jenny fell silent. The corners of her lips turned up uncertainly.
“Hmm, let’s see how it tastes,” Jeff said, swiping off some lotion on his hand and pretending to lick it. “Yyyechhhhh! Slug flavored!”
Jenny started howling. That made Jeff slather even more lotion on his face.
Jenny dipped her hand in Jessi’s and smushed some lotion on her own nose. Giggling like crazy, she ran inside. “I want to look in the mirror!”
“Don’t you dare put any of it in your mouth!” Jessi called out. “Jeff was pretending.”
“No way!” Jenny shouted back. “I hate slugs!”
Jessi smiled at Jeff. “You’re off to a great start.”
“Told you,” Jeff said.
They went inside to the front hall, where Jenny was making silly faces into a mirror. “Sorry, Geppetto. I must not tell a lie,” she said in a high-pitched voice.
Jeff dabbed a little lotion on her cheeks and forehead. “What are you now?”
“A ghost! Ooooooooo!” she cried, running off.
A moment later, a startled scream rang out from the nursery.
“Uh-oh,” Jeff murmured.
He and Jessi ran into Andrea’s room. Jenny was staring at her t
hrough the bars of the crib.
“I was just showing her my face,” Jenny insisted.
“Waaaaaahh!” cried Andrea.
Jessi picked her up. “That’s okay, Andy Sweet as Candy, she didn’t mean it.”
“Andy Sweet as Candy?” Jenny said. “That’s a funny name.”
Jeff grinned his Comedy Store grin. “Sort of like Jenny Worth a Penny.”
“That’s not funny. Jessi, he’s teasing me!”
“Was not,” Jeff retorted. “It was a joke!”
“Waaaaaahh!” Andrea wailed.
Jessi placed Andrea on her changing table. She pulled open the diaper tabs. Just as she had suspected, the diaper was full of — well, let’s just say a change was necessary.
Placing one hand on the baby, she looked around for fresh diapers. The storage area below the changing pad was empty. “Jenny, where do your parents keep spare diapers?”
“In the kitchen,” Jenny replied. “On the big shelf near the garbage. Way up top.”
“Okay, BIT, here’s your next job,” Jessi said. “Can you go into the pantry and get the diapers?”
“What’s a pantry?”
“WAAAAAAAAAH!”
“Never mind. I’ll do it. You hold Andrea. And don’t let go. That’s rule number one about babies on changing tables.”
Jeff reached out to Andrea, then pulled his hand back. His face was twisted with terror, as if she’d suddenly transformed into a rattlesnake.
“She stinks,” he said.
“Uh-huh, that’s why I’m getting a diaper,” Jessi replied. “Just put your hand on her belly. It’s no big deal.”
“I’ll help,” Jenny said, cheerfully holding on to her sister.
Andrea’s crying immediately stopped. “Good girl,” Jenny said with a smile. “Do you see Jeffy?”
Jeff swallowed hard. He touched Andrea’s belly, averting his eyes.
Jessi ran into the pantry and brought back a box of plastic diapers. Ripping it open, she held one out to Jeff. “Ready for a changing lesson?”
“No way!” Jeff sprang across the room. “She pooped!”
“Babies do that,” Jessi said. “Look, I’m supposed to train you to be a baby-sitter. And you are being paid, don’t forget. This is part of the job.”
“Can’t it be your part?” Jeff cried.
“Don’t be a baby!” Jenny admonished him.
“I’m not!” Jeff replied. “You don’t see me doing … that!”
Jenny howled with laughter. “Jeff went in his diaper. Jeff went in his diaper.”
Jessi knew when to give up. The baby was number one. Arguing with my blockhead brother wasn’t as important.
“All right, then, just watch me,” she said.
Quickly she removed the soiled diaper, cleaned Andrea off, and put a fresh diaper on her.
From the horrified look on Jeff’s face, he might have been in an autopsy room.
Jessi lifted Andrea high, gently nuzzling the baby’s belly with her face. “You are just sooooo clean!”
Andrea smiled wide and gave a high-pitched giggle.
“Can I do that?” Jeff asked.
“Sure.” Jessi handed Andrea to him, then found a bonnet in the chest of drawers. “Let’s take her outside. Here’s something important you can do. Put this on her, to protect her face from the sun.”
They walked toward the back door. On the way, Jessi picked up a bottle of formula.
Outside, Jeff placed Andrea in her baby carriage and wheeled it next to the Prezziosos’ picnic table. Then he leaned in to put the bonnet on her.
Jessi went off to set up a croquet game with Jenny, making sure not to stray too far from Jeff and Andrea. A moment later, she heard loud whimpering.
Jeff was still huddled over the carriage.
“Something wrong?” Jessi called out.
“It won’t fit!” Jeff said.
“Be right back, Jenny.” Jessi put down her croquet mallet and ran to Jeff. Poor Andrea was crying now, flailing her arms. Her bonnet was over her left ear, the knotted string across her face.
“You’re supposed to untie it first, Jeff,” Jessi said.
“I thought it was loose enough,” Jeff protested.
Jessi calmly untied the string. She lifted Andrea out, sat with her on the bench, and put the bonnet on correctly.
“How about feeding her?” Jessi asked. “Can you handle that?”
“No sweat!” Jeff replied eagerly.
Jessi handed him the bottle. He gently propped Andrea up and she started sucking away.
Jeff was glowing. “See?” he said triumphantly.
“Uh-huh.”
Jessi headed back to the game, while the going was good.
She had barely picked up her mallet when she heard Jeff shout, “Eww! Disgusting!”
She spun around. Jeff was holding the baby at arm’s length.
“What now?” Jessi asked.
“She puked!”
As Jessi scooted back to them, Jenny groaned with frustration. “Jessiiiii, play with me!”
Andrea was staring around, looking bewildered, a trail of lumpy white liquid down the front of her outfit. Jeff had a small spot of it on his shirt.
“It’s only formula, Jeff,” Jessi said. “Wipe her off!”
“Wipe her off? What about me?”
“Can we play yet?” Jenny whined.
“Be right back!” Walking inside with Andrea, Jessi could see Jeff wiping himself off with about a hundred wet naps from the box in Andrea’s carriage.
Jessi’s teeth were clenched as she changed Andrea. What a job. A cranky four-year-old and a crying baby were tough enough. But adding a useless ten-year-old — and then having to pay him, at a time when she needed Hawaii money?
She wanted to dock him, no matter how Kristy would react. Dock him? Clock him was more like it.
Calm down, she said to herself. He’s trying. With a calm, cheerful smile, she carried Andrea outside.
Jeff was now standing next to Jenny, holding Jessi’s mallet by the wrong end. Then he swung it like a baseball bat and fell to the ground.
Jenny squealed with giggles. “Other end, silly!”
This time he swung it the correct way — right through a wicket, which shot out of the ground into the air.
Well, Jenny thought that was the funniest thing in the world. She doubled over laughing. “Let me try!”
The Jeff Schafer comedy show was in high gear.
Jessi sat on the bench. Andrea was gazing at her with a big, goofy smile. She looked happy.
Jenny looked happy, too.
Jessi sighed. Oh, well. You had to take what you could get.
“Experience the glow!” I called out. “The power! Your body will thank you! Your mind will thank you!”
Mary Anne and I were sitting patiently on two folding chairs, in the busiest corner of Stoneybrook’s outdoor strip mall. Spread before us on two card tables was the most gorgeous array of healthy foods you have ever seen.
Pita bread wedges and hummus. Sprouts-and-avocado sandwiches. Arugula salad with balsamic vinegar dressing and sunflower seeds. Cold, marinated bean curd. Cups of celery-carrot-spinach juice. Baked yeastless four-grain loaf. My mouth waters just describing it.
Selling the food had been my brainstorm. A perfect way to raise money — and help enlighten people about healthy eating. We bought the ingredients and made it all according to recipes I’d taste-tested with my We ♥ Kids Club friends.
For hours, Mary Anne and I had slaved over a sign, which now hung proudly from the card table:
SHOP, BUT DON’T DROP!
KEEP YOURSELF FIT AND FABULOUS
WITH THE BEST FOOD ON EARTH!
ALL NATURAL!
ALL SCRUMPTIOUS!
After Mom dropped us off, people had hovered around, watching us set up.
When the food appeared, they all seemed to vanish.
Well, not all. One man bought a cup of juice. A kid made his mom buy him a hummus sandwi
ch, then started crying because he’d thought it was peanut butter. And a very old lady paid for a sprouts-and-avocado sandwich and buried it in her pocketbook.
I think she felt sorry for us.
For the next hour and a half, people streamed past us. Hungry, healthy people. A huge customer base.
Most of them continued right on to Wendy’s.
I felt like a total idiot.
At first I hadn’t said much. I figured the soft-sell approach was best.
But the sun was out. And the food was looking worse and worse by the minute.
Quickly I had to become a salesperson. I had to find my Inner Kristy.
“You don’t know what you’re missing, folks!” I shouted. “Try it for a quick pick-me-up! Mouth-watering recipes, straight from the heart of California!”
“Yeah, it looks it!” called a familiar voice. “What’d you do, walk it over?”
My hackles went up. (I have no idea what hackles are. But I’ve read that expression, and it sounds right.) Only one person sounded as slimy as that. A person I thought I’d left behind forever when I’d moved to California.
Alan Gray, alias the Goon King of SMS.
“Hi, Alan, long time no see,” I said sweetly. “Try some. I’ll give you a discount.” (Just to get rid of you, I wanted to say.)
Alan perused the table with a sneer. “You’d have to pay me.”
With that, he was gone.
To be honest, I couldn’t blame him. My sprouts were wilted. The hummus was developing a rind. The pita looked like cardboard.
I took a sip of vegetable juice and plopped down on the chair. “What are we going to do with all this stuff?”
Mary Anne gave me a sympathetic look. “Well, there’s always Mrs. Stone’s farm.”
I nodded. At least Elvira the goat would be healthy.
* * *
Our next sales scheme: Mary Anne’s used junk. An old dollhouse, dirndls and frilly blouses and other clothes you wouldn’t be caught dead wearing, a complete set of Boxcar Children paperbacks, and some raggedy dolls and stuffed animals. (What can I say? We were desperate.)
We cleaned it all up the best we could. Then we laid everything out on tables and blankets in front of the barn Saturday morning with another big sign. After our experience on Wednesday, I didn’t have high hopes. The stuff looked pretty sad. If people could pass up fresh, mouth-watering, reasonably priced food, who would buy this old junk?